HCO Policy Letter, 29 October 1962, “Religion”

“Scientology 1970 is being planned on a religious organization basis throughout the world. This will not upset in any way the usual activities of any organization. It is entirely a matter for accountants and solicitors.” – L. Ron Hubbard

The Church of Scientology is an extremely litigious organisation which frequently abuses the legal system to suppress dissent. To quote L. Ron Hubbard directly; “the purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”

HCO Policy Letter, 18 October 1967

“SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” – L. Ron Hubbard

HCO Policy Letter, 1 March 1965

“A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind and actions taken against them are not punishable.” – L. Ron Hubbard

The above policies regarding ‘fair game’ were written by L. Ron Hubbard to justify illegal operations by the Church of Scientology so long as they serve the interests of the organisation. The Church of Scientology has a department which specialises in these kinds of actions called the Office of Special Affairs (formerly the Guardian’s Office).

HCO Policy Letter, 15 August 1960

“In the face of danger from government or courts… attack upon the most vulnerable point which can be disclosed in the enemy ranks…

If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace…

Don’t ever defend. Always attack. Don’t ever do nothing. Unexpected attacks in the rear of the enemy’s front ranks work best…

Bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by high-level ability to control and in its absence by low-level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies.” – L. Ron Hubbard

One example of fair game in action is “Operation Snow White” through which Scientologists from the Guardian’s Office both formed and executed plans to infiltrate and wiretap government organisations, as well as to steal and copy documents from government offices. The IRS was one of the main targets of Operation Snow White; the IRS was heavily litigated by the Church of Scientology and their offices infiltrated by Scientologists in order to enable the Church of Scientology to regain its tax exemption in the USA, which it eventually achieved.

As a result of Operation Snow White, many top executives of the Church of Scientology were convicted of theft of documents and government property, burglary of government offices and obstruction of justice. Most notably of these convictions was that of Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of L. Ron Hubbard, who was sentenced to five years imprisonment for her involvement.

HCO Manual of Justice

“People attack Scientology; I never forget it, always even the score.” – L. Ron Hubbard

The Church of Scientology also goes to the same extraordinary and illegal measures to take revenge against those who publicly criticise their organisation. Paulette Cooper wrote a book called The Scandal of Scientology, and in order to have Cooper silenced and her reputation tarnished, the Church of Scientology launched “Operation Freakout”. The Church had planned to frame Cooper for a series of bomb threats. After the exposure of Operation Snow White by the FBI, the Church of Scientology did not execute the plan completely. The Church of Scientology’s extensive plans to frame Cooper were uncovered during the FBI’s investigations.

“Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.” – L. Ron Hubbard, The Creation of Human Ability, page 5.

It is written directly in to the Church of Scientology’s policies that Scientologists should be prepared to go to extreme lengths in order to suppress dissent and attack their critics. In the eyes of the Scientologist, there is no more just a cause than the preservation of their organisation by continuing, at any cost, the Church of Scientology’s war on reality.

The Sea Org is Scientology’s private naval force. Sea Org members are typically born in to Scientology families and are extremely dedicated to Scientology’s causes and pursuit of planetary control. These people are, in my mind, the victims of Scientology’s greatest crimes.

Members of the Sea Org work more than fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. There are as many as 9 Sea Org members sleeping in one small bedroom and they are fed a nutritionally poor diet. Despite living and working under these awful conditions, Sea Org members are denied medical and dental expenses.

Sea Org members are not allowed to have regular civilian contact with friends and family, they are not allowed to read newspapers, watch television or listen to music. Any letters addressed to Sea Org members are read by management to ensure they contain no dissenting information about the organisation. All information about the outside world is filtered through the executives, so Sea Org members are presented with a very distorted view of reality. According to one former Sea Org member;

“In the Sea Org, all the management staff are told about all the glorious victories we’ve had, we’re never told about one single failure on the part of Scientology…

As far as you know while you’re working there, Scientology is dominating the world, and you want it to dominate the world. The goal of the Sea Org is not to have Scientology worldwide, the goal of the Sea Org is to control all activities on the planet and to eliminate all people to who are hostile to their stated goals, whatever they may be…

The only you’re information you’re shown about the public is a war, bad psychiatrists, evil IRS agents, a world of paranoia and fear, death and destruction.” – Aaron Saxton

If you are a member of the Sea Org, you are not permitted to marry somebody who is not also a member. Sea Org members are not allowed to have children, and if they do fall pregnant they are interrogated and put under immense pressure from management to abort the pregnancy. If a Sea Org member is non-compliant and refuses to have an abortion, they can be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which is a penal colony where they are forced to do hard labour. In the RPF, Sea Org members are cut off from all communication. Even pregnant women in the RPF are not allowed to walk, they must run at all times, if they do not run then they are punished with further physical exercise such as pushups. This often results in women miscarrying due to the physical and emotional stress.

If you fall pregnant in the Sea Org and would like to have the child, your only real option is to leave the Sea Org. If you leave, you are declared a Suppressive Person by the Church of Scientology and are disconnected from your friends and family who remain within Scientology. Because Sea Org members have generally spent their entire lives inside Scientology, they often have no source of income, no work experience outside the organisation and no non-Scientology friends or family to stay with or rely on for support.

It is hard for someone like myself to comprehend why a Sea Org member would tolerate these conditions, and not just find a way to survive on the outside. I must remind myself that these people are truly deluded and believe that they saving the world from imminent danger. As they are never allowed to be critical of the Sea Org, even to other members, they must often feel they are the only one having doubts and therefore must be a bad person for wanting to leave.

I recently spoke with Aaron Saxton, a former Scientologist who spent several years as an enforcer of Scientology’s policies in the Sea Org. Aaron shared some truly disturbing examples of real human rights abuses within the Sea Org, and I would suggest those who doubt that any of these policies are ever put into practice should read Aaron’s story.

