Having spent most of this year working on de-fanging the beast – largely uncompensated and nonetheless rather successfully – we are gearing up for delivery once again. We are prepared to deliver the entire Scientology grade chart. We are particularly ready to assist those who are interested in moving on up from their corporate Scientology experiences. If after having read What Is Wrong With Scientology?, and understanding the need or desirability to evolve and transcend from Scientology Inc, you are yet still feeling somehow held back by masses or energies or some dots that just won’t connect or disconnect, we can assist with the process of overcoming those barriers. That goes for anyone at any level of experience with the ‘church’ or the subject of Scientology.
I am particularly interested in working with those OT VIIs (comps or people who have audited substantial hours) and OT VIIIs who recognize their gains but also sense there are other dimensions of concern that advanced spiritual awareness makes perceptible. In my view there is no reason to abandon the skills you have worked to achieve. Rather than invalidate them, think instead of honing them toward handling those zones to which your intuition leads.
Those interested in real Scientology and transcendence beyond where corporate Scientology can take one, give us a holler at Casablancatx@hushmail.com to schedule. We are now scheduling the month of September through the end of the year.
Back in the day (New York City in 1978), Scientology was fun. The org sold “How To Choose Your People” and “Miracles for Breakfast” by Ruth Minshull in the bookstore alongside the LRH books. There was no RTC. As students, we wrote weekly “Reports to Ron” and the S.O. 1 line was in place: we could always write to Ron. As a public, I felt that I was undertaking some wonderful adventure. I looked forward to coming to the org for study and for just hanging out.
Fast forward to 2011: the adventure had long since died. In its place were a whole string of arbitraries, nagging questions about apparent wrongnesses with no answers in sight, endless “events” and cutthroat regging. For years I had known that something was terribly wrong but it was only on New Year’s Day 2012 that I finally saw the light, thanks to Debbie Cook’s email.In my years with the C of S, I did a short stint in the S.O. until I was thrown out, did some training and got up to Solo NOTs on the auditing side of the bridge. In the past dozen or so years I experienced many health issues which I attribute to Reverse Scientology, courtesy of the Flag Service Org; however, recently I was lucky enough to treat with an alternative health care practitioner who helped me restore my health.There have been many fine writeups on this blog and elsewhere from other former C of S members detailing the abuses and off policy actions – Luis Garcia’s comes to mind as a great one – so I am not going to attempt to reinvent that wheel; I will just enumerate a few lowlights of my S.O. career and my experience as a Flag Solo NOTs public.In my mercifully short S.O. career (1988-1989):I was human trafficked to another country (and got out of there after four months by hatching an escape plan);
I had become engaged to a S.O. member who was posted at the Int Base, and when Church management got wind of that, they immediately intervened and the engagement was broken off. This was typical 3rd Party – I was told negative things about my fiancé and he was told negative things about me.
At one point I requested a Comm Ev to correct some things that I perceived as injustices. However, when the Comm Ev met, it somehow morphed into a disciplinary Comm Ev, accusing me of things that I had written up in a previous amnesty (which, per policy, is ancient history and not actionable).
A few of my experiences as a Flag public on Solo NOTs:
The incessant sec-checking of Solo NOTs public has been discussed at length on this blog and other sites. You had to be sec checked coming and going, literally: upon arrival and when leaving. It created a paranoia and was a terrific way to use up auditing hours on account. You always had to have a “pledge intensive” in place, i.e. an extra intensive of auditing paid for and ready to be used at any time.
In late 1993 or early 1994, when I had been auditing on Solo NOTs for a couple of years, I reached a point where I believed I had completed the level, so I made a trip to Flag to verify this. When I got to Flag, I was not even put on a meter to check anything. I was simply told that I had not audited as many hours as LRH had audited on Solo NOTs, so therefore I couldn’t possibly be complete on the level but needed to continue auditing. Fortunately, I soon ran out of money and “fell off” the level in December 1994, never to return.
Interesting note: in approximately 1999 or 2000, a Flag staff member told me that there were over a thousand public who were mid-Solo NOTs but off the level.
Tony Ortega at the Village Voice has published a comprehensive interview with John “JB” Brousseau, see JB VV interview, part one, and part two. JB told me that he was impressed with Tony’s ability to get all that level of detail out of JB and communicate it in such an un-embellished fashion. It is quite a story.
