CONTENTS

The Tragi-Farce of Scientology

Paperback Cover Notes

Preface

Epigraph 1: Introduction

From Dianetics to Scientology

The Confessionals

Life and Sex in the Womb

Have You Lived Before This Life?

Spreading the Word

The Org

The Sea Org

The British and Australian Orgs

Attacking the Attackers

The Suppressives

The Sexual and Criminal Security Check

The World of Scientology

Children and Celebrities

Scientology -- Business or Religion?

Is Scientology Political?

Scientology Versus Medicine

The Secret Scientology Sessions

The E-Meter

The High Cost of Scientology

The Truth About L. Ron Hubbard

Does Scientology Work?

Conclusion

Epigraph 2: Appendix: The Scientologist's Story

Bibliography of Sources Consulted

About the Author

Changes from the Paperback Edition

Index / Paperback Page Index

Prologue The Tragi-Farce of Scientology

This article, captioned "Paulette Cooper reports from America," was published in the December 1969 issue of the British magazine Queen (page 109).

If you think you have problems with Scientology in England, you should see what's happening in the States. Here, they pass out their leaflets on the street corners of some of the most pukka neighbourhoods, urging innocent bystanders to try out Scientology. Those who have accepted the invitation have found themselves in one of their many dingy headquarters, listening to a dull lecture on Scientology, followed by a film of equal merit on its leader, L. Ron Hubbard. Those who didn't walk out then may have submitted to the American Personality Test (in England, it's the Oxford Capacity Analysis), probably not realising that the B.Scn, D.Scn, DD, and BA degrees of the girl who wrote the test stood for Bachelor of Scientology, Doctor of Scientology, and Doctor of Divinity in the "Church" of Scientology only. And who knows what that BA stood for? Maybe in her case it was legitimate, although one Scientologist in Australia admitted that her "BA" stood for "Basic Administrator" and "Book Auditor" -- the latter meaning she had bought a book on how to apply Scientology to others.

But people come to the headquarters anyway, take the test, accept the results, and sign up for Scientology. At least 150,000 people in the United States have taken that final irrevocable step, and the Scientologists claim that at least 100,000 British people are also members of the cult in England.

But it's true that we in America are to blame for starting it all. Scientology sprang like a phoenix from the dirt of "Dianetics", one of the typical crazy fads that sweeps our country periodically. Dianetics hit like a hurricane in 1950, attracting thousands of people, mostly on the West Coast, by promising to cure them of their mental and physical problems without all those tedious hours required by psycho-analysis. Dianetics even had some attraction for those people who had always secretly wanted to play doctor, because it allowed them to analyse others without all those tedious years required to train for it. But a few critics had to come along and spoil the fun. Dianetics, and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, were discredited by the real doctors, and the country deserted Dianetics to search for Bridey Murphy (an Irish woman who believed she had been reincarnated).

But Dianetics was also quietly undergoing a rebirth, changing its name -- to Scientology -- and adding a new element -- "religion" -- which enabled it to avoid paying American income taxes. Today, this "Church of Scientology", as it is called, says it is people's "spiritual" problems that it is concerned with now.

The method, which resembles a combination of psychotherapy and the Catholic confession, is still basically the same: the Scientology "patient", or "preclear", as a newcomer is called, reveals intimate details of his past to a "reverend" in the Church of Scientology. Unfortunately, the similarities seem to end there. First, the confessional material is not kept completely confidential, since a preclear's records are available to all of his reverends, or "auditors" as they are called -who may eventually number as many as five or six -- and unbeknown to the preclear, intimate portions of his records have sometimes been sent to the main Scientology headquarters, which are now in Saint Hill, East Grinstead, Sussex. (This can be compared to a priest's sending copies of the confession -- with names -- to the Vatican.)

Second, these auditors, some only in their teens or early twenties, who listen to problems that are often sexual, do not always maintain a proper relationship with their preclears. One male auditor wrote on a preclear's file that she was "sexy as hell", and another auditor, called Reverend Fisk, was not only sleeping with his preclear, but revealed the fact to her husband. The case would probably never have come to light except that the husband killed the Scientology reverend.

And finally, other ethical difficulties may arise because the auditors, whose medical and psychological qualifications are certainly questionable, are not always examined too carefully for their background either. One auditor here agreed to practise Scientology on a couple with three young daughters if he could move into their house with them. Later, after he disappeared, the parents learned that this Scientology auditor had tried to track down their daughters in Girl Scout camp and grammar-school, and was in trouble in another state for showing sexual interest towards very young girls.

This "confession", "therapy", or to use their word, "auditing", that Scientologists perform, is done by having the preclear hold two tin cans, which are connected to a crude galvanometer they call an "E-meter". Although a US spokesman stated that the E-meter is subject to "uncontrollable variations in skin contact and current", the preclear believes the E-meter works like a lie-detector, or a "truth-detector" as he prefers to call it, and he tells his auditor intimate details of his life -- while his auditor takes notes.

Not all of the personal information Scientologists reveal has been voluntary either, since some preclears have been made to take what Scientologists call a "security check", at which time, the preclear, while holding on to the E-meter (which, remember, he thinks works like a lie-detector), was asked by his interrogator or auditor whether he had ever been insane, a communist, a spy, or had a police record, raped anyone or been raped, had an abortion or performed one, practised cannibalism, adultery, sex with animals, exhibitionism, incest, miscegenation, pederasty, prostitution, voyeurism, masturbation etc.

The purpose of this auditing is to help a preclear get rid of his "engrams", which Scientologists believe are a type of impression imprinted on the protoplasm itself and are the root of all mental aberrations. L. Ron Hubbard, who devised these theories, believes that these "engrams" can be incurred when the person is still in the womb, and even at conception -- although he has never made it clear exactly how an engram could have been implanted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense organs with which to register an impression. Scientologists simply accept his theory that if a husband beats his pregnant wife and shouts "take that" as he hits her, an engram is planted, and when Junior is born he might grow up to take this literally, and become a thief whose goal is to "take that".

But the fathers aren't the only villains. Most of the mothers Hubbard depicted make Medea look like the Madonna. They were giving their unborn children engrams with AA -- attempted abortion (and there are so many abortions in Hubbard's case histories that it's a miracle that any of us got here at all), and when they weren't being knocked down or knocked up by their husbands, they were usually having affairs. This situation could also lead to engrams, especially if the child in the womb was ultimately to be named after the father. Hubbard believed that many of these unfaithful wives made unpleasant remarks about their husbands to their lovers during coitus, and that Junior, who was being knocked unconscious in the womb by the sex act, would hear these remarks aimed at his father and think that they applied to him, because he had been given the same name (don't ask how the child knew what his name was going to be). If it seems amazing that these engrams could hear and pun, there are even stranger cases, where they were said to misrecord as well. One auditor reported that a rash on the backside of his preclear started when the preclearwas in the womb and his mother frequently asked for an "aspirin". The engram was said to have mistakenly registered this as "ass burn".

While undergoing this auditing, or erasing of engrams, the preclear begins to hallucinate not only about life in the womb, but also about his many past lives, since Scientologists believe that we, or our "thetans" (ie "spirits") have been around in some form or another for seventy-four trillion years. One Scientologist is said to have gone into a state of grief when she realised she had been her father's lover -- before she was born. Another Scientologist "discovered" during his auditing sessions that his current headaches started when he was a Roman centurion during the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. He believes that someone from the Roman Burial party, mistakenly believing him dead, tried to kick his helmet back on to his head.

Scientologists are relentless in their attempts to get others to share their "religious" beliefs, and while some of their proselytising is probably based on their sincere desire to spread the joy of Scientology, there's another motive they never admit to: Scientologists in America receive a ten per cent cash rebate on any money spent by a convert they've brought in. Once a potential convert does show up, he may find it very hard to escape, since Scientologists immediately register every person who comes into their headquarters, or "org" as they call it (short for organisation), and from that moment on, the potential convert will receive a relentless mountain of mail urging him to join Scientology. One actor from Greenwich Village, who went to the "org" out of curiosity, tried to make it immediately clear to the Scientologists that he did not want to receive the incessant phone calls and letters to which a Scientology friend of his had been subjected. They agreed to take this actor's name off their mailing list, but they then hounded him to reveal the name of his friend who had complained about the phone calls, so that they could "call him and talk with him about it". And oh yes, today, one year later, the actor still receives mail from Scientology.

Those who do join Scientology must take one of two series of prescribed courses. The first group, auditing, consists of several levels which enable a Scientology "preclear" to become a "clear", ie, a person who is supposedly free from ailments that range from colds to cancer, and who has an IQ of over 135, etc. While everything is expensive in America, the price of these courses is ridiculous. In order to "go clear", a preclear must take courses that begin at £311, then £208, £499, £322, £250, and finally £333! Those who wish to rise above "clear" to reach the highest Scientology level of "Operating Thetan VIII" (defined as someone who can function without the aid of their body) must pay a whopping £1,185 more.

But that's just half the story, since Scientology also trains people to become auditors. Auditors don't even need a high-school education -- just more Scientology courses. These courses generally take a couple of months, although Scientologists sometimes boast that they can train some people to treat others in "less than twenty minutes". Training, which is much cheaper than auditing, is used to introduce people to Scientology here, perhaps because it starts at a modest £6, £13, and £19 before suddenly leaping to their more typical rate of £541.

Scientologists get people to pay these incredible fees by promising to return money to anyone who is dissatisfied. Unfortunately, however, they have occasionally set up certain conditions that have made this difficult. One Australian woman signed up for 300 hours of Scientology but decided soon afterwards that it was aggravating rather than alleviating her problems. When she tried to get her money back, however, she claims they wrote her that she would have to take and pay for all 300 hours before she could ask for a refund.

Scientology is so expensive that most Scientologists leave their jobs and go to work for the org, sometimes for no pay but just training units, sometimes at a salary that is less than a quarter of what they would receive on a regular job in the States. Some Scientologists choose credit instead, and unpaid notes have been turned over to collection agencies, legal action has been threatened, and people have been harassed and intimidated, like the American father who received the following letter when he protested a £145 bill for fifteen hours of audition for his son.

"... I am expert at harassment, try me and find out... one more word out of you and I'll have you investigated ... I'll just start my people to work on you and before long, you will be broke, and out of a job, and broken in health ... you won't take long to finish off. I would estimate 3 weeks. Remember: I am not a mealy mouthed psalm canting preacher. I am a minister of the Church of Scientology! I am able to heal the sick and I do. But I have other abilities which include a knowledge of men's minds that I will use to crush you to your knees. You or any."

The letter, signed by a Reverend Andrew Bagley, Organisation Secretary, had a short PS appended: "Don't reply to this letter. If I want to get in touch with you, I'll be able to find you. Anywhere." PS. The father paid the bill.

Scientologists repeatedly emphasise that the leader, L. Ron Hubbard, or "Ron" as the believers call him, makes no money from all this, although he receives a standard ten per cent tithe and sometimes more from the gross income of the twenty-one Scientology orgs (throughout the world) and their hundreds of franchises (a strange structure for a supposed Church!). He also makes money from books he's written on Scientology, and in America, he requires that all orgs buy more than £4,160 worth of them -- fifty per cent off for cash -- or he declares the Executive Secretary, whose job it is to purchase these books, "non-existent".

Another source of his income is a booklet called Expand, whose title unfortunately doesn't refer to any potential of the mind. Expand pushes almost £2,080 worth of films and tapes of Hubbard, certificates for marriages, funerals and christenings in the Scientology Church (which is legal in many US states), Old Father Hubbard's cupboard of E-meters (which auditors must purchase for £351 each, although they cost only £5 to build), and pictures of Hubbard himself for only £2 10s apiece.

Perhaps Hubbard's imagination as a businessman stems from his earlier days as a science-fiction writer, who apparently took his work rather seriously, since he claimed to have visited Heaven twice, the planet Venus, and the Van Allen radiation belt. In fact, Scientology was first presented (as Dianetics) in the American Astounding Science Fiction magazines, and later expanded into a best-seller called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

Although many of his statements do sound as if he's from out of this world, Hubbard has stated that he does not wish to be deified by his followers. Nonetheless, he has revised the calendar to read "AD 1, AD 10" etc. ("After Dianetics, 1951," etc) and claimed that his discovery of Dianetics (ie, Scientology without the religion) was a "milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and arch".

Not everyone agreed that he has made such great contributions. The New York Times, which currently accepts Scientology ads in, of all places, their Church column, reported on 24th April, 1951 that one of Hubbard's earlier wives was suing him for divorce, claiming that doctors had said he was a "paranoid schizophrenic" and that he had tortured her by "beating her, strangling her and denying her sleep".

It should also be noted that Hubbard, who often calls himself a nuclear physicist, and claims a BS from George Washington University and a PhD from Sequoia University, actually flunked physics, was placed on probation his first year at George Washington and didn't return afterwards; and

Sequoia University in California, which was originally called the College of Drugless Healing, delivered mail-order doctorates. Nonetheless, Hubbard calls himself "Doctor" and he does indeed have a D.Scn -- or Doctor of Scientology.

While the Church of Scientology creed states that all men have the right "to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write about the opinions of others", this doesn't seem to apply to anyone who wishes to think, talk, or write against Scientology. A few of the articles and books on Scientology and Dianetics have strangely "disappeared" from the New York Public Library. Scientology offers a £4,180 reward to anyone who can give information "leading to the prosecution of those responsible for the attacks on Scientology". One writer in America tried to speak out against them on the telly. Before he went on the air, he learned that the Scientologists had found out about his plan and had called friends of his for personal information on him, "because we're going to get him".

A Scientologist is the last person in the world permitted to speak against Scientology, and if he tries, he becomes a "suppressive person" and "enemy of Scientology" and no other Scientologist is permitted to associate with him. Anyone who knows a suppressive is "reviewed" (and charged for it!) and declared a "Potential Trouble Source" or "PTS" until he "handles or disconnects" from the suppressive. If a Potential Trouble Source refuses to disconnect from someone on the suppressive list, he becomes suppressive, and one American boy was declared suppressive for failing to disconnect from his father -- although the child was only ten years old!

Another "suppressive", Raymond J. D. Buckingham, an English basso who administers a voice school in Manhattan, was initially so impressed with Scientology that he convinced several of his students and his fiancee to join. But when he discovered that his auditor was revealing personal information about him, and that the reverend who was his fiancee's auditor was trying to seduce her, he'd had it. When he went to the Scientologists to complain, however, he was told he would have to pay them £10 to discuss it and "get their advice". Totally disgusted, he had the courage to speak against Scientology on a radio programme. The Scientologists countered by declaring him a "suppressive person", "outside their protection" and "fair game". They ordered his students who had become Scientologists (at his recommendation) to disconnect from him and the money they legally owed him. He received phone calls threatening his life, and his fiancee, who was too frightened to leave Scientology, was held in a room at the org in Manhattan for four hours until she agreed to sign a statement saying that Buckingham had threatened to kill her.

The story does have a happy ending. Two, in fact. They eventually did get married and both have left Scientology.

But most stories don't have such happy endings there, because most people who join Scientology stay there. It would be foolish for them not to, because they have revealed much intimate information about themselves during their auditing and security test, and this information is kept in files which are hardly dead, since they are sometimes brought out and discussed with Scientologists if they're having some difficulties -- like perhaps they want to leave the group. In a Policy Letter of l9th April, 1965, Hubbard stated that a Scientologist who left without reporting to the leaders or letting his auditor handle the matter "must be fully investigated at any cost". In fact, Hubbard wrote the following to the secretary of the Melbourne headquarters about a boy who was giving them trouble: "H (a well-known Scientologist) blew up in our faces ... we have criminal background on him. Rape of a girl pc (preclear) in Dallas and countless others. This will do something to (another Scientologist). Now I firmly believe you will be able to find a criminal background this life on_and (two more Scientologists)...."

But most Scientologists stay there not because they fear investigations or blackmail but because they genuinely believe in their Church and its principles. Scientologists are perfectly contented to "disconnect" or divorce themselves from their "suppressive" spouses or parents, if necessary, remarry other Scientologists, have their own children audited, leave their jobs, and become part of the world of Scientology -- a world so different from the real one that it hits you like the heat on a hot summer day from the moment that you walk into an org. It's a world with its own morality, according to the Australian inquiry into Scientology which found that a Scientologist can seduce a fifteen-year-old girl because she's really over seventy trillion plus fifteen-years-old -- obviously past the age of consent. The Scientology world has its own language, which often makes them sound as if they're eating a metaphysical alphabet soup (PTS, Org, SP, LRH, MEST, etc).

People who become part of the Scientology world even look different, because Scientologists are trained to stare in the eyes of others in an "eye-lock", while acknowledging everything said to them verbally ("Beautiful", "Groovy") in a way that can sometimes be unnerving. Scientologists have their own system of justice, with misdemeanours, crimes, high crimes and punishments, eg being made to wear a dirty rag or a handcuff on their arm if they break the Scientology rules.

And finally, yes -- they do have church services -- if one could call them that. During one outdoor service in Manhattan's Central Park, the first speaker told how wonderful Scientology was and the second sang probably the dirtiest lyrics ever heard within a supposedly clerical setting.

Although in England Scientology is not a religion -- the Registrar General refused to register Saint Hill under the Place of Worship Registration act of 1855 -- by calling itself a Church in America, Scientology has so far been able to avoid not only taxes, but difficulties, since American laws allow a great deal of latitude toward anything that calls itself a religion. And the religion adds an air of respectability which is reinforced by the full clerical garb worn by some Scientologists (which includes a cross "bigger than the Archbishop of Canterbury", as one Londoner describes it).

But outside America, things have not been so easy for the Scientologists. In Victoria, the Lieutenant-Governor appointed a special board of inquiry to look into Scientology because of numerous complaints as to their activities. Although this inquiry had the limitations of being a one-man commission, this man was thorough enough to spend 160 days listening to four million words of 151 witnesses, and on the basis of this testimony, he concluded that Scientology was "evil", that it had "no worthwhile redeeming features" and that it was "the world's largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy". The Government accepted his conclusions, and a law was passed in 1965 making teaching Scientology, applying it, or even advertising it, punishable in the State of Victoria in Australia by up to £500 and two years in jail. And Scientology has also now been banned in the State of South Australia.

In England, Scientology has been making news -- and trouble -- since 1959, when Hubbard left America (because "the atmosphere was being poisoned by nuclear experiments") and bought the palatial Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, formerly the home of the Maharaja of Jaipur. Hubbard switched the headquarters of Scientology to England and sent his decrees by Telex from this mansion to his "orgs" in five continents.

An inquiry is currently under way to investigate Scientology in England, but in America, unlike England and Australia few people are brave enough to try to stop it. Scientology is growing rapidly throughout many major American cities and they have tripled or quadrupled their numbers in the past three years alone.

There is no doubt that Scientology has helped some of its converts, although it is certainly debatable whether it is a form of faith-healing effective on people so suggestible that they would have been helped by anything. But there is also no doubt that there are others that it has not helped. Preclears have had psychiatric treatment and/or hospitalisation after they left Scientology. Letting anauditor, without proper medical or psychological training treat the "spirit" would seem to be a dangerous practice. And letting an auditor solve problems by taking people back to former lives may lead them to believe they're doing something about their problems when in reality they could be getting worse.

There are fourteen stages of crawling before a child can actually walk; the mind too, develops in certain hierarchical steps, each of which must be stabilised somewhat before the person can safely move on. Scientologists, encouraged by auditors whose qualifications are questionable, may move on to the next step before they are ready to handle it. And like walking before they can crawl -- they may fall flat on their psychical faces.

Paperback Cover Notes Back Cover of the Paperback Edition Scientology -- The World of the Totally Free?

Scientology has been called the "now religion" and claims to be one of the world's fastest growing religious sects. Just what is Scientology? What kind of people does it attract, what does it do for them, and how does it hold them? This fascinating study of a group that already exercises influence over many Americans and is growing rapidly reveals the truth about:

•    L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's patron saint;

•    the Sea Org, Scientology's lavish yacht on the Mediterranean;

•    the E-meter, Scientology's lie detector;

•    auditing sessions where people reveal their most intimate sexual experiences;

•    the criminal security test;

•    Scientology's political ambitions and how Scientology relates to celebrities.

Is Scientology therapeutic and helpful, or does it toy dangerously with blackmail, tyranny, and hypnotism?

You must read this book before you are charmed into "the world of the totally free."

Inside the Front Cover

Scientology

•    Is it really a religion?

•    Why does it cost so much?

•    Why do so many attractive young men and women join?

•    Do Scientology reverends become sexually involved with their clients?

•    Was Charles Manson a Scientologist?

•    Why was Scientology banned in Australia?

•    What qualifications do Scientology "auditors" have?

•    What happens to people who leave Scientology?

•    What do doctors say about Scientology's therapeutic claims?

An alarming expose that will tell you the truth about Scientology.

THE SCANDAL OF SCIENTOLOGY

Paulette Cooper

A TOWER BOOK

Tower Publications, Inc. 185 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016

Copyright © MCMLXXI by Paulette Cooper

Printed in U.S.A. All Rights Reserved

Dedication

to my parents TED & STELLA with all my love, and thanks

Preface

The Scandal of Scientology is not the story of one isolated group. It tells of a loosely organized network of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of franchises, "Orgs," "Churches," etc., that have been established in various parts of the world.

Each group has its own personality. Because one incident may have occurred in Australia or England, it does not necessarily mean that it has happened, or even could happen, in America, or vice versa. The only thing the Scientology groups or "Orgs" have in common is their acceptance of L. Ron Hubbard's theories and policies.

This book contains more historical than contemporary material. Some of the information comes from an American tax case that ran from 1956 to 1959; some of it comes from a 1963-1965 Inquiry in Victoria, Australia; and some comes from statements Hubbard made in the 1950's.

Every day there are new directives, cancelling old policies and creating new ones so that the nature, beliefs and practices of Scientology are constantly changing. It is to Hubbard and the Scientologists' credit that the direction is generally a positive one, and that some of the less laudable practices outlined in this book appear on the wane.

I have tried to present the Scientologists' statements (quoting them directly whenever possible) and actions, along with the statements and actions of those who are against them or who have had difficulties with them.

Until now, Scientologists have been able to keep the stories a secret, generally by suing. However, as more inquiries into Scientology are made, as more news stories about the organization are printed, and as more criticism against Scientology is levied, Scientologists may discover that law suits are ineffectual. Instead of trying to hide what is going on in their house, they may have to clean it up.

If they don't, various national governments may not permit them to survive. The Scientologists are already recognizing this. Like many groups that were formerly enfantes terribles, Scientology, if it continues in its current clean-up campaign, may one day become one of the world's most respected groups or Churches.

It has taken more than two years to gather all the material in this book. I would like to thank a few of the people who unselfishly gave of their time and energy to aid the project.

First, I'd like to thank those who helped in the early phases of the manuscript: Hayes B. Jacobs, C. Michael Curtis, and especially, Ann Barr, and Queen Magazine which published a small portion of this book.

I am also especially grateful for the help later on of Michael I. Sanders, Ray Buckingham, Ralph Lee Smith, Susan Kideckel, Robin Wagner, Jay Larsen, and especially, Adelaide Ungerland. Finally, I'd like to thank those who helped me with this book in England: Victor Briggs, Paul Nix, and especially, Peter Haining.

A [Scientology] "clear" can be tested for any and all psychoses, neuroses, compulsions and repressions (all aberrations) and can be examined for ... psychosomatic ills. These tests confirm the clear to be entirely without such ills or aberrations. Additional tests of his intelligence indicate it to be high above the current norm. Observation of his activity demonstrates that he pursues existence with vigor and satisfaction.

-- L. Ron Hubbard{1}

I find that I have seen very little, if any, result from Scientology processing that I would consider to be demonstrable results in the physical universe.... I have yet to see a stable "clear" that could operate better continuously in the physical universe.

-- L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. {2}

Citations & Notes

(1) (2 in Introduction) quote by Hubbard [6]

{2} (3 in Introduction) second quote by his son [255]

Introduction

You may have seen them standing on street corners with a handful of leaflets, distributing them aggressively to passersby. You may not even have noticed them at all, because they look so much like you and me -- except maybe a little younger, and sometimes a little more like a hippie.

But if you had stopped to take one of their leaflets, you would have discovered that you were being invited to "step into the exciting world of the totally free" for a lecture on Scientology, "the applied philosophy of knowing."

On closer perusal, you would have discovered that Scientology can "raise your I.Q. to over 135, give you creative imagination, amazing vitality, deep relaxation, good memory, strong will power, radiant health, magnetic personality and good self-control."{1)

It sounds pretty good, so it's possible that if you had nothing better to do that night, you may have found yourself outside one of their headquarters, about to step into what they call "the exciting world of the totally free."

Once you walked into this world, you would have immediately noticed a number of large posters of a fatherly looking man, a bookstore with over thirty-five books, all written by the same man, a bulletin board listing various levels of "freedom," and everywhere, people running around, busy in some unseen activity, but never too busy to stop and greet each other and often you, the newcomer, with a handshake, a "thank you," a strange smile that seems to be attached to but not part of his face, and an intense stare that would startle a paranoid, but would please someone who likes to be looked straight in the eye.

After you signed in, you would be directed into a classroom, where a pleasant-looking man welcomed you to the "Church of Scientology." The man might begin the lecture rather nervously -he probably never spoke in public before he joined Scientology -- by telling you how Scientology changed his life.

"Six years ago I was a failure," he may begin, "earning $15,000 a year. I had a wife, a house, and a child. I hated my job, hated my wife, hated my life. On the weekends I used to lie in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering how I had ever gotten into this mess. And then I discovered Scientology."

"Beautiful," says a girl standing by the door, and everybody turns around to see an attractive brunette with a strange stare that immediately marks her as a Scientologist.

"Now I have discovered freedom," he continues. "I have left my wife. I have quit my job. And I am now earning $40 a week here lecturing to you. I am busy. I have wonderful new friends. I love my work here. I am now a real success through Scientology."

One man picks up his attache case and leaves; this is obviously not his idea of success. But the rest sit back, waiting to learn how he was saved by Scientology, expecting a speech full of thunder and lightning, and most of all, references to God.

But no -- the Church of Scientology rarely mentions God -- and the speech is more like a sales pitch than a revivalist meeting. The man is obviously selling something, but it's hard to tell exactly what it is. He does not talk in terms of prices or bargains, discounts or markups; he seems to be selling an elusive product called "happiness."

"We had a woman come in here who was in psychoanalysis for eight years," he continues. "Eight years. But after five days in Scientology, she had no more problems."

"Beautiful," says the Scientology girl again. But now the rest of the audience seems to be silently agreeing with her, and since her remark is no longer out of place, no one turns around to look at her. Instead, everyone is sitting up, straining slightly forward like runners waiting for the starting gun, waiting to hear more about the miracle.

But again they are surprised. Instead of elaborating on how Scientology could have helped that woman, or anyone else, the lecturer goes into a long philosophical discourse on "communication." A few people walk out; several, too polite or too self-conscious, let their eyes wander over to the various exits as they secretly plan their escape.

Their time comes about a half hour later when the lights are turned off and a movie about Scientology is flashed on a screen. Four or five people sneak out now, ducking low, perhaps anxious not todisturb others with their shadow on the screen, perhaps not wishing to be identified.

Those who do stay, however, are in for two surprises. The movie stars a man named L. Ron Hubbard -- who, they realize, is the same man who wrote all those books outside -- and when L. Ron Hubbard comes on the screen, with an open shirt, ascot and the type of smile that suggests he's hiding gum in back of his mouth, the audience discovers that he is the same fatherly looking man who appeared in all the posters outside.

Only now, he doesn't look nearly so composed. The film shows an interview on the British Broadcasting Company, and throughout, Hubbard keeps alternating his clenched smile with a look that suggests that his interviewer, or perhaps his questions, has a very bad odor.

The film is as tiring as the lecture, but at last, that too is over, and the lecturer makes his final sales pitch -- only this time, he is selling something quite tangible -- the first Scientology course, which he says might increase your I.Q. by fifteen or twenty points, but is "guaranteed to help you improve your communication or your money back" for only $15.

If you had been one of the dozen people still left, it is possible that you would have signed up for that course, along with the rest of the people who remained. After all, where else in this world could you find a promise of instant happiness for only $15 with a money-back guarantee as well?

Where else, if you're lonely, could you find such an immediate world of promising friends?

If you're sexually or socially frustrated, where else could you find as many young single attractive people?

If you didn't get as far in school as you would have liked, where else could you take a few courses and attach a (Scientology) B.A. to your name -- or better still, for a few more courses be called "Doctor" or "Reverend"?

In fact, if you always wanted to be a doctor, psychiatrist, or priest, where else could you become the equivalent of this in less than a year of training?

And if you're curious about this exciting world of the totally free that you've accidentally stumbled upon, how else could you find out more about it without paying that $15?

Some of the people who signed up for Scientology to satiate their curiosity might have done better if they had read the newspapers.

They would have read that Scientology is currently being investigated in England. They would have read that Scientology has been banned in Victoria, Australia, Western Australia, and South Australia.

They would have read that in Scientology, some people are allowed to listen to the most intimate sexual secrets of other people after just a few months of training.

They would have read of the "death lessons" that were once being taught in British schools -devised by Scientologists.

They would have read of a group called "The Process" that worships sex and the devil and believes in every type of sexual perversion -- they were started by Scientologists.

They would have read of a man named Charles Manson, convicted of murdering Sharon Tate and others -- he may have been a Scientologist.

They would have read of a group that tried to "take over" the National Association of Mental Health in England -- they too were Scientologists.

They would have read about the Scientology "Reverend" who was sleeping with a married woman who had come to him for help with her marital problems, and who was shot by the husband of the woman.

They would have read of a group that makes its members hold on to a "lie detector" while the leaders asked them the most intimate details about their sexual life, and then took these answers and sent them to the leader of the group -- that is Scientology.

My own introduction to Scientology started about a year and a half ago. It was the day after Robert F. Kennedy was killed and I was still a little shaky, still glued to the TV set, still moaning that such a tragedy couldn't have happened twice.

In the midst of my mourning, I received a frantic call from a former boss of mine, a man in his forties whom I hadn't seen in a couple of years, who said it was imperative to see me immediately.

When he arrived, carrying a flowerpot with a McCarthy button stuck in the soil, I poured him a drink and sat down in the chair across from him, waiting to hear what was so important.

"Come over here and sit on my lap," he said coyly. "There's something I have to tell you."

I obeyed, not realizing what was about to happen.

"I've just discovered who I am," he said, and I sat there quietly, waiting for his reply.

"God," he told me.

I got off his lap quickly. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that easy to get off the subject. He prattled on and on like a paranoid, telling me what it was like to be God.

"When did you discover you were God?" I finally interrupted.

"Since I joined Scientology," he told me.

"Oh I think I've read a little about them," I laughed. "Aren't they the ones who believe we've been reincarnated for 74 trillion years?"

He nodded.

"Oh come on," I chided. "You don't really believe that. You're so conservative. House in Long Island, nice kids, a wife."

"Not any more," he told me. "I left her."

"Why?"

"She was suppressing me."

"Was she against Scientology?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But she was wrong. Scientology has helped me."

"But anything helps a person for a while if he believes in it," I said, and started arguing with him about faith healing.

"You're wrong," he told me "and just to prove to you that Scientology has really helped me, look how much I've changed. All I used to care about was making money. Now all I care about is helping people. I've given $700 away this week to people standing on the street corner who looked like they needed to be helped.

"Look" he said, and removed several crumpled sheets of paper from his pocket and began reading the names, phone numbers, and occupations of every person he'd met in the past few weeks -from hippies in the Village to the conductor who'd taken his train ticket.

"What are you going to do with those?" I asked him.

"Help them, too," he said.

"How?"

"By keeping the Mafia away from them."

"But the Mafia isn't after them," I protested.

"That's because I wrote down their names," he replied.

I decided to stop arguing; he was too far gone. Instead I sat there for a while, listening to his delusions of persecution by the Mafia, of his conversations with God, of the changes in his life since he had joined Scientology, and of all the reasons why I should join it too.

After a while he stopped talking altogether and went into a trance. I sat there quietly until I noticed that his eyes were riveted on me. I immediately panicked, because after I graduated college, I had worked for a short while with patients at a mental hospital. After a few difficult situations, I knew what his glazed look meant.

I was right.

"God has decided to rape you," he said slowly, as he started walking all too quickly toward me.

I didn't dare show how frightened I was. The trick for handling people when they got dangerous at the hospital was to keep talking -- to keep them talking. But now with both arms like a vise around me, and only one thought on his mind, it was hard to find another topic to interest him.

"Tell me more about Scientology," I finally said. This worked. He released his grip and went into another trance, talking again about how Scientology had helped him.

"Just look at what it's done for me," he said, while I was trying to steer him out the door.

I took a long, hard look.

Two weeks later he was in a mental institution.

After that evening, I put Scientology down on my list as a possible topic to write about. But I didn't really decide to investigate it until I bumped into another old friend who had also become a Scientologist. He too tried to persuade me to join.

"I know all about that," I said, cutting him off right in the middle of his perfectly practiced sales pitch.

"In fact, do you remember _ who used to work with us in our company? He was in

Scientology."

"I know," said my Scientology friend proudly. "I was the one who brought him in."

"Well," I fumed, "do you also know that he is now in a mental institution? While he was in Scientology he decided he was God."

"Maybe," said my Scientologist friend, "he really is."

Citations & Notes

(1) what Scientology can do for you [65]

Chapter 1 From Dianetics to Scientology

The sun never sets on Scientology -- from "The Aims of Scientology"{1)

In 1950, a fad called "Dianetics" hit America like a hurricane, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, especially on the West Coast, by promising to cure them of all of their problems without subjecting them to all those tedious hours required by psychoanalysis.{2)

To understand the cause of all their problems, and cure them, all they had to do was read a book written by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard.

