The Indies Defense Fund just put the Headley’s over the top to reach and exceed their $45,000 target. See, Headley Family Legal Fund. The $7,500 donation from our fund brought the Headley’s total to $50,535.00. While it took the Headleys above the $45,000 target, I went ahead and transfered our entire fund as I originally said I would, because a) I thought that appropriate to satisfy the overwhelming show of support on this blog for the Headleys, b) I know that quite in addition to the costs bill of Scientology Inc. the Headleys had to satisfy, they were out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars in their own litigation costs.
Final Accounting Indies Defense Fund:
Balance 9/16/12 : 8,520.76
Less one refund: 1,000.00
Transfer to Headley Fund: 7,500.00
Final balance: $20.76
Thanks to all of you who contributed to the Indie Defense Fund; and for all of you who additionally contributed to the Headley Family Legal Fund directly. I know a lot of regulars here made substantial contributions to both.
Here is the latest poster put out by the RCS (copyrighted to CSI who are apparently now the main fundraisers for the IAS).
It consists entirely of a quote from Chairman Mao that perhaps is more candid than he intended. He clearly delineates HIS strategy for planetary clearing. It doesn’t involve training or auditing or Grade Charts or anything so messy and difficult that would require actual DELIVERY.
The “IAS” is going to “Clear The Planet” — hip hip hooray for the IAS. Hip hip hooray for “Chairman of the Bored” of Scientology Inc. (inclusive of the IAS and every other entity that is part of the big ball of wax that rolls around under his thumb like an oversized booger).
Remember the days when Scientology was about what L. Ron Hubbard said? And even later when Miscavige at least pretended that was the case?
Well, here it is in big, bold, colorful letters: the pretense has dropped and the thin veneer of the facade has come down (to paraphrase Dan Sherman).
Somehow Steve Hall came up with the idea, or knowingness, that when 500 people stood up, told the sociopath David Miscavige ‘no’ to his campaign to wipe Scientology from the face of earth, and vowed to take action to salvage Scientology a tipping point would be achieved. A tipping point is a term of art defined as follows in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point:
…the moment of critical mass, the threshhold, the boiling point.
(The Tipping Point – Little, Brown and Company)
In my view, the tipping point in the case of Independent Scientology is that point where the quantum of free theta (spirit, life force, elan vital) in the Scientology world outstrips the quantum of entheta (encysted and disturbed life force). Of course, per Science of Survival by L. Ron Hubbard and his wonderful lectures on the book, free theta disenturbulates entheta and entheta enturbulates theta. The goal and activity of the Scientologist becomes simplicity itself according to this theta/entheta balance construct. That is, restore free theta to a being, a group, an environment, or an activity to the point where the quantum of theta is greater than the quantum of entheta. If that can be accomplished the universe concerned by its own accord begins converting entheta to more free theta.
I don’t know why, but Steve’s estimation of effort along this line resonated as accurate to me. That is, I have been in agreement with his 500 Independence announcements theory from the moment he uttered it. So far the numbers have aligned with my own evaluation of the many other factors on so many fronts we have engaged in to save Scientology from Miscavige’s jaws of defeat. That is, knowing a lot about various causes and effects over the past three years, knowing a lot about what is still in store, knowing about various overt and quiet underground railroad and delivery activities around the world, and having a perceptive and informative finger on the Scientology Inc. pulse, the Indie 500 list at Scientology-cult.com is almost like an odometer accurately measuring progress.
To put it in practical terms let’s examine the numbers. As of this morning 366 veteran Scientologists have stood, identified themselves, and spoken out. By all the multitude of indicators gleaned by the multiple viewpoint system of data collection and analysis available to me, I am of the view that we are about 73.2% of the way home (366 divided by 500 equals .732).