For those who were not following the blog in mid 2010, we covered JB’s escape from the Int base directly to my home in Texas. We also covered the extraordinary measures Miscavige took in hunting down and attempting to apprehend JB for re-imprisonment before he could speak:
At chapter ten in What Is Wrong With Scientology?, I discuss the thought stopping process that Scientologists are conditioned to engage in. I have subsequently recognized a couple more insidious by-products of that thought stopping process. They might in fact explain the substantial ‘decompression’ process period corporate Scientologists seem to need to feel human again. I got to thinking about this after viewing an extraordinary talk that a friend sent me the link to. It was given by Dr. Brene Brown, research professor of Sociology at the University of Houston. I highly recommend you watch and listen to this in full when you have got 21 minutes to spare:
In order to acceptably thought-stop in corporate Scientology, don’t we also stop (or numb) our emotions? I think Brown is right that people cannot selectively numb emotion. Instead, they numb themselves so as to wall off, or not-is, emotion. After engaging in the process enough we make ourselves incapable of experiencing spontaneous – and appropriate – emotion. Perhaps the same mechanism occurs with thought.
In either event, I think – irony or ironies – that Scientology communication training routines (including mood drills) do wonders in rehabilitating the damage done by years of thought-stopping and emotion-numbing within corporate Scientology. That is, when they are done as they were originally designed to be practiced. And that is, as a fun, decidedly unserious, activity.
The lawyer who originally filed the case did Marc and Claire a disservice by putting all their eggs in the Human Trafficking issue basket. Note, the counsel who argued the case in the 9th Circuit for the Headleys – not the same lawyer who brought the case in the first place – did a noble job with what she had been given to work with.
While the 9th Circuit upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit, the court indirectly condemned what had happened to the Headleys. After taking several pages to reason why the Human Trafficking standard was not met, the court concluded the decision with these words:
Likewise, we do not decide how the Headleys might have fared under a different statute or on other legal theories. The Headleys abandoned claims under federal and state minimum wage laws. And although the Headleys marshaled evidence of potentially tortious conduct, they did not bring claims for assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, or any of a number of other theories that might have better fit the evidence. The Headleys thus wagered all on a statute enacted “to combat” the “transnational crime” of “trafficking in persons”—particularly defenseless, vulnerable immigrant women and children. 22 U.S.C. § 7101(a), (b)(24); see id. § 7101(b)(1), (2), (4), (17), (22). Whatever bad acts the defendants (or others) may have committed, the record does not allow the conclusion that the Church or the Center violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
The “church” will call this a landmark victory. Miscavige will certainly be tickled pink. After all, they have once again thrown L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology under the bus of public opinion. They have created a Circuit Court opinion that finds a lot of creepy behavior is motivated by belief in the Scientology religion.
Those who have been watching know that in the end it was Marc and Claire Headley who won the bigger victory. We know for a fact that the filing of the suit (and all the sweat, blood and tears Marc and Claire spilled in litigating it) resulted in cancellation of Scientology Inc’s forced abortion policy. It also resulted in dozens of former Sea Org members receiving substantial compensation (pay offs to remain silent – but compensation to create new lives nonetheless).
And, who can tell us how many people were spared the more drastic versions of the following at the hands of Miscavige because the Headley’s stepped up?:
assault
battery
false imprisonment
intentional infliction ofemotional distress
With the dismissal, watch for Miscavige to escalate the abuses once again. Historically, he has always done so when the church produces such a decision. Be alert folks, as per usual, we are the ones that will handle the fall out.
UPDATE:
Barry Van Sickle commented:
Marty is incorrect about the intial lawsuit, and who made the decision to narrow the case to a human trafficking case.. The decsion to place all the eggs in the human trafficking basket was made by the Metzger firm over my objection. The intial lawsuit was filed 4 years after Marc Headley escaped. That created statute of limitation problems for most potential causes of action. Given the 4 year period between escape and lawsuit, the initial case was focused on Business & Profession Code 17200 and labor law violations. The Human Trafficking claims were added later. Also, the decisions to drop the labor claims and not challenge that the Headleys were ‘ministers” were , in my opinion, mistakes , made after I was forced out of the case. I read this blog regularly and have much respect for Marty, but he has his facts wrong on how this case became a human trafficking case and the “minister exception” issue was essentially conceded.
I replied as follows:
I’ll fix the post Barry. You should know that from the moment I received the suit – long after it had been filed – I noted the ballyhoo’d labor violation and forced labor claims would be nixed by the Alamo case precedent (since strengthened with the ministerial exemption line of cases). My advice from the get-go was to go hard to the basket with the plethora of torts committed since the Headley’s left, all very provable and clearly within the statute of limitations. Or maybe you don’t know that – because I relayed that and never spoke to you for another year or so.
The following is from a special guest who is sitting in limbo within the corporate Scientology community. Scientologist X provides a bird’s eye, real time view of what is like to begin questioning the contradictions within.
WHAT I KNOW
I’m a third generation Scientologist. I am not ready to “come out”.
I don’t want to abandon my religion. I want to heal it. Because of
that I’ve asked Marty to leave out my identifying details.