But in addition to letting people cure themselves, this book had something to offer those people who had always secretly wanted to be doctors and to cure others. It allowed them to do this without all those tedious years of required training. All they had to do was also read the book by Hubbard.

The impact of this book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was incredible. Dianetics clubs sprang up everywhere. People referred to Hubbard's book simply as The Book, and thought of it more as The Bible.

Thousands were throwing Dianetic parties{3) and reliving their birth (in keeping with the Dianetics Philosophy which stated that a person's prenatal experiences were the cause of many of that person's problems today). What had once been a Seance had at last become Science.

But then, just when everyone was having fun, a few critics had to come along and spoil it all. Dianetics was discredited by the professional doctors and their organizations, and America deserted it to search for Bridey Murphy (the Irish woman who believed she had been reincarnated) instead.{4)

Dianetics then also quietly underwent a rebirth. First, people could no longer become "doctors" just by buying Hubbard's book. Instead, they had to pay to take courses at his institutions before they could get "professional" status. Secondly, Hubbard changed the "science" of Dianetics to a "religion." And last, he renamed this religion "Scientology."

Not everyone applauded these moves. One critic said the name "Scientology" was no more impressive than if a fruit shop proprietor decided to call himself a "Fruitologist."{5) But most of the objections -- and suspicion -- were levied not at the name but at the "religion." Agnostics seemed to resent the religion, and the religious may have resented the agnosticism.{6)

Scientologists did accept the idea of God, but believed that God existed in each man as a "thetan," which is roughly comparable to the "spirit" or "soul."{7) They therefore preached that man doesn't have a soul or spirit -- he is a spirit called a thetan. God, when he was referred to, was sometimes called the Big Thetan.{8)

In addition to worshipping a deity, Scientology also had some other religious elements as well. Its adherents were imbued with a missionary fervor, eager to march forth and deliver the gospel according to Hubbard. In addition, the followers took on faith everything Hubbard said. And finally, L. Ron Hubbard -- or "Ron" as believers called him -- the Western Guru, inventor, leader and promoter of Dianetics and Scientology, while never proclaiming he was God, was placed in an almost equally exalted position by his followers.(9)

Many people were still suspicious about Dianetics' conversion to religion, perhaps because the "science" of Dianetics had run into so many difficulties that turning it into a religion and renaming it may have seemed like an attempt to evade its pervasive problems. The first problem was the desertion of one of the earliest and most prestigious adherents of Dianetics, Dr. J. A. Winter.{10}

Winter had written the foreword to Hubbard's book and had become the director of Hubbard'sDianetic Institute. After he severed his relationship with Dianetics, he wrote a book called A Doctor's Report on Dianetics, which not only criticized Hubbard's research and methods, but said that Dianetics was causing people to go psychotic.(11) He discussed the case of one person who was treated by the Dianetic Institute and then disappeared, returning later and stating he had with him "one of my disciples, Saint Simon...."

In addition, in January of 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners instituted proceedings against Hubbard's Dianetic Organization for operating an unlicensed medical school,(12) and possibly for letting people append an "M.D." after their names, representing not a "Medical Doctor" but a "Master of Dianetics."(13)

Also, Hubbard had some philosophical differences with a Dianetic Foundation he had established in California and broke off with them.(14) Hubbard's Wichita foundation filed a voluntary petition of bankruptcy on February 21, 1951.(15)

Some of Hubbard's other organizations in Phoenix, Philadelphia and London were successful, but he ran into difficulties later in Washington when he established The Founding Church of Scientology there.(16) And then, to add to Hubbard's troubles and successes, he brought Scientology abroad.(17)

By March, 1959, Hubbard had moved the entire operation over to England's Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, Sussex, right outside London.(18) He left America, according to the London Times "because the atmosphere was being poisoned by nuclear experiments."(19)

By the time he left America, he had 153 franchised Scientology auditors here.(20) A "franchise" may be a strange structure for a group that insists they're a Church, and that may explain why they've recently renamed them "missions."(21)

It doesn't matter whether they are called missions or franchises. What does matter is that they all had to turn over ten percent of their gross income to Hubbard.(22) In addition, by that time, he had established headquarters or "Orgs" as they called them (short for organizations) in various parts of Australia, Africa, New Zealand and Europe -- all turning over ten percent of their income to Hubbard, too.

While such an arrangement would seem quite enviable, Hubbard's problems were just beginning. The British were not enchanted with Scientology. They refused to recognize Saint Hill as a Church -Hubbard could only claim it as an educational establishment.(23) Then, they refused to give Scientology students visas to enter the country for study or work at Saint Hill.(24) And finally, they decided to set up an Inquiry into Scientology, which is now under way.(25)

If the Inquiry is anything like the other Inquiries, Hubbard's problems are far from over. After Victoria, Australia, completed its Scientology Inquiry, Scientology was banned and its practice was made punishable by up to $500 and two years in jail.{26)

In South Australia, officials outlawed Scientology and their use of E-meters, a device similar to a lie detector.{27) In Western Australia, Scientology was also banned.{28)

In New Zealand officials conducted an Inquiry into Scientology, but decided not to ban it because they felt it had changed (although they did criticize some of its earlier methods and expressed concern over certain Scientology practices).{29)

Scientology was not banned in New South Wales,{30) however, where anybody can set himself up as a consulting psychologist (one New South Wales man who was convicted of kidnapping and murder had at one point in his career styled himself as a therapist).{31)

And in South Africa, where an Inquiry is currently under way, it does not look hopeful.{32) One witness allegedly testified that the Scientologists were planning to arm 5,000 Africans and seize control of the government.{33) A member of South Africa's Parliament referred to Scientology as a "cancer like communism that could destroy South Africa."{34)

And yet, despite all the Inquiries, despite all the bannings, and despite all the negative publicity, outsiders estimate that the Scientologists probably have several hundred thousand followers in America (possibly a quarter of a million in California alone),{35) maybe one hundred thousand in England,{36) and possibly two to three million in the world.{37)

The Scientologists' own figures are even more glowing; they claim at least four million members in America and probably five million members in the world.{38) One thing is certain -- Scientology is expanding, and probably tripled or quadrupled its members in the past few years.{39)

What is the future of Scientology? Will its adherents revive Dianetics, as they are doing in America and England now, if they run into more and more difficulties? Will they repeat their claims that they are a science, or will they make their claims that they are a religion even more vociferously?

In a letter titled "Scientology 1970," Hubbard wrote that Scientology would be planned on a religious basis throughout the world. The letter concluded: "This will not upset in any way the usual activities of any organization. It is entirely a matter for accountants and solicitors."{40)

Citations & Notes

d) initial quote on "sun" [23]

{2) article in Astounding Science Fiction [108] {3) Dianetic parties [153]

{4) left Dianetics for Bridey Murphy [142]

(5)    Fruitologist [261 ]

(6)    agnostics unhappy [142]

(7)    religious beliefs [261, 91, 158]

(8)    Big Thetan [261]

(9)    other religious elements [280]

(10)    Winter breaking away [154]

(11)    people going psychotic [117]

(12)    Med. Ex. vs Dianetics [142, 255]

(13)    Dianetics calling themselves M.D. [268]

(14)    Hubbard in California [261 ]

(15)    Wichita bankrupt [128]

(16)    other orgs [272]

(17)    England in '57 [255]

(18)    first Dianetics group in England [168]

(19)    atmosphere poisoned [275]

(20)    153 franchises [40]

(21)    franchises vs missions [277]

(22)    10% to Hubbard [261, 255]

(23)    Scientology not Church in Eng. [239]

(24)    Scientologists barred in Eng. [258]

(25)    inquiry [259]

(26)    Victoria bans Scientology [282]

(27)    Australia bans Scientology [279]

(28)    W. Australia bans Scientology & meter [281 ]

(29)    New Zealand doesn't ban Scientology [185]

{30) New South Wales doesn't ban [249]

{31) "psychologist" in New South Wales [246]

{32) South African Inquiry [181, 248]

{33) Scientologists try to seize control [247]

{34) Scientology a "cancer" [184]

{35) number in America [138]

{36) number in England [206]

{37) number in world [139]

{38) Scientology figure on membership [114, 277] {39) tripling numbers [139]

{40) quote on "Scientology '70" [88a]

Chapter 2 The Confessionals

... when matters of sex and perversion are introduced ... as is frequently the case, they are discussed and probed and dwelt upon sometimes for hours on end. The quality of the filth and depravity recorded in the ... files as being discussed... almost defies description.

-- from the Australian Inquiry{1)

The "Church of Scientology," as they call themselves today, no longer claims to cure people of their emotional and physical problems. Instead, they say it's people's spiritual well-being that concerns them now.

The method is still basically the same, resembling a combination of psychotherapy and the Catholic Confession -- although Scientologists today emphasize their similarities with the latter.

The beginning Scientologist is called a "preclear" -- someone who is not yet free from his problems and difficulties as is a "clear" Scientologist. The "preclear" reveals intimate details of his past and discusses his present problems with an "auditor," someone resembling a priest, who is frequently called Minister or Reverend in the Scientology Church.{2)

During this Scientology "Confessional," which is called "auditing" and sometimes "processing," the preclear holds onto two empty tin cans -- usually soup or V-8 juice -- which are connected to a crude galvanometer Scientologists call an "E-meter."{3)

The preclear believes that the E-meter works somewhat like a lie detector. He is told that it is a "truth detector," however, and he therefore reveals increasingly intimate details of his life to his auditor while holding on to the meter.{4)

There are major differences between the Catholic and Episcopalian confessionals and a Scientologist confessional. First of all, before they will audit him, the Scientologists make the confessor sign a release form swearing he will never sue them.

Second, the Scientologists charge people for the opportunity of unburdening themselves and they charge a great deal of money for this privilege.

Third, the person has very little choice about what he "confesses"^ because he is asked certain questions repeatedly, such as "Have you done anything your mother would be ashamed to find out?"^ He must not only answer these questions but he must answer them fully and truthfully or else the "lie detector" will give him away.

Fourth, the intimate information he reveals to his auditor is not kept completely confidential.{7) As many as ten people may examine these files, since a preclear's records are available to all of his auditors (who often number five or six), plus the Director of Processing and occasionally the Ethics Officer, a type of internal police officer in the Scientology organization.^

In addition, Hubbard has access to these records. Portions of a preclear's files may be sent to the main Scientology headquarters at Saint Hill so that Hubbard can review them for research.{9)

Finally, in addition to not always maintaining complete confidentiality, cases have occurred (and they are certainly the exception and not the rule) in which some of the auditors have also failed to maintain a proper professional relationship with their preclears.

One reason for this may be the surprising physical intimacy that exists between auditor and preclear. In at least one exercise that is part of the Scientology auditing, the auditor and preclear are seated in chairs without arms, close together, with their knees intertwined.(10)

In other exercises the auditors may touch or move the preclear around, or touch his hands for several hours, moving them slowly in a circular motion, (an act which could surely become quite sensual after a long period of time).(11)

Ethical problems may have also occurred because many of these auditors are only in their teens or early twenties. Teen-agers, wrote a Scientology director once, "make the SWINGINEST auditors." Yet despite their age, these teens are supposed to remain objective and uninvolved while listening to what the Australian Inquiry described as "normal and abnormal sexual matters that are frequently dwelt upon in great detail and in an erotic manner."(12)

During these sessions, the preclear is encouraged to shed his inhibitions, and his reticence or reluctance to reveal the most intimate things may be disparaged. Scientology files have contained such statements as "pc (preclear) gets often the urge to move down to his sex organs. If he does that he gets restimulated." Or "pc has a bug about sending sexual beams at auditor," or even "pc disturbed because he came to have auditing and now wants to have sexual intercourse."(13)

Apparently, it's not only the preclear that has gotten sexually stimulated in such an atmosphere. One male auditor wrote on his preclear's file that she was "sexy as hell."(14) In another case, the Reverend William J. Fisk (a Scientology Reverend) was conducting his Scientology class in Seattle when Russell Edward Johnson, thirty six, a carpenter and building contractor entered the room.

According to the Seattle Times, Fisk shouted "This man is going to shoot me. Go get a cop. Please someone get a cop." But his plea was too late. With one bullet in his chest, fired by Russell Johnson, the Reverend was dead.(15)

During the murder trial it came out that Reverend Fisk, the one who was killed, was not only having an affair with Johnson's wife, but had revealed the fact to Johnson himself, boasting that Johnson's wife was completely under his control.

The wife also told her husband that she had been having an affair, and in fact, sued him for divorce on the day before the murder.(16) The wife, a mother of four children, had spent approximately $1,000 on Scientology, and had been going for help with her marital problems.

(If anyone is wondering what happened to Johnson afterwards, forget what you read in Anatomy of a Murder. In that book, a husband killed the man who had intercourse with his wife, pleaded "irresistible impulse" and went free. In this case, Johnson pleaded "temporary insanity" and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.)

Other ethical difficulties may arise because the auditors are just hastily trained layman. Their backgrounds are not checked or investigated -- they only answer a simple true false questionnaire about themselves.(17)

According to a United States tax case, in Chicago, the (Scientology) Reverend Justin agreed to audit a woman for $1,000 on the condition that he could move into the house with her, her husband, and their three young daughters.{18) After the Reverend entrenched himself firmly in the home, the husband saw that the Reverend was upsetting his wife and asked him to leave.

He refused. Nine months after he finally did go, the parents learned that the Reverend had secretly tried to see and possibly to remove two of their young daughters who were staying in a Girl Scout Camp. Girl Scout authorities stopped him and informed the parents.

The parents still suspected nothing until one month later the Reverend was found wandering around the halls of the young girls' grammar school looking for the three of them. The authorities took him to the principal's office, found out what he was doing, and called the wife. Several months later, three United States Marshals came to the parents' home looking for the Reverend Justin, saying there was a complaint against him elsewhere for molesting little girls.

Citations & Notes

d) initial quote [261 ]

{2) auditor training to be minister [277]

{3) V-8 juice [139]

{4) truth detector [29]

{5) forced to tell secrets [261 ]

{6) ashamed for mother to find out [25]

{7) (8) preclear doesn't know {that confessions aren't confidential) [255]

{8) (7) preclear's records available [255, 261, etc.]

{9) Hubbard gets records [25, 261, 255, etc.]

{10) knees intertwined {during one exercise) [14]

{11) touching preclear [16]

{12) abnormal sex discussed, no inhibitions [261 ]

{13) three quotes from preclear file [261 ]

{14) preclear "sexy..." [261]

{15) Fisk shot [134]

(16)    why shot [144]

(17)    auditors not investigated [255]

(18)    story of Justin (a Scientology Reverend) [255]

Chapter 3 Life and Sex in the Womb

Please pick up the somatic at the beginning and roll the engram. -- L. Ron Hubbardd)

The purpose of Scientology "auditing" or "processing" is to help the preclear get rid of his "engrams," which Scientologists say are a type of impression imprinted on the protoplasm of the cell itself.

Hubbard believes that these engrams are stored in the "reactive mind" (roughly comparable to Freud's unconscious) and that before a person can solve his problems, the engram has to be refiled in the "analytic" mind (in other words the conscious mind). By transferring the engrams in this manner, a person is supposed to become aware of his problems and is presumably able to resolve them.

These engrams are said to have been recorded on the cells during moments of unconsciousness or extreme pain. In addition, they begin to record not from the moment we were born, but from the moment we were conceived, sometimes earlier.

Some Scientologists are able to remember being a sperm or even the egg eagerly waiting to be met by the sperm. Thus it is obvious that Scientologists believe that many of our problems started long before we were born.

Hubbard's theory never makes it really clear, at least in a manner that would be accepted by most medical doctors, exactly how engrams can be planted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense organs with which to register an impression, or even how a person could retain or "remember" verbal statements before he had command of a language. Scientologists simply accept his theory on faith, that if a husband beats his pregnant wife and shouts "take that" as he hits her, a "take that" engram can be planted in the womb. Thus, when junior grows up, he might react to this statement literally, and become a thief whose goal is to "take that."

In fact, if you examine Hubbard's view of marital life as reflected in the case studies of his first book, you discover that most fathers spent a good portion of their marital lives giving engrams to their unborn children by beating their wives while they were pregnant with junior or while in the act of conceiving him. But the fathers weren't the only villains.

Many of the mothers Hubbard depicted made Medea look like the Madonna. When these mothers weren't being knocked up or knocked down by their husbands, they were usually giving their unborn children engrams with AA (Attempted Abortion). Hubbard wrote that "twenty or thirty abortion attempts are not uncommon in the aberee," and there are so many attempted abortions in Hubbard's case histories that it sometimes seems to be a miracle that any of us got here at all.

Those children who did make it though, despite the attempted abortion, suffered later in life, not only from the traces of whatever the mother used to try to abort him -- usually knitting needles according to Hubbard -- but because when he grew up, he was condemned to live with murderers whom he knows reactively to be murderers through all of his weak and helpless youth -- because he could "remember" the abortion attempt.

Readers should not be alarmed if they are unable to remember their life in the womb, or conception. The earliest a non-Scientologist can remember, according to most doctors and psychiatrists, is approximately eighteen months. Hubbard says that we can remember earlier, and one of the reasons we think we can't is -- of course -- attempted abortion.

"The standard attempted abortion case nearly always has an infanthood and childhood full of Mama assuring him that he cannot remember anything when he was a baby. She doesn't want him to recall how handy she was, if unsuccessful, in her efforts with various instruments. Possibly prenatal memory itself would be just ordinary memory ... if this guilty conscience in mother had not been rolling.... "

Hubbard also said that another reason the mothers encouraged the child either to forget or think they couldn't remember was that "Mama often has had a couple of more men than Papa that Papa never knew about." He also implied that this is why mothers might not want their children to go into Dianetics, so that as early as Hubbard's first book, where this appeared, Hubbard was saying that people who fought Dianetics had crimes that they were trying to conceal -- a theme which later becomes almost an obsession with him.

When Hubbard's mothers weren't trying to abort themselves, or being beaten, they were often having affairs. This situation could also give the unborn child an engram, especially if the child in the womb was ultimately to be named after the father.

Hubbard believed that many of these unfaithful wives made unpleasant remarks about their husbands to their lovers, and that junior, who was being knocked practically unconscious in the womb by the sex act, would "hear" these remarks and think they were aimed at him.

It is obvious that with all the lovers trysts, attempted abortions, beatings, etc., life in the womb was no joy for junior. Hubbard wrote that there were even more problems since there were "intestinal squeaks, groans, flowing water, belches" all making continual sounds for the foetus or embryo.

It was also quite tight in there, a situation which was aggravated if the mother had high blood pressure. In addition, if the mother sneezed, the "baby gets knocked unconscious." If the mother ran into a table, "baby gets his head shoved in." If the mother was constipated, "baby in an anxious effort gets squashed." If the mother took quinine -- presumably for an attempted abortion -- the child could have a ringing sound in his ears throughout his life. And if the parents had intercourse, the child had the additional sensation of being put through a washing machine.

Not only was the foetus or embryo supposed to be aware of the sensation of intercourse between his parents, or whomever, but the engram could record what they were saying as well. The following case was allegedly remembered by a preclear.

GIRL: I wonder what they're doing? (Then a pause.) I hear a squishing sound! (Then a pause and embarrassment.) Oh!

AUDITOR: Recount the engram please.

GIRL: There's sort of a faint rhythm at first and then it gets faster. I can hear breathing. Now it's beginning to bear down harder but a lot less than it did the first time. Then it eases up and I hear my father's voice: "Oh honey, I won't come in you now." ... and my mother [says] "I don't want you in there at all then. You cold fish."

When the parents have intercourse, it not only has an adverse effect on the child at the time, Hubbard claims, but the results could be quite dangerous later in life. Hubbard says that many patients remember having been raped by their fathers (Freud came across many such cases and recognized them as fantasies). According to Hubbard, a preclear who remembers being raped by her father may be right, only she may have been in the womb at the time.

To show us how bad life in the womb really was, Hubbard tells us the story of a man who "had passed for 'normal' for thirty-six years of his life." Through Dianetics treatment, they discovered that while the man's mother was pregnant with him, she had had intercourse seventy-six times with her husband (who was sometimes drunk) and her lover ("all painful because of enthusiasm of lover"). In addition, she masturbated eighty-one times ("with fingers, jolting and injuring with orgasm"), and douched on twenty-two separate occasions.

Like most of the other mothers, she also tried AA (Attempted Abortion) with twenty-two surgical abortions, a couple of home-made jobs with paste and strong lysol, a few desperate attempts by jumping off a box, and on another occasion by having her husband sit on her stomach.

In addition, she was constipated fifty-two times, had three colds, one case of grippe, one hangover, thirty-three cases of morning sickness, thirty-eight fights (presumably with her husband) which led to three falls, five incidents of the hiccups, eighteen various accidents and collisions, nineteen visits to the doctor, premature labor pains and ultimately twenty-nine hours of labor. And to top it all off, she talked to herself, which Hubbard says gave the man even more engrams to work on. Hubbard tells us that this man who had had all these awful things happen to him while in the womb, took 500 hours to cure. Hubbard also said he picked the case because it contained "the usual problems."

It would seem that the engram sees all, hears all, and registers everything, but sometimes it is incorrect. One auditor reported that a rash on the backside of his preclear -- and it was not stated how the auditor found out about that rash -- started when the preclear was in the womb and his mother frequently asked for an aspirin. The engram was said to have accidentally misrecorded this as "ass burn."{2)

Ira Wallach, who wrote a book called Hopalong-Freud, poked fun at these theories in a special chapter he devoted to "Diapetics."

Picture the mind as a refrigerator (gas or electric). Now diapetics demonstrates that part of the mind retains concepts not available for immediate use or analysis. These concepts have been frozen in the mind's ice tray. In another section of the mind we find the crisper. The crisper keeps ideas and concepts fresh, edible, and not too damp. (Green ideas should be left on the window sill for a few days.) Controlling both the ice tray and the crisper is the defroster.{3)

Wallach then poked fun at the "clear" -- a Scientologist who has gotten rid of his engrams and problems -- calling him a "crisp." He called the "preclear" a "precrisp."

In such a patient you will find the ice tray empty, the crisper full, and a dozen eggs behind the can of peaches. He is what we call in diapetics, a crisp.... People who have not undergone therapy are precrisps ... a person whose ice cubes have melted to the extent that they can be moved without resort to hammer and screwdriver.... Thus we can see at a glance that Diapetics realizes a centuries-old dream: it is a science that explains the mind.

Citations & Notes

(1)    Everything including all quotes [6]

(2)    exceptions are story of rash on backside [264]

(3)    quote from Diapetics [265]

Chapter 4 Have You Lived Before This Life?

It isn't a matter of believing or not believing you have lived before. It's a matter of remembering or not remembering you have lived before.

-- from "Have You Lived Before This Life," L. Ron Hubbard(1)

If the prenatal theories of Dianetics appeared startling to some, Scientology had something even more radical to offer -- past lives -- presented not as a matter of conjecture but as a matter of certainty. In addition to "remembering" their life in the womb, Scientologists can "remember" the past lives of their immortal thetan or spirit, which is said to have lived in many bodies before ours. Hubbard used to believe that this thetan had existed for 74 trillion years, but he now believes it's longer.(2)

One Scientologist claims he fell out of a spaceship 55,000,000,000,000,000,000 years ago and became a manta ray fish after having been killed by one.(3) This thetan, which is said to be one-quarter to two inches in diameter(4) and blind or dimsighted at first,(5) would look for a new body after each death, sometimes following a woman who looked like she might become pregnant.(6) Some thetans, however, had to go to "implant stations" to get a new body, and since there were more thetans than bodies, some of them had to queue up for as long as 22 million years just waiting.

Scientologists believe that the past lives and deaths of their thetans are the cause of some of their problems today. For example, Hubbard thought it possible that someone suffering from psoriasis (a skin disease) may have contracted it from the remains of the digestive fluid when the person (or his thetan) was being eaten by an animal in one of his past lives.(7)

If a person frequently clenches his jaws, or suffers from a pain there or in his tooth, it could be a vestige from the days that his thetan was in the body of a primeval clam which was having trouble opening and closing its shell.i8) Hubbard said that if the pain in the jaw was associated with a fear of falling, then the clam might have been picked up by a bird.(9)

Hubbard believes that millions of years ago many of us were this same primeval clam, which he calls a "Boo-Hoo" or "Grim Weeper," and if a Scientologist walks into an auditing session and finds that he can't cry, Hubbard said it may be "because he is about to be hit by a wave, has his eyes full of sand, or is frightened about opening his shell because he is afraid of being hit."(10)

The auditor may try to cure him by making him "run the Boo-Hoo,"(11) that is, by getting him either to "imagine that his eyes are in his mouth looking out" or to go through the physical motions of crying so he "connects" with the Grim Weeper or Boo-Hoo.(12)

Hubbard himself doesn't claim to have been a clam, but he does claim to have lived in ancient Rome a couple of thousand years ago, where he picked up a formula for feeding non-breast-fed babies.(13) He has since passed this formula on to his followers in one of his many chatty newsletters.

Scientologists spend a great deal of time during their auditing sessions reliving and resolving their past lives. One Scientologist was said to have gone into a state of grief when she realized she had been her father's lover -- before she was born.

Another Scientologist was concerned because his wife was now living with another man who had once been her husband -- in one of her previous lifetimes.{14)

A Boston cab driver and part-time Harvard student discovered during an auditing session that his current headaches started when he was a Roman Centurion in 216 B.C., during the Battle of Cannae.{15) He believes that someone from the Roman Burial party, mistakenly believing him dead, tried to kick his helmet back onto his head.

Despite this insight he still has his headaches, but this hasn't shaken his belief in Scientology. His faith didn't falter even when one of his Scientology friends, after spending hundreds of hours in the group getting rid of all of his engrams and becoming a "clear," moved to Albuquerque and committed suicide. He attributed the suicide not to Scientology, but to living in Albuquerque.

Hubbard has devoted a special book called Have You Lived Before This Life: A Scientific Survey just to past-life case histories of Scientologists. The preface of this book also contains the names and addresses of the people who took part in the experiment so that the cynical could check its facts.

The names listed, however, were not those of the preclear who had relived the experience, but those of the auditor who elicited the stories from them -- and all auditors are advanced, dedicated and believing Scientologists.

Strangely enough, few subjects in this experiment thought they had ever been famous in their past lives, except for one British man who was uncertain whether or not he had once been Lord Nelson. (The details of his death, without even a passing reference to his good friend Hardy, suggest that he was not.)

A few people, however, believed that they had been animals before being humans in this life, and elsewhere, Hubbard told the story of a "psychotic" girl who recovered after she worked through an earlier life as a lion who ate its keeper.{16) Hubbard also said that some intelligent dogs or horses might have once been generals or ministers of state who were taking it easy for a life or two to cure them of their ulcers.

Most of the Scientologists who relived their past lives believed that they had once been plain people, or very often space people, and for plots, their histories read like a type of science-fiction sadomasochism. Many of the preclears believed that they had lived on other planets, and that the most unimaginably terrible things happened to them during "wars between worlds and celestial travel between universes whose existence was not even suspected before Hubbard's time," said the Australian Inquiry.{17)

One preclear remembered that when he was in another life and was five years old he was "already on the lookout for brothels," by fourteen or fifteen had learned all about "sex and homosexuals," and by sixteen had killed his father, baby, and captain, breaking up the body of the last, before finally being taken away to the "Zap machine" where he was decapitated and his arms and body placed in a space coffin.{18)

One man remembered that when he was in another life he was a Roman soldier who strangled his wife with a cord, killed a slave, was beaten across the face with the handle of a chariot whip and then was himself killed by a lion in an arena.

Accounts of other past lives included: one man who accidentally stabbed his pregnant wife in the stomach with clippers, thereby killing his baby; one who intentionally raped and killed his wife; and one who somehow accidentally killed his twelve-year-old daughter with a pitchfork when he caught her having intercourse.

A sexually neurotic woman who refused to open her legs during childbirth, so that her baby had to be born while she was lying on her side, traced her problem back to another life in which she claimed to have been tortured and killed by being cut with a knife "down the center of her genitalia."

Throughout Hubbard's book on other lives there is a strange repetitive theme of torture or excision of the eyes, a theme that can also be found in some of Hubbard's other writings. One person said his eyes had been burned out with a hot iron brand before he had been stretched on the rack; another said his head had been clamped into a metal frame and his left eye blinded with a hot instrument (and also his ear drums pierced); another said he pushed a needle through each of his eyeballs into the frontal lobe; and a fourth said that red hot irons had been thrust into his eyes while he was chained to a cross.(19)

Just as a preclear's life in the womb was painful, so was his life before. A preclear may spend as many as fifty-five hours on just one past life, and often undergoes a great deal of mental anguish in reliving it.(20) Throughout the book there are statements that people had "convulsive body movements," cried a great deal "at the loss of her body" (in other words, her death), or protested that "I can't go on."(21)

But go on they must. The preclear must obey his auditor when the auditor tells him to "be in that incident," and then asks him, "what part of that incident can you confront?" The preclear must then repeat the story over and over again, lifting a new detail each time, discarding portions of the story that don't fit, and establishing with the E-meter the exact date that the past-life incident allegedly occurred.(22)

Although the preclear sometimes views this whole task with something less than enthusiasm, Hubbard was so elated with it that he wrote of his plans to write a sequel to this book, which was to be called Where Were You Buried?(23) He asked his auditors for help on this project by checking their preclears for recent deaths and then going to the place of burial and locating the grave and or getting the copy of the death roll from an official source.

That this book never appeared may be attributed to a number of things. Perhaps Hubbard was too busy with his other books and projects. Maybe the auditors thought that such experimentation on a preclear was cruel. Possibly the preclear refused to "confront" the incident or give his permission for the data to be disclosed. And finally, maybe when the past lives were actually checked out by going to the grave or official source, they were found to be fantasies instead of memories.

Citations & Notes

(1) initial quote [39]

(2) how long thetan around [93]

{3) man who was fish [8]

{4) size of thetan [17]

{5) vision of thetan [171]

{6) following pregnant woman around [261 ] {7) psoriasis [25]

{8) toothache and jaw ache [25]

{9) pain in jaw and fear of falling [155]

{10) why preclear can't cry [9]

{11) running the Boo-Hoo [142]

{12) how to run it [9]

{13) Hubbard formula for babies [261 ]

{14) 2 cases of love in past lives [261 ]

{15) Boston cab driver [277]

{16) Lord Nelson, girl eaten by lion [8]

{17) quote on celestial travel [261 ]

{18) next 6 cases [8]

{19) all eye cases [8]

{20) spending 55 hours on past life [8]

{21) pain of reliving past life [8]

{22) how they work on past lives [8]

{23) book on burial [42a]

Chapter 5 Spreading the Word

Tell someone about Scientology. Just by knowing that Scientology exists, a person is better. -- L. Ron Hubbardd)

Scientologists are relentless in trying to get others to share their religious beliefs, and much of their proselytizing is certainly based on their sincere belief that Scientology has improved their lives and can do the same for others. But there are also a few mercenary motives they rarely admit to.

First of all, the more members a particular Church brings in, the more money each Scientology employee receives, since their salary, based on units, is determined by the previous week's income.{2) Actually this works out better in theory than in practice, since Scientologists have complained that when revenue increases, Hubbard simply enlarges the staff, so they get to see very little of the additional monies.{3)

A second possible reason for their relentless proselytizing is that for any individual member a Scientologist brings in, say a friend, he receives a five to fifteen percent cash rebate, usually ten percent, on whatever money that other person spends in the group.{4)

Even if a Scientologist decides not to double as a salesman, he may not have much of a choice, since some Scientologists have been made to sign pledges promising to "help Ron (Hubbard) clear this planet."{5)

Pressure has also occasionally been applied to people who didn't help "Ron." One former member reported that Scientologists were routinely questioned during their auditing sessions about their progress in furthering Scientology. If they had done nothing, they might occasionally be punished by being made to write a five-hundred-word composition explaining why they hadn't spread the word.^ Hopefully, their techniques are a bit more sophisticated today.

While Scientologists generally approach their friends and former acquaintances in an effort to gain converts, they are not averse to soliciting strangers. This is usually done by handing out leaflets or tickets inviting people to "step into the exciting world of the totally free." They have also used their books and brochures to lure strangers.

One girl was approached on a Fifth Avenue bus in Manhattan by a man who handed her Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, told her it would change her life, and then disappeared -- or so she thought.{7) When she tried to get off the bus, he blocked her and demanded $5 for the book.

In another case, two Scientologists put an ad in the Village Voice asking $1 for a book "in a plain wrapper."{8) Those who were expecting pornography were sorely disappointed. For $1 they received a twelve-page brochure called "All About Scientology" -- a booklet which is given away for free at the Orgs or Churches.

Scientologists have also advertised their services in newspapers, under the heading of Church (in the New York Times) and sometimes in the classified telephone directories, under such headings as IQ Tests,(9) Personality Development,(10) and Personnel Consultants.(11)

In the classified Tunbridge Wells, England, area telephone directory, though, they accidentally appeared under the heading of "Zoo."(12) Lest anyone suspect it was an intentional accident, the phone company explained to the paper that the Scientologists asked them to put their ad on the last page of the directory "and in this case it was possible."

Hubbard, in his PABS (Preclear Auditor Bulletin) #5 suggested three additional ways to disseminate Scientology.(13) In the first method he told the Scientologists to put an ad in the newspaper saying "Personal counseling -- I will talk to anyone for you about anything. Phone Reverend so and so between hour and hour."

Hubbard, however, told them not to help the person who was calling, because that "cancel(s) out his clientele." Instead he suggested that they should first credit the fact that "this is a pretty big problem" and then not talk to the person in such a way as to ease the problem. "This may be the last problem this person has and it would be a disservice to simply solve it as easily as that. One makes something of the problem, not makes nothing of it...."

