Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: wesfager on July 03, 2003, 09:51:00 AM
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I thought this Fornits discussion forum was suppose to be about Straight and other abusive juvenile treatment programs, not about religion and the Church of Scientology (TM). And now some anonymous poster has posted a message under the name "beware" to warn us to stay away from cult expert Rick Ross. The posting cites page
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/fa ... ossr5.html (http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/false_exp/rossr5.html)
which is a page written by the Church of Scientology (TM) and references the National Council of Churches.
In around 1991 my wife and son met with an attorney with the intention of suing Straight for abusing our son Bill. I wanted no parts of a suit then, my head still spinning from the mind-control I had been under myself at Straight. One day I began to ask myself whether I had been in a cult and started researching cults. I wound up at a meeting of the Maryland chapter of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), an information and support group for current and former members of cults. We sat in a circle and went around the room sharing who we were (if we wanted to give our name), and what our experience had been in a cult (if we wanted to). When they came to me, I started describing Straight. I never gave the name Straight, just described its methods. As I spoke I heard a woman whisper under her breath "Straight." I kept talking. Then from another direction I heard another whisper "Straight." That's when I said, "You're right. It was Straight, Inc." These people already knew about Straight.
Our meetings were in public places and open to the public. Frequently Scientologists attended. They were just there. People were intimitated. Why? The Church of Scientology is one of the most litigious organizations on earth. They have sued a lot fo people so one should be careful what one says about this bizarre organization which has gotten the IRS to classify it as a church. Around 1995, through some litigation in which Scientology had a hand, the Cult Awareness Network was sued out of existence. And now the Cult Awareness is operated by the Church of Scientology!
G. Gordon Melton, deceased, of the National Council of Churches was an appologist for cults, and there are others. The Church fo Scientology has a reputation of a history of dirty tricks against those it perceives to be its enemies. Jesse Prince, the higest former Scientologist to speak out agaisnt the church, has publicy stated that one method Scientology seeks to control its parishioners is to get them to sign confessions in their own handwriting admitting to some wrongdoing. This is precisley one of Straight's own controls.
I'm not sure who the mysterious poster is who started all this. Seems to me if it were the clams they would not have wanted to point to one of their own pages. Check out these videos on the clams.
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Sten/www. ... 0min85.ram (http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Sten/www.users.wineasy.se/www.users.wineasy.se/noname/multimed/60min85.ram)
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Sten/gala ... abc2020.rm (http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Sten/galacticfederation.homeip.net/abc2020.rm)
Wes Fager
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back in the mid-ninties i worked for a guy that was a scientologist. he was a nice enough guy, but it didn't take long before he started pushing it on me. how it could make me more able, a more ethical person, etc. i didn't know much about it, but of course having gone through what i'd gone through in the past, i was of couse suspicious (i had never mentioned anything to him about my incarceration in a child abuse facility). he gave me a book to read, i glanced through it and immediately realized what a complete farce this whole thing was. especially when he began to tell me about the tremendous amounts of money he would spend on these "auditing" sessions. pt barnum sure was right. from there on in i just tried to change topics when he would bring it up. one day we were working in the city on a project. on our way home he coincidentally just had to "stop off real quick" at the church. he told me to come in with him. i hung out in the lobby while he went in to see some kind of counsler. it wasn't long before some guy came out to the lobby. he walked right up to me with a big smile on his face and said my name as if i was a long lost friend. right away i knew. seemed very similar to something else i had experienced at the age of fourteen in a similar cult. anyway, this jerk-off started to explain to me the genuis and miracle discoveries of l. ron hubbard. i tried hard not to laugh out loud as this cult victim continued on his verbal rampage of how i could benefit from scientology and it's procedures. he asked me to take a personality test, i declined. he asked me what i was afraid of, etc. what a drag....at one point he likened l ron hubbard to the second coming of the buddha. he explained to me that somewhere in some religious text it said that the buddha would return in the west with flaming red hair. with a dead serious look in his eyes he said "ron had red hair you know!" wow! he must be the buddha!...what a goof! anyway, i just never showed up for work the next day. was in one cult don't need to be in another, thanks!...sorry about that guys, i know this board is about straight but just thought i'd throw that out there! thanks wes! you're always on top of your game, and for that you deserve everyones gratitude!
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Thank you for that, that was perfect!
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On 2005-06-15 18:31:00, Antigen wrote:
"Oh, are you shittin' me? Deb provides a great deal of background and research info to these discussions.
Ginger, has no one ever done searches on these "resources" Deborah uses and Scientology before?
OK, here is on on Ablechild.org that Deborah uses to post on the thread:
"Mental Health Screening in Schools Signals the End of Parental Rights"
Search: Ablechild.org Scientology
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Welcome to our Scientology Resource Library!
... Monks to help others - Dec 22, Scientology.org. Scientology Volunteer Ministry launches New Holiday Hope ... of America. AbleChild.org - parents for label-free, drug-free education ...
http://www.liveandgrow.org/ (http://www.liveandgrow.org/)
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Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)
... http://www.ablechild.org (http://www.ablechild.org). Church of Scientology International. http://www.scientology.org (http://www.scientology.org) ...
http://www.cchr.org/feature/directory (http://www.cchr.org/feature/directory)
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ablechild/breaking news
Breaking News. Tom Cruise Slams Child Psychiatrists. CRUISE LAUNCHES WAR ON PSYCHIATRISTS ... as part of a week-long special about his scientology beliefs, the movie hunk declares, "I'm going right after psychiatry ...
http://www.ablechild.org/alert.htm (http://www.ablechild.org/alert.htm)
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Senator John Ensign Takes the Lead in Protecting Children
... On our website alone, http://www.ablechild.org (http://www.ablechild.org) we have over 300 signatures of parents nationwide that have ... established by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to investigate and expose ...
http://www.fightforkids.com/press/030728.htm (http://www.fightforkids.com/press/030728.htm)
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Parents Call on Senate to Prohibit Coerced Psychiatric Drugging in Schools
... similar abuse and coercion on her website http://www.ablechild.org (http://www.ablechild.org), which was written in support of the Child ... founded by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to investigate and expose ...
http://www.fightforkids.org/press/040510.htm (http://www.fightforkids.org/press/040510.htm)
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Parenting Quotes
Share This Page. Report Abuse. Edit your Site. Browse Sites. " Previous | Top 100 | Next " Jane's Pages. Parenting Quotes
http://members.tripod.com/janeand6-ivil/id13.html (http://members.tripod.com/janeand6-ivil/id13.html)
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Bush Signs Legislation Prohibiting Forced Medication of Children
... health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology, in applauding Congress for passing precedent-setting ... http://www.ablechild.org/ (http://www.ablechild.org/) [edit on 04/12/5 by ...
http://www.atsnn.com/story/102597.html (http://www.atsnn.com/story/102597.html)
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Outside The Beltway : Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise in War of the Words
... However, as a dedicated follower of Scientology, Cruise is of the belief that mind-altering medications of any ... http://www.MINDFREEDOM.ORG (http://www.MINDFREEDOM.ORG). http://www.ORTHOMED.ORG (http://www.ORTHOMED.ORG). http://www.ABLECHILD.ORG (http://www.ABLECHILD.ORG) ...
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/10811 (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/10811)
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Memos Display Drug Firms
... was particularly unpopular among followers of the Church of Scientology. It was not until this year that ... attacks by the Church of Scientology, which was lobbying to get Prozac ...
http://www.ablechild.org/newsarchive/me ... rug_firm.. (http://www.ablechild.org/newsarchive/memos_display_drug_firm..).
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Alex Jones Promotes Scientologist
... from ablechild.org, which is a Scientology-affiliated organization. ... 2005, Ablechild.org attended the awards ceremony of this Scientology front group ...
http://www.libertytothecaptives.net/ale ... tes_scie.. (http://www.libertytothecaptives.net/alex_jones_promotes_scie..).
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Welcome to my website
Ralph Waldo Emerson Check out these links Ablechild.org What is REALLY happening to our money...
http://www.captainjakeman.com/ (http://www.captainjakeman.com/)
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Keyword
Sean Hannity Promotes Church of Scientology Front Group ... http://www.ablechild.org (http://www.ablechild.org) (845) 677-4118 Sheila Matthews National Vice President...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=adhd (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=adhd)
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Issue: School Violence - Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)
Ablechild.org http://www.Ablechild.org (http://www.Ablechild.org) RitalinDeath.com http://www.RitalinDeath.com (http://www.RitalinDeath.com) ... Privacy Policy Established in 1969 by the Church ofScientology ...
http://www.cchr.org/issues/school/reading/ (http://www.cchr.org/issues/school/reading/)
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Over 500 Parents Say Schools Coerced Them to Administer Psychiatric Drugs to Children
... Weathers' website, AbleChild.org lists the names of parents who report they've been coerced ... 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations ...
http://www.fightforkids.org/press/031113.htm (http://www.fightforkids.org/press/031113.htm)
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Buffalo Scientology Info
And, yes the Church of Scientology likes to take the credit for people?s successes. ... http://www.ablechild.org/data/thelist.asp (http://www.ablechild.org/data/thelist.asp) ...
http://www.buffaloscientologyinfo.com/interview0.html (http://www.buffaloscientologyinfo.com/interview0.html)
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Over 500 Parents Say Schools Coerced Them to Administer Psychiatric...
Mrs. Weathers' website, AbleChild.org lists the names of parents who report they've been ... in 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate...
http://www.fightforkids.com/press/031113.htm (http://www.fightforkids.com/press/031113.htm)
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Celebrities Urge Senate to Move on Bill Against Forced Psychiatric...
...organization, Parents for a Label and Drug Free Education (AbleChild.org.) She is frequently ... established by the Church of Scientology in...
http://www.cchr.org/press/2004/040229.htm (http://www.cchr.org/press/2004/040229.htm)
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RehabNZ/ Criminal Rehabilitation. Improving Society. Drugs. Drug Rehabilitation & Training.
Links. Scripps Alcohol Treatment Center. Scripps McDonald Center is a nationally recognized organization dedicated to alcohol treatment. The Vitamins And Nutrition Centre
http://www (http://www).
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The Washington Post has reported that the Church of Scientology has paid $8,674,843 to settle a case that was filed in 1980 by Lawrence Wollersheim, a former member who blamed church policies for injuring his mental health. [Leiby R. Ex-Scientologist collects $8.7 million in 22-year-old case. Washington Post, May 10, 2002] According to the article: In 1986, a jury awarded Wollersheim $5 million in compensatory damages and $25 million to punish the church for what jurors called intentional and negligent "infliction of emotional distress." The award total was reduced on appeal to $2.5 million. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the judgment in 1994, but the ensuing battle to collect the money (plus accumulated interest) continued until shortly before a hearing scheduled in Los Angeles Superior Court. According to an article on Factnet, the Church paid because it was afraid that the hearing could result in certain evidence being presented at the hearing that would jeopardize its tax-exempt status.
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The New Freedom init happens to fit nicely into the clams' regular rants. Not at all surprising that they'd come down against it.
I don't believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
--Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist
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Ginger,
I have never done this to this degree,
but Deborah's constant demonizing and
utilization of resources I have never
heard of, made it dawn on me to do
Scientology searches on her references.
Does it bother you that she utilizes
Scientolgy resoureces, or front groups,
without declaring?
Paul
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On 2003-07-03 07:28:00, Anonymous wrote:
"back in the mid-ninties i worked for a guy that was a scientologist. he was a nice enough guy, but it didn't take long before he started pushing it on me. how it could make me more able, a more ethical person, etc. i didn't know much about it, but of course having gone through what i'd gone through in the past, i was of couse suspicious (i had never mentioned anything to him about my incarceration in a child abuse facility). he gave me a book to read, i glanced through it and immediately realized what a complete farce this whole thing was. especially when he began to tell me about the tremendous amounts of money he would spend on these "auditing" sessions. pt barnum sure was right. from there on in i just tried to change topics when he would bring it up. one day we were working in the city on a project. on our way home he coincidentally just had to "stop off real quick" at the church. he told me to come in with him. i hung out in the lobby while he went in to see some kind of counsler. it wasn't long before some guy came out to the lobby. he walked right up to me with a big smile on his face and said my name as if i was a long lost friend. right away i knew. seemed very similar to something else i had experienced at the age of fourteen in a similar cult. anyway, this jerk-off started to explain to me the genuis and miracle discoveries of l. ron hubbard. i tried hard not to laugh out loud as this cult victim continued on his verbal rampage of how i could benefit from scientology and it's procedures. he asked me to take a personality test, i declined. he asked me what i was afraid of, etc. what a drag....at one point he likened l ron hubbard to the second coming of the buddha. he explained to me that somewhere in some religious text it said that the buddha would return in the west with flaming red hair. with a dead serious look in his eyes he said "ron had red hair you know!" wow! he must be the buddha!...what a goof! anyway, i just never showed up for work the next day. was in one cult don't need to be in another, thanks!...sorry about that guys, i know this board is about straight but just thought i'd throw that out there! thanks wes! you're always on top of your game, and for that you deserve everyones gratitude!"
Haha, that's classic! :lol: I'm surprised you didn't burst out laughing when they guy made the comment about red hair. Thanks for the amusing story. :em:
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On 2005-06-20 09:42:00, Paul wrote:
Does it bother you that she utilizes
Scientolgy resoureces, or front groups,
without declaring?
Paul"
I'm guessing she probably didn't know the connection. Does it bother me? Not really. I suppose I'm used to it by now. It's not different from people referencing PURE material when talking about WWASP. Well, if you search on any of the WWASP related terms, you come up w/ PURE material. Some people just don't look over the entire site to find out who and what PURE is.
It's nice of you to point out this connection, as it certainly does wreck the credibility of this particular source. But it's not asif ablechild.org is the only source for this type of info. I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure.
--Clarence Darrow, American lawyer
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
return undef() if /coercion/i;
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On 2005-06-20 11:05:00, Antigen wrote:
"
On 2005-06-20 09:42:00, Paul wrote:
Does it bother you that she utilizes
Scientolgy resoureces, or front groups,
without declaring?
Paul"
I'm guessing she probably didn't know the connection...
Well if she wants tell the folks at Fornit's
then they will know. If not, well that is
free choice.
You are very forgiving of Deborah, I wonder
if you would forgive others, or me, as well.
Since Deborah has been verified by you to
be knowledgable in the field of helping
the mentally ill, to not know about COS
or the validity, or history of all types
of psychiatric care is suspect. Sorry, but
it just is.
I am pretty sure when any groups has a set
of values based on absolutes, that is reason
to be suspicous that there is a spin on the
truth for whatever reason.
I guess I should have been more suspicious
when Deborah went off the handle about the
mentioning of "evidence based" practices.
After all, one wouldn't want to know if
their car mechanic knows what they are doing,
correct, why would they want to know that
their medical professionals know what they are
doing :smile:
Most legitimate "alternative" medicine sites,
whether physical or mental are now complementary
and don't demonize anyone's choice of treatment
philosophy.
It is all about being as healthy as possible,
while we are all lucky enough to be alive.
Ginger, if everyone on earth was as forgiving
as you are to Deborah, then there would be
no conflicts and certainly no war!
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Just another cult.
I see no difference between this cult and any other religious cult. A big guy living in the clouds, a spaceship, whatever the fuck these nuts believe in always has seemed strange to me. Have you ever lookd into the eyes of a true-believer? It's scary.
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The Los Angeles Times
Part 6: Attack the Attacker
Suits, Protests Fuel a Campaign Against Psychiatry
As part of its strategy, the movement created a nationwide uproar over the drug Ritalin, used to treat hyperactive children.
(Friday, 29 June 1990, page A48:1)
In recent years, a national debate flared over Ritalin, a drug used for more than three decades to treat hyperactivity in children.
Across the country, multimillion-dollar lawsuits were filed by parents who contended that their children had been harmed by the drug.
Major news organizations -- including The Times -- devoted extensive coverage to whether youngsters were being turned into emotionally disturbed addicts by psychiatrists and pediatricians who prescribed Ritalin.
Protests were staged at psychiatric conferences, with airplanes trailing banners that read, "Psychs, Stop Drugging Our Kids," and children on the ground carrying placards that pleaded, "Love Me, Don't Drug Me."
In 1988, the clamor reached a point where 12 U.S. congressmen demanded answers from the Food and Drug Administration and three other federal agencies about the safety of Ritalin. The FDA assured the legislators that the drug is "safe and effective if it is used as recommended."
The Ritalin controversy seemed to emerge out of nowhere. It frightened parents, put doctors on the defensive and suddenly called into question the judgment of school administrators who authorize the drug's use to calm disruptive, hyperactive children.
The uproar over Ritalin was triggered almost single-handedly by the Scientology movement.
In its fight against Ritalin, Scientology was pursuing a broader agenda. For years, it has been attempting to discredit the psychiatric profession, which has long been critical of the self-help techniques developed by the late L. Ron Hubbard and practiced by the church.
The church has spelled out the strategy in its newspaper, "Scientology Today."
"While alerting parents and teachers to the dangers of Ritalin," the newspaper stated, "the real target of the campaign is the psychiatric profession itself.... And as public awareness continues to increase, we will no doubt begin to see the blame for all drug abuse and related crime move onto the correct target -- psychiatry."
The contempt Scientologists hold for the psychiatric profession is rooted in Hubbard's writings, which constitute the church's doctrines. He once wrote, for example, that if psychiatrists "had the power to torture and kill everyone, they would do so.... Recognize them for what they are; psychotic criminals -- and handle them accordingly."
Hubbard's hatred of psychiatry dated back to the 1950 publication of his best-selling book "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." It was immediately criticized by prominent mental health professionals as a worthless form of psychotherapy.
Hubbard used his church as a pulpit to attack psychiatrists as evil people, bent on enslaving mankind through drugs, electroshock therapy and lobotomies. He convinced his followers that psychiatrists were also intent on destroying their religion.
A church spokesman said that psychiatrists are "busy attempting to destroy Scientology because if Scientology has its voice heard, it will most assuredly remove them from the positions of power that they occupy in our society."
Scientologists call Ritalin a "chemical straitjacket" leading to delinquency, violence and even suicide. They claim that it is being used to indiscriminately drug hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren each day.
Medical professionals say the Scientology claims cannot be supported and are causing undue panic.
Known generically as methylphenidate hydrochloride, Ritalin is intended for youngsters afflicted with "attention deficit disorder," more commonly known as hyperactivity. It is a central nervous system stimulant that, paradoxically, produces calmer behavior in young people.
The government classifies it as a controlled substance.
FDA statistics show that between 600,000 and 700,000 people (70% of them children or adolescents) are being treated with Ritalin.
Between 1980 and 1987, the latest period for which statistics are available, the FDA received 492 complaints of serious problems resulting from the drug. The agency said this level of complaints indicates the drug is safe.
Medical experts agree that some doctors may be too quick to prescribe Ritalin as the sole treatment for problems that warrant a more moderate or creative approach. But, they add, the drug itself is not to blame.
Scientologists have waged their war against Ritalin and psychiatry through the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization formed by the church in 1969 to investigate mental health abuses.
Its members often wear shirts reading "Psychiatry Kills" and "Psychbusters." They have recently broadened their campaign against psychiatric drugs to include Prozac, the nation's top selling anti-depressant, with 1989 sales estimated at $350 million.
Throughout the world, the commission has consistently fought against electroshock therapy and lobotomies, practices that Scientologists believe are barbarous and should be banned.
In the U.S., the commission has encouraged parents to file lawsuits against doctors who have prescribed Ritalin to their children and then has provided nationwide publicity for the suits.
The commission's president is veteran Scientologist Dennis Clarke. Although he is not a doctor, Clarke has positioned himself as the country's most quoted Ritalin expert. In public appearances, Clarke cites a litany of alarming statistics, some of which are exaggerated, unsubstantiated or impossible to verify.
Some medical experts agree that the use of Ritalin in the schools has grown dramatically over the last two decades, but not to the level claimed by Clarke.
For example, Clarke has maintained that in Minneapolis, 20% of children under 10 attending mostly white schools in 1987 were on Ritalin and the percentage was double that in predominantly black schools.
"If they are saying that is the statistic in Minneapolis, they are lying," said Vi Blosberg, manager of health services in the 39,000-student district. She said that fewer than 1% of students districtwide were taking Ritalin or other drugs used to control hyperactivity during the year in question.
Using its statistics, the Citizens Commission in late 1987 lobbied the congressional Republican Study Committee to push Congress for an investigation of Ritalin.
Its campaign attracted the attention of Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.), who is on the House Education and Labor Committee.
Ballenger's legislative director, Ashley McArthur, said she met with the Citizens Commission because the statistics about Ritalin abuse "caught our attention." She said Ballenger and 11 congressional colleagues sent letters to four federal agencies, including the FDA, requesting reports on Ritalin usage and safety.
McArthur said she later learned that Scientologists were behind the Citizens Commission and that some of the information they provided did not "add up."
"Once we knew their whole organization was run by Scientologists, it put a whole different perspective on it," McArthur said. "I think they'll try to use any group they can."
A recent Scientology publication said the anti-Ritalin effort was "one of (the commission's) major campaigns in the 1980s."
"Hundreds of newspaper articles and countless hours of radio and television shows on this issue resulted in thousands of parents around the world contacting (the commission) to learn more about the damage psychiatrists are creating on today's children," the article stated.
"The campaign against Ritalin brought wide acceptance of the fact that (the commission) and the Scientologists are the ones effectively doing something about the problems of psychiatric drugging," the publication added.
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On 2005-06-20 13:42:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Just another cult.
I see no difference between this cult and any other religious cult. A big guy living in the clouds, a spaceship, whatever the fuck these nuts believe in always has seemed strange to me. Have you ever lookd into the eyes of a true-believer? It's scary."
I agree with you, with the exception of Scientology.
They are large cult, unrelentless, clandestine and hurtful. Very scary.
Look even right here at Fornit's they have someone as intelligent as Ginger tricked into thinking Deborah is as innocent at propoganda as apple pie!
Very scary indeed!!!
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On 2003-07-03 10:45:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Thank you for that, that was perfect!"
-
On 2005-06-20 14:13:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2003-07-03 10:45:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Thank you for that, that was perfect!"
"
-
On 2005-06-20 14:13:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2005-06-20 14:13:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2003-07-03 10:45:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Thank you for that, that was perfect!"
"
"
-
On 2005-06-20 13:29:00, Paul wrote:
Ginger, if everyone on earth was as forgiving
as you are to Deborah, then there would be
no conflicts and certainly no war!
Darlin, thanks! That is about the highest bit of praise I can remember receiving lately.
Well if she wants tell the folks at Fornit's
then they will know. If not, well that is
free choice.
You are very forgiving of Deborah, I wonder
if you would forgive others, or me, as well.
Of course. I often run accross cites around here that are just remarkably poorly chosen. Ferinstance, the Washington Times, which is owned by the Unification Church (Moonies). Or, as I mentioned earlier, PURE. On the whole, people have just not been brought up lately to consider the source. It's a real shocker to some when they first get on the net and discover that not everything you read in print is the truth.
Since Deborah has been verified by you to
be knowledgable in the field of helping
the mentally ill, to not know about COS
or the validity, or history of all types
of psychiatric care is suspect. Sorry, but
it just is.
That's a rediculous statement, Paul. Sloppy propaganda there. Clams generally don't go out of their way to let everyone know about their affiliations w/ these front groups. It was only recently that some activists found out they were providing drug education programs in California schools.
Unless you know to look for the connections, you won't find them.
I am pretty sure when any groups has a set
of values based on absolutes, that is reason
to be suspicous that there is a spin on the
truth for whatever reason.
Yes, any group, including those that are absolutely sure that professional psychiatry is so entirely trustworthy they should have free, spontanious access to screen and treat our children. Do you have any idea how radical that is? We can't legally compel someone to feed their kids nutritious food (nor should we) or properly treat a common cold (as it should be). But you seem to think it's perfectly OK for some stranger w/ some certificate or other to enter into a Dr./Pt. relationship w/ our minor kids w/o informed consent. That's madness, Paul! It really and truely is! How would you like it if your new shrink showed up at your workplace or home and just informed you that he/she is your new shrink? You don't know anything about them, they might be a quack or a sadist or just someone you don't feel comfortable dealing w/ for whatever reason. But, there they are, your new doctor assigned randomly by some bureaucrat you'll never meet.
Is that an acceptable way to find a good shrink? If not for you, then what makes it OK for our kids?
Most legitimate "alternative" medicine sites,
whether physical or mental are now complementary
and don't demonize anyone's choice of treatment
philosophy.
It is all about being as healthy as possible,
while we are all lucky enough to be alive.
Ok, are we talking about choices? Or are we talking about mandatory mental health screening of all of our children?
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
-- Hunter S. Thompson
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On 2005-06-20 16:04:00, Antigen wrote:
Since Deborah has been verified by you to
be knowledgable in the field of helping
the mentally ill, to not know about COS
or the validity, or history of all types
of psychiatric care is suspect. Sorry, but
it just is.
That's a rediculous statement, Paul. Sloppy propaganda there. Clams generally don't go out of their way to let everyone know about their affiliations w/ these front groups. It was only recently that some activists found out they were providing drug education programs in California schools.
Unless you know to look for the connections, you won't find them.
Hmmm, absolutely right, and thanks for that statement.
I had no clue, and thought nothing of it when first mentioned to me from an article in Reason magazine. I still didn't think much of COS and their impacts, well, because I had no reason to learn about their activities.
Sorta like learning about a software program, for not reason.
Then when Deborah was so demonizing I figured what the heck, google name + Scientology and jeeperz, it is amazing.
I am pretty sure when any groups has a set
of values based on absolutes, that is reason
to be suspicous that there is a spin on the
truth for whatever reason.
Yes, any group, including those that are absolutely sure that professional psychiatry is so entirely trustworthy they should have free, spontanious access to screen and treat our children.
I am baffled as to your quotes about forced medication and forced TeenScreens?