At the age of fifteen I was a Golden Age of Tech trained Class V
Auditor. I completed my entire Basics B+L series in record time
immediately following their release. My parents have been in
Scientology from its most formative stages. My sister is OT _____,
_____ C/S. My brother has been a staff member since he was fourteen.
He personally helped establish the __________ and has manned it ever
since, working in various capacities as a ____, ____, ____, etc. As
my personal EO, he is probably at his wit’s end right now, reading
this. This letter is going to rip his heart in half. Before I rush
headlong any further down this terrifying path, I want to take a
minute to say to everyone in my family: I love you. Please don’t stop
loving me. :’ (
I’m writing because I have noticed some changes in the church’s
methods of operation, and these changes make me very uncertain and
uncomfortable. I don’t know and can’t say who or what is responsible
for these changes. I’m not going to say it’s David Miscavage because
I’ve never even met the guy. I’ve only seen him once: on the
Freewinds in 2001 when he walked around a corner and almost ran into
me. He was surrounded by a team of juniors so it’s actually more
accurate to say that seven or eight people almost walked into me. It
wasn’t their fault, it was mine. I was reading while walking through
the A deck hallways and didn’t hear or see them approaching. At the
time I remember being impressed with COB, both with his enormous
presence and energy, and his short stature. I never worked at Int,
and I never had friends who were uplines that high. So I don’t have
any concrete evidence either for or against the charges of him being a
raving lunatic who beats his subordinates. Since I don’t have any
evidence about that stuff, let’s just set it aside. Here’s what I
want to talk about: what I do know. What I do know is that I
personally have witnessed changes, and I’m talking about things I’ve
seen with my own eyes, and I am not being allowed to inquire about
these changes.
I’m an auditor. I don’t like being told not to communicate.
So I guess this is an exploratory letter to “the other side” to
attempt to gain some clarity, since the “good side” refuses to answer
any of my burning questions. I’m just going to try to tackle these
“things that shouldn’t be” one at a time.
WHO IS CREATING INSTABILITY WITH BLANKET ISSUES OF “NOT CLEAR”?
It started as a trickle and swelled to a waterfall. I watched as over
the course of a year, then two, then three, nearly every adult role
model in my life went pale with dread and said they were being called
to Flag to get a “review”–which always, inevitably, ended in them
being told they were not actually Clear the first time (or in MANY
CASES, second, or third times). They then had to stay for financially
devastating, emotionally harrowing weeks of high, gleeful ups and
excruciating downs. These reviews and re-auditing actions were very
expensive (plane tickets, accomos, multiple meals a day, not working
and earning money while being away) such that upon returning, rather
than looking glowing and shiny, they looked (to me) rather anxious.
They would be defeatist and defeatED over finances for months
afterward, just trying to recover. The very worst part of all of this
is that on separate occasions, two of these adult mentors confided to
me that after everything, they had been told after a long period of
re-auditing that **actually** their Clear cancellations had been a
mistake–that they WERE Clear the whole time. This created enormous
ridges. Who is creating ridges?
WHO IS STRIPPING ORGS OF THE RIGHT TO DELIVER?
CCRD: who has the rights to deliver it? The Bridge says one thing,
and obviously we aren’t doing what it says. Look at the Grade Chart.
I have asked supes multiple times, pointing my finger and banging on
the Grade Chart that is posted in every single Academy: why don’t we
do THAT? “We don’t have the resources to deliver CCRD”?? WHY don’t
we? When I was five or six our org had a CCRD delivery team. It was
a glorious time. I remember we used to have huge parties and
celebrations when the Org made a Clear. We would all come out and
hear a speech and it was an extremely loving event. Why wouldn’t it
be? A member of our congregation has achieved a major milestone in
their path to enlightenment! Tears, cake, hugs all around: THETA.
Even today, these memories are joyous and bright. (Remember in AP&A?
Theta can’t be taken away 🙂 Pain can be erased. Pleasure can’t!)
Why haven’t we had one of those awesome parties in years? Why can’t
our org make Clears? Are we not allowed to verify Clear because we’ll
just “mess it up”? Why is that? Is there something about the
training of our tech team that is so shoddy that we’ll never be able
to know who or what is actually Clear??
If we are so horrible at recognizing Clears, wouldn’t it be best to
correct us in Qual rather than changing LRH policy about who delivers
CCRDs? Saying that nobody on Earth can make a Clear except Flag is a
*huge* enemy line. It suggests that they have a room full of hidden
data lines about the state of Clear that no other org will ever be
able to access. Ron would never strip a Class V org of their power to
destimulate their fields by producing beautiful, bright, shiny Clears.
So why is Flag doing it?
WHO IS MAKING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM UNAVAILABLE TO THE MASSES?
Our family always donated to the org. We did this via donations for
services and also donations for “causes” (things like helping ABLE,
WISE, WTH expansion programs). All of this we did happily, and we
were not under extreme financial stress due to these donations,
because we gave as we were able. Looking at the timeline of this, you
might say that I didn’t know the exact state of our finances and
everyone’s finances at the org because I was a child at that time.