Hubbard may have anticipated that such methods might be questioned or criticized, and he seemed anxious that the press not find out who was behind them. He told the Scientologists:

One does not bring the word Scientology into press interviews. One simply talks about the Church, its work and immediately it converses on actual cases which have been handled. I repeat, it does not discuss Scientology with the press.

But what if the press suspects anyway, and then asks what Scientology is? Hubbard wrote:

... the minister should shrug and say there are lots of textbooks about that and that he does not propose to teach a course in an advanced science to pages of the public press [sic!], that it is the Church and the church's charitable activities which are behind this, not Scientology. He should also say that today's ministers are indoctrinated in many learnings and skills and Scientology happens to be chiefest amongst these.

The second method he suggested, which he and his current wife personally utilized, was called "Illness Researchers."(14) Hubbard told the Scientologists to place an ad in the local newspaper that said polio victims (or arthritics) should call them. Hubbard suggested they sign the ad as a "research organization" or a "charitable organization." When the people answering the ad arrived at the headquarters, they were given about three hours of free group auditing, and then later were sold individual auditing sessions.

This technique was not calculated to endear Scientology to the medical profession, but Hubbard emphasized that Scientologists were not offering a treatment or cure for these illnesses, but were just "investigating" them, and therefore the medical laws did not apply to them. He added that this method was acceptable for an auditor or minister, and that "even a ditch digger can look over polio or arthritis or asthma or anything else."

In "Casualty Contact," the third method, Hubbard recommended that Scientology ministers scan the newspapers for accident cases and obituaries and get the disabled and the relatives of the deceased to "join the Church for comfort." He said that the minister should take "every daily paper he can get his hands on and cut from it every story whereby he might have a preclear."

The Minister should get the address of the person, from the story itself or by calling up the newspaper and saying he's a minister. The minister should then call the person or his family and represent himself "as a minister whose compassion was compelled by the newspaper story concerning the person," wrote Hubbard.

What if the press finds out about this one? Hubbard emphasized that the minister should "simply say that it is a mission of the Church to assist those who are in need of assistance," and again avoid discussing Scientology. Instead, Hubbard said he should "talk about the work of ministers and how all too few ministers these days get around to places where they are needed."

Citations & Notes

d) initial quote [44]

{2) unit salary [254, 255, etc.]

{3) Hubbard enlarges staff [261 ]

{4) money received for bringing members [255]

{5) pledges to clear planet [136]

{6) questioning people and compositions [177]

{7) 5th Ave. bus story [177]

{8) Ad for book in plain wrapper [152]

{9) IQ [145]

{10) pers{onalit)y development [131 ]

{11) personnel consultants [131a]

{12) Scientology under "Zoo" {heading in phone book) [178]

{13) all three methods of Scientology dissemination [21 ]

{14) Hubbard tried second [255]

Chapter 6 The Org

Step into the Exciting World of the Totally Free. -- from a Scientology subway ad{1)

Once someone succumbs to any one of these methods, his first formal contact with Scientology is usually at the headquarters, or Org as they call it, for a free lecture and film and a personality test, the first two to see if he wants Scientology; the last perhaps to determine if he needs it.

Each evening in Manhattan, a couple of dozen people arrive for this process at the main Org, which is located in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Martinique at Thirty-second Street and Broadway. In the Scientology section of the hotel, the atmosphere has been described as similar to the Defense Department.{2)

Certain areas are off-limits,{3) no pictures can be taken,{4) and one writer was photographed during his interview from every angle "as if for a Wanted Poster." Another was told that her story had to be "checked for accuracy" before the Scientologists would "permit it to be released." Another writer who brought a tape recorder to an interview was not only not permitted to use it, but -- to add insult to injury -- the Scientologists put on their own tape recorder and recorded him.{5) And finally, no one can enter the Org until he writes down his name and address, in keeping with Hubbard's order to "register everyone -- even the postman."{6)

From the moment he registers he may get as many as seventy pieces of mimeographed mail{7) for as long as four years afterwards.{8) Most of this mail lives up to Hubbard's statement that quantity is more important than quality.{9)

Begging the Scientologists to remove your name from the mailing list often does no good. The Australians reported that if someone wrote to have his name removed, the Scientologists wrote them back suggesting that the meaning of their letter wasn't quite clear to them.{10)

One Manhattan actor who spent a weekend in Scientology -- and was immediately disenchanted because the night before the first course they had called him to take more courses -- tried to make it clear that he did not want to receive the incessant phone calls and letters to which a Scientology friend of his had been subjected. The Scientologists told him to tell this to the "Student Examiner," but when he did, he was hounded to reveal the name of his friend. When he refused, he was "escorted" to the Ethics Officer, who again pressed him for the name of that friend who had complained about the phone calls so that they could "call him and talk with him about it."{11)

After the potential convert -- or to quote Hubbard, the "raw meat"{12) -- registers, he is directed to a converted classroom to hear a Scientology lecture that sounds like a cross between a Jehovah's Witness pep talk about the Day of Doom and the spiel of a used car salesman.

The lecture is apparently no better in England. During one lecture there, the audience cheered every time someone had the courage to yawn or walk out. One man finally got up and said "if Scientology is so good, why are there not better lecturers?" He walked out to the loudest applause of the evening.(13)

After the lecture and sales pitch, potential converts are shown an old film of Hubbard and given the American Personality Test.(14) (15) This test was written by a Scientologist with a B.Scn., D.Scn., and D.D. degrees. While someone looking at this quickly might think she is well qualified to write such a test with a Bachelor of Science, a Doctor of Science degrees, her degrees actually stand for Bachelor of Scientology, Doctor of Scientology, and Doctor of Divinity -- in the Church of Scientology only.(16)

The author also has a B.A., but that does not necessarily have an academic counterpart in Scientology either. One Scientologist admitted that her B.A. stood for "Basic Administrator" and "Book Auditor."(17) To become a "Book Auditor" she only had to buy one of Hubbard's books, apply the principles to someone else, and send in for her certificate.(18)

Sometimes the results of the personality test are presented to a person not so much to enlighten him as to his difficulties and problems as to enlighten him about what Scientology can do for him. While analyzing the test, Hubbard told his followers to make remarks such as "Scientology can influence this"(19) or "auditing can remedy that," etc., and added "We will take full advantage of the superstitions of people at the level of prediction."(20) Hubbard also told them that they should not precede a statement that a score on a particular item was low with something like "Don't worry" because "this cancels impingement."(21)

In addition to "enlightening" people, the test has also been used to intimidate them into joining Scientology. The Australian reported that one boy who took the test claims they told him he had a defective character, was mentally unstable, and would have a mental breakdown unless he joined Scientology.(22) (They also suggested that he had homosexual tendencies.) When he refused to join nonetheless, people at the Org took turns for a year writing him personal letters to remind him of his difficulties as reflected on the test, and his need to join them to remedy it.

After a person takes the test, he does not "sign up" for a course in Scientology -- he "joins," as author William Burroughs put it.(23) Anyone who does decide to join the Church of Scientology that night must then sign a contract, which has his name filled in even before he agrees to look at it. "If a person is on your premises longer than five minutes sign him on a release form," wrote Hubbard. "If he won't sign a release, he is going to give you trouble so get rid of him."(24)

The form consists of a number of questions, and while answering any of them falsely can result in immediate dismissal later from Scientology, answering them truthfully will not necessarily keep a person in.(25) The following is a composite of the contents of a few of these forms over the years:(26)

1.    They ask if the person has ever been institutionalized, had shock treatment, or been under the care of a psychologist or psychiatrist.

2.    They ask if he has "submitted" his body to drug treatment or is addicted to alcohol (Scientologists cannot take marijuana, LSD, etc., nor are they permitted to drink, or even take aspirin, for certain periods of time before auditing).(27)

3.    They ask if the person will take and pay for additional courses or hours if the ethics officer tells him to.

4.    They ask if the person is over twenty-one (otherwise he needs his parents' consent to join Scientology).

5.    They claim that a person can get his money back if he's dissatisfied with a Scientology course, generally within thirty days, although he may not take any more Scientology courses after asking for a refund.

6.    They ask if the person has a criminal record.

7.    If he is currently receiving medical treatment.

8.    If he agrees with the stated aims of Scientology and will not work against it and if he belongs to a group that is against it.

9.    That he agrees to undergo any E-meter test that he is told to take.

10.    That he agrees to "release each and all of the above-named organizations and corporations and any and all employees, staff members, or associates thereof from all liability from any consequences resulting from training, education, or processing practices and methods used by Scientology."

After signing this, and paying for the first course, one becomes a Scientologist. And as Hubbard often says about that state of affairs, "May you never be the same again."{28)

Citations & Notes

{1) initial quote [285]

{2) Defense Dept. [146]

{3) (4) off limits [178]

{4) (3) can't take pix [146, 178]

{5) writer photographed and tape recorded [283]

{6) register postman [87]

{7) 70 pieces of mail [261 ]

{8) for 4 years [81]

{9) quantity important [82]

{10) can't beg them to remove name [261 ]

{11) Manhattan actor [277]

(12)    raw meat [98, 103]

(13)    English lecture [216]

(14)    Oxford Capacity Analysis [112] (The OCA, a personality test, is mentioned nowhere else in the book)

(15)    American Personality Test [105]

(16)    meaning of degrees [261 ]

(17)    girl with BA [261]

(18)    how to be book auditor [10, 23]

(19)    telling people what Scientology can do [83]

(20)    quote on superstitions [83]

(21)    don't say don't worry [83]

(22)    boy who took test [261 ]

(23)    "join" Scientology [187]

(24)    make them sign release says Hubbard [261 ]

(25)    (26) answering them falsely or truly [254] (ambiguous citation)

(26)    (27) release forms [129, 254, 178]

(27)    (25) no alcohol or drugs permitted [130a]

(28)    "May you never be the same" [6, 111]

Chapter 7 The Sea Org

L. Ron Hubbard, flanked by the powerful, highly trained O.T. of the Sea Org, has forged through gigantic barriers ... has identified the true enemy of Mankind on this planet.

-- from a Scientology mailing piece{1)

Hubbard himself is never at any of these home Orgs any more. He now lives on the mysterious Sea Org, a trio of secret ships that sails the Mediterranean.{2) Hubbard lives on the flagship, the Royal Scotsman (also called The Apollo),{3) a 3,330 ton 320-foot converted Irish cattle ferry with LRH (L. Ron Hubbard) floridly painted on the funnel.{4) LRH, or Hubbard, has the title of "Commodore"{5) and his beautiful twenty-two year old daughter Diana, who is also on board, has been given the unlikely title of Lieutenant-Commander.

Along with them are Hubbard's present wife, four of his seven children from his three marriages, his dog, and two cars.{6) In addition, the Sea Org is a training fleet for at least 200 white-uniformed Scientologists and their children who range in age from six months to sixty years.

With the exception of the children, the rest are said to have signed a billion-year contract{7) with Hubbard (presumably to include their thetans in future lives) to help him help the world.

To accomplish this goal, Scientologists not only work for Hubbard gratis, but it appears that they may even pay to be on the boat, as many of them there are in training to become Operating Thetan VIII -- the highest level in Scientology,^ and to reach that level costs a few thousand dollars more than it does to become a "clear."{9)

Their dedication is reflected not only financially. Sea Org Scientologists work a difficult eight hour day{10) and spend their evenings studying Scientology. Even the children on the boat work for Scientology as messengers.{11)

Life on board is hard, and punishment is strict. It is said that someone might be an officer one day and for punishment be sent to swab the decks the next. The London Sunday Times carried an item about a wealthy Californian who was wearing an officer's uniform when he first arrived at the Sea Org, but for being late, he was given dirty blue overalls and made to work in the galleys.{12)

Although it's hard to figure out why any country would complain about a ship full of hard working people at her ports, at least one country was sufficiently displeased with them to kick them out of their harbour on twenty-four hour notice. In Corfu, Greece, where the Scientologists were said to be spending about $1,500 a day for provisions and boat repairs, it would seem that the government had little to complain about.{13) But after seven months there, the Minister of the Interior kicked them out. He gave no reason except that they were declared "undesirable."{14)

The country may have been displeased with the strange behavior of those living on the Sea Org. Local people complained about seeing Scientology children of eight or nine years old being made to walk the plank into the Aegean, and one Scientology publication depicts a similar punishment that was meted out to an older member.{15) (It is not known who saves them, but since

Scientologists have jobs for everything -- Director of Success, Letter Registrar, etc. -- maybe they have a "Rescue Registrar.")

On another occasion, locals reported that twenty-four Scientologists left the ship one day and marched half a mile along the quayside in "military step," wearing no raincoats despite the pouring rain.(16) One outsider, Captain John Jones, reported to a London newspaper some of the things that happened while he was sailing with one of the smaller ships. "My crew were sixteen men and four women who wouldn't know a trawler from a tramcar," he allegedly stated.

He complained that he was made to run the ship according to the Sea Org Book and that electrical equipment, other than lights, radio and direction finder, and other advanced equipment he had on board could not be used. (Probably because the Scientologists feared it would interfere with the functioning of their E-meters.) He reported that "using the Org Book navigation system based on radio beams from the B.B.C., and other stations we were soon hopelessly lost."(17)

Mystery surrounds the ship. Hubbard is said to sleep during the day, rise at 6 p.m. and is almost never seen outside.(18) Most of the people on the boat don't see him either, except for his personal staff and officers.(19) The latter have meetings with him upon written request. Outsiders are not even sure exactly where on the boat Hubbard lives, although one reporter suspected it was in the middle of the upper part of the deck where "a corridor leads to what few cabins there are with a notice forbidding entry."(20)

It is said that most of the other people sleep in dormitory-like accommodations.^) Captain Jones, mentioned before, said the men and women on his ship shared the same quarters with only a blanket dividing the sections.(22)

Hubbard also keeps the purpose of the ship well hidden. Although he initially admitted that the Sea Org was established as a mobile headquarters for setting up new bases or correcting old ones, henow seems to want people to think they're all there for "exploration" -- not Scientology. The stationery used by the ship is imprinted with "The Hubbard Exploration Company Ltd."(23) (no address given).

One spokesman for the ship said its purpose was "basically to search for oil and gas in the Mediterranean and elsewhere,"(24) and in one communique, Hubbard stated the ship was in Greece "to explore and study the decline of ancient civilization and so [learn] how this current one is going."(25) Hubbard has even denied to interviewers, in the earlier days when he talked with them, that the ship or he was connected to Scientology, although Telex reports from Saint Hill were directly in front of him.(26)

Another mystery concerns Linda Hicks, a very beautiful twenty-two-year-old British blond who joined the Sea Org and then disappeared. Her father, who had a heart condition, claimed that his only daughter had initially become involved with Scientology in Las Palmas, and that when he saw her afterwards, "she ... dyed her fair hair black ... she was filthy, and her mind seems to have gone off the rails." The News of the World, which printed the story, said that Linda allegedly sent the letter below to her boy friend at home, saying she had been hypnotized on the Sea Org and had been married without conscious consent to another Scientologist.(27)

Darling Oscar

So many terrible things have happened to me since I waved good-bye to you at Las Palmas. Oh why didn't you MAKE me leave that boat, Oscar? Did you know what was happening to me? I honestly didn't know.

But I feel sick for you in Las Palmas -- do you feel that way for me now? Was it holiday romance or will you always love me, how I love you?

Darling -- what did those people do to me. They changed me, you ... saw it, why didn't you make me leave?

They make people's minds sick, they influenced me, they tried to make me change against you.

I became sick and hysterical and they put me on one of those machines [probably the E-meter].... Then someone talked for two hours to me. [The News of the World reported a reference here to her marrying one of the boys on the boat.]

I can't remember very much about it, except that after two days at home I began to change back to the old "Mummy" that you loved and started to remember things -- they were evil.

Oh my darling, what a terrible mistake I made....

After Linda's father saw this letter, he went to the Sea Org with a News of the World reporter to try to locate his daughter. But neither were able to board the ship, reach Hubbard, or find Linda. A Scientologist on deck said that Linda had had a "beautiful romance" with a fourth mate on the 414-ton Sea Org trawler, the Avon River.

The next day, the Scientologists allegedly issued a statement to the reporter saying that Linda's parents favored another suitor and insisted their daughter leave her husband. They also stated that the parents wanted her removed and sent to a psychiatrist for electric shocks (a favorite accusation of the Scientologists), and that Linda, fearing kidnapping, left the ship and fled. They added that the parents "detest Scientologists and tried to use Scientology as an excuse to break up the marriage."

What happens on the Sea Org may forever remain a mystery, since those on the ship stay for quite a while and have little or no contact with their friends and family back home. One story did leak out, however, that adds to the intrigue. It suggests that although joining the Sea Org may be voluntary, leaving it may not always be.

When one of the Sea Org ships was docked in Corfu, the London Times reported that a number of people on shore had seen a female Scientologist and her two children attempt to run off the boat -screaming -- and they then saw her dragged back in by uniformed Scientologists on the ship before she could reach the roadway.{28) The harbor master in Corfu, a friend of Scientology, said he saw "no reason for an investigation."

Citations & Notes

{1) initial quote [141a] {2) ships in LA [146]

(3)    Royal Scotsman is Apollo [241, 72]

(4)    details of Apollo [240]

(5)    Hubbard is commodore, etc. [189]

(6)    Hubbard's family and cars [212a]

(7)    billion year contract [187]

(8)    OTs [51]

(9)    may have to pay [256]

(10)    8 hour day [24]

(11)    children messengers [241 ]

(12)    discipline & story of man [241 ]

(13)    £700 in Corfu [241]

(14)    kicked out [233]

(15)    walking plank [241, 50]

(16)    Scientologists marching [241 ]

(17)    Captain's story [191a]

(18)    Hubbard schedule [241 ]

(19)    who sees him on boat [240]

(20)    where he lives [212a]

(21)    dormitories [240]

(22)    men & women same room [191a]

(23)    Hubbard Exploration Company [240]

(24)    search for oil & gas [191 ]

(25)    study ancient civilization [226]

(26)    (27) telex reports [174]

(27)    (28) Linda Hicks story and letter [196]

{28) (31) girl who tried to get off [241 ] Extraneous citation notes:

{29) (26) quote on England [226]

{30) (29) how you get on boat [177] {31) (30) only beautiful women [177]

Chapter 8 The British and Australian Orgs

If Britain acts, then you must know that the hour is late.

-- South African minister of health urging their Parliament to have an Inquiry(1)

In England, the main Scientology Org is "Saint Hill," a 243-year-old fifty-seven-acre estate in East Grinstead, Sussex, that was formerly the home of the Maharaja of Jaipur, and before that, Mrs. Anthony Drexel Biddle.(2) When Hubbard arrived there in 1959, he joined right into the spirit of things, becoming East Grinstead's Road Safety Organizer.^ One paper reported that he attended only one meeting, telling how Americans reduce car accidents, and suggested they use schoolboy campaign patrols. After that, he sent his ideas through a local press office.

During these early days, Hubbard was said to have gotten up at Hyde Park's Speakers Corner, to have grown giant radishes which he said had been exposed to X-rays, and to have invited a local journalist to Saint Hill to tell him of his theory that plant life can feel and think.(4) If Hubbard really believed this, he apparently didn't care what the plant felt or thought, since he promptly attached the plant to an E-meter, stuck pins into the plant, tore off its leaves, and reduced it to a ruined stump.

Unlike the plant, Scientology and Hubbard thrived in the mysterious manor. Scientology, however, has not been accorded, or at least permitted, the same religious status in England as in America, since the British Registrar General refused to register Saint Hill as a place of worship under the Place of Worship Registration Act.(5) ("While Scientology may be wholly admirable, I find it difficult to reach the conclusion that it is a religion.")(6) So Hubbard has had to be happy with running a college, "controlling the operation,"(7) as he said in one interview, and sending his decrees, policies, etc., by Telex to his Orgs and franchises in five continents while collecting his ten percent and more.

But things began to sour, and some time after Hubbard left England to establish the Sea Org, he was barred from returning to the country. He says this was because the government didn't like his books. "I have committed no crime," he said, "except writing about helping people to be happy. Mr. Callahan [who probably barred him] doesn't like people to be happy obviously."(8)

Although the British did not seem to object to Hubbard's books -- or to making people happy -many complained about the Scientologists themselves, who were allegedly passing out their literature at Rugby matches held in aid of the blind, letting school children distribute Scientology propaganda, and sending out letters soliciting children from six to fourteen years old as members.(9)

Some of the biggest outcries against Scientology came from the town of East Grinstead, where right from the beginning, the local residents were upset over the enormous number of people entering and leaving Saint Hill manor which was registered as a residence. But Hubbard, even three years after he arrived there, insisted he had only his personal staff at the manor and allegedly stated "I guess the[y] ... noticed all the traffic. There's been a lot of excitement here. I've discovered a kind of psychological treatment which would make people live twenty to twenty-five years longer."(10)

The traffic increased and so did the antagonism. The townspeople were worried that their children might become Scientologists, perhaps justifiably, since they and their children were constantly being solicited to join, and Scientologists allegedly said they planned to make East Grinstead the first "clear town."{11) School officials complained that they couldn't even let the children go outside without encountering Scientologists.{12)

Some complained that they didn't even have to go outside to be bothered by them. One nun stated that Scientologists entered her school grounds and tried to talk to the students. She got rid of them once by mentioning the word "police," and on another occasion, she claimed, a Scientologist put his foot in the door and she stomped on it.{13) Some of the local residents complained that they too didn't have to go out of their houses to encounter the Scientologists, who supposedly called them at their homes and said, "I am your local Scientologist. Is there anything you need?"{14)

There were also some Scientology scandals in the town: "death lessons" (to be discussed later) and a scandal in December of 1967, when a number of Scientology children were picked up for shoplifting, and a girl who was taking a Scientology course was accused of immoral behavior.{15) The News of the World, which broke the story, said that a fifteen-year-old girl who was taking a Scientology course was found asleep near East Grinstead with three men in a scrap metal truck. The next day, the girl allegedly admitted that she had had intercourse with three boys, once with a man she met at a youth club, the second time at a party where she said she got very drunk, and the third time with a gypsy, one of the men found with her in the truck. Their being Scientologists or children of Scientologists may have had nothing to do with their behavior, but Scientology was condemned nonetheless.

Another scandal in England which indirectly involved Scientology occurred in 1964. At that time, two Scientologists, Mary Ann, an illegitimate daughter of a Scots mill worker, and Robert de Grinston, a Scientologist, met in Scientology, married, and then left the Scientology movement.

They began their own group, which they called the "Process," although it was nicknamed "The Mindbenders" by others, and incorporated a number of Scientology ideas, including the E-meter.{16) Instead of worshipping Hubbard, members of the Process worshipped Mary Ann de Grinston, and many of the members truly believed she was God, a delusion that Mary Ann and her husband did nothing to discourage.

Mary and Bob lived upstairs in their large home, above the other members who were living five to six to a room. When they came downstairs, the Sunday Telegraph in England described, "They descended like Gods. She was the resident deity. He her consort." Members were so anxious to please and emulate her, that when she bought an Alsatian dog, everyone else in the group did also.

By 1966, the Process had moved, Alsatian dogs and all, to Mexico, where they were living in "paradise," according to them, with no gas, electricity, sanitation, water, or beds, at a cost of approximately $8 a day divided among fifteen people. In England, the Daily Express estimated that over two hundred people had been involved with the Process at one time or another, and that at least three had suffered nervous breakdowns.

Although the article in the Daily Express suggested that the group had dissolved, its obituary was written prematurely. On September 14, 1969, the Sunday Mirror in England reported that three Americans "with large dogs" were sailing on the Queen Elizabeth II to join the Process -- now called "The Final Church of Judgment."{17)

Apparently the Process is still thriving in England. Only now it is obviously Robert who is the worshipped one. He is called "The Christ of Carnaby Street." In addition to deifying him, the group worships Satan, Lucifer, Jehovah and Christ, who are all regarded as having equal status.

The group also worships sex, and the Sunday Mirror reported that their magazine, The Process contained articles praising all types of perversions, stating "let no so-called sin, perversion and depravity escape your searching senses, participate in all of them to overflowing." They also suggested a few, such as sex in an alleyway with people walking in the nearby street, intercourse with a cripple or halfwit, flagellation, necrophilia, sex in a cemetery, and Black Mass, which is to be finished by "Divine degredation."

But one of the biggest Scientology scandals in England occurred in 1967. The Scientologists took a girl into the group, Karen Henslow, who had been in psychiatric institutions three times during her life (although the Scientologists claim they do not take people who have a history of institutionalization.) Miss Henslow had a relapse while in Scientology. (See Chapter 21)

The British finally began to look into Scientology and into the complaint letters received by the British Ministry of Health.{18) Mr. Peter Hordern, MP of Horsham, who had originally brought up the case of Karen Henslow in Parliament, asked the Minister of Health, then Kenneth Robinson, to conduct an inquiry into Scientology. Although Robinson decided not to do so at the time,{19) he did make some rather unflattering statements about the Scientologists.

Robinson said that they "direct themselves to the weak, the unbalanced, the immature, the rootless, and the mentally or emotionally unstable," and that their "authoritarian principles ... are a potential menace ... to the personality and well-being of those so deluded as to become its followers."{20) Although he regretted that he had no power under the existing laws to prohibit the practice of Scientology, he said that "the government has concluded that it is so objectionable that it would be right to take all steps within its power to curb its growth."{21) In return, the Scientology newspaper Freedom has made some rather unflattering statements about Kenneth Robinson and his association with the National Association of Mental Health, which they believe is part of a vast conspiracy against them.{22)

One step Robinson took to curb the growth of Scientology was to make the "Hubbard College of Scientology" no longer an educational establishment. This meant that foreigners and Commonwealth citizens could no longer enter England to study (or work) there, nor would those who were already there be given extensions.{23)

David Gaiman, the Scientology spokesman in England, called this move "another example of ill-intentioned, diabolic, pompous, official bumbledom;" and said later, "We are certainly no worse than other minority groups like Jehovah's Witnesses or Plymouth Brethren ... at this rate [they] will turn around tomorrow and without giving any reason ban Roman Catholics."{24)

Although this policy of barring Scientologists was rigidly enforced at first (and an entire planeload of American Scientologists was turned back), Scientologists report that enforcement has been rather lax lately.{25) Perhaps that's because the British have decided to take even more drastic steps. An inquiry into the Scientology organization is currently underway.{26)

The decision to set up this inquiry was announced in the House of Commons on January 27, 1969, by Mr. Richard Crossman, Secretary of State for Social Services, who also stated that Sir John Foster, QC, would conduct the inquiry. In view of what was called in Parliament the "character assassinations"(27) perpetrated by the Scientologists against those who have previously attacked them (especially in Australia, where the Scientologists were even said to have sent agents out after those who opposed them(28)), Sir John Foster's job is not an enviable one.

Mr. Crossman also stated at that time that Sir John Foster would take evidence for this inquiry privately, and that the witnesses would not be on oath, because the "kind of evidence we want will be from people of a nervous nature, who will not face cross-examination or any public examination."(29) The Scientologists countered this statement by saying that if they wanted evidence from people of a nervous nature "this immediately precludes Scientologists who are happy, relaxed, and purposeful."(30)

While a private inquiry, with no cross-examination and not on oath, may not be in keeping with most people's idea of English jurisprudence, Mr. Crossman explained why he chose an inquiry of this sort. It can be assumed that his final metaphor was an unintentional slur to the Scientologists.

Unfortunately, the choice is very limited for the government. We either have to have a formal inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry Evidence ... Act ... or we have to have the sort which I have proposed. I thought that to use the former would be to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.(31)

The Scientologists stated their opinion of this inquiry, and its nature, in Freedom.

To take executive action against a Church [banning Scientologists from coming into the country] and then seven months later hold an inquiry to provide, if it can be found, the evidence to justify the action is to find guilt without any trial ... to accept gossip, privately and not on oath may be alright [sic.] to handle a problem in Bognor Regis, but it is not ethical to conduct a private smear campaign against 150,000 people in the British Isles.... This is the way a witch hunt begins, this is the way a police state gets into operation, and this is the way in which men, Callaghan, Crossman and Robinson attempt to back up their poor faulty judgment and faulty decision -- taken in the full glare of worldwide publicity -- because they haven't the grace to admit they were wrong in the first place. This is gross misuse of Ministerial Office.(32)

The article also implied that all this was part of a "conspiracy" against Scientology, and in a later issue of Freedom, they revealed who was part of this "Anti-Scientology Organization Chart" and "Electric Death Camp Utopia."(33) They named seven countries with the National Association of Mental Health in the forefront of almost all of them, and in England, they also implicated several members of Parliament, Dr. Russell Barton, a prestigious British psychiatrist, and the News of the World and the Daily Mail. Both of these papers have written a number of negative articles on Scientology and Hubbard, and a couple of issues cast doubt on both his qualifications and his sanity.

The English Scientologists have recently made a number of moves to help polish their tarnishing image. They ended some of their more criticized policies, such as security checking and "disconnecting" (to be discussed later). They also opened Saint Hill Manor to outsiders, for what David Gaiman said would be "rather like a vicarage tea party."(34)

He promised donkey and pony rides for the children -- and Scientology films and cartoons for the adults. John McMasters, the first clear (who is also Hubbard's very eloquent personal spokesman(35)), would speak, and soft drinks (no alcohol) would be served. David Gaiman stated that Mr. Robinson was invited, but that he wrote saying he was unable to attend.(36)

In addition, Scientologists have actively started promoting Dianetics again, perhaps in anticipation of a prohibition of Scientology, or possibly to partially dissociate themselves from Scientology while it is getting negative publicity.{37) Although Scientologists have boasted that the publicity has actually helped them, certain things suggest that while this may have been true initially (and there may have been an initial influx of curiosity-seekers who came to find out what all the fuss was about), in the long run the publicity may not have done them much good.

One would expect that if it really had increased their number, the Scientologists would be anxious to identify themselves and their services with the group that was getting the publicity. Instead, they are now emphasizing Dianetics. Last summer, there was no mention of Scientology in their entire Tottenham Court Road bookshop and the only books and signs around were about Dianetics. (The Scientologists, however, seemed to have forgotten to pull down their marquee, which said "Scientology" on it.)

They are also attempting, perhaps, to win back some of their critics, such as members of the medical profession. Toward this last goal, one recent issue of Freedom, which for the first time promoted Dianetics instead of Scientology, said that people who are sick must receive medical attention before starting on Dianetics. However, the statement that "Dianetic Counsellors work very closely with Doctors in England"{38) would perhaps make many doctors livid.

Scientologists have reason to be concerned right now. If the British Inquiry has the same results as the Australian one (and it could be even worse for them, since at the Australian Inquiry, Scientologists were permitted to be present, witnesses were on oath, and they were cross-examined), Scientology could be banned in England as well.

Scientologists are understandably bitter about the Australian Report. It is an incredible denunciation of the Scientologists, and even says that they have "no worthwhile redeeming features." Almost every paragraph of the report is a criticism. Where evidence could perhaps have been interpreted equivocably, either for or against them, it was consistently interpreted against them.

Hubbard is extremely hostile to the report. According to the Sun, in England, he claims he was forbidden to appear at the Inquiry, and that no testimony or witnesses on his behalf were heard.{39) According to the Inquiry, many of the witnesses were Scientologists and the Scientologists were represented until they voluntarily withdrew.

The Board also claimed that they repeatedly invited Hubbard to attend but that he failed to do so. They felt he stayed away purposely so as to have something to criticize the Board for. They alsobelieved that he didn't appear because if he had taken the stand and repudiated his writings, he would have appeared deceitful, and if he had not disowned them, he stood "condemned by their content." Hubbard, by the way, has been invited to testify at the British Inquiry. So far he has failed to show.{40)

Scientologists believe that they were condemned in Australia because various prominent witnesses "connived to produce hostile evidence."{41) Furthermore they claim that only four witnesses said Scientology hadn't helped them, and that they have "affidavits" which show that "one of these was a blackmailer, the second a professional car thief, the third was brainwashed by the first two, and the last was intimidated by terrorism."{42) Since 151 witnesses testified,{43) the Scientologists argue that if only four people said Scientology hadn't helped them, Scientology is 97.351 percent effective. They also argue -- although they claim they are not a form of therapy -- that psychiatry is only twelve percent effective(44) with eighty-eight percent "maimed for life or dead."(45)

Actually the Scientologists may be correct in stating that only four people specifically stated that Scientology hadn't helped them, but a number of witnesses said things about Scientology that made them look a lot worse than that, and a great deal of written testimony was introduced that was even more damaging to them than the verbal statements.

In addition, among the 151 people that Scientologists said were helped by Scientology, many were expert witnesses in science, physics, medicine, psychiatry, etc., who presented evidence, more often against than for Scientology. (The reader also should not get confused over the Scientologists' numbers. One hundred fifty-one witnesses gave testimony at the Australian Inquiry and this was explicitly stated in the report. The Scientologists seem to think it was 155, because they keep talking about the 151 witnesses for Scientology plus the four against it. Some of their other arguments against this Inquiry also suggest that those who are most outspoken against it, did not read it very carefully.)

Finally, the Scientologists also argue that the report is unfair because the psychiatrists who testified against Scientology were incapable of judging it inasmuch as they had never personally treated a Scientologist.(46) But Scientologists are not permitted to undergo psychiatric treatment,(47) so few psychiatrists would have had the opportunity to treat them. In addition, many of these psychiatrists read transcripts or descriptions of sessions so they had something to base their opinions on. (It appears that some may have also watched the sessions through a two-way mirror.) And finally, to say that psychiatric opinion on the merits of a certain type of treatment is worthless because the psychiatrists hadn't personally treated the person involved is not much different from saying that a ballistic expert cannot be called in a court trial because he didn't personally know the man who shot the gun.