 To be continued…

Over the last two years, I have spent a substantial amount of time publicly protesting the Church of Scientology, and in this time I have come to have a good understanding of the public perception of Scientology; most people think that Scientology is a fairly benign religion which is centered around ridiculous beliefs. For the most part, media attention on Scientology is focused around scandals involving celebrity adherents and the Church’s “alien beliefs”.

What is very seldom reported, however, is what makes Scientology such a serious danger to its own members and also to the wider community. As a result, we have a public which is largely uneducated to the bigger issues at hand surrounding Scientology, and they often find it hard to believe the harsh truths, asking “if that’s the case then why are we only hearing about spaceships and silent births?”

As an atheist, I tend to see all religious or faith-based beliefs as ridiculous, and often worthy of mockery and criticism. I am by no means saying that most religions are harmless, and Scientology is an exception. I am of the view that most religious have elements which are particularly harmful to their followers and to the community; often limiting the freedoms of members and campaigning to stop social progression and send the world back to their antiquated views.

Last week, Senator Nick Xenophon said that “in Australia there are no limits on what you can believe, but there are limits on how you can behave, it’s called the law and no-one is above it.” I am not going to focus on the beliefs of the Church of Scientology, but instead I will discuss the policies and actions of the organisation which are criminal and severely strip away the basic human rights of their own membership and attempt to do the same to the rest of us.

I’m going to bring attention to the “we’ve got bigger fish to fry” attitude which is held by many atheist and secular groups towards Scientology, and explain why this view is inappropriate and misses the point entirely. There are many elements of the Church of Scientology’s policies and actions that are so disturbing and extreme that this organisation truly does require our immediate attention, and I will build an argument as to why you should help to bring an end to these disturbing policies and actions.

One of the things which sets the Church of Scientology apart from mainstream religious groups is that Scientology’s doctrine comes in installments; “for a low weekly cost of $99.95, we’ll give you spiritual enlightenment. But wait, there’s more! The first ten callers to take us up on this amazing offer will get a free set of steak knives.” Seriously, though, the full Scientology doctrine is not available to the public, nor is it available to members. Scientologists must work their way along “the bridge” in order to be adequately prepared (read: brainwashed) to read more of the doctrine. One of the great things about Judaism, Christianity and Islam is that I can pick up the Torah, Bible or Quran and see that it’s bullshit. For instance, from Leviticus 20:9 I know that if you see a child cursing its parents, you should kill the little fucker.

As Scientology’s texts are secretive and copyrighted, they are not able to be republished for scrutiny, the claims made are not testable and, to avoid litigation by the Church, the vast majority of analysis and criticism of Scientology’s texts are pushed to the deep, dark underworld which we call the Internet. What is known by critics of the Church of Scientology about the doctrine often surpasses that of the individual Scientologist, as we have access to material leaked from the organisation and the testimony of hundreds of former members.

Scientologists are pushed to purchase more auditing, take more courses and read more books in order to progress along the bridge to spiritual enlightenment.  There is a set of publicly available Scientology texts, and whilst these are full of pseudoscience, quackery and bigotry, they hardly begin to represent the problems with the Church’s views.

Try to imagine if I were Catholic (I know, it’s a real stretch and is probably testing the very boundaries of your imagination); I could freely and privately sit in a confessional and tell the priest all of my secrets in hope that sharing the burden and doing my penance, I will be forgiven for my sins. Scientology has something comparable called auditing, except if I was taking it, I would be paying hundreds of dollars per session, instead of volunteering information it would often pressured out of me, and all of my secrets would are recorded and filed.

Scientology says it has priest-penitent privilege, wherein the information shared during auditing is kept secret, however this is far from reality. Confessional privilege would go straight out the window the moment I tried and cut back on funding the Church of Scientology through courses and further auditing; my file would be read through and my confessions used to intimidate and blackmail me in to continuing  along the bridge. If I ever tried to leave the organisation entirely, the Church of Scientology could publicly release all of my forced confessions in order to destroy my credibility and reputation.

This is part of the reason why it is so difficult for Scientologists to leave the organisation, and why they often find it hard to be taken seriously when making allegations against the Church when every one of their personality flaws, vulnerabilities and secrets are actively used to silence their concerns and criticisms, and to block the exit.

Another factor that makes it difficult for a Scientologist to leave is that their lives are generally immersed in Scientology; many have been brought up in the organisation and have only ever studied Scientology technology and are severely lacking a proper education, many work for the organisation and have developed few skills to deal with the real world. More importantly, being brought up in Scientology means that most Scientologists have no immediate family that are not in the religion. The Church of Scientology has a policy of “disconnection” which states that a person who questions Scientology must be “handled” (brought back in to line) or all contact with them is severed.

So if I were from a family of Scientologists and I tried to leave, not only would my reputation be destroyed by the release of my supposedly confidential confessions, but I would lose my entire family and support network. As a result of this, many Scientologists feel forced to persevere with courses and auditing simply because they feel they have no other options.

To be continued…

Aaron Saxton spent several years working as an enforcer of the Church of Scientology’s policies in the Sea Org. Aaron spoke with me this morning and shared some of his experiences from within the Church of Scientology.

The allegations you will read are both extraordinary and disturbing. I have no doubt that many of you unfamiliar with these issues will invoke Carl Sagan and say that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and so I will provide in the comments below a list of sources which substantiate the validity of Aaron’s claims.

Aaron:
My parents were in Scientology, and when I grew up I only did one or two courses in Scientology until I was 15. When I was 15 I joined the Sea Organisation in Sydney, and I was put straight into administration training. So while a lot of Scientologists were doing the bridge, my experience was never about going up the bridge, I was purely based around the policies of the Church. I did that from 1989 until 1996. I did 2 years in Australia, a year in Florida and then the rest was in Los Angeles.

