Tag Archives: cults

The Jonestown Massacre

Posted on May 18, 2026 by | Leave a comment

And the Assassination of Leo J. Ryan

Reference: CIA and SLA Cult Part II

The Jonestown Guyana massacre of 18 November 1978 set into motion one of the largest media shock treatments ever implanted upon the American psyche. Forevermore Americans would shiver at the mention of “cults” and equate following any irrational, destructive path with “drinking the Kool Aid.” As the official, one-dimensional narrative has schooled us, the head of the People’s Temple cult in Guyana persuaded over 900 Americans to commit suicide in unison by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide solely by the power invested in him by being a “cult” leader. The reactive equation branded in American minds was cult=death. 

What few remember today though is the far-reaching chain of irregularities in the investigation and coverup of the event that gave immediate birth to conspiracy theories that have survived – and sometimes thrived – to this day.  For the most part those theories revolve around the CIA’s involvement with – and apparent protection of – the leader of the People’s Temple, Jim Jones.  

Most of the work on those theories are included in the largest and most definitive archive on the subject of Jonestown which is maintained at San Diego State University (Jonestown & People’s Temple, A Digital Archive).  It was created and is curated by Rebecca Moore and her husband Fielding M. McGehee. They began their work shortly after the tragedy and it continues to this day, forty-seven years later. Ms. Moore’s interest was personally driven; she wanted answers as her two sisters were causalities of Jonestown.

While Ms. Moore seems unconvinced of some of the conspiracy theories, in her devotion to seeking the whole truth, she includes in the archives the best developed conspiracy work on the subject as well as the most vehement attempts to debunk that work.

The alternate histories point to and document, among many other anomalies, the following little-known facts:

  1. Longtime CIA connections to People’s Temple (PT) leader Jim Jones.
  2. CIA chemical experimentation background of Jones’ biggest donor – whose wife, daughter and son became top Jones’ insiders and enablers.
  3. The CIA’s involvement in years of then-ongoing covert operations to preserve the power of the tin pot dictator it had installed in Guyana. 
  4. The State Dept/CIA consequently conceded/granted full authority/responsibility for American citizens at Jonestown to that regime, which consequently dutifully served Jones and PT.
  5. The massive stores of MK Ultra (CIA Mind Control experiments) drugs found at Jonestown.
  6. Evidence that many people publicized as having committed suicide through voluntarily imbibing cyanide laced Kool-Aid were actually stabbed in the back with syringes filled with cyanide.
  7. The lack of standard medical examiner autopsy procedures applied to the victims postmortem.
  8. The CIA friendly Guyana regime’s torching of all official records maintained on Jonestown.
  9. The military-precision of the assassination of Ryan and many unexplained oddities surrounding the event – most prominent of which was the CIA-friendly Guyanan military apparent witnessing and enabling of the event.

Perhaps the most credible indication that there was in fact a nefarious CIA connection comes from the voice of reason concerning Jonestown, conspiracy skeptic Rebecca Moore. She and her husband battled the CIA over withheld Freedom of Information Act documents concerning Jonestown for several years in Federal District Court and up to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and back again. Rebecca and Fielding established settled FOIA law along the way and put the CIA’s feet to the fire (see e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/10/us/appeals-court-rebukes-cia-in-jonestown-information-case.html) Yet, in the end the system enabled the CIA to conceal the truth. Rebecca once shared these thoughts on the matter:

The CIA has toppled foreign governments, financed strikes, incited riots, encouraged and executed political assassinations, all for the sake of our national security. And are we more secure?

Certainly the CIA’s information on Jonestown might help answer that question. Did it have foreknowledge of the suicides, or of the assassination plans. Did it encourage the paranoia endemic in the community? Did it set up Ryan for a hit? If it did not know about Jonestown, why didn’t it? Was the number of drugs present in Jonestown sufficient to characterize the project as a mind control experiment? And did the CIA sponsor the experiment?

We are seeking “conclusive evidence” which will either exonerate the agency or condemn it. The inconclusive evidence we’ve seen so far suggests that the CIA expanded its interest in Guyana to include 1000 Americans who set up a community in that country. The inconclusive evidence hints of CIA monitoring, and perhaps infiltration and manipulation, of Jonestown activities. The inconclusive evidence indicates the CIA knew more about the suicides than it has told anyone.

The people of Jonestown were American citizens. If the CIA knew what was going to happen, and let it, then Fred Branfman is right when he says that, “the major enemy … will not be the KGB or the Chinese or anyone else abroad. It will be the CIA.”

When even those demonstrably most well-informed and even-keeled raise such concerns, to accept the official narrative lock, stock and barrel would be the epitome of gullibility.

Rather than relitigate matters that can be disputed, which might take a lifetime, I will rely almost entirely upon the Congressional record to establish how Ms. Moore’s, and many like her, suspicions may have merit. That record begins BEFORE Jonestown and extends beyond it as we will examine here. A month ago, I would not have taken this course because I could not have. That is because Congress chose to seal much of the evidence it took in more than 47 years ago during its probes of the matter. Only very recently, thanks to the dogged work of the Moore/McGehee team, extensive transcripts that have been sealed for all that time have been made available to the public. I will share what has been uncovered by Moore/McGehee and again promote their definitive site SDSU Jonestown, where I am sure these transcripts and more will soon be made available. 

As noted in the previous few posts, Jonestown happened to unfold at the very time that U.S. House representative Leo J. Ryan was in the fight of his life with the C.I.A. over whether the country would go forward as a transparent democratic republic or an opaque, secret autocracy of sorts. (see, Light vs. Dark, Republic vs. Empire).  I’ve since learned that Ryan’s pursuit of the truth concerning the CIA’s involvement with the formation and operation of the Symbionese Liberation Army was not the only such matter pending when he departed for Guyana on 14 November 1978.  Just two weeks earlier another committee in which he was a critical participant had issued a report on the Unification Church (Sun Yung Moon’s Moonies organization – see the Fraser Report).  The October 31, 1978 report documented years of Moon’s group acting as an intelligence and lobbying arm for the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). The committee (and Ryan himself) expressed concerns that the CIA was aware of Moon’s activities given its role in founding the KCIA in the early sixties and its close coordination with it since and the widespread unchecked bribery and corruption that went on in Congress and the White House right under its nose. The Committee recommended that a task force be formed by several federal law enforcement agencies to follow up on its finding with potential criminal charges. Many rationally figured that as Ryan was the most persistent Congressman on policing the CIA (e.g. through enforcement of his Hughes-Ryan Amendment – see Light vs. Dark) it would be Ryan who would give the federal task force the cover and impetus it would need to dig deeper into the thick corruption. Clearly, there was no one more aware of the CIA’s fascination with, and formation and operation of, cults for nefarious intelligence purposes.