One thing no one can argue about -- a lot of testimony was produced. Kevin Anderson, QC, now Justice Anderson of the Supreme Court of Victoria(48) spent 160 days listening to four million words totalling 8,921 pages of testimony,(49) or, as the Scientologists put it "not much shorter than the Nuremberg trials."(50) Some of this was condensed into a very-difficult-to-obtain (fortunately for the Scientologists) 201-page report, which makes repeated references to the depravity and perversions they claimed existed in the Scientology movement. (It also keeps promising that more information on this will be included in Appendix 19, and so the fingers eagerly fly to the back of the report only to discover with much sadness that there is no Appendix 19. It was not included because the various members of the government considered it to be "obscene."(51))

On the basis of the testimony, the report concluded that "Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents aresadly deluded and often mentally ill."

The Victorian Parliament accepted Anderson's conclusion that Scientology was the "world's largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy,"(52) and passed the 1965 "Psychological Practices Act." This Act, among other things, makes teaching Scientology, applying it, or even advertising it punishable by up to $500 and two years in jail.(53)

But Scientology seems to be making a comeback in Victoria right now(54) since they are holding "religious services" for approximately sixty-five people a week in an unmarked house that is said to contain a "chapel," along with the usual pictures of Hubbard, books by Hubbard, Scientology charts

-- and a small box in the entrance asking for donations for Scientology expansion.

Citations & Notes

{1) initial quote [248]

{2) Saint Hill [142]

{3) Road Safety Organizer [180]

{4) Hyde Park; radishes; plants [225]

{5) not a religion [239]

{6) quote on religion [239]

{7) "controlling the operation" [142]

{8) quote on writing books by Hubbard [186]

{9) soliciting children [274]

{10) Hubbard claimed only personal staff; quote on living longer and traffic [170] {11) clear town [214]

{12) children can't go out [214, 242]

{13) difficulties they had [214]

{14) Scientology calling homes [198]

{15) shoplifting and immorality [197]

{16) The Process [163, 219]

{17) The Process today [193]

{18) letters of complaints [153]

{19) Robinson refuses inquiry [233]

{20) (21) quote by Robinson [258]

{21) (20) Robinson acts [150, 258]

{22) statements against Robinson [57]

{23) banning foreigners; not a college [227, 224]

{24) quote by Gaiman [217 or 215, 236]

{25) Scientologists say enforcement of ban lax [224] {26) inquiry decision [259]

{27) "character assassination" [259]

{28) Australian harrassment [257]

{29) quote on nervous people [259]

{30) Scientology quote [57]

{31) Crossman quote [259]

{32) Scientology reply [57]

{33) conspiracy revealed [57]

{34) opening St. Hill [236]

{35) McMasters personal spokesman of Hubbard [75] {36) Robinson not coming [217a]

{37) promoting Dianetics [178]

{38) Dianetics & Doctors [64]

{39) (40) why not attending [261 ]

{40) (39) Hubbard not attending [204]

{41) witnesses connived [57]

{42) 4 hostile witnesses [54]

{43) 151 witnesses for it [54]

{44) psychiatry [128] {ambiguous citation)

{45) effective [54]

{46) psychiatrists didn't treat Scientologist [6]

(47)    can't go to psych. [120]

(48)    Justice Anderson [270]

(49)    amount of testimony [261 ]

(50)    Nuremberg trials [60]

(51)    Appendix 19 [243]

(52)    Anderson quote [261 ]

(53)    Psych. Prac. Act [282]

(54)    current comeback [245]

Extraneous citation notes:

(55)    fn Robinson threatens suit [183]

(56)    Scientology welcomes it [62]

(57)    allegations against attorney [262]

(58)    House of Commons additional debate [259]

(59)    quote by Hordern [257]

(60)    151 witnesses [261 ]

Chapter 9 Attacking the Attackers

People who live in tin houses shouldn't throw can openers. -- L. Ron Hubbard (1)

The Scientologists have not taken any of their attacks or setbacks lightly. Although the Church of Scientology creed states that "all men have the right to think freely, to write freely, their own opinions and to counter or utter or write about the opinions of others,"(2) in the past, this has not applied to anyone who wished to think, speak or write against Scientology.

Many newspapers and magazines in America, England and Australia which printed articles on Scientology ran into legal problems with the Scientologists, and in England it was estimated that fifty-eight writs had been issued by the Scientologists. Mr. Peter Hordern spoke out against this in Parliament in March of 1967, saying: "The public has been hampered in the knowledge of Scientology by the fact that so far as I can establish, on every occasion that the organization has been named by a newspaper, that newspaper has been served with a writ for libel."(3) In September of 1968, the Scientologists issued a writ of libel on him.(4)

Obviously this stifles freedom of the press, and the Scientologists have admitted that they will "sue at the slightest chance" to discourage the media from mentioning Scientology. Hubbard wrote:

We do not want Scientology to be reported in the press anywhere else but on the religion page of newspapers. It is destructive of word of mouth to permit the public press to express their biased and badly reported sensationalism. Therefore we should be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest chance so as to discourage the public press from mentioning Scientology.

Scientologists are quick to sue not only those who write against them, but also those who speak against them, and some of their suits have been contradictory and amusing. When Dr. Russell Barton (the British psychiatrist mentioned in the previous chapter), spoke out against them on a television program, he received a letter suing him for the statements he made "on February 31st." If the Scientologists had acted with less haste, perhaps they would have had time to remember that there are only twenty-eight days in February.

In another case, the Scientologists had several outstanding writs against some of the members of the East Grinstead Council, but approached them nonetheless for help in a housing development. In a third case, after serving a writ of libel in England on Geoffrey Johnson Smith, they asked Smith for "support and advice" about a housing estate they wanted to build in East Grinstead. This last case by the way, one of the few that Scientologists ever took to court, had some recent disastrous effects for the Scientologists. They lost this libel case on December 22, 1970, and were ordered to pay court costs that are estimated at close to $200,000.

The Scientologists' attitude toward litigation is in keeping with Hubbard's philosophy that "the DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK." Fortunately for the press, they have decided to start attacking other institutions, and they withdrew thirty-eight of their cases against newspapers in England in November of 1968, "in celebration of the fact that we now know who the enemy really is."{5)

Not that their suing policy is over. In fact, on September 30, 1970, it was reported in the New York Post that the Scientologists were suing Delacourt Publishers and author George Malko for a book they did on Scientology. (The Scientologists also announced that they had hired Melvin Belli, the famous flamboyant attorney who once unsuccessfully defended Jack Ruby, for their case.) But in addition to suing the press, they are now also suing psychiatric organizations, and they claim to have filed, or be about ready to file, over $75 million worth of law suits in that department.{6)

In addition to suing those who attack them, Scientologists have subjected their enemies to a campaign of vilification.{7) Members of Parliament who have spoken out against them have been accused by the Scientologists of bribery, corruption, and even "of following the order of a hidden foreign group that ... has as its purpose seizing any being whom they dislike or who will not agree and permanently disabling and killing them." And to support their suspicions about people who attack them, the Scientologists have hired detectives to investigate these people.

Hubbard wrote that since Scientology had found out the basic fundamentals of man and the universe, "How much easier then to find out the secrets or histories and motives of one person or group?"{8) In that same pamphlet, "Why People Fight Scientology," he also claims that they have "investigated thousands of such protesting persons."{9)

Lest an outsider get the wrong idea, Hubbard elsewhere assured them that Scientology was not a "law enforcement agency."{10) But, he added, they would become "interested in the crimes of people who seek to stop us. If you oppose Scientology we will promptly look up -- and will find and expose your crimes ... those who try to make life hard for us are at a risk."

One type of investigation Hubbard suggested was what he called "noisy investigations."{11) He wrote in 1966 that if someone gave Scientology trouble, "find out where he or she works or worked ... and phone 'em up and say 'I am investigating Mr./Mrs. for criminal activities and he/she has been trying to prevent man's freedom and is restraining my religious freedom and that of my friends and children, etc.' "

But it appears that the Scientologists' investigations are not confined to phone calls. They have made no attempt to hide the fact that they have hired detectives to investigate their "enemies." As early as 1955, they wrote in Ability, one of their newsletters, that they had hired a detective to investigate and "disclose any criminal past or connection" of the editor of a British Dianetic magazine.{12)

During the New Zealand Inquiry into Scientology, it was also revealed that the Scientologists had placed an ad for an investigator in one of the local papers.{13) The man who answered the ad later told the Inquiry that he was told his job would be to check on people in New Zealand and Australia to see whether they had criminal convictions, debts or troubles. He claimed he was also asked whether he had any objections to investigating lawyers, medical men or people in government circles.

The Scientologists also allegedly put an ad in the Daily Telegraph for investigators, and were prepared to hire three of them for about $80 a week plus the use of a car. One man who answered the ad, Vic Filson, an experienced private detective, told the newspaper that he was first interviewed by being made to take an E-meter test, during which time they repeatedly asked him, "Who sent you here to spy on us?" Later, when they were apparently satisfied with him, he was allegedly told that his job was to investigate the activities of English psychiatrists and prepare a dossier on each.

The memo, which was reprinted in People, a British paper, read: "We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one.... This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them." Filson was also told that his first job was to investigate Lord Balniel, then Chairman of the National Association of Mental Health -- and one of the men who had asked Kenneth Robinson to investigate Scientology.(14)

The reason the Scientologists may have investigated those who have spoken out against them is that they firmly believe that those who attack Scientology are committing crimes themselves, which they are afraid the Scientologists will discover. Hubbard said that if someone called Scientology a "cult" or a "hoax," what they were really saying is "please please please don't find me out."(15)

Hubbard also said that if someone urged a Scientologist to leave the group or told him not to study Scientology "it should be answered by no praise of Scientology but by asking 'What have you done?' and demanding that the protesting person go to the nearest [Scientology] center for a case assessment."(16)

Hubbard suggested one simple, perhaps simplistic way to uncover a person's crime with the following sample dialogue:

George: Gwen, if you don't drop Scientology I'm going to leave you.

Gwen: (savagely) George, what have you been doing?

George: What do you mean?

Gwen: Out with it. Women? Theft? Murder? What crimes have you committed?

George: (weakly) Oh, nothing like that.

Gwen: What then?

George: I've been holding back on my pay.(17)

Sometimes the "crimes" are less innocent than that. Hubbard wrote:

Politician A stands up on his hind legs in Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over we find crimes -- embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys -sordid stuff.

Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up and find she had a baby he didn't know about.(18)

Another reason Hubbard believes that people attack Scientology (in addition to hiding their own crimes), is because Scientology is honest, aboveboard and works. In what must surely be the strangest reasoning ever, Hubbard wrote: "If Scientology was fraudulent, if it had vast but covert plans, if it did not work, it would not be fought."(19)

Finally, Hubbard hinted that harm would come to those who fought Scientology -- although, of course Scientology would not in any way contribute to their disasters. Hubbard wrote that "no serious harm came to any principal or good person in Dianetics or Scientology." But on the other hand, "without any action being taken against them, of twenty-one highly placed attackers, seventeen are now dead."{20)

If this seems hard to believe, the way in which people who are against Scientology will suffer is even harder to accept. Hubbard wrote:

I once told a bill collector what and who we were and that he had wronged a good person and a half hour later he threw a hundred grains of veronal down his throat and was lugged off to hospital, a suicide.{21)

Citations & Notes

{1) initial quote [223]

{2) Scientology creed [63, etc.]

{3) quote by Hordern [257]

{4) Hordern sued [230]

{5) dropped suits [231 ]

{6) suing psychiatrists [57]

{7) vilifying people [257]

{8) quote by Hubbard on finding out secrets [26] {ambiguous citation)

{9) investigating thousands [26]

{10) quote on not law enforcement agency [49]

{11) noisy investigations [22]

{12) British investigations [31 ]

{13) N.Z. investigator [262]

{14) Filson investigator; memo, etc. [203]

{15) someone calling Scientology a hoax [26]

{16) someone trying to get another to leave Scientology [26]

{17) dialogue between George and Gwen [224]

{18) politican & wife crimes [49]

{19) if Scientology were fraudulent quote by Hubbard [26] {20) 17 out of 21 dead [26]

{21) death of bill collector [80]

Chapter 10 The Suppressives

People don't deserve to have Scientology as a divine right, you know. They have to earn it. -- L. Ron Hubbard{1}

Even worse than what happens to an outsider who tries to attack Scientology is what happens to a Scientologist who turns against or displeases the group. They too may be investigated, although in that case the investigation is quite simple. The Scientologists can go right to the preclear's file and his intimate secrets and confessions are all there.{2) Furthermore, Hubbard made it clear that he wanted these secrets. "If anyone feels like leaving," wrote Hubbard "just examine the records and sit down and list everything done to and withheld from me and the organization and send it along. We'll save a lot of people that way."{3)

In a Policy Letter of April 19, 1965, Hubbard also laid down similar guidelines. "Any preclear blowing an Org [getting up and leaving] without reporting to the [Technical] [Secretary], [Director] of [Processing] and the Ethics section first, and who will not permit an auditor to handle the matter at the Org where the auditing occurred, must be fully investigated by the Ethics section at any cost."{4)

The following is a letter Hubbard wrote to the Secretary of the Melbourne Australia headquarters about a boy who apparently "blew an Org" i.e. left, or did something equally heinous:

Horner blew up in our faces and had his cert[ificate]s canceled. We have criminal background on him. Rape of a girl pc [preclear] in Dallas and countless others. This will do something to [name omitted]. Now I firmly believe you will be able to find a criminal background this life on [two more Australian Scientologists] as no such occurrence anywhere in the world has failed to find one. I'd grab him when he comes in and security check it in to view. Run one on [two names out]. If they won't cooperate you have suspected criminal activities. It's a thrupenny push now. Horner ... possibly Nibs -- all tie in to a neat network. We're pulling it apart.{5)

This same Horner, the one who allegedly raped a preclear, was once such a dedicated Scientologist that he wrote a book on the subject, and in it referred to Hubbard as "one of the great geniuses of the Twentieth Century" whose "discoveries will make possible a new era of living for man." In addition, the man referred to above as "Nibs" -- whom Hubbard apparently saw as part of this "conspiracy" or whatever -- is the nickname for L. Ron Hubbard Jr., Hubbard's own son, who was a Scientologist until he quit in 1959.

The Australian Inquiry which reprinted that letter, also had a few comments on the veracity of the statements:

It is now said that accusations against Horner of "criminal background" and "of the rape of a girl pc in Dallas and countless others" were unfounded.... Subsequently ... Horner returned to the fold and when last heard of was a leading over-seas Scientologist who probably would be extremely surprised to know of his "criminal background" so irresponsibly publicized by Hubbard. There was no justification for the [other] accusations.... Hubbard was merely irresponsibly asserting, as was his practice, that anyone out of line with Scientology had a criminal or communist or homosexual background.{6)

It appears that few other Scientologists have gotten out of it or spoken against their group though, perhaps because one of the Scientology codes stated that no member was permitted to speak disparagingly of Scientology to outsiders or members of the press.(7) This seems to work both ways, and in addition to not speaking against Scientology, Scientologists rarely listen to arguments against it either, and have little opportunity to hear both sides of the story.

In fact, Hubbard told them never to discuss Scientology with a critic. "Just discuss his or her crimes, known or unknown. And act completely confident that these crimes exist. Because they do."(8) As a concomitant to this, Scientologists rarely participate in panel discussions, perhaps because of their aversion to confrontation with critics, but also because Hubbard wrote them "why ... give some other subjects an audience before which it could air its views?"(9)

Most Scientologists are anxious to adhere to this code and not speak against Scientology, so much so that when one alleged Scientologist committed suicide in England, he left a note saying his suicide had nothing to do with Scientology or with his being a member of the group.(10) (Later on, another case will be presented of someone who wanted to commit suicide, but was afraid that if he did so it would "invalidate Scientology.")

But in the past, if a Scientologist did decide to say something against Scientology, perhaps to publicly disavow it or report or threaten to report it to civil authorities,(11) he was immediately declared a "suppressive person" and sometimes an "enemy of Scientology."(12) A "suppressive person" was immediately dropped from Scientology and no Scientologist in the world was permitted to associate with him.

Perhaps this doesn't seem like much of a punishment to the reader, but remember that the Scientologist has often withdrawn from his former friends and family and spends his time mainly with Scientologists. He may not have a job to go to since he may have left his job to work for the Org, and he may have divorced his former spouse and remarried someone in the group -- none of the people can have anything to do with him.)

At various times the Scientologists have treated suppressives in an even worse manner. In 1965 they wrote that the "homes, properties, places and abodes of persons who have been active in attempting to suppress Scientology or Scientologists are all beyond any protection or Scientology ethics."(13) In an earlier code it said "I pledge myself to punish to the fullest extent of my power anyone misusing or degrading Scientology to harmful ends."(14) At one time an enemy of Scientology was defined as someone who could be "deprived of property or injured by any means by a Scientologist ... may be tricked, sued, lied to or destroyed."(15)

Anyone who was "connected" to a suppressive, in other words, anyone who knows him, no matter how vaguely, was "reviewed" -- and had to pay for this review.(16) If it came out that he was indeed "connected," this friend or acquaintance was declared a "Potential Trouble Source" (P.T.S.), and also could not receive Scientology processing until he "handled" (in other words, persuaded) the errant person to make amends, or "disconnected" from that person, meaning that he too could have nothing more to do with the suppressive, even if it was his spouse, lover, child, parent, etc.(17)

The P.T.S. also had to publish the fact in one of the Scientology publications,(18) and then take "any required civil action such as disavowal, separation or divorce."(19) Since the P.T.S. was not permitted to talk to the suppressive, he usually disconnected by sending him a letter,(20) usually on little scraps of paper and sometimes signed off with "love," stating that he could no longer have anything to do with the suppressive, and implying or stating that the suppressive reconsider and reform himself{21) -- which meant taking more Scientology courses.{22) If the P.T.S refused to "disconnect" from the suppressive, he was charged with "high crimes" and became a "suppressive person" and outcast also.{23)

A person did not have to be a Scientologist to be suppressive. In the New York Org the night watchman was said to have been declared suppressive for misdeeds that ranged from stealing from the petty cash box to saying that Scientology didn't work.{24) Nor does the suppressive have to be an adult. One ten-year-old boy was declared a suppressive -- because he refused to "disconnect" from his father.{25)

Another Scientology "suppressive," now an outspoken critic of the group, called Scientology "the beginnings of a Nazi party" in court, during an American tax case. Mr. Raymond J. D. Buckingham, a very accomplished English basso who administers a voice school in Manhattan, initially got into Scientology through one of his pupils. She agreed to give him $30 worth of processing in return for an equal amount in voice lessons.

At first he was so impressed with Scientology that he convinced several of his students, along with his fiance to undergo auditing. But he began to get disillusioned when he discovered that his auditor was revealing personal information about him to a friend of hers, and worse still that his fiancee's auditor (a Reverend) was propositioning her.

When he complained about the situation to the Scientologists, however, they said they would speak to him about it only if he would agree to pay them $25 for the first session of "advice." He agreed, but they then said they wouldn't talk to him unless he "disconnected" from a business partner. It seemed that the Scientologists had also labeled the partner a "suppressive person" because he was connected to a suppressive.

Buckingham then had the incredible courage to speak against Scientology on a radio show, and the Scientologists countered by declaring him a "suppressive person, outside their protection," and "fair game." Those of his students who had become Scientologists (at his recommendation) were ordered to "disconnect" from him -- and also from any money they legally owed him. (This represented a loss of about $200 a week for him.)

One of his students, a famous singer, in whom he had invested almost $30,000 as her agent, told him that she had learned in her auditing sessions that "you killed me in my past fifteen lives." Then she not only disconnected from him, but also from the arrangements he had made for her to perform in summer stock theatres. The loss almost ruined him, and her as well, since she was fined by Actors' Equity and left the country.

During this time, he was also receiving phone calls in the middle of the night from men and women threatening to kill him. And his fiance, who at first didn't leave Scientology and join him, was held in a room at the Org for four hours until she agreed to sign a statement saying that Buckingham had threatened to kill her. The story does have a happy ending. Three in fact. Mr. Buckingham and his fiance eventually did get married. The ten-year-old child who was declared suppressive four years ago is now one of Mr. Buckingham's voice students. And all three have left Scientology. (Scientology, however has not left them, and they still receive mail urging them to "step into the exciting world of the totally free."){26)

Two other stories of Scientologists who left the group did not have such happy endings. In the first case, the Director of the Scientology Institute in Bulawayo, Africa, a man named John Kennedy, was said to be responsible for the success of Scientology in Rhodesia.(27) Naturally Hubbard was pleased with him, and in an early issue of Ability, he wrote that Kennedy and his wife "both knew which side of the E-meter is up, they respect you, they are Scientologists, they have goals."(28)

Unbeknownst to Hubbard, one of their goals was leaving Scientology and setting up a similar organization called the Institute of Mental Health. They set up headquarters in Johannesburg, and brought in a large number of Scientologists with them, naturally infuriating the other Scientologists. Kennedy died shortly thereafter in a shooting accident. "It is said he shot himself accidentally while cleaning his revolver" stated the Daily Mail on July 14, 1968, "but an open verdict was returned by the coroner."

Another case of someone who displeased the Scientologists is shrouded in mystery and will probably always remain so. According to the London Observer,(29) James Stewart, a thirty-five-year-old encyclopedia salesman from South Africa was suspended from Scientology because the Scientologists allegedly said he had a "history of epilepsy and as such was refused permission to continue Scientology training."(30) Robert Kaufman, a former Scientologist (whose own story will be presented later) was at the Edinburgh Org at the same time as Stewart and reported some things that happened that were not printed in the newspaper.

He believes the Scientologists placed Stewart's[*] name on the bulletin board and put him in a "condition of doubt" for having seizures or fits in public and thereby "invalidating Scientology." Kaufman was horrified that someone would be punished for a physical ailment over which he had no control, especially since the "doubt penalty" meant this ill man would have had to work at menial chores for eighty hours straight without sleep.

A few days after the man was placed in "doubt," Kaufman was even more upset to see the man's funeral and cremation notice posted on the bulletin board. A short while later -- Kaufman believes it was the afternoon he saw the funeral notice -- Kaufman was more shaken when it was announced that the deceased's wife had just gone up another (very high) level in Scientology. Kaufman's suspicion that the eighty-hour penalty was connected to this man's death was heightened when he returned home and one of his Scientology instructors told Kaufman that he had heard that the man hadn't really died at all and that it had all been a mistake.

[*] Footnote:

Kaufman is not 100 percent certain of the man's name but believes that it was Stewart. Stewart and Kaufman were in the same Org at the same time. In addition, it certainly seems that the man whose name Kaufman saw on the bulletin board was Stewart, because it would be extremely unlikely that two men in the Edinburgh Org at the same time, with their wives, were both suffering from seizures, and both died at the same time.

That's not what the London Observer said. They reported that Stewart was found dead fifty feet below a window, and that it was not a suicide, because the story of his death had been printed in the public press in Scotland where they do not print names of suicides, but rather incorporate them into the statistics of the annals of the Chief Constables. According to The Observer, Stewart's wife said she did not know how her husband's death occurred, "but she did know that it had nothing to do with Scientology."

Not many Scientologists leave the group voluntarily. Most of them firmly believe in Scientology and believe that it is helping them. But someone who is growing a bit disenchanted may think twice before quitting. Any Scientologist who has ever been thoroughly audited has revealed a great deal of intimate information about himself to an auditor whose qualifications and ethical standards could be subject to some question.

The Rand Daily Mail in Africa reported that an auditor told the South African Inquiry that he was criticized because he kept the files on his patients "clean." The same auditor also told the Inquiry that the Scientologists wanted him to jot down the more "meaty" stuff people disclosed. He told the Inquiry that when he left Scientology, he removed his files for fear of blackmail, adding that he had often seen preclear's files with information circled, and with such statements as "we can use this" printed on it. {31)

Perhaps it is not surprising that he was afraid of blackmail. Not only is intimate information kept in files, but the contents of the files are sometimes discussed among Scientologists. At one time, these files were even accidentally accessible to outsiders.{32) A former Scientologist, photographer Michael Chassid, said they were once kept in an unlocked area in back of the secretary's office in New York;{33) in Washington, Hubbard's son said "it wasn't difficult for anyone of the Founding Church to gain access to these files;"{34) and in England, the Scientologists were so careless with their records that personal files and documents concerning two Scientology P.T.S.'s were allegedly found in a garbage dump, read by a workman, and brought to the Sun, who reported the story.{35)

The Board in Australia stated that Hubbard himself was "not to be trusted to preserve confidences." They cited the case of a preclear who was trying desperately to get back in Hubbard's good graces after he had been kicked out of the group. In the hopes of a pardon, he abased himself by writing a letter to Hubbard in which he confessed to a number of sins, which "range[d] from the stealing of five shillings from the mantel piece when he was six years old to very disgusting and depraved behavior in adult life." The Scientologists produced this letter at the Australian Inquiry in an attempt to discredit this witness, and felt that they were justified in doing so because the confession was not made during an auditing session.{36)

In Australia, Anderson said, he found "no evidence of blackmail in the popular sense" but added that the existence of these files "containing the most intimate secrets and confessions" of thousands of individuals was a "constant threat." He added that it was "even more serious because copies of these reports are also held at Saint Hill Manor."{37)

There is no known case of any Scientologist actually having been blackmailed (although someone being blackmailed would not be very likely to admit it). But another question to consider, in addition to whether a person is being blackmailed, is whether he thinks he might be.

If a Scientologist was wondering whether or not to leave the group and he heard his auditor discussing his case with a friend, as happened to Ray Buckingham,{38) or he had been criticized for not recording "meaty" stuff, and saw files ringed "we can use this," as in the case of the South African witness,{39) or if he knew that Hubbard had requested files of people who wanted to leave{40) and had said to "investigate at any cost" someone who had left,{41) or if he knew that his files were easily accessible and that they could be brought out and openly discussed at any time,{42) wouldn't he think that he might be blackmailed and hesitate to leave Scientology?

Hubbard may even want preclears to think that their secrets might at some time be revealed. It is hard to interpret his statement below, which he wrote in Why People Fight Scientology, in any other way. After ambiguously stating that the E-meter can be used "in other ways than mental health," he wrote:

Every professional Scientologist is bound by his "Code of the Scientologist" which is more strict by far than the codes binding medical doctors and psychiatrists. Clause Nine of this Code is "to refuse to impart the personal secrets of my preclears." Anyone's secrets are safe with Scientology until the person himself no longer considers the matter important.(43) (Author's Italics)

A fear of blackmail can keep a Scientologist as tied and subservient to Scientology as actual blackmail -- perhaps more so. When someone knows that there is a great deal of personal information that could be revealed and he is led to believe that it might be revealed, even though no overt threat has been made or payment requested, he must simply sit and wait and wonder.

Citations & Notes

(1)    initial quote [95]

(2)    go to files of people who leave [255]

(3)    quote on send files [80]

(4)    tries to leave [96]

(5)    Letter about Horner [261 ]

(6)    Australian comment to letter [261 ]

(7)    Scientologist can't disparage Scientology [11, 12, 262]

(8)    don't discusss Scientology with critic [26]

(9)    panel discussions [29]

(10)    Scientologist who committed suicide [229]

(11)    disavow or report Scientology [104]

(12)    become suppressive [104, 255, 261 ]

(13)    (43) homes of suppressives aren't safe [99]

(14)    (44) punish someone misusing Scientology [29, 200]

(15)    (42) enemy may be injured or tricked [194]

(16)    (13) pay for review [255]

(17)    (14) PTS [104, 255]

(18)

(15

publish fact [99]

(19)

(16

take civil action [99]

(20)

(17

disconnect letters [262, 178]

(21)

(18

suggest reform [255]

(22)

(19

sign up for more courses [255]

(23)

(20)

PTS can't be processed [99]

(24)

(21

night watchman [277]

(25)

(22)

10-year-old boy [277]

(26)

(23)

story of Ray Buckingham [255, 277]

(27)

(24)

story of John Kennedy [175]

(28)

(25)

Hubbard comment on Kennedy [46]

(29)

(26)

James Stewart [199]

(30)

(27)

epileptics permitted [277]

(31)

(28)

auditor kept files clean; fear of blackmail; files ringed [247]

(32)

(29)

files brought out [255]

(33)

(30)

files in New York [177]

(34)

(31

files in Washington [255]

(35)

(32)

files in garbage dump [207]

(36)

(33)

Hubbard revealing letter [261 ]

(37)

(34)

no blackmail in Australia and quote [261 ]

(38)

(35)

discussing cases [255]

(39)

(36)

files ringed [247]

(40)

(37)

Hubbard wants info [80]

(41)

(38)

investigate those who leave [96, 255]

(42)

(39)

files accessible [177, 255, 207]

{43) (40) Hubbard quote on revealing (author's italics) secrets [26] Extraneous citation notes:

{44) (41) on suicide [229]

Chapter 11 The Sexual and Criminal Security Check

They keep after you, asking the same question over and over again until you tell them what they want to hear. You can't keep back anything. Later you realize you've spilled all kinds of secrets to an almost total stranger whose character or integrity you know nothing whatever about.

-- quote from someone who took the security check

(reprinted by Howard and Arlene Eisenberg in June '69 Parents){1)

Several aspects of the auditing session make it easy for a preclear to reveal more to his auditor than he may have intended. The preclear is under the control of the auditor, he is being asked certain questions repeatedly and relentlessly, and he is holding onto a machine that he believes works like a lie detector. Thus, it is not surprising if the preclear loses control of some of his normal defenses.{2)

But in addition to the information preclears "voluntarily" reveal under such circumstances, Scientologists may fear blackmail because many have revealed extremely intimate information about themselves and their sexual habits during a so-called "security check." Here, it is not a matter of losing control -- they must answer these questions or they can be kicked out of Scientology. This security check has been given routinely before the second level of auditing,{3) and at various other times when difficulties have arisen -- such as when a person wants his money back and wants to leave the group.{4)

The security check was conducted by having the preclear hold on to the E-meter while his interrogator or auditor established whether the meter was working correctly, and how the person responded to it:

Are you on the moon?

Am I an ostrich?

Have you ever drunk water?

Is this a security check?{5) {6)

The questions then fell into three general categories, although they were presented somewhat randomly: criminal acts, crimes against Scientology, and sexual deeds or misdeeds. A few of the questions were designed to make people confess their more altruistic goals, such as "How could you help the Org?" "Others?" "How could you help mankind?"

But these constituted less than five percent of the test, and most of the other questions fell into the category of one of the other questions, namely, "Have you ever done anything your mother would be ashamed to find out?"

The criminal questions constituted the largest portion of the test, and the person had to reveal whether he had ever stolen, looted, burglarized, shoplifted, forged, embezzled, falsified books, entered a country illegally, been in prison, had a police record, been accused of reckless driving or hit and run, told lies in court, been paid to give evidence, committed arson, been a drug addict, peddled dope, committed culpable homicide, planted a bomb, murdered, hidden a body, attempted suicide, caused a suicide, kidnapped anyone, smuggled anything, acted as an informer, betrayed someone for money, speculated with somebody else's funds, threatened anyone with a firearm or been in illegal possession of one, plotted to destroy a member of his family, crippled a person, committed a misdemeanor, a felony or a capital offense, criminally avoided taxes, counterfeited money, fraudulently altered or issued certificates or documents, and been insane or had any insanity in his family. There were also questions about military records, such as whether or not the person had ever stolen from the armed forces, been court martialed, deserted from military service, illegally prevented conscription, or been a mutineer.

There were several questions to determine whether a person was secretly working for another group, such as the Communist Party or a group considered to be hostile to Scientology, such as the press. They asked the person whether he had ever lived or worked under an assumed name, given his right name in Scientology, been a newspaper reporter, a spy for the police, a spy for an organization, divulged government secrets for pay or political reasons, had anything to do with communism or been a communist. He was also asked whether he felt communism had some good points, whether he had ever been a member of any group with "ideals" similar to those of the Communist party, and whether he knew any communists personally.

There were about twenty-five questions solely concerned with their feelings about Scientology, Hubbard, and Mary Sue, Hubbard's current wife. Some of these questions were rather amusing:

Do you think selling auditing is really a swindle?

Do you feel that auditing is too good for psychotics or criminals?

Is there anything mysterious to you about an E-meter?

Have you ever mistrusted your E-meter?

Do you think there's anything wrong with invading a preclear's privacy?

Do you plan to steal an Org?

Have you ever injured Dianetics or Scientology?

Have you ever written then destroyed critical messages to L. Ron Hubbard? Have you ever had sex with any other student or staff member?

Are you trying to get another student or staff member to have sex with you? Have you ever stolen anything from a Scientology organization?

Do you have anything in your possession that you shouldn't have?

Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?

Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about Mary Sue Hubbard?

Have you permitted a preclear to have secrets from you?

Do you regard auditing as punishment?

Are you coming on this course with the intention of killing off your body, with the intention of spinning or going insane?

Have you ever used Dianetics or Scientology to force sex on someone?

As for the sexual questions, while the following list of activities at first glance would seem to cover the entire gamut of "sins," conspicuous in their absence are any questions about oral-genital or sadomasochistic activities -- and -- in an organization consisting of a large number of young single people -- fornication.

How do you feel about sex?

Have you ever raped anyone?

Have you ever been raped?

Have you ever been involved in an abortion?

Have you ever assisted in an abortion?

Have you ever committed bigamy?

Have you ever practiced cannibalism?

Have you ever practiced homosexuality?

Have you ever practiced or assisted intercourse between women?

Have you ever had intercourse with a member of your family?

Have you ever been sexually unfaithful?

Have you ever committed adultery?

Have you ever practiced sex with animals?

Have you ever killed or crippled animals for pleasure?

Have you ever exhibited yourself in public?

Have you ever hidden to watch sexual practices?

Have you ever practiced sodomy?

Do you collect sexual objects?