I probably did about 10 hours of actual auditing in 6 years, but I did around 300 hours of Security Checking (interrogations). I was purely just, to use a wog term, an enforcer in the Sea Organisation, which is one of the things that I suppose makes my story a bit more to the point about their management techniques.

The Church of Scientology has one unique factor about it from other religions. Every other religion, you’re given all the information at the start. So when a person defends the Catholic Church, he can because he has read the entire bible. The average Scientologist has done less than 10% of the actual materials in the Church, he doesn’t know what he’s defending; he has no idea. You could give him Star Trek XI as OT8 and he will defend it, because he must defend the Church otherwise he is instructed to leave.

I asked Aaron to give me an idea of the conditions which Sea Org members were living and working under.

Aaron:
These are the typical conditions: first of all, no medical expenses; not allowed to see doctors. Secondly, the diet wasn’t written by a nutritionist, it’s just what the person who was assigned as the Chef of the building made up, so there was no nutritional value in the food. They slept in rooms around 10ft x 10ft, and in that room you could expect to have at least 6 people living; sometimes you could have up to 9 people in a room that size. No use of deodorants or perfumes or anything.

If you were married in the Sea Org, you had to wait until a room came up where you could live alone with your wife; sometimes you’d be on a waiting list for a year or two. That meant you couldn’t have sex have with her, and you’re also not permitted to go off the base and rent a hotel room so you could have sex. If you tried to have sex outside the bedroom it was considered perverted so you were punished, you couldn’t win.

In 1996, the cash reserve figure of the Scientology empire worldwide was at $1,000,000,000 US. These are the people that say they can’t afford to pay for medical expenses, these are the people that say there’s no money to get your teeth fixed when you’re a member of staff, these are the people that say there’s no money to buy an buildings so you can have your own room. They run a fucking ship that’s 350ft in length, and they’re telling you they’ve got no money.

We are talking about a paramilitary force; there’s no such thing as days off, there’s no civilian contact, there’s no TV, there are no newspapers, there are no magazines. We’re talking about complete isolation from any information. For example, in the Sea Org, all the management staff are told about all the glorious victories we’ve had, we’re never told about one single failure on the part of Scientology.

As far as you know while you’re working there, Scientology is dominating the world, and you want it to dominate the world. The goal of the Sea Org is not to have Scientology worldwide, the goal of the Sea Org is to control all activities on the planet and to eliminate all people to who are hostile to their stated goals, whatever they may be.

In that environment you believe you’re psychologically strong, you believe you’re very powerful. When you go out in to the real world like I have, you realise how weak you really are, you realise that you can’t actually yell at a person and use fear as a way to get compliance. In the Sea Org you believe you are superior to all other human beings on Earth, they are beneath you and will not survive and are pathetic, and unless they do what you are doing, they will die. You wouldn’t put up with it for a day.

The way the executives lived, like the messengers up in Florida and Los Angeles, we were lucky; we had a room that was 12ft x 12ft which only had four people in it. When I was married I got my own private apartment.

If you were a senior executive of the Church, you got a villa. You lived in luxury; the best sheets, the best clothes, the food was extraordinary. You still worked like a dog, but at least you were in total control and you weren’t being dominated, so for them it was a different experience.

You’re taught that it’s okay to have more rewards if you’re in a higher position, or you are better than somebody else. So the goal is so that if you’re better than someone else, either statistically or in training, you’re superior to them as a human being and therefore it’s justified that you receive better treatment. That’s the bottom line, it’s a constant game of “you’ve got to be better than the guy next to you” in order to survive better than him.” It’s like putting a pack of dogs together in a room and giving them not enough food, the best dogs survive and the other dogs learn that they have to fight to become the best.

I asked Aaron to share what he felt were the greatest injustices he witnessed or was involved in whilst with the Sea Org.

Aaron:
In Los Angeles, we asked for staff members to have abortions. Monica Potter, Lisa Picone and Astra Woodcraft, to name a few, were asked to have abortions. If they didn’t want to abort, we pulled their spouses in and told them that their partner wanting to have a baby was against the purpose of the Sea Org, that they were leaving the group, that they were traitors, that they should do everything to convince them to kill the child.

If they said that they wanted to have the child, I’ll give you an example, we’d assign them a Condition of Treason against the Sea Org and make them do a Condition of Doubt where they had to decide which group in life they really belonged to, the choices of the group were the Sea Org or “wogs”, which is the name for human beings that were considered unintelligent. If they chose to be a wog, we told them it was “non-survival” and it showed that they were “out-ethics” and they too were degraded people, and the only choice was to remain in the Sea Org.

They would keep being pressured with this, so they would run away, we would pull them up and say “that’s a suppressive act, we’re going to disconnect you from everyone you know from Scientology unless you come back and say you’re sorry.”

I asked Aaron how many of these women had abortions in order to stay in the Sea Org.

Aaron:
Monica Potter, the wife of Gavin Potter, was pulled in to the office by me and told to abort her child. Gavin Potter was individually pulled into his own offices and told by their communications office staff to order the abortion. They both failed to comply, so I tried to intimidate Gavin Potter. Monica Potter, who was from a rich family, then said if we carried on she would refuse, she would refuse to keep funding the Church. We said “okay as long as you keep funding the church, you can go off and you can have your baby”, and she was let go of on good terms.

Lisa Picone refused to have the abortion but unfortunately, due to the stress, she miscarried. Quite a lot of the women ended up miscarrying, a pregnant woman shouldn’t be running around a building for 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, try to comprehend this, 105 working hours per week, no days off. A pregnant woman, without the nutritional requirements, and all the stress of being yelled at, she’s going to lose that child.

I asked Aaron what his role was in these situations.