There is no forced medications unless there is a court hearing. It is so very rare. You make it sound like it is a common practice. In San Diego County we have 3.3 million people and less than two hundred are on court ordered medication. Most of these are only for three months.
Why? Because there are mandatory Reese hearings and when the patient is able to improve and speak logically then off goes the court order. If you just want to say I am bullshitting then you must come up with some proof. I see the numbers for San Diego County and I know the Patient Advocates who are paid to defend these patients. There just is no rampant forced psychiatric medication. You can say it all you want, but that is just bullshit.
Regarding forced TeenScreen with a voluntary program. Where is the forced in voluntary? I don't get it? Where do you get your information to make such absolute statements when the program is voluntary.
Heck, no one is complaining. Even the case where the parents of Chelsea are saying they did not receive the letter. The dad set up a hot line. No one called. No one called the school to complain nor to have their kids not take the screening.
If a parent does not want the screening then communicate. That is all, no biggie.
Voluntary is voluntary. Tell me where you get this big forced treatment data from?
BTW - I wrote to the reporter who did the story about Chelsea, her parents and the hot line. No response. Some story.
I think it is pretty obvious the Rutherford Institute just needed a test case, and they set one up. It will get tossed out because of the claims that they are making, they are unfounded.
They should stick to the facts, if that is what they are. They didn't receive the notice in the mail. They should not state that there is community outcry because there just isn't.
Do you have any idea how radical that is? We can't legally compel someone to feed their kids nutritious food (nor should we) or properly treat a common cold (as it should be). But you seem to think it's perfectly OK for some stranger w/ some certificate or other to enter into a Dr./Pt. relationship w/ our minor kids w/o informed consent. That's madness, Paul! It really and truely is! How would you like it if your new shrink showed up at your workplace or home and just informed you that he/she is your new shrink? You don't know anything about them, they might be a quack or a sadist or just someone you don't feel comfortable dealing w/ for whatever reason. But, there they are, your new doctor assigned randomly by some bureaucrat you'll never meet.
That would be a great statement if it were not pure hysteria. There is no forced treatment without a Reese hearing. 200 temporary cases in a land of 3.2 million is just not a mass treatment of forced medication, by any standards.
Psychiatrist are not forced on people. Sorry, we have all the protections of the law. The government even pays the Patient Advocate to uphold the law that it is not broken. So sorry, I do attend the meetings and get the data. You are making hysterical statements.
Besides, how do you even know if you haven't stepped foot in a school since you home schooled your kids? Did you read it on a dubios web site.
Remember to alway check the name + Scientology for now on, I am, thanks to Deborah!
-
Ginger,
That last post was me, I forgot to log in.
As you can see I am experimenting with the
qoute system, and making quite a mess ...
Sorry about that.
Paul
-
On 2005-06-20 16:58:00, Paul wrote:
"Ginger,
That last post was me, I forgot to log in.
As you can see I am experimenting with the
qoute system, and making quite a mess ...
Sorry about that.
Paul"
That's quite alright. I fix this sort of thing all the damned time. If I weren't so lazzy, I'd dig into the code and make it so that this wouldn't happen. Oh well, pennywise, pound foolish.
Screening pre-school kids for anti-social behavior is about as useful as screening the Christian Coalition for sanctimonious behavior.
Sanho Tree
-
While I'm tempted to go point for point w/ you here, I won't. This is getting longer and more involved than I can promise to sustain. So I'll just quote and address your closing thoughts.
On 2005-06-20 16:55:00, Anonymous wrote:
That would be a great statement if it were not pure hysteria. There is no forced treatment without a Reese hearing. 200 temporary cases in a land of 3.2 million is just not a mass treatment of forced medication, by any standards.
Psychiatrist are not forced on people. Sorry, we have all the protections of the law. The government even pays the Patient Advocate to uphold the law that it is not broken. So sorry, I do attend the meetings and get the data. You are making hysterical statements.
Besides, how do you even know if you haven't stepped foot in a school since you home schooled your kids? Did you read it on a dubios web site.
Remember to alway check the name + Scientology for now on, I am, thanks to Deborah!
Reese hearings only happen for people who challenge the status quo. Most people, sadly, just do as instructed.
Whenever I look in on homeschooling circles, I run accross ppl who are looking into it specifically to get around school drugging requirements. And we only hear from those who question the standard policy. The rest just take the advice of the professionals (who, most often, are only following the directives of ppl holding teaching certs) and go ahead and give the kid his drugs.
And I've run into some of those parents, too, through my kids friendships. I've seen mothers threaten their kids w/ pills; "If you don't start behaving, I'll make you take your pill!"
It's sickening.
Even going back to my memories of elementary school, I hung out w/ the smart kids. No, not the ones who got 100% on all tests and strove to lap up to whatever neurotic charachter presented themselves as the authority for the moment. I mean the kids who made fun of them and who laughed when I did. In other words, the kids who were paying attention and had a nack for spotting bullshit.
Half of us got drugged and set on the 'special needs' track. It was frightening! The kid who was animated and smart and funny in 1st grade was now sitting cross legged on the floor, gap mouthed, drooling and entirely out of it. His name was Andrew. I loved him in a purely honest and innocent way. Didn't understand what was happening, but I damned sure knew it wasn't good!
The rest of us who's parents (for good reasons or silly ones) passed on the drugging option wound up in the advanced classes. I'll never forget our trip to Sea Camp. We earned it by scoring at least 80% on a highschool level biology course. Coincidentally or not, half the kids in that advanced track had been recomended for the same treatment Andrew got.
There's more. Paul, I understand where you're coming from. I'm not at all opposed to new or old drugs to treat whatever ails ya. In fact, I'm fully in favor of elimitating the FDA and leaving it to the free market to decide what stands the test of time.
Trouble is, most people in our society are not willing or able to look out for themselves. They expect and need some professional to make their decisions for them. That's a problem. Life is far too complex to leave it to some rote code. We all have to think for ourselves, on our feet.
In a word, I think abuse of psyche drugs and treatments occures far more frequently than you see. You only hear from those who have resisted.
Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
--Arthur C. Clarke, author
-
On 2005-06-20 16:55:00, Anonymous wrote:
Besides, how do you even know if you haven't stepped foot in a school since you home schooled your kids? Did you read it on a dubios web site.
Sorry, missed this. I have friends. Most of my kids' friends go to school. My 8yo tried it for 2 mos last year. Like being w/ other kids, hated that socializing on any meaningful level was strictly verboten. And my 15yo did Kindergarten and 1st grade. And my 21yo stayed in school halfway through 9th grade. It didn't exactly give her a leg up on life!
School is in the papers every single day around here. Everybody's involved. It permeates our small society. Even homeschool social circles seem to focus more on how to deal and treat w/ the schoolpeople than any other issue.
B'lieve me, I have plenty of contact w/ school culture!
And now the liberals want to stop President Reagan from selling chemical warfare agents and military equipment to Saddam Hussein and why? Because Saddam 'allegedly' gassed a few Kurds in his own country. Mark my words. All of this talk of Saddam Hussein being a 'war criminal' or 'committing crimes against humanity' is the same old thing. LIBERAL HATE SPEECH! and speaking of poison gas... I SAY WE ROUND UP ALL THE DRUG ADDICTS AND GAS THEM TOO!
--Rush Limbaugh, November 3, 1988
-
On 2005-06-20 18:33:00, Antigen wrote:
Antigen, obviously I don't know how to use the quotes properly, yet, but here are your right on:
1) This is getting longer and more involved than I can promise to sustain. So I'll just quote and address your closing thoughts.
*** Yup, this is getting exhausting ...
2) Trouble is, most people in our society are not willing or able to look out for themselves. They expect and need some professional to make their decisions for them. That's a problem. Life is far too complex to leave it to some rote code. We all have to think for ourselves, on our feet.
*** It is when things go wrong, for sure, but unlike an insurance company, county mental health is charged with helping those in need. So yes you are right, people are unprepared to deal with adversity and illness, allergies or whatever makes them dysfuntional.
3) In a word, I think abuse of psyche drugs and treatments occures far more frequently than you see. You only hear from those who have resisted.
*** I am not sure. Everyone has to sign a consent form. But you are right, most are dumb or don't care making them dumb.
The problem, and it is huge, is the jailed mentally ill are not at about 30,000 in California. There are now more in jail than where ever institutionalized. Interestingly in jail, there is no forced treatment. Same ruled, Reese hearings, etc. In jail if you refuse meds and a good diet, etc. to try and get better, then it is ok to just sit and pass time. Nothing forced, and besides it is expensive to give meds to those who are going to spit them out.
So, some say anytime a mental health advocate mentions the jailed, or those in trouble or those tormenting those around them, or just dysfunctional and making people mad ... there is accusations of focusing on the negative.
One can't win.
It sure is better to be well than be sick ...
OK, good night, I am curious to what these quotes will look like :smile:
Oh, neat, I just discovered "look it over" ok, enough for now ... time to weedwack, of all things.
-
On 2005-06-20 18:59:00, Antigen wrote:
"
On 2005-06-20 16:55:00, Anonymous wrote:
Besides, how do you even know if you haven't stepped foot in a school since you home schooled your kids? Did you read it on a dubios web site.
Sorry, missed this. I have friends. Most of my kids' friends go to school. My 8yo tried it for 2 mos last year. Like being w/ other kids, hated that socializing on any meaningful level was strictly verboten. And my 15yo did Kindergarten and 1st grade. And my 21yo stayed in school halfway through 9th grade. It didn't exactly give her a leg up on life!
School is in the papers every single day around here. Everybody's involved. It permeates our small society. Even homeschool social circles seem to focus more on how to deal and treat w/ the schoolpeople than any other issue.
B'lieve me, I have plenty of contact w/ school culture!
Sorry about that. A previous post you made gave me the wrong idea. No doubt, you are in the thick of it.
I readily admit I have no exposure accept for some small presentation and I am just now getting involved in the Children's System of Care for County Mental Health ... and I am in over my head. Luckily I am just observing and there to preserve the patients (kids and parent's rights). I know that will put a smile on you face. But, that is my role ...
-
"There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." --Alfred Lord Tennyson
I think you'll do a damned fine job; for one reason, and one reason only. You're not afraid to wade in hip deep into philisophicaly enemy teritory.
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
-- Ben Franklin At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
-
On 2005-06-20 19:37:00, Antigen wrote:
I think you'll do a damned fine job; for one reason, and one reason only. You're not afraid to wade in hip deep into philisophicaly enemy teritory.
It is simpler than a friendly or enemy territory analysis.
People have the right to believe whatever they want, and do what they want.
Others don't have the right to lie and deceive to influence people to do what they want them to do.
That is all, there is nothing much more to it.
-
I'll have to read this thread in the AM after I get jacked up on some coffee. Fuck Scientology, it's for the birds. Goodnight all...
-
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A36:3)
The Times today begins a six-part series on the Church of Scientology, the controversial religion founded by the late author L. Ron Hubbard.
Since its creation nearly four decades ago, Scientology has grown into a worldwide movement that, in recent months, has spent millions of dollars promoting its founder and his self-help book, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health."
In the past five years alone, more than 20 of Hubbard's fiction and nonfiction books have become national bestsellers -- most of them achieving that status after his death in January, 1986.
Scientology executives estimate the church's membership to be more than 6.5 million, although some former members believe the actual number is smaller.
Scientology's largest stronghold is in Hollywood, the organization's management nerve center. The church is also a major presence in Clearwater, Fla., where Scientologists from around the world go for training.
No other contemporary religion has endured a more turbulent past or a more sustained assault on its existence than the Church of Scientology. It has weathered crises that would have crippled, if not destroyed, other fledgling religious movements -- testimony to the group's determination to survive.
Eleven of its top leaders -- including Hubbard's wife -- were jailed for burglarizing the U.S. Justice Department and other federal agencies in the 1970s. Within the church, there have been widespread purges and defections. Some former members have filed lawsuits accusing the church of intimidating its critics, breaking up families and using high-pressure sales techniques to separate large sums of money from its followers.
In 1986, Scientology paid an estimated $5 million to settle more than 20 of the suits, without admitting wrongdoing. In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed never again to criticize Scientology or Hubbard and to have their lawsuits forever sealed from public view.
Through all this, the church has persevered, dismissing its critics in government, psychiatry and the media as "criminals" and "anti-religion" demagogues who have conspired to persecute Scientology.
Today, the Scientology movement is writing a new chapter in its history, one that has attracted a new generation of supporters and detractors. Through official church programs and a network of groups run by Scientology followers, the movement is reaching into American society as never before to gain legitimacy and new members.
The apparent intent is to position Hubbard as a sort of 20th-Century Renaissance man, lending new credibility to his Scientology teachings.
Among other things, church members are disseminating his writings in schools across the U.S., assisted by groups that seldom publicize their Scientology connections.
Scientology followers also have established a number of successful consulting firms that sell Hubbard's management techniques to health care professionals and businessmen. In the process, many are steered into the church.
And Scientologists are the driving force behind two organizations active in the scientific community. The organizations have been busy trying to sell government agencies and the public on a chemical detoxification treatment developed by Hubbard.
There is little question that, although Hubbard is gone, Scientology is here to stay -- and doing its best to meet his expectations. "The world is ours," he once told his adherents. "Own it."
--------------------------------------------------
The Fornits posts; one article a day:
http://www.lermanet2.com (http://www.lermanet2.com) - - Exposing the con
The Scientology Story
by Joel Sappell and Robert W. Welkos
A six-part series in the Los Angeles Times,
June 24-29, 1990
---
About This Series
---
1. The Making of L. Ron Hubbard (Sunday, June 24)
1. Chapter 1: The Mind Behind the Religion
2. Chapter 2: Creating the Mystique
3. Chapter 3: Life with L. Ron Hubbard
4. Chapter 4: The Final Days
5. Defining the Theology
6. Burglaries and Lies Paved a Path to Prison
7. The Man in Control
8. Staking a Claim to Blood Brotherhood
9. Church Scriptures Get High-Tech Protection
---
2. The Selling of a Church (Monday, June 25)
1. Church Markets Its Gospel with High-Pressure Sales
2. Shoring Up Its Religious Profile
3. The Courting of Celebrities
---
3. Inside the Church (Tuesday, June 26)
1. Defectors Recount Lives of Hard Work, Punishment
---
4. Reaching into Society (Wednesday, June 27)
1. Church Seeks Influence in Schools, Business, Science
2. Courting the Power Brokers
3. The Org Board
4. Foundation Funds Provided to Jaime Escalante
---
5. The Making of a Best-selling Author (Thursday, June 28)
1. Costly Strategy Continues to Turn Out Bestsellers
---
6. Attack the Attacker (Friday, June 29)
1. On the Offensive Against an Array of Suspected Foes
2. Suits, Protests Fuel a Campaign Against Psychiatry
3. A Lawyer Learns What It's Like to Fight the Church
4. The Battle with the I.R.S.
5. The Battle with the "Squirrels
-
http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynew ... atimes.htm (http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/latimes/latimes.htm)
[The Fornits posts; one article a day:]
Reposted from:
http://www.lermanet2.com (http://www.lermanet2.com) - - Exposing the con
---
The Scientology Story
by Joel Sappell and Robert W. Welkos
A six-part series in the Los Angeles Times,
June 24-29, 1990
---
About This Series
---
1. The Making of L. Ron Hubbard (Sunday, June 24)
1. Chapter 1: The Mind Behind the Religion
2. Chapter 2: Creating the Mystique
3. Chapter 3: Life with L. Ron Hubbard
4. Chapter 4: The Final Days
5. Defining the Theology
6. Burglaries and Lies Paved a Path to Prison
7. The Man in Control
8. Staking a Claim to Blood Brotherhood
9. Church Scriptures Get High-Tech Protection
---
2. The Selling of a Church (Monday, June 25)
1. Church Markets Its Gospel with High-Pressure Sales
2. Shoring Up Its Religious Profile
3. The Courting of Celebrities
---
3. Inside the Church (Tuesday, June 26)
1. Defectors Recount Lives of Hard Work, Punishment
---
4. Reaching into Society (Wednesday, June 27)
1. Church Seeks Influence in Schools, Business, Science
2. Courting the Power Brokers
3. The Org Board
4. Foundation Funds Provided to Jaime Escalante
---
5. The Making of a Best-selling Author (Thursday, June 28)
1. Costly Strategy Continues to Turn Out Bestsellers
---
6. Attack the Attacker (Friday, June 29)
1. On the Offensive Against an Array of Suspected Foes
2. Suits, Protests Fuel a Campaign Against Psychiatry
3. A Lawyer Learns What It's Like to Fight the Church
4. The Battle with the I.R.S.
5. The Battle with the "Squirrels
-
http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynew ... lat-1a.htm (http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/latimes/lat-1a.htm)
The Los Angeles Times
Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter One:
The Mind Behind the Religion
From a life haunted by emotional and financial troubles, L. Ron Hubbard brought forth Scientology. He achieved godlike status among his followers, and his death has not deterred the church's efforts to reach deeper into society.
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A1:1)
It was a triumph of galactic proportions: Science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard had discarded the body that bound him to the physical universe and was off to the next phase of his spiritual exploration -- "on a planet a galaxy away."
"Hip, hip, hurray!" thousands of Scientologists thundered inside the Hollywood Palladium, where they had just been told of this remarkable feat.
"Hip, hip, hurray! Hip, hip, hurray!" they continued to chant, gazing at a large photograph of Hubbard, creator of their religion and author of the best-selling "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health."
Earlier that day, the Church of Scientology had summoned the faithful throughout Los Angeles to a "big and exciting event" at the Palladium.
They were told nothing more, just to be there.
As evening fell, thousands arrived, most decked out in the spit-and-polish mock Navy uniforms that are symbolic of the organization's paramilitary structure.
The excited assemblage was about to learn that their beloved leader, a man who dubbed himself "The Commodore," had died. Yet, death was never mentioned.
Instead, the Scientologists were told that Hubbard had finished his spiritual research on this planet, charting a precise path for man to achieve immortality. And now it was on to bigger challenges somewhere beyond the stars.
His body had "become an impediment to the work he now must do outside of its confines," the awe-struck crowd was informed. "The fact that he ... willingly discarded the body after it was no longer useful to him signifies his ultimate success: the conquest of life that he embarked upon half a century ago."
The death certificate would show that Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, 74, who had not been seen publicly for nearly six years, died on Jan. 24, 1986, of a stroke on his ranch outside San Luis Obispo.
But to Scientologists, the man they affectionately called "Ron" had ascended.
The glorification of L. Ron Hubbard that brisk January night was not surprising. Over more than three decades he had skillfully transformed himself from a writer of pulp fiction to a writer of "sacred scriptures."
Along the way, he made a fortune and achieved his dream of fame.
"I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form, even if all the books are destroyed,"
Hubbard wrote to the first of his three wives in 1938, more than a decade before he created Scientology.
"That goal," he said, "is the real goal as far as I am concerned."
From the ground up, Hubbard built an international empire that started as a collection of mental therapy centers and became one of the world's most controversial and secretive religions.
The intensity, combativeness and salesmanship that distinguish Scientology from other religions can be traced directly to Hubbard. For, even in death, the man and his creation are inseparable.
He wrote millions of words in scores of books instructing his followers on everything from how to market Scientology to how to fend off critics. His prolific and sometimes rambling discourses constitute the gospel of Scientology, its structure and its soul. Deviations are punishable.
Through his writings, Hubbard fortified his clannish organization with a powerful intolerance of criticism and a fierce will to endure and prosper. He wrote a Code of Honor that urged his followers to "never desert a group to which you owe your support" and "never fear to hurt another in a just cause."
He transmitted to his followers his suspicious view of the world -- one populated, he insisted, by madmen bent on Scientology's destruction.
His flaring temper and searing intensity are deeply branded into the church and reflected in the behavior of his faithful, who shout at adversaries and even at each other. As one former high-ranking member put it: "He made swearing cool."
Hubbard's followers say his teachings have helped thousands kick drugs and allowed countless others to lead fuller lives through courses that improve communication skills, build self-confidence and increase an individual's ability to take control of his or her life.
He was, they say, "the greatest humanitarian in history."
But there was another side to this imaginative and intelligent man. And to understand Scientology, one must begin with L. Ron Hubbard.
In the late 1940s, Hubbard was broke and in debt. A struggling writer of science fiction and fantasy, he was forced to sell his typewriter for $28.50 to get by.
"I can still see Ron three-steps-at-a-time running up the stairs in around 1949 in order to borrow $30 from me to get out of town because he had a wife after him for alimony," recalled his former literary agent, Forrest J. Ackerman.
At one point, Hubbard was reduced to begging the Veterans Administration to let him keep a $51 overpayment of benefits. "I am nearly penniless," wrote Hubbard, a former Navy lieutenant.
Hubbard was mentally troubled, too. In late 1947, he asked the Veterans Administration to help him get psychiatric treatment.
"Toward the end of my (military) service," Hubbard wrote to the VA, "I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected.
"I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations, and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all."
In his most private moments, Hubbard wrote bizarre statements to himself in notebooks that would surface four decades later in Los Angeles Superior Court.
"All men are your slaves," he wrote in one.
"You can be merciless whenever your will is crossed and you have the right to be merciless," he wrote in another.
Hubbard was troubled, restless and adrift in those little known years of his life. But he never lost confidence in his ability as a writer. He had made a living with words in the past and he could do it again.
Before the financial and emotional problems that consumed him in the 1940s, Hubbard had achieved moderate success writing for a variety of dime-store pulp magazines. He specialized in shoot'em-up adventures, Westerns, mysteries, war stories and science fiction.
His output, if not the writing itself, was spectacular. Using such pseudonyms as Winchester Remington Colt and Rene LaFayette, he sometimes filled up entire issues virtually by himself. Hubbard's life then was like a page from one of his adventure stories. He panned for gold in Puerto Rico and charted waterways in Alaska. He was a master sailor and glider pilot, with a reported penchant for eye-catching maneuvers.
Although Hubbard's health and writing career foundered after the war, he remained a virtual factory of ideas. And his biggest was about to be born.
Hubbard had long been fascinated with mental phenomena and the mysteries of life.
He was an expert in hypnotism. During a 1948 gathering of science fiction buffs in Los Angeles, he hypnotized many of those in attendance, convincing one young man that he was cradling a tiny kangaroo in his hands.
Hubbard sometimes spoke of having visions.
His former literary agent, Ackerman, said Hubbard once told of dying on an operating table. And here, according to Ackerman, is what Hubbard said followed:
"He arose in spirit form and looked at the body he no longer inhabited....
In the distance he saw a great ornate gate.... The gate opened of its own accord and he drifted through. There, spread out, was an intellectual smorgasbord, the answers to everything that ever puzzled the mind of man. He was absorbing all this fantabulous information.... Then he felt like a long umbilical cord pulling him back. And a voice was saying,
'No, not yet.' "
Hubbard, according to Ackerman, said he returned to life and feverishly wrote his recollections. He said Hubbard later tried to sell the manuscript but failed, claiming that "whoever read it
(a) went insane, or
(b) committed suicide."
Hubbard's intense curiosity about the mind's power led him into a friendship in 1946 with rocket fuel scientist John Whiteside Parsons.
Parsons was a protege of British satanist Aleister Crowley and leader of a black magic group modeled after Crowley's infamous occult lodge in England.
Hubbard also admired Crowley, and in a 1952 lecture described him as "my very good friend."
Parsons and Hubbard lived in an aging mansion on South Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena. The estate was home to an odd mix of Bohemian artists, writers, scientists and occultists. A small domed temple supported by six stone columns stood in the back yard.
Hubbard met his second wife, Sara Northrup, at the mansion. Although she was Parsons' lover at the time, Hubbard was undeterred. He married Northrup before divorcing his first wife.
Long before the 1960s counterculture, some residents of the estate smoked marijuana and embraced a philosophy of promiscuous, ritualistic sex.
"The neighbors began protesting when the rituals called for a naked pregnant woman to jump nine times through fire in the yard," recalled science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp, who knew both Hubbard and Parsons.
Crowley biographers have written that Parsons and Hubbard practiced "sex magic." As the biographers tell it, a robed Hubbard chanted incantations while Parsons and his wife-to-be, Cameron, engaged in sexual intercourse intended to produce a child with superior intellect and powers. The ceremony was said to span 11 consecutive nights.
Hubbard and Parsons finally had a falling out over a sailboat sales venture that ended in a court dispute between the two.
In later years, Hubbard tried to distance himself from his embarrassing association with Parsons, who was a founder of a government rocket project at California Institute of Technology that later evolved into the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Parsons died in 1952 when a chemical explosion ripped through his garage lab.
Hubbard insisted that he had been working undercover for Naval Intelligence to break up black magic in America and to investigate links between the occultists and prominent scientists at the Parsons mansion.
Hubbard said the mission was so successful that the house was razed and the black magic group was dispersed.
But Parsons' widow, Cameron, disputed Hubbard's account in a brief interview with The Times. She said the two men "liked each other very much" and "felt they were ushering in a force that was going to change things."
In early 1950, Hubbard published an intriguing article in a 25-cent magazine called Astounding Science Fiction. In it, he said that he had uncovered the source of man's problems.
The article grew into a book, written in one draft in just 30 days and entitled "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." It would become the most important book of Hubbard's life.
The book's introduction declared that Hubbard had invented a new "mental science," a feat more important perhaps than "the invention of the wheel, the control of fire, the development of mathematics."
Hubbard himself said he had uncovered the source of, and the cure for, virtually every ailment known to man. Dianetics, he said, could restore withered limbs, mend broken bones, erase the wrinkles of age and dramatically increase intelligence.
Not surprisingly, the nation's mental health professionals were unimpressed.
Famed psychoanalyst Rollo May voiced the sentiments of many when he wrote in the New York Times that "books like this do harm by their grandiose promises to troubled persons and by their oversimplification of human psychological problems."
But "Dianetics" was an instant bestseller when it hit the stands in May, 1950, and made Hubbard an overnight celebrity. Arthur Ceppos, who published the book, said Hubbard spent his first royalties on a luxury Lincoln.