With that backdrop let us examine the facts surrounding the assassination of Leo J. Ryan in Guyana and the mass “suicide” that followed in its wake.   

Jonestown

Ryan’s purpose in travelling to Jonestown was to reconcile conflicting facts. First, a number his constituents had sworn under oath that Jim Jones’ People’s Temple (PT) settlement at Jonestown was holding people against their will, administering powerful drugs, and conditioning them to prepare to commit suicide en masse. The most telling features of the reports might have been the techniques Jones was utilizing to create deployable, programmed agents to carry out his will. It was eerily similar to the ego stripping and reconstruction processes so long studied by the CIA under MK Ultra and MK Search and utilized by cults connected to the CIA (Manson, SLA, Moon, and more that we will further analyze in a future article). For more than a year, Ryan had urged the State Department to act on these reports. The State Department refused. The State Department/CIA run embassy in Georgetown reported that they had investigated Jonestown first-hand and never saw any evidence that corroborated Ryan’s constituents.

Upon this factual footing, State/CIA went a step further, first advising Ryan not to go, and then actively obstructing his investigation. The State Department/CIA resistance to even discerning the truth was so intense, Ryan – who had no desire to travel deep into the Guyana jungle – felt morally obligated to personally investigate his constituents’ growing concerns. While the CIA/State Department discouraged Ryan’s trip to the very moment he departed the capital of Guyana Georgetown to the Jonestown jungle compound, it was never accompanied by any concern for his safety, but instead by the “rights” of PT members and Jim Jones. That was despite the later disclosed fact that the Embassy was quite aware that PT had smuggled large amounts of firearms into Jonestown through its cozy relationship with the CIA installed government of the agency’s handpicked and installed dictator Forbes Burnham. Despite two subsequent congressional hearings, no elected representative (much less the FBI or CIA) so much as even politely asked the State Department or the CIA to reconcile these damning facts. It was particularly disheartening because Ryan’s own Foreign Affairs Committee – chaired by CIA friendly Clement Zablocki – took the lead in the probes.

On 17 November 1978 Ryan along with his Aide Jackie Speier, several concerned family members of Jonestown residents and several interested media personnel departed Georgetown Guyana on a propellor driven aircraft. They were accompanied by only one Embassy personnel, “former” CIA man and Deputy Chief of Mission Richard “Dick” Dwyer. They journeyed for just over an hour to a landing strip in a small outpost in the northwest Guyana jungle called Port Kaituma. They then travelled another hour by truck over a primitive jungle road to the People’s Temple compound called Jonestown. 

Ryan visited privately with a number of PT members whose families had asked to check on their welfare and their ability to leave if they so wished. By the end of the evening several members had expressed the wish to go back with the Ryan delegation. The party slept at Jonestown because the Port Kaituma airport was allegedly too primitive to enable nighttime take offs and landings.  The next day Jones was visibly shaken by the news that a handful of his followers had elected to leave, notwithstanding Ryan’s assurance that such a small percentage of his cult leaving could serve as Jones’ best evidence that a) most folks were there on their own determinism, b) conditions were satisfactory and c) no one was being held against their will. One of Jones’ henchmen attacked Ryan with a knife but was wrestled to the ground before he could strike.

The delegation left on the afternoon of November 18. Suspiciously, by the time they arrived at the airstrip the two planes they had ordered were not present. This prompted Dwyer to lead the party into Pt. Kaituma to search out a means of communication to Georgetown.  When the two planes appeared in the sky, Dwyer inexplicably stayed behind while the delegation’s truck headed back to the airstrip. Dwyer conveniently missed seeing a large tractor pulling a trailer filled with armed PT security staff heading to the airstrip, driving down the same road he was on. 

Dwyer caught up with Ryan’s delegation as they approached to board the aircraft. Dwyer went to chat with the pilot from outside the cockpit. He did and said nothing while the PT tractor and trailer full of security staff pulled right up to the area – just yards from Congressman Ryan and the delegation. Several alleged PT members alighted from the trailer and opened fire on the defenseless group. Five were killed, including Ryan and the most informed member of the media Bob Harris, along with 2 other media members and a Jonestown defector. 5 more were severely wounded including Jackie Speier. Six had minor wounds (including Dwyer) and seven managed to escape injury altogether by fleeing into the jungle. Dwyer testified that the assailants followed the initial barrage with close-up shotgun fire to assure the death of Ryan. With no opposition whatsoever, the survival of 13 of the original 18, and the point blank shot gun finishing of Ryan, indicates the mission was designed to assassinate Ryan as opposed to censor what the delegation had witnessed to the rest of the world. 

Minutes later Jones announced to his hundreds of followers that Ryan was dead and that to avoid capture and torture by the U.S. government they all now would do for real what they had drilled for years, drink the cyanide laced Kool-Aid. And so the story goes 904 people complied – killing their dozens of young children first and following Jones’ noble example. However, Jones would later be determined to have died from a gunshot wound to the head – written off as suicide contrary to the forensic evidence available. The body count at Jonestown was initially 400 and it kept escalating day by day. It seems the military and CIA cleanup crew could not keep their stories straight. Many books have recounted the avalanche of debunked reported official facts about what really occurred that night in Jonestown. But, as our story is about the man who stood between CIA compliance with the U.S. Constitution and opaque, deep state military industrial intelligence complex rule we’ll focus on his assassination. It also happens to be the only aspect of the tragedy where indisputable visual proof exists. That would be in the form of this three-minute NBC news camera footage that survived the massacre:

It captures the moments before and the first several seconds of the assassination operation.

At :29 you can see the first view of the smaller of the two planes that arrived for the return of the Ryan delegation.

At :58 you can see the red Jonestown tractor just behind the rear of the aircraft.  Dwyer testified that the presence of the trailer and tractor on the runway were “very much to my surprise.” (Page 179, Dwyer Transcript) Despite Dwyer asserting that his leading the escape from Jonestown was a heroic attempt to save the life of a Congressman that had already been attacked by knife, Dwyer did nothing about Jones’ operatives’ presence. And no Congressman, nor any investigating agency, pressed or challenged him on that.

At 1:30 you can see the large, double prop plane.

At 2:09 You can see Congressman Ryan (light blue pants and white shirt helping to carry a trunk) and Dwyer (dark pants and long-sleeved beige shirt, greeting Ryan). 