Steve has been promoting the Indie 500 list for a couple years now. I am making a pitch here for people to encourage others to stand up and be recognized as free thinking, responsible Scientologists by signing on. Others who stand up after the 500 target is achieved will be recognized and be appreciated. Knowing Steve, in keeping with LRH’s injunction to keep Scientology as the game where everyone wins, he’ll quickly and quietly turn it into the Indie 1000 list. But, to me the first five hundred will always constitute a special group of individuals. Call them pioneers. Call them trailblazers. Call them heroes. I will recognize them as those fellow courgeous souls who stood up when it wasn’t so safe to do so. I think we’ll all recognize one another as those who made it safer for the rest to step out into the sunshine. Sure, there are vicissitudes to come for some time into the future. But, I have a feeling by the time we reach 500 none of those future challenges will require as much personal strength, sacrifice and courage as the ones the first 500 will have faced and overcome. The point is, get on board with the Indie 500. It is a group well worth being part of. The Indie 500 will be remembered as the ones who had the wisdom and courage to realize that the harder evil comes, the harder it falls.
Earlier this year I woke up to the fact that our Church management has over time departed wildly from LRH policy and HCOB’s and that the entire spirit and survival of the movement is under threat
Ariel and I believe that the Church of Scientology has become a totalitarian activity dominated by RTC, where parishioners ignore policies like Safeguarding Technology and Keeping Scientology Working in the interest of avoiding trouble. There is no freedom within the Church to discuss whether or not a particular program adheres to policy. Current programs have serious flaws and will not take the Church where we want it to go.
Unquestioning acceptance and money are now the priorities in Scientology and we don’t like it.
It’s obvious that management feel free to alter successful LRH programs and come up with travesties like GAT. It feels like fingernails on a blackboard when my friends cheerfully say “Yes, but GAT 2 is going to fix that.” They are right back where I was for most of the last 35 years. I had an excuse for everything.
I have never thought it necessary to say this before. But I require my Church to be motivated by the Aims of Scientology and to adhere to LRH policy and tech. That has always been the condition of my support.
In view of the major departures we are witnessing, and the antipathy towards doing anything about it, I and my wife Ariel have decided to withdraw our support and resign from the Church.
What Now?
Although we no longer support the Church of Scientology, my wife and I are Scientologists and wish to continue practising our religion. However we know that the Church will now call us “squirrels” and say we are not allowed to practise Scientology without their permission.
In the past, I have been completely taken in by the Church appearing to strongly support Human Rights. Now I know it was just a public relations sham. In fact, there is no freedom of religion in Scientology. It’s completely authoritarian.
I would rather let bygones be bygones and leave the Church to its own devices. Live and let live.
But we all know that the Church routinely uses legal action, infiltration and public attacks to insist dissenting Scientologists either give up practising their religion or forge an alliance with Scientology critics. For Ariel and I, it’s a choice we should not be forced to make.
Ron always said that wisdom was for anyone who reached for it and that there should be no monopoly on the subject. This is just one more point where the current Church management disagrees with Ron.
To Church management we have only one thing left to say. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
When someone recommended Tom Martiniano’s (#119 on the Indie 500 list) book Vietnam – The Teenage Wasteland: A Hippie In A War Zone, I wasn’t real anxious to read it. I felt like I had had my share of woe-be-me remembrances of a pointless and desctructive conflict that I was fortunate enough by virtue of my age to have avoided. But, once I started reading, it was difficult to put it down.
Tom writes the book in speaking English. It is familiar, it is real, and it puts you right into his head as he’s being showered by AK-47 bullets, shooting dozens of combatants who are attempting to kill him, doing involuntary backflips in reaction to bomb strikes, and starving for three days while helping to lead a small, battered platoon out of a valley encircled by thousands of North Vietnamese troops closing in from all sides. Tom paints with his words a multi-dimensional moving picture of the action that in my view is far more authentic than any movie I have seen on Vietnam, drama or documentary.
This is anything but a pro-war memoir or patriotic plug. Nor is it an apologia for having had to kill fellow human beings or an anti-war rant. Tom was not in Vietnam by choice, he was drafted. Tom has viewpoints – and they are fascinating and shared – but he does not let them get in the way of putting you through what he – and presumably thousands like him – experienced. He took no satisifaction in killing others. But he had enough sense and will to survive to become better at killing than those who were there to kill him. You cannot help but feel the compassion that drove him to defend himself and his fellows who were similarly thrown into the purposeless killing fields. In the end, Vietnam – The Teenage Wasteland is an incredible commentary on human nature and character.