Hubbard had tapped the public's growing fascination with psychotherapy, then largely accessible only to the affluent. "Dianetics," in fact, was popularly dubbed "the poor man's psychotherapy" because it could be practiced among friends for free.
In the book, Hubbard claimed to have discovered the previously unknown "reactive mind," a depository for emotionally or physically painful events in a person's life. These traumatic experiences, called "engrams," cause a variety of psychosomatic illnesses, including migraine headaches, ulcers, allergies, arthritis, poor vision and the common cold, Hubbard said.
The goal of dianetics, Hubbard said, is to purge these painful experiences and create a "clear" individual who is able to realize his or her full potential.
Catapulted from obscurity, Hubbard decided in the summer of 1950 to prove in a big way that his new "science" was for real.
He appeared before a crowd of thousands at the Shrine Auditorium to unveil the "world's first clear," a person he said had achieved a perfect memory. Journalists from numerous newspapers and magazines were there to document the event.
He placed on display one Sonya Bianca, a young Boston physics major. But when Hubbard allowed the audience to question her, she performed dismally.
Someone, for example, told Hubbard to turn his back while the girl was asked to describe the color of his tie. There was silence. The world's first clear drew a blank.
"It was a tremendous embarrassment for Hubbard and his friends at the time," recalled Arthur Jean Cox, a science fiction buff who attended the presentation.
More problems were on the way for the man whose book promised miracles but whose own life would move from one crisis to the next until his death.
He became embroiled, for instance, in a nasty divorce and child custody battle that raised embarrassing questions about his mental stability.
His wife, Sara Northrup Hubbard, accused him of subjecting her to "scientific torture experiments" and of suffering from "paranoid schizophrenia" -- allegations that she would later retract in a signed statement but that would find their way into government files and continue to haunt Hubbard.
She said in her suit that Hubbard had deprived her of sleep, beaten her and suggested that she kill herself, "as divorce would hurt his reputation."
During the legal proceedings, Sara placed in the court record a letter she had received from Hubbard's first wife.
"Ron is not normal," it said. "I had hoped you could straighten him out. Your charges probably sound fantastic to the average person -- but I've been through it -- the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits which you charge -- 12 years of it."
At one point in the marital dispute with Sara, Hubbard spirited their 1-year-old daughter, Alexis, to Cuba. From there, he wrote to Sara:
"I have been in the Cuban military hospital, and am being transferred to to the United States as a classified scientist immune from interference of all kinds.... My right side is paralyzed and getting more so.
"I hope my heart lasts. I may live a long time and again I may not. But Dianetics will last ten thousand years -- for the Army and Navy have it now."
Hubbard, who had earlier accused his wife of infidelity and said she suffered brain damage, closed his letter by threatening to cut his infant daughter from his will.
"Alexis will get a fortune unless she goes to you, as she then would get nothing," he wrote.
He also wrote a letter to the FBI at the height of the Red Scare accusing Sara of possibly being a Communist, along with others whom he said had infiltrated his dianetics movement.
The FBI, after interviewing Hubbard, dismissed him as a "mental case."
In one seven-page missive to the Department of Justice in 1951, he linked Sara to alleged physical assaults on him. He said that on two separate occasions he was punched in his sleep by unidentified intruders.
And then came the third attack.
"I was in my apartment on February 23rd, about two or three o'clock in the morning when the apartment was entered, I was knocked out, had a needle thrust into my heart to give it a jet of air to produce 'coronary thrombosis' and was given an electric shock with a 110 volt current. This is all very blurred to me. I had no witnesses. But only one person had another key to that apartment and that was Sara."
After months of sniping at each other -- and a counter divorce suit by Hubbard in which he accused his wife of "gross neglect of duty and extreme cruelty" -- the couple ended their stormy marriage, with Sara obtaining custody of the child. In later years, Hubbard would deny fathering the girl and, as threatened, did not leave her a cent.
Not only was Hubbard's domestic life a shambles in 1951, his once-thriving self-help movement was crumbling as public interest in his theories waned.
The foundations Hubbard had established to teach dianetics were in financial ruin and his book had disappeared from The New York Times bestseller list.
But the resilient self-promoter came up with something new. He called it Scientology, and his metamorphosis from pop therapist to religious leader was under way.
Scientology essentially gave a new twist to the Dianetics notion of painful experiences that lodge in the "reactive mind." In Scientology, Hubbard held that memories of such experiences also collect in a person's soul and date back to past lives.
For many of Hubbard's early followers, Scientology was not believable, and they broke with him. But others would soon take their place, conferring upon Hubbard an almost saintly status.
But as Hubbard's renown and prosperity grew in the 1960s, so, too, did the questions surrounding his finances and teachings. He was accused by various governments -- including the U.S. -- of quackery, of brainwashing, of bilking the gullible through high-pressure sales techniques.
In 1967, Hubbard took several hundred of his followers to sea to escape the spreading hostility. But they found only temporary safe harbor from what they believed had become an international conspiracy to persecute them.
Their three ships, led by a converted cattle ferry dubbed the "Apollo," were bounced from port to port in the Mediterranean and Caribbean by governments that wrongly suspected the American skipper and his secretive, clean-cut crew of being CIA operatives.
While anchored at the Portuguese island of Madeira, they were stoned by townsfolk carrying torches and chanting anti-CIA slogans.
"They (were) throwing Molotov cocktails onto the boat but they weren't lit," a crew member recalled. "Fortunately, this was not an experienced mob."
The years at sea were a watershed for Hubbard and Scientology. He instituted a Navy-style command structure that is evident today in the military dress and snap-to behavior of the organization's staff members.
Hubbard named himself the "Commodore," and subordinates followed his orders like Annapolis midshipmen.
As former Scientology ship officer Hana Eltringham Whitfield put it: "Scientologists on the whole thought that Hubbard was like a god, that he could command the waves to do what he wanted, that he was totally in control of his life and consequences of his actions."
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Wow, that was great. What a flake. I have zero respect for all of the Hollywood stars that latch on to Scientology. It both disgusts and frightens me.
Booo, Tom Cruise and John Travolta!! Booo!!! ::noway:: The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
--Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist
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On 2005-06-20 22:29:00, Paul wrote:
Others don't have the right to lie and deceive to influence people to do what they want them to do.
It's not always intentional deception. Sometimes determined and sincere altruists do more harm than people who intend harm.Truth does not have to be accepted on faith. Scientists do not hold hands every Sunday, singing, "Yes gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! Amen.
--Dan Barker, former evangelist and author
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Hey,im tellin' ya ritalin never did me any favors
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On 2005-06-21 08:59:00, Antigen wrote:
"
On 2005-06-20 22:29:00, Paul wrote:
Others don't have the right to lie and deceive to influence people to do what they want them to do.
It's not always intentional deception. Sometimes determined and sincere altruists do more harm than people who intend harm.
Ginger, good point, thanks!
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"Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones"
TOOL - Aenima
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Id put more stock in something like Aliester Crowleys "golden dawn" before Id buy the whole "Aliens in the center of earth" scientology bit..
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So would I. :smokin:
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I dated a morman that claimed the morman church prevented her from becoming a drunken whore.
She truely believed that she would be a worthless slut without the Morman Church. She claimed she did not believe in pre-martal sex. When we did have sex she wanted me to go confess to her church bishop, who was also her father.
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I think I'm confused about my religions. Scientology believes in aliens living in the center of the earth? What?!!! WTF?
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http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynew ... lat-1b.htm (http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/latimes/lat-1b.htm)
The Los Angeles Times
Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter Two:
Creating the Mystique
Hubbard's image was crafted of truth, distorted by myth.
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A38:1)
To his followers, L. Ron Hubbard was bigger than life. But it was an image largely of his own making.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge put it bluntly while presiding over a Church of Scientology lawsuit in 1984. Scientology's founder, he said, was "virtually a pathological liar" about his past.
Hubbard was an intelligent and well-read man, with diverse interests, experience and expertise. But that apparently was not enough to satisfy him. He transformed his frailties into strengths, his failures into successes. With a kernel of truth, he concocted elaborate stories about a life he seemingly wished was his.
There was his claim, for example, of being a nuclear physicist. This was an important one because he said he had used his knowledge of science to develop Scientology and dianetics.
Hubbard was, in fact, enrolled in one of the nation's early classes in molecular and atomic physics at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., where he unsuccessfully pursued a civil engineering degree. But he flunked the class.
Church of Scientology officials deny that Hubbard claimed to be a nuclear physicist and point to a taped lecture in which he admits earning "the worst grades" in the class. But they fail to mention contradictory statements Hubbard made when it suited his needs.
Perhaps Hubbard's most fantastic -- and easily disproved -- claims center on his military service.
Hubbard bragged that he was a top-flight naval officer in World War II, who commanded a squadron of fighting ships, was wounded in combat and was highly decorated.
But Navy and Veterans Administration records obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act reveal that his military performance was, at times, substandard.
The Navy documents variously describe him as a "garrulous" man who "tries to give impressions of his importance," as being "not temperamentally fitted for independent command" and as "lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. He acts without forethought as to probable results."
Hubbard was relieved of command of two ships, including the PC 815, a submarine chaser docked along the Willamette River in Oregon.
According to Navy records, here is what happened:
Just hours after motoring the PC 815 into the Pacific for a test cruise, Hubbard said he encountered two Japanese submarines. He dropped 37 depth charges during the 55 consecutive hours he said he monitored the subs, and summoned additional ships and aircraft into the fight.
He claimed to have so severely crippled the submarines that the only trace remaining of either was a thin carpet of oil on the ocean's surface.
"This vessel wishes no credit for itself," Hubbard stated in a report of the incident. "It was built to hunt submarines. Its people were trained to hunt submarines."
And no credit Hubbard got.
"An analysis of all reports convinces me that there was no submarine in the area," wrote the commander of the Northwest Sea Frontier after an investigation.
Hubbard next continued down the coast, where he anchored off the Coronado Islands just south of San Diego. To test his ship's guns, he ordered target practice directed at the uninhabited Mexican islands, prompting the government of that neutral country to complain to U.S. officials.
A Navy board of inquiry determined that Hubbard had "disregarded orders" both by conducting gunnery practice and by anchoring in Mexican waters.
A letter of admonition was placed in Hubbard's military file which stated "that more drastic disciplinary action ... would have been taken under normal and peacetime conditiions.
During his purportedly illustrious military career, Hubbard claimed to have been awarded at least 21 medals and decorations. But records state that he actually earned four during his Naval service: the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal, which was given to all wartime servicemen.
One of the medals to which Hubbard staked claim was the Purple Heart, bestowed upon wounded servicemen. Hubbard maintained that he was "crippled" and "blinded" in the war.
Early biographies issued by Scientology say that he was "flown home in the late spring of 1942 in the secretary of the Navy's private plane as the first U.S.-returned casualty from the Far East."
Thomas Moulton, second in command on PC 815, said Hubbard once told of being machine-gunned across the back near the Dutch East Indies.
On another occasion, Moulton testified during the 1984 Scientology lawsuit, Hubbard said his eyes had been damaged by the flash of a large-caliber gun. Hubbard himself, in a tape-recorded lecture, said his eyes were injured when he had "a bomb go off in my face."
These injury claims are significant because Hubbard said he cured himself through techniques that would later form the tenets of Scientology and Dianetics.
Military records, however, reveal that he was never wounded or injured in combat, and was never awarded a Purple Heart.
In seeking disability money, Hubbard told military doctors that he had been "lamed" not by a bullet but by a chronic hip infection that set in after his transfer from the warm tropics of the Pacific to the icy winters of the East Coast, where he attended a Navy-sponsored school of military government.
Moreover, his eye problems did not result from an exploding bomb or the blinding flash of a gun. Rather, Hubbard said in military records, he contracted conjunctivitis from exposure to "excessive tropical sunlight."
The truth is that Hubbard spent the last seven months of his active duty in a military hospital in Oakland, for treatment of a duodenal ulcer he developed while in the service.
Hubbard did, however, receive a monthly, 40% disability check from the government through at least 1980.
Government records also contradict Hubbard's claim that he had fully regained his health by 1947 with the power of his mind and the techniques of his future religion.
Late that year, he wrote the government about having "long periods of moroseness" and "suicidal inclinations." That was followed by a letter in 1948 to the chief of naval operations in which he described himself as "an invalid."
And, during a 1951 examination by the Veterans Administration, he was still complaining of eye problems and a "boring-like pain" in his stomach, which he said had given him "continuous trouble" for eight years, especially when "under nervous stress."
Significantly, that examination occurred after the publication of "Dianetics," which promised a cure for the very ailments that plagued the author himself then and throughout his life, including allergies, arthritis, ulcers and heart problems.
In Hubbard's defense, Scientology officials accuse others of distorting and misrepresenting his military glories.
They say the Navy "covered up" Hubbard's sinking of the submarines either to avoid frightening the civilian population or because the commander who investigated the incident had earlier denied the existence of subs along the West Coast.
Moreover, church officials charge that records released by the military are not only grossly incomplete but perhaps were falsified to conceal Hubbard's secret activities as an intelligence officer.
To support their point, a church official gave the Times an authentic-looking Navy document that purports to confirm some of Hubbard's wartime claims. After examining the document, though, a spokesman for the Naval Military Personnel Command Center said its contents are not supported by Hubbard's personnel record.
He declined further comment.
Hubbard's biographical claims were not confined to the events of his adult life.
He claimed, for example, that as a youth he traveled extensively throughout Asia, studying at the feet of holy men who first kindled in him a burning fascination with the spirit of man.
"My basic ordination for religious work," Hubbard once wrote, "was received from Mayo in the Western Hills of China when I was made a lama priest after a year as a neophyte."
Hubbard did, in fact, tour China while his father was stationed in Guam with the Navy. However, a diary of that period makes no mention of his spiritual awakening. Rather, it portrays him as an intolerant young Westerner with little understanding of an unfamiliar culture or race.
He described the lama temples he toured as "very odd and heathenish."
After visiting the Great Wall of China, Hubbard remarked: "If China turned it into a rolly coaster it could make millions of dollars every year."
He described the "yellow races" as "simple and one-tracked." Wrote Hubbard:
"The trouble with China is there are too many chinks here."
Hubbard also claimed that he spent many of his childhood years on a large cattle ranch in Montana, where he grew up.
"Long days were spent riding, breaking broncos, hunting coyote and taking his first steps as an explorer," according to a Hubbard-approved biography issued by the church.
But Hubbard's aunt laughed when asked whether he had been a pint-sized cowboy.
"We didn't have a ranch," said Margaret Roberts, 87, of Helena, Mont. "Just several acres (with) a barn on it.... We had one cow (and) four or five horses."
Hubbard's biographical claims took center stage during the 1984 Superior Court lawsuit in which the church accused a former member of stealing the Scientology founder's private papers. Ex-member Gerald Armstrong said he took the documents as protection against possible church harassment.
Judge Paul G. Breckenridge Jr. found in Armstrong's favor and, in his ruling, issued a harsh assessment of the church's revered leader.
"The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements...."
"At the same time," Breckenridge continued, "it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating and inspiring his adherents."
Hubbard, the judge said, was "a very complex person."
The church and Hubbard's widow, Mary Sue, have appealed Breckenridge's decision, saying that it was based on "irrelevant, distorted and, in many instances, invented testimony" of embittered former Scientologists.
"Any controversy about him (Hubbard) is like a speck of dust on his shoes compared to the millions of people who loved and respected him," a Scientology spokesman said. "What he has accomplished in the brief span of one lifetime will have impact on every man, woman and child for 10,000 years."
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Yeah they do...they also claim they can cure heroin withdrawals by "laying on hands" :rofl:
I wonder if their hands have loaded syringes in them ..hehe
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http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynew ... lat-1c.htm (http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/latimes/lat-1c.htm)
The Los Angeles Times
Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter Three:
Life With L. Ron Hubbard
Aides indulged his eccentricities and egotism.
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A39:1)
L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed being pampered.
He surrounded himself with teen-age followers, whom he indoctrinated, treated like servants and cherished as though they were his own children.
He called them the "Commodore's messengers."
" 'Messenger!' " he would boom in the morning. "And we'd pull him out of bed," one recalled.
The youngsters, whose parents belonged to Hubbard's Church of Scientology, would lay out his clothes, run his shower and help him dress.
He taught them how to sprinkle powder in his socks and gently slip them on so as not to pull the hairs on his legs.
They made sure the temperature in his room never varied from 72 degrees. They boiled water at night to keep the humidity just right. They would hand him a cigarette and follow in his footsteps with an ashtray.
When Hubbard's bursitis acted up, a messenger would wrap his shoulders in a lumberjack shirt that had been warmed on a heater.
Long gone were those days when Hubbard was scratching out a living. Now, in the early 1970s, he fancied silk pants, ascots and nautical caps. It was evident that the red-haired author had enjoyed many a good meal.
It was a high honor for Scientologists to serve beside Hubbard, even if it meant performing such dreary tasks as ironing his clothes or ferrying his messages. But, for some, it was also disconcerting. The privileged few who worked at his side saw personality flaws and quirks not reflected in the staged photographs or in Hubbard's biographies.
They came to know the man behind the mystique.
They said he could display the temperament of a spoiled child and the eccentricities of a reclusive Howard Hughes.
When upset, Hubbard was known to erupt like a volcano, spewing obscenities and insults.
Former Scientologist Adelle Hartwell once testified during a Florida hearing on Scientology that she saw Hubbard "throw fits."
"I actually saw him take his hat off one day and stomp on it and cry like a baby."
Hubbard had been hotheaded since his youth, when his red hair earned him the nickname "Brick."
One of Hubbard's classmates recalled a day in 11th Grade when the husky Hubbard, for no apparent reason, got into a fight with Gus Leger, the lanky assistant principal at Helena High School in Helena, Mont.
"Old Gus was up at the blackboard," recalled Andrew Richardson. "He taught geometry. He was laying out this problem and Brick let loose with a piece of chalk and he missed him. Leger whirled and threw an eraser at Brick, who ducked, and it hit a girl right behind him in the face."
Hubbard wrestled with the teacher, then stuffed him into a trash can, said Richardson.
"We all got to laughing and he (Leger) couldn't get up," Richardson said, chuckling at the memory.
Richardson said that, while the students helped their teacher, Hubbard stormed out and never returned. He left to be with his parents in the Far East, where his father was stationed with the Navy.
In later life, one thing that could throw the irascible Hubbard into a rage was the scent of soap in his clothes. "I was petrified of doing the laundry," one former messenger said.
To protect themselves from a Hubbard tirade, the messengers rinsed his clothes in 13 separate buckets of water.
Doreen Gillham, who had who spent her teen years with Hubbard, never forgot what happened when a longtime aide offered him a freshly laundered shirt after he had taken a shower.
"He immediately grabbed the collar and put it up to his nose, then threw it down," said Gillham, who died recently in a horseriding accident.
"He went to the closet and proceeded to sniff all the shirts. He would tear them off the hangers and throw them down. We're talking 30 shirts on the floor."
He let out a "long whine," Gillham said, and then began screaming about the smell.
"I picked up a shirt off the floor, smelled it and said, 'There is no soap on this shirt.' I didn't smell anything in any of them. He grudgingly put it on," said Gillham, who added: "Deep down inside, I'm telling myself, 'This guy is nuts!' "
Gillham said that Hubbard had become obsessed not only with soap smells but with dust, which aggravated his allergies. He demanded white-glove inspections but never seemed satisfied with the results.
No matter how clean the room, Gillham said, "he would insist that it be dusted over and over and over again."
Gillham, formerly one of Hubbard's most loyal and trusted messengers, said his behavior became increasingly erratic after he crashed a motorcycle in the Canary Islands in the early 1970s.
"He realized his own mortality," she said. "He was in agony for months. He insisted, with a broken arm and broken ribs, that he was going to heal himself and it didn't work."
According to those who knew him well, Hubbard was neither affectionate nor much of a family man. He seemed closer to his handpicked messengers than to his own seven children, one of whom he later denied fathering.
"His kids rarely, if ever, got to see him," Gillham said, until his wife Mary Sue "insisted on weekly Sunday night dinners."
Hubbard expected his children to live up to the family name and do nothing that would reflect badly on him or the church. And for that reason, his son Quentin was a problem.
Quentin had once tried suicide with a drug overdose and was confused about his sexual orientation -- a fact that was quietly discussed among his friends and at the highest levels of the church.
"He thought Quentin was an embarrassment," said Laurel Sullivan, Hubbard's former public relations officer, who had a falling out with the organization in 1981. "And he told me that several times."
In 1976, Quentin parked on a deserted road in Las Vegas and piped the exhaust into his car. At the age of 22, he killed himself.
When Hubbard was told of the suicide, "he didn't cry or anything," according to a former aide. His first reaction, she said, was to express concern over the possibility of publicity that could be used to discredit Scientology.
Hubbard also had problems with another son, his namesake, L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Hubbard feuded with his eldest son for more than 25 years, dating back to 1959 when L. Ron Hubbard Jr. split with Scientology because he said he was not making enough money to support his family. In the years that followed, he changed his name to Ronald DeWolfe and accused his father of everything from cavorting with mobsters to abusing drugs.
For his part, Hubbard accused his son of being crazy.
Although Hubbard cast himself as a humble servant to mankind, former assistants said he was not without ego. He craved adulation and coveted fame.
Sullivan, the former public relations officer, recalled how after an appearance he would ask: "How many minutes of applause did I get? How many times did they say, 'Hip, hip, hurray!'? How many people showed up?
How many letters did I get?"
"If you remained in awe of him ... he was great," said Sullivan, who had a falling out with the church in 1981. "If you crossed him, or appeared to cross him, he would lash out at you, scream at you, accuse you of things."
Gillham and other former aides said he would accuse even his most devout aides of trying to poison him if he did not like the taste of a meal that had been laboriously prepared for his table. "Somebody's trying to kill me!" former aides said he would shout. "What have I done? All I've tried to do is help man."
He envisioned global conspiracies designed to smash Scientology, and he ingrained this dark view in the minds of his followers through his many writings.
"Time and again since 1950," Hubbard said in 1982, "the vested interests which pretend to run the world (for their own appetites and profit) have mounted full-scale attacks. With a running dog press and slavish government agencies the forces of evil have launched their lies and sought, by whatever twisted means, to check and destroy Scientology."
"Our enemies on this planet are less than 12 men," he announced in a 1967 tape-recorded message to his adherents. "They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they are oddly enough directors in all the mental health groups in the world which have sprung up."
Chief among his suspects were psychiatry and government agencies that probed his organization, including Interpol the Paris-based international police agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI.
Former Scientologist Hartwell told the Florida hearing that she was present when Hubbard made a film about "bombing the FBI office."
"I was in makeup and we had so much blood on those actors, which was made out of Karo syrup and food coloring," Hartwell said. "And we couldn't get enough on them to suit Hubbard. We had guys' legs off, there were hands off, arms -- I mean, it was a mess from the word go."
Even before Scientology, Hubbard believed that unseen forces were against him.
"I watched him operate," said "Dianetics" publisher Arthur Ceppos, who later split with Hubbard. "If he felt he was under attack, that's when his paranoia showed."
This siege mentality led Hubbard to author a series of church policies on how to combat suspected foes -- writings that, more than any of his others, have worked to reinforce Scientology's cultish image and undermine its quest for legitimacy.
He counseled his followers to discredit the opposition to "a point of total obliteration" and to remember that "the thousands of years of Jewish passivity earned them nothing but slaughter. So things do not run right because one is holy or good. Things run right because one makes them right."
In this spirit, during the mid-1970s, Scientologists launched nasty smear campaigns and turned to criminality, burglarizing private and government offices.
Eventually, 11 top Scientologists were jailed, including Hubbard's wife Mary Sue, who oversaw the sweeping operation. Hubbard was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
At one point during this period, FBI agents raided church headquarters in Los Angeles and Washington. Hubbard and three trusted aides, fearing that his enemies had at long last gained the upper hand, ran for cover. They fled a Scientology compound near the town of Hemet and drove to Sparks, Nev., where they used false names and lived in a nondescript apartment for six months until things cooled off.=
"When the raids happened he never really knew what they (the FBI) had, "recalled Dede Reisdorf, one of those who accompanied Hubbard.
To disguise Hubbard's appearance, Reisdorf said, she cut his red hair and dyed it brown. He often wore fake glasses, donned a phony mustache and pulled a hunter's cap down over his ears.
"He got to a point," Reisdorf said, "where he wouldn't even walk in front of a window.... He was afraid of being seen by somebody. There was always somebody in a bush somewhere. A reporter or an FBI agent or an IRS agent."
It was not the last time Hubbard would go into hiding. In 1980, on St. Valentine's Day, Hubbard pulled another disappearing act. This time, he never returned.
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Paul, please quit flooding the forums. Most of what you're posting is either already in the database or there are numerous links to it. Any and all who would look further into clam culture may do so at will. Now, if you want to discuss the connections and implications, you're more than welcome to do so. But this is getting boring and annoying.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
--Plato
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On 2005-06-23 12:19:00, Antigen wrote:
"Paul, please quit flooding the forums. Most of what you're posting is either already in the database or there are numerous links to it. Any and all who would look further into clam culture may do so at will. Now, if you want to discuss the connections and implications, you're more than welcome to do so. But this is getting boring and annoying.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
--Plato
"
Is that fair to those that have posted comments to these Scientology posts?
Are you sure all Fornits readers have researched the databased.
After all, it is voluntary to read posts on Fornits.
I don't see why you are suggesting censorship,
especially at one LA Times article per day?
Please expand on your request.
Thanks!
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http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1D.htm (http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1D.htm)
Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter Four:
The Final Days
Deep in hiding, Hubbard kept tight grip on the church.
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A40:3)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard often said that man's most basic drive is that of survival. And when it came to his own, he used whatever was necessary -- false identities, cover stories, deception.
There is no better illustration of this than the way he secretly controlled the Church of Scientology while hiding from a world he viewed as increasingly hostile.
Hubbard was last seen publicly in February 1980, in the desert community of Hemet, a few miles from a high-security compound that houses the church's movie and recording studio. His sudden departure fueled wild and intense speculation.