At 2:20 Dwyer peels off to talk to the pilot and Ryan continues toward the plane entry stairs. Despite the Jonestown tractor and trailer’s presence just behind the aircraft, which you will see in the next angle, “very much to [Dwyer’s] surprise”, Dwyer can be seen nonchalantly yucking it up with the pilot.

At 2:30 a man in dark pants and beige shirt walks onto the screen from the right. That is Guyanese army guard #1 carrying what Dwyer later confirmed as an automatic rifle.

At 2:55-3:00 you get brief glimpse of Guyanese army guard #2 and a short flash of the butt of his automatic rifle.  Dwyer testified there were three Guyanese army guards there, all carrying automatic weapons to protect the Ryan delegation. 

At 3:01 the news camera catches the Jonestown tractor pulling the trailer with the assassination crew on board right beside the aircraft.

At 3:02 One assassin in front of the tractor fires off the first shots as more gunmen jump out of the trailer to join in the massacre. Within seconds the filming ceases.

You are looking at the most incriminating, yet most overlooked, evidence of the conspiracy to assassinate Leo J. Ryan.

Those Guyanese army men equipped with automatic weapons were capable of clearing out the Jonestown cult corps in a matter of seconds as the latter were all carrying conventional arms. Instead, the soldiers did not fire a single shot. Remarkably, not a single one of the soldiers was hit by the Jonestown hit squad; whereas, the other 17 people who were not able to flee into the jungle, every one of them, was struck. On March 21,1979 the Congressional Committee asked Dwyer why the army did not protect the delegation. His answer: “The Lieutenant said it took them a few moments to get their weapons ready and he was unsure as to who was shooting whom. It appeared to him simply Americans firing at Americans, and before he could reach any conclusion, the incident was over.”  This despite the fact Dwyer testified the assault went on for a number of minutes, the Jonestown crew walking up to shoot Ryan point blank with a shotgun to assure his death. No one, no Congressman in three hearings and one additional investigation, none of the dozens of FBI agents assigned to investigate, ever challenged the bald-faced illogical explanation by the surviving CIA man on the scene. It is there to see with your own eyes.

Shortly after the massacre, Jones announced Ryan’s assassination to his followers and initiated the mass suicide by cyanide ingestion.  As noted at the outset, there is a plethora of evidence to challenge the assertion that 904 people willingly participated. But, put that aside for a moment. Stay focused on this fact.  The testimony and forensics at the Port Kaituma airstrip massacre indicate it was an assassination aimed specifically at Ryan. What more did Ryan know, or did Jones and the CIA think he knew, that the others did not?  Is it possible they suspected that Ryan was hip to the experimental nature of what Jones was engaged in? After all, Ryan had very recently documented his concerns about CIA creation of another cult leader, the Symbionese Liberation Army’s leader Donald “Cinque” Defreeze (SLA Pt II, and Light vs. Dark).

Leo J. Ryan’s best friend and administrative aide Joe Holsinger certainly thought it very likely Ryan was onto something. Though Holsinger did not make the trip to Guyana (Ryan had him run his office while he travelled) he was the most informed on the subjects of Jones, People’s Temple, Jonestown, and their relationship to the State Department and the CIA. As in our last series on the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA Pt I, SLA Pt II) we have the alternative, in this case the African American, press to thank for preserving the results of Holsinger personal investigation. According to the 15 July 1980 edition of the Washington D.C. Afro-American, after expressing disappointment with Congress’s whitewashing of the Jonestown affair Holsinger was of this frame of mind:

“Joe Holsinger, Ryan’s chief administrative assistant, outlined information which he says indicates the existence of a covert Central Intelligence Agency operation in Guyana that had not been reported to the congressional oversight committees. Further, Holsinger said he now believes in the ‘horrifying possibility’ that Jonestown was part of a ‘mass mind control experiment’ by the CIA as part of its MK ULTRA program, which was supposedly terminated in the early 1970s.

“…instead of terminating the MK ULTRA program, Holsinger said, the CIA simply shifted its programs from public institutions to private organizations.

“Holsinger, who has been pressuring for a congressional investigation into CIA involvement with the settlement, believes that Ryan’s visit to the ill-fated colony may have pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding alleged CIA activities there, and would have eventually exposed them.”

The entire article is well worth the read as it contains the CIA’s motive, why the Black community would be the one most interested in uncovering the truth and more particulars on the absurdity of the established narrative of Jonestown. (see DC Afro American) It ends with this, “Holsinger also hinted at the possibility that Ryan, because of his interest in Jonestown, ‘had been led into, or allowed to fall into a trap.’”

Holsinger’s now unsealed testimony (Holsinger transcript) spells out how the State Department/CIA manipulated the Privacy Act and the Freedom of Information Act to accomplish two ends. First, the agencies cited them as their justification for having provided Jones with detailed, up to the minute, reports on every move and intention they learned about Ryan and his interest in Jonestown; as well as justification for keeping Ryan utterly in the dark as to the known actions and movements of Jones and the People’s Temple. The second end accomplished by State/CIA was they would later use these justifications to launch assaults over the years to weaken both Acts which were designed to make government transparent to the people, and the people’s lives private to the government. Note, that equation is pretty much the opposite today. There is virtually no right to individual privacy from the government and virtually no transparency of federal government machinations. Objectively, and not coincidentally, Leo J. Ryan was the last true warrior fighting like his life depended upon it to prevent that democracy-killing inversion from coming about.

The complete transcripts of the testimony of U.S. Ambassador to Guyana John Burke and the D/Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer strongly corroborate Holsinger’s testimony and views (Dwyer transcript, Burke transcript).  What is most remarkable is how defensive and combative Burke and especially Dwyer are in justifying their long list of clearly negligent acts to the detriment of Leo J. Ryan. Both, in their attempts to defend themselves are seen defending Jones and his operation as if they are paid advocates for them. Reading the full transcripts of Holsinger, Burke and Dwyer resurrects Holsinger from the grave of “conspiracy theorist” the corporate media and Congress buried him in forty years ago. 

In real time, Holsinger’s mission to uncover the truth was a credible and real struggle. Even the lawyer for cult leader Jim Jones, Mark Lane, acknowledged Congress was part of the cover up, “When the Committee on Foreign Affairs Committee report, dated May 15, 1979, was released it became clear that the committee had marshaled a substantial amount of evidence and had determined to suppress almost all of it.”