Aaron:
I would pull them in, put them in the office, lock the door, talk to them, try to lightly coerce them. Failing that, step up the gradient, a light coersion turns in to a heavy coersion, a heavy coersion turns in to pulling out their ethics file and showing them just how evil they are. If that fails, then you can always do a Committee of Evidence for their abandonment of their position in the Church. Failing that, there’s always the Rehabilitation Project Force; we had pregnant women going into a penal colony where you were forbidden to walk, you had to run, if you did not run you were punished physically by doing pushups or running around the block. You were forbidden to communicate with other human beings about anything. Those are the penalties you could face if you didn’t obey.

If you did leave the Sea Org, and you did route out properly, and you got your interrogation, you were forever reminded by them that the moment the child turns 4 years of age, you had to return to the Sea Org and your child would be placed in to a ranch, where the child would only be educated on Scientology materials. You would only be able to see your child, if you were lucky, for one hour a day; no phone calls, no other communication throughout the day.

We had a Cadet Org set up at Flag Land Base that had more than 50 children. These kids weren’t allowed to mix with other children, they weren’t allowed to go to a school because they would learn the wrong information about life. These kids, by the age of 7, are telling you that they know that they’ve lived for 75 trillion years, that they know they’re supposed to be superhuman beings, and the reason why they’re not is because they were bad people in a past life, and this is why they lost their abilities. They know that if anybody doesn’t join the Sea Org, that they’re helping to destroy the planet, and they’re an enemy and they are not to be spoken to.

This is the voice coming out of 7 year old children. Can you imagine what a 7 year old grows up to be by the time he’s 13? We’re talking about a human being that knows nothing about family values, because he doesn’t have a family, he doesn’t play sport, he doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t read the newspaper, doesn’t read great works of fiction, he knows nothing except that L. Ron Hubbard was a god.

I asked Aaron if he had any more examples to share of abuses within the Church of Scientology .

Aaron:
When we (the CMO) got Laura Dikeman she was 15 and separated from her family. For two years straight, she refused all passes to leave and see her family back in San Francisco. Her family came to Los Angeles, and she was refused passes to go out and visit them. When her parents complained to me about not seeing their daughter, all phone calls to Laura were barred. I took Laura in to an office and I told her that her parents are “suppressive people” that are trying to destroy Scientology by taking her out of the Sea Org, and that her choice is to disconnect from them and tell them that they’re bad people for hurting her spirituality. She did it, and disconnected from them.

On Valentines day 1995, a security breach occurred at the INCOMM computer banks. All of the staff were locked up for a period of two months and forbidden to make any phone calls, they were made to sleep on the floor, escorted to and from the shower and refused communication to anybody until we had finished interrogating all of them to find out who was responsible for the security breach. Half of them went insane and when they left the Sea Org they were junk, mentally they were fucked. I don’t want to hear their bullshit that they don’t do it, because we did it, and I did it.

In the Hollywood Guaranty Building we detained Lea Hines. She was taken by me in 1994 to see the commanding officer Foster Tompkins, who had a history of beating staff. She wasn’t obeying my orders or instructions, I knew she was suicidal because I had read her file and spoke to her about it, and rather than help her I took her to Foster Thompkins office. He beat her, and he did this in front of myself and two other staff members, tore the top half of her shirt off, punched her in the face until she was terrified, and then we thought we’d done enough to put her in to line.

At AOSH ANZO, Simon van der Wee tried to take off with his girlfriend. I grabbed their files, called their family, called their friends and pretended to be an old friend to try and find them. I walked out of the Organisation, I eventually tracked them down at an apartment. I broke in to that apartment and I sat there waiting for them. When they got home, I ordered them into the car, got them back to the Organisation. Later that night, we took them over to the Castlereagh offices, over there they tried to run away and myself and two other Sea Org members chased them through Hyde Park until they were out of breath. We sat them down on a bench, surrounded them and I personally grabbed her and screamed in her ear “you’ve got to come back or we’re going to declare you suppressive”. She was balling her eyes out, Simon was in tears, and they humbly agreed to come back and we put them through interrogations again.

I asked Aaron if he feels responsible for the incidents he was involved in, and how he tried to justify them at the time.

Aaron:
I did it because I enjoyed it, I did it at the time because I got a statistic, and I got rewarded for it, and I had no regrets at the time. I didn’t give a shit if you kept your baby or not, I just didn’t care. In the Sea Org I had a wife, Willow Jaffe, she is now one of the directors of the Church of Scientology in the state of Nevada. I asked my own wife to abort; when she told me she was pregnant, I told her to get rid of the baby.

I took my own brother and put him in the penal colony myself. I ordered the disconnection of my own family. I was not a person you wanted to fuck with when I was in CMO in Los Angeles. I didn’t care, I just didn’t give a shit. I didn’t lose any sleep over you, I didn’t lose any sleep if your sister was in the Sea Org and I asked her to never talk to her friends again, I didn’t care.

I asked Aaron how he thinks that he had come to think this way.

Aaron:
The reason is simple, if you take a look at Scientology, the horrific truth is this; it’s public policy says that by definition “Scientology”, the word, is the study of knowledge. The person who wrote Scientology is L. Ron Hubbard, by that rationale that means that L. Ron Hubbard must know everything.

In the policies of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard says that the only optimal solution is always Scientology, and that anything that takes you away from an optimal solution is an enemy of your self. Therefore, anything that is an enemy of Scientology is an enemy to yourself, and must be suppressive and must be destroyed, and I believed that. I believed that the Earth would come to an end if we didn’t have the Sea Org controlling the entire planet, because the only you’re information you’re shown about the public is a war, bad psychiatrists, evil IRS agents, a world of paranoia and fear, death and destruction. You never got to see the good stuff that’s going on out there in life, the great movies, the beautiful music, the lovely festivals.