The church said Hubbard went into seclusion to continue his Scientology research and to resurrect his science fiction-writing career. But former aides have said he dropped from sight to avoid subpoenas and government tax agents probing allegations that he was skimming church funds.
Publications throughout the world ran stories about Hubbard's disappearance. "Mystery of the Vanished Ruler" was the headline in Time magazine.
In 1982, Hubbard's estranged son filed a probate petition trying to wrest control of the Scientology empire. He argued that his father was either dead or mentally incompetent and that his riches were being plundered by Scientology executives.
The suit was dismissed after Hubbard, through an attorney, submitted an affidavit with his fingerprints, saying that he was well and wanted to be left alone.
No doubt, Hubbard would have chuckled with satisfaction over the speculation surrounding his whereabouts. For he had always considered himself a shrewd strategist and a master of the intelligence game, endlessly calculating ways to outwit his foes.
Hubbard took with him only two people, a married couple named Pat and Anne Broeker.
Pat Broeker, Hubbard's personal messenger at the time, had gone into hiding with him once before and knew how to ensure his security.
Broeker relished cloak-and-dagger operations. His nickname among Hubbard's other messengers was "007."
Anne had been one of Hubbard's top aides for years. She was cool under pressure and able to defuse Hubbard's volatile temper.
Hubbard and the Broekers spent their first several years together on the move. For months, they traveled the Pacific Northwest in a motor home. They lived in apartments in Newport Beach and the suburbs of Los Angeles.
Then, in the summer of 1983, they decided to settle down in a dusty ranch town called Creston, population 270, where the hot, arid climate would be kind to Hubbard's bursitis.
About 30 miles inland from San Luis Obispo, it was a perfect spot for a man of notoriety to live in obscurity. In those parts, people don't ask a lot of questions about someone else's business.
Hubbard and the Broekers concocted an elaborate set of phony names and backgrounds to conceal their identities from the townsfolk. Pat and Anne Broeker went by the names Mike and Lisa Mitchell. Hubbard became Lisa's father, Jack, who impressed the locals as a chatty old man, charismatic but sometimes gruff.
They purchased a 160-acre ranch known as the Whispering Winds for $700,000, using 30 cashier's checks drawn on various California banks. Pat Broeker told the sellers, Ed and Sherry Shahan, that he had recently inherited millions of dollars and was looking to leave his home in Upstate New York to raise livestock in California.
At the time, the Shahans were suspicious. As Ed Shahan recalled, "They were having trouble deciding whose name to put the property in."
In less than three years, Hubbard poured an estimated $3 million into the local economy as he redesigned the ranch to his exacting and elaborate specifications.
He launched one project after another, some of them seemingly senseless, according to local residents. He ordered the construction of a quarter-mile horse-racing track with an observation tower. The track reportedly was never used.
The 10-room ranch house was gutted and remodeled so many times that it went virtually uninhabited during Hubbard's time there. He lived and worked in a luxurious 40-foot Bluebird motor home parked near the stables.
All this was done without work permits, which meant that Hubbard and his aides would not have to worry about nosy county inspectors.
Like Hubbard's aides in earlier years, the hired help saw extreme sides of the man who was chauffeured around the property in a black Subaru pickup by Anne Broeker.
Fencing contractor Jim Froelicher of Paso Robles remembers asking him for advice on buying a camera. Several days later, Froelicher said, Hubbard presented him with a 35mm camera as a gift.
Longtime Creston resident Ed Lindquist, on the other hand, said painters dropped by the local tavern at lunch to talk about how the "old man" was acting eccentric. They said he had them paint the walls again and again because they "weren't white enough," according to Lindquist.
Scientology officials insist that Hubbard was in fine mental and physical health during his years in seclusion. Most of his days, they say, were spent reading, writing and enjoying the ranch's beauty and livestock, which included llamas and buffalo.
But Hubbard was doing much more, according to former aides. Even in hiding, they say, he kept a close watch and a tight grip on the church he built -- as he had for decades.
As early as 1966, Hubbard claimed to have relinquished managerial control of the church. But ex-Scientologists and several court rulings have held that this was a maneuver to shield Hubbard from potential legal actions and accountability for the group's activities.
Over the years, efforts to conceal Hubbard's ties to the church were extensive and extreme.
In 1980, for example, a massive shredding operation was undertaken at the church's desert compound outside Palm Springs after Scientology officials received an erroneous tip of an imminent FBI raid, according to a former aide.
"Anything that indicated that L. Ron Hubbard controlled the church or was engaged in management was to be shredded," recalled Hubbard's former public relations officer, Laurel Sullivan.
For more than two days, Sullivan said, roughly 200 Scientologists crammed thousands of documents into a huge shredder nicknamed "Jaws."
Documents too valuable to destroy, she added, were buried in the ground or under floorboards.
In his self-imposed exile, Hubbard continued to reign over Scientology with almost paranoid secrecy.
He relayed his orders in writing or on tape cassettes to Pat Broeker, who then passed them to a ranking Scientologist named David Miscavige, the man responsible for seeing that church executives complied.
Hubbard's communiques travelled a circuitous route in the darkness of night, changing hands from Broeker to Miscavige at designated sites throughout Southern California. To mask the author's identity, the missives were signed with codes that carried the weight of Hubbard's signature.
Sometimes Broeker himself appeared from parts unknown to personally deliver Hubbard's instructions to church executives.
From his secret seat of power in the oak-studded hills above San Luis Obispo, Hubbard also made sure that he would not be severed from the riches of his Scientology empire, high-level church defectors would later tell government investigators.
They alleged that Hubbard skimmed millions of dollars from church coffers while he was in hiding -- carrying on a tradition that the Internal Revenue Service said he began practically at Scientology's inception about 30 years ago. Hubbard and his aides had always denied the allegations, and accused the IRS of waging a campaign against the church and its founder.
While Hubbard was underground, the IRS launched a criminal probe of his finances. But the investigation would soon be without a target, and ultimately abandoned.
By late 1985, Hubbard's directives to underlings had tapered off. At age 74, he no longer resembled the robust and natty man whose dated photographs fill Scientology's promotional literature. Living in isolation, separated from his devoted followers, he had let himself go.
His thin gray hair, with streaks of the old red, hung without sheen to his shoulders. He had grown a stringy, unkempt beard and mustache.
His round face was now sunken and his ruddy complexion had turned pasty. He was an old man and he was nearing death.
On or about Jan. 17, 1986, Hubbard suffered a "cerebral vascular accident," commonly known as a stroke. Caring for him was Gene Denk, a Scientologist doctor and Hubbard's physician for eight years.
There was little Denk could do for Hubbard in those final days -- the stroke was debilitating. He was bedridden and his speech was badly impaired.
One week later, at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24, Hubbard died.
Throughout the night, according to neighbor Robert Whaley, heavy traffic inexplicably moved in and out of the ranch. Whaley, a retired advertising executive, said that he was kept awake by headlights shining through his windows.
For more than 11 hours, Hubbard's body remained in the motor home where he died. Scientology attorney Earle Cooley had ordered that Hubbard not be touched until he arrived by car from Los Angeles with another Scientology lawyer.
The next morning, Cooley telephoned Reis Chapel, a San Luis Obispo mortuary, and arranged to have the body cremated. With Cooley present, Hubbard was transported to the mortuary.
Once chapel officials learned who Hubbard was, however, they became concerned about the church's rush to cremate him. They contacted the San Luis Obispo County coroner, who halted the cremation until the body could be examined and blood tests performed.
When then-Deputy Coroner Don Hines arrived, Cooley presented him with a certificate that Hubbard had signed just four days before his death. It stated that, for religious reasons, he wanted no autopsy.
Cooley also produced a will that Hubbard had signed the day before he died, directing that his body be promptly cremated and that his vast wealth be distributed according to the provisions of a confidential trust he had established. His once-ornate trademark signature was little more than a scrawl.
After the blood tests and examination revealed no foul play, coroner Hines approved the cremation. With Cooley's consent, he also photographed the body and lifted fingerprints as a way to later confirm that it was the reclusive Hubbard and not a hoax.
Within hours, Hubbard's ashes were scattered at sea by the Broekers and Miscavige.
Two days after Hubbard's death, Pat Broeker stood before a standing-room-only crowd of Scientologists at the Hollywood Palladium. It was his first public appearance in six years, and he had just broken the news of Hubbard's passing.
The cheers were deafening.
Broeker announced that Hubbard had made a conscious decision to "sever all ties" to this world so he could continue his Scientology research in spirit form -- testimony to the power of the man and his teachings.
He "laid down in his bed and he left," Broeker said. "And that was it."
Hubbard left behind an organization that would continue to function as though he were still alive. His millions of words -- the lifeblood of Scientology -- have now been computerized for wisdom and instructions at the touch of a button.
In Scientology, he was -- and always will be -- the "Source."
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On 2005-06-24 11:08:00, Paul wrote:
Is that fair to those that have posted comments to these Scientology posts?
Are you sure all Fornits readers have researched the databased.
After all, it is voluntary to read posts on Fornits.
I don't see why you are suggesting censorship,
especially at one LA Times article per day?
Please expand on your request.
Thanks!
I'm not sure all readers have researched the database. In fact I'm nearly certain that YOU HAVE NOT! I'm asking you to DO THAT, PLEASE! Just find those old threads (in which there has been some discussion) and BUMP THEM BY ADDING SOMETHING TO THE DISCUSSION INSTEAD OF JUST FLOODING THE FORUM W/ COPIED AND PASTED MATERIAL AND NO MEANINGFUL CONTENT!!!
YES, I'M SHOUTING. YOU PAID NO ATTENTION WHEN I WASN'T SHOUTING SO NOW I AM SHOUTING! PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! EITHER PARTICIPATE IN A MEANINGFUL WAY OR DON'T LEACH OFF OF MY SERVER.
If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an "enemy of the state" any more than I can be called an enemy of sulfuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking, or for washing one's hands.
Ludwig Von Mises
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Scientology...Paul dude let it go are you Obsessed with this and Tom Cruise or what. Give us all a fucking break already.
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I think he thinks that if he spamms the board w/ enough clam trivia then we'll all forget that the clams are not the only ones who object to mandatory mental health screening.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist
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Antigen,
What is your definition of spam?
This thread has had 47 posts, and 583 views.
People are reading, for whatever are their own
motivations.
Do you really think it is appropriate to censor
an unmoderated forum because someone is posting
a multi-part series from the LA Times?
I see plenty of newspaper articles, and web stories cut an pasted. I disagree with your villification of the LA Times as spam.
Fear not, I am no longer going to make posts stating that parents, and patients have rights to say no. The hostility back from you and a couple
of others in non-productive.
I will just finish the posting of the LA Times story, once a day, like I posted four days ago.
You didn't complain then, and I don't believe it
is your place to complain now.
After all, I wouldn't have read up on this COS stuff if Deborah hadn't challenged me on it. You
defended Deborah as not knowing she was posting
resources from Scientology front groups.
Why so aggravated on a little Scientology education from a large US newspaper. Especially on
a thread appropirately titled "Scientology", state by Wes Farger, and not buried inside some other thread with a non direct title on the topic.
Take today for instance, you posted Norm Stampers bood (thanks) in a new thread, that was appropriate and information or comments on his book or policing theories would be appropriate to that thread, would you not agree?
Thank you
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Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Defining the Theology
It's a space-age religion that abounds in galactic tales, and its deepest secrets are known to few
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A36:1)
What is Scientology?
Not even the vast majority of Scientologists can fully answer the question.
In the Church of Scientology, there is no one book that comprehensively sets forth the religion's beliefs in the fashion of, say, the Bible or the Koran.
Rather, Scientology's theology is scattered among the voluminous writings and tape-recorded discourses of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the religion in the early 1950s.
Piece by piece, his teachings are revealed to church members through a progression of sometimes secret courses that take years to complete and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Out of a membership estimated by the church to be 6.5 million, only a tiny fraction have climbed to the upper reaches. In fact, according to a Scientology publication earlier this year, fewer than 900 members have completed the church's highest course, nicknamed "Truth Revealed."
While Hubbard's "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" typically is one of the first books read by church members, its relationship to Scientology is like that of a grade school to a university.
What Scientologists learn in their courses is never publicly discussed by the church, which is trying to shake its cultish image and establish itself as a mainstream religion. For to the uninitiated, Hubbard's theology would resemble pure science fiction, complete with galactic battles, interplanetary civilizations and tyrants who roam the universe.
Here, based on court records, church documents and Hubbard lectures that span the past four decades, is a rare look at portions of Scientology's theology and the cosmological musings of the man who wrote it.
Central to Scientology is a belief in an immortal soul, or "thetan," that passes from one body to the next through countless reincarnations spanning trillions of years. Collectively, thetans created the universe -- all the stars and planets, every plant and animal. To function within their creation, thetans built bodies for themselves of wildly varying appearances, the human form being just one.
But each thetan is vulnerable to painful experiences that can diminish its powers and create emotional and physical problems in the individual it inhabits. The goal of Scientology is to purge these experiences from the thetan, making it again omnipotent and returning spiritual and bodily health to its host.
The painful experiences are called "engrams." Hubbard said some happen by accident -- from ancient planetary wars, for example -- while others are intentionally inflicted by other thetans who have gone bad and want power. In Scientology, these engrams are called "implants."
According to Hubbard, the bad thetans through the eons have electronically implanted other thetans with information intended to confuse them and make them forget the powers they inherently possess -- kind of a brainwashing procedure.
While Hubbard was not always precise about the origins of the implants, he was very clear about the impact.
"Implants," Hubbard said, "result in all varieties of illness, apathy, degradation, neurosis and insanity and are the principal cause of these in man."
Hubbard identified numerous implants that he said have occurred through the ages and that are addressed during Scientology courses aimed at neutralizing their harmful effects.
Hubbard maintained, for example, that the concept of a Christian heaven is the product of two implants dating back more than 43 trillion years. Heaven, he said, is a "false dream" and a "very painful lie" intended to direct thetans toward a non-existent goal and convince them they have only one life.
In reality, Hubbard said, there is no heaven and there was no Christ.
"The (implanted) symbol of a crucified Christ is very apt indeed," Hubbard said. "It's the symbol of a thetan betrayed."
Hubbard said that one of the worst implants happens after a person dies.
While Hubbard's story of this implant may seem outlandish to some, he advanced it as a factual account of reincarnation.
"Of all the nasty, mean and vicious implants that have ever been invented, this one is it," he declared during a lecture in the 1950s. "And it's been going on for thousands of years."
Hubbard said that when a person dies, his or her thetan goes to a "landing station" on Venus, where it is programmed with lies about its past life and its next life. The lies include a promise that it will be returned to Earth by being lovingly shunted into the body of a newborn baby.
Not so, said Hubbard, who described the thetan's re-entry this way:
"What actually happens to you, you're simply capsuled and dumped in the gulf of lower California. Splash. The hell with ya. And you're on your own, man. If you can get out of that, and through that, and wander around through the cities and find some girl who looks like she is going to get married or have a baby or something like that, you're all set. And if you can find the maternity ward to a hospital or something, you're OK.
"And you just eventually just pick up a baby."
But Hubbard offered his followers an easy way to outwit the implant:
Scientologists should simply select a location other than Venus to go "when they kick the bucket."
Another notorious implant led Hubbard to construct an entire course for Scientologists who want to be rid of it.
Shrouded in mystery and kept in locked cabinets at select church locations, the course is called Operating Thetan III, billed by the church as "the final secret of the catastrophe which laid waste to this sector of the galaxy." It is taught only to the most advanced church members, at fees ranging to $6,000.
Hubbard told his followers that while unlocking the secret, he "became very ill, almost lost this body and somehow or another brought it off and obtained the material and was able to live through it."
Here's what he said he learned:
Seventy-five million years ago a tyrant named Xenu (pronounced Zee-new) ruled the Galactic Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets, including Earth, then called Teegeeack.
To control overpopulation and solidify his power, Xenu instructed his loyal officers to capture beings of all shapes and sizes from the various planets, freeze them in a compound of alcohol and glycol and fly them by the billions to Earth in planes resembling DC-8s. Some of the beings were captured after they were duped into showing up for a phony tax investigation.
The beings were deposited or chained near 10 volcanoes scattered around the planet. After hydrogen bombs were dropped on them, their thetans were captured by Xenu's forces and implanted with sexual perversion, religion and other notions to obscure their memory of what Xenu had done.
Soon after, a revolt erupted. Xenu was imprisoned in a wire cage within a mountain, where he remains today.
But the damage was done.
During the last 75 million years, these implanted thetans have affixed themselves by the thousands to people on Earth. Called "body thetans," they overwhelm the main thetan who resides within a person, causing confusion and internal conflict.
In the Operating Thetan III course, Scientologists are taught to scan their bodies for "pressure points," indicating the presence of these bad thetans. Using techniques prescribed by Hubbard, church members make telepathic contact with these thetans and remind them of Xenu's treachery. With that, Hubbard said, the thetans detach themselves
Hubbard first unveiled his Scientology theories during a series of often breathless lectures he delivered in Wichita, Kan., Phoenix and Philadelphia in 1952.
His talks were sprinkled with tales of interplanetary adventures he said he had experienced during earlier lives.
There was the time, for instance, that Hubbard said he was resting in a peaceful valley on a barren planet in some remote galaxy, and decided to spruce up the place. He said he "fixed up a lake" and "managed to coax into existence a few vines."
Then, "all of a sudden -- zoop boom -- and there was a spaceship," Hubbard recalled, saying "I got pretty mad about the whole thing."
"I remember bringing a thunderstorm," Hubbard said. "Moved it over the ship.... And then (I) let them have it."
Hubbard told associates that he had been many people before being born as Lafayette Ronald Hubbard on March 13, 1911, in Tilden, Neb. One of them was Cecil Rhodes, the British-born diamond king of southern Africa. Another, according to a former aide, was a marshal to Joan of Arc.
After Hubbard's death in 1986, a Scientology publication described him as "the original musician," who 3 million years ago invented music while going by the name "Arpen Polo." The publication noted that "he wrote his first song a bit after the first tick of time."
Hubbard realized that his accounts of past lives, implants and extraterrestrial creatures might sound suspect to outsiders. So he counseled his disciples to keep mum.
"Don't start walking around and telling people about space opera because they're not going to believe you," he said, "and they're going to say, 'Well, that's just Hubbard.' "
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Just bcuz ppl are accessing this page don't mean they're reading it. Get a life.
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What a fuckstick. Yet ANOTHER one...right as I was making that last post. Just proved my point. Jeeeeezz....
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No, Paul, I posted some info and a link to more info on that new book. That's different from posting pages long copies of a 15 year old series. You've posted the link, w/ no comment or value added whatever. And I've asked you to quit flooding. Notice how nobody's talking about the content you've posted? That's because you're not even trying to engage in discussion. So that's why you won't be posting here anymore.
Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
--Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright
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It's a two year old thread averaging less than 1 view per day. Not exactly a smash hit.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
Andrew Tannenbaum
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I am very interested in the articles, and find the subject of Scientology in general frightening and disturbing. I see nothing wrong with the articles being posted, and I'm shocked that Deborah has taken part of her her anti-program stance using Scientology information or references, expecially without claiming where they came from.
[edit]I have one Scientology story in mind that hits somewhat close to home, and I think I have a pretty good idea of how evil that church is. It is a lot like the PURE vs. WWASPS deal.
I still don't understand Ginger feeling the need to censor the discussion or posting of articles, especially when we have threads like, "How to mainline smack" in this forum, as well as dozens and dozens of other completely ridiculous threads.
Talk about it and let the truth find its own way.
Some Joker
_________________
EST (Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke
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Nope, nothing wrong w/ discussing the articles. They really are quite informative to anyone who doesn't know much about clams.
However, he's not posting links, excerpts or discussion about them. He's reposting pages and pages long whole copies of material that's been in the same place for over a decade. Nobody's reading it. Nobody's talking about it. It's only tangentally to the topic we were discussing. I've asked him a few times now to quit doing that and he insists on continuing.
I think Paul should open his own blog or something.
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is
proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in
everlasting ignorance- that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
--Herbert Spencer
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On 2005-06-25 18:14:00, Antigen wrote:
"Nope, nothing wrong w/ discussing the articles. They really are quite informative to anyone who doesn't know much about clams.
However, he's not posting links, excerpts or discussion about them. He's reposting pages and pages long whole copies of material that's been in the same place for over a decade. Nobody's reading it. Nobody's talking about it. It's only tangentally to the topic we were discussing. I've asked him a few times now to quit doing that and he insists on continuing.
Ginger,
I appreciate taking the block off so I can reply.
Posting articles is not prohibited on this site,
at least I could find no ground rules for it.
I see plenty of whole articles posted, with no comments.
The discussion that led to these articles happened before I found this well written article. Why would people want to discuss what led Deborah to state that COS had nothing to with her posts nor did it have any impact on psychiatry or the right to be respected and choose a treatment of one's choice.
After those declarations in a set of numerous emails I just don't see why you think it is necessary for people to comment on each article. This is like reading a short version of a encyclopedic article about the COS. What is there to discuss. It was what led up to the postings that counted, now it is just information, period.
Why do you care? I thought this was an open forum?
Since when do you tell people how to post, what content to mention and what content not to mention. Along with controlling post volume?
If it is in some set of rules you have, then I missed it, if not then you are acting way out of character and probably should explain your actions to the Fornit's community.
If you are going to block my access to your server and access to the Fornit's readers again, I think it would be appropriate to let the readers at large know of your actions. No need to be sneeky.
Thank you.
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Ginger,
Why would you make a comment if a thread is significant or not. Is that your role on this
open forum?
10 views per hour in the last four hours, BTW,
would probably not fit your criteria for a
non-popular thread.
It should not matter anyhow!
Paul
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Ginger,
Regarding this issue. First it is a regular practice here to post whole articles. If they are on topic in
the right thread ... ? Enough said, correct?
It appeared to me that some Fornit's readers posted that they where busy, and appreciated the articles.
That gave me the inclination that posting the whole
article would be an appropriate way to share this information with those readers.
It is all about consumer convenience, correct?
Paul
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Ginger,
The decision to read this thread, or any other,
is voluntary.
If you don't like it, don't read it!
What is wrong with that freedom extended to yourself, as well as the whole Fornit's community?
Paul
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However, he's not posting links, excerpts or discussion about them. He's reposting pages and pages long whole copies of material that's been in the same place for over a decade. Nobody's reading it. Nobody's talking about it. It's only tangentally to the topic we were discussing. I've asked him a few times now to quit doing that and he insists on continuing.
Ginger, I am so surprised that your character seems to have fell apart over this simple thread. Telling
people that the information in this article is out of date? Wow, is that your role?
Are the articles out of date? Since when does history become out of date. This is how Scientology started and what they have done up to 1990. Let the readers decide on their own if the information if relevant to their quest for knowledge.
I really am stunned at the overbearing role you have taken here.
Paul
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Like it or not, I don't allow flooding. Read the terms of use. I've asked you to quit using my server. I banned one IP, you switched up and continued to ignore my request. At this point, you're stealing service. Go the fuck away and flood somebody else's forum. Or, better yet, set up your own.
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-- Sigmund Freud
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On 2005-06-25 20:00:00, Antigen wrote:
"Like it or not, I don't allow flooding. Read the terms of use.
I've asked you to quit using my server. I banned one IP, you switched up and continued to ignore my request.
I am still on the same computer, same desk, same keyboard ... what are you talking about?
You didn't notify me that I was banned, frankly,
at this point you have shown your hypocricy to the point that I don't really much care what you think. You have discredited yourself!
At this point, you're stealing service. Go the fuck away and flood somebody else's forum. Or, better yet, set up your own.
I think what you are trying to say is please go away so there is no one questioning my dogma.
You really want to say, I can't stand it when you ask me questions, or reply to my bullcrap, and I when I try to ignore you I have to bluff my way into making stuff up and reference you as a volume poster, when it is me, the Antigen, who gets in the most posts. I am never challenged, and I don't like to be challenge. All the other Fornit's folks
have learned to obey me, and you didn't so please dissapear so my world has no waves!
Hey, Ginger, before you hit the ban button again why don't you just sit back, relax and aswer each question that I asked. It is easy, they are in seperate posts so as not to get lost in a long post.
Go ahead, answer them ...
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FFS, learn to use the quote thing. I ain't reading that shit.
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Ginger,
Are you sure you want to kick me off Fornit's?
This apparently is a topic your community wants
to view!
Paul
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No cheesedick. It's just that YOU keep bumping the fucking thread! What an ASSWIPE. :lol:
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On 2005-06-25 20:47:00, Anonymous wrote:
"FFS, learn to use the quote thing. I ain't reading that shit. "
I agree, I wish I could figure it out!
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On 2005-06-25 20:49:00, Anonymous wrote:
"No cheesedick. It's just that YOU keep bumping the fucking thread! What an ASSWIPE. :lol:"
Oh man, thank you so much for letting me know that
it is only me visiting this thread. Damn, I could
not have figured out that all those views where me.
Obviously you are brilliant and an asset to Fornit's. If I had a vote, I would say, lets keep Anonymous on Fornits!!!
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On 2005-06-25 20:52:00, Paul wrote:
On 2005-06-25 20:49:00, Anonymous wrote:
"No cheesedick. It's just that YOU keep bumping the fucking thread! What an ASSWIPE. :lol:"
Holy crap, I must be checking this thread like
an animal, what do you think Anonymous?
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It's good to know that you've found your purpose in life. Carry on.
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On 2005-06-25 20:59:00, Anonymous wrote:
"It's good to know that you've found your purpose in life. Carry on."
It appears that elusive "purpose" has been solved for you here, eh!
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Like ships that pass in the night.
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To those who may have voluntarily clicked to this thread, here are some reasons why this full cut
and paste of one day's article of a 1990 LA Times
story is being posted.
This COS LA Times article is historically relevant, it is not outdated information.