America’s most renowned muckraker of the 70’s and early 80’s, Jack Anderson, chronicled the growing public perception that the CIA was behind Jonestown. In his 27 September 1980 column (see, Anderson column) he covers the lawsuit brought against the CIA by Leo Ryan’s surviving children. He mentions Holsinger and several of his disclosures concerning the CIA and Jonestown.  Another lawsuit followed on its heels brought by Jonestown survivors. The suits were a credible threat to CIA secrets. The attached memo memorializing a conference, chaired by none other than Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Frank Carlucci (see Leo J. Ryan vs. Frank Carlucci), documents the CIA was concerned about the suit: “the possibility that under the rules of discovery we may have to provide their attorneys with sensitive information.” (See CIA memo)

The lawsuits – like so many others over the years attempting to hold the CIA accountable – were predictably dismissed. But they helped bring Holsinger’s quest for the truth into the consciousness of the mainstream. By the Spring of 1980 many Americans were questioning the establishment Jonestown narrative. After two Congressional Committee investigations into the matter brushed off and avoided probing the CIA links to Jonestown, public opinion was not satisfied.

The growing acceptance of the idea that the CIA was involved in Jonestown prompted Ryan’s former colleagues to demand answers. On April 5, 1980 the media reported: “House Foreign Affairs Committee investigators have called for a new examination of the Central Intelligence Agency’s role – if any – in the Guyana Peoples Temple tragedy that ended in the killing of an American congressman and the mass suicide of cultists.  The committee’s staff experts urged that allegations made by aides to slain U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of San Mateo, Calif., be referred to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for its review.” (see San Antonio Light, Washington Bureau report Pt 1 and Pt 2).  The report cited six ‘contentions’ that were raised in its own hearing on the matter, referring them to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (the Congressional arm most capable of learning CIA secrets) to investigate:

“ – The contention that the CIA conducted a varied range of ‘activities’ in Guyana;

“-            The contention that a CIA agent witnessed Ryan’s assassination at Port Kaituma Airport;

“-            The contention that the CIA may have violated the Hughes-Ryan Act by failing to report a covert operation in Guyana; (Hughes-Ryan, largely authored by the slain congressman, requires the CIA report to Congress before spending money on covert operations – as opposed to normal intelligence gathering.)

“-            The contention that the CIA made a conscious decision to allow the tragic events of Nov. 18, 1978 to occur in order to avoid disclosure of CIA covert activities;

“-            The contention this alleged reporting failure was conscious and calculated because Rep. Ryan was a co-author of the Hughes-Ryan act; and

“-            The contention the CIA was used to promote and protect American commercial interests in Guyana.”

            By the end of 1980 those who shared Leo Ryan’s passion for transparency in government were hopeful of the outcome of the probe. Unfortunately, at the same time the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex was orchestrating a sort of ‘revolution’ of its own.

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Light vs. Dark, Republic vs. Empire…

Posted on April 12, 2026 by | 2 comments

Leo J. Ryan vs. Frank Carlucci

Reference: CIA and SLA Cult, Part II

The showdown between Congressman Leo J. Ryan and D/Director of Central Intelligence Frank Carlucci (see conclusion of CIA and CIA and SLA Cult, Part II) represented something much bigger than just the forceful personalities involved. It represented the better angels and worse demons of the American psyche battling for the future. It was the personified microcosm of a larger conflict that was coming to a head at the end of the nineteen seventies. The confrontation would resolve the burning question pending at the end of two decades of chaos and turmoil in America: would we be an open, transparent democratic republic or a dark, opaque, autocratic empire?

With highly publicized Congressional Committees throughout the seventies confirming the disclosures of investigative journalists, by late in the decade the CIA and the secretive, militarist deep state it served was reeling. Committees chaired by Senator Frank Church and Representative Otis Pike, along with the presidential Rockefeller Commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, created plenty of embarrassing headlines about a security-intelligence state gone wild. The CIA’s reputation and influence were in the gutter. As a mid-seventies hit song by the band War put it, “I know you’re working for the C-I-A — they wouldn’t have you in the Maf-i-a.”  

In 1976 Jimmy Carter was elected as a result of congressional and public uproars about government corruption in the wake of Watergate and the FBI and CIA abuses that had been exposed. Determined to restore trust, he appointed an old Naval Academy classmate of his, the reputed straight-shooter Admiral Stansfield Turner to head the CIA and intelligence community as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).  As Turner wrote in his autobiographical Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence, “President Carter had a mandate not only to clean house and raise public trust in national leadership but also to get the country’s intelligence apparatus under control.” The appointment of Turner signaled that Carter would attempt the reform that Congress had promised yet failed to deliver on. Turner noted that while the Congressional disclosures had highlighted the need for change, “In the end, the Rockefeller Commission’s report was too watered down to amount to much. The Church [committee] report recommended new charters for the Defense Department’s agency for coordinating intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); the CIA; and the NSA; but these were not written. The Pike report wanted the DIA abolished, criticized the NSC (National Security Council) oversight mechanism, and called for increased congressional oversight, but had a rather small impact.”

Turner Targeted

While Stansfield Turner’s appointment satisfied the demands of the Democratic Party base, he was soon the target of a coordinated campaign to paint him as too weak and dovish to turn the battered agency around. The trigger for the backlash occurred when Turner fired 820 clandestine CIA agents, the heart of the old school CIA gangster clan. The backlash was no reflection of public sentiment. It was literally created by the CIA itself. Turner wrote in Burn: “The DO [Directorate of Operations CIA] people seized on the reduction of 820 positions as an opportunity to attempt to get me fired. They launched a disinformation campaign (one of their basic skills).” The CIA-infiltrated corporate media took its cue and attacked Turner for executing the very reforms he was appointed to institute. For example, the November 28, 1977 edition of Time magazine reported: “The agency is in turmoil because at least 800 of its employees are to be ‘terminated.’ All are members of the CIA’s 4,500-man Directorate of Operations, the clandestine branch, whose activities… have damaged the reputation of the CIA.” Time went on to quote the ghoulish former head of CIA clandestine operations James Angleton — the single agent most implicated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — to pile on Stansfield with criticism for allegedly weakening America’s defenses. (see, Spooked Spooks at the CIA). Newsweek joined the effort to shackle Turner’s reforms, “Carter’s man at the CIA is under fire for purging the ‘dirty tricks department’ and reforming the whole spy system.” Ditto the Washington Star, “Turner tackles the CIA with vigorous inhumanity.”