Let me tell you something Bef, there is nothing in Scientology that can give you a smile like the love of a partner, or the hug from a child. There is no OT level in Scientology that can even compare to this, but they wouldn’t know about that, because I invite you to look at all the books written by Ron Hubbard and I ask you to count the times the word “love” appears; it doesn’t! This fuckwit took the word “love” out of the language, it doesn’t exist in Scientology technology. How fucking evil can you get? The word “hate” does, the word “enemy” is everywhere, but the word “love” doesn’t even exist. This is a very evil man.

The most evil thing, Bef, and this is where you’re going to swallow your tongue, I can take you into the Church of Scientology right now, and guess what? You’re going to like it because it’s going to help you. I’m not shitting you, I’ve seen people’s intelligence rise because they could read finally. That’s not the point, it’s like going to a dentist and because he makes you feel better because he fixed your tooth, and then he frickin’ tells you he can make you grow wings and fly around the planet. I mean, you’re sucked in, you believe well “if this part of it works, maybe the next part of it will work.”

I asked Aaron for his thoughts on Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder after previously hearing Aaron criticise Rathbun and Rinder for talking about David Miscavige hitting staff and not being open about the other things they had seen and been involved in. I offered  one thing in support of Marty Rathbun; he admitted that he ordered the destruction of evidence to assist in covering up the death of Lisa McPherson. I also made the point that Rathbun had been offering his auditing services after parting from the Church of Scientology.

Aaron:
How about we get the guy who fucking locked her up named, where are the names of the guys who locked the door on Lisa McPherson? Marty Rathburn and Mike Rinder know who these people are. Marty has his own agenda, and he’s a chicken.

I don’t need another fuckwit out there to control my mind, Marty just doesn’t get it; he thinks the reason why he was controlled is because of David Miscavige. What about the other 4800 Sea Org members? David Miscavige didn’t talk to them, so why were they controlled? The technology and policies of the Sea Org were written by that same insane man Ron Hubbard. David Miscavige followed policy to the letter, and that is why he is so dangerous. There’s nothing criminal in what David Miscavage did from a Scientology point of view, hitting another staff member is ok, it’s written in policy that it is ok. David Miscavige is not a renagade, he’s just a zealot. He is enthusiastic about 100% application, that’s the insanity. Marty Rathbun, if he starts up another Sea Org, then he’s going to have to do the same thing.

I went to the Freewinds in 1995, and on the Freewinds I met and spoke with Marty Rathbun and Greg Wilhere. I notice that in my email to Marty Rathbun he won’t acknowledge that he knows me, in fact on his blogspot he says he never met me, he is lying. I’ve got lots of people that will stand up and tell the world that he’s lying, such as Tom De Vocht. Tom De Vocht knows jolly well that I’ve met with David Miscavige and Marty Rathbun at the Flag Land Base on several occasions. I’ve washed Marty Rathbun’s god-damned shirts, I handed the shirts to him, so I don’t want to hear his bullshit that he didn’t know me, he is a liar.’

I asked Aaron what he thought about the fact that most of the media attention surrounding Scientology was simply mocking the Space Opera. I pointed out that I can easily (and frequently do) make a mockery of the beliefs of even mainstream religious groups for the absurdity of their beliefs, but in this case to mock the beliefs is to take attention away from the real issues; the huge human rights violations.

Aaron:
The Church of Scientology that you see on TV and the Church of Scientology that you see in your local Organisation is full of people that believe in what they’re doing, they believe it. Don’t go after them for their beliefs, go after the management, and have a look at these people and what they are like.

I’m telling you, Bef, Tampa right now is half-owned by the Church of Scientology. If you get an entire town or a city that’s dominated by these people, you will have the complete loss of all human rights, you are looking at something that makes communism and the Nazi party look pathetic. L. Ron Hubbard’s policies in the Sea Org call for the elimination of over 20% of the world’s population, because of the way that they act. There is no humanity and compassion.

If a country is ever controlled by the Sea Org, and that’s exactly what they want to do, and they will get it if you let them expand. Ever public should be terrified by this, this is how the Nazi party started. Through the course of human history, this is how groups have risen to end up destroying the lives of millions of people, and in our current age there is no greater threat. Right now across the world you have over 1 billion Muslims, in a world where you would have 1 billion Sea Org members or Scientologists, all governments will be replaced by the Sea Org, all police will be replaced by the Sea Organisation, all hospitals would be shut down, all books will be burned and thrown away that do not contain Scientology. It’s your worst nightmare, and for tens of thousands of people around the world, this is their life right now, and they need help, they need to hear about compassion.

I’ve spoken to a couple of people in these last days that have done worse stuff than I have, and they are too scared to talk. You can control people more easily with fear than you can with love. If the government doesn’t step in and stop it, they will expand.

In the population there are certain people that like to be bullies, and they like to control. All you need is 1 out of 1000 people, and that means you’ve got 20,000 of them here in Australia right now, and they will go off and join the Sea Org because it gives them a place where they can be that inhumane, there are people in society like that, they’re very few and far between, but that is what the Sea Org wants, they want those people because belief won’t have anything to do with their actions, just control.

In America, a population of 300m, 1 out of 1000 people is a staggering 300,000 people, and that’s their goal; to get those people in. They will get it if the government doesn’t stop this organisation from existing, and if it means the destruction of Scientology as a religion, then so be it, but I want to make a very clear differentation here, I don’t have anything against the average Scientologist, he is just as deluded as the next guy, but he has no idea what he is a part of. Here’s the thing, if he dares look at the information a person like you will present to them, it is forbidden, so how can you evaluate information if you’re not allowed to ever see it?

They actually have policies that order human rights violations! That’s the incredible thing, how could they they grant the status of a religion to an organisation that has policies that overtly declare the waving of human rights? That’s what astounds me. We need the inquiry to pull out every policy letter that they operate off of and see what they say.