The reason the LA Times article was posted originally was as a result of email dialog from
a couple of different threads. The posting of the LA Times article is in response to that dialog, not as a response to a post made today, or yesterday. I am posting no comments at the end of the article because this is a historical, education based post.
The articles are numerous, thus the one article per day decision to avoid flooding this thread with lots of articles in one day.
It was put here on the "Scientology tm" thread because it would be easy to find in the future and it made sense because it was a series of articles
specifically on the Church of Scientology.
These posts seem to have generated some interest
by the number of views to the thread, now over 700 views. Not all attributed to these articles, of course, but nevertheless increasing daily.
Scientology is in the news today, regardless of Fornits either posting or not posting information of the COS. Thus making educational information timely and appropriate.
If the posting of the LA Times series of articles does bother you, the individual reader, it should have been voluntary for you to have clicked here and please to avoid furthur upset, please refrain from clicking onto this thread in the future.
Furthermore, please don't criticize people for having an interest in the COS either favorably or unfavorably. It is each individual's own reality that is enabling them to either take an interest or not. Please don't invalidate their experiences that lead them to make their volutary decisions.
Finally, the reason to post the whole article instead of just the link is for people who are busy and would prefer just to scan down the thread and read what they would like.
Now for the article ...
---
The Los Angeles Times
Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard
Burglaries and Lies Paved a Path to Prison
A web of criminal conspiracy to discredit the church's foes resulted in 5-year sentences for 11 defendants.
(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A39:2)
It began with the title of a fairy tale -- Snow White.
That was the benign code name Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard gave to an ominous plan that would envelop his church in scandal and send its upper echelon to prison, a plan rooted in his ever-deepening fears and suspicions.
Snow White began in 1973 as an effort by Scientology through Freedom of Information proceedings to purge government files of what Hubbard thought was false information being circulated worldwide to discredit him and the church. But the operation soon mushroomed into a massive criminal conspiracy, executed by the church's legal and investigative arm, the Guardian Office.
Under the direction of Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, the Guardian Office hatched one scheme after another to discredit and unnerve Scientology's foes across the country. Guardian Office members were trained to lie, or in their words, "to outflow false data effectively."
They compiled enemy lists and subjected those on the lists to smear campaigns and dirty tricks.
Their targets were in the government, the press, the medical profession, wherever a potential threat surfaced.
The Guardian Office saved the worst for author Paulette Cooper of New York City, whose scathing 1972 book, "The Scandal of Scientology," pushed her to the top of the church's roster of enemies.
Among other things, Cooper was framed on criminal charges by Guardian Office members, who obtained stationery she had touched and then used it to forge bomb threats to the church in her name.
"You're like the Nazis or the Arabs -- I'll bomb you, I'll kill you!" warned one of the rambling letters.
The church reported the threat to the FBI and directed its agents to Cooper, whose fingerprints matched those on the letter. Cooper was indicted by a grand jury not only for the bomb threats, but for lying under oath about her innocence.
Two years later, the author's reputation and psyche in tatters, prosecutors dismissed the charges after she had spent nearly $20,000 in legal fees to defend herself and $6,000 on psychiatric treatment.
It seemed that no plan against perceived enemies was too ambitious or daring.
In Washington, Scientology spies penetrated such high-security agencies as the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service to find what they had on Hubbard and the church.
In nighttime raids, they rifled files and photocopied mountains of documents, many of which the church had unsuccessfully sought under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The thefts were inside jobs; the Guardian Office had planted one agent in the IRS as a clerk typist and another in the Justice Department as the personal secretary of an assistant U.S. attorney who was handling Freedom of Information lawsuits filed by Scientology.
So bold had they become that one Guardian Office operative slipped into an IRS conference room and wired a bugging device into a wall socket before a crucial meeting on Scientology was to be convened. The operative rigged the device so he could eavesdrop over his car's FM radio.
The U.S. was losing a war it did not even know it was fighting. But that was about to change.
Two Scientologists used fake IRS credentials to gain access to government agencies and then photocopied documents related to the church.
Their conspiracy was exposed when one of the suspects, after 11 months on the lam, became worried about his plight and confessed to authorities, prompting the FBI to launch one of the biggest raids in its history.
Armed with power saws, crowbars and bolt cutters, 134 agents burst into three Scientology locations in Los Angeles and Washington.
They carted off eavesdropping equipment, burglar tools and 48,000 documents detailing countless operations against "enemies" in public and private life.
In the end, Hubbard's wife and the others were found guilty of charges of conspiracy and burglary. The grand jury named Hubbard as an unindicted co-conspirator; the seized Guardian Office files did not directly link him to the crimes and he professed ignorance of them.
In a memorandum urging stiff sentences for the Scientologists, federal prosecutors wrote:
"The crime committed by these defendants is of a breadth and scope previously unheard of. No building, office, desk, or file was safe from their snooping and prying. No individual or organization was free from their despicable conspiratorial minds. The tools of their trade were miniature transmitters, lock picks, secret codes, forged credentials and any other device they found necessary to carry out their conspiratorial schemes."
The 11 defendants were ordered to serve five years in federal prison. All are now free.
Church leaders today maintain that this dark chapter in their religion's history was the work of renegade members who, yes, broke the law but believed they were justified because the government for two decades had harassed and persecuted Scientology.
Boston attorney Earle C. Cooley, Scientology's national trial counsel, said the present church management does not condone the criminal activities of the old Guardian Office. He said that one of Hubbard's most important dictums was to "maintain friendly relations with the environment and the public."
"The question that I always have in my mind," Cooley said, "is for how long a time is the church going to have to continue to pay the price for what the (Guardian Office) did.... Unfortunately, the church continues to be confronted with it.
"And the ironic thing is that the people being confronted with it are the people who wiped it out. And to the church, that's a very frustrating thing."
-
On 2005-06-25 20:00:00, Antigen wrote:
"Read the terms of use"
Cut and pasted from the Terms of Use:
Bearing in mind that one man's poetry is another man's obscenity, and that censorship is probably the worst form of obscenity, I leave this to your best judgment. There is really no one 'in charge' of this discussion, and I will not intervene on anyone's behalf nor take responsibility for any reprecussions, legal or otherwise, that arise from anyone's words but my own.
-
744 and rising ...
Ginger, I think this should meet your litmus
test of viability to keep your fingers off
of the Fornits censorship protocol and let
this thread naturally process ... just like
the rest of Fornits.
-
Paul you are annoying as shit. How fucking dare you appropriate the Straight Survivors forum, making this retarded thread stay on top. FUCK YOU.
-
On 2005-06-26 10:11:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Paul you are annoying as shit. How fucking dare you appropriate the Straight Survivors forum, making this retarded thread stay on top. FUCK YOU."
I just looked at this thread from the beginning.
It was started in July 3, 2003 by Wes Fager.
There was only three posts until I posted the results of this question here, so it would be
easy to find the topic of Scientology, appropriately in the Scientology thread:
"Ginger, has no one ever done searches on these "resources" Deborah uses and Scientology before?
OK, here is on on Ablechild.org that Deborah uses to post on the thread:"
Since that post, eight days ago there has been
this activity:
75 posts, minus the first 3 = 72 posts
753 views
This activity, all me, I don't think so.
If people are interested that is their voluntary
choice. Please give up the censorship activism.
The 90 or so views per day since June 19 should
not be controlled by you, Ginger, nor anyone
else.
Please let people voluntarily choose to look and
read what they want!
-
Its my personal opinion that Paul should be able to post whatever he wants about Scientology...he is obviously against it and I assume thats a sight better in all our eyes than someone who is trying to PROMOTE it. Not that it matters per se, but you get my meaning. Just the other day I had to explain to someone about the true doctrine behind Scientology because they actually thought it was based on Christian doctrines. Some people really dont know what its all about you know?
Secondly.....I think most can agree that this thread has room for meaningful discourse, as opposed to say, the FUCK YOU threads, or the I HATE WOMEN threads or the LET ME TELL EVERYONE HOW BLITZED OUT OF MY MIND I AM TODAY THREADS.
And PLEASE dont jump all over me for singling those out, they have a right to be here too....but there is worse bullshit slathered all over this forum than Paul's article posting.
[ This Message was edited by: Carmel on 2005-06-27 07:32 ]
-
I agree. I had no idea the detailed history of COS and found the articles informative and interesting. Regardless of how old they are.
It is my understanding however, that Paul has been banned for his postings, and I simply do not understand that.
:???: They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?
Michael Moore
_________________
EST (Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke
-
I am no longer banned.
Ginger was nice enough to explain to me some etiquitte on this, or any board. In the past
I was only used to listservs.
What I need to do is make my point, post the
reference, if any, and not engage in a negative
dialogue that ends up in unintentional flooding.
Actually, that is a relief to me. It was very
uncomfortable being attacked here.
I clicked through some more of the articles and they are as long as the first couple. If they are more than 3k I will post in sections.
I won't do more than one a day, nor will I engage in flooding.
I think this will work out ok.
If not, I will stop.
Thanks for your support!
-
It would be NICE if he would have linked to these articles instead of pasting the whole fuckin' thing in there.....however, I reluctantly agree that he should not have been banned.....I guess...but hell, this isn't my forum...
-
Paul, just post the whole list of links along w. any excerpts an/or your thoughts that make your point. That's fine.
Are we still talking about the New Freedom Init? Exactly why are we talking about the clams, anyway. The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion
Tacitus
-
Are we still talking about the New Freedom Init? Exactly why are we talking about the clams, anyway.
Why did this discussion start?
Good question.
I would have to research the database to get the exact cause which I am not going to do, I hope that is ok.
Basically, Deborah called me paranoid for mentioning psychiatry and Scientology. She also said they had no implact. Or she implied, whatever.
So I started doing google searches on Scientology.
I was stunned and learning what I did about the COS in general and they certainly do influence poeple's choice of treatments utilizing front groups and invalidating any experiences patients may have had other than their own belief syste. There was no, hey we have an alternative method if you want to check us out, type of evangelism.
Then regarding Deborah, I chose to start doing simple searches to check her "references + Scientology". When her references came up as front groups for the COS, according to the search results, I posted them.
I figured it was time for a history lesson, and the right place was this article was thread called Scientology TM.
I didn't want to burden anyone by posting the numberous articles in this one LA Times series, so I decided, on my own, to post one a day. Members of Fornit's got inflamed and posted insults and the issue rose to everyone's attention, according to the number of views.
I thought initially I would just post the articles and people would read them, that is all. I guess because it became popular to read and in vogue to insult me that attention came upon this thread.
It wasn't until yesterday that I learned that I was flooding the fornits server.
Although, in reality, it still seems to me that it is ok for Deborah and others to pile on a topic by posting numerous same informtion articles over and over again. But, I will observe and learn and it probably is not flooding.
Regarding just posting reference links, without the whole article, there is a danger there also. I realize yesterday for instance that Deborah posted a link as a reference, and obviously did not read it. She was using it to reveal questions sent to to the AMA by ablechild.org, which had no link to them.
I questioned her, she then posted the portion of the original link that I knew would have inflamed her, proving BTW, to me, in my opinion that she didn't read her refernce in the first place. Then, as she always does, ignored my question and posted yet another rant. Whatever, I am not going to dialogue with her anymore anyhow, and that is a relief.
So, ok, if you don't want the whole articles and would like me to choose a relevant point, when I believe the articles are completely relevant, and well written then ok, no problem. That is not my first choice, and truthfully I am uncomfortable editing and already finely edited series. But for the sake of putting up some historical information to counter Deborah's misrepretention of Scientology's impact on anti-psychiatry advocacy, then ok.
-
This article is about the current leadership of the Church of Scientology, or rather one of the, or the, organization that conrols COS.
http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1G.htm (http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1G.htm)
The article is 856 words in length.
-
Paul, we were talking about the New Freedom Init. Please don't try and tell me you don't remember that. And yes, Deb did cite ablechild as a source. But I'm guessing she didn't know it was a clam front. She has also posted numerous other sources that have nothing to do w/ the clams. (you do know why the COS is sometimes refered to as the clams, right? It's a funny story)
Anyway, yes, COS is a big scarry cult w/ subtle influence all over the place. And one of their primary rants is against any type of medical or psychiatric treatment that competes w/ their own methods. Though they don't make clear the connections between themselves and their front groups (obviously, or they wouldn't fit the definition of front groups) they certainly do offer alternative treatments. They call them Narconon and the Purification Rundown and Auditing and management training seminars, etc.
But, regardless of how wacked out or how subversive and sneaky the clams are, that doesn't change the fact that forced psyche treatment is a horrible idea. And it doesn't change the fact that they've already implimented similar programs in some states w/o anything approaching meaningful informed consent. Most people don't know when they send their kids off to school to tell them to be skeptical of their teachers and to not participate in any sort of medical or psyche programs w/o letting them know. Hell, as I've pointed out, most people don't even know that DARE is a psychiatric program, not a curriculum.
Here, try this link:
http://www.google.com/search?biw=953&hl ... initiative (http://www.google.com/search?biw=953&hl=en&q=new+freedom+initiative)
Once you get past the government sites, try x-referencing scientology w/ the organizations opposing this neostalinist plan. I have looked into it lightly as I routinely do. When I find something of interest, I at least look around the rest of their website and maybe google their org name for context. I've found religious fundies of various stripe, education interest groups (including homeschoolers), medical professional organizations and many other interest groups all critical of this policy.
Even though the Clams come down against it--on the same side of the issue as a lot of us--that doesn't mean we're all wrong. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war who can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
--Sun Tzu (author of The Art of War
-
On 2005-06-27 10:05:00, Antigen wrote:
"Paul, we were talking about the New Freedom Init. Please don't try and tell me you don't remember that.
*** I don't remember that as the reason I went to this thread to post the articles.
And yes, Deb did cite ablechild as a source. But I'm guessing she didn't know it was a clam front.
*** Check Deborah's last post, she is harassing me on this issue. I chose not to engage her, and referred her back to my search resource.
She has also posted numerous other sources that have nothing to do w/ the clams.
*** I believe that.
(you do know why the COS is sometimes refered to as the clams, right? It's a funny story)
*** I have been meaning to ask you that, seriously, I would like to know.
Since I don't use the quote feature to well, please refer to the *** coments above.
Ginger, I think you mis-understood my last post.
My principle concern with Scientology is that they invalidate peoples experiences that are not members of COS. That is it, that is all.
They are deceptive, and that is unfair to the one's that are unkowing. That is it, that is all.
The right to practice Scientology is ok with me.
The right to do whatever one wants is ok with me,
within the context of US law, of course.
Regardless, if this is a reference to Deborah and her flooding. I do believe you allow her plenty of liberty. She has posted over and over on the same topic since I joined Fornit's. You seem to have no problem with her version of flooding. That is all.
Hey, no complaints here though, I am enjoying not engaging in potential flooding dialogue, as I said in my prior post, it is a relief.
Will I ever change my mind that not posting the full article from the LA Times on Scientology based on how I arrived at Scientology TM, no.
Do I have a problem with disagreeing with you - no.
Do I have a problem with obeying the no flooding rules - no.
I am ok. Seriously, thank you.
Paul
PS - Now you have me very curious as to the origins of the "clam" moniker?
-
Ginger,
Check this out, this is my first post here,
not in refernece to the New Freedom Initiative.
Certainly we talked about it, but I don't think
it lead me to post on this thread.
I am sure that talk contributed overall to
leading me to start googling scientology to
learn more than I knew when we first started
this whole episode.
Here is my first post:
On 2005-06-15 18:31:00, Antigen wrote:
"Oh, are you shittin' me? Deb provides a great deal of background and research info to these discussions.
Ginger, has no one ever done searches on these "resources" Deborah uses and Scientology before?
OK, here is on on Ablechild.org that Deborah uses to post on the thread:
"Mental Health Screening in Schools Signals the End of Parental Rights"
Search: Ablechild.org Scientology
...
The rest of the post snipped to avoid flooding.
-
I would just like to say that I am glad Paul is back posting...however, I would like to call foul on him being banned for so-called flooding. It took someone like Animals months and months of massive bullshit.... not to mention decidedly improper etiquette....before he got booted.
I dont think its necessary for Paul to have to apologize for anything....he hasnt been rude or obscene.....not like the two legendary intellects posting now about his "obsession" and the infinite value of the phrase "fuck off". May I ask why they arent to apologize or implement proper ettiquette?
I have seen people post articles this long if not longer many times before and with no reprimand.
I guess it doesnt matter now since he is no longer blocked...but it still just floors me that something like this would merit such action when others wouldnt.
Just makes me question the legitimacy of the forum. Ive never felt that way before.
-
First it was just him and Timoclea and Deborah on an asinine thread on the Teen Help that no one but them had any interest in because it turned into a bicker thing. Then Paul starts posting replies and threads in other forums specifically calling out Deborah. It was getting creepy. Creepy, I tell you, his obsession with Deborah's posts. Not only creepy, but absurd, telling Deborah she had some ethical obligation to reveal her beliefs or say her source was related to Scientology. THEN he comes over here and bumps ANOTHER thread about Scientology, and KEEPS ON calling out Deborah, and he was posting long ass cut and pastes that were about nothing but his obsession with posting long ass cut and pastes about Scientology just to make more noise than Deborah, so Ginger politely requested that he just post links to such long ass articles so he wasn't leaching off her server with his obsession. THEN he kept on cutting and pasting and posting these articles!
Anyhoo, that's the background story. Maybe you'd have seen it differently if you had seen the whole thing unfold over a period of days.
-
On 2005-06-27 14:50:00, Anonymous wrote:
Anyhoo, that's the background story. Maybe you'd have seen it differently if you had seen the whole thing unfold over a period of days. "
Anonymous,
Isn't it nice that you have the choice and freedom to have your own take on how these posts evolved.
If you don't want to take my version of how I got involved, and my corrective action since emailing
with Ginger yesterday, then you don't have to. Cool eh!
Perhaps if Deborah didn't insult me and was not such an expert on the mentally ill, even though she stated she has nothing to do with the mentally ill, this Bipolar person would not even be mentioning her now! Just think ...
Paul
-
On 2005-06-27 14:09:00, Carmel wrote:
It took someone like Animals months and months of massive bullshit.... not to mention decidedly improper etiquette....before he got booted.
No! I have nowere near as much control over this as ppl seem to think. It took me months and months to effectively ban Crocagator Doddsey because he found a neato link to practically unlimited proxy addresses. Props to Brian for at least staging a decent attack. And many thanks to him for providing an ongoing beta test for our filters.
I don't think Paul was really trying to take down the server. Just got a little overbearing at a moment in time when I'm already fed up w/ dos type attacks. It was largely a misunderstanding. I might have solved the problem just by explaining the problem to him. It's all better now.
Now, back to the mud wrestling!
Do ya'll think that the state of parenting in this country is SO banefully neglegent that leaving it all to the state is the best option?
Scoundrels are predictable, but you're a man of honor and that frightens me.
Robert Heinlein, Glory Road.
-
On 2005-06-27 15:48:00, Antigen wrote:
I don't think Paul was really trying to take down the server. Just got a little overbearing at a moment in time when I'm already fed up w/ dos type attacks. It was largely a misunderstanding. I might have solved the problem just by explaining the problem to him. It's all better now.
Now, back to the mud wrestling!
Do ya'll think that the state of parenting in this country is SO banefully neglegent that leaving it all to the state is the best option?
I concur with Ginger that it is all better, and
I appreciate the lesson!
Regarding her question ... I hope not! I don't think the goverment believes so either, but I
believe that the state has a "buck stops here"
philosophy.
-
http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1H.htm (http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1H.htm)
This short, 363 word article, gives an
example of the historical claims by the
Church of Scientology's founder to be false.
-
On 2005-06-27 15:48:00, Antigen wrote:
Do ya'll think that the state of parenting in this country is SO banefully neglegent that leaving it all to the state is the best option?
Scoundrels are predictable, but you're a man of honor and that frightens me.
Robert Heinlein, Glory Road.
"
No way! Do you honestly think that it's coming to that?The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word all the qualities of the canaille.
--Karl Marx, German economist and political philosopher
_________________
EST (Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke
-
Here's the clam thing.
http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html (http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html)
And yes, I do think it's coming to that. And it's not just a recent development, but a part of the base plan of professional educators all along.
The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known.
--John Stuart Mill
-
On 2005-06-28 11:45:00, Antigen wrote:
"Here's the clam thing.
http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html (http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html)
Wow:
Bare-faced messiah: The true story of L. Ron Hubbard
by Russell Miller
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Miller presents the life story of L. Ron Hubbard, from his early days as a pulp science fiction writer, through his years as the head of the Church of Scientology, to his death in 1986. Miller, who was actively opposed by Scientologists, contrasts the official church biographies with his own well-documented accounts of Hubbard's incredible life. Hubbard invented the Dianetics and Scientology movements and acquired millions through them; as their autocratic leader, he was obeyed unquestioningly. Miller makes no bones about considering Hubbard a fraud, but his book betrays a reluctant admiration for the man he sees as "one of the most successful and colourful confidence tricksters of the 20th century." A well-researched investigation that makes fascinating reading. C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
* Unknown Binding: 390 pages
* Publisher: M. Joseph (1987)
* Language: English
* ISBN: 0718127641
* Average Customer Review: based on 16 reviews. (Write a review)
* Amazon.com Sales Rank: #265,198 in Books
(Publishers and authors: improve your sales)
---
Reviewer: Nigel Parry (St. Paul, MN USA)
It gives you chills to consider that present Scientologists might believe even one-tenth of the lunacy of the L. Ron Hubbard that this book reveals as a paranoid, authoritarian, self-aggrandising, destructive, and pathalogical ( ).
Hubbard was clearly a severly disturbed individual, and his motivation for founding Scientology was also clearly a direct result of his delusions and desire for attention, and, later, for cash.
Scientology itself is revealled as a mixture of pop psychology, new age healing techniques, and belief in our heritage as space aliens - all three spiced-up by the illicit thrill that only secret knowledge (priced in US$ of course) can bring.
In other words, welcome to 20th Century free market Gnosticism, with a bit of everything tossed in, for good measure, by a deranged cook that seems to have no taste buds at all.
Even assuming (following the death of Hubbard) there has been a corporate sanitising of the whackier aspects of his philosophy (and trust me here, the book is overflowing with examples of these), the fact that anyone would choose such an obviously broken foundation stone to build anything on, is enough cause for the alarm bells to start ringing.
The book is exhaustively researched and is a completely mind-blowing read, as the reader gets to walk a path from a creative childhood in which we learn about Hubbard's natural talent for story-telling that later developed into his relatively successful science-fiction career, to a progressively-stunted adulthood where lies becomes the main creative media he works with.
It would be good to see a follow up that deals less with Hubbard and more with how the Scientologists absorbed his legacy into their current practice (quite well, it would seem, from the myriad of media reports of destructive cultic behaviour).
Now that would take some explaining.
But this is outside the scope of this biography.
The book has a ring of authenticity thanks to the well-established credentials of the journalist who wrote it, and thus stands as a credible portrait of a destructive cartoon character that - unfortunately - more than a few people saw as their messiah.
---
So, who's surprised???, June 14, 2005
Reviewer: Martin D. Turner "Marty" (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Scientology is about POWER and NOT about spirituality. The reason why Tom Cruise, John Travolta and their ilk tout it is because they're (bored) rich folks who need to have some sort of "tiller" in life and Scientology delivers that (note that many of the power players in Hollywood and Capitol Hill belong to this "religion"; if you're not a Scientologist, then you don't "play" with the big boys (or make the really big money) ...).
Read Jon Atack's "Piece of Blue Sky"; nothing like hearing about a religion from one who used to practice it.
And yes, I agree with other sentiments expressed here: it's scary to think that well-educated (mostly) intelligent people believe the chronic lies of Hubbard.
---
Attack of the Clones..., May 23, 2005
Reviewer: Steven Cain (Temporal Quantum Pocket) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
Well that's how the die-hard, cyborg-like Sea Org people tend to come across, in my experience.
If I had thought this book was nothing more than an ill-informed cheap shot at Hubbard, I would not have read it, but it is not. My greatest problems with Scientology were never about the Technology, but with the over-zealousness (to put it very politely) of the Sea Org staff above all, and the absolutely unforgivable price of Services.
If you ever complained about the totally unrealistic cost of Services - relative to average earnings, for example, you were met with facile, brainwashed responses about 'what is Freedom worth?' and 'No Clear thinks it's expensive...' all of which totally ignore the fact that the organization is 99% money driven, whether it started that way or not; and that most of The Bridge (the structured path to spiritual freedom) is way beyond the price range of the average individual - unless they become Staff members, of course...
While Hubbard is seen to be a questionable character in terms of false claims about a number of issues, including aspects of his military service, as Miller reveals, he may well have developed some important technology at the heart of the Beast that Scientology eventually became.
It does not have some of the more immediately threatening aspects of a Cult that many true Cults possess, but it is hard to see it as anything else when you add up the lists of experiences that Miller and others have recorded and analyzed.
Don't be fooled by reviewers who hide behind 'attacks on their religion'. If Scientology operated more like a real religion (which it could do), it would not charge so much for its Services. It's pricing structure is simply a control weapon and nothing more.
Read the book and make up your own mind.
---
A Cult., January 17, 2005
Reviewer: Philly Geraldo (USA) - See all my reviews
I read the book. Christians would just hate to hear someone talk bad about their religion. I'm sure the scientologists are upset at those who published the book. So to the author of the book, what wrong have you done and/or kept in secret away from Ron Hubbard and Scientology? Since you claim that this book is "the truth" and the "fact" of, "I'm right and L.Ron Hubbard is wrong." He's not telling the truth because the basis of criticism againist anyone or thing is from the wrong doings and the secrecy of those wrong doings from ever reaching the surface. That's his concern. Like a child, Russell forgot all about his honesty and respondsibility for his actions. He's hasn't even the slightest clue of how L. Ron Hubbard has helped millions. Even the one writting this article, who should've by medical standards been a vegtable since birth due to brain damage. And even if Russell is telling the truth, then perhaps he should say the samething about all the other religions out there. Of course that would really upset and irk alot of people which is never an option.