In reality, the CIA ran a clandestine operation on its own director in violation of its own charter, in the wake of four years of brutal exposure of just such abuses, apparently demonstrating to President Carter who really drove the affairs of American government, the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex (MIIC). Carter, as was his want, quickly caved in. His “solution” was to bring in the prototypical Mr. Fixit of espionage. He appointed CIA black ops veteran Frank Carlucci as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) – the CIA’s second in command. A popular D.C. beltway radio station summed up the matter in a Feb 10 1978 report: “[K]ey members of the Carter Administration were trying to oust CIA Director Stansfield Turner…[whose] controversial management decisions drove morale at the CIA to a new low…Then word came from the White House that Frank Carlucci was to be named Deputy Director of the CIA…[whose] nomination marked a change of direction for the Agency.”  Clearly indicating a major regime change and return to the old CIA business as usual, the report continued, “Turner would surrender control of the day-to-day management of the Agency to Carlucci…”

That “surrender” by Turner was no exaggeration. Carlucci had negotiated control of the agency before accepting the appointment. Stansfield had protested and was overruled by Carter. This was evident in CIA’s FOIA reading room data base. I discovered an entire file in there that closely monitored this transition, consisting of dozens of articles and documents from 1978 covering nothing but a) the CIA’s reputational and operational crisis, b) the alleged new lease on life afforded it by the arrival of Carlucci, and c) Carlucci’s intensive public relations campaign which pressed to scale back reforms, most particularly the Freedom of Information Act and Congressional oversight as it applied to the CIA and intelligence community. The content of that file corroborates this entire article (see, Carlucci and Confidence Crisis)                  

Carlucci: master of dark CIA ops

Why Carlucci?  For starters he was old school CIA, the one that used the State Department as its cover to run black ops across the world (just as the brother tandem Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles had established in the 1950s – see, The Devil’s Chessboard). Carlucci was fresh off a scandal of his own that proved the point. The most popular political party in Portugal was screaming “foul” for Carlucci’s alleged CIA black ops meddling in a Portuguese national election under cover as the U.S. Ambassador to the country. Carlucci survived the controversy by shameless, blanket denial. (see The Stranger Career of Frank Carlucci, Counterpunch)

Carlucci was well-schooled in that art. 18 years earlier as a “State Department official” in the Congo, Carlucci was involved in perhaps the CIA’s most damning and embarrassing chapter. That was the assassination of the country’s duly elected President Patrice Lumumba. It did more to discredit the CIA and America with the rest of the world than any other single dark operation. That is because Lumumba was also the moral leader of the entire continent of Africa at a most critical time: the abolition of European colonization and institution of self-Democratic rule.  Although it later surfaced that President Eisenhower green-lit the assassination and Carlucci was intimately involved with Lumumba in his final days, he survived the fall out by bald faced denials.  (Counterpunch)

While Carlucci was – being charitable – at minimum aiding and abetting the killers of Africa’s first (and perhaps last) great hope for institution of true democratic republics, Leo J. Ryan was beginning a 180-degree divergent career path. 

Mr. Ryan goes to Washington

In the thick of Carlucci’s State/CIA Congo work WWII naval veteran Ryan was a High School English and Math teacher in South San Fransico, also serving as a city council member. In 1961 he chaperoned his school’s marching band to Washington D.C. for John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade. He said that the experience inspired him to run for higher office. In the sixties he served as a California state assemblyman and in the seventies as U.S. Representative for the 11th US Congressional district covering the San Francisco Peninsula. Ryan became a sort of ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ figure. A regular Joe with little tolerance for corruption. He was a hands-on investigator. He once posed as a prisoner and lived for weeks under cover in general population in the California prison system in order to see the conditions for himself. He also doggedly pursued investigations and reforms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, which by the time he arrived in Congress was giving the United States a huge international black eye.

Ultimately, Ryan became the greatest threat to the unlawful and immoral, yet routine, CIA clandestine operations. From his position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (and its CIA subcommittee) he co-authored a bill amendment with Senator Harold Hughes that did more to reign in the rogue CIA than any other act of Congress. The purpose was to a) prevent the CIA from continuing unlawful domestic operations in violation of its charter and b) prevent the CIA from running its own rogue foreign policy hit squad as it had done for forty years, seriously damaging the United States’ image and global moral authority. The Hughes-Ryan Amendment was passed in 1974. It required the CIA to clear covert operations with the President of the United States beforehand and inform Congress of the fact of such approvals in a timely manner. Thereafter, Ryan continued to police the enforcement of the Act through close scrutiny of the CIA.

CIA hunts the Policeman

Throughout the seventies the CIA was closely monitoring Ryan’s efforts to increase control over the unruly agency. For example, its 27 June 1975 briefing to the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) notes the tracking of “H.R. 8203 (Edgar and about 10 others, including Leo Ryan) Designates Majority and Minority Leaders of each house of Congress as members of the National Security Council.” Another measure to tighten oversight of the CIA by ten members of Congress, and the CIA only saw fit to mention one name, that of Ryan. (see, CIA Monitors Ryan)

While President Carter was quickly brought to bay by the CIA, Ryan was not so easily contained. By January 1976 his watchdogging had incurred the wrath of both the Director of the CIA William Colby and the President of the United States (and Warren Commission member) Gerald Ford. According to New York Times investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Ford was upset that reports of the CIA’s meddling in Italian elections were published. Apparently, he was all for election interference in democratic western nations, it was the disclosure of the skullduggery that had him alarmed. Ryan was quoted “The passage of my amendment (Hughes-Ryan) was supposed to open things up. Somehow the assumption was that if the CIA has to tell more people, things will change. Well, they didn’t. What we don’t have is some form of approval and disapproval”, said Ryan. Hersch wrote, “[Ryan] said that he was disturbed by the fact that he and his colleagues learned of the CIA programs only after they had been formally approved by the President and put into effect.”  (New York Times, CIA AID REPORTS EVOKE FORD ANGER, January 7, 1976).

The Washington Star reported, “Complaining bitterly about secrets that were exposed as a result of congressional briefings, CIA Director William E. Colby today urged Congress to sharply reduce the number of lawmakers entitled to know what intelligence agencies are doing…BUT COLBY reserved most of his criticism for the House Intelligence Committee and for Rep. Leo Ryan, D-Calif., a member of the CIA subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee.” Of interest to our CIA MK Ultra series, the Star also noted “Colby also…criticize[d] the Senate Intelligence committee for failing to cover up the identity of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (founder and director of MK Ultra) in its report on assassination plots.” (see, Washington Star, January 23, 1976) In the same breath as fingering Leo Ryan for shining light on the CIA, the Director was most alarmed by Congress shining that light on the author and director of the CIA’s most notorious decades-long crime against America, the MK Ultra Mind Control program. (Note, Gottlieb was implicated in the Lumumba assassination along with Carlucci).