But children are extremely perceptive. They place importance on
feelings and emotions in ways that adults don’t, and I know what I
felt–the org was a happy place. We were happy to go there. With
family, with friends, with non-Scientologists even! The scene today
is a billion miles away from that. Non-Scientologists won’t come near
Scientology with a ten-foot pole, newer Scientolgists are approaching
our religion with caution because everything they want to do in intro
services is outlandishly expensive, and the longest term
Scientologists, the ones who have been there for decades, are PAINED
at the thought of having to go into the org or to an event. They are
nervous about getting regged!
The IAS event was always a donation-centric event. But Auditor’s Day?
Never. We used to glorify our auditors on that day. May 9th?
Celebration of our most basic book. Our founder’s BIRTHDAY??? Giving
him his greatest wish. So when did these beautiful spiritual
occasions get lumped into one engramic series of reg cycles? Who
altered the purpose of international events?
I am embarrassed to say how many families I have watched go under due
to financial strain from regging. Basics, library donation campaigns,
all of the other IAS campaigns, then the Ideal Org campaigns, one
thing after the next. I am far too ashamed to relate experiences I’ve
observed first and second hand where successful, self-employed,
self-made business owners were being forced to take out second
mortgages on their houses just to try to get by, while their names
were on plaques and bricks that will someday go in the Ideal Org.
What gratitude do they have for their sacrifices? They receive
construction paper commendations from the IAS and watch as their
401Ks, then rainy day funds, then families, become emaciated. This
weirdo greed thing is totally new. Absolutely things were not always
this way. WHO implemented a pattern and a policy of coercion in
regging?
Another specific I want to tell is my experience with status-based
treatment at Flag. While routing in and around the base I was given
the “new” routing forms. These have large empty circles on the top of
them, underneath your name. In these circles the originator of the
routing form stamps your donation status–whether you have given the
church $100, $10,000, or $100,000,000. This stamp determines the
speed at which your cycle is handled. I was disgusted that people
would admit to this so openly at Flag. It was really a blase,
nonchalant thing, told to me offhand by several Flag staff members in
an of-course-that’s-how-it-is way. Totally bizzare! I have listened
to a lot more LRH than the average Joe and I never heard a single word
about this kind of status thing. Special rooms in orgs for donors,
special “capers” for them? And now plebians can’t take services at CC
Int? Yes, if you haven’t heard recently: you have to be a celebrity
to take services at the Celebrity Center now. It’s just President’s
Office, and people who are wondering how many butts they have to lick
to elbow their way into the President’s Office. It used to be you
could bring in any old regular friend and show them around, have them
meet with some Div 6 personnel, invite them to taste the beauty of our
religion…but someone doesn’t want these degenerates contaminating
the arena for wealthy potential donors. WHO is doing this?
WHO IS DECLARING AS SUPPRESSIVE SOME OF THE MOST STABLE TERMINALS IN INT?
It used to be easy to write to anyone in Int. They would write back
to you immediately and you felt their presence twinkling out of the
envelope, you knew it was them. These days, I just don’t know. I’ve
written to Int with many of my questions. Most of my letters have
gone unanswered. Who ISN’T writing back? Some of my letters are
answered in a weird way, a strange tone of comm way. Who IS writing
back? I feel like a robot is writing me back. I honestly, and this
is not exaggeration, wondered one time if an intake scanner at INT HCO
had scanned my letter for keyword content, used an algorithm to make
an assumption about what my question was, and composed a letter using
auto-formatting it had been taught. It was *that* weirdly worded. It
didn’t feel human.
I am begging for a human response. I don’t want to abandon my
religion. I LOVE my religion! Please, is there any human out there
who can answer my questions? Such as, where is President CSI Heber
Jentzsch? Where is the smiling, familiar face of Ed Int Guillame
Lesevre? I love that guy! And I definitely remember Mark Yager, I
even met him a few times and felt a strong bond with him immediately,
where is he? What really happened with Debbie Cook, and why were
things so bad that she felt like she had to email 10,000 of us? WHO
is creating conditions in Int that are so unstable that anyone could
just be declared at the drop of a hat in direct violation of HCO PLs
regarding ethics gradients?
WHO IS SLITTING THE VOCAL CHORDS OF THOSE WHO QUESTION?
I have never known a life outside of the spheres of Scientology. I
was raised both in the church and by the church, attending Scientology
schools, undertaking training and processing from a very young age,
and contributing as a staff member. I AM a member of this church.
Stop treating me like a piece of shit apostate just because I have
questions! I am NOT “quitting” Scientology! I am NOT “spreading
enemy lines”!! I am NOT “dangerously Googling”!
WHO IS ENCOURAGING STAFF TO SELL INDULGENCES?