Have you ever had anything to do with pornography?

Have you ever taken money for giving anyone sexual intercourse?

Have you practiced sex with children?

Have you ever used hypnotism to procure sex or money?

Have you ever used hypnotism to practice sex with children?

Have you ever been a prostitute?

Have you ever slept with a member of a race of another color?

Have you ever been a voyeur?

Have you ever had intercourse after placing another under alcohol or drugs?

Have you ever coerced a servant?

Do you have any bastards?

Have you ever had anything to do with a baby farm?

Have you ever masturbated?

There were also questions designed to find out if there was anything not included in the security test:

Are you guilty of something?

Do you have a secret you're afraid I'll find out?

What questions on this check shouldn't I ask you again?

Have you done anything your mother would be ashamed to find out?

And finally, there were also questions about how they felt about the security check:

Are you upset about this security check?

How do you feel about these questions?

Are my questions embarrassing?

Is there any question the Director of Processing or L. Ron Hubbard should have asked and hasn't?

What unkind thoughts have you thought while I was doing this check?

If all this seems rather traumatic, however, some of the questions provided unintentional comic relief:

Have you ever coughed ... during [Scientology] lectures?

Are you in communication with someone who understands more about Scientology than does L. Ron Hubbard?

Have you ever tried to act normal?

The Security Test began by having the auditor read the following to the preclear:

We are about to begin a security check. We are not moralists. We are able to change people. We are not here to condemn them. While we cannot guarantee you that matters revealed in this check will be held forever secret, we can promise you faithfully that no part of it nor any answer you make here will be given to the police or state. No Scientologist will ever bear witness against you in court by reason of answers to this security check. This security check is exclusively for Scientology purposes. The only ways you can fail this security check are to refuse to take the test, to fail to answer its questions truthfully or if you are here knowingly to injure Scientology. The only penalty attached to failure of this check is processing or our refusal to employ you or issue you a certificate, and this will happen only if we find that you are trying knowingly to injure Scientology. You can pass this test by 1) agreeing to take it, 2) answering each question truthfully, and 3) not being a member of a subversive group seeking to injure Scientology. [Later it stated that the person would flunk the test if they refused to take it or if "any compromising or important question" got a suspicious reaction from the E-meter after being asked repeatedly.]

While it's true that the auditor told the preclear that they "cannot guarantee ... that all matters revealed in this test will be held forever secret," there was something that they didn't read to him. On this security check there was a statement by Hubbard which said, "All security check sheets of persons security checked should be forwarded to Saint Hill, complete with all markings and the reason why the question would not at first clear if important, or the drop mark which would not clear and whether or not the person passed or failed."{7) (Italics Hubbard) Thus, few preclears have realized that their most intimate secrets were being sent to the main Scientology headquarters in England -- which can be compared to a priest's sending copies of confessions -- with names -- to the Vatican.

The person undergoing this test also had to pay for it, and in one case it took twenty-three hours,{8) because no matter how much the person may have insisted he was telling all, in Scientology the E-meter is always considered to be infallible. Hubbard even told the auditors to have a "thorough swinish suspicion and no belief in mankind or the devil -- only the meter."

Reading the E-meter could be difficult though, since it can react in a number of ways, which Hubbard called a "Theta Bop" (dancing needle) "Rock Slam" (irregular motion) etc. But Hubbard said a fall in the needle always meant "Oh! Oh! He got me!"

Thus, for example, if a preclear denied that he had ever practiced cannibalism and the needle fell, the checker had to repeat the question in a variety of ways until the person admitted that he had.{9) But what if the person honestly hadn't practiced cannibalism, never thought about it, never planned to, and the meter just kept falling anyway? Rather than consider the machine wrong, they would try to determine whether the preclear ever practiced cannibalism in one of his past lives.(10)

One of the things the Scientologists did to improve their image was to announce on November 29, 1968, that they had canceled the security test "as a form of confession," along with ending the "disconnect" policy "as a relief to those suffering from familial repression." "Suppressives" apparently still exist, but are now supposed to be dealt with by "handling" or persuasion, rather than "disconnecting" or ostracism.(11)

This is certainly a hopeful sign and may indicate a general change in their policy. It would be unwise to be optimistic too early, however, since in the past, Scientologists have dropped unpopular policies and then resumed them later. For example, they have periodically granted amnesty to all suppressives, once, in celebration of John McMasters' becoming "clear"; once for Hubbard's birthday,(12) etc. But later, they simply declared new people suppressive and resumed their policy. In fact, Ray Buckingham, the "suppressive" voice teacher, was once granted amnesty -provided he took about $200 worth of Scientology courses.(13)

The Australian report also discussed the Scientologists' tendency to change their policies or state that things were no longer in effect.

The Board was told that various procedures were not now used, that others were not as long or as intense as had earlier appeared ... even that the demonstration sessions which had been conducted at the beginning of the Inquiry were not now as fully representative as they had been.... The Board was not deceived by these attempts to present a watered-down picture of Scientology. Just around the corner are more of Hubbard's "breakthroughs" and more techniques and theories ... once this inquiry is finished there will be a resurgence of all the pernicious activity which marked the progress of Scientology up to the appointment of the Board, if only it can find sufficient victims to exploit.(14)

Hopefully the Australian Report will be wrong.

Citations & Notes

(1)    initial quote [141a]

(2)    lose normal defenses [138]

(3)    Sec. test level 2 [255]

(4)    wanting money back [86a]

(5)    sec test questions [25 (majority)]

(6)    a few sec test questions [85, 86] {7) instructions quote on security; how they flunk; answers sent to Hubbard [25]

{8) 23 hours [187]

{9) Hubbard quote on believe meter; theta bop; rock slam; meaning of fall; questions posed in different ways [7]

{10) crimes in past lives [7, 25, 255]

{11) canceled sec test for amnesty [100]

{12) canceled for birthday [90]

{13) Buckingham amnesty [255, 277]

{14) Australian quote [261 ]

Extraneous citation notes:

{15) special sec test [48]

Chapter 12 The World of Scientology

Suzie saw the pc well into the PT and practically collapsed on the missed W/H.

-- bulletin by Hubbard explaining what he and his family were currently doing.{1} (What this seems to mean is 1) Suzie is Hubbard's wife and sometimes acts as his auditor. 2) pc is preclear or someone being audited; in this case it may have been Hubbard. 3) PT means present time or current problem. 4) Missed W/H means missed withholds or something the person hasn't disclosed to his auditor.)(2)

It may seem by now that Scientology is filled with followers who dare not speak out against it and are being held at the Orgs against their will. While the first may be true, the second is definitely not. Although Scientologists are not permitted to speak against Scientology, most of them don't want to, because they truly and unquestionably believe in Scientology's principles and practices, and sincerely want to stay there and be a part of it.

In fact, it is because of this unquestioning dedication that they react so strongly against those who try to turn or speak against them. Most Scientologists are perfectly content to work for the Org, be audited or audit others, "disconnect" or divorce themselves, if necessary, from their "suppressive" spouses or parents, remarry other Scientologists, and bring their own children into the group.

The result is that the Scientologists have formed a little world of their own, a world that seems removed from the real one. From the moment you walk into an Org, it hits you like heat on a hot summer day.

L. Ron Hubbard, or "Ron," is the unquestionable leader of this world and some of his Orgs are said to have an office for him just in case he should drop by. Although he never does, his presence is felt, seen and heard nonetheless. In one room, Scientologists may be listening to tapes of him speaking on Scientology, in the next room others may be doing their homework (which often consists of reading one of his books and sometimes writing a synopsis on it), and elsewhere, newcomers may be watching a movie about him. Huge posters of his face hang from the walls, statues of him rise from the floor, and photographs abound, sometimes of Hubbard in a nautical outfit with one of his ships as a background.

The world of Scientology not only has its own leader, but also its own language, look, and behavior. This language is so specialized that Scientologists have had to print a special dictionary to translate all their words, some of which are neologistic combinations of science, science fiction and mumbo-jumbo (enturbulation, engrams, enmest, dub-ins, entheta, rock-slams, Boo-Hoo, etc.), along with so many abbreviations (itsa = it is a; uncon = unconscious), and acronyms (PTS, PABS, LRH, SP, WOG, MeST, PC, HCO-WW, etc.) that most Scientologists sound as if they're eating a metaphysical alphabet soup.(3)

In addition to their own language, Scientologists have their own look and behavior that enables a trained Scientology spotter to discern one easily. The giveaways are their eyes. Scientologists are trained to stare relentlessly in to the eyes of others and acknowledge everything said to them (Thank you, OK, beautiful) in a way that can sometimes be unnerving.

Sexual behavior in this world is also said to be different, and Hubbard has admitted that some of the Orgs have had sex problems.{4) The London Sunday Times quoted him as saying "I know of four Orgs in all our years that have collapsed or nearly collapsed. And each one was sex crazy." The Australian Inquiry investigated these sexual attitudes and found that some Scientologists believed it was all right to seduce, say, a fifteen-year-old-girl, because a thetan has had many sexual activities, and furthermore she was really over seventy trillion plus fifteen years old (and obviously past the age of consent).

The Inquiry also reported that Scientologists' casual attitude toward sex was apparent in the case of one Scientologist who read his wife's Scientology files in the course of office routing and discovered she was having an affair, either real or fantasied, with another Scientologist. He simply endorsed the files of his wife "lacks morals."

The Board was also disturbed to find that abortions were "almost a regular coffee break topic" at the Australian Org, and they attributed this to Hubbard's constant mention of abortions in his writings. The Board also claimed to have found evidence that many of the staff, both married and unmarried had undergone abortions, but since this report was written in 1965 when attitudes toward such matters were less liberal, its importance today is questionable.^

In addition to their own language, look and morality, the Scientology world has its own definition of crime and punishment, with certain acts labelled as "misdemeanors" (e.g., refusing an E-meter check), "crimes" (e.g., heckling a Scientology supervisor) and "high crimes" (e.g., yielding a Scientologist to the demands of civil or criminal law).{6)

Scientologists must obey an enormous number of rules, some of which are outlined for them in HCO (Hubbard Communications Office) orders, which are usually posted on the bulletin boards.

On a bulletin board in England, one HCO order read: "To all Staff. Subject: B.O. All staffers are to wear a deodorant." Another prohibited all Scientologists from seeing the movie 2001 -- A Space Odyssey because it "produces heavy and unnecessary restimulation" (in other words, it will perhaps remind them of their past lives when many of them believed they lived in outer space).

A third HCO order declared a person "suppressive" for likening the Sea Org to the Hitler regime. A last one concerned someone who was "unshaven and scruffy on public lines." For this, he was not only fined by the Scientologists and ordered to buy a $50 suit and have his hair fixed, but was also told to take and pay for certain Scientology courses.{7) Sometimes the notices are a bit lighter. One person once posted a notice on the bulletin board to tell the others how great he felt the moment he had paid his Scientology bill!{8)

Punishment for infractions of the Scientology rules depends on the crime, but it sometimes seems well out of proportion. While some of the punishments may perhaps have some educational value, like writing additional words or adding case studies to their thesis{9) or even making them undergo additional auditing,{10) other punishments seem to be merely humiliating. Scientologists may be made to perform menial work, deliver a "paralysing blow to the enemy," admit their errors, and petition every other Scientologist in the Org for forgiveness.{11)

Other punishments are even worse: a person may be declared "nonexistent," and may not be allowed to bathe, wear makeup, go to their hairdresser, shave, take lunch hour, leave the premises. A person may be put into a "condition of liability" and be confined to the premises with a dirty grey rag on his left arm. For a greater infraction a person may be put into a "condition of doubt" and confined or barred with a handcuff on one wrist. A person may be declared an "enemy" and restrained or imprisoned,(12) have the label of "Treason" attached to his records, and be turned over to civil authorities with his "full background to be explored for the purposes of prosecution."(13)

Alexander Mitchell, who writes consistently interesting articles on Scientology for the London Sunday Times, found that in the basement of the Scientology Queen Street office, London, the Scientologists actually had a prison -- a tiny padlocked room known as the "dungeon" where erring Scientologists were locked up, sometimes for several days, on bread, butter and water. "If a member of the staff made an accounting slip, or infringed on an ethics order," he wrote, "he is taken to the dungeon to enable him to find out where he is in Scientology."

One Scientologist told Mitchell that after he was locked up for two days, "I signed an order saying I would observe all regulations of the org, but they weren't satisfied. I was told to go on a £6 (about $14) an hour course to improve my ethics. I couldn't take anymore so I quit."(14)

Punishments administered by Scientologists are not restricted to erring members alone. In Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, Willa Hickman, owner of the Harewood Hotel, decided not to cater to the Scientologists after they placed him in a "condition of liability" (which meant he would have to wear a dirty rag on his arm) and told him he would have to get his Scientology customers to sign a petition of forgiveness -- all because he had run out of apple pie.(15)

Citations & Notes

(1)    initial quote [89]

(2)    (15) meaning of initial quote [10]

(3)    (2) special words [10]

(4)    (3) orgs have sex problems [241a]

(5)    (4) seducing 15 year old; wife's files; abortions [261 ]

(6)    (5) misdemeanors; crimes; high crimes [141a]

(Z) (6) HCO deodorant; 2001; Sea Org & Hitler; man dirty [227]

(8)    (7) how happy to pay bill [141a]

(9)    (8) adding words to thesis [14]

(10)    (9) additional auditing [25]

(11)    (10) punishments manual labor, admitting errors, paralyzing blow; petitions [187]

(12)    (11) condition of liability; doubt; enemy [141a, 227]

{13) (12) treason [227]

{14) (13) Scientology prison & quote [241a] {15) (14) Harewood Hotel [192]

Extraneous citation notes:

{16) Hubbard's wife his auditor [261 ]

Chapter 13 Children and Celebrities

Education is necessary because one earns better after he has learned. -- "Child Dianetics"{1}

There are two types of people that the Scientologists are very anxious to attract: children and celebrities. In England, the Scientologists already have a number of children in the Org, although Hubbard wrote that "serious processing" should not be done before a child was five years old, "extensive Processing" except in very unusual circumstances, should not be done before he was eight, and that no child should be "forced" into the prenatal area until he was twelve.{2)

The youngest Scientology clear right now is said to be eleven,{3) although the Scientologists have reported "processing" an eighteen month baby, and a baby who was just a few days old (by saying to him repeatedly, "Lie in bed. Thank you.").{4)

Hubbard has an extremely permissive attitude toward child-rearing: "So he tears up his shirt, wrecks his bed, breaks up his fire engine. It's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS," he wrote.{5) He also said in Child Dianetics:

Care for the child? -- nonsense! He's probably got a better grasp of immediate situations than you have. Only when he's almost psychotic with aberrations will a child be an accident prone.

Hubbard also believes that it's pretty difficult to make a child grow up to be a pervert, and his description of what can lead to perversions is an example of Hubbard's amazing imagination and facility for cataloging a variety of unbelievable tortures: "Kicking a baby's head in, running him over with a steam roller, cutting him in half with a rusty knife, boiling him in lysol, and all the while with crazy people screaming the most horrifying and unprintable things at him."{6)

Hubbard's permissiveness, however, does not always extend toward children who don't want Scientology auditing. "If the child is even faintly unwilling to be audited, you can coax the child into short sessions, and then, as time goes on, lengthen them gradually," he wrote.{7)

Hubbard, who has seven children, plus seven grandchildren naturally has devised an auditing technique for kids. Children are given such simple processing as "Feel my arm. Thank you. Feel your arm. Thank you."{8) They are also sent back to relive their birth, and it is apparently as painful an experience for them as it is for some of the adult preclears, since Hubbard wrote:

If the auditor should make a slip, like telling the child that birth won't hurt him much when he returns to it, the child will be expecting a mild or nothing at all ... an auditor hasn't known frustration until he has run a child halfway through a painful experience only to find that a happy ending has been tacked onto it.{9)

Scientologists feel that their treatment is of great benefit to children, and they have made a number of active attempts to get their methods taught in schools. Below is a quote by Hubbard, ostensibly telling Scientologists how to deal with the press, but in fact telling them how to get Scientology in schools.

Hubbard recommends Scientologists put teachers and students on "meters" (E-meters), and give "daily mental activities" -- which is what they do in Scientology. It is interesting to note that Hubbard's obsession with sex and violence become apparent once again, inasmuch as the hypothetical case he chose concerns a teen-age girl who was raped.

Teen-age girl shows up in H[ubbard] G[uidance] C[enter] who has been beaten and raped by teenage boys at High School and withholding it since. Audit it out, get parents to OK investigation. Call in press. Release story of vice and crime at local high school with the Org doing the investigation. On subsequent days, criticize laxity of police. Criticize principal. Finally, take more teen-age sex cases. Just day by day deal off a new action to the press. String the story out. Take an action. Hold a press conference. Put students on meters. Put teachers on meters. Get parents to sue. Finally, advise school hire a permanent mental consultant and give daily mental exercises to "teen-age monsters." Then wrap it up and skip it. You've made something evil become something good attained -- Scientology in schools.

At the end of this piece he gave the Scientologists another exercise to do: "Do a story design and calendar for Scientology Ministers demand FDA prove sterility pills aren't sex stimulants."(10)

One case in which the Scientologists did get into a school caused a scandal in England in 1960. At that time, Miss Sheila Hoad, owner of the East Grinstead Aston House Prep school for boys and girls from three-and-a-half to eleven, became friendly with an American Scientologist named Dr. (perhaps of Scientology) Thompson, who lived in an apartment adjoining the school.

Dr. Thompson gave Miss Hoad a book called Creative Learning: A Scientological Experiment in Schools, which was written by two Scientologists and was once actively promoted in Scientology publications. Miss Hoad proceeded to follow the instructions in the book, and for twenty minutes each day, instead of English grammar lessons, she gave the following exercises to do.

Session 1 consisted of 20 minutes of obeying simple commands like "stand up" and "sit down." The purpose of this was to have the "pupils follow the order without questions and happily." Session 4 consisted of the teacher saying "hello" and the kids saying "all right" for ten minutes, and then this process was reversed. In session 5, the teacher asked them to "remember a time that seems real to you," "remember a time when you were in good communication with someone" and "remember a time when you a felt some strange affinity for someone," and the teacher then acknowledged it. ("Thank you" "All right") There was a note that simpler words could be used for that lesson.

Then came the death lessons.(11)

Miss Hoad told twenty-five of her pupils to "close your eyes. Concentrate. Now imagine you are dying. Imagine you are dead. Now you have turned to dust and ashes. Now imagine you are putting the ashes back inside yourself." These "death lessons," as they came to be called, were given behind locked doors with a "Do Not Disturb" sign outside, and the children were told "never think about these lessons after they are over," which suggested to many that she was warning the children not to tell their parents about it.

But one nine-year-old pupil became so depressed after the lessons that her mother had to take her to a doctor and she whispered the secret to him. Another child, after ointment was rubbed on her chest for a cold said "Mummy, I am going to die. I feel funny inside." That mother, who had perhaps heard about Hubbard's attaching an E-meter into plants to see if they could feel pain, said "Let Dr. Thompson inject his cucumbers when he thinks they are in pain. But let him leave my daughter alone."

The other parents were equally outraged, although Miss Hoad insisted that the lessons were the same as saying "The Lord's Prayer."{12) The parents disagreed. Miss Hoad resigned after several parents pulled their children out of the school and even more were absent.{13) The Scientologists dissociated themselves from the treatment saying that those methods were "outdated and dangerous" and that the current practice was to imagine "beautiful things."{14) Dr. Thompson, who had a child in the school, said he would not remove the child.{15) Rumors to the effect that death lessons were being given in other English schools persisted for a long time after the incident.{16)

In addition to trying to get children to become Scientologists, Scientologists also actively solicit celebrities. Their celebrity chasing goes back to around 1955 when Hubbard invited his followers to write and tell him which celebrity they wanted, promising to allocate one to each person who asked for one. The person, however, was responsible for all the expenses involved in getting the celebrity into Scientology. Anyone who succeeded would receive two weeks of special coaching at the Phoenix Org, although they would have to pay for their own living expenses and transportation.{17)

Some of the people whom Hubbard hoped would become Scientologists, and whom he offered to allocate, were: Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway, Danny Kaye, Joseph Alsop, Stewart Alsop, Sid Caesar, Liberace, Fred Allen, Arthur Godfrey, George Gobel, Fulton J. Sheen, James Stewart, Howard Hughes, Billy Graham, Bob Hope, Pablo Picasso, Walt Disney, Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Lowell Thomas, Red Skelton, Henry Luce, Walter Lippman, Groucho Marx, Cecil B. DeMille, Arturo Toscanini, Bing Crosby, Greta Garbo, Charles Addams, Donald O'Connor, Edward R. Murrow.{18)

Hubbard admitted that pursuing these celebrities would be a bit difficult, but he told his followers not to be dismayed and to pursue them relentlessly. "Put yourself at every hand across his or her path," wrote Hubbard, and do not permit "discouragement or 'no's' or clerks or secretaries to intervene in days or weeks or months to bring your celebrity in for a formal auditing session."

Project Celebrity still seems to be one of their policies, since the Scientologists recently opened a Celebrity Center in California allegedly for the purpose of attracting Hollywood personalities. Last year it was claimed that the following celebrities were Scientologists: Tennessee Williams, Leonard Cohen, Mama Cass Elliot, Stephen Boyd, Jim Morrison, William Burroughs and possibly the Beatles.

One famous, in fact infamous person interested in Scientology that they do not boast about, talk about, or probably even want is Charles Manson, the convicted murderer of Sharon Tate and her friends. The New York Times stated that Manson first got interested in Scientology while he was incarcerated in the McNeil Island Penitentiary in Washington (Scientology has programs for prisons).

After his release, The Times reported, he went to Los Angeles where he was said to have met local Scientologists and attended several parties for movie stars, possibly the July 18 dedication of the celebrity center.{19) Scientology literature was also said to be found at the ranch when Manson and his family were captured.{20) But for reasons unknown, it is claimed that Manson may have been made a "suppressive person" by the Scientologists, and there have also been hints that he may have joined the Process, the sex and satan group which originally broke away fromScientology.{21)

Another bit of publicity that the Scientologists are probably not too pleased with concerns the murder of three people in Los Angeles.(22) Two were Scientologists. According to The New York Post, all three were brutally beaten, ritualistically stabbed, had their right eyes cut out, and were dumped 100 yards from a Scientology commune. One of the girls, Miss Doreen Gaul, nineteen, who came from New York to study Scientology, was naked except for a strand of Indian beads. The boy, James Sharpe was fifteen years old. The third was unidentified. Doreen Gaul's father allegedly told a New York Post reporter that she had lately become disenchanted with Scientology.

She was not the only one. For the past fourteen years, John McMasters, the first Scientology clear, appears to have been groomed by Hubbard to take his place when he dies. McMasters recently wrote a letter to Hubbard, and sent copies to "suppressives" and Scientology enemies.(23) Although McMasters declared that "I shall never withdraw my allegiance to Ron or Scientology" he announced that he was leaving Hubbard's ships to spread Scientology in Africa, because of his "horror at what such people on the Sea Org could do to mankind."

He criticized Hubbard and Scientology for their "savage and vicious ethics" and seemed particularly perturbed over the death of the three Los Angeles teen-agers. Their deaths may have partially precipitated McMasters' decision to dissociate himself from certain aspects of Scientology. "Somehow we are violating our basic ethics for such things to happen to us," he wrote. "These last two ghastly murders of our students, one of whom is a clear, need never have happened if we hadn't been mocking up [making] enemies so solidly."

Citations & Notes

(1)    initial quote [4]

(2)    age to process [4]

(3)    youngest clear 11 [283]

(4)    processing 18 month and new born [47]

(5)    Hubbard quote on permissiveness [4]

(6)    Hubbard quote on perversions [6]

(7)    Hubbard quote on coaxing children into auditing [41]

(8)    children treatment [41]

(9)    prenatal area [4]

(10)    Hubbard quote on getting into schools; FDA assignment [261 ]

(11)    death lessons [166, 210, 211, 162]

(12)    same as Lord's prayer [209]

(13)    Hoad resigns [167]

(14)    (15) dissociate themselves [169]

(15)    (14) Thompson keeps child in school [167]

(16)    rumors elsewhere [209]

(17)    celebrity chasing; names of celebrities; how to get them [27]

(18)    who is Scientologist & famous now [138]

(19)    Manson and Scientology [151]

(20)    lit found at ranch [141]

(21)    Manson and Process [141]

(22)    3 murdered [147, 275]

(23)    McMasters letter [122]

Chapter 14 Scientology -- Business or Religion?

Ron Hubbard does not look upon himself as a patriarch, pope, bishop or even elder. "I control the operation," he says, "as a general manager would control any operation of a company."

-- from an interview with Hubbard for The Saturday Evening Post{1)

Scientologists repeatedly emphasize that Hubbard makes no money from Scientology because he pours any money he receives back into the organization for research.{2) If this is true, then it is to the Scientologists' credit that they have spent an enormous amount of money for research, because Hubbard has often received a ten percent tithe from the gross income of the Churches.{3) In addition to this, he once levied an additional five percent tax on Orgs which were slow in paying up,{4) and also once requested that his Orgs send him "any extra money you have around."{5)

Just where the money goes has never been clear. His followers swear that he uses none of it personally, and there seems to be no question in their minds that his many homes, cars, boats, etc., are all necessary for the Scientology operation. His followers' faith is such that no one in the Orgs seemed particularly perturbed when they saw the picture of Hubbard and his wife next to their car, and the caption "Ron and Mary Sue beside their Jaguar."{6)

Hubbard's wealth may have also come from the publication of at least thirty-five books that he's written on Scientology and Dianetics. He writes one every six months, sells 6-9,000 copies of each, and recovers his printing costs in eighty days.{7) One of the books, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the most relentlessly promoted of all of his books, has sold a million and a half copies since it was published.{8)

In addition, Hubbard makes all Orgs buy $10,000 worth of his books ($5,000 with cash) or he declares the Executive Secretary, whose job it is to purchase these books "nonexistent" for this "betrayal to humanity."{9) There is also some evidence that Hubbard has made money by auditing people personally at $50 an hour{10) and by speaking at Scientology Congresses which he set up.{11) These Scientology Congresses are generally a good source of income, since they cost at least $75 per couple. In fact, one in 1958 that included auditing brought in approximately $800 per person from at least 140 people, thereby earning over $100,000 for the weekend.{12)

Scientologists also promote a number of special items in a booklet they call Expand whose title seems to have nothing to do with the potentialities of the mind. Expand advertises not only Hubbard's books ("order as many books as you possibly can without regard to fixed consumption and flog them"), but also films about Hubbard ("get these films now and boost your stats to boom proportion"), tapes of Hubbard ("The Org Board and Livingness," "The Missed Missed Withhold"), Church certificates for marriages, funerals and christenings (which are legal in many states), old father Hubbard's cupboard of E-meters (which are sold for more than $126, although the government determined in 1963 that they cost only $12.50 to build), car badges, Scientology scarves, pins, blazer badges, cuff links, money clips, earrings, and self portraits of L. Ron Hubbard himself for only $5.35 a piece ("Ron's tremendous beingness, strength and depth of understanding show through magnificently.").{13)

It is these very commercial aspects of the Church, plus the large sums of money that Hubbard has made, that have recently caused them to lose their tax-free status in America. In August, 1968, the United States Court of Claims ruled, on appeal from a decision of the Trial Examiner in July of 1967, that Scientology failed to qualify as a corporation "organized and operated entirely for religious purposes."(14)

Scientology appealed this decision again in May of 1969 with Michael I. Sanders brilliantly arguing the case for the government. The Scientologists lost again when the Court of Claims ruled against them in August, in view of the fact that during the four year period of 1956-1959, the Washington group had made $758,982 and paid Hubbard more than $100,000 plus the use of a car and a home, along with some unexplained payments to his family, and in some cases ten percent of the gross income of the various groups.(15) This suggested a "franchise network for a private corporation."^)

Now the Scientologists have only the Supreme Court to turn to, and if they lose there, they're in trouble. The case mentioned above concerns more than $758,000 that the Scientologists brought into their Washington, D.C., headquarters during a four year period when Scientology was not nearly as lucrative an operation as it is now.

But if Scientology loses this final appeal, action could be followed for the more lucrative years after 1959 and interest would be due on the taxes for all of those years in question. In addition, this only concerns the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. The Internal Revenue Department may hit the other Scientology groups in at least nine other United States cities with the same taxes since 1956 at six percent interest. (Action has already been started in New York.)(17)

Although Scientology could suffer very badly from such a decision, they may also be helped, since the Government may not be inclined to try to put a group out of business that owes a large sum of money in back taxes. Hubbard does not seem to be personally involved in all this, since he claims to have given up his directorship in Scientology in 1966.(18)

But if the last appeal is lost, maybe Hubbard will have to save his Church with his own money. He claims to have already forgiven them a $13 million debt (he did not state where that money camefrom) "an understandable act of charity," wrote Time magazine, "considering that he has boasted to friends of having $7 million stashed away in two numbered Swiss bank accounts."(19)

A number of people believe that Hubbard originally turned the "science" of Dianetics into the "religion" of Scientology in order to avoid the very taxes and financial difficulties that are plaguing them now. Even Hubbard's own son, while admitting that Scientology had expanded "toward the addressing of the being" said it was also established as a religion because there was "more latitude in ... regard to corporate structure," and that it had certain tax advantages, most notably tax exemption.(20)

But the religious aspects have not only enabled Scientology to not pay taxes, but it has also enabled them to avoid prosecution or -- as they prefer to call it -- the persecution that threatened Dianetics. The law allows a great deal of latitude toward religions, which don't have to live up to the strict standards of some other groups.

The religion also helps get Scientology some of its members. The idea that it is a religion adds an air of respectability to the organization, often reinforced by the Scientology Reverends who may wear a full clerical garb that includes a collar, vest, black clerical robe, and a cross "bigger than the

Archbishop of Canterbury," as one London skeptic described it.(21) Hubbard wrote that the religious aspects also served another function: "Society accords to men of the Church an access not given to others. Prisons, hospitals, and institutions ... cannot do otherwise than welcome men of the Church."(22) Not only does the religion enable Scientologists to enter certain places, but also to get out of them. One New York Scientologist, by claiming he was a "student of the ministry of Scientology" was able to get out of the draft, although this case is currently being appealed.(23)

People who join this Church are Jewish, Catholic, Protestant -- it doesn't matter -- because anyone who joins the Church of Scientology joins a "nonsectarian religious corporation" and does not have to renounce the religion in which he was born.(24) Just as it is not too difficult to become a member of this Church, it is not terribly difficult to become a minister either.

At one time, all one had to do was be an auditor, and then pay another $150, memorize the Scientology creed, prepare his own ethical code, know several "ordinary" Church ceremonies, the Gospel according to St. John, the Church of Scientology sermons, and read The Great Religions by which Men Live.(25) He does not even have to attend any special classes and can do this work on his own.(26) Once he becomes a minister, he is also entitled to receive the benefits accorded other ministers.(27) In Anent Rendering Unto Caesar, Hubbard told them what they could deduct from taxes, namely, rent, utilities, office supplies, car for ministerial functions, etc.

The Church of Scientology also has Sunday church services -- although often in a very nonclerical setting, such as their summer outdoor services in Central Park in Manhattan.(28) These services are also more a pitch for Scientology than for God. Someone usually gets up and discusses a phase of Scientology, along with a testimonial on how it changed his life; this may be followed by an afternoon of Israeli songs, a blues guitarist, a pianist, or a folk singer, who sometimes sings what are probably the most suggestive lyrics ever heard within a clerical setting.(29)

The Church of Scientology also has its own ceremonies. While the Church of Scientology Ceremonies book states that the services must have "dignity and order," it also says that they do not have to be "solemn and reverent." The Bible is rarely if ever quoted, and the ceremony book states "there is certainly no necessity to quote from any other source." A taped lecture by Hubbard or question and answer periods might also be included.(30)

Some of the services in this book, such as the double ring marriage ceremony, sound more like an auditing session than a matrimonial one.

(Minister to the Groom) Are you ready to accept this woman as your wife?

(Groom) Thank you.

(Minister to the Bride) Are you ready to accept this man as your husband?

(Bride) Thank you.(31)

During a Christening, the thetan is introduced to the body, then introduced to his parents' bodies, as well as those of his godparents. At the end of the ceremony the thetan is acknowledged and thanked for his participation.

An "informal" Christening performed by Hubbard at one of the Scientology Congresses is discussed in the ceremony book. The Australian Report called the following christening by

Hubbard a "travesty."{32)

(Hubbard) O.K. The parents of these children will bring them front and center.

(Speaking to the child): This is Mr. _______________ and this is Mrs. _______________. I'm introducing to the audience right now. And _______________ and _______________ have decided to be a godfather and godmother. So we're all set.

Here we go. (To the child) How are you? All right. Now your name is _______________. You got that? Good. There you are. Did that upset you?

Now do you realize that you're a member of the HASI? [Hubbard Association of Scientologists International] Pretty good, huh?

All right. Now I want to introduce you to your father. This is Mr. _______________. (to the parent): Come over here. (To the child): And here's your mother.

And now, in case you get into trouble and want to borrow some quarters, here's Mr. _______________. See him? He's your godfather. Now, take a look at him.

That's right. And here's _______________ in case you want some real good auditors; she's your godmother. Got it?

Now you are suitably christened. Don't worry about it, it could be worse. O.K. Thank you very much.

They'll treat you all right.