The fact is this. No one likes discrimination of their religion and no could say the samething about all the other religions out there. It would cause an uproar!
The Scientologists were allowed to stay and help out those in danger when 9-11 happened. They were even allowed to stay alot longer when the others had to leave.
To the future readers. Ask yourself this question, "Would I like it if someone were talking bad about my religion, GOD or Jesus the Lord in Heaven?" "Would I read some nutcase's BS about my religion, when I know that it isn't true and agree to it?" No. You wouldn't. This book is simply about telling others that the author is the trickster and is scared of being found out. Visit the nearest Church of Scientology for the correct anwsers.
Quite frankly and honestly. If you really need alot of toliet paper when you go to the bathroom, then that's all this book (Bare-Faced messiah: The True story of L.Ron Hubbard) is really good is wiping your (you know what I mean)with.
---
A fascinating story of an astonishing life, April 26, 2004
Reviewer: Alex Frantz (San Leandro, ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Miller is the first writer to conduct real research into the life story of L. Ron Hubbard. Earlier writers, even those highly critical of Scientology such as Paulette Cooper, had tended to tkae Hubbard's official biography at face value.
In fact, Hubbard was a man of immense ability, energy, ambibition, and ego. He regularly undertook difficult projects, and, when describing the results, regularly transformed failure or marginal success into dazzling triumph. Miller's work in separating fact from fiction in Hubbard's early exploits is valuable, as is his recounting of the early years and growth of Scientology and Dianetics.
Miller has, though, probably underestimated his subject. He ends with the prediction that Scientology is not likely to long outlive its founder. Although Scientology is struggling - propaganda describing it as the world's fastest growing religion is as fictional as Hubbard's career as a war hero - it remains very much alive. It also has had a vast influence on many similar movements (quite a few started by ex-Scientologists), an intriguing story that Miller passes by entirely. However, Miller is centering on Hubbard's life, he wasn't attempting to write the definitive study on the subjects of Scientology and Dianetics.
Aside from its value, this is just an interesting story, one so strange that if you read it as fiction, you would question the plausibility.
---
Fantastic book and a warning to the weak minded, June 25, 2002
Reviewer: R. Smith "smarterthanthis" (Dublin, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This cult is absolutely the most bizzare thing I've ever heard of. Read this book and delve into the most incredible story you can imagine. And it's non-fiction! This cult is so creepy you will not sleep at night. Hard to believe this nonsense is actually considered a religion. Kudos to Mr. Miller for delivering a great read and revaling the inner workings of a true madman and a conman to rival any in history. The only sad part are the victims who have fallen for this science fiction mumbo jumbo and believe in such foolishness.
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...let freedom ring with a shotgun blast!
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Speaking of Scientology..all of the celebs that are into that are disgusting..Tom Cruise with his bleached huge teeth and fake bubble grin..
Kirsty Ally .. With her "Im a recovered addict" bullshit. My big toe has felt more dope than shell ever see
Travolta ...enough said.
Fuck I need another painkiller just thinking about them..
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On 2005-06-28 11:45:00, Antigen wrote:
"Here's the clam thing.
http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html (http://www.xenu.net/clam_faq.html)
I think this is a litmus test written by Hubbard to quickly determine who is gullible enough to participate in Scientology and who is not.
If they believe in this, then they will be fine cult members, and others who don't have the ability to be curious as to why this is commonly called a cult will defend them as a bona fide religion to no end and utilize COS, and COS front groups as legitimate
resources to push their beliefs on others. As witness right here at Fornits!
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This should indicate proof of interest on this thread.
Now the debate of innapropriatness on reviving this dead thread should be over once and for all.
It should not have mattered in the first place!
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http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/ (http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/)
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On 2005-06-28 21:07:00, Paul wrote:
"This should indicate proof of interest on this thread.
Now the debate of innapropriatness on reviving this dead thread should be over once and for all.
It should not have mattered in the first place!"
Get the fuck off the Straight survivors forum with your obsessive compulsive creepiness disorder.
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But Paul was just trying to make sure that we all knew that he was right all along. :lol:
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On 2005-06-28 21:25:00, Anonymous wrote:
Get the fuck off the Straight survivors forum with your obsessive compulsive creepiness disorder."
Hmmm, you and fug anonymous still reading threads against your own free will?
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I, for one (the fug anon) am NOT reading it, thankyaverramuch...
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On 2005-06-28 22:31:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I, for one (the fug anon) am NOT reading it, thankyaverramuch..."
Prove that you are not reading it, ole "post o matic"!
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http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1I.htm (http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-1I.htm)
It has a staff -- but no congregation -- and its fiscal 1987 income was $503 million, according to court documents filed by the church.
The rest of the story is just over 500 words ...
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http://psych.org/news_room/press_releas ... erview.pdf (http://psych.org/news_room/press_releases/05-39APAResponds_TomCruiseTodayShowInterview.pdf)
Release no. 05-39
APA Responds to Tom Cruise?s Today Show Interview
Arlington, Va. - The American Psychiatric Association (APA) released the following statement in response to Tom Cruise?s anti-psychiatry remarks. While the APA respects the right of individuals to express their own points of view, science has proven that mental illnesses are real medical conditions that affect millions of Americans.
?It is irresponsible for Mr. Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views and deter people with mental illness from getting the care they need,? said APA President Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein.
Over the past five years, the nation has more than doubled its investment in the study of the human brain and behavior, leading to a vastly expanded understanding of postpartum depression, bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Much of this research has been conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the nation?s leading academic institutions. Safe and effective treatments are available and may include talk therapy, medication or a combination of the two.
Rigorous, published, peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that treatment works. Medications can be an important and even life-saving part of a comprehensive and individualized treatment plan.
As in other areas of medicine, medications are a safe and effective way to improve the quality of life for millions of Americans who have mental health concerns.
Mental health is a critical ingredient of overall health. It is unfortunate that in the face of this remarkable scientific and clinical progress that a small number of individuals and groups persist in questioning its legitimacy.
The diagnosis of a mental illness no longer carries the fear or shame it once did, according to a recent APA consumer survey. Nearly 90 percent of Americans surveyed correctly believe that people with mental illness can live healthy lives and an overwhelming majority (80 percent) feels confident that mental health treatment works.
Study findings also show that nearly 70 percent of people surveyed view going to a psychiatrist as a sign of strength.
?We know that treatment works,? said APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D. ?And since safe, effective treatments are available, Americans can have what everyone wants ? healthy minds and healthy lives.?
About the American Psychiatric Association:
The American Psychiatric Association is a national medical specialty society whose nearly 36,000 physician members specialize in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illnesses including substance use disorders.
Healthy Minds. Healthy Lives.
Care that works to get your mind healthy again so you can lead a healthy life. Visit APA at http://www.psych.org (http://www.psych.org) and
http://www.healthyminds.org (http://www.healthyminds.org).
###
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On 2005-06-27 14:50:00, Anonymous wrote:
"First it was just him and Timoclea and Deborah on an asinine thread on the Teen Help that no one but them had any interest in because it turned into a bicker thing. Then Paul starts posting replies and threads in other forums specifically calling out Deborah. It was getting creepy. Creepy, I tell you, his obsession with Deborah's posts. Not only creepy, but absurd, telling Deborah she had some ethical obligation to reveal her beliefs or say her source was related to Scientology. THEN he comes over here and bumps ANOTHER thread about Scientology, and KEEPS ON calling out Deborah, and he was posting long ass cut and pastes that were about nothing but his obsession with posting long ass cut and pastes about Scientology just to make more noise than Deborah, so Ginger politely requested that he just post links to such long ass articles so he wasn't leaching off her server with his obsession. THEN he kept on cutting and pasting and posting these articles!
Anyhoo, that's the background story. Maybe you'd have seen it differently if you had seen the whole thing unfold over a period of days. "
Creepy doesnt equal banned in my book. But Ginger has already explained that. You cant honestly say that this particular forum isnt comprised of at the very least, 60-70% creepy ranting posts. I think its ridiculous Anon, to use the idea that someone is creepy to justify them being refused entry.
And in regards to posting long articles....check out the the stuff Sammie just posted...which I think is great information BTW, but if you are going to get all in a wad about long article posting its only fair to apply it to everyone. I dont see anyone having a cow over that.
Whats creepy to me is that I am getting this visual of a person standing there, angry about dogshit on the riverbank, when the whole river is made of shit to begin with.
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On 2005-06-29 03:47:00, Paul wrote:
On 2005-06-28 22:31:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I, for one (the fug anon) am NOT reading it, thankyaverramuch..."
Prove that you are not reading it, ole "post o matic"!"
FUCK you, Paul....you self-absorbed asswipe. You're a narcissistic jackass - unbelieveable that you would call ANYONE else something like a post-o-matic. What a fucking TOOL you are!! You're WORSE THAN THE SCIENTOLOGISTS with you're OCD bullshit.
How could anyone "prove" that they're not reading your prosaic mile-long cut-and-paste posts? Guess you'll just have to take my word for it, as much as it (I'm sure) pains you to do so...
This dead thread just passed 1,000 views
Who gives a fuck?
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On 2005-06-29 08:25:00, Frank Discussion wrote:
"On 2005-06-29 03:47:00, Paul wrote:
On 2005-06-28 22:31:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I, for one (the fug anon) am NOT reading it, thankyaverramuch..."
Prove that you are not reading it, ole "post o matic"!"
FUCK you, Paul....you self-absorbed asswipe. You're a narcissistic jackass - unbelieveable that you would call ANYONE else something like a post-o-matic. What a fucking TOOL you are!! You're WORSE THAN THE SCIENTOLOGISTS with you're OCD bullshit.
How could anyone "prove" that they're not reading your prosaic mile-long cut-and-paste posts? Guess you'll just have to take my word for it, as much as it (I'm sure) pains you to do so...
This dead thread just passed 1,000 views
Who gives a fuck?"
"How could anyone "prove" that they're not reading ..."
You and the other complainers are too funny.
BTW - if you all are reading this, then you are here, and you are reading this thread :smile: Got it! Duh!
Talk about taking the bait ... wow! Impressive!!
I am stunned that you feel comfortable being critical of a thread or a topic you do not like, instead of just ignoring it.
You want freedom, you got it. Now you are showing you can't handle it.
From an outsider of this teen behavior modification industry, it is the complainers and insult mongers who who make me wonder if your enrollment was your own fault. Sadly nothing seems to have changed in your lives, the only consistancy is juvenile annoyance.
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"From an outsider of this teen behavior modification industry, it is the complainers and insult mongers who who make me wonder if your enrollment was your own fault. Sadly nothing seems to have changed in your lives, the only consistancy is juvenile annoyance."
::both::
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BTW - if you all are reading this, then you are here, and you are reading this thread Got it! Duh!
Wrong again, moron. Maybe I just skim or not even that. My reply was to your asinine suggestion that I somehow 'prove' that I'm not reading this thread. Well I'm not reading it, simple as that. In other words, dumbass...just to make sure that you GET it this time -- one can visit a thread without reading it.
Is this concept too over your head? :wave:
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On 2005-06-29 09:15:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
"From an outsider of this teen behavior modification industry, it is the complainers and insult mongers who who make me wonder if your enrollment was your own fault. Sadly nothing seems to have changed in your lives, the only consistancy is juvenile annoyance."
::both:: "
Proving my observation even further, thanks, but not necessary.
I am not happy about the observation, it just seems to be accurate, sadly.
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Thanks for showing us how stupid you really are. Really.
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Paul seems to be an expert at this. :rofl:
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Well now! If we're going in for a round of online psyche diagnosis, I'm game!
I think Paul suffers from SPD
http://www.autistics.org/isnt/dsn-staff.html (http://www.autistics.org/isnt/dsn-staff.html)To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy.
-- MIT Assasination Club slogan
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Condescending....
Persistent or stereotyped use of euphemisms, jargon, deceptive language, and double standards in language.
Rigidity in application of rules and explanations to other people. (case in point -- harping on how ppl "read" his thread)
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http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-2A.htm (http://www.xenutv.com/print/LAT-2A.htm)
Frequently, a person's first contact with Scientology comes when he is approached by a staff member on the street and offered a free personality test, or receives a lengthy questionnaire in the mail.
Using charts and graphs, the idea is to convince a person that he has some problem, or "ruin," that Scientology can fix, while assuaging concerns he may have about the church. According to Hubbard, "if the job has been done well, the person should be worried."
---
This article is 2,200 words in length.
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was watching something on an old Regis Philbin talk show spoof. There was this cat and he was an expert at double talk. The other talk show guess was expected to act like they knew what the double talker was saying. She smiled and played along, but the guy really was saying gobble-dee-gook.
I wish I knew how to be a double talk expert like that. It would get me out of alot of shit with cops, with folk in southland u.s.a., and in general. I just think most of the shit people say is shit anyways ...why not help it along? ya know, general fears and worries simply being confused and expounded with saying things that make even less sense.
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Interesting topic.
Myself, I encountered Dianetics/Scientology in the UK many years ago. Being curious I asked questions, which gave me grave doubts about all that was said.
My own background as a youth had been difficult, and I had been living alone since 14 so I had developed a strong personality and something of an ability to not be easily swayed by the 'promises' of others, I also recognised I had some flaws I would like to address which lead me to investigate Dianetics.
When I entered the shop I was immediately harangued and surrounded by people clamouring to tell me how 'damaged' I was and how they could help me. I left poste haste, even I could recognise the look of the religious fanatic and have no desire to see it on my face any time soon.
Moving to America many years later and settling in Florida, I became aware of the Scientologists in Clearwater and their effect upon the local people. to say that people loathe them is something of an understatement.
Recently I saw articles about their headquarters and pictures of men on the roof with guns. This is not a good thing, and as the scientologists were questioned about the need for such practices, they cheerfully shrugged it off and denied it happened.
To the man on the street this all might seem fantastic, but the truth is more fantastic still. Dianetics, and Scientology are dark institutions full of fantatics only to wiling to pull you into their world, and fill your head full of the same magic that their is populated with.
Of course it's fair to say, to each their own, live and let live, so I'll close this little monologue of my experiences with this group with this parting comment.
If you're a scientologist or Dianetic follower then nothing I've said will dissuade you or change your mind. I hope you're happy.
If you're not a scientologist and are interested in knowing more? Then please do some research on this group. Before you walk through their doors or make direct contact do a few internet searches on them. Understand what they are about, and listen to comments voiced by other people who detail their experiences and are trying to piece their lives together after their involvement with them.
You may find yourself no longer interested completely.
Anonymous.
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I once went to interview for a veterinanrian who turned out to be a hardcore Clam. It was a real bummer because he did alot of work with Chinese herbal remedies and naturopathic animal care, which would have been awesome to observe and learn about.
My interview consisted of about an hour long "personality" test....after which he sat down and graphed my "flaws" for me. Asked me a few other questions, one being if I was interested in learning more about Scientology and if I wanted some literature on it. In reality, I dont think we ever really even addressed the job opening so much as him deciding if I would make a good follower.
He had Diantetics posters and materials literally strewn about his office. I knew nothing of Scientology back them....but I am glad I didnt meet this guy's expectations!
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Part 2: The Selling of a Church
Shoring Up Its Religious Profile
The church has adopted the terminology and trappings of traditional theologies. But the IRS is not convinced.
(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A18:1)
Since its founding some 35 years ago by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology has worked hard to shore up its religious profile for the public, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service.
In the old days, for example, those who purchased Hubbard's Scientology courses were called "students." Today, they are "parishioners."
The group's "franchises" have become "missions." And Hubbard's teachings, formerly his "courses," now are described as sacred scriptures.
The word "Dianetics" was even redefined to give it a spiritual twist. For years, Hubbard said it meant "through the mind." The new definition: "through the soul."
Canadian authorities learned firsthand how far Scientologists would go to maintain a religious aura.
According to police documents disclosed in 1984, an undercover officer who infiltrated Scientology's Toronto outpost during an investigation of its activities was asked by a church official to don a "white collar so that someone in the (organization) looked like a minister."
For three decades, critics have accused Scientology of assuming the mantle of religion to shield itself from government inquiries and taxes.
"To some, this seems mere opportunism," Hubbard said of Scientology's religious conversion in a 1954 communique to his followers. "To some it would seem that Scientology is simply making itself bulletproof in the eyes of the law...."
But, Hubbard insisted, religion is "basically a philosophic teaching designed to better the civilization into which it is taught.... A Scientologist has a better right to call himself a priest, a minister, a missionary, a doctor of divinity, a faith healer or a preacher than any other man who bears the insignia of religion of the Western World."
Joseph Yanny, a Los Angeles attorney who represented the church until he had a bitter falling out with the group in 1987, said Scientology portrays itself as a religion only where it is expedient to do so -- such as in the U.S., where tax laws favor religious organizations.
In Israel and many parts of Latin America, where there is either a state religion or a prohibition against religious organizations owning property, Yanny said Scientology claims to be a philosophical society.
In the beginning, Hubbard toyed with different ways to promote his creation.
For a time, he called it "the only successfully validated psychotherapy in the world." To those who completed his courses, he offered "certification" as a "Freudian psychoanalyst."
He also described it as a "precision science" that required no faith or beliefs to produce "completely predictable results" of higher intelligence and better health. Hubbard bestowed upon its practitioners the title "doctor of Scientology."
This characterization, however, landed him in trouble with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a federal judge, who concluded in 1971 that Hubbard was making false medical claims and had employed "skillful propaganda to make Scientology ... attractive in many varied, often inconsistent wrappings."
The judge said, however, that if claims about Scientology were advanced in a purely spiritual context, they would be beyond the government's reach because of protections afforded religions under the First Amendment.
In the United States, it is easy to become a church, no matter how unconventional -- you just say it is so. The hard part may come in keeping tax-exempt status, as Scientology has learned.
The U.S. government is constitutionally barred from determining what is and what is not a religion. But, under the law, there is no guaranteed right to tax exemption. The IRS can make a church pay taxes if it fails to meet criteria established by the agency.
A tax-exempt religion may not, for example, operate primarily for business purposes, commit crimes, engage in partisan politics or enrich private individuals. It should, among other things, have a formal doctrine, ordained ministers, religious services, sincerely held beliefs and an established place of worship.
In 1967, the Church of Scientology of California was stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS, an action the church considered unlawful and thus ignored. The IRS, in turn, undertook a mammoth audit of the church for the years 1970 through 1974.
So began Scientology's most sweeping religious make-over.
Among other things, Scientology ministers (formerly "counselors") started to wear white collars, dark suits and silver crosses.
Sunday services were mandated and chapels were ordered erected in Scientology buildings. It was made a punishable offense for a staffer to omit from church literature the notation that Scientology is a "religious philosophy."
Many of the changes flowed from a flurry of "religious image" directives issued by high-level Scientology executives. One policy put it bluntly:
"Visual evidences that Scientology is a religion are mandatory."
None of this, however, convinced the IRS, which assessed the church more than $1 million in back taxes for the years 1970 through 1972.
Scientology appealed to the U.S. Tax Court, where, in 1984, it was handed one of the worst financial and public relations disasters in its history.
In a blistering opinion, the court backed the IRS and said the Church of Scientology of California had "made a business out of selling religion," had diverted millions of dollars to Hubbard and his family and had "conspired for almost a decade to defraud the United States Government by impeding the IRS."
The church lost again when it took the case before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and the U.S. Supreme Court let the lower-court decision stand.
Stripped of its tax-exempt status, Scientology executives turned the Church of Scientology of California into a virtual shell.
Once called the "Mother Church," it no longer controls the Scientology empire and does not serve as the chief depository for church funds.
It has been replaced by a number of new organizations that Scientology executives maintain are religious and tax exempt. But, once again, the IRS has disagreed, ruling that the new organizations are still operating in a commercial manner.
Scientology is appealing the IRS decision in the courts.
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Who ?IS? Paul? Curious?
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... m=9#114154 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=10711&forum=9#114154)
Paul, you're such a slimy fucking slug.
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On 2005-07-01 17:58:00, Deborah wrote:
"Who ?IS? Paul? Curious?
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... m=9#114154 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=10711&forum=9#114154)
Paul, you're such a slimy fucking slug."
If I give you the definition of comprehension again, I will be accused of flooing ...
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Paul, you need to have a seat now. You can relate in 3 days.
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Part 2: The Selling of a Church
The Courting of Celebrities
Testimonials of the famous are prominent in the church's push for acceptability. John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are the current headliners.
(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A18:5)
The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard's teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America.
As far back as 1955, Hubbard recognized the value of famous people to his fledgling, off-beat church when he inaugurated "Project Celebrity." According to Hubbard, Scientologists should target prominent individuals as their "quarry" and bring them back like trophies for Scientology.
He listed the following people of that era as suitable prey: Edward R. Murrow, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hughes, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney, Henry Luce, Billy Graham, Groucho Marx and others of similar stature.
"If you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as a reward," Hubbard wrote in a Scientology magazine more than three decades ago.
Although the effort died, the idea of using celebrities to promote and defend Scientology survived -- though perhaps not as grandly as Hubbard had dreamed.
Today, the church's most famous celebrity is actor John Travolta, who credits Hubbard's teachings with giving him confidence and direction.
"All I've had are benefits," said Travolta, a church member since 1975.
Another Scientology celebrity is actress Kirstie Alley, co-star of the television series "Cheers." Last year, Alley and Travolta teamed up in the blockbuster comedy film, "Look Who's Talking."
Alley is international spokeswoman for the Scientology movement's controversial new drug and alcohol treatment center in Chilocco, Okla., which employs a rehabilitation regimen created years ago by Hubbard.
A former cocaine abuser, Alley has said she discovered Hubbard's Narconon program in 1979 and that it "salvaged my life and began my acting career."
Alley also has become active in disseminating a new 47-page booklet on ways to preserve the environment. The booklet, entitled "Cry Out," was named after a Hubbard song and was produced by Author Services Inc., his literary agency. Author Services is controlled by influential Scientologists.
In April, Alley provided nationwide exposure for the illustrated booklet -- which mentions Hubbard but not Scientology -- when she unveiled it on the popular Arsenio Hall Show. Since then, it has been distributed to prominent environmental groups throughout the U.S.
Besides Alley and Travolta, the Scientology celebrity ranks also include: jazz pianist Chick Corea; singer Al Jarreau; actress Karen Black; opera star Julia Migenes; Priscilla Presley and her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, and Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice behind Bart Simpson, the wisecracking son on the animated TV hit, "The Simpsons."
U.S. Olympic gymnast Charles Lakes also is a prominent Scientologist.
After the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, Lakes appeared on the cover of Celebrity magazine, a Scientology publication that promotes church celebrities. In an interview with the magazine, Lakes credited Dianetics for his success and strength.
"I am by far the healthiest person on the team," he said. "They (other team members) are actually resentful of me because I don't have to train as long as they do."
Celebrities are considered so important to the movement's expansion that the church created a special office to guide their careers and ensure their "correct utilization" for Scientology.
The church has a special branch that ministers to prominent individuals, providing them with first-class treatment. Its headquarters, called Celebrity Centre International, is housed in a magnificent old turreted mansion on Franklin Avenue, overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.
In 1988, the movement tried to associate itself with a non-Scientology celebrity, race driver Mario Andretti, by sponsoring his car in the GTE World Challenge of Tampa, Fla. But the plan backfired.
When Andretti saw seven Dianetics logo decals stripped across his Porsche, he demanded that they be removed.
"It's not something I believe in, so I don't want to make it appear like I'm endorsing it," he was quoted as saying.
For years, Scientology's biggest celebrity spokesman was former San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brodie.
Brodie said that when pain in his throwing arm threatened his career, he applied Dianetics techniques and soon was "zipping the ball" again like a young man.
Although he still admires Hubbard's teachings, Brodie said he gave up promoting them after some of his friends in Scientology were expelled and harassed during a power struggle with church management.
"There were many in the church I felt were treated unfairly," Brodie said.
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Thank you, have a seat. :grin:
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On 2005-07-01 23:58:00, Paul wrote:
"
On 2005-07-01 17:58:00, Deborah wrote:
"Who ?IS? Paul? Curious?
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... m=9#114154 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=10711&forum=9#114154)
Paul, you're such a slimy fucking slug."
If I give you the definition of comprehension again, I will be accused of flooing ..."
Flooing ... LOL! thanks!!!
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Inside Scientology
Unlocking the complex code of America's most mysterious religion
The faded little downtown area of Clearwater, Florida, has a beauty salon, a pizza parlor and one or two run-down bars, as well as a bunch of withered bungalows and some old storefronts that look as if they haven't seen customers in years. There are few cars and almost no pedestrians. There are, however, buses -- a fleet of gleaming white and blue ones that slowly crawl through town, stopping at regular intervals to discharge a small army of tightly organized, young, almost exclusively white men and women, all clad in uniform preppy attire: khaki, black or navy-blue trousers and crisp white, blue or yellow dress shirts. Some wear pagers on their belts; others carry briefcases. The men have short hair, and the women keep theirs pulled back or tucked under headbands that match their outfits. No one crosses against the light, and everybody calls everybody else "sir" -- even when the "sir" is a woman. They move throughout the center of Clearwater in tight clusters, from corner to corner, building to building.
This regimented mass represents the "Sea Organization," the most dedicated and elite members of the Church of Scientology. For the past thirty years, Scientology has made the city of Clearwater its worldwide spiritual headquarters -- its Mecca, or its Temple Square. There are 8,300 or so Scientologists living and working in Clearwater -- more than in any other city in the world outside of Los Angeles. Scientologists own more than 200 businesses in Clearwater. Members of the church run schools and private tutoring programs, day-care centers and a drug-rehab clinic. They sit on the boards of the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts.
In July 2004, The St. Petersburg Times dubbed Clearwater, a community of 108,000 people, "Scientology's Town." On the newspaper's front page was a photograph of Scientology's newest building, a vast, white, Mediterranean Revival-style edifice known within Scientology circles as the "Super Power" building. Occupying a full square block of downtown, this structure, which has been under construction since 1998, is billed as the single largest Scientology church in the world. When it is finally completed -- presumably in late 2006, at an estimated final cost of $50 million -- it will have 889 rooms on six floors, an indoor sculpture garden and a large Scientology museum. The crowning touch will be a two-story, illuminated Scientology cross that, perched atop the building's highest tower, will shine over the city of Clearwater like a beacon.