In 1997, when I borrowed my brother’s key to an org door without
asking and lost it, I did conditions under the guidance of an EO. In
2003, when I lied to a family member in order to get money from her, I
did conditions under the guidance of an EO. My most recent ethics
cycles? 0% conditions, 100% indulgences. Paying money to get out of
ethics trouble. “Contributing” to the Ideal Org fund to “make up the
damage”, even when the damage I did is completely unrelated. Why is
my EO asking me to buy a set of Basics for a stranger, in order to
make up the damage for something bad I did to a friend of mine?
Why is my auditor regging me for donations? I don’t even want to
comment on how disgustingly inappropriate that is. More than anything
I want to try to convey how AWKWARD that is. For everyone involved.
Who is asking technical staff to produce on administrative lines and
thus giving a giant cross order?
WHO IS DEVALUING THE FAMILY UNIT?
I was really young when the SO 2D policies changed to SO members not
being able to have kids. I don’t remember how it was before, so I
can’t comment on that. I do know I’ve met the kids who grew up inside
that the policy change. They are some of the most fucked up kids I
have ever met. Illiterate, unloved, and VERY degraded. Completely
lacking basic social skills and unable to complete even the simplest
math problems.
Seems like the kids who came just before that policy change are fine,
most of them are uplines and highly trained. And there are no kids
who came after that policy change. I only have the evidence of the
20-30 children I have met in my lifetime who were at various stages of
their human development when all at once they were labeled as the
diseased pariahs of the Scientology world. How can you tell a kid
that they are unworthy of parental love? The lasting impact of this
disregard, this total lack of responsibility over their welfare, is
immeasurable. I can only measure it by counting the lines on their
anxiety-ridden faces. You know who I am talking about. Half of these
kids work in the underground kitchen at ASHO. Who is responsible for
this waste of human life?
I knew three women at CLO WUS and one at AOLA who were coerced into
having abortions. I can’t give more details than this because they
weren’t allowed to talk about it. Seems weird that we base our entire
system of beliefs on free and open communication but there are iron
curtains over entire subject matters. I know who DOESN’T have the
balls to talk about this. Who DOES? Who dares to lay down a set of
laws over the reproductive rights of the most able-bodied men and
women on Earth, the “upper tenth of the upper twentieth”?
WHO IS IMPLEMENTING MASS DISCONNECTIONS?
For years I had heard people whining about disconnection, but when I
read in ISE about it, Ron told me it’s something we should be very
careful not to overuse. Therefore I assumed it was something that
didn’t happen much anymore.
But as more and more people I knew and had grown up around got
declared, the evils of rampant disconnection orders REALLY hit home to
me. The biggest one was Luis Garcia. I knew him for years, worked
with him, knew his family. He was a big donor, got all types of
awards and special mentions. Yesterday this guy was the head of the
OT Committee. He spoke on stage at our events and gave us advice on
how to clear the planet faster. Today we’re not allowed to even
whisper his name? I received his email and of course I read it. Why
wouldn’t I? For all I knew he could have been emailing me about when
the next potluck was.
I got about 1/10 through it before I realized what was going on. Luis
was leaving the church? Why? I had never been so confused before.
When I came to my EO I was put in a locked room in Ethics and
interrogated as if I had done something terrible. “Did you read his
email?? Why did you read it?” Uh…because it came from someone I’ve
been taught to respect and listen to? “Why didn’t you delete it after
you started reading it and realized what it was about? How much of it
did you read? Can you show me the email in your inbox? Which
paragraph did you get to when you read it? Why did you decide to stop
there?” I mean, it was totally insane. I came in to get some
questions answered and was treated like a criminal. In the end, none
of my questions were answered. All I was told was that Luis had been
“bad all along” and that he had been “planning an evil attack of
Scientology the whole time”.
The worst was when I was told that Luis had “gotten into some bad
stuff” This guy is an OT VIII! Cause over life! What the HELL could
he have gotten into that could make him go completely insane and walk
out of the group he had dedicated his life to? Even if every single
thing I had been told about how Luis is evil had been true–I still
would have liked the chance to talk to him about his decision and
thank him for what he did for me while he was around. Instead I was
threatened within an inch of my life when I suggested talking to him
to say goodbye. How is that self-determined? What happened to
“what’s true for you is true”?
LRH says an SP is a PERSON–not a group. We are Scientologists. We
are not an SP group. SOMEONE is causing these changes. That’s why
I’m asking…WHO? I guess that sums up the majority of my questions.
I won’t be able to say I never saw it coming if I never hear from my
family again after this. My final question is if that’s what’s
deserved.
Growing up as a Scientologist was exhilarating and free! I was taught
“to have the courage to know and say what you have observed”. Reading
these words always thrilled me, made my heart race; I imagined myself
on a snowy steed, slicing through insanity with my long blade of
truth. I just never thought it would be like this.
For those new to the blog, I recommend an essay I posted almost three years ago titled The Great Middle Path redux. I discussed then the idea that the extreme sides of the Scientology spectrum in many ways reflect one another. The zealots on the Miscavige side and the ‘critics’ on the ‘book burner’ side nurture one another as convenient evils to make life combative enough to be interesting.