As to whether Scientology is really a religion, the Scientologists frequently boast that they were declared a bona fide religion. Actually this is not quite the victory they claim. The incident had its beginnings on January 4, 1963, when fourteen Deputy Marshals and several Food and Drug Administration Agents, or as the Scientologists said, "longshoremen posing as Marshals," raided the Scientology headquarters in Washington, D.C. and seized 100 E-meters along with several Scientology publications on the grounds that the E-meters were "misbranded."{33)

This was based on the fact that the attached literature, meaning Scientology literature, either claimed or implied that the E-meter was capable of diagnosis, prevention, treatment, detection, and elimination of the causes of all mental and nervous disorders such as neuroses, psychoses, schizophrenia and all psychosomatic ailments.{34)

Scientologists protested that seizing their meters and books was a form of "religious persecution," and they referred to the incident afterwards as the "book burning."{35) They even wrote letters at the time to President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy asking them to protect the Scientologists' religion, "even though you are of a different faith. "{36) Hubbard also expressed a desire to meet personally with President Kennedy for a conference to "come to some amicable answer on religious matters." No conference ever transpired.{37)

While in April of 1967 a decision was returned for the government, in February of 1969, the United States Court of Appeals, in a split decision overruled it, saying that the seizure of the meters was illegal.{38) The FDA said whether or not Scientology is a religion was "irrelevant to the case." In their summary they stated that "... Scientology has made out a prima facie case that it is a bona fide religion, and since no rebuttal has been offered, it must be regarded as a religion for purposes of this case." (Author's italics.)

So if the Scientologists have suffered a financial setback, it has been somewhat offset by a spiritual victory. Hubbard is really the winner all around. Not only has he become rich but no one has yet legally disputed his claim that he has founded a religion.

In an article in Parents' magazine, June 1969, Arlene and Howard Eisenberg wrote that Sam Moscowitz, science fiction writer and editor, had heard Hubbard speak before the Eastern Science Fiction Association in Newark, New Jersey. Although Mr. Moscowitz was not certain of the exact words Hubbard used, he said that Hubbard in effect had said that writing science fiction at a penny a word was no way to get rich -- but if you really wanted to make a million you should start your own religion.(39)

Citations & Notes

(1)    first quote [142]

(2)    (Hubbard) pours money back for research [254]

(3)    Hubbard gets 10% [254, 255, 261]

(4)    additional 5% [94]

(5)    extra money [255]

(6)    pix of Jaguar [160, 250]

(7)    how much money each book makes [273]

(8)    Dianetics sold 1.5 million [5]

(9)    must buy books [17]

(10)    Hubbard processing [28]

(11)    made money from Scientology Congresses [255]

(12)    one Congress made $100,000 [261 ]

(13)    all items they sell in Expand [17]

(14)    Scientology corporation not just religion [255]

(15)    what Hubbard made [255]

(16)    franchises [159]

(17)    additional internal revenue action [277]

{18) Hubbard gave up directorship [236]

{19) Hubbard gave $13 m [156]

{20) quote by son [255]

{21) cross bigger than Archbishop [177]

{22) Hubbard quote on getting into places [142]

{23) boy who got out of army [255]

{24) don't renounce religion [261 ]

{25) how to be a minister [272]

{26) no classes [255]

{27) tax advantages [35]

{28) Central Park Services [278]

{29) who speaks [119]

{30) type of sermons; no bible; Scientology lecture [3] {31) marriage & Christening & Hubbard ceremony [3] {32) christening a "travesty" [261 ]

{33) FDA case, raid [24, 286]

{34) what E-meters claimed [158a]

{35) Scientology objections [142]

{36) Letter to Kennedy [142]

{37) conference with Kennedy [29]

{38) FDA decision [286]

{39) quote by Sam Moscowitz [141a]

Chapter 15 Is Scientology Political?

Scientology and Scientologists are not revolutionaries. They are evolutionaries. They do not stand for overthrow. They are for the improvement of what we have. Scientology is not political.

-- L. Ron Hubbardd}

Hubbard outlined a program for Scientology expansion in the mid-1950's, and while it pertained specifically to South Africa, much of it seems relevant to their policies elsewhere. Their goal then, Hubbard wrote, was 1) to get Scientology known 2) to get Scientology established in schools 3) to have Scientology established in the universities 4) to have it established in industries 5) to have Scientology in the mines 6) and finally, to get Scientology "into the government and government department and services."(2)

As for some of these goals, examples were cited earlier of the methods Scientologists used to get known and to get their methods taught in schools. The Australian Inquiry found that the Scientologists had explored the possibility of promoting Scientology in various government departments. They said that they "considered the Education Department to be a good procurement area" and made some effort to "infiltrate it," but with no real success.(3)

The Scientologists also tried to "take over" the British National Association of Mental Health. (To be discussed later) Hubbard seems to be especially interested in getting into this field. He was once planning to start an auditing program for retarded children -- a text for The Society for the Mentally Retarded Children which he said was a program "we are now piloting in the U.S." There is also some evidence that Hubbard wanted to get his auditing methods into prisons, because he said he was planning to write a book called The Criminal Mind for a "clearing course for prisons."(4)

Scientology has also approached business organizations to get their methods taught there, and has had some success in this field. In fact, they have gone into a number of business deals themselves.(5) There is a lot of private enterprise among Scientologists, some related to Scientology. For example, two Scientologists started a School of Stage Confidence using Scientology techniques,(6) and two other Scientologists put out a record called "Free" under a Scientology label, dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard.(7)

In East Grinstead, Scientology owns a number of houses and stores.(8) The Scientologists also tried to buy Lundy Island in England,(9) which is inaccessible for large portions of the year, "as a retreat for people with nervous disorders," one paper quoted the Scientologists as saying.(10) (According to another British paper, they were planning to buy it as a refuge for foreign students to beat the Government ban on their coming into the country.(11))

Scientologists once also sold a pill called "Dianezene" which Hubbard said would prevent and treat harmful effects caused by exposure to radioactivity. Twenty-one thousand of these tablets were seized on October 1, 1965, for being misbranded, adulterated, and containing less than the declared amount of stated ingredients.(12)

According to the London Sunday Dispatch, Hubbard allegedly sold stock at about $65 a share in 1959 to a company that didn't exist.{13) Hubbard apologized afterward, explaining that certain legal formalities he thought were completed were not. He returned all the money, and allegedly said, "It's lucky the police did not become involved, otherwise something most unpleasant might have happened."

Scientologists attempt to expand into various fields (schools, prisons, mental health, businesses, and as shall be seen, politics) because they believe they have a method that can and will save this world, and they altruistically feel they must get as many people as possible to join them or the world will be doomed. The Scientologists are actively trying to increase their number.{14)

In one of their recent advertising brochures, they wrote that if every person who took the course would bring in two other people, etc., "this planet would be clear in eighteen months."{15) Hubbard must also be very pleased with the potentialities inherent in the moon landing, since he wrote in Scientology Expansion, "I don't think Scientology will be contained very long on this planet -expansion will be that swift."{16)

Another reason that Scientologists are trying to get into so many different areas may be found in their recently revised "Code of a Scientologist." This code not only states that their goal is to increase their number in the world, but also their strength.{17) Early in Hubbard's career, he claimed that Dianeticians, because of their higher I.Q.s, would form an aristocracy, and that this elite corps would subjugate the rest.

One sees with some sadness that more than three-quarters of the world's population will become subject to the remaining [one-quarter Dianeticians] as a natural consequence and about which we can do exactly nothing.{18)

"But even if they do want to take over," said one former Scientologist, "they can't become dangerous unless they become political and then somebody gives them a government or an army."

While the Scientologists may not see themselves as a political force yet, they do consider themselves to be as important as the major political forces today. A 1968 mailing from a Scientology Org said that Hubbard would compare the 1968 accomplishments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with the achievements of Scientology.{19) Hubbard has also hinted that the Russians might like to see him on their side.

In 1964, the Saturday Evening Post reported that Hubbard had stated that he had been approached for the secrets of Scientology by Castro's government. And the Russians, who didn't mind stealing My Fair Lady, etc., were supposed to have offered him $200,000 for Scientology. (When he supposedly turned them down, he claims his apartment was "blasted open" and his "basic manuscript disappeared.")

At other times, Hubbard has also said that the Russians offered him Pavlov's laboratories in 1938 and "large sums" to complete his work under their auspices. He repeated his charge that they had stolen part of his manuscript in 1942 and the rest of it in 1950, and connected this to his refusal of the Russian's 1938 offer. This 1938 manuscript, by the way, was called Excalibur{20) and Hubbard claims that the first four of fifteen people who read it went insane.{21)

Hubbard's interest in politics is not just verbal. In 1962 Hubbard wrote a letter to President Kennedy offering the services of Scientology and promising that "Scientology is very easy for the government to put into effect."{22) The letter begins by stating that it is as important as the letter sent to the

White House on the subject of the atom bomb, signed by Professor Albert Einstein.

To show Kennedy how important he was, and how effective Scientology is, he told him that Scientology had "coached the British Olympic Team with the result that not one team member blew up in the events." (Hubbard's Italics) (He did not tell Kennedy that in an early issue of Ability, he had said that only two members of the British pentathlon team had received "Scientology ... processing."{23)) Hubbard also told Kennedy how the Russians had offered him Pavlov's laboratories, had been stealing his secrets, etc., and concluded with "I feel sure that there exists a growing library on Scientology in Russia."

He then told Kennedy not what the country could do for Scientology, but what Scientology could do for the country. "The government only need turn over to us anyone it desires to condition to space flight or anyone whose I.Q. it desires to have raised and we will take it from there," Hubbard offered. (At the cost of $6,250 per pilot, although this was not spelled out.) Hubbard added that Scientology "could decide the space race or the next war in the hands of America" and generously concluded, "This is a duty letter ... I do not wish to seem the cause of denying my own government this technology."

Hubbard has also been accused of getting entangled with politics while he was in Rhodesia,{24) and, in fact, may have been barred from that country a few years ago.{25) The Daily Mail in England reported that this occurred because the Rhodesian authorities believed he was using the political situation in that country to expand Scientology. At first no one complained: Hubbard had invested nearly $80,000 in Rhodesia; he bought a house for a reputed $40,000 and a hotel to "show his confidence in the country and its government" -- although they were worthwhile investments for him, too, because Scientology was said to have taken in $25,000 in a city of only 45,000 whites.

But the Daily Mail reported that Hubbard allegedly alienated people by constantly praising Ian Smith, expressing his sympathy for the cause of the white Rhodesians, and exploiting racial prejudices (allegedly by saying that the Africans wouldn't qualify for membership in Scientology because their I.Q. was too low). Such statements, had they ever been widely circulated, would not have made Hubbard popular among Scientologists in America, since Hubbard's constant emphasis of "freedom" and "equality" has recruited a number of American Negroes to the organization.

Scientologists may also have tried to get Scientology into the South African government -- but in much less subtle ways. The Rand Daily Mail reported on June 12, 1969, that one witness told the board of the South African Inquiry that Mr. Parkhouse, Scientology's chief executive there, planned to arm and organize 5,000 Africans to seize control of South Africa. Below is the quote from the newspaper.{26)

"Mr. Parkhouse asked me to process him on the E-meter" he [the witness] said.

"He had just returned from a trip to Mr. Hubbard's headquarters at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, England. While processing him I discovered he had a terrific problem.

"Eventually he told me he was worried because he had been made responsible for organizing and arming 5,000 Africans to seize control of South Africa. I talked him out of it and he eventually stopped worrying about his instructions."

The witness also told the commission that he did not know what became of Hubbard's plans or of Mr. Parkhouse.

In Communication magazine, Hubbard outlined ways that Scientology could get into government.

Locate its leaders. Get a paid post as a secretary or officer of the staff of the leaders of that race. And by any means, audit them into ability and handle their affairs to bring cooperation....

A nation or a state runs on the ability of its department heads, its governors, or any other leaders. It is easy to get posts in such areas.... Don't bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the bodyguard, use any talent one has to get a place close in, go to work on the environment and make it function better.

The cue in all this is don't seek the cooperation of groups. Don't ask for permission. Just enter them and start functioning to make the group win through effectiveness and sanity.(27)

The Australian Inquiry related the story of a boy who took Hubbard's instructions quite seriously:

One preclear who had affiliations with the Australian Labor Party saw ... [Hubbard's] Zone Plan as "a very able plan for infiltration and subversion of the key institutions of the country," the intention of the plan being "to create by those subversive means a Scientology government" and he was so enthusiastic about the possibilities which Scientology offered for political domination that he concocted a plan to scientologize the Australian Labor Party.(28)

His plan to scientologize the Australian Labor party concluded as follows: "With Australia led by a government employing Scientology principles we should soon have a civilization which can extend influence overseas." He submitted the plan to Hubbard, and supposedly gained his approval. Later, the boy ran into some difficulties with the Labor party and changed his affiliations.

Scientologists are obviously political and have tried to get into government positions. Do they also have an interest in getting into the army to realize their ambitions? Who knows? It is interesting to note, however, that in a story Hubbard published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine when he was in his twenties, he had one of the characters say, "Now you see, if you run the army you are bigger than the army and it won't try to get you."(29)

Citations & Notes

(1)    1st quote [48]

(2)    South African goals [30]

(3)    getting into schools in Australia [261 ]

(4)    retarded child and prison program [78]

(5)    Scientology tried to get into businesses [255]

(6)    (27) Scientology school [212]

(7)    (28) Scientology record [248a]

(8)    (6) Scientology owns houses in East Grinstead & banned others [15]

(9)    (7) try to buy Lundy [234]

(10)    (8) for nervous disorders [218]

(11)    (9) for beating ban [190]

(12)    (10) Dianezene [255]

(13)    (11) selling stock [208]

(14)    (12) increasing number [115]

(15)    (13) everyone clear in 18 months [116]

(16)    (14) Scientology on this planet [17]

(17)    (15) increasing strength [115]

(18)    (16) forming elite corps, quote on subjugation [109]

(19)    (17) Scientology and political powers [141a]

(20)    (30) Excalibur [264]

(21)    (18) offer of Pavlov's laboratories; manuscript stolen; etc [29]

(22)    (19) Kennedy Letter [29]

(23)    (20) 2 members of British team have Scientology [37]

(24)    (21) Rhodesian situation [175]

(25)    (22) Hubbard barred from Rhodesia [248, 222]

(26)    (23) South African seizing control and quote from paper [247]

(27)    (24) how to get into politics [52]

(28)    (25) boy who tried [261]

(29)    (26) Hubbard story in ASF magazine [106]

Extraneous citation notes:

(30)    (29) UN [122]

Chapter 16 Scientology Versus Medicine

1.    He uses a special machine he claims can cure disease.

2.    He guarantees a quick cure.

3.    He advertises or uses case histories and testimonials.

4.    He refuses to accept the proved methods of medical research.

5.    He says medical men are persecuting him or are afraid of his competition.

6.    He believes that his methods are better than surgery, x-rays, or drugs.

7.    He uses high sounding titles easily confused with qualified scientific professionals and organizations.

-- "How to Spot a Medical Quack" by the American Medical Association.{1)

Although Scientologists claim that they are not in competition with medical fields, much Scientology energy has been devoted in the past few years to attacking doctors, and especially psychiatrists. Hubbard and Scientology have never been too fond of the medical profession. Eric Barnes, Public Relations Chief of the New York Church allegedly told writer Howard Eisenberg about a boy whose broken leg had healed in two weeks instead of six through Scientology. Barnes was said to have claimed that doctors were so skeptical, "they broke it again to investigate the phenomenon."{2)

Scientologists are not permitted to take aspirins before auditing,{3) or "receive any 'treatment' 'guidance' or 'help' from anyone in the 'healing arts' i.e., physicians or dentists without consent,"{4) except in extreme emergencies when no one in the Church can be reached.{5) But Hubbard's feelings toward doctors and psychiatrists are a bit ambivalent, because while railing against them, he offers a fifty percent reduction to any doctor or psychiatrist taking a Scientology course.{6) Since Scientologists are not supposed to "mix Scientology with any other practice," his goal appears to be to get them to become Scientologists.{7)

Hubbard is convinced, actually obsessed with the delusion, that psychiatrists kill or torture their patients with electric shock treatment, use them sexually, and never ever help them. Hubbard wrote, "We have never found one person cured by psychiatrists, not one. If they call, as they do, anyone who disagrees with them insane, then those who agree with this human butchery should wear a swastika arm band so we can recognize them."{8)

Hubbard's hostility to the medical profession was apparent in the first story he wrote for Astounding Science Fiction in the late 1930's. The story told about a man who had the two halves of his brain sewn up by doctors. At the beginning, with one glance the man could heal anything. Later this miracle of surgery boomeranged and the man could kill with the same glance. In other words, the doctors had given him an evil eye. This hostility also goes back to his first book. Below is a portion of an alleged case study: ... the mental hospital gets our patient and the doctors there decide that all he needs is a good solid series of electric shocks to tear his brain up, and if that doesn't work, a nice ice-pick into each eyeball after and during electric shock.... Our patient can't defend himself; he's insane and the insane have no rights, you know.

Only the cavalry ... arrived in the form of Dianetics....(9)

Although Scientologists claim they are not in competition with analysts, they have tried to lure people away from them: "A complete Freudian analysis can cost $8,000-$15,000. Better results can be achieved in Scientology for $125, and on a group basis for a few dollars."(10) But their primary method of diverting people from psychiatrists and psychotherapy is not so subtle. Scientologists have actively tried to discredit their "competition," and in a manner so libelous that it is hard to believe that the epithets and accusations Scientologists hurl come from the same group that once sued everyone else for libel.

Nonetheless, the Scientologists blithely refer to members of what they call "the weird cult of psychiatry"(11) -- although Scientologists say that they resent being called a "cult" -- as "psychoracketeers," "insidious psychopoliticians," "mental con men," "frauds," "pimps," etc.,(12) who spend their time "giving away free supplies of marijuana and LSD,"(13) "banding together with the Better Business Bureau to stop Scientology,"(14) "killing, maiming and torturing helpless patients,"(15) "castrating them," and practicing "mental murder and sexual perversion" [sic].(16)

In a memo to a private investigator, urging him to investigate psychiatrists, Hubbard allegedly wrote:

A psychiatrist today has the power to take a fancy to a woman, drug or shock her into temporary insanity, use her sexually, sterilize her to prevent conception, kill her by a brain operation to prevent disclosure....(17)

In "A Warning to Brain Butchers," his language was even stronger. Hubbard telegraphed the following "news" to the New York Scientology headquarters to tell them his views on psychiatrists.

THEIR 19TH CENTURY METHODS MUST END. THEY ACT LIKE THE MAD SCIENTISTS IN A BAD MOVIE. THE TRUE MEDICAL DOCTOR IS ASHAMED TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THEM. THE PSYCHIATRIC IDEA OF MAN IS A GODLESS SOULLESS PIECE OF MEAT.[*] THEY DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS TO BUTCHER AT WILL. THEY MOCK CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT. ACCORDING TO THEM EVERYONE IS HOPELESSLY MAD AND ANYONE WHO OPPOSES THEM IS ESPECIALLY SO. YET WHERE ARE THEIR CURES? THEY ONLY HAVE VICTIMS. THEY TORTURE AND KILL OUT OF SIGHT IN THEIR INSTITUTIONS. SCIENTOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS OVER THE PLANET ARE URGING LAWS WHICH FORBID KILLING OR INJURING THE INSANE. MURDER IS MURDER.(18)

[*] Footnote:

Although Hubbard says that the psychiatrist thinks of his patients as a "piece of meat" the reader is reminded that Hubbard calls newcomers in Scientology "raw meat."

Besides being murderers, madmen, butchers, etc., the Scientologists also accuse psychiatrists of working with the government to control the populace:

Using their connections with government "giveaway" agencies, the psychoracketeers are being provided with billions ... as well as free supplies of marijuana and LSD with which to continue their "research" on helpless psychiatric victims deprived of their rights by laws passed by these same insidious psychopoliticians.

By educating the public that everyone needs mental health treatment, they hope to be able to control the morals, mores and the lives of the entire nation.{19)

Scientologists believe that the psychiatrist's ultimate goal is "domination of every man, woman and child through the use of 'mental health' indoctrination programs even now being promoted and promulgated down to a prenatal level." The last words are an interesting slip, since it is the Scientologists and not the psychiatrists who believe that the prenatal period is so important.

Scientologists are not just sitting back and waiting for people to join them in their crusade against the "killers." They are actively soliciting people in America, England and Australia who have undergone "serious mental or physical abuse or damages at the hands of psychiatric frauds" to contact their nearest Church of Scientology and make a full report to their Human Rights Commission.{20)

They will probably find people willing to do so, especially since those who have been hospitalized might prefer to believe that psychiatric treatment was the cause of their problems rather than the result of it, exonerating themselves of all responsibility. The result of this campaign, though, could have an unfortunate effect for the Scientologists. Inviting people who have had psychiatric treatment or been institutionalized to join them in their crusade may make Scientology the world's largest outpatient clinic for mentally disturbed people.

Scientology is also fighting the mental health movements with litigation, and they claim they have filed or are ready to file, $75 million worth of suits against psychiatric organizations and others over the world "in the international conspiracy against Scientology for libel, slander, conspiracy and psychiatric efforts to destroy the Church."

Scientologists have said that if they won the suits and all the money was paid up, it would make Scientology among the richest of religious organizations. They pointed out that all damage monies are tax free, and said that the money would be used to try to "straighten out some of the horror psychiatry has made in the field of mental healing."{21) Although they have not outlined how this would be done, presumably it would be attempted with Scientology techniques.

Scientology is also fighting the mental health field by trying to change the laws. They claim to be preparing an Anti-Butchery Bill for introduction into Congress.{22) The purpose of this bill is to make it a felony to use psychiatry, psychology, drugs, or shock treatment to change any individual's religious, philosophical or political ideas.

From this last statement, along with many others, it is apparent that Scientology, which started during the McCarthyite '50's is still gravely concerned with the menace of Communism{23) and the dangers of secret brainwashing -- even though one of the questions on their own security test reads "Are you in disagreement with any of the stable data of Scientology?"{24)

The Australian Report dealt with the question of whether or not Scientology was a form of brainwashing. It said that "The Board heard expert psychiatric evidence that repetitive questions and repetitive commands increase suggestibility and, if continued long enough, may reach the point where indoctrination could be effected, and a reversal of opinions and ideas previously held could be obtained."

The Australian Board was also disturbed to find that Scientology techniques closely resemble those set out in a book entitled Brainwashing which is supposed to be "A Synthesis of the Communist Textbooks on Psychopolitics."(25) They claimed that evidence was presented to indicate "that the English version of the manual bears a startling resemblance to Hubbard's own literary style." But they stated that it was immaterial whether or not he wrote the book "as was suggested by a witness hostile to Scientology." What was important to them was that Scientologists "assiduously sold and distributed this manual." In fact, one of the exhibits brought to the Board was an extract from the Brainwashing manual with Scientology words substituted. "With these substitutions effected, the extracts were in the main startlingly applicable to Scientology as operating in Victoria."

Scientologists are also fighting mental health organizations by allying themselves with Churches, and working on a campaign to get psychiatric patients to see their "pastor" instead of a psychiatrist.(26) They have quoted Dr. Karl Menninger, co-founder of the famous Menninger clinic, who allegedly said that many people who go to psychiatrists should take their problems instead to a "minister of religion."(27) If Menninger did say this, it is extremely doubtful that he was referring to Scientology, especially since his brother, the late Dr. William Menninger, once said that Hubbard's systems and ideas "can potentially do a great deal of harm."(28)

The Scientologists have also tried to fight the mental health movement by what appears to be simply trying to take it over.(29) In England, a number of Scientologists made an attempt to fill the vacancies in the National Association of Mental Health, most notably David Gaiman to fill the post of Chairman, after the retirement of Lord Balniel.

In addition, Scientologists flooded the association with applications for membership. They might have made it, except that NAMH members became suspicious as they received 250 applications instead of their normal rate of about twenty a month. Furthermore, it was noticed that almost all of the two guinea postal orders were issued by the East Grinstead Post Office.

The National Association of Mental Health wrote letters asking the Scientologists to resign (according to David Gaiman they were "expelled"), and Gaiman, the Scientology spokesman in England, offered to withdraw if the Association instituted certain reforms. Eventually the Scientologists managed to stop the annual meeting of the NAMH while they paraded outside, asking for, among other things, a public inquiry into conditions in mental hospitals.

What is the Scientologist's goal in all this? Is the crusade of this "Church" against a nonreligious field based on a sincere abhorrence of its methods? Are they really so concerned about conditions in mental hospitals, since, after all, they claim Scientologists have never been there, and for that matter, never end up there?

Is it an attempt to discredit their "competition" so that people will go to Scientologists instead? Is it a vindictive act to get back at groups whose criticism against them seems to be quite mild, if one considers what the Scientologists have had to say about them? Is there some psychiatric history in Hubbard's own past that has caused this incredible vendetta? Or are they anxious to divert attention away from inquiries into Scientology by trying to get an inquiry into conditions in mental hospitals? It is true that attacks against psychiatry have intensified as public inquiries into Scientology have been established. Hubbard wrote the following in Freedom:

Instead of attacking Churches and independent research, Governments should ... inquire into the abuses ... by psychiatry.... For psychiatric organizations to criticize Scientology is the most fantastic hypocrisy on Earth. These men are not healers, they are trained killers.{30)

Perhaps their reasons for wanting an inquiry into mental hospitals are really altruistic. Lest anyone doubt this, they have offered to sit in on the inquiry, and possibly contribute, "as part of our charitable work."{31)

Mental health organizations have taken an amazingly tolerant view of the whole situation, probably hoping that like the plague, the Scientologists will eventually disappear. They may also fear that if they attack Scientology they might give it publicity and draw more attention to it.

Thus, if someone calls and asks the American Psychiatric Association whether to go into Scientology or psychiatry, they do not try to convert them to psychiatry. Instead they sometimes send them Scientological literature against psychiatry, hoping that they would be appalled at the epithets and accusations and make a decision from that.{32) The following quote from the American Psychiatric Association's lively Psychiatric News is not the official policy of the APA, but it presents one opinion of how to handle this situation:

Well, it's a religion of course. It is for you to decide whether to join the Church. If you wonder whether it has anything to do with psychiatric treatment the answer is no. You might also like to know that it costs a significant sum to be "processed" in the Church. And if you would like my personal opinion as a fellow American, I wouldn't be caught dead entering its doors.{33)

Citations & Notes

{1) first quote [263]

{2) quote by Barnes [283]

{3) (4) no aspirin [121]

{4) (3) no treatment [14]

{5) except in emergencies [255]

{6) discount to doctors [116]

{7) (8) don't mix Scientology with other practices [146, 261 ] {8) (22) psych has Russian flavor [77] {ambiguous citation) {9) (33) Hubbard's first story [106]

{10) (9) cost of analysis vs Scientology [25a, 142]

{11) (10) weird cult [57]

(12)    (11) con men; frauds pimps, etc. [69, 73, 77]

(13)    (12) giving away marijuana and LSD [66]

(14)    (13) AMA, BBB, etc. [71]

(15)    (14) killing, torturing, etc. [68]

(16)    (15) mental murder, sexual perversion [69]

(17)    (16) Hubbard quote on psychiatrists and women [203]

(18)    (17) warning to Brain Butchers [76]

(19)    (18) quote on psychoracketeers and domination [66]

(20)    (19) soliciting people for (Human Rights) commission [70, 73]

(21)    (20) litigation; quote on what they would do with money [57]

(22)    (21) Anti-Butchery Bill [69]

(23)    hostility to communism [261 ]

(24)    question on their sec test [85]

(25)    (34) Brainwashing [261 ]

(26)    (25) campaign to see pastor [55, 56]

(27)    (26) quote by K. Menninger [55, 56]

(28)    (27) William Menninger [158]

(29)    (28) Scientology "takeover" [238, 276]

(30)    (29) Hubbard quote [57]

(31)    (30) offer to sit on inquiry [61 ]

(32)    (31) psychiatrists send Scientology literature [277]

(33)    (32) quote on someone who calls [133] (ambiguous citation)

Extraneous citation notes:

(34)    (7) Hubbard quote [57]

Chapter 17 The Secret Scientology Sessions

In Dianetics, today's obvious nervous breakdown is tomorrow's most cheerful being. -- L. Ron Hubbard(H

Scientology is perhaps a religion, is probably a philosophy, is definitely a business, is potentially a political force, and is also a form of therapy, or as they call it now, pastoral counseling. Most people do not realize this, since the Scientologists draw attention only to the idea that they are a religion and a philosophy. Thus, they have been able to keep the public in the dark about what is happening -- and they have also been largely able to avoid public outcry.

Scientologists have devised a series of methods that they believe can and will save this "enturbulated" world. Some of their practices -- those that have been widely criticized, such as disconnecting, suppressives, investigations -- are based on their belief that anyone who questions, criticizes or tries to stop Scientology from utilizing these methods is harming not only themselves but the world.

Scientologists try to keep their methods of pastoral counseling a very strict secret. While this shields them from criticism, it also makes doctors doubtful as to its efficacy. "Suppose Newton had founded a Church of Newtonian physics and refused to show his formula to anyone who doubted the tenets of Newtonian physics?" wrote William Burroughs.(2) (In an earlier stage, when Burroughs was apparently more enchanted with Scientology, he wrote "There is nothing secret about Scientology, no talk of initiates, secret doctrines or hidden knowledge."(3)) But only someone who takes advanced Scientology courses or "grades" can find out what Scientology methods are.

If any Scientologist divulges these secrets after he takes the courses, he is subject to expulsion. But even though he doesn't know what the courses are until he takes them, he must agree that they are correct in advance and cannot question them. "It's like a physicist saying 'you can't see my formulae unless you first agree that they are correct sight unseen,' " said Burroughs.(4)

Some of these secret sessions are done with the E-meter, although other sessions consist of a series of exercises to "raise the preclear's ability." When working with the meter, the auditor may first show the preclear the auditing room and ask if there is anything about it that upsets him.(5) The preclear may also be told to remove his watch and wedding ring to prevent interference by outside metals.^ Then the auditor and preclear face each other in chairs, with the E-meter on a table between them.

The auditor watches the needle of the meter, and if it reacts in a manner that he believes indicates that an engram is present, the auditor repeats the question until the needle "floats," which presumably means that the engram has been "erased.1^ The preclear, who cannot see the dials, does not have to accept the word of the auditor to determine whether an engram is really gone. Hubbard stated that when a patient succeeds in erasing an engram, he will feel a sense of wild elation -- which explains, perhaps, why when one Scientologist got rid of an engram, he laughed for two days without stopping.(8)

During these sessions, the auditor does not tell the preclear to free associate, as is done in psychoanalysis, but rather he is told to return to a specific incident, say one that caused grief, anger, fear, humiliation. The preclear then tries to determine the date of the incident, and if he cannot, picks an approximate date and keeps reeling off dates until the E-meter reacts.{9)

Once the preclear has found the date, he must then go to the beginning of the incident and tell the entire story, repeating it many times until all the details become clear.{10) By the end of that time, the story supposedly loses its emotional charge and is no longer a source of problems or pain.

At the end of each session, the preclear may be made to focus his attention on five or six objects in the room, presumably to bring him back to reality, before he is permitted to leave.{11) Some sessions end more formally with the auditor saying, "Tell me I am no longer auditing you," at which point the preclear says, "You are no longer auditing me."{12)

If during these sessions a preclear has a particular problem he wishes to discuss, he is permitted to talk about it but only briefly. Then, instead of working on it, he may be told to invent a problem of comparable magnitude, to lie about the problem he has,{13) or even to invent a worse problem.{14)

There is a strong tendency during these sessions not to talk about present problems at all. For example, Hubbard wrote the following to show auditors what to do if the preclear had what they call a "present-time" problem.

AUDITOR: What do you think is wrong with you?

PRECLEAR: I'm impatient.

AUDITOR: Can you think of someone who's impatient?

PRECLEAR: My father.

AUDITOR: O.K. We'll run a father.{15)

But most of these sessions are devoted to past-time incidents or even past-life incidents. The preclear, while holding onto the cans of the E-meter, will be made to answer two or three questions asked repeatedly during the auditing session. For example, several sessions may be devoted to alternating commands, like "recall something real," "recall a communication," and "recall an emotion."

In other sessions they may be told to "recall a loss," "recall a misemotion," "tell me a problem," "tell me a solution," or "What have you said?", "What have you done?", "What are you willing to tell me about?", "What are you willing to tell me about it?", "What is the problem?", "What is the solution?", "What have you done?", and "What haven't you said?"{16)

In other sessions, the person has been asked questions or ordered to do things that to an outsider seem to make far less sense, for example to "not know" something, to put things in the wrong time and place, and even to deny the existence of objects around him, so that portions of the environment, such as the walls or the door have disappeared in his mind.{17) The preclear has also had to answer such questions as "Who isn't here?", "What aren't you thinking?", "Where don't you have a headache?", "Have you a headache in last week?", "Was your body in 1210 while you were going to college in 1940?"

Many Scientology sessions are devoted entirely to exercises guaranteed to raise the preclear's "ability."

One series of exercises may be done outside of the auditing room. For example, Scientologists have ordered an unconscious person, or a new born baby to "Lie in bed. Thank you."{18) They once reported doing this for several hours to an unconscious Scientologist, until they were kicked out of the hospital.{19) (The patient later died.)

The reason for this seemingly strange exercise is twofold. While it may seem odd to be telling something to an unconscious person, they believe the thetan is always conscious and the person is thus able to hear it. Secondly, one of the principles of auditing is to find something a preclear can do and then better that ability -- and obviously an unconscious person or baby is able to lie in a bed. Hubbard also wrote that he once cured a drunk on this principle -- he had him invent new ways to get drunk!{20)

The first Scientology course for $15 consists of two days or four evenings of the following exercises or "Training Routines" or T.R.'s, as they call them there. In the first T.R., "Confrontation," two Scientologists sit a few feet apart and simply stare in each others' eyes without moving, twitching, blinking, giggling, sighing, fidgeting, for a minimum of an hour.{21) (It is this exercise that helps Scientologists learn how to stare intensely at others.)