I really need to thank Aaron for sharing his experiences, he has bravely put his own neck on the chopping block in order to bring attention to the massive human rights abuses in the Church of Scientology. Aaron had a final comment for Anonymous:

Aaron:
It’s people like you and Anon that made me come out, you’re the heroes of this. The hero here is you, you stood up for it before you had a leg to stand on, I came out now because I’ve got a leg to stand on. Yeah, I might go to jail, I might get a prosecution, but fuck it, I’m not going to live with this for the rest of my life, I just want to say thank you. I wouldn’t exist today on the internet if you didn’t create a safe environment for me.

In 1964, the State of Victoria convened a Board of Inquiry into Scientology. In 1965, the Report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology was published.

"There are some features of Scientology which are so ludicrous that there may be a tendency to regard Scientology as silly and its practitioners as harmless cranks. To do so would be gravely to misunderstand the tenor of the Board’s conclusions… Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill." – Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C (see the full report here)

Just yesterday, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon used parliamentary privilege to table seven letters by former Scientologists which make very serious allegations against the Church of Scientology. So more than 40 years on from the “Anderson Report”, the Church of Scientology could soon be the focus of a senate inquiry, with their tax-exemption in question.

Virginia Stewart, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, responded to the allegations by saying that Senator Xenophon is running a “propaganda campaign that would suit a totalitarian regime, not Australia, a country that recognizes freedom of religion”.

Today, I obtained Virginia Stewart’s phone number from Scientology’s press release and called her myself. I was playing the role of a journalist from a reputable national publication, armed with Scientology ‘tech’ to back up my claims. I told Virginia that “I don’t believe the Senator is questioning your right to hold whatever beliefs you wish, but is bringing attention to the Church of Scientology’s illegal and immoral acts committed under the guise of religion.”

So with the ear of Virginia Stewart, these are the issues which I raised:

 
Bruised, bitten and ghostly thin. These are unedited photographs from Lisa McPherson’s autopsy.

Scientology kills.
In 1995, a 36 year old Scientologist by the name of Lisa McPherson was injured in a minor car accident. Paramedics took her to hospital after she took her clothing off on the side of the road. Fellow Scientologists persuaded hospital staff not to hold McPherson and give her psychiatric evaluation as the Church of Scientology vehemently opposes the psychiatric industry. McPherson was then taken to the Scientology base at Fort Harrison Hotel where she was put in isolation under the “care” of Scientologists under the official Scientology practice of “Introspection Rundown”.

HCO Bulletin of 20 February 1974 – The Introspection Rundown

"The C/S’s action is a direct comm line to the person by notes. The person is provided with paper and pen to reply. The C/S must determine the person’s responsibility level. Example: ‘Dear Joe. What can you guarantee me if you are let out of isolation?’ If the person’s reply shows continued irresponsibility toward other dynamics or fixation on one dynamic to the exclusion of others damaged the C/S must inform the person of his continued isolation and why. Example: ‘Dear Joe. I’m sorry but no go on coming out of isolation yet. Your actions threatened the survival of hundreds of people indirectly and 6 families directly by burning down their houses. You are unaware of the effects this could have had and still only concerned about your own welfare. You must hate the human race quite a bit."

To put this in plain language, the ‘case supervisor’ must determine whether or not the person is to be allowed out of isolation (illegal imprisonment). Lisa McPherson’s case supervisor was Janis Johnson, a doctor who was not licensed in Florida. The Scientology staff tending to McPherson were not licensed practitioners, and tried methods such as “closing her nose so she has to swallow so she can breathe through her mouth” to force McPherson to swallow medication.  On December 5th, after being held in isolation under horrible conditions for 17 days, Lisa McPherson was dying. To ensure that McPherson was not given psychiatric treatment, Janis Johnson drove McPherson to Columbia New Port Richey Hospital where Scientologist doctor David Minkoff worked. This hospital was more than 45 minutes away, they drove past four hospitals on the drive. Lisa McPherson was dead on arrival.

This is not an isolated incident, there have been many Scientologists who have died as a result of being denied proper medical care and being treated only with Scientology pseudoscience.

The leaders of the Church of Scientology are mentally, physically and verbally abusive to their followers.

In July this year, the St. Petersburg Times published a three part report on the Church of Scientology in which former high-ranking Scientologists Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, amongst others, claimed to have witnessed David Miscavige, the head of the Church of Scientology, beating numerous Scientologists on many occasions. Marty Rathbun also admitted to having being ordered by David Miscavige to assault fellow Scientologists, including Mike Rinder in January 2004.

Scientology destroys families.

The Church of Scientology forces its members to cease contact with family or friends who are critical of the organisation, through a policy called “disconnection”.

If a Scientologist is connected with somebody who is labelled “suppressive”, the Scientologist will be considered a “potential trouble source” (PTS) until such a time as they “disconnect” from the person.

HCO Policy Letter, 10 September 1983

A Scientologist can become PTS by reason of being connected to someone that is antagonistic to Scientology or its tenets. In order to resolve the PTS condition, he either HANDLES the other person’s antagonism (as covered in the materials on PTS handling) or, as a last resort when all attempts to handle have failed, he disconnects from the person.” – Founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

HCO Policy Letter, 23 December 1965

“Any PTS who fails to either handle or disconnect from the SP who is making him or her a PTS is, by failing to do so, guilty of a Suppressive Act.” – Founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

So essentially, Scientologists either have to stop their friends and family members from being critical of the Church of Scientology, or they are forced to either disconnect from these people or be declared suppressive themselves, and cast out of the organisation. Leaving the Church of Scientology is hardly an option for a person who has been brainwashed and has invested not only their money but their entire lives in to Scientology.

Scientologists are encouraged to cause financial, mental and physical pain to critics.