I once heard a pundit remark that probably the most straight, truthful news from the Middle East comes from the Al Jazeera news agency. He reckoned that based on an objective study of international news reportage on the region over a several year period. He cited as corroboration for that analysis the fact that Al Jazeera was the only news outfit in history to be bombed by both of the opposing sides of a military conflict.
If you check out the reader reviews on Amazon books for What Is Wrong With Scientology you will see that most who care to comment express strong feelings one way or the other about the book. A lot of people seem to either hate it or love it. Add to the mix both extremes of the Scientology spectrum. On the one side are the anti-Marty sites, authored and edited by David Miscavige. On the other side is the most prominent and persistent of Scientology ridiculers, Tony Ortega at the Village Voice.
The “church” of Scientology writes the following about What is Wrong With Scientology?:
He is now taking it upon himself to tell all who will listen “what is wrong with Scientology.” Real Scientologists recognize these interpretations as an effort to dilute, disperse, and render unworkable the truths and principles of Scientology Technology which is, after all is said and done, one of Rathbun’s primary destructive goals – to make Scientology unattainable by scattering it to the wind. And real Scientologists know that the bulk of Rathbun’s latest effort is comprised of what L. Ron Hubbard himself carefully specified as Suppressive Acts, intended to harm others.
On the other extreme Tony Ortega, who has spent seventeen years attempting to make nothing of Scientology, calls What Is Wrong With Scientology?: a ‘predictable mass of Hubbard apologetics’, a ‘bundle of contradictions’, [the apologies are for a religion that is] ‘permeated with sickness’, ‘expensive malarky’, [attempts to pass off] ‘Eastern woo woo as ‘scientific certainty’, and the defense is a bunch of ‘new age happy talk.’
It reads to me like a shade of the Al Jazeera effect.
On the one hand I am accused on attempting to destroy everything L. Ron Hubbard stood for.
On the other hand, I am accused of being Hubbard’s greatest defender.
Those who have read the book and have followed the blog for long might understand why this reaction from the extremes pleases me. It makes me feel like I must have hit the ball right in the sweet spot.
Here is today’s example of Corporate Scientology blood sucking.
Dear ******,
I just received the following announcement from the Bookstore Officer AOSH UK and wanted to help back this up:
“This year the Olympic Games are going to be held in London, England – starting 27th July, ending on 12th August. There will be an estimated 6.5 million people in attendance from over 200 nations.
“In 2010, at the Football World Cup in South Africa, copies of the Way to Happiness booklet were distributed throughout the crowds resulting in it being proclaimed as the least violent World Cup ever.
“To achieve the same effects in London, introducing L. Ron Hubbard’s Tech to millions and creating calm, donations are needed for bundles of The Way to Happiness, which in turn will be handed out during the Olympics.”
“All you have to do is keep that booklet flowing in the society. Like gentle oil spread upon the raging sea, the calm will flow outward and outward.” – LRH, from Ron’s Journal 33
As I am sure you will agree, this has massive potential to reach a truly international audience!
Staff and public volunteers are being mobilized right now and will be in prominent locations around the Olympic events passing out The Way to Happiness to everyone!
The target is to distribute a minimum of 2 million copies!
To help back this up, we are sending over a shipment of TWTH bundles from Bridge this next Monday and I wanted to give you the opportunity to contribute to this motion as well.
Each bundle contains 12 booklets. Please see below to select the size of your donation:
The Olympic events start in just 7 days so we want to have this arrive before then! Note: Your donations are fully tax-deductible and a commendation will be issued to anyone who contributes!
Also, when you make the donation on-line, we will give you access to download the Way to Happiness eBook!
Sincerely, Patrick Howson Mail Order Manager Bridge Publications (323) 899-1034
Now, let’s analyse just what is so wrong with this latest begging email.
First, if this were a true “humanitarian effort” to help the people of the world, one would imagine that the RCS would be making every effort to get as many of these booklets into people’s hands as possible. Their objective of course would not be making a profit.
Now, I know in the context of the RCS this is utterly ridiculous, but if you believe in this so much, and believe it made a safe World Cup, why not spend a few of the billions ALREADY collected by the IAS for exactly this sort of thing? Even assuming the ridiculous cost of $1.67 per booklet (more on that later) it would still only be $2 million which is less than 0.2% of the accumulated cash of the IAS (assuming they only have $1 billion which is a LOW estimate).
Dave, you should declare me SP for that one suppressive idea alone!
But, here is where the rubber really meets the road. They want you to pay $1.67 per booklet! Oh come on Dave, you have shown us the massive, state of the art printing facilities that can turn out millions of items in the most cost effective manner possible. You told us this Dave. But your guys are trying to sell these booklets, that couldn’t cost more than 20 cents to print on your sooper dooper, whizbang, state of the 20th century communications equipment for a dollar a piece? That doesn’t seem right?