Some of the more troubling passages recount Tom’s return to the States where he is met with ridicule, harassment, discrimination and hate. Notwithstanding that treatment, Tom doesn’t turn the reader off – like many before him have – with self-pride, self-loathing, demands for pity or acknowledgment. Though he does not preach it, he does mention that Scientology might have had something to do with the balance and equillibrium he ultimately found.
But the book is not about Scientology. It is about an extraordinary man giving a factual account of one of the sorriest chapters in United States history. He doesn’t argue for that description, he demonstrates it for the reader.
By the end of the book I felt like smelting my own medal of valor and personally pinning it to this man’s uniform. In my book Tom Martiniano deserves a hundred hero’s welcomes. This is mine to him.
In particular see this statement by David Miscavige church of Scientology Inc. spokesperson Karin Pouw:
The Headleys asked the church to allow them to pay the fee in four monthly installments, but the church said no, they said. The church received no such proposal, Pouw said.
Now, please compare that to a letter the same Karin Pouw sent on church of Scientology Inc. letterhead to Vanity Fair a few days earlier, and particularly this passage here:
Mr. Headley claimed he was incapable of paying the court-ordered costs to the Church. Within days of losing his case, Mr. Headley’s attorney represented that his client could only pay $1,000 in total. Then he offered $1,000 a month for 30 months, reflecting Mr. Headley’s lack of funds.
Miscavige, did Marc make an installment proposal?
Or, Dave, didn’t he make an installment proposal?
As the late great Earle Cooley would say, how do you want to leave it?
NBC Today ran a story about the coming Vanity Fair story on Tom Cruise and David Miscavige’s unnatural and twisted relationship. They focused on the one aspect of the in-depth piece, the Nazanin Boniadi story, that VF has thus far teased about. As noted Saturday, I will be correcting inaccuracies as they are published and aired by the media.
Tom Cruise and David Miscavige had Tommy Davis and Jessica Feschback Rodriguez Davis ship Nazanin to the ‘church’ of Scientology for behavior modification because Nazanin began to put Tom Cruise into an extreme state of anxiety. Scientologists understand this state as the ‘missed withhold phenomena’. It is intense mental agitation caused when another person nearly finds out about a crime one has committed and carefully kept a secret. In Cruise’s case, Naz began to question whether her relationship with Cruise was an elaborate set-up operation personally directed by the supreme leader of corporate Scientology, David Miscavige.
Of course, we now know that Naz was right on the money. And apparently it was Naz’ nearly finding that out that sent Top Gun into orbit. Miscavige came to the rescue to have Naz hauled into Scientology Inc premises for behavior modification in the form of weeks of intense, overwhelming, and introverting forced confessions interspersed with hard, demeaning labor.
Do you want to know how Narconon was really destroyed? Here it is from somebody who witnessed it.
The Church of Scientology’s Control Over Narconon Arrowhead
by Luke Catton
Narconon in Oklahoma was the brainchild of the Church of Scientology from its inception in 1989 at the old Chilocco Indian School. It was destined to be a PR nightmare from the start because it was a contrived centerpiece designed to showcase to the rest of the world how “superior” they were to “wog” and psych-based programs.
It was a make-wrong from the very beginning and they paid dearly with the legal battles with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. The temporary cease-fire of the CARF accreditation (Commisson on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) and the ingenuity of some staff members on the Internet helped Narconon Chilocco really start to grow from the mid 90’s all the way up to about 2005.
I was sent their for underage drinking and generaly adolescent irresponsibility in 1998 and then did a program review in 1999. There were approximately 50 and 70 students there at those times, respectively. After training with Bobby Wiggins to give drug prevention lecutres in Boston in the fall of 2000, I officially joined staff at Narconon in Oklahoma in December of 2000.