Critics of Scientology are targets of the Church of Scientology’s policy of “fair game,” whereby Scientologists are permitted (and encouraged) by the organisation to cause the critic harm.

Scientologists who perpetrate illegal actions and use underhanded tactics to silence critics of the organisation are not subject to any punishment from within the organisation; this is because these actions are sanctioned by the Church.

HCO Policy Letter, 18 October 1967

“SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” – Founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

A “Suppressive Person” (SP) is somebody who engages in “suppressive acts”;

HCO Policy Letter, 23 December 1965

“Suppressive acts are clearly those covert or overt acts knowingly calculated to reduce or destroy the influence or activities of Scientology” – Founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

To phrase these statements differently; a person who engages in “covert or overt acts knowingly calculated to reduce or destroy the influence or activities of Scientology” is considered “fair game”, meaning that they “may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist”. They may also be “tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed”.

It is often argued by Scientologists that the policy of fair game was cancelled decades ago;

HCO Policy Letter, 21 October 1968

“The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease.
FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations.
This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.” – Founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

So although the practice of declaring people as “fair game” has ceased, the practice of declaring people as “suppressive” has not; and those who are declared “suppressive” are still able to be “tricked, sued, lied to or destroyed”.

Despite the fact that I provided Virginia Stewart with HCOBs and HCOPLs to give validity to each issue I raised, the Scientology spokeswoman had very little to say other than to deny each and every statement I made, questioning the authenticity and accuracy of the information which I provided.

These issues barely scratch the surface in answering the question “what’s wrong with Scientology?”, but I hope you’ve heard enough to realise that Scientology is far from harmless and needs to be stopped.

A few days after I watched the Mormons gorging themselves on a giant cheeseburger, Elder Cooper told me that he was being split up from his companion Elder Glover, and being moved to a different area. He was pretty annoyed about it, and told us that he would break protocol by not telling the new missionaries moving in to the area about us, and keeping contact himself.

After this, I had no contact with any Mormons for a few weeks before I finally received a call and then a visit from the new missionaries to the area. I had called the mission office a number of times trying to get in contact with Elder Cooper to no avail.

Today I made another call to the mission office, demanding that the Sister help me get in contact with Elder Cooper, she promised that she would get the “situation resolved”. A few minutes later I got a call from Elder Cooper.

Elder Cooper apologised for not being in contact with me, and told me that he had been “punished” for calling people outside his area and forced to pay the phone bill himself, rather than the mission paying for it. Elder Cooper said that he had been told specifically not to contact me, and it was only because I had been so adamant that I would only speak to Elder Cooper that they had given him permission to call me.

Elder Cooper then told me that he had been fired as district leader and moved to a different area as a direct result of the giant burger. Apparently President Maurer had decided that the meeting which went until about 8pm on a Tuesday evening was a breach of the rules, and spending their precious mission money on a tower of meat was inappropriate. In fact, the entire mission was disbanded as a result of the burger, and new missionaries were brought in from other areas.

I had known for a while that Elder Cooper was a little bit crazy. A few months ago he told me the story of what happened when he got a little fed up with being stuck in a remote mission area out in Port Hedland. I can’t imagine it being the nicest place to go out preaching, and it clearly got to Elder Cooper;  he took his mission car and drove six-hundred kilometers to Broome to go sight-seeing and visit some other missionaries.

After the fireside and the initial meeting, Leon and I were invited by Elder Cooper and Elder Glover to go out for dinner with all of the missionaries from the district. Cooper told us the plan was to buy a $300 cheeseburger which had 100 patties.

I thought watching a bunch of Mormons in uniform wrestling a 20+ kilogram burger could be a once in a lifetime experience, and at very least a hilarious photo opportunity.

Elder Cooper, Elder Richards and Elder Happel with the newest, arguably most accurate and certainly most delicious book of the Mormon scripture – The Sauce Bible.

I captured the moment that all of Elder Cooper’s wildest fantasies came true.

Whilst “Mr. Burger” was assembling the burger, the Mormons began to chant loudly (with no explanation whatsoever) “We love money! We love money!”. Here’s proof.

I happened to get my hands on Elder Richards’ jacket. I am actually wearing a Richard Dawkins Foundation t-shirt underneath.

A lot has happened since I met the Mormon gangster a few months back, and I’m at a bit of a loss as to where to start.

On the day that we initially met with the missionaries, Leon and I were invited to attend church and also to visit President Maurer’s house for a fireside that Sunday evening. We did not attend chapel on the Sunday morning, and when the missionaries called us in the afternoon to see if we were still interested in attending the fireside, we weren’t planning on going to that either. That was until they told us there would be dessert served afterward.

The two missionaries asked if we’d give them a ride to the President’s house, I think partly because they wanted to arrive with us and ensure we didn’t just not turn up, but moreso because they really didn’t fancy cycling.

We were of the first to arrive at the mission house, where we were greeted by President Maurer and his wife, Sister Maurer. I really don’t know how to describe the house other than to say that from the fireplace, the furniture, the rugs to the artwork – the house had a distinctly Mormon, almost incestuous feel to it.

We were brought up in to a lounge area with a couple of couches and rows of chairs facing a small television, soon enough the room was over crowded Mormon elders and sisters everywhere, probably 20 in all, and two or three other non-Mormon guests.

The fireside started with a prayer, and then a song, followed by a DVD presentation of one elder’s recent mission in Southeast Asia – none of these were particularly exciting, though I must admit I found it extremely hard to avoid laughing when, during the song, Leon sung along loudly replacing every word with “God”, and got a few confused looks from the surrounding Mormons.