Now, it’s funny, but partly what prompted me to write this is that right after I got the email there was a knock on my door. The Jehovah’s Witnesses handed me TWO four color booklets (The Watchtower and Awake!) and they didn’t ask for a penny? Yet the cost of printing their booklets is more than a WTH booklet? I guess they haven’t realized that giving stuff away isn’t a good business model if your objective is to make money. But then I looked on the internet (OMG, addendum to my declare for daring to look at the internet). The JW’s claim 7.5 million adherents not counting those “inactive” – and that is anyone who has not turned in their monthly report of their public ministry actions for 6 months. So, they have 7.5 million people that write reports on their activities EVERY MONTH! They also have 109,000 places of worship and there are 3 within 5 miles of where I live (there are NO Scientology activities in that range here in the “largest Scientology community on earth”). Dave, maybe they aren’t as dumb as you think? And they even shun people and don’t do blood transfusions and everyone thinks they are nuts too. Maybe they are actually trying to disseminate instead of making money? Or maybe they are sincerely trying to help people? OMG — add another page to my declare….
Now, one might well ask: “Isn’t this sort of thing THE JOB of the IAS?” Believe me, at the IAS event in the UK in October they will promote the “enormous distribution” of the WTH at the London Olympics (making this the safest/calmest/most successful Olympics ever, ever in all of history). So, does anyone want to take bets on whether the IAS is ALSO begging for bucks to “fund the most massive campaign in this history of the universe….” I just haven’t been to one of their crush reg events for a while so I don’t know what their latest scam is.
Now, to add just a couple of final nitpicks.
Why offer “discounts” for bulk purchases if these are intended to be given away on the streets? Why not just a flat price (and I guess it proves that there is in fact a profit being made as they all cost the same to print….)
The distribution of WTH outside the US is the job of New Era Publications and their sooper dooper, 20th century printing machines. Not Bridge. Shipping booklets from the US to London rather than Copenhagen to London sort of sounds like the old adage “don’t ship coals to Newcastle.” But you know, you gotta try to make a buck any chance you get. (Even if its 7 days before an event that has been announced for 10 years — so they will send them using the most expensive means possible in order to get them there in time)….
And even funnier, the campaign is being “spearheaded” by AOSHUK. They are supposed to be delivering higher level training and auditing. Dave, you spent $10 million plus to open the “new” “central Ideal Org” on that deserted street in London. It is supposed to be the central point for the dissemination of all tech into society. The Olympics are occurring right down the road from the empty palace on Queen Victoria St. So why is AOSHUK doing this?
Things seems a little confused in Miscavigedom. But I am sure you will set it straight soon – believe me, when you discover this sort of thing has been going on, you can use it to announce another brilliant evaluation and handling: “The crooks were leading the suckers” and springboard into the “Golden Age of Registration” to put an end to all criminality. Everyone will be required to put their credit card information into the central computer and it will automatically be debited whenever funds are needed for a new campaign. No humans will be required. And the ideal scene of the Ideal Morgues will be another step closer to being made a reality.
Just one final thought Dave. Why not start selling indulgences? You could tie it right in to the central computer system. As long as you keep on paying, you have “ethics protection.” Why bother having any auditors at all. You don’t need to even do 6 months checks any more — just debit their cards for a couple of intensives of sec checking at Class 9 rates and send a note to the MAA that they are “OK to carry on.” It would save a LOT of time and effort and people paying for airfares and stuff and you could suck all of that wasted money in too. And you would no longer need auditing rooms and you could rent them out as the latest, state-of-the-art “mini storage” facilities.
My 19 year old son has been wanting to go back to CW (Clearwater, Florida) since we moved to Oregon a year and half ago, because it’s the place he knows. That is where his friends that he grew up with and that he shares so much ARC for and with are! As we, parents to teens and young adults, know; the majority of them care mostly about their social life.
I had a huge loss leaving behind what I considered to be my whole universe and my group when I left CW. Imagine how it was for a kid for whom that is all he knew his whole life.
I want to know if you would be interested in the following:
Having young adults from the age of 16-23 who are interested in getting together with other ex-church members in that age bracket to enjoy a weekend camping on one of the islands near CW during fall/winter time this year, where they will create new friends or re-establish communication with old friends. This is also an opportunity for them to just itsa.
I know my son will have a much easier time communicating to someone his age than to me.
We, as adults, all needed a “support group” when we decided to leave the church. Thankfully, there was one made up of Indies, Freezoners, etc. The younger generation is no different. They too will benefit greatly from a weekend with friends their own age and with whom they share a similar reality with. There are several in the CW area interested already, but we’d like to invite young adults from all areas to fly or drive in and participate.