* * * *
Scientology -- the term means "the study of truth," in the words of its founder and spiritual messiah, the late science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard -- calls itself "the world's fastest-growing religion." Born in 1954, the group now claims 10 million members in 159 countries and more than 6,000 Scientology churches, missions and outreach groups across the globe. Its holdings, which include real estate on several continents, are widely assumed to value in the billions of dollars. Its missionaries -- known as "volunteer ministers" -- take part in "cavalcades" throughout the developing world and have been found, en masse, at the site of disasters ranging from 9/11 to the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina. Within the field of comparative religions, some academics see Scientology as one of the most significant new religious movements of the past century.
Scientology is also America's most controversial religion: widely derided, but little understood. It is rooted in elements of Buddhism, Hinduism and a number of Western philosophies, including aspects of Christianity. The French sociologist Regis Dericquebourg, an expert in comparative religions, explains Scientology's belief system as one of "regressive utopia," in which man seeks to return to a once-perfect state through a variety of meticulous, and rigorous, processes intended to put him in touch with his primordial spirit. These processes are highly controlled, and, at the advanced levels, highly secretive. Critics of the church point out that Scientology, unique among religions, withholds key aspects of its central theology from all but its most exalted followers. To those in the mainstream, this would be akin to the Catholic Church refusing to tell all but a select number of the faithful that Jesus Christ died for their sins.
In June of last year, I set out to discover Scientology, an undertaking that would take nearly nine months. A closed faith that has often been hostile to journalistic inquiry, the church initially offered no help on this story; most of my research was done without its assistance and involved dozens of interviews with both current and former Scientologists, as well as academic researchers who have studied the group. Ultimately, however, the church decided to cooperate and gave me unprecedented access to its officials, social programs and key religious headquarters. What I found was a faith that is at once mainstream and marginal -- a religious community known for its Hollywood members but run by a uniformed sect of believers who rarely, if ever, appear in the public eye. It is an insular society -- one that exists, to a large degree, as something of a parallel universe to the secular world, with its own nomenclature and ethical code, and, most daunting to those who break its rules, its own rigorously enforced justice system.
Scientologists, much like Mormons or Christian evangelicals, consider themselves to be on a mission. They frequently speak of "helping people," and this mission is stressed in a number of church testaments. "Scientologists see themselves as possessors of doctrines and skills that can save the world, if not the galaxy," says Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, in Canada, who has extensively studied the group.
Church officials boast that Scientology has grown more in the past five years than in the previous fifty. Some evidence, however, suggests otherwise. In 2001, a survey conducted by the City University of New York found only 55,000 people in the United States who claimed to be Scientologists. Worldwide, some observers believe a reasonable estimate of Scientology's core practicing membership ranges between 100,000 and 200,000, mostly in the U.S., Europe, South Africa and Australia. According to the church's own course-completion lists -- many of which are available in a church publication and on the Internet -- only 6,126 people signed up for religious services at the Clearwater organization in 2004, down from a peak of 11,210 in 1989. According to Kristi Wachter, a San Francisco activist who maintains an online database devoted to Scientology's numbers, this pattern is replicated at nearly all of Scientology's key organizations and churches. To some observers, this suggests that Scientology may, in fact, be shrinking.
But discerning what is true about the Church of Scientology is no easy task. Tax-exempt since 1993 (status granted by the IRS after a long legal battle), Scientology releases no information about its membership or its finances. Nor does it welcome analysis of its writings or practices. The church has a storied reputation for squelching its critics through litigation, and according to some reports, intimidation (a trait that may explain why the creators of South Park jokingly attributed every credit on its November 2005 sendup of Scientology to the fictional John and Jane Smith; Paramount, reportedly under pressure, has agreed not to rerun the episode here or to air it in England). Nevertheless, Scientology's critics comprise a sizable network of ex-members (or "apostates," in church parlance), academics and independent free-speech and human-rights activists like Wachter, who have declared war on the group by posting a significant amount of previously unknown information on the Internet. This includes scans of controversial memos, photographs and legal briefs, as well as testimonials from disillusioned former members, including some high-ranking members of its Sea Organization. All paint the church in a negative, even abusive, light.
When asked what, if anything, posted by the apostates is true, Mike Rinder, the fifty-year-old director of the Church of Scientology International's legal and public-relations wing, known as the Office of Special Affairs, says bluntly, "It's all bullshit, pretty much."
But he admits that Scientology has been on a campaign to raise its public profile. More than 23 million people visited the Scientology Web site last year, says Rinder, one of the highest-ranking officials in the church. In addition, the church claims that Scientology received 289,000 minutes of radio and TV coverage in 2005, many of them devoted to the actions of Tom Cruise, the most famous Scientologist in the world, who spent much of the spring and summer of 2005 promoting Scientology and its beliefs to interviewers ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Matt Lauer.
Shortly after Rolling Stone decided to embark on this story, Cruise called our offices to say that he would not participate. Several weeks later, the magazine was visited by Cruise's sister, Lee Anne DeVette, an upper-level Scientologist who until recently also served as Cruise's publicist, along with Mike Rinder. Both expressed their dissatisfaction with previous coverage of Scientology by major media outlets, and they warned against what they perceived to be the unreliability of the faith's critics -- "the wackos," as Rinder described them. He then invited Rolling Stone to Los Angeles to show us "the real Scientology" -- a trip that took five months to set up.
A number of people who have spoken for the purposes of this article have done so for the very first time. Several, in speaking of their lives spent in the church, requested that their identities be protected through the change of names and other characteristics. Others insisted that not even a gender be attached to their comments.
There will always be schisms in any religious group, as well as people who, upon leaving their faith, decide to "purge" themselves of their experiences. This is particularly true in the case of members of so-called new religions, which often demand total commitment from their members. Scientology is one of these religions. "We're not playing some minor game in Scientology," Hubbard wrote in a policy paper titled "Keeping Scientology Working," which is required reading for every member. "The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology. This is a deadly serious activity."
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It is impossible to go anywhere in downtown Clearwater without being watched by security cameras. There are about 100 of them, set up on all of Scientology's properties, which include several hotels, a former bank and a number of administrative buildings. Cameras face in, toward the buildings themselves, as well as out at the street.
While some might find this disconcerting, Natalie Walet, 17, thinks it's normal. "It's just a point of security," she says over coffee one evening at the downtown Starbucks. She notes that Scientology's buildings have been marred with graffiti and are routinely picketed, which she sees as a sign of religious bigotry. "You have a church that a lot of people don't like, and some people are assholes," she says. That said, Natalie adds, most people in Clearwater have "very high standards and morals -- they're ethical people."
A pretty girl with a long black ponytail, Natalie was born and raised in Scientology. Both of her parents and her grandmother are church members, and her involvement in Scientology centers around Clearwater. But the church has other far-flung hubs, including the organizational headquarters in Los Angeles, home to the powerful Church of Scientology International; and Freewinds, the 440-foot cruise ship that docks in Curacao and is used as a training facility, meeting hall and vacation destination for elite Scientologists, including Cruise and John Travolta. There is also "Gold Base," the exclusive desert compound housing the Religious Technology Center, or RTC, the financial hub of the church, located about eighty miles southeast of Los Angeles, home to David Miscavige, the charismatic forty-five-year-old who heads up the international church.
Natalie's everyday reality is one of total immersion in all things Hubbard. Scientology kids are raised in a very different manner than mainstream kids. Most of them, like Natalie, have been educated by special tutors, and enrolled, as Natalie was when she was younger, in private schools run by Scientologists that use a Hubbard-approved study technique. Most kids are also put "on course" -- enrolled in classes at the church that teach both children and adults self-control, focus and communication skills. Natalie was put on course, upon her own insistence, when she was seven or eight years old. Between school and church, life was "kind of a bubble," she says.
It is a steamy night, and Natalie is dressed in a sleeveless black Empire-waist blouse and tight jeans; her short, bitten nails are painted red. She lights a Marlboro Menthol. Smoking is Natalie's only vice. She neither drinks nor takes drugs of any sort -- "once in a grand while I'll take a Tylenol," she says. "But only if my headache is really bad." She admits this with embarrassment because Scientologists consider many illnesses to be psychosomatic and don't believe in treating them with medicine, even aspirin.
Like all Scientologists, Natalie considers her body to be simply a temporary vessel. She thinks of herself as an immortal being, or "thetan," which means that she has lived trillions of years, and will continue to be reborn, again and again. Many Eastern religions have similar beliefs, and Natalie is quick to note that Scientology is "actually a very basic religion. It has a lot of the same moral beliefs as others." What's special about Scientology, Natalie says, is that it "bears a workable applied technology that you can use in your everyday life."
"Technology," or "tech," is what Scientologists call the theories, methods and principles espoused by L. Ron Hubbard -- "LRH," as Natalie calls him. To the devout, he is part prophet, part teacher, part savior -- some Scientologists rank Hubbard's importance as greater than Christ's -- and Hubbard's word is considered the word. Hubbard was a prolific writer all his life; there are millions of words credited to him, roughly a quarter-million of them contained within Dianetics, the best-selling quasiscientific self-help book that is the most famous Scientology text.
Published in 1950, Dianetics maintained that the source of mental and physical illness could be traced back to psychic scars called "engrams" that were rooted in early, even prenatal, experiences, and remained locked in a person's subconscious, or "reactive mind." To rid oneself of the reactive mind, a process known as going "Clear," Dianetics, and later Scientology, preached a regressive-therapy technique called auditing, which involves re-experiencing incidents in one's past life in order to erase their engrams.
Natalie is a fan of auditing, something she's been doing since she was a small child. Most auditing is done with a device called the electropsychometer, or E-meter. Often compared to lie detectors, E-meters measure the changes in small electrical currents in the body, in response to questions posed by an auditor. Scientologists believe the meter registers thoughts of the reactive mind and can root out unconscious lies. As Natalie explains it, the E-meter is "like a guide that helps the auditor to know what questions to ask." Sometimes, she says, you might not remember certain events, and you might not know what is causing your problems. "But they'll just dig it up until you go, 'Holy shit, was that what was going on?'" She smiles. "And afterward, you feel so much better."
Natalie has just begun her path to Scientology enlightenment, known as the Bridge to Total Freedom. There are specific stages, or "grades," of the Bridge, and the key to progressing "upward" is auditing: hundreds, if not thousands, of sessions that Scientologists believe can not only help them resolve their problems but also fix their ethical breaches, much as Catholics might do in confessing their sins. The ultimate goal in every auditing session is to have a "win," or moment of revelation, which can take a few minutes, hours or even weeks -- Scientologists are not allowed to leave an auditing session until their auditor is satisfied.
So far, Natalie has gotten much of her auditing for free, through her parents, who have both worked for the church. But many Scientologists pay dearly for the service. Unique among religious faiths, Scientology charges for virtually all of its religious services. Auditing is purchased in 12.5-hour blocks, known as "intensives." Each intensive can cost anywhere from $750 for introductory sessions to between $8,000 and $9,000 for advanced sessions. When asked about money, church officials can become defensive. "Do you want to know the real answer? If we could offer everything for free, we would do it," says Rinder. Another official offers, "We don't have 2,000 years of acquired wealth to fall back on." But Scientology isn't alone, church leaders insist. Mormons, for example, expect members to tithe a tenth of their earnings.
Still, religious scholars note that this is an untraditional approach. "Among the things that have made this movement so controversial," says S. Scott Bartchy, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA, "are its claims that its forms of therapy are 'scientific' and that the 'truth' will only be revealed to those who have the money to purchase advancement to the various levels leading to 'being clear.' It is this unvarnished demand for money that has led many observers to opine that the entire operation looks more like a business than a religion." Clearing the stages along the Bridge to Total Freedom is a process that can take years and cost tens and often hundreds of thousands of dollars -- one veteran Scientologist told me she "donated" $250,000 in a twenty-year period. Other Scientologists can wind up spending family inheritances and mortgaging homes to pay the fees. Many, like Natalie's parents, work for their local church so they can receive auditing and courses for free.
Both of Natalie's parents are Clear, she says. Her grandmother is what's called an "Operating Thetan," or "OT." So is Tom Cruise, who is near the top of Scientology's Bridge, at a level known as OT VII. OTs are Scientology's elite -- enlightened beings who are said to have total "control" over themselves and their environment. OTs can allegedly move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and telepathically communicate with, and control the behavior of, both animals and human beings. At the highest levels, they are allegedly liberated from the physical universe, to the point where they can psychically control what Scientologists call MEST: Matter, Energy, Space and Time.
* * * *
The most important, and highly anticipated, of the eight "OT levels" is OT III, also known as the Wall of Fire. It is here that Scientologists are told the secrets of the universe, and, some believe, the creation story behind the entire religion. It is knowledge so dangerous, they are told, any Scientologist learning this material before he is ready could die. When I ask Mike Rinder about this, he casts the warning in less-dire terms, explaining that, before he reached OT III -- he is now OT V -- he was told that looking at the material early was "spiritually not good for you." But Hubbard, who told followers that he discovered these secrets while on a trip to North Africa in 1967, was more dramatic. "Somehow or other I brought it off, and obtained the material and was able to live through it," he wrote. "I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material."
Scientologists must be "invited" to do OT III. Beforehand, they are put through an intensive auditing process to verify that they are ready. They sign a waiver promising never to reveal the secrets of OT III, nor to hold Scientology responsible for any trauma or damage one might endure at this stage of auditing. Finally, they are given a manila folder, which they must read in a private, locked room.
These materials, which the Church of Scientology has long struggled to keep secret, were published online by a former member in 1995 and have been widely circulated in the mainstream media, ranging from The New York Times to last year's South Park episode. They assert that 75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled seventy-six planets in this corner of the galaxy, each of which was severely overpopulated. To solve this problem, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into volcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, until they were caught in electronic traps set up around the atmosphere and "implanted" with a number of false ideas -- including the concepts of God, Christ and organized religion. Scientologists later learn that many of these entities attached themselves to human beings, where they remain to this day, creating not just the root of all of our emotional and physical problems but the root of all problems of the modern world.
"Hubbard thought it was important to have a story about how things got going, similar to the way both Jews and Christians did in the early chapters of Genesis," says UCLA's Bartchy. "All religion lives from the sense either that something in life is terribly wrong or is profoundly missing. For the most part, Christianity has claimed that people have rebelled against God with the result that they are 'sinners' in need of restoration and that the world is a very unjust place in need of healing. What Hubbard seems to be saying is that human beings are really something else -- thetans trapped in bodies in the material world -- and that Scientology can both wake them up and save them from this bad situation."
The church considers OT III confidential material. But there are numerous science-fiction references in Scientology texts available to members of all levels. The official "Glossary for Scientology and Dianetics" includes an entry for "space opera," a sci-fi genre that the glossary says "is not fiction and concerns actual incidents." Scientology's "Technical Dictionary" makes reference to a number of extraterrestrial "invader forces," including one, the "Marcab Confederacy," explained as a vast, interplanetary civilization more than 200,000 years old that "looks almost exact duplicate [sic] but is worse off than the current U.S. civilization." Indeed, as even Rinder himself points out, Hubbard presented a rough outline of the Xenu story to his followers in a 1967 taped lecture, "RJ 67," in which he noted that 75 million years ago a cataclysmic event happened in this sector of the galaxy that has caused negative effects for everyone since. This material is available to lower-level Scientologists. But the details of the story remain secret within Scientology.
Rinder has fielded questions on Scientology's beliefs for years. When I ask him whether there is any validity to the Xenu story, he gets red-faced, almost going into a tirade. "It is not a story, it is an auditing level," he says, neither confirming nor denying that this theology exists. He says that OT material -- and specifically the material on OT III -- comprises "a small percent" of what Scientology is all about. But it is carefully guarded. Scientologists on the OT levels often carry their materials in locked briefcases and are told to store them in special secure locations in their homes. They are also strictly forbidden from discussing any facet of the materials, even with their families. "I'm not explaining it to you, and I could not explain it to you," says Rinder heatedly. "You don't have a hope of understanding it."
Those who have experienced OT III report that getting through it can be a harrowing experience. Tory Christman, a former high-ranking Scientologist who during her tenure in the faith reached the near-pinnacle of enlightenment, OT VII, says it took more than ten years before she was finally invited onto OT III. Once there, Christman was shocked. "You've jumped through all these hoops just to get to it, and then you open that packet, and the first thing you think is, 'Come on,'" she says. "You're surrounded by all these people who're going, 'Wow, isn't it amazing, just getting the data? I can tell it's really changed you.' After a while, enough people say it and you're like, 'Wow. You know, I really feel it.'"
Natalie has a long way to go before she reaches OT III. Although virtually everything about the OT levels is available on the Internet, "I don't look at that stuff," Natalie says. She believes it is mostly "entheta," which are lies, or negative information about Scientology meant to undermine the faith. "You know, sometimes in school, kids would hear I'm a Scientologist and be like, 'No way -- are you an alien?'" Natalie says. "I don't get mad about it. I just go, 'OK, let me tell you what it really is.'"
Natalie's view of Scientology is the one church officials promote: that it is not a religion about "space aliens" but simply a set of beliefs that can help a person live a better life. And Natalie appears to be the poster child for Scientology as a formula for a well-adjusted adolescence. Articulate and poised, she is close to her family, has a wide circle of Scientologist and non-Scientologist friends and graduated from high school last spring as a straight-A student. "I'm not saying that everybody must be a Scientologist," she says. "But what I am saying is that I see it work. I've learned so much about myself. LRH says, 'What is true for you is what you observe to be true.' So I'm not here to tell you that Scientology is the way, or that these are the answers. You decide what is true."
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Truth is a relative concept when discussing the life of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. He was born in 1911, and, according to his legend, lived a life of heroic acts and great scientific and spiritual accomplishment until his death, in 1986. Photos of Hubbard in robust middle age -- often wearing an ascot -- hang in every Scientology center. You can read Hubbard's official biography on the Scientology Web site, which portrays the man Scientologists call the "Founder" as a great thinker, teacher, scientist, adventurer, ethnographer, photographer, sailor and war hero.
The reality of Hubbard's life is less exhilarating but in many ways more interesting. The son of a U.S. naval officer, he was by all accounts an unremarkable youth from Tilden, Nebraska, who flunked out of George Washington University after his sophomore year and later found moderate success as a penny-a-word writer of pulp fiction, publishing hundreds of stories in fantasy magazines like Astounding Science Fiction. As a lieutenant in the Navy, Hubbard served, briefly, in World War II, but never saw combat and was relieved of his command. He spent the last months of the war as an outpatient at a naval hospital in Oakland, California, where he received treatment for ulcers. Years later, Hubbard would claim to have been "crippled and blinded" in battle, and that, over a year or so of intense "scientific research," he'd cured himself using techniques that would later become part of Dianetics.
After the war, Hubbard made his way to Pasadena, California, a scientific boomtown of the 1940s, where he met John Whiteside Parsons, a society figure and a founder of CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A sci-fi buff, Parsons was also a follower of the English occultist Aleister Crowley. Parsons befriended Hubbard and invited him to move onto his estate. In one of the stranger chapters in Hubbard's life, recorded in detail by several biographers, the soon-to-be founder of Dianetics became Parsons' assistant -- helping him with a variety of black-magic and sex rituals, including one in which Parsons attempted to conjure a literal "whore of Babalon [sic]," with Hubbard serving as apprentice.
Charming and charismatic, Hubbard succeeded in wooing away Parsons' mistress, Sara Northrup, whom he would later marry. Soon afterward, he fell out with Parsons over a business venture. But having absorbed lessons learned at Parsons' "lodge," Hubbard set out to figure his next step. In his 1983 autobiography, Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era, the sci-fi writer Lloyd Eshbach describes meeting Hubbard in the late 1940s. "I'd like to start a religion," Eshbach recalls Hubbard saying. "That's where the money is."
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published in May 1950, and it soon became a runaway hit. Written as sort of a practical pop-psychology book, Dianetics promised that by practicing certain techniques, some of which seemed almost hypnotic, one could be free of sickness, anxiety, aggression and anti-social tendencies, and develop perfect memory and astounding intelligence. Hailed by the newspaper columnist Walter Winchell as a "new science" that "from all indications will prove to be as revolutionary for humanity as the first caveman's discovery and utilization of fire," Dianetics remained on the New York Times best-seller list for twenty-eight consecutive weeks.
But a number of factors, including condemnation from the American Psychological Association, hurt book sales. Public support for Dianetics took a downturn, and by the end of 1952, Hubbard was facing financial ruin.
Rather than admit defeat, Hubbard "improved" Dianetics and unveiled what he claimed was an even more sophisticated path to enlightenment: Scientology. This new technique was designed to restore, or enhance, the abilities of the individual, as opposed to simply getting rid of the reactive mind. In 1954, the first Church of Scientology was born, in Los Angeles. L. Ron Hubbard was now the founder of his own religion.
From there, Hubbard set about spreading Scientology around the world, opening churches in England, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In 1955, a policy known as "Project Celebrity" was launched with the aim of recruiting stars in the arts, sports, business and government -- those dubbed "Prime Communicators" -- who could help disseminate the message. As incentive, these celebrities were given free courses; those who did outstanding work could be "awarded" an OT level, in honor of their service to the organization. Special churches -- known as "celebrity centres" -- were set up, allowing its members to practice Scientology away from the public eye. The most lavish of these is the neo-Gothic Celebrity Centre International, which is housed in a former chateau on Franklin Avenue, at the foot of the Hollywood Hills.
Among the high-profile types who dabbled in Scientology was the writer William S. Burroughs, who would later attack the organizational structure as suppressive of independent thought. But other artists were less critical. John Travolta became a Scientologist in 1975 after reading Dianetics. "My career immediately took off," he states in a personal "success story" published in the book What Is Scientology? "I landed a leading role on the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter and had a string of successful films." Indeed, Travolta says, "Scientology put me into the big time."
In addition to Travolta, Scientology attracted musicians Chick Corea and Isaac Hayes, actresses Mimi Rogers and Kirstie Alley, and the influential acting coach Milton Katselas, who brought in a number of others, including actresses Anne Archer and Kelly Preston, who later became Travolta's wife. And those celebrities begat others, including Tom Cruise, who was introduced by his then-wife, Rogers, and Jenna Elfman, introduced by her husband, actor Bodhi Elfman. Others, such as Juliette Lewis, Erika Christensen and Beck, were born into Scientology.
But as Scientology raised its profile, so too did it find itself under increased scrutiny by the U.S. government, which raided Scientology's offices a number of times in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, the Food and Drug Administration confiscated hundreds of E-meters from Scientology's Washington, D.C., offices (the FDA accused the church of making false claims about its healing powers). Soon afterward, Hubbard moved his base of operation from the U.S. to England, but continued to face condemnation from a variety of Western governments. To avoid such scrutiny, Hubbard purchased a small fleet of ships in 1967, and, dubbing himself "Commodore," headed for the high seas, which would serve as Scientology's official home and, some maintain, tax shelter until the mid-1970s.
Serving Hubbard at sea were a small group of devoted followers who comprised a private navy of sorts. They were known, collectively, as the "Sea Organization," and dressed in full naval uniforms. Mike Rinder, who joined the Sea Org when he was eighteen, served on Hubbard's lead ship, the Apollo, as a deckhand. He arrived in 1973, having endured years of discrimination in his native Australia (southeastern Australia banned Scientology from 1965 to 1982). "You couldn't own Scientology books," he says. "If you did, you had to hide them because if the police came and found them, they'd take them away."
On the Apollo, Rinder found Hubbard, a reputed recluse, to be totally accessible. He hosted weekly movie nights and often strolled across the ship talking with the crew. "What was most incredible about being with him was that he made you feel that you were important," Rinder recalls. "He didn't in any way promote himself or his own self-importance. He was very, very loving and had the widest range of knowledge and experience that you could possibly imagine -- he'd studied everything." Rinder marvels at Hubbard's abilities: He knew how to cultivate plants, fix cars, shoot movies, mix music, fly an airplane, sail ships.
At sea, Hubbard, who had officially resigned his post as the head of the Church of Scientology (leaving the day-to-day management of the church to lesser officials), worked on his writings and "discoveries." Hubbard also began to obsess over the forces he saw opposing him, including journalists, whom Hubbard long distrusted and even banned from ever becoming Scientologists. Worse still were psychiatrists, a group that, coupled with the pharmaceutical-drug industry -- in Hubbard's words, a "front group" -- operated "straight out of the terrorist textbooks," as he wrote in a 1969 essay titled "Today's Terrorism." He accused psychiatrists of kidnapping, torturing and murdering with impunity. "A psychiatrist," he wrote, "kills a young girl for sexual kicks, murders a dozen patients with an ice pick, castrates a hundred men."
To attack his enemies, Hubbard issued a policy known as "Fair Game," which maintained that all who opposed Scientology could be "tricked, sued or lied to and destroyed." This policy was enforced by Scientology's quasisecret police force, known as the Guardian's Office. By the 1970s, among its tasks was "Operation Snow White," a series of covert activities that included bugging the Justice Department and stealing documents from the IRS. (Scientology officials say Fair Game was canceled decades ago.)
The plan was discovered in FBI raids on Scientology's Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., offices in 1977, which yielded wiretap equipment, burglary tools and about 90,000 pages of documents. Eleven Scientology officials, including Hubbard's third wife, Mary Sue, went to federal prison for their role in the plot, which led to a 1982 "sweep" of the church's upper management.
By then, Hubbard, who was cited as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in Operation Snow White, had vanished from the public eye. For the next several years, rumors of his whereabouts circulated freely -- he was at sea; he was on an island. In fact, Hubbard was on his isolated ranch, Whispering Wind, near the town of Creston, in the California desert. He was attended by a small number of Scientology officials, and his physician, Dr. Eugene Denk, who treated him for a number of conditions, including chronic pancreatitis. On January 17th, 1986, Hubbard suffered a crippling stroke. A week later, he died, in a 1982 Blue Bird motor home on his property. He was seventy-four years old.