The second T.R. is called "Bull Baiting" and it is somewhat similar; one Scientologist again stares directly at the other without moving, only this time the other partner tries to make the immobile one "flinch" or react by insulting him, humoring him, taunting him, or leading him on -- usually about his physical flaws or sexual problems.

In a third T.R., called "Dear Alice" one Scientologist keeps repeating lines from Alice in Wonderland while his partner "acknowledges him."

For example, one asks "Do cats eat bats?", or says "Imperial Fiddlesticks" and the other says "thank you" or "groovy." (It is said that in one eastern city, they decided to send an undercover policeman to investigate Scientology. The policeman spent several days repeating lines from Alice in Wonderland and being thanked for it.{22))

In two other T.R's, one Scientologist keeps asking his partner "Do fish swim?" or "Do birds fly?" while the partner tries to make him "flinch" or become distracted as he did in the "Bull Baiting." For example:

Student: Do fish swim?

Coach: Yes.

Student: Good.

Coach: Do fish swim?

Student: Aren't you hungry?

Coach: Yes.

Student: [You] flunk[ed]

While the purpose of these exercises may be elusive, they are actually supposed to teach someone to get commands across naturally, to get the answer to the question that he wants, to ask questions in a fresh manner, and not to start a second question until the first has been answered, etc.(23)

During a weekend I spent researching Scientology, I did these five exercises. I certainly admire the amazing perseverance of Scientologists who do these Training Routines since they are unbelievably tiring and boring. "Confrontation," for example is a nightmare. If done correctly, without blinking or thinking or anything, it induces hallucinations.

When I had to do it, my first reaction upon staring at my partner was to laugh, but within a few minutes I really wanted to cry. Everything was itching everyplace. My muscles kept twitching while the rest of my body felt stiffer than the wooden chair I was on. After a while, my eyes started to blur, and then so did my mind, and I watched in horror as my partner turned into a breathing Rorschach card. His eyes, eyelashes and brows met, his nostrils merged and became a cruel, flaring cavern in the center of his face, and the shadows cast by this disfigured nose gave his entire face a sinister and terrifying quality.

"Bull Baiting" was not much better. I was first assisted to make someone else "flinch," but I was the one who flinched the minute I laid my eyes on him. There was nothing I couldn't insult him about -from the top of his too-tiny head to the bottom of his hundred pound five-foot frame. He had a Pinocchio-type nose, closely set black beady eyes, parched thin lips, large red ears, a scattering of post-adolescent pimples, and a chin like a slightly used rapier.

I couldn't bear to insult someone as unattractive as he, who must have been hurt often throughout his life. But the Scientology leader and the assistant of the group both put me down for this. Theyalso showed me how to do it: the leader described each of the boy's faults in what must have been agonizing detail; the assistant, however, told him how handsome, tall, clear-skinned etc. he was.

When it was my turn to be baited, I was naturally braced for the worst. But to my surprise, instead of picking on my faults or flaws, or "buttons" as they called it there, my male partners tried to make me "flinch" by talking about sex, and their incredible obscenities and explicit descriptions of the amazing variety of perversions they wanted to practice with me made them sound disgustingly similar to an obscene telephone caller without the benefit of a telephone.

The Scientologists also used the bull baiting exercise to find out if I was a writer. They sent an advanced Scientologist to bull-bait me. While at first he chatted aimlessly, all of a sudden, he thrust his face a quarter of an inch from mine, looked directly into my eyes, and said, ominously, "We've been watching you since you first came in here. We think you're really a writer." He kept questioning me repeatedly, while all the color drained my face. So I purposely threw my eyes slightly out of focus, fixed my gaze an inch above his eyes, and concentrated intently on what it would be like to kiss him, hoping this would imbue my features with an acceptable amount of disgust and despair and I wouldn't "flinch."

It worked and he finally changed the subject, like the others, to sex. He was so filthy, he made the obscenities of the earlier "bull baiters" sound as if they'd come from pre-pubescent children. His final statement was to ask me whether I'd like to join the Scientologists "in some of the great orgies we have over here on Tuesday [or Thursday, I forget] night." I'm sorry I can't report to you whether that last statement is true or not, because I wanted to get out of that world as fast as I could, and had no desire to attend an "org-y" at the org.

In all fairness, however, I must say that these TRs, however tedious (I mean how often can you ask someone "do birds fly?" without feeling that you're about ready to also?) did have some benefit for me. They helped teach me to talk with my voice and not with my hands, to acknowledge somebody's statements before I rambled on with my own, to look people straight in the eye, and to be more persistent with someone when I wanted to get an answer from him. And it is probably not the fault of Scientology but my own incorrigibility that none of these effects lasted five minutes past that Scientology weekend.

The relation between the exercise and its purpose is a bit more obscure in other sessions.

In one exercise called "Holding Corners," the person is supposed to visualize the two corners of the room and then "hold them" there, thinking of nothing else.{24) For some reason, this is supposed to make you act younger. Another exercise consists of "confronting" various parts of the body:

Auditor: What part of that body can you confront?

Preclear: The elbow.

Auditor: What part of that elbow can you confront?

Preclear: The wrist.

Auditor: Thank you.{25)

Many Scientology exercises consist of hours and hours of repetitive commands, not only like the above, but like the following. The auditor says to the preclear:

Do you see that book?

Walk over to it.

Pick it up.

Not know something about its color.

Not know something about its temperature.

Not know something about its weight.

Do you see that bottle?

Walk over to it.

Pick it up.

Not know something about its color.

Not know something about its temperature.

Not know something about its weight.

Do you see that book? Etc. (26)

Hubbard said the above should be done "without ... lag, without protest, without apathy, but only cheerfulness, each time seeing the items newly."(27) He also said it was better to run this consecutively for several hours, rather than run it a short time for several days. One preclear was run for nine hours on the above without any breaks!(28)

Another Scientology exercise is called "S.C.S." (Stop, Change, Start). Most Scientology courses are given on levels, and in the beginning of S.C.S., the preclear must move small objects around a table, stop them, change their direction, etc., "quickly and accurately without protest" at the auditor's command.(29) On higher levels, a person is commanded to get out of his body, since Scientologists believe that the thetan or spirit can function apart from the body.

To accomplish this, the preclear is first told to "be three feet in back of your head" and then told to be in more and more difficult places "until he can sit in the center of the sun."(30) This exercise was severely criticized by the Australian Inquiry, and in 1965, the Scientologists told them that it was no longer being run. (However, in 1970, a book was for sale at the Washington D.C. Org telling auditors about S.C.S.)

It has been criticized because its effects can be devastating. Hubbard wrote that "If a preclear is about to fly out of his head he'll fly out of his head on S.C.S. If he does fly out of his head on S.C.S. or on any other process, you, of course, continue the process."(31) He also wrote of S.C.S. that if a preclear suddenly "flies to pieces," started "flip flopping" and had to be picked up off the floor, etc., that the auditor should immediately get him back on to his feet and into the session. "This is no time for you to be changing processes simply because a preclear collapses," he wrote.

All these exercises, and even E-meter sessions for recounting incidents in the real or imagined past, can be extremely tiring and difficult. Some people even think it is dangerous. The Australian Report commented on this as follows:

... during this, the preclear is very frequently experiencing mental torture, which shows itself in contorted and flushed features, tears, moaning, inability to speak, apparent deafness, nausea, dizziness, sensations of pain, coma and unconsciousness. One witness said that he almost killed his auditor, a close personal friend, who was questioning him about withholds [non-disclosed items] he had as to "sexy thoughts" concerning a female staff member.... Sometimes preclears are so distraught that they scream, develop murderous feelings, have bouts of anger, grief and morbid feelings and thoughts; their sexual passions are aroused, they act insanely, laugh hysterically and engage in other hysterical behavior; they become violent and try to escape and have to be restrained.... In Scientology parlance, when such manifestations as these occur, the preclear is being "restimulated"; in fact, he is being debased and mentally crippled.(32)

Hubbard was aware that a preclear might have these reactions, but warned auditors to continue nonetheless. Hubbard said that if a preclear begged his auditor not to make him talk about someone's death "that is the first engram he should get."(33) Hubbard wrote:

... when the preclear is apparently in the most intense pain ... you must calmly continue to run the incident, asking for any phrases connected with the incident, and picking up all sounds, sense of touch, and kinesthesia as they appear.... And then, when the incident seems to be over, and the pain has subsided, command the somatic strip to go to the beginning of the incident and roll it again! ... Pay no attention to any efforts he may make to avoid going through a second or third time.{34)

Perhaps it is not surprising that S.C.S. has sometimes been given as punishment -- and one person said he had been "sentenced" to S.C.S. for twenty-five hours for some infraction.{35)

The Australian Report devoted an entire chapter to another danger they saw in these sessions -hypnosis. They concluded that these various exercises were a type of hypnosis. To support their hypothesis, they listed every aspect of the Scientology auditing session along with its hypnotic counterpart. They also mentioned the fact that Hubbard admits he was "schooled in hypnotism and mysticism" although Hubbard claims he doesn't use hypnotic techniques.

The Australian Report concluded that Hubbard does use hypnotic techniques but that he has simply changed the name of various hypnotic phenomena to names of his own invention. The report pointed out that it was a common practice for Scientology auditors to ask the preclear at the end of the session whether he had achieved his goals and was satisfied with that session.

Since they believed that the auditor was asking these questions when the preclear was coming out of a "hypnotic trance," while the "hypnotic rapport" with the auditor was in effect, the post hypnotic suggestions helped the preclear to believe that the goals had been obtained and that the session was successful. After the session was over, the "suggestion" that the session was a success could still persist. The Scientologists believe these exercises have helped them, while the Australian Inquiry concluded they've been used to hypnotize them.{36)

Citations & Notes

{1) first quote [6]

{2) quote by Burroughs on secrecy & Newton [187]

{3) quote by Burroughs on nonsecrecy [130a]

{4) must be Scientologist to know what happens, etc.; quote on physicist [187] {5) showing preclear room [130a, 261 ]

{6) removing ring [130a, 139]

{7) needle floats [130a]

{8) man who laughed for two days [6]

{9) remember grief anger; get date [130a]

(10)    repeat story from beginning [6, 103a]

(11)    focus on objects [261 ]

(12)    "tell me I am no longer auditing you" [261 ]

(13)    problems of comparable magnitude or lie about it [158]

(14)    invent worse problem [16]

(15)    running a father [20]

(16)    Scientology questions [14, 139]

(17)    putting things in wrong time or place [252]

(18)    Lie in bed; raise abilities [16]

(19)    kicked out of hospital [36]

(20)    drunk helped [16]

(21)    exercises in first course [111, 178]

(22)    policeman in Scientology [142]

(23)    purpose of exercises [111, 277]

(24)    holding corners [142]

(25)    confronting elbow [14]

(26)    book and bottle [261 ]

(27)    Hubbard quote on book and bottle [272]

(28)    persons run for 9 hours [261 ]

(29)    SCS move objects [158]

(30)    get in back of head and sun [261 ]

(31)    Hubbard quotes on SCS [16]

(32)    Australian Report opinion of treatment [261 ]

(33)    Hubbard says talk about death [6]

(34)    Hubbard quote on intense pain [4]

{35) person sentenced to SCS [261 ]

{36) Hubbard studied hypnotism; Scientology is hypnotism & post hypnotic suggestion [261 ] Extraneous citation notes:

{37) able more able [102]

{38) raise abilities [255]

{39) lit claims to cure [261 ]

{40) Vitamin E [229]

Chapter 18 The E-Meter

The E-meter is never wrong. It sees all; it knows all. It tells everything. -- L. Ron Hubbard{1}

An important part of a Scientology auditing session is the E-meter. It lures people into Scientology and, for some, gives a scientific basis to the methods used. Scientologists are accepted or expelled according to its revelations. It helps to extract the Scientologists' most intimate secrets and confessions, including those of a sexual and criminal nature. It helps to determine the length, intensity and nature of the auditing session. It helps to determine the date and details of their present problems and their past lives.

In fact, the E-meter often determines whether they have had past lives. If someone believes he hasn't lived before, but the E-meter does not respond to a date in the person's current life, then he is led to believe that the event must have happened in a past one.

The E-meter or electroencephaloneuromentimograph is about ten inches by six inches by two inches{2) and its appearance was described by one reporter as a "cross between a car speedometer and a practical joker's electric shock machine."{3) Hubbard usually refers to its inventor as "Mathison" and Scientologists will tell you it was invented by Olin Mathison;{4) actually it was invented by Volney Mathison,{5) a chiropractor.{6)

To buy the machine at an Org costs about $162; in 1963 the government determined that it cost only $12.50 to make, and that the Scientology organizations bought it wholesale for $47.{7)

Even at this price, the Scientologists and Hubbard will tell you that it's infallible. It is said that it never fails to pick out the date on which an incident occurred. Scientologists will tell you to the exact second when something happened to them a trillions of years ago.

Apparently, it is less than perfect in picking dates in their current life. Its failure in this task is what caused author Alan Levy, who wrote a piece on Scientology for Life magazine, to become disenchanted with the organization. (Along with the fact that his New York contract said Grades V-VII would cost him $390 at Saint Hill, but when he got there he discovered it was $3,150 "plus living expenses.")

Alan Levy's problems in Scientology started when he was told to use the E-meter to locate the date on which he had a fight with his wife. (Present one, current life.) Without the meter, he knew the year was 1958, and that it was a Sunday morning in March.

Although he suggested to his auditor that they consult a calendar, he was told, "There's no need for that.... The E-meter will find out for us." The meter "found out" that the fight occurred on March 18. But when Alan Levy checked an almanac at a bookstore in East Grinstead, he discovered that March 18, 1958 fell on Tuesday, not Sunday.

It seems pathetic to me still, and terribly precarious, that my failure to perform so simple a journalistic chore -- under other circumstances I would have automatically looked up the date --could have kept me half tied to Scientology, the deep-probing auditing sessions and the damned E-meter.... I am sure that among the millions of words ... [Hubbard] has written, there are some to convince me that the engram I unlocked did happen on a Tuesday -- in another life -- or that March 18 did fall on a Sunday when I was in the womb. But thankfully it no longer matters.

A number of government witnesses in the Food and Drug Administration's case against the meter also agreed that its functioning was considerably less than perfect. George Montgomery, Chief of the Measurement Engineering Division of the National Bureau of Standards, and Dr. John I. Lacey, Chairman of the Department of Psychophysiology and Neurophysiology at Fels Research Institute in Yellow Springs, stated that the E-meter "failed to meet the commonly accepted criterion by which such an instrument is judged."

This was because:(8)

1.    The E-meter has no device to control the constancy of current.

2.    Holding a can in the hand permits great variations in the area of the skin in contact with the metal electrodes, and would allow great variation in the amount of actively sweaty tissue that is in contact with it.

3.    The instrument is subject to polarization.

4.    It is not a quantitative instrument due to uncontrollable variations in skin contact and current.

These experts also explained that the machine was not really a measure of skin resistance at all, but partially a reading of how firmly the individual was grasping the can; if the person squeezed the can, there was more contact, and apparent skin resistance would drop. If he held the cans loosely, the apparent skin resistance would simply increase.

Scientologists, on the other hand, claim that the E-meter is so sensitive that it will react not only when a person is holding onto it, but also when it is placed on a tomato -- garden variety that is. While some people would view this as an argument against the meter, Scientologists feel that this proves its validity and that it also supports their hypothesis that plants have feelings like humans.(9)

Scientologists have admirably gone to the trouble to research a number of experiments in this field and have presented them to the public in their newspapers and press releases.(10) These experiments were as follows:

1.    Dr. Erwin Kapphan, in Zurich, "using a sensitive version of the skin galvanometer" ("similar to the E-meter used in Scientology confessionals" said the press release) showed that a tomato, when pierced with a nail, showed "definite emotional anxiety reactions" similar to those of humans. Kapphan also said that "plants only catch a disease or blight if they are already thinking of dying."

2.    Dr. Bernard Grad, at McGill University in Montreal, conducted the experiments which showed that plants fertilized by a solution that had been given a flow of attention by a well-known faith healer with acknowledged extrasensory powers grew significantly faster and bigger than other plants.

3.    Dr. Rex Standord, of Duke University showed that plants which are shown love, affection and lots of warm attention grow "demonstrably faster and bigger."

The press release contained no information about the statistical levels of significance of these experiments, or even how the experiments were carried out (for example, how did they give "love" or a "flow of attention" to a plant?) nor how the results were analyzed (how does a tomato show "definite emotional anxiety reactions"? etc.) They simply stated, in a rather unscientific but sincere manner, that three experiments proved beyond doubt that Hubbard's theory (and by extension, the E-meter) was valid. "After ten years of ridicule for his theory ... L. Ron Hubbard has finally been vindicated ... totally validated ... it was about time."{11)

The reader may decide for himself whether the E-meter proves that plants feel pain, have emotional anxiety reactions, grow faster when given a flow of attention by a faith healer, etc., -- or whether to accept the word of the chairman of the Department of Psychophysiology and Neurophysiology at one institute and the Chief of the Medical Engineering Division that the E-meter is not an accurate instrument for measuring the flow of electricity.

But if you choose the latter, just remember that you cannot argue your position with the Scientologists. They claim that the E-meter registers the thetan, which they believe may have an electrical voltage,{12) and since no non-Scientologist has ever seen a thetan, much less checked it for electricity, how can anyone possibly disprove this theory?

Citations & Notes

{1) first quote [7]

{2) size of meter [261 ]

{3) car speedometer [202]

{4) Olin Mathison [136, 30, 277]

{5) Volney Mathison [254]

{6) chiropractor [277]

{7) cost of meter really [254, 255]

{8) gov & Dr.'s claims against E-meter [254]

{9) plants have feelings [65a]

{10) 3 experiments [166, 57]

{11) Scientology statement about Hubbard validation [66] {12) electrical flow of thetan [261 ]

Chapter 19 The High Cost of Scientology

It's the only Church I've ever seen with a cashier's booth. -- a woman who quit after one session. -- Time(1)

When people first enter this exciting world of the totally free, they rarely realize just how expensive it is going to be. After all, the first course costs only $15, and for that price one gets close to sixteen hours of Scientology. What people usually don't realize is that they will never see this $1-an-hour rate again. Later it'll be more like $25, and sometimes more. One man who paid $1,200 in advance for a 50 hour course completed it in 20 minutes, which meant he spent about $1 a second for auditing.(2)

Scientology has two goals, and two types of courses to match: "auditing" people or "processing"; and teaching people to audit others or "training." The first series on the Hubbard hierarchy, auditing or processing, consists of several courses or grades, which enable a "preclear" to become a "clear." If each course is taken separately, it costs approximately (the prices are always changing) $750 just to go from O-IV grade, $500 for the next one, $1,200 for Grade V ("Power Processes"), $775 for Grade VI, $600 for "Solo" (in which you audit yourself) and finally $800 for the final "clear" or a total of approximately $4,625, although package deals bring the price down a bit lower.

But that's not all, since one can also go eight levels beyond "clear"to achieve the state of "Operating Thetan VIII" -- for only $2,850 more.(3) An Operating Thetan, by the way, is someone who can function apart from his body,(4) and OTs (Operating Thetans) are said to be able to lift telephones off the hook in another room and read books while some distance away from them.(5) The value of this accomplishment may not be readily apparent, but one practical Scientologist claimed she could visit her parents in Texas while her body remained in Washington, D.C.^ Fortunately for the travel industry, not too many Scientologists can do this.

But processing or auditing is only half the story. Scientology also trains its followers to audit others.To qualify for this doesn't even require a high school education -- just another prescribed series of Scientology courses.(7) Scientologists generally suggest people start with this series, and, in fact, unless specifically asked, they don't even tell them about the prices of the other group until later.

This second group starts at a modest $15 for the first course, $30 for the next, $45 for the third, and then suddenly leaps to their more typical rate of $1,300.(8) It generally takes at least a couple of months to become an auditor, although Scientologists have boasted that they can train some people to become auditors "in less than twenty minutes."(9) Those who wish to take more courses must go to the special Scientology academies in Los Angeles, Scotland or Saint Hill and pay additional expenses for room, board, books, equipment and transportation besides.(10)

In addition to the price of the courses, there are many other expenses. A Scientologist must buy many of Hubbard's books, and often attend special lectures or Congresses, which usually run tapes of Hubbard, or speeches by top Scientologists. In addition, a Scientologist may take extra auditing (at about $25 a session) or additional courses that are outside of the prescribed levels of treatment or training.(11)

For example a number of the Orgs used to offer a special "Money Processing Course" which was supposed to increase the Scientologist's "money making potential."(12) (This course consisted of having the person think of a number of ways in which he could waste money, probably under the principle that one must find what a preclear can do and then "better that ability.")

If a preclear complained that he couldn't afford the Scientology rates, he was told to take this course for only $35 to help him learn how to earn more.[*] The "Money Making Potential" course may have helped many Scientologists but one wonders how. One man who took it said it was so worthwhile, he "made $5,000" a few days after completing it. When he was pressured to tell how he had done this, he finally admitted that after the course was completed he had gone to a bank and taken the money out on loan.(13)

[*] Footnote:

At one of the Scientology lectures I attended, someone asked "If the goal of Scientology is to help the world, why is it so expensive that very few people in the world can afford to be helped by it?" The person was told that "nothing is expensive when your happiness is at stake," which, of course, did not answer the question.

Usually, the Scientologists will refer to their free "Personal Efficiency Course" as an example of their altruism and proof that they provide Scientology for free for those who can't afford it. They admitted in their United States tax case that the purpose of this course or lecture, however, was to get people to take paying courses.

This becomes painfully apparent in Hubbard's HCO Bulletin of September 29, 1959. "NEVER let anyone simply walk out. Convince him he's loony if he doesn't gain on it because that's the truth ... get the people in fast ... and boot them through to their HAS [Hubbard Apprentice Scientologist course].... And never let a student leave or quit.... If he walks in that door for a free PE, that's it. He doesn't get out except into an individual auditor's hand in the real tough cases, until he's an HAS." This PE "course," by the way, is the first night lecture, film of Hubbard and personality test.(14)

If a Scientologist decides he doesn't want to spend extra money on additional auditing or courses, he may not have a choice in the matter. Scientologists progress at their own speed and are not permitted to continue until the Student Examiner is satisfied that he's mastered the previous lessons.

Thus a Scientologist can be made to take and pay for more hours than he originally signed up for at the discretion of the leaders.(15) These extra courses are sometimes given as punishment, and it was said in Parliament that a Scientologist could be made to take additional courses if he tried to leave Scientology or if he questioned the accepted doctrines of the group.(16)

A Scientologist may also discover that Scientology is costing him more money than his original calculations indicated because the courses themselves may change. Hubbard often redefines the levels,(17) and while the motivation is probably sincere, some on the way to a certain level have discovered that they've had to sign up for a whole new series of courses in order to reach their goal.

In addition, after a person has reached a certain level, say clear, the HCO (Hubbard Communications Office) Board of Review can call for a retest at its own discretion after a lapse of time.{18) Whether the person who fails has to take any courses again, or even new ones, is not known.

It's not surprising that a really dedicated Scientologist can easily spend $15,000{19) in this "world of the totally free," and one wealthy Floridian, who had complained of "nervousness" but was told he was in good health at the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins, spent $28,000 in Scientology.{20) But most people who join it don't have that kind of money to spend. Many pay for their courses by leaving their jobs{21) and going to work for Scientology in exchange for training units -- often for a small salary besides ($40 a week for about 40 hours of work in New York).

Those who didn't wish to break completely from their outside contacts, were able to get credit at one time,{22) which the Church extended at six percent interest with a twenty-five percent surcharge returned if the note was paid on time. One person who wrote the Church and said he couldn't pay his bill, was written back not to feel that way because "there's nothing a thetan can't do."{23)

But they haven't always been that kind to debtors. Unpaid notes have been turned over to collection agencies, legal action has been threatened,{24) and debtors and their family have been harassed and intimidated, sometimes quite cruelly as shown in the letter below. This letter was received by a man in the mid-west whose son took $550 worth of courses but only paid for $200 of them. The father was then billed for the balance in a letter saying he had "agreed" to pay the other $350. The father wrote back saying he hadn't "agreed" to any such thing, and reported the Scientologists. On October 13, he received the following threats and accusations from a Scientology Reverend.

Rather than let my lawyers have all the fun, I will write to you this once and straighten you out. I have a great urge to beggar you to your last pair of socks, but I will curb the desire a little longer. If you had the wit of a demented swineherd you would have read those pieces of literature I so graciously had sent to you ... do not judge people by yourself. Not everyone is a mass murderer like yourself. Yes, I know quite a bit about you and your various projects during the war. And how do you sleep at night? I hope tis ill.... I am expert at harassment, try me and find out. You are not strong enough. You are not smart enough. You haven't the funds to go through long lengthy court battles. We have. Bigger men than you have done their best to stop us. They failed. So will you because you are a blatant moron in comparison. We joust only with our peers, others -- like you -- we will simply gobble up ... one more word out of you and I'll have you investigated. I might anyway. I have never seen one person yet that resisted Scientology who didn't have a great deal to hide. And you evidently won't look at free books sent to you, so you must, perforce have a great deal to conceal.{25)

The letter continued with more accusations of guilt on the part of the father, along with praise of Scientology and concluded on this ominous note.

If you want to start a Donnybrook, Buddy, wail away; to use the argot of the streets I'll just start my people to work on you and then before long you will be broke, and out of a job and broken in health. Then I can have my nasty little chuckle about you and get back to work.... You won't take long to finish off. I would estimate three weeks. Remember: I am not a mealy mouthed psalm [sic] canting preacher. I am a minister of the Church of Scientology! I am able to heal the sick and I do. But I have other abilities which include a knowledge of men's minds that I will use to crush you to your knees. You or any other wretch that stands in our way. Cause the list is long, but their careers are very short of those that have jousted with us.

The letter, written on the Church of Scientology letterhead, was signed "with the utmost sincerity possible" by the Reverend Andrew Bagley, Organizational Secretary. There was a short P.S. appended: "Don't reply to this letter. If I want to get in touch with you, I'll be able to find you. Anywhere." P.S. The father paid the bill. P.P.S. His son took approximately $4,500 worth more courses in Scientology, paying for them himself the next time from a $5,000 inheritance.(26)

Scientologists get people to pay substantial fees by promising to refund their money if they are dissatisfied with Scientology -- and they are quick to point out that no psychotherapist returns money if therapy proves unsuccessful (although they are just as quick to point out that they are not a form of therapy).(27) In fact, the Scientologists haven't always returned the money either, and have sometimes set up certain conditions that have made it difficult for people to collect.

The person must usually ask for his money within thirty (sometimes ninety) days after the course is completed.(28) Some people have also been made to take the security test before they can get a refund.(29) Others have signed a contract that obligates them to obey their Ethics Officer "in advice given me to facilitate my case progress and that any failure to do so renders this contract null and void without rebate." (The Ethics Officer can, of course, tell them not to ask for their money back, because that would be hindering their progress, and tell them to facilitate it by signing up for more courses instead.(30))

In one case, an Australian woman signed up for three hundred hours of auditing, took 175, and then asked for her money back. The register wrote her back that "the only way out is the way through," in other words, that she would have to take all 300 hours before she could leave Scientology and ask for her money back. This could cost her another $600 which she didn't have, so she wrote them back again. Again they wrote her "I repeat, the only way out is the way through."

The following is a portion of her extremely pathetic reply, listing the emotional and financial difficulties that she felt Scientology was responsible for.

... my situation has in every way worsened under the influence of Scientology.... I have to struggle to even stay awake, and as a consequence, I fear to lose my job and the little security that gives me. It takes a frightful effort not to go to sleep.... I am slow in my work and make mistakes.... I am always exhausted and sometimes can hardly walk along. This is the result I have obtained from spending all my money on something that is claimed to increase alertness and intelligence and generally benefit people....

Under these circumstances it is no help to be told "the way out is the way through." I have no money left for further auditing and no chance of saving any since I barely make ends meet.(31)

When nothing happened, she wrote directly to Hubbard, as do many Scientologists, putting letters in special boxes in the Orgs that say "You can always communicate with Ron."

At the commencement I had a job I liked, which paid me fairly well, and enough money put away to feel reasonably secure. Now I have a job I don't care for, which does not pay so well, my money is largely gone, and instead of being reasonably content I feel that nothing is worth doing, having periods of absolute exhaustion, and look forward to the remaining years of my life with complete hopelessness, as just a dreary round of work, work, work at something I don't care for to earn enough to exist to go on working.

Hubbard referred this letter to the Melbourne Org, where it was diagnosed as a case of "Missed W/H."(32) She was persuaded to undergo twenty-five hours of free processing for her "Missed withholds." Two years later she was still a Scientologist -- and paying for it.

Citations & Notes

{1) first quote [156]

{2) man who paid $1200 [141a]

{3) cost of auditing [126, 277]

{4) thetan function apart from body [254, 261 ]

{5) lifting phones; reading books [261 ]

{6) girl with family in Texas [256]

{7) no high school degree [255]

{8) cost of courses [277, 126]

{9) time to become auditor [255, 261, 277]

{10) go to St. Hill [277, 261]

{11) extra auditing [255]

{12) Money Processing [277, 278]

{13) man who took course and borrowed money [277] {14) (31) PE course quote [79]

{15) (14) pay for more courses than planned [97, 255] {16) (15) England if he tries to leave [257]

{17) (16) Hubbard changing courses [255]

{18) (17) clear can be retested [38]

{19) (18) $15,000 [139]

{20) (19) $28,000 [142]

{22) (21) credit [255]

{23) (22) nothing a thetan can't do [124]

{24) (23) collection agencies; legal action [255]

{25) (24) Bagley letter [123]

{26) (25) end of story [273]

{27) (26) psychiatrists don't refund [277]

{28) (27) money within 30-90 days [254, 255, 278] {29) (28) sec test {before money is refunded) [25] {30) (29) ethics officer [141a]

{31) (30) woman who signed up for 300 hours [261 ] {32) missed W/H [10]

Chapter 20 The Truth About L. Ron Hubbard

For heaven's sake, tell them I'm not God.

-- L. Ron Hubbard, quoted by Eric Barnes, Public Relations Chief of New York Church of Scientology(1)

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska, is a man of many talents and accomplishments, although not quite as many as he claims. In a number of biographies and autobiographies,(2) both types of which were said to have been written by him, he claims to have been descended from Count de Loup,(3) to be part French and Scotch and to have part of his family come from Little Clacton, Essex. He claims to have been a blood brother of the Pikuni Indians, "fast friends" with Calvin Coolidge Jr., and to be the real life model for the book, play, and movie, Mister Roberts.(4)

He also claims to have graduated in mathematics and engineering from Columbian University (a part of George Washington University), sometimes claims to have graduated in civil engineering from George Washington University, to have attended Princeton University (sometimes the Princeton School of Government) and to have gotten a Ph.D. from Sequoia University. He was a prolific writer, a singer, an explorer (and claims to have been a member of the Explorers Club since 1936(5)), a seaman, a Lieutenant in the navy, who was severely injured in the war.

Many of these things are true; for example, his family does come from Little Clacton, Essex, he was a writer, he was an explorer (and a member of the Explorers Club, but since 1940, not 1936 as he claimed), he was severely injured in the war (and in fact was in a lifeboat for many days, badly injuring his body and his eyes in the hot Pacific sun). But there are a number of small unimportant things in his Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard (which his son claims his father really wrote(6)) that were exposed by the Daily Mail in England as false.^ Because of these errors, it tends to cast suspicion, perhaps unjustly, on the rest.

Actually, most of the "errors" in that biography and others, with the exception of his academic background, were simply sins by omission. Although Hubbard admits he wrote screenplays and westerns, it was in science fiction that he made his mark, a fact he conveniently omitted in his Brief Biography and frequently underplayed elsewhere. This is important because a science fiction background is not considered good preparation for the understanding of true scientific phenomena and also because Hubbard wrote so much science fiction at one time that it would seem almost impossible that he could have carried on the careful research he claimed he did to formulate Dianetics upon which Scientology is based.

Nonetheless, Hubbard says Dianetics was based on his exhaustive research with 270 subjects,(8) and this research formed the basis of his engram and other theories. A recent article in Freedom stated that Hubbard spent thirty-five years researching the mind before Dianetics came out.(9) If this is true, it means that he started researching at the age of three. Generally, Hubbard is content to have people believe he spent twelve years researching Dianetics(10) before coming out with his basic book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

He says that the research began with his 1938 book, Excalibur, which appears to have been the manuscript he claims was stolen by the Russians. During these twelve years, especially in the last three or four before Dianetics came out, he wrote at least seventy-eight science fiction stories alone (under his name, or the pseudonyms of Rene Lafayette and Kurt Van Strachen){11) not to mention writing in other fields. With all this writing, it's hard to believe he had the time to research those 270 subjects properly (to research them properly would require 540 people; a control group that has not been given the Dianetic treatment should have been included in the sample).

With the exception of his one article on Dianetics published in a science fiction magazine, a cursory examination of Hubbard's other stories shows no indication that his imagination was being applied to the science rather than the fiction. (The one exception is a story written in 1938 called "Her Majesty's Aberration"{12) but it appears that only the title presaged anything that was to come later.)

Another thing that Hubbard was doing at the time -- also apparently not conducive to Dianetics research, and also an item he failed to mention in his "autobiographies" -- was that he was possibly practicing black magic. {13) Alexander Mitchell, who writes for the Sunday Times in England, claimed that Hubbard was once practicing witchcraft with John Parsons, who joined the American branch of the cult of Aleister Crowley, the reknowned sorcerer and mystic.

Parsons got Hubbard to act as a high priest during a number of rituals, during which time Parsons had sexual relations with his girl friend, Betty, who was also allegedly having relations with Hubbard. Hubbard seemed unconcerned about the competition, though, since Mitchell wrote that in the "climax" of the ritual, he allegedly "worked" his two subjects into a "sexual frenzy."