Then there was another presentation, two elders got up and spoke about the difficulties of communicating with God. To demonstrate this, they asked for two volunteers – who stood on either side of a whiteboard so that they could not see each other. One was playing the role of God, and had to raise a certain number of fingers on his hands. The other was to close his eyes and pray to God and ask how many fingers he is holding up. This did clearly demonstrate the futility of prayer, however it would have been far more accurate if there wasn’t someone on the other side of the whiteboard.

Anyhow, as this wasn’t an Atheist fireside, there had to be more. A third volunteer was called upon to play the role of prophet – the prophet stood at the edge of the whiteboard, so that he could clearly both of the others, the person who wanted to know how many fingers god was holding up simply asked the prophet, who was able to tell him. This was to demonstrate that prophets have the ability to talk directly with God and then communicate this message to man.

After this was finished, we sat around whilst dessert was being prepared. President Maurer came up and asked us what we thought of the presentation, and Leon asked him how you are supposed to tell if a prophet is “really” a prophet, or if they’re just deceiving you.  The President’s response was pretty shocking, you listen to the prophets messages and if they “seem right to you” then they’re a true prophet.

So essentially the Mormons have conceded that whilst God is “just on the other side of the whiteboard”, He can’t communicate directly with believers. God apparently can communicate with a prophet, however you just have to take their words on faith.

Then came the moment we had been waiting for, dessert. Sister Maurer assured me that she wasn’t drugging me. There was sticky date pudding, chocolate pudding and berry crumble – each served with ice cream and whipped cream. If only the rest of the Mormon doctrine was so palatable.

A couple of weeks ago, I called the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to see if I could get my hands on a Book of Mormon. The lady who answered the phone asked if it would be okay if a couple of missionaries delivered it personally to my house, which I said was fine.

The two missionaries were sitting in my lounge, explaining to Leon and I how God answers prayers. Essentially it works like this: you pray, and then the next time an eyebrow-raising coincidence occurs (which can take months), there’s your answer! They decided it would be a good idea to invite “D”, a recent convert, to share his testimony with us as they thought we might be able to better relate to him.

D came dressed in a grey tracksuit, with a grey hat. He had a number of tattoos, including one on his neck that said ‘Detroit 313′. He also had a gold $ sign ring on his finger. Yes, D was a Mormon gangster.

D had been a Baptist who had recently moved to Australia from the USA. D met a couple of Mormons who he befriended, and apparently they never really tried to convert him, but they did give him a copy of the LDS Quad and asked him to pray to God whether the Book of Mormon was true. D said that he “axed God”, but he didn’t get an answer for months and months. When he was going on a holiday over Christmas, and so he packed the Quad that he was given in his bag. On Christmas Eve, after he had been out motorcycling all day, he decided to have a shower – when he reached into his bag to pull out some underwear, he saw the Quad there! God had finally answered his prayer and so he converted.

To put it simply; because D put a book in his bag, and the book was miraculously still there the next time he looked, that was God saying that the Book of Mormon was true.

Given that many people, including Mark Twain, have torn this religion to shreds over the past century or so, I don’t want to flog the dead horse too much, so I’ll focus instead on the abundance of differences and one similarity between Christian Science and science.

A lady by the name of Anita introduced herself to Jacob and I when we arrived, and invited us to take a seat and have a chat. Anita’s first statement was that “I just need to make it very clear that we’re not Scientologists.” (Did they see me coming or something?) I responded “If I thought you were, I’d be outside with a picket sign and not inside talking to you”, which she seemed thankful for.

Anita then asked me what had brought me to the Christian Science Church today, and I said it was mainly the seemingly contradictory terms in the name. Initially Anita thought we were Christians and said “I think you guys are into the Bible, am I right?” to which I responded “sure, I think it was one of the greatest works of fiction ever written”.

Anita began to tell me about the healing goes on within the Church, facilitated by Christian Science practitioners. She told us that she wasn’t keen to use words like ‘miracles’ as they believe that healing as a result of prayer and prayer alone is a natural. I pointed out that a huge number of faiths claim to have great abilities to heal real medical conditions through prayer (doing nothing), so what made the Christian Science Church’s claims more credible?

I was sincerely hoping this is where the science element would come in. Some scientific data which would give support to their claim that the effect of prayer (which I would claim is merely a placebo) is demonstrably greater than a placebo effect. Of course, this was way too much to hope for.

Anita explained that these healings aren’t things which can be objectively tested or quantified, they can be only experienced. According to Anita, unfortunately our language is too restrictive to actually allow us to adequately describe these experiences and the scientific method is too restrictive to actually allow them to be demonstrated scientifically.

I asked how they can possibly think it is appropriate, and not altogether misleading, to call themselves Christian Scientists when they don’t utilise the scientific method. Just to add insult to injury, I pointed out the obvious similarity to the Church of Scientology in which they have a name which seems to give their claims some undeserved Scientific credibility.

Anita said that the Church has it’s own methodology for healing, but they’re not prescriptive. Healing through prayer is based not on a formula, but on personal experience and a relationship with God. In other words, untestable and unscientific.

If it had any scientific merit, it wouldn’t be called Christian Science, it would just be called science. In much the same was as if alternative medicine had any value, it would just be called medicine.

Anita was keen to move on from this topic, and said “it’s obvious too that there is design in nature, because I simply can’t comprehend how all of this could just come about.” I did point out that this was an argument from personal incredulity and a logical fallacy and that it’s possible to offer explanations using only natural processes to account for this apparent design that she observes.

So we’d actually got to a stage in the conversation where I was getting some honest, candid answers. I asked “So is Christian Science a subset of science?” “No”, she responded.

Anita wished us both the best, gave us a copy of Mary Baker Eddy’s “Science and Health”, and said we were welcome to come back for another discussion any time. I may well take her up on that.

On reflection, the only thing that Christian Science and science have in common is the word science, and even then, as Jacob pointed out, the Church has simply redefined science to mean whatever they want it to mean.