If we can get enough young adults interested, I have a friend in Clearwater who is willing to find a camp site for them and be the coordination point. If you have any suggestions along that line, please chime in.
Those that are interested:
Please contact us at:
anatk@comcast.net
I have received a number of alerts that hitting the link to the the great data resource Friends of LRH results in a Malware warning pop up. I don’t know who the folks are who run that webpage – but if you get hold of Mike Rinder or me we might be able to help you repel whatever attacks you may be under.
It is ironic that David Miscavige’s best friend and ‘the most dedicated Scientologist’ he knows, Tom Cruise, has provided the tipping point event in the final meltdown of Scientology Inc. What I find most disturbing about it is that Miscavige is doing all he can to bring everyone and everything down with him – from Tom Cruise to the subject of Scientology itself.
It is somewhat poetic justice that so many horror stories that Miscavige spent so many million suppressing over the past several years have suddenly been given wide currency. It is unfortunate that there has not been time, nor the inclination on the part of media, to differentiate Miscavige’s cult and its conduct from the philosophy of Scientology. But, Miscavige’s scorched earth, take no responsibility policy makes that differentiation process nearly impossible.
To understand the process, let’s take for example Miscavige’s response to the original Truth Rundown series by the Tampa Times. Some former International Headquarters staff attempted to check Miscavige from taking Scientology Inc. down in a Jonestown-like inferno by exposing dangerous, habitual conduct by Miscavige. Miscavige’s response was to accuse the accusers of perpetuating wholesale violence. The result, two nights of ABC Nightline specials and a five part CNN AC 360 special on “Scientology: A History of Violence”, and an hour long BBC documentary all about a widespread ‘culture of violence’ at the highest ranks of ‘Scientology.’ It is the lying that perpetuates and exacerbates the situation and results in no effective differentiation being possible. I remember predicting to Mike Rinder a month before Truth Rundown was published that until Miscavige takes a modicum of responsibility for the truth, the media exposes will become more frequent and more widespread. Just look at how the Truth Rundown series has expanded since its 2009 inception.
Take the Cruise/Holmes debacle. The absurd, pathetic blanket denial of the truth positions taken by Cruise and Miscavige are giving Scientology haters a seemingly unending field day.
Look at the lengths Miscavige has gone in attempting to kill the story of the death of the son of Karen De La Carriere and Heber Jentzsch. “OT VIII”, celebrity wanna be Stan Gerson has been used to send out a propaganda piece designed to divert Scientologists’ attention from the cover up of the ongoing Coroner’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding Alexander Jentzsch’s death, see Village Voice coverage.
My analysis of the ongoing meltdown of Scientology Inc is that the consistent, common denominator that is prolonging and exacerbating it, making rational discussion and differentiation near impossible, is the activity of corporate Scientology lying. I place the responsibility for this dark chapter for Scientology squarely in the office of Chairman of the Board of Scientology Inc. David Miscavige is the one who has created the current wholesale condemnation of the subject. He has convinced Tom Cruise to eschew the advice I have been giving for three years here. That advice is probably best summed up in an anonymous axiom I once quoted here:
If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.
The cummulative lies that Miscavige has directed Scientology Inc. and its corporate and celebrity spokespeople to vehemently pour forth for years are creating a dark future for Scientology. Their lies give legs to stories seeking to shed light on corporate Scientology abuses, and their obfuscation of specific facts opens the door to lay the blame on ‘Scientology’ generally. Their attack and lie reaction makes closure on any story about ‘Scientology’ impossible. Ultimately, by their continuing dishonesty they are denying many people potential benefits from the subject in the future.
The only way this sick trend will ever begin to reverse is by the revelation of truth. We ought not be discouraged in continuing to do what we can to purvey it. But, those efforts will continue to be suppressed as long as the likes of Miscavige, Cruise and others blatantly continue to traffic in lies.
Make no mistake, Miscavige has proven over and over that he is incapable of honesty. As I have spelled out before on this blog, Miscavige’s game is to make enemies for Scientology. He will do all he can to keep the likes of Travolta and Cruise lying in public until they are so bloodied figuratively and confused that they lose the ability to differentiate the cause of their woes and become enemies of the subject of Scientology. After all, Miscavige has accomplished that with dozens of former members – you can watch them all over the airwaves of late. He has attempted to do the same with all of us.
Cruise, Travolta, and the less stellar soldiers of Scientology Inc can avoid falling into that dark, victim bunker. All they need to do is heed the advice:
If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
I’ll fix the post Barry. You should know that from the moment I received the suit – long after it had been filed – I noted the ballyhoo’d labor violation and forced labor claims would be nixed by the Alamo case precedent (since strengthened with the ministerial exemption line of cases). My advice from the get-go was to go hard to the basket with the plethora of torts committed since the Headley’s left, all very provable and clearly within the statute of limitations. Or maybe you don’t know that – because I relayed that and never spoke to you for another year or so.