Ryan’s concerns were further articulated and reported that same month. “‘I know there are three other CIA operations going on,’ Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., told a news conference. ‘I am aware of CIA activities around the world to which I have strong objection,’ said Ryan, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. ‘I know about them, but you do not, I will not mention them because they are secret.’ But Ryan attacked Ford’s ‘national security’ reasons for keeping the two reports secret. ‘I think they endanger our national reputation rather than security,’ he said.” We all know how that ‘national security justifies government secrecy’ debate went. Sadly, Leo J. Ryan was the last elected official in America who literally risked his life in favor of maintaining an open, democratic society – which is why we have the opposite today instead. (See, Ryan – United Press International).

By early 1977, the CIA was actively working to combat reforms authored and policed by Ryan.  In its April 27, 1977 “Action Plan on congressional oversight”, the CIA legislative affairs office notes, “the Hughes-Ryan Amendment would have to be repealed or amended.” (see, CIA Action Plan)

The Clash of the Titans

By late 1978 when Carlucci was handed the keys to reinstate the military-industrial-intelligence complex (MIIC) total autocratic control, only one person stood in his way. At that moment, Leo J. Ryan (House Rep, CA-11, San Francisco) was the greatest threat to unlawful and immoral, yet routine, CIA clandestine operating basis. He would represent the last hope for significant and lasting reforms to the rogue agency.

In late August 1978 Ryan visited Patricia Hearst at the Pleasanton, California Federal prison.  He reported to the press that he believed the prison population was growing hostile toward Hearst.  (see, SF Gate Ryan visits Hearst) It might have been there that Ryan learned first-hand about the strange origins of Donald “Cinque” DeFreeze, the apparent MK Ultra Manchurian candidate (see CIA and SLA Cult Part II). So moved was Ryan by whatever he learned from and about Ms. Hearst and her erstwhile SLA cult leader, that he – along with California Senator S.I. Hayakawa – personally delivered a petition to the White House to have Hearst’s sentence commuted.

Exactly two days later brings us back to Ryan’s September 27, 1978 letter to the CIA Director demanding answers as to the CIA’s possible creation of an MK Ultra Manchurian candidate in Donald Defreeze. Note that Ryan is so confident there is fire behind the smoke he gives the Director an out from the specter of more embarrassing CIA scandal headlines: “In the event your investigation produces an affirmative response, I would appreciate a personal conversation with you about the matter before anything is done with the information.” This has led to speculation that Ryan intended to allow the explosive facts concerning CIA MK Ultra training and experimenting at Vacaville to remain a secret, provided DCI Turner could arrange for its ultimate victim – Patty Hearst – to be freed.  The tone of the letter makes it sound as if the former naval officer Ryan had a friendly relationship with Admiral Turner.

Unfortunately, by then Turner had been stripped of control over “day to day operations” of the CIA. We can now divine the significance of the reform-minded DCI Turner being elbowed out of the picture by dark ops master D/DCI Frank Carlucci. On October 18, 1978 Carlucci issued a lawyerly non-denial denial to Ryan: “Thank you for your letter of 27 September to Admiral Turner requesting confirmation or denial of the fact of CIA experiments using prisoners at the California medical facility at Vacaville. It is true that CIA-sponsored testing, using volunteer inmates, was conducted at that facility. The project was completed in 1968. Your letter referred to Donald DeFreese, known as CINQUE, and Clifford Jefferson, both of whom were inmates at Vacaville. In so far as our records reflect the names of the participants, there is nothing to indicate that either was in any way involved in the project.” (San Diego State University Jonestown Archives, emphasis supplied) As noted in CIA and SLA Cult Part II, “as far as our records reflect” was meaningless in the light of the CIA’s proven record of mass destruction of incriminating records. The last thing Ryan could be expected to do in light of Carlucci’s slippery response, would be to put the matter to rest. Unfortunately, there is no record of how Ryan responded to Carlucci’s obstruction. The entire matter was about to be forgotten because of the scandal that would eclipse both the Manson and Hearst affairs and every other media shock of the seventies.

Jim Jones and the People’s Temple

Ryan’s district also happened to contain the largest number of loud defectors from the infamous Bay Area People’s Temple (PT) cult of Jim Jones. Years earlier the controversy surrounding the PT had become so deafening that Jones and his several hundred followers had set up a compound called Jonestown in the remote jungle of Northwest Guyana.

Throughout 1978 Ryan’s constituents had been demanding that the U.S. government do something about reports that Jones was running strange mind control operations against his several hundred, mainly African-American, followers. Detailed sworn accounts told of large caches of weapons maintained to keep members imprisoned, dispensation of large amounts of psychiatric drugs, and regular instructions from Jones that he and his followers needed to prepare to commit suicide when the government ultimate swept down upon them.

The State Department and its embassy were unnaturally nonchalant about the matter. Two screaming oddities about the embassy were thoroughly overlooked by the federal government, congress, and the media when Jonestown ultimately imploded and became the biggest cult scare in world history. First, the US Embassy in Guyana was primarily a CIA controlled operation. That is because in the sixties when Guyana was swinging to the left politically, the CIA swooped in with its patented regime change ops and helped install a tin pot dictator, Forbes Burham. The CIA’s continuing presence throughout the seventies was required as Burnham’s popularity was so dismal it took election meddling and propaganda operations to keep him in power. Why Guyana was so important was made crystal clear earlier this year when a US ‘special military operation’ kidnapped the elected President of its neighbor Venezuela. Why? Venezuela is the most mineral rich country in the world. Guyana was also the world’s greatest exporter of aluminum bauxite – the raw ore used to produce aluminum.

The second strange fact about the CIA-controlled US Embassy in Guyana was that it was suspiciously friendly with Jim Jones.  Reports of Jones’ abuses were becoming more alarming and frequent throughout 1978 by first-hand witnesses who had managed to escape Jonestown. Yet, every ‘inspection’ of Jonestown by embassy personnel to verify the claims were always preceded by ample warning to Jones directly from the embassy. Predictably, the embassy never found anything to act upon. The U.S. government reports were effectively gaslighting Jonestown victims.