Upon Hubbard's death, his ambitious twenty-five-year-old aide, David Miscavige, who would soon succeed him as leader of the church, announced that Scientology's founder had willingly "dropped" his healthy body and moved on to another dimension. In keeping with Hubbard's wishes, his body was cremated within twenty-four hours. There was no autopsy. But the coroner's report described the father of Scientology as in a state of decrepitude: unshaven, with long, thinning whitish-red hair and unkempt fingernails and toenails. In Hubbard's system was the anti-anxiety drug hydroxyzine (Vistaril), which several of his assistants would later attest was only one of many psychiatric and pain medications Hubbard ingested over the years.
These secrets were kept under wraps by Scientology officials. The church would later be named Hubbard's successor in accordance with his will, which had been amended and signed just a day before his death. In it, Hubbard ceded the copyrights to all of his works, as well as a significant portion of his estate, making Scientology, not Hubbard's wife and five children, his primary heir.
Today, every church or Scientology organization has an office reserved for Hubbard. Usually found on the church's ground floor, it is carefully maintained with books, desk, chair, pens, notepads, desk ornaments and other accouterments, as if the Founder might walk in at any moment.
* * * *
The imposing limestone-and-granite Church of Scientology in midtown Manhattan calls itself the "New York Org." A stately building on West 46th Street, northwest of Times Square, it is here that I come, on a hot July afternoon, to experience Scientology for myself.
The first Scientologist I meet here is a kid named Emmett: a clear-eyed and enthusiastic young man in his early twenties whose job is to be a "body-router," which means someone who brings people into the church. "Hi!" he says, accosting me as I stand near the center's entrance. "Do you have a minute?" He waves a postcard-size flier in my face. "We're showing a fifteen-minute film inside," he says. "It's about Dianetics. Ever heard of it?"
He ushers me through a set of glass doors and into the church's lobby, a glossy-marble space with the kind of lighting that bathes everything in a pinkish-golden glow. It is set up as a sort of museum, with a number of video-display panels, one of which offers an earnest testimonial by Tom Cruise. "The Aims of Scientology," a document written by Hubbard, also hangs in the lobby, and it declares Scientology's goals as "simple, but great," including "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war; where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights."
The New York Org claims to receive more than 500 phone calls per day, and nearly as many visitors in a week. But aside from its staff, I find the place to be almost entirely empty. Seated alone in a small auditorium, I watch the film, which turns out to be an infomercial featuring a cast of "real" people talking about how Dianetics changed their lives, curing them of ailments ranging from cancer to depression. Scientology is not mentioned once in the film. Nor is Hubbard. And neither are mentioned afterward, during an hour or so conversation I have with a motherly woman in her early fifties named Laurie. She is what is known as a "greeter," and her role is to keep me in the church long enough for me to feel encouraged that, maybe, all of this is worth my time.
Self-betterment is a powerful concept to use as a sales technique, and Laurie begins her pitch in the gentlest of ways. "Tell me about yourself," she says. "What made you interested in Scientology?"
"I guess I was just curious," I tell Laurie.
"Good!" she says with a smile. "We like curious!"
In the next hour or so, Laurie asks me a number of questions: Am I married? Am I happy? What are my goals? Do I feel that I'm living up to my potential?
A failure to live up to potential is one of the things known in Scientology as one's "ruin." In trying to get at mine, Laurie is warm and nonaggressive. And, to my amazement, I begin to open up to her. While we chat, she delivers a soft sell for Scientology's "introductory package": a four-hour seminar and twelve hours of Dianetics auditing, which is done without the E-meter. The cost: just fifty dollars. "You don't have to do it," Laurie says. "It's just something I get the feeling might help you." She pats my arm, squeezes it warmly.
Then she gets down to business and presents me with the $100 Dianetics "starter" kit, which includes a large-type copy of Hubbard's tome, a few CDs and some workbooks to practice the stuff at home. "It's really such a good thing you came in," Laurie adds reassuringly. "You'll see."
On my next visit to the church, the following day, I see Laurie again. She spots me as soon as I walk in and rushes to greet me. "You're back!" She gives me a hug. "I am so glad you decided to give this a try." She then introduces me to a preppy-looking guy in his early thirties named Rurik, who, wasting no time on small talk, leads me to the church's second floor and installs me in a room for my introductory seminar. As with the previous day's film, I'm the only one there. Rurik starts his lecture with the claim that the mind really isn't in the brain. "Close your eyes and think of a picture of a cat," he tells me. I do. "Now, open your eyes and point to where you saw that picture."
I point to my eyes.
Rurik grins. "See? When you're asked to use your mind, you don't point to the brain."
The brain, Rurik says, has absolutely no bearing on our thoughts or feelings. Nor, he adds, does the mind -- its chief function is to serve as a memory bank of all we've experienced in trillions of years of lifetimes. Indeed, Scientology holds that the entire field of neurological and mental-health research -- from Freud to the study of brain chemistry -- is pseudoscience. In Scientology's overview text, What Is Scientology?, psychiatry is described as a "hodgepodge of unproven theories that have never produced any result -- except an ability to make the unmanageable and mutinous more docile and quiet, and turn the troubled into apathetic souls beyond the point of caring."
Most of the dedicated Scientologists I meet echo this opinion, including Kirstie Alley, who has been a Scientologist for more than twenty years and is the international spokesperson for Narconon, the church-supported anti-drug program. In an interview with Alley several weeks later, she calls Scientology the "anti-therapy." "Therapy is based on some guy analyzing you, and what he thinks is going on with you," she says. "And when he can't quite figure it out, he makes up a disease and gets a drug for that. If that doesn't work, he shocks you. And then surgery . . ." Scientology employs a holistic detoxification program known as the "purification rundown," which involves heavy doses of vitamin supplements, primarily niacin, used in conjunction with exercise and long hours in a sauna. Though many doctors point out that none of this has ever been scientifically proven, and, indeed, might be harmful, Scientology claims that the "purif" cleanses the body of impurities. "I can get someone off heroin a hell of a lot faster than I can get somebody off a psych drug," says Alley. "The guy on heroin's not being told daily, 'This is what you need for your disease, and you're gonna have to take this the rest of your life.'"
A few days later I arrive for my free Dianetics auditing sessions. I am put in a large, glass-enclosed room with a student auditor named David, who asks me to "relive" a moment of physical pain. "Don't choose something that's too stressful," David suggests.
Try as I might, I cannot relive much of anything -- indeed, I can barely focus, given that I am surrounded in the room by a number of other pairs who are all being asked to do the same thing. After fifteen minutes, I give up.
Jane, the registrar who is now handling my "case," then whisks me away and, taking a look at my Oxford Capacity Analysis -- a 200-item questionnaire that I filled out on my first day -- tells me that she thinks I need something more personal. "I really want you to have a win," she says.
What Jane recommends is called Life Repair, basic Scientology counseling that she explains will "get to the root of what's inhibiting you." It is conducted in a private room, and involves one, but most likely two, 12.5-hour auditing "intensives," using the E-meter, which will cost around $2,000. Coupled with the purif, which is recommended to anyone starting in Scientology, the total cost will be around $4,000. "And then you'll be on the Bridge," Jane says enthusiastically. "You'll see. It'll change your life."
At the intake level, Scientology comes across as good, practical self-help. Rather than playing on themes that might distance a potential member -- the concept that I am a "thetan," for example -- members hit on topics that have universal appeal. Instead of claiming some heightened degree of enlightenment, they come across as fellow travelers: people who smoke too much, who have had bad marriages, who have had addictions they couldn't handle but have somehow managed to land on their feet. Scientology, they explain, has been a form of "recovery." As one woman I meet puts it, "Scientology works."
There are, however, a few things that seem jarring. Like the cost: $4,000 is a lot to spend for what Jane suggests are "basic" sessions. But perhaps even more alarming is the keen interest they take in my boyfriend. While Laurie inquired sympathetically about the dynamic of our relationship, Jane is suspicious, concerned with his views of the church and his attitude toward my being here. "If he's not open," she says, "that could be a problem."
And then there are Scientology's rules. A fiercely doctrinaire religion, Scientology follows Hubbard's edicts to the letter. Dissent or opposition to any of Hubbard's views isn't tolerated. Nor is debating certain church tenets -- a practice Scientologists view as "counterintentioned." Comporting oneself in any way that could be seen as contrary to church goals is considered subversive and is known as a "suppressive act." One text that sheds enlightenment on both the mind-set of the founder and the inner workings of the church is Introduction to Scientology Ethics, which every Scientologist owns. In this book, the list of suppressive acts is six pages long and includes crimes ranging from murder to "squirreling," or altering Hubbard's teachings.
Jane hands me a form and asks me to sign. The document absolves Scientology of liability if I am not wholly satisfied with its services, and also requires me to pledge that neither I nor my family has ever sued, attacked or publicly criticized Scientology. It also asks me to pledge that I will never sue the church myself.
For the next several months, Jane and various other registrars call my cell phone, asking me to come back to the church and have a "win." I never do.
* * * *
Somewhere in the vast California scrubland east of Los Angeles, west of Palm Springs and near the town of Hemet, is Gold Base, the heart of the Scientology empire. It has been described in some news reports as a "top-secret" facility, monitored by security cameras and protected by electric fences. Most Scientologists have never been to Gold. Within church circles, it is often spoken of in whispers: as INT Base, Scientology's management headquarters and hangout for the likes of Tom Cruise and David Miscavige.
Gold, a former resort, was purchased by the church in the mid-Eighties and sits at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains. A simple metal gate announces its presence, behind which is a long driveway and, beyond that, a golf course. The 500-acre grounds include grassy meadows and a small lake where swans and ducks roam at will. There are no visible security cameras. But there are electric fences. "Of course we have fences," says Tommy Davis, a senior church official who, with Rinder, accompanies me on a tour of the compound. "We have $60 million worth of equipment here."
Gold is the central dissemination facility for the church. It is best known as the home of Golden Era Productions, Scientology's film, video and sound facilities. Scientology produces myriad promotional and training films here, teaching parishioners everything from auditing techniques to what goes on during a marriage-counseling session. It also makes CDs, produces events and prints its own packaging. Even its E-meters are made here, in a building where Scientologists work on a sort of corporate assembly line, producing roughly 200 of the devices per week.
There is a Disney-esque quality to Gold Base. The focal point of the complex is a beige estate house, known as the Castle, which houses the film wing. The Tavern, a nearby stone carriage-house building, is used for visiting VIPs and is decorated in a King Arthur motif, complete with a sizable round table. There are winding paths and walkways made out of what appears to be fake flagstone. All of the buildings, save the Castle, are white, with blue-tiled roofs.
Breaking up the uniformity is a startling sight: a three-mast rudderless clipper ship, the Star of California, built into a hill overlooking the campus. Some former Scientologists say this structure was built for Hubbard -- though he'd "dropped his body" before it was finished -- but Rinder explains it as just "an idea someone had to build a ship" as a place to house restrooms and a snack bar near the pool. It has a broad wooden deck, mermaid figurines and, at its gangplank, a fishing net adorned with plastic crabs.
Despite these colorful landmarks, Gold is essentially an office park. Its buildings are furnished like a series of corporate suites, complete with bland gray or blue rugs. There's virtually no artwork save a few Scientology posters inscribed with the words of L. Ron Hubbard, and, in the sound studio, framed headshots of various Scientologist celebrities, including Tommy Davis' mother, Anne Archer.
Davis, 33, helps run the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood and is the scion of one of California's real estate dynasties. He freely admits to being a Hollywood rich kid. He dresses in Italian suits, drives a BMW and is addicted to his Blackberry. "I have enough money to never work a day in my life," he says.
But Davis, who calls L. Ron Hubbard "the coolest guy ever," works for the church as a nonuniformed member of the Sea Organization, the Church of Scientology's most powerful entity. Sea Org members staff all of the senior ecclesiastic positions in the church hierarchy, and the top members have exclusive authority over Scientology's funds. In a nod to the group's nautical beginnings, Sea Org members were required to wear naval-style uniforms, complete with epaulets for "officers," until several years ago. Today, for all but those who serve on the Freewinds, the epaulets have been retired. At Gold, whose entire population, save the actors and directors of Scientology films, are Sea Org members, men and women dress in the style of deckhands: short-sleeve dress shirts over dark T-shirts and chinos.
The church describes the Sea Org as a fraternal order -- not a legal entity -- requiring lifelong commitment. It is, in fact, an eternal commitment: Sea Org members sign contracts pledging 1 billion years of service to the church. Scientology's publicity materials portray the Sea Org as similar to the U.S. Marines: "The toughest, most dedicated team this planet has ever known," according to one recruiting brochure. "Against such a powerful team the opposition hasn't got a chance."
Kim Fries, who works in Gold's audiovisual editing department, has been in the Sea Org since she was fifteen. Now thirty-two, Fries says she couldn't imagine living any other way. "What else are you going to do with your life?" she says, with a flick of her dark, wavy hair.
The Sea Org has often been portrayed as isolated, almost monastic; members are rarely allowed to see films, watch TV or read mainstream magazines. "Are we devoted? Yes. Sequestered? No," says Fries, who married a fellow Sea Org member. "I go out into the world, I talk to people out in the world, I definitely live a very full life. This isn't a priesthood. I mean, if it were a priesthood, do you think I'd work here? It would just be so unhip."
Gold is seen as the place "every Sea Org member aspires to work," says Rinder. There are expansive grounds to wander, a crystal-blue pool in which to swim; the dining hall is large and features low-fat and vegetarian entrees. A tiny shop sells cigarettes, juice, soft drinks and junk food.
In my ten or so hours at Gold, I am aware of being taken on an elaborately orchestrated junket, in which every step of my day has been plotted and planned. I don't blame the group for wanting to present its best face; at least half of my conversations with Rinder and Davis pertain in one way or another to what Scientology perceives as a smear campaign on the part of the mainstream media. A chief complaint is that reporters, eager for a story, take the words of lapsed members as gospel. Davis says Scientology gets little credit for the success of its social-betterment programs, which include Narconon and also literacy and educational programs. "Look around," says Davis. "People are out here busting their butt every day to make a difference. And one guy who leaves because he wants to go to the movies gets to characterize the whole organization? That sucks."
Scientologists do not look kindly on critics, particularly those who were once devout. Apostasy, which in Scientology means speaking out against the church in any public forum, is considered to be the highest form of treason. This is one of the most serious "suppressive acts," and those who apostatize are immediately branded as "Suppressive Persons," or SPs. Scientologists are taught that SPs are evil -- Hitler was an SP, says Rinder. Indeed, Hubbard believed that a full 2.5 percent of the population was "suppressive." As he wrote in the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, a suppressive person is someone who "goofs up or vilifies any effort to help anybody and particularly knife with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or more intelligent."
Given this viewpoint, I wonder why anyone with connections to Scientology would critique them publicly. "Makes them famous," Rinder says. "They do it for their fifteen minutes."
Scientology has been extremely effective at attacking its defectors, often destroying their credibility entirely, a policy that observers call "dead agenting." Some of the church's highest-profile critics say they have been on the receiving end of this policy. In the past six years, Tory Christman claims, the church has spread lies about her on the Internet, filed suit against her for violating an injunction for picketing on church property and attempted to get her fired from her job. Rinder dismisses Christman as a "wacko" and says her allegations are "absolute bullshit."
When Christman split from the church, her husband and most of her friends -- all of them Scientologists -- refused to talk to her again. Apostates are not just discredited from the church; they are also excommunicated, isolated from their loved ones who, under Scientology rules, must sever or "disconnect" from them. Scientology defines those associated with Suppressive People as "Potential Trouble Sources," or PTS.
Rinder says disconnection is a policy of last resort. "The first step is always to try to handle the situation," he says. A "handling" generally refers to persuading a wayward member to return to the church in order to maintain contact with his family. The parent of someone who's apostatized might call his child and ask him to "handle" a problem by essentially recanting. "They'll ask them to make some amends, show they can be trusted . . . something to make up the damage," says Davis. Those amends might range from volunteering in a literacy program to taking a public advocacy role -- campaigning against psychiatry, for example.
But some people, the officials admit, refuse to be handled. What happens to them? "Then I guess not believing in Scientology means more to them than not seeing their family," Davis says.
Excommunication is nothing new in organized religion. A number of sects have similar policies to Scientology's: the Amish, the Mormon Fundamentalists, the Jehovah's Witnesses. All have a rationale. Scientology's rationale is very simple: "We are protecting the good of the religion and all the parishioners," says Rinder.
"It's for the good of the group," says Davis.
"How are you going to judge what is and isn't the worst tenets and violations of the Church of Scientology?" Rinder asks. "You aren't a Scientologist." Complaints about these policies, he adds, "come from people who aren't Scientologists [anymore]. What do they give a shit for anymore? They left!"
I spend a lot of time talking about the question of apostasy with Rinder and Davis. Both feel the church has been miscast. "Somewhere there is a concept that we hold strings over all these people and control them," says Rinder. But provided you don't denounce Scientology, it's perfectly fine to leave the church, he says. "Whatever. What's true for you is true for you." Nothing will happen to those who lose their faith, he says, unless they "tell bald-faced lies to malign and libel the organization -- unless they make it seem like something it isn't."
* * * *
Paul James is not this twenty-two-year-old man's real name. He is the son of established Scientologists, blond and blue-eyed, with the easy smile and chiseled good looks of a young Matt Damon. He has had no contact with the church since he was seventeen. "I honestly don't know how people can live psychotically happy all the time," Paul tells me over coffee one afternoon at his small, tidy house outside Los Angeles. "Or thinking that they're happy," he adds with a grin. "I'm talking about that fake-happiness thing that people make themselves believe."
Like Natalie, Paul was educated by Scientology tutors, sent to Scientologist-run private schools and put "on course" at his church. Unlike her, he hated it. "I never found anything in Scientology that had to do with spiritual enlightenment," he says. "As soon as common sense started hitting me" -- around the age of ten -- "it creeped me out."
Though there are a significant number of second-generation Scientologists who, like Natalie, are devoted to the church, there are also kids like Paul. This, says the University of Alberta's Stephen Kent, is to be expected. One "unanticipated consequence" of the widespread conversions of young people to sects like Scientology in the 1960s and 1970s, Kent says, has been a "wave" of defections of these members' adult children.
A fundamental element of Scientology is that children are often regarded as small adults -- "big thetans in little bodies," as some parents call them. Paul's parents worked eighteen-hour days for the church, he says, and generally left him and his older brother to their own devices. "My brother was baby-sitting me by himself when he was eleven years old," Paul says. When his brother went off with his friends, "I'd get home from school and be wandering around the [apartment] complex."
Paul's school was no more structured, he says. Students were encouraged to work at their own pace on subjects of their choosing, and, according to Paul, received little guidance from teachers, who are called "supervisors." I found this to be true at the Delphi Academy in Lake View Terrace, California, part of a network of elite schools that use Hubbard's study technology. Maggie Reinhart, Delphi's director, says that this technique forces a student to take an active role in his education. A number of Scientology kids have thrived in this environment. Others, like Paul, felt lost. "I just kind of roamed from classroom to classroom and nobody cared," he says. At Delphi, I saw teachers assisting certain students, but there was no generalized "teaching," no class discussions.
Discussion, as some academics like Kent note, isn't encouraged in Scientology, nor in Scientology-oriented schools. It is seen as running counter to the teachings of Scientology, which are absolute. Thus, debate is relegated to those in the world of "Wogs" -- what Scientologists call non-Scientologists. Or, as Hubbard described them, "common, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety humanoid."
Paul met very few Wogs growing up, and those he did know often didn't understand him. Scientology has its own unique lexicon. "It's kind of like being a French Canadian," Paul explains. "You speak one thing out in the world and another thing at home."
Many kids who've grown up in Scientology describe it as Natalie did: "a bubble" that exists in tandem with the mainstream world. "It's impossible to understand it unless you've lived it," says Paul.
Even when you've lived it, as one young woman notes, it's hard to fully understand. This twenty-two-year-old, whom we'll call Sara, left Scientology in high school. After leaving, she and a friend who quit with her sat down with a dictionary. "We looked up all the words we used [because] we didn't know if we were speaking English or not," she says.
Hubbard created Scientology's language to be unique to its members. It includes words that are interpretations, or variations, of standard terms: "isness," for example, which Scientology's glossaries say, in essence, means "reality." But there are also words that are wholly made up, such as "obnosis," which means "observation of the obvious."
The chaotic world, as one might call it in the mainstream, is, in Scientology, "enturbulated," which means "agitated and disturbed." To correct, or solve, personal or societal problems requires the proper application of "ethics," which in Scientology refers to one's moral choices, as well as to a distinct moral system. Those who conduct themselves correctly have their ethics "in." Those who misbehave are "out-ethics." A person's harmful or negative acts are known as "overts." Covering them up is known as a "withhold."
All of these terms, and many more, are contained in a number of Scientology dictionaries, all written by Hubbard. Scientologists consider word comprehension and vocabulary skills to be essential parts of their faith.
The Hubbard Study Technology is administered in schools through an organization called "Applied Scholastics"; it emphasizes looking up any unknown or "misunderstood" word in a dictionary, and never skipping past a word you don't understand. This same study method is used in church, where adults of all ages and levels of advancement spend hours poring over dictionaries and course manuals.
One key word is "gradient," which is defined in the official Scientology and Dianetics glossary as "a gradual approach to something, taken step by step, level by level, each step or level being, of itself, easily surmountable so that, finally, quite complicated and difficult activities or high states of being can be achieved with relative ease." This principle, the glossary notes, "is applied to both Scientology processing and training."
Another key belief is "communication." One of Scientology's basic courses is "Success Through Communication," taught to young people and adults. It involves a series of drills, known as "training routines," or "TRs." One drill asks students to close their eyes and simply sit,
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... cientology (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9363363/inside_scientology)
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Posted on Wed, Jun. 07, 2006
Scientology is newest NASCAR sponsor
JEFF ELDER
Staff Columnist
Tom Cruise came to Charlotte in 1989 to film "Days Of Thunder." Little did we know that someday his idealogy would come zooming back to NASCAR as a sponsor.
Racin' fans, brace yourselves for some couch-jumping news: Scientology is ridin' shotgun.
A No. 27 red Taurus emblazoned with "DIANETICS" and featuring the volcano from the cover of L. Ron Hubbard's book has been tearing around California's Irwindale Speedway.
(No word on whether the car can fix itself; Cruise recently bragged that wife Katie Holmes needed no anti-depressants for her post-partum depression.)
NASCAR is decidedly reluctant to comment on scientology's sponsorship. "This has generated a lot of interest the past few days," NASCAR PR man Scott Warfield tells me. Not surprisingly, he didn't want to say much more. "It's not really something we want to comment on. It's a minor league, small-team sponsorship deal."
Yes, and it's also the weirdest sponsorship since Boudreaux's Butt Paste, the diaper-rash cream that began sponsoring a Busch Series car in 2005.
Driver Kenton Gray, of La Verne, Calif., will drive the DIANETCS car Saturday in its official debut in a NASCAR Weekly Series race in Irwindale.
Gray spouts Scientology praise with enthusiasm that would make the celebrity couple known as TomKat proud:
"'Dianetics' is a book that helped me in many ways since I first read it many years ago. It helped me get better control over the obstacles I had to get through to reach goals I was passionate about. It's a great honor to have a sponsor relationship that's so directly related to my making it this far." (In a truly bizarre scene in March, Gray appeared at the Irwindale track with the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright.)
The publisher of "Dianetics" is also putting together a Web site called dianeticsracing.com.
The Jehovah's Witnesses could not be reached for comment about any possible NASCAR sponsorship.
Photos of car, driver and voice of Bart Simpson at http://www.fmgracing.com/index.php (http://www.fmgracing.com/index.php)
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frump
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Did A Mother's Faith Contribute To Her Murder?
Oct. 25, 2006
(CBS) Why would a 28-year-old man, described as sweet, kind and gentle, take a knife to his mother one morning in 2003 and stab her over 70 times?
Jeremy Perkins, who had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, came to believe that his mother, Elli, was evil and out to get him. Experts say the brutal murder might never have occurred, had he received proper treatment to control his psychotic delusions. But Jeremy?s parents were devout Scientologists and their religion strongly opposes psychiatric treatment.
Did Elli Perkins' faith contribute to her death? 48 Hours correspondent Peter Van Sant explores the issue this Saturday, Oct. 28, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
"I tried to slit my wrists...but I wouldn't die, so I decided to do my mom instead," Jeremy Perkins told police after the murder.
Jeremy?s chilling words describe his actions on March 13, 2003, while he was in an active psychotic state.
The Perkins family cared deeply for their son and sought treatment within the principles of their faith. A lawyer for Jeremy's father told 48 Hours that Jeremy was seen by both physicians and mental health practitioners, including a psychiatrist. But court records unsealed by 48 Hours indicate that Jeremy?s treatment was limited to mostly vitamins and other holistic healing methods. The family filled prescriptions for an anti-anxiety drug and a sleeping aid. Medical experts and a doctor who treated Jeremy after the murder dismiss these methods as ineffective for an individual with paranoid schizophrenia.
Today the Church of Scientology claims more than 10 million members worldwide. Its religious opposition to psychiatry is well-known. In June of 2005, the issue was brought to national attention when actor Tom Cruise took a very public stance on NBC?s "Today" show. "I know that psychiatry is a pseudo-science," he told Matt Lauer. "You don?t know the history of psychiatry. I do."
Van Sant examines the roots of Scientology?s opposition to psychiatry and the tragic death of a caring mother who desperately wanted to help her beloved son.
Produced By Miguel Sancho
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Bump... necropost!
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sort of off topic........but........Keith Richards has been saying for years that he recorded the opening "riff"of "satisfaction" at the Fort Harrison Hotel,into a tape deck,after a "rough night" I always found that to be "fukkin' surreal" :o