In late July of 2001 Chilocco transferred to the IAS-funded facility on Lake Eufaula, which is now known as Narconon Arrowhead. When we moved there were 99 students on the program. We did everything in our power to legitemize the program in the eyes of media and government officials. We also tried integrating more with other rehabilitation philosophies to gain acceptance, including when I joined OSASA (the Oklahoma Substance Abuse Services Alliance), and was subsequently elected by them as an executive board member representing all of the members of the group. I requested to step down from my role as president at Narconon Arrowhead in 2004 after a little over two years holding that post, primarily because there were constant cross orders and purposes of what Arrowhead was supposed to be and do. There was what was needed and wanted locally, what Narconon International wanted, what ABLE International wanted, and what the Church of Scientology International and RTC wanted.
These cross orders created great confusion and disruption at times. Examples include when we were supposed to host dignitaries from other states and countries, whenever Gold wanted to come shoot new footage for event videos (Miscavige loved to use Arrowhead to get more money for the IAS) and whenever someone tied to a church celebrity came to tour or for services. For the latter, we would be forced by Celebrity Centre to write daily progress reports to them on anyone connected to high-profile CC public. This is actually against the confidentiality law that Arrowhead now uses to avoid speaking about the current tragedies there involving the deaths of recent students. These friends and family members of celebrities were unaware that any information about them was being forwarded to the Church.
Speaking of the IAS events, there was one where a photo of me speaking at an event was doctored with a sign to make it look like I was somewhere else. That also appeared in an Impact magazine with a caption “Narconon Takes the Lead”, regarding our involvement in OSASA. Whenever the event data requests came in, we always had to find something positive, because if the real stats were down then those wouldn’t be reported. I had even gotten so tired of the data requests that I tried reporting the actual stats, and it confused the lower-level people at Gold who were under the assumption all was wonderful! They of course came back and said we had to find something else to spin into a positive. In its prime, Arrowhead peaked at 258 students, 220 staff members and nearly half a million in Gross Income one week. It then plumetted to below 100 students at one point before slowly rising to the level it was at just before NBC’s Rock Center show aired, which was roughly 170 students in my estimation, or still only about 65% of the number it once was. Now I’d guess it’s below 150.
Regarding the deaths, Gary Smith and the executive council at Arrowhead had plans to put a medical detox center on site to have more medical oversight, and the carrot was dangled that more IAS funding would be provided for that expansion as well as a training center and expanded withdrawal area back in 2003. Marty recently indicated that it was approved up through him and then denied by Miscavige. After the money was denied, Arrowhead had secured pre-qualification for a loan to build the new facilities itself, but this was forbidden since the property is actually owned by a separate holding company controlled by the church. That led to the unusual solution of purchasing an old motel in McAlester around 2006 for a training facility that never really opened and a medical detox center that just gained temporary approval from the state this year and is yet to be determined if it will get a permanent license to operate.
My point is that there is no real separation from the Church and Narconon Arrowhead whenever David Miscavige or one of his cronies decides to bypass or override something on a whim. I firmly believe that the families currently suing or about to file suit against Narconon Arrowhead should also look at getting money from the Church because of its control. I guarantee that any public statement currently made by anyone at Arrowhead regarding the situation there, as well as the current emergency PR and legal programs running, must get OSA approval. That alone shows there is no real separation other than on paper. In order for justice to actually be carried out, there must be accountability and transparency. If Narconon is going to survive, it must get back to its roots and getting real products – people no longer addicted and doing well in life – rather than focusing on money and PR. Word of mouth is much more valuable than a photo op with a Christian minister any day.
The Amish don’t spend millions each year to promote themselves.
The Amish don’t build gaudy, multi-million dollar shrines to themselves with state-of-the-art a/v gadgets to cajole people in.
The Amish don’t proselytize at all.
Apparently, the growth of the Amish is simply due to their nurturing and respect for their families and decent treatment of their own.
Imagine that.
That imagining reminded me of the Village Voice interview with Mimi Faust of the reality show Love and Hip Hop Atlanta. She recounted her childhood when her mother abandoned her for Scientology Inc.’s para-military priesthood (the Sea Organization). It reminded particularly of this bit of street-wise wisdom that she imparted:
I asked Mimi what she thinks of Scientology today. She didn’t want to badmouth it, and assumed that some people find something positive in it. But she pointed out that it was her understanding Scientology wants to unite people. “Well, how are you going to keep the world together if you can’t keep your family together?”Mimi’s interview at VV