Leo J. Ryan decided that for whatever reasons the State Department and CIA were going to protect Jim Jones and Jonestown over the rights and concerns of his constituents. On November 14,1978 while Ryan was contemplating his next step to get around the obstruction of D/DCI Frank Carlucci concerning Patty Hearst and Donald DeFreeze, he boarded a flight out of Washington D.C. to Guyana. It was an attempt to do what the CIA and State Department refused to do, to save underprivileged, minority People’s Temple members from the clutches of a suicide-bound mind control experiment. 

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Scientology Floggers

Posted on July 2, 2016 by | 615 comments

Within 24 hours of posting “Cyber Cults”, the anti-scientology cyber-cult came unglued. If you haven’t read Cyber Cults and its links, I suggest you do so before reading on. The links are to three thoroughly unrelated people – also unrelated to me – who independently shared experiences of cult-like behavior from flogger (a blogger who flogs the alleged lives of others for money) Tony Ortega. Immediately, Ortega followers zealously rallied to his defense, characterizing the calmly-stated, fact-filled observations I linked to as evil-motivated “attacks” upon their dear leader. What was remarkable was the almost uniform application of an important characteristic of cult behavior.

That is taken from Steve Hassan whom the Ortega cult itself has promoted as quite the authority on cults.  It is, “Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault.”  Like so many hyenas, the anti-scientology cult members reactively rallied to attack in Ortega’s defense (ignoring the substance of the observations about his conduct) and viciously went after me and all three of those sharing independent experiences about their leader. We were accused of being Scientology operatives, mentally ill, and a plethora of derogatory epitaphs not fit for re-publication here.

One of Ortega’s more hysterical devotees called for censorship of myself and the other three, then targeted a facebook group (containing more than 400 members critical of scientology) as being fair game for having had the temerity to discuss the substance of my post Cyber Cults. Those pronunciamentos (and their avid acceptance and support by other cyber cultists) demonstrated most of the elements of the following additional Hassan cult characteristic:

Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth
a. Adopting the group’s ‘map of reality’ as reality
b. Instill black and white thinking
c. Decide between good vs. evil
d. Organize people into us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders)

For any who doubt these characterizations of the reaction to Cyber Cults, they can verify them by reading the thread themselves (or as much as they can stomach) at ex-scientologist message board.  While you read their treatment of the three I linked to along with me, keep in mind another of Hassan’s critical characteristics of a cult:

Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as
a. Identity guilt
b. You are not living up to your potential
c. Your family is deficient
d. Your past is suspect
e. Your affiliations are unwise
f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish
g. Social guilt
h. Historical guilt

This is an interesting study in extremism. As Robert Hughes aptly demonstrated in his book Culture of Complaint opposite extremes always seem to have a way of meeting (becoming almost indistinguishable in behavior). On that score, principal stars of the anti-scientology cult are warning people that it is “dangerous” to communicate with me. That’s right, it is dangerous to be exposed to ideas that don’t march lockstep with the cult’s doctrinal black and white, us vs. them mentality.  These include people being promoted by Ortega for working with him on tv specials on scientology disconnection. They apparently are so appalled by scientology’s notion of disconnect that they are actively advising people to disconnect from me.

What I have witnessed personally on the part of the anti-scientology community’s leading lights recently is behavior that makes the average dedicated scientologist seem extraordinarily open-minded and tolerant by comparison.

As a final side note, I noticed a lot of cyber-cultists characterizing my recent posts as some sort of ‘war’ on Tony Ortega and that I wish to engage him in some public debate.  That is another indication of their cult-like, insular belief that the real universe revolves around their play world.  As far as Ortega is concerned I am only preparing the ground to correct the public record he polluted for four months about my family.  He is merely one of thousands of click bait floggers plying his trade as floggers do. I have no intention of changing that – that is fundamentally who he is.  The vermin he carries water for might be another story.  It depends on how they continue to respond and not respond.

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Bunkeroos vs. Scientologists

Posted on June 30, 2016 by | 115 comments

The cult of Tony Ortega has recently surpassed the church of Scientology in dysfunctionally partisan behavior.  I have obtained documentary evidence that Bunkeroos (slavish believers and followers of the word of The Underground Bunker) have been soliciting donations to hire private investigators.  The Bunkeroos are promoting the fulfillment of Tony Ortega’s published suggestions on behalf of Ray Jeffrey that the home of Monique Rathbun and her two-year-old child be put under surveillance.

What is so surreal about this situation is that had Monique Rathbun not selflessly endured similar treatment in the past, Tony Ortega and Ray Jeffrey would have long ago become Scientology road kill.  The same is true for the cluster of vermin who have partnered in the Ortega/Jeffrey campaign against Monique Rathbun.

 

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Cyber Cults

Posted on June 7, 2016 by | 177 comments

 

The New York Times recently covered some interesting phenomena that is happening online, see Frank Bruni – How Facebook Warps Our Worlds. Bruni observes that our newfound abilities to facilely pick villains, jump to judgments and duck/cluster with like-opinionated people (all without showing our faces or even necessarily identifying ourselves) has led to some creepy results. You can see how some of that has played out in the world of scientology – where kettles and pots are becoming increasingly indistinguishable – at the following links:

Goodbye to all that…

Alanzo on Ortega and his Underground Bunker

Tony Ortega and Carmen Llywelyn

 

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Truth

Posted on January 2, 2015 by | 549 comments

The single most fundamental, sweeping and powerful truth in all spiritual study, contemplation and practice was probably best summed up in a single sentence.  It is an aphorism that has been popularly attributed to the Buddha:

You are what you think.

The Bible (Proverbs) succinctly echoes the same idea:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so he is.

This concept is the common denominator upon which virtually every workable religious and spiritual philosophy throughout the ages can be reduced to.  It is the truth that religion and spiritual practice of all denominations and creeds has capitalized on in one form or another.  When it is appreciated one becomes the master of his own destiny.  One is no longer the groveling effect of circumstances outside of his or her own control.  One is no longer the victim of external conditions.

Its realization can explain popular notions of attainment of nirvana, enlightenment, the kingdom of God, or as countless popular psychology/philosophy sects since the late nineteenth century have put it, self-realization.  One reaches nirvana when one recognizes it resides within. One attains enlightenment when one sees that it is all about how one thinks.  One enters into the Kingdom of God when one recognizes that realm is within one’s own heart. One is self-realized when one realizes that one is what one thinks.

Being creatures who use the via of language to conceptualize, communicate and understand, all of us require some degree or level of explanation to appreciate the power that comes with realizing the simplicity that ‘you are what you think.’ Or, some exercises that help us transcend language based associative, identification thought habits in order to perceive the truth of it.  Thus, paths and mythology and related attention-focusing practices fueled by glimpses of this truth have abounded.  Countless explications and related practices exist to bring us to the point of recognition of the seeming magic that comes with the simple truth that you are what you think.

So powerful is the recognition of this most fundamental truth that the attempted monopolization of it has made inestimable riches for priests, ecclesiastics and gurus of every stripe.  Close inspection of any one of these proprietary routes (irrespective of the ornateness of its projected piety) invariably exposes a common fault.

The fault is fatal to the accomplishment of the truth each of the routes purports to lead to.  It is incident to the attempted monopolization of the truth.

The fault invariably comes with attempted proprietorship of the truth.

The fault is that deference to the proprietor and his creations (priests, practitioners, institutions, practices, rituals, beliefs) – whether overtly required or not – ceases or prohibits attainment or realization of the truth the proprietor capitalizes on.

Once one is led to believe that the realization’s continued operation depends on some relationship external to self, the truth no longer obtains.

Virtually any practice or ism that overtly or covertly requires continued membership, obligation, participation, or belief becomes anathema to truth and all of the salutary effects that spring from it.

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Identification and Membership

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 432 comments

 

Identifying with that which arises in consciousness – as opposed to simply viewing its coming and going to, through and out of one’s own spacious awareness – is the process by which breadth of consciousness, space, process, and ability declines.  When one identifies his mind becomes the object, concept, idea, or picture rather than the spacious field through which such pass.  By identifying as a member of a particular class of people one begins to crave for and cling to that which that assumed identity craves for and clings to.  One also begins to automatically resist entire classes of objects arising in consciousness; all of those that are repelled by that with which he identifies.   All of this grasping and resistance results in persistence of dissonant energies within one’s field of awareness.

The first and most common means by which messiahs and gurus (wannabe or proclaimed; religious or secular) and their cults have entrapped, controlled, and enslaved well-meaning people by manipulation of the simple mechanics of awareness or consciousness (see Basics) is requiring the assumption of a specific identity.  Application requires one assume the identity of ‘member.’

The moment a seeker of truth assumes the identity of a designated category of person he has lost his mastery of that which arises in consciousness.  The degree he does so is the degree to which he has departed with the ability to perceive or be truth.  Once he identifies he becomes an object continually present within his own consciousness, with all its attendant baggage.  He begins to view what arises in awareness not as it is and for what it is but instead through the continuous via of the viewpoint of whatever ‘ist’ he has chosen to become.  All of the pre-determined prejudices, likes, dislikes, and judgments of his adopted ism shade and alter everything that he would otherwise view as it really is.

Self-identification breeds more identification.  It adversely influences the very process of looking.  Required membership is not only unnecessary to assisting a person increase rationality and awareness, it is injurious to it.  Becoming some-particular-body is counterproductive of the very process of self-actualization.  After some time when a cult member begins to feel entrapped he often continues so for long duration because he cannot see the source of his imprisonment.  He is certain somebody or some physical barrier is to blame. He has not yet come to realize that his jailer is himself, and his cell is self-constructed by the identity he has adopted.

Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness tends to help one separate out from unwanted previously assumed identities.  It allows them to pass on and out of consciousness along with all the other infinity of objects that so arise and so pass.  It also tends to expand one’s sphere of consciousness or awareness beyond limits one once considered fixed.

 

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Cults, Enemies and Shadows

Posted on June 1, 2013 by | 229 comments

In the early eighties with the figurative barbarians at the gates of his Scientology kingdom  L. Ron Hubbard wrote a dispatch to his personal services organization, Author Services Inc. (ASI), that stated in sum and substance: a man’s worth can be judged by the stature of his enemies.  At the time he was referring to the fact that virtually all major news media, the U.S. Department of Justice (including the FBI), the IRS, and a number of other state, provincial and federal agencies in several countries were in hot pursuit of Ron.

In its context the advice from Ron seemed intended to steady the resolve and nerve of those he had appointed with defending against his formidable enemies.  There is some truth to his little axiom.  Whether it is honorable to have so many law enforcement agencies after you is another question entirely.  Under Ron’s standard, Osama Bin Laden would be more worthy than anyone in recent memory – including Ron himself.

Something I find interesting is the number of people who twenty-seven years after Ron’s death seem to derive their own sense of worth by virtue of obsessively continuing to go after L. Ron Hubbard.  More than a quarter century after Ron’s death it seems that an active cult thrives on the central religious practice of spitting on his grave.

Ironically, the members of the cult regularly, blatantly and shameless exhibit many of the behaviors they so indignantly protest in the cult Ron left behind. They engage in thought-stopping, censorship by censure, judgmentalism, stereotyping, ‘ends justify the mean’s,’ etc.  You name the cult characteristic they accuse Ron of and they have it down in spades themselves. If someone gives Ron the slightest credit for ever having displayed any human tendency that individual is castigated, condemned and shunned violently.  If a member of the anti Ron cult steadfastly pledges allegiance to, and demonstrates it consistently,  condemning everything about Ron or the cult he left behind – or even anyone who credits Ron with any act that cannot be characterized as demonic -, why, that member is honored and can be seen to do no wrong.  Hell, he could figuratively get away with murder.

The central, most unifying unwritten tenet of the anti Ron cult is that solely by virtue of condemning Ron they are somehow victims and have thus demonstrated honorable behavior.  Notwithstanding that while the church of Scientology is renowned for over-aggressive dealings with critics, the most prominent members of the anti-Ron cult have never had a glove laid upon them by Scientology.  Most cult members attempt to position themselves with those who have in fact been dogged by Scientology. However, they have also conveniently  omitted from the hagiographies they have constructed for their heroes that most of the folks they emulate have sold out to Scientology for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.  So, you can add hyporcrisy to the list of cult-like qualities of those obsessing with Ron.

One theme I believe that may have been apparent in Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior is that Ron Hubbard became the effect of factors he could have conquered by application of the very principles he codified.  In particular, Ron’s decision to engage with and destroy his enemies resulted in his unhappy demise.  It stemmed from his violation of the following fundamental Dianetics and Scientology principle which violation mars the cult of his creation to this day: that which one obsessively resists one becomes.  It seems to me that by so aggressively demonizing Hubbard, his enemies have followed suit on that score too.

It makes me think that Ron (and the cult that arose to demonize him and yet wound up mimicking him) should have taken the advice of Lao Tzu to heart when he wrote in the Tao Te Ching that one ought to consider one’s enemy as the shadow he himself casts.

related reading: The Great Middle Path Redux

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