In addition to these sexual unions, there seems to have been some pooling of finances on a business partnership. Parsons was believed to have invested $17,000, Hubbard about $10,000, and Parson's girl friend Betty nothing. But it was said that Hubbard used about $10,000 of this to buy a yacht, while his friend Parsons was "living at rock bottom and I mean rock bottom," according to another cult member. Aleister Crowley cabled his United States office that he "suspected" that Hubbard was playing a "confidence trick" since Parsons had given away his girl friend and his money to Hubbard.

Eventually Parsons did recover the yacht, describing how in a letter to Crowley, reprinted by the Sunday Times.

Hubbard attempted to escape me by sailing at 5 p.m. and performed a full invocation to Bartzabel within the circle at 8 p.m. (a curse). At the same time, however, his ship was struck by a sudden squall off the coast which ripped off his sails and forced him back to port where I took the boat in custody.

All this happened after the war, at approximately the time when Hubbard claimed he had resumed his studies of Dianetics.

In his biographies Hubbard conveniently omitted or altered his educational qualifications. In his Brief Biography, he said he had graduated from Columbian University and in Who's Who in the Southwest (they claim he supplied the data) he said he graduated in Civil Engineering from George Washington University. (He has sometimes used a C.E. after his name.) Hubbard has even dedicated one of his books to his "instructors in atomic and molecular phenomenon, mathematics and the humanities at George Washington University and at Princeton,"{14) and in his Brief Biography he said he "excelled in but thoroughly detested his subjects."{15)

Actually his grades were appallingly low.(16) Although he did do well in his engineering and English courses, the man who frequently calls himself a nuclear physicist got a D in one physics course, an E in another, and in the atomic and molecular physics courses that he most often emphasizes (to the degree of thanking his instructors for it), he received an F.(17) With those grades, along with similar ones in mathematics, it is not surprising that Hubbard was placed on probation after his first year in college and didn't return for his second -- and of course never received the degrees that he claims he has.(18)

As for the Princeton School of Government that he says he attended, it was the Princeton School of Military Government,(19) and he went there only three months in what was possibly a war service course.(20)

Hubbard also claims to have a Ph.D. from Sequoia University.(21} Sequoia was originally called the College of Drugless Healing, and might have been called the College of Instant Learning, since it has been traced by the United States government to a residential dwelling in Los Angeles which operated through a post office box and delivered mail order doctorates without the formality of exams, or for that matter, of classroom attendance.

In fact, Hubbard didn't even have to pay for that degree -- it was an Honorary Degree(22) for his work in Dianetics. A Harvard student discovered that Hubbard was also on the staff of the school; might Sequoia be another name for one of Hubbard's own establishments?(23) (Hubbard's establishments have variously been called Hubbard College, Hubbard International School for Children, The Apostolic Church of Theological Scientologists, The Academy of Religious Arts and Sciences, Church of American Science, Church of the New Faith, Scientology Consultants for Industrial Efficiency, National Academy for American Psychology.(24))

Nonetheless, Hubbard apparently considered this "doctorate" to be significant because he renounced it in a public notice:

I, L. Ron Hubbard of Saint Hill Manor East Grinstead Sussex having reviewed the damage being done in our society with nuclear physics and psychiatry by persons calling themselves "Doctors" do hereby resign in protest my university degree as a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) anticipating an early public outcry against anyone called "Doctor" and although not in any way connected with bombs or "psychiatric treatment" or treatment of such and interested only and always in philosophy and the total freedom of the human spirit, I wish no association of any kind with these persons and so do publicly declare and request my friends and the public not to refer to me in any way with this title.(25)

Even so, Hubbard is referred to as "doctor," has used the title himself, and he does indeed have a D. Scn., or Doctor of Scientology. But that even this degree is haphazardly awarded became apparent when Hubbard's son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., who also has a D. Scn, testified at the United States Court of Claims that he didn't have to do anything special to get the degree, and in fact, wasn't certain whether he got his Bachelor of Scientology before or after he got his Doctorate of Scientology.(26)

Another omission in his biographies -- and one can hardly blame him for it -- are the dates of his various marriages and divorces. In the Scientology Security Check, a preclear is asked whether he has ever committed bigamy. Perhaps Hubbard should have put himself on the meter.

On April 13, 1933, he married Louise Grubb at Elkton, Maryland, and had two children by her. In December of 1945, she claimed he abandoned her and the children, and she filed suit for divorce on April 14, 1947. The divorce was granted on December 24, 1947, in Port Orchard, Washington. The only problem is that on August 10, 1946, in Chestertown, Maryland, Hubbard married Sara Northrup 8 months before the divorce suit was filed, and a year and a half before it was finalized.{27)

Also omitted, obviously, are the speculations that have been made about his sanity. The Australian Report said that "expert psychiatric witnesses" were of the opinion that Hubbard's writings indicated "symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia of long standing with delusions of grandeur. "{28) There have been rumors for years about Hubbard's sanity, and he has acknowledged these rumors:

Two million traceable dollars were spent to halt this work [Dianetics and Scientology].... All that has survived of this attack by the two A.P.A.'s, the A.M.A. and several universities is a clutter of rumors concerning your sanity and mine -- and rumors no longer financed will some day die.{29)

The Australian Inquiry finally came to the conclusion that Hubbard's "sanity was to be gravely doubted."{30) Certainly some of Hubbard's statements, even coming from a former science fiction writer, do sound rather strange. Hubbard claims to have visited Venus, the Van Allen Radiation belt,{31) and heaven -- twice. The first time in heaven, he said, was from "the moment of the implant to forget ... 43,891,832,611,177 years 344 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds from 10:02 to 2 P.M. Daylight Greenwich Time, May 9, 1963."{32) The second time was about a trillion years later. Lest anyone doubt he was there, or think that he might have ended up in the wrong place, he described Heaven as follows:

The gates of the first series are well done, well built. An Avenue of statues of saints leads up to them. The gate pillars are surmounted by marble angels. The entering grounds are very well kept, laid out like Bush Gardens in Pasadena, so often seen in the movies.

The second series ... is shabby. The vegetation is gone. The pillars are scruffy. The saints have vanished. So have the angels. A sign on one (the left as you enter) says "This is Heaven." The right one says "Hell."

In addition to having visited Heaven, Hubbard has also rewritten Genesis.{33) "Before the Beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect," etc. He has also rewritten the calendar{34) to read "A.D. 1, A.D. 10," etc., (to stand for "After Dianetics 1951," "After Dianetics 1960"), as if his discoveries were as important as the birth of Christ. When Hubbard first came out with Dianetics he wrote that it was a "milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and arch."{35) Now he sees Scientology as purer than Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity.{36)

Hubbard's "case studies" contain a constant repetition of torture themes in which people are held in bondage, inflicted with pain or violently killed. He often attributes (or projects) the cause of neurosis or engrams to the father's committing violent physical acts against the mother while she was pregnant or in the act of conceiving, as in the following "case study" Hubbard presented.

Fight between mother and father shortly after conception. Father strikes mother in the stomach. She screams ... and he says "Goddamn you, I hate you! You are no good. I'm going to kill you." Mother says, "Please don't hit me again. Please don't. I'm hurt. I'm frantic with pain." Father says, "Lie there and rot, damn you, good-bye."{37)

An even more violent example which one of his research subjects allegedly remembered, occurred when the child in the womb got an engram when her father knelt on her mother and started choking her before raping her.

FATHER: Stay here! Stay down, damn you, you bitch! I'm going to kill you this time. I said I would and I will. Take that! (his knee grinds into the mother's abdomen) You better start screaming. Go on, Scream for mercy! Why don't you break down? Don't worry, you will. You'll be blubbering around here, screaming for mercy! The louder you scream the worse you'll get. That's what I want to hear! I'm a punk kid, am I? You're the punk kid! I could finish you now but I'm not going to! ... This is just a sample. There's a lot more than that where it came from! I hope it hurts! I hope it makes you cry! You say a word to anybody and I'll kill you in earnest! ... I'm going to bust your face in. You don't know what it is to be hurt! ... I know what I'm going to do to you now! I'm going to punish you! etc.

Hubbard's hostility and unconscious obsession with violence runs through all of his writings. But it was apparent even before he presented Dianetics or Scientology. One of his earlier pseudonyms was "Winchester Remington Colt"(38) and although it's possible he consciously chose the name for its euphony it does seem strange that all three names are those of guns. Freudians could have a field day with this pseudonym, and its obvious phallic counterpart, perhaps surmising that he unconsciously chose the name to compensate for other weaknesses.

Citations & Notes

(1)    first quote [284]

(2)    biographical details [132]

(3)    Count de Loup [53]

(4)    all details [23]

(5)    (7) Explorers Club [271]

(6)    (5) Hubbard wrote it [255]

(7)    (6) exposing things in Daily Mail [171]

(8)    270 cases [6]

(9)    35 years researching [23, 59]

(10)    12 years researching [23]

(11)    78 Sci Fi stories and names [130]

(12)    Her Majesty's aberration [107]

{13) black magic story & quote [240a]

{14) (16) book dedication [1]

{15) (17) excelled in subject [13]

{16) (14) said George Wash. U. [132]

{17) (18) Hubbard's grades [255]

{18) (19) Hubbard not completing school [261, 267, 255] {19) (20) Princeton Military [268a]

{20) (15) Princeton [171]

{21) Sequoia [142, 277]

{22) honorary degree [223]

{23) Sequoia might be Hubbard school [28]

{24) names of Hubbard schools [33, 261, 262, 266, 279] {25) calls himself Doctor [261 ]

{26) L. R. H., Jr. degrees [255]

{27) divorce suit [148]

{28) delusions of grandeur [261 ]

{29) Hubbard acknowledged insanity rumors [16]

{30) sanity to be gravely doubted [261 ]

{31) visited Venus; Van Allen [261 ]

{32) visit to Heaven and quote [92]

{33) rewritten Genesis [11, 58]

{34) Rewritten calendar [261, 278]

{35) Dianetics is milestone [6]

{36) Scientology is purer than Christianity [16]

{37) (39) 2 quotes on fights between parents [6]

{38) (40) Winchester Remington Colt [140] Extraneous citation notes:

{39) (37) Scientologist is better than God [101 ] {40) (38) paranoid schiz [26, 1 {probably 261)]

Chapter 21 Does Scientology Work?

... I would say there is no validity [to Scientology processing]. But within Scientology you find a great deal of very direct truths, but then it is sort of like a bre'r rabbit tar baby. Inside the tar is this little nugget of truth; but all this black tar is over the side of it so people reach for the truth and they get all hung up in the tar and the various organizations and the science itself becomes perverted.

-- L. Ron Hubbard Jr. (1)

Hubbard once claimed that processing could help or cure such ailments as astigmatism, arthritis, allergies, asthma, bursitis, cataracts, some coronary difficulties, colds, dermatitis, possibly diabetes, glandular imbalance, leukemia (which Hubbard said may have been caused by an engram which recorded the expression "it turns my blood to water"), migraine headaches, polio, radiation burns, sinusitis, thyroid malfunctioning, tuberculosis, ulcers, etc.(2)

In addition, Dianetics, and possibly Scientology is supposed to "turn on and run out incipient cancer,"(3) and Hubbard believed that cancer, "especially malignant cancer," may be caused by engrams.(4) One man in Scientology who was dying of a malignant growth in his stomach spent two and a half to six hours a day for several months while his auditor asked him (among other things): "What stomach can you confront?" "What stomach would you rather not confront?" "Think of a stomach you can confront?" "Think of a stomach you'd rather not confront," etc. The man died.(5)

Hubbard has also claimed that Dianetics or Scientology can alter the shape of the body and make people grow taller, make them ambidextrous, make the insane sane, cure chronic chills, impotency, manic states, laryngitis, make children more beautiful, change the personality, improve Parkinson's disease, and make large bruises disappear in forty-five minutes.(6) Scientology processing can apparently even bring the dead back to life, since Hubbard described a miracle one of his auditors performed that he said "the Pope himself would have been proud to own." Hubbard claims they brought a dead child back to life by ordering the thetan back and telling him to take over the body again.(7)

Unfortunately, many of Hubbard's claims have not been and cannot be substantiated. There isn't time to analyze all of these claims. One claim, however, is that Scientology can relieve radiation burns, and that the reaction to radiation in persons who have been given processing was "by actual tests" much lower than those who have not received it.

Hubbard considers himself to be an expert in this field, and even wrote a book as a "nuclear physicist" entitled All About Radiation. As in almost all of Hubbard's books, the dedication was more interesting than the book. That one was dedicated to Winston Churchill "who could have written and said it much better" and Dwight David Eisenhower "who could solve it if he had a little more cooperation."^)

In All About Radiation Hubbard said they could "run out radiation" and "proof" people up against it. How can he prove such claims? He can't. So Scientologists simply say that they can cure the radiation we have in our bodies right now from our past lives.(9) One can doubt it, but it's hard to disprove. They even sold a pill, Dianezene, to be used to wipe out radiation from our current and past lives. (10)

Scientology is supposed to improve marriages,{11) but the rate of divorce at the Orgs would put Hollywood to shame.{12) Even Hubbard has been married three times. Two of the marriages were very stormy (he claims that this is because his first wives weren't Scientologists, while his current one is{13) -- he not only met her in Dianetics but she sometimes acts as his auditor{14)).

Scientology is supposed to cure frigidity. One woman who went to Scientology for that purpose was taught things that caused her husband to get a separate bed. Eventually he divorced her.{15) In another case, a man refused to have sex with his wife because he felt he was too high on Hubbard's "tone scale" and that his wife was too low to bother.{16)

Scientology is supposed to improve creativity but some Scientologists, while believing they're getting more and more creative every day, actually have stopped painting, writing, and sculpting, and spend all of their time on Scientology.{17) Scientology is supposed to improve memory, but the one time Hubbard publicly introduced a clear who was supposed to be able to remember everything, including every single moment of her past, most of the audience of 6,000 people walked out when she was unable to remember a single formula in physics -- the subject she was majoring in at the time -- or even the color of Hubbard's tie when his back was turned.{18)

Scientology claims it can increase a person's I.Q., while actually the I.Q. can't be increased substantially.{19) Nonetheless, Hubbard wrote President Kennedy that Scientology could increase the I.Q. at the rate of one point for every hour of auditing,{20) and he once told a reporter that he had raised an I.Q. from 83 to 212.{21) Like many of Hubbard's claims, however, raising the I.Q. makes for good advertising copy and helps to bring insecure people into the Orgs. Hubbard told his followers that if someone's I.Q. is low, tell him "Scientology training can raise that." If it's high, tell him "I.Q. means little unless a person knows something with it."{22)

Furthermore, afterwards, these people feel that they've been helped by Scientology because they believe that their I.Q. has been raised. What has actually improved is only the score on their I.Q. test -- and why shouldn't it? There is some evidence that the Scientologists give the same test twice.{23)

Psychologists for years have been aware of the "practice effect" which means, in effect, that someone given the same test twice will do better the second time, not because they'll cheat and look up the answers they missed, or discuss it with someone else who took the test, which is always a possibility, but because they are familiar with the surroundings, they understand the test and the directions better, they are less nervous, etc.{24) Not true, says Hubbard, "Everybody in the ... Universe is on a 'mustn't happen again' and we automatically figure that a test taken twice will get a worse grade the second time."{25)

One of the reasons that many of Scientology's claims can't be substantiated is that much of Hubbard's research runs counter to common knowledge and sometimes to common sense. During the days of Dianetics, for instance, perhaps it should have been called "Diarrhetics" since Hubbard gave preclears large doses of a haphazard mixture of vitamins and glutamic acid called "guk"{26) in order to make them "run better" -- although there's little evidence elsewhere that diarrhea improves mental health.

His theory of the Boo-Hoo, or the primeval clam, is another example of his strange reasoning. He stated that his Boo-Hoo which "marked the transition from life in the sea to life on land" had a miserable life because it could get stranded or attacked by predatory birds. But if life was just emerging from the sea, where did the predatory birds come from?(27)

Another claim: In his book called the History of Man he used the example of Piltdown Man to support one of his theories.(28) Even after Piltdown Man was exposed as a scientific hoax, Hubbard didn't change his theory. In the same book, he told how Scientology could cure toothaches, a description which would surely make every dentist or even medically knowledgeable person cringe:

The Pulp of a tooth, for instance, tracks back, cell by cell, to early engrams; when these are relieved a "toothache" in that tooth becomes almost impossible, no matter how many "nerves" are exposed, a matter which brings about quite a revolution in dentistry.(29)

In his best-seller, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, he said that Dianetics could improve hearing as follows:

... calcium deposits, for example, can make the ears ring incessantly. The removal of aberrations permits the ear to readjust toward its reachable optimum, the calcium deposits disappear and the ears stop ringing.(30)

The trouble with this is that it has never been proven in the first place that calcium deposits cause ringing in the ear.

Perhaps some of these discrepancies have appeared because of the nature of Hubbard's "research" discussed in the last chapter. According to his second wife, who was married to him at the time he was supposed to be doing his research, there was no research done, no subjects run, the book was written in three months off the top of his head, and the "case studies" were the figment of his fertile imagination.(31) Furthermore, as many people have suspected, she said the 1938 supposedly stolen manuscript Excalibur did not exist. She said it was one of those books that Hubbard always said he might like to write one day.

A reading of Hubbard's case studies seems to support the notion that his Dianetic theories emerged from his own imagination. Those cases that Hubbard described "in detail," which for him meant two pages, are simply rather hard to believe.(32)

For example, he cited the case of a man who got an impacted wisdom tooth which had to be pulled, a situation that ultimately led to the man's being put in a mental institution. In the beginning of this "case history" the man met a nurse who was "sexually aberrated" and an "aberee among aberees," who pumped him for information about his life while he was unconscious.

A few years later he met someone similar to the nurse, divorced his wife and married the pseudo nurse. His teeth got worse. His cavities increased. His memory degenerated. He developed eye troubles and a strange conjunctivitis. His lungs hurt. His energy dissipated. And because the dentist leaned on his stomach and chest with a sharp elbow during the wisdom teeth operation, he had stomach pains. Naturally he started beating his wife, in this case because the dentist had been angry with the original nurse. The wife, in turn, attempted suicide. And this man ended up in a mental institution. "Only the cavalry in this one case, arrived in the form of Dianetics and cleared the patient and the wife and they are happy today. This is an actual engram and an actual case history," Hubbard added, just in case no one believed him.(33)

Ira Wallach in Hopalong Freud poked fun at Hubbard's scientific experiments. "Here is a classic example of the flex" he wrote, meaning an engram,

drawn from one of the 855 patients on whom the Diapetic Institute conducted clinical tests with maddeningly strict scientific controls. Shortly after conception the foetus in question overheard an argument between its parents. The argument, acrimonious in character, reached its climax when the mother shouted "Go ahead, you son of a bitch, hit me with that andiron...." Whenever the patient in adult life caught sight of an andiron (or a son of a bitch) he insisted upon being beaten on the head....{34)

Yet Scientologists take as gospel truth every word that Hubbard writes, even if they don't understand it. Although some of Hubbard's writing is poetic, some of it is also incomprehensible and a lot of it is just pretentious. Some of this may be a put-on; for example, he wrote an article telling his followers that it was best to use soup cans for the E-meter,{35) and titled the article "E-meter Electrodes: A Dissertation on Soup Cans."

But Hubbard also seems to try deliberately to be incomprehensible, perhaps confusing inscrutability with wisdom. He has written seven Prelogics and twenty-four Logics plus fifty-eight Scientology axioms{36} ("AFFINITY IS A SCALE OF ATTITUDES WHLCH FALLS AWAY FROM THE COEXISTENCE OF STATIC, THROUGH THE INTERPOSITIONS OF DISTANCE AND ENERGY TO CREATE IDENTITY DOWN TO CLOSE PROXIMITY BUT MYSTERY"), and one hundred-ninety-four Dianetic axioms ("THETA VIA LAMDA EFFECTS AN EVOLUTION OF MEST"). The Australian Report commented on these, saying that "as axioms they claim to be self-evident truths, but they are neither true nor self evident."{37}

And yet Hubbard, the same person who wrote the above, is always saying that Scientologists should never go past any word they don't understand,{38) and he even goes to the trouble of defining simple little words like "synonymous" for his followers.{39) Perhaps he should have also defined the following:

I think ... if what we really observed was what we were observing that we always observed to observe. And not necessarily maintaining a skeptical attitude, a critical attitude, or an open mind. But certainly maintaining sufficient Personal Integrity and sufficient personal belief and confidence in self and courage that we observe what we observe and weigh what we have observed.{40)

Still, his followers believe that every word he writes is The Truth. In fact, a group of Hubbard's admirers wrote a book comparing his statements with the Bible (along with Saint Thomas Aquinas) where they believed the meanings were parallel.{41)

It's hard to believe that Scientology or Dianetics has actually ever helped anybody. Yet the Scientologists have testimonial books in their lobby filled with "success stories" of people who have been helped by Scientology, and they even have a Director of Success at the Orgs who elicits these testimonials.{42) The testimonials delivered do not tell of long range effects, however.

Even if these testimonials are not of very much value, the fact remains that a great number of people believe that they have been helped by Scientology and Dianetics, and probably many of them have been helped. Below are two testimonials, and while there were literally hundreds to choose from, these two were very complete, listing a large number of ailments that had been cured and a variety of ways that Dianetics had helped them.

The first letter comes from a 35-year old woman who had an unbelievable host of symptoms: she used to cry all the time, couldn't see very well, was very nervous, had trouble gaining weight, was inhibited, dependent, afraid of crowds, had pains on her side, the measles she had at eleven seemed to have "settled in her left eye," was constantly talking, and had two operations during the time she was in Dianetics. She kept a diary over a period of a few months to show how processing had not only helped her relieve a large number of these symptoms but enabled her breasts and feet to grow and her hair to curl:

My hair ... in the last three weeks it curls more than ever.... I can't explain it but my feet seem to be growing! Of course I am developing more all over. I have had rather large pores around my nose for several years. In the last week I noticed that my skin has smoothed out and is more like when I was twenty ... about two months ago I noticed my feet seemed to be growing ... before starting on these sessions my breasts were unusually small. In fact, I wore a size 32A brassiere ... I am now wearing a size 34C and from all indications will wear still larger. My breasts never really developed as they should, but now, thanks to Dianetics, I am beginning to be as nature intended.(43)

Although no one in the center apparently recognized it, including Hubbard who presented this case, any doctor or psychiatrist would have immediately questioned whether she was being helped or whether a basic schizophrenic condition was being exacerbated. As she continued to be processed (and the above entry represents diary jottings from several months) she thought she was being helped, but perhaps she was actually acquiring or aggravating schizophrenic symptoms. It is a fairly common delusion among a certain type of schizophrenic that parts of the body are growing and changing.

The next letter is a testimonial to a Dianetics Center:

During the past week through Dianetics processing I have been relieved of pains in the stomach due to ulcers; have regained hearing in my right ear in which I have been deaf for three and a half years; have regained the ability to breathe through my nostrils which I had not been able to do for the past six or seven years; have been relieved of severe constipation which has been continuous for at least six years and now my stools are entirely normal; the burning sensation of my eyes of eight or nine years duration caused by electrical flashes has been relieved, and I am no longer bothered by headaches after using my eyes for reading. I had not been able to do any extensive reading at night for the past seven or eight years without getting headaches and for several years I have had cramps in my legs and feet at night until the past week....(44)

Many people would agree, however, that this letter comes from an extremely neurotic woman, whose ailments were probably psychosomatic. They couldn't have been cured in a week without medication if they had really had a physiological basis. For her, Dianetics seems to have acted as a form of faith healing, and like any form of faith healing, Dianetics and Scientology can be effective -- however they may be effective only on those who are so suggestible that they might have been helped by anything so long as they believed in it and stayed with it. But what happens when a Scientologist loses faith and stops believing? Most Scientologists never find out because they never lose faith and leave. Instead of preparing them to cope with the real world, as therapy would, Scientology prepares them to cope with the world of Scientology.

There are always new courses for them to take. When they get tired of being audited they can always audit others. When they get tired of the Org they can join the Sea Org. And when they get tired of all that, they can get a franchise -- excuse me, start a mission -- and go into the Scientology business themselves. Thus, they may be helped, but only at a tremendous cost in time and money.

For some the cost is even higher. In one case, Robert Kaufman, who wrote a fascinating book called How I Joined Scientology and Became Superhuman, was in a New York Scientology franchise at first, but then went to Saint Hill to take the advanced courses that are offered there. Not long after his arrival there, he was upset to see two Scientologists who were in an advanced state of severe emotional disturbance under twenty-four-hour watch. He was told that one had just gone clear and that the other was in the midst of the course.

In addition, he was appalled by what he describes as "the police-state type atmosphere of the place and constant punishments, like the dirty-gray armbands they forced people to wear for the most trivial mistake." He writes that he "was in a state of walking hypnotism. Part of me was repelled by what I saw, and the other part of me desperately wanted to go on to catch the Golden Fleece and go 'clear.' "

He went clear after he left Saint Hill and went to Edinburgh, but he discovered that the symptoms that had started at Saint Hill were getting worse. He still couldn't sleep at night, and when he would finally collapse from exhaustion, he would wake up in the morning with an acute attack of anxiety. Fearing that his symptoms would get worse if he stopped, he continued on with the next three secret upper levels, whose description is so strange as to be almost unbelievable.

Kaufman claims that these strange exercises caused him to "undergo extreme disorientation and splitting of personality" plus a new symptom: an obsession to commit suicide. He says that all during this time "I felt rotten, but every time I reached another level, everyone would smile, pat me on the back, hand me my certificates [diplomas] -- and take my money for the next course."

By the end of this time, plus a brief stint back in America, he had spent about $8,000 in Scientology and the only thing that kept him from suicide was his fear that if he did so it would "invalidate Scientology" and his name would be put on the bulletin board. (Kaufman was the man mentioned earlier who was so upset over the notices posted on the bulletin board about the epileptic who died.) But in the end he no longer cared, and in order to save his own life, he voluntarily committed himself to a mental institution. Today he is out of the hospital and has no desire ever to return to Scientology.

Another even worse case involves a Falls Church, Virginia, couple and their two children: one was retarded and the other, while speaking early in his life, later stopped talking. The couple went to Scientology for help with the second child, and Hubbard, his wife, and several others in the Washington Church at that time all promised to increase the child's I.Q., "improve on nature whatever happened to be the defect," and cause him to speak within a specific number of hours.

At the end of the twelve-week session, when the child still couldn't speak, the distraught parents were told that the Scientologists were at a near breakthrough and that they should continue with the processing and take more courses than they had originally agreed upon. The couple could ill afford to lose this money, since they raised it by cashing in life insurance bonds and a small inheritance. Although it eventually cost them over $3,000 "as a contribution to spiritual guidance," the child was never able to speak.{45)

The Australian Report presented something worse, as they put it, a woman "processed into insanity."{46) They had set up a special two-way mirror to witness Scientology techniques so that they could judge the merits of their auditing. Such a situation would of course be a little different than a regular auditing session, since the person was aware that he was being observed, and the sessions were shorter than the usual.

They watched a woman who had already had sixty hours of Scientology processing and had signed up for a total of 300. At the beginning of the session she said her goals for the session were that she would get "wins" and feel more positive about things, that she would feel calmer, and she could handle situations at home. At the conclusion of the session, when her goals were read out to her, she claimed she had made "gains" in all of them. Nine days later she entered a mental hospital. A psychiatrist who saw the transcript of the demonstration session told the board that her behavior obviously indicated she was in a state of mania -- not ecstasy -- and that this would have been apparent to a psychiatrist.

A slightly similar case occurred in England. In March, 1967, Mr. Peter Hordern got up in Parliament to describe the case of one of his constituents, Karen Henslow, a thirty-year-old manic-depressive who had been institutionalized three times.(47) Scientologists were aware of her background. Her contact with Scientology started when she met at a dance an Australian, Murray Youdell, who was taking the highest auditing grade at Saint Hill.

He began to audit Miss Henslow, although she told him of her illness, and in January she was interviewed at Saint Hill. Karen told her mother that she had mentioned her illness to them, saying "I told her all about my illness and I cried. She [probably the Registrar] was sweet and understanding." Later, in May, she was offered a job as a "Progress and Filing Clerk" for about $18 a week, of which she had to relinquish about $10 for bed and breakfast.

After two weeks in Scientology she disconnected from her mother and wrote saying, "... I do not want to see you or hear from you again. From now on you don't exist in my life...." The same day the mother received a second letter, with no date, apologizing for the first letter and saying she wanted to "nullify it as a communication," and that it was mailed without her permission. "You are the last person I want to disconnect from" she wrote. Later, among Karen's possessions were four more letters labeling friends and relatives suppressive.

On July 27, two months after she began Scientology, Karen arrived at her mother's house dressed in only a nightgown and raincoat and shoes and "in a completely deranged condition," according to her mother. With her was Mr. Youdell, along with another Scientologist. Mrs. Henslow said the other Scientologist had processed Karen for three hours the previous night to try to get her better.(48) It apparently didn't work. Later that night, Karen went screaming from her house and was subsequently put in a mental institution. The consulting psychiatrist in charge of her case allegedly said that Scientology had "probably precipitated" her collapse.(49) Karen felt she had benefited from Scientology and stated that she wanted to return to it when she left the hospital.

During a subsequent interview on the matter, Mr. Youdell, who had gotten Karen into Scientology allegedly "answered ... questions ... with an unblinking stare and a colleague said Mr. Youdell was 'in cycle' and not to be interrupted," and referred inquiries to Mr. Reg. Sharpe, Mr. Hubbard's personal assistant.

Mr. Sharpe, a man in his sixties who wears the badge of a "clear"(50) and is said to work for Hubbard for no pay,(51) said "We tried to help this girl. We did not know she had a mental history. We do not take on for processing anyone who has got a mental history."(52) That such a statement is not true seems obvious not only from this case (although the Scientologists claim that they did not know about her illness but that only Murray Youdell did), but also from another letter reported by the Daily Mail in England.

This letter was allegedly written by two Scientologists to tell the "success story" of a girl who went to Saint Hill: "At that time Hilary was completely broken down in mind and body; having spent the past four years in various mental hospitals undergoing 'treatment.' "{53)

In reading Hubbard's work one comes across reference to "psychotic" people that were helped, and in his PABS (Preclear Auditor's Book) #3 Hubbard even told what procedure to use in "Processing psychotics vs. neurotics."{54) That Scientologists do occasionally take in mentally disturbed people was also revealed in court during one of the American tax cases. They admitted that they did take in mental cases because a registrar would feel sorry for someone with a problem and want to help them. Attorney Michael I. Sanders had asked:

Q: Were exceptions [i.e., people taken in who were disturbed] made in those cases where the preclear had available funds?

A: There would usually be, because the Org needed funds rather badly.{55)

In addition to working with mentally disturbed people or at least people who have been institutionalized at one time, there is also some evidence that they have worked with mentally deficient people. In Ability magazine Hubbard once described the case of a person with an I.Q. of seventy-three{56) -- which is officially classified as a "moron" -- which he raised to eighty-eight -which, by the way, is still classified as a moron.

Despite these cases and others, Scientology claims that no one was ever harmed by Scientology or Dianetics. They may be right when they say that Dianetics and Scientology did not cause these people's difficulties. But letting an auditor, without proper medical or psychological training, work with people who may have had mental and physical disturbances would seem to be a dangerous practice{57) -- even if they claim to be treating only the spirit. And having an auditor try to help people by taking them back to the womb and their former lives might not be as beneficial as having them talk out their real problems in their real life.

There are fourteen stages of crawling before a child can actually walk; the mind, too, develops in a somewhat hierarchical manner, and each of these steps must be stabilized somewhat before the person can safely move from one to another. Scientologists, encouraged by auditors whose qualifications are questionable, may move on to the next step before they are ready to handle it. And like walking before they can crawl -- they may fall flat on their psychical faces.

Citations & Notes

{1) first quote [255]

{2) what Scientology can cure [6]

{3) radiation burns; turn on and run out cancer [1] {4) cancer engrammatic [6]

{5) man processed for cancer [261 ]

(6)    other Scientology claims [254]

(7)    Hubbard quote on dead child and pope [29]

(8)    Scientology claims for radiation; book; dedication [1]

(9)    radiation in past lives [255]

(10)    Dianezene [255]

(11)    Scientology improves marriages [126]

(12)    divorces at org [278]

(13)    wife a Scientologist [142]

(14)    wife is auditor [261 ]

(15)    frigidity case [158]

(16)    tone scale [261 ]

(17)    stop being creative [141a, 278]

(18)    clear who couldn't remember [264]

(19)    IQ can't be raised [261 ]

(20)    IQ increases one pt. for one hour [24]

(21)    raised IQ from 88-212 (83?) [142]

(22)    Hubbard quote on what to tell people about IQ [84]

(23)    same test twice [261 ]

(24)    practice effect [261 ]

(25)    Hubbard quote on test twice [21]

(26)    guk [154]

(27)    where were birds from [142]

(28)    Piltdown Man [171]

(29)    curing toothaches [9]

(30)    ears ringing [6]

{31) inaccuracies [135]

{32) Freud {Hubbard?) discussed cases in detail [143]

{33) man with wisdom tooth [6]

{34) quote by Ira Wallach [265]

{35) Soup cans [20]

{36) axioms, etc. [2]

{37) not true or self-evident [261 ]

{38) don't go past word you don't understand [23]

{39) defines synonymous [10]

{40) Hubbard quote on observation [141a]

{41) parallels with Bible [11]

{42) testimonials [278]

{43) {testimonial) letter from woman whose body changed [27]

{44) other {testimonial) letter [125]

{45) Virginian couple [255]

{46) Australian woman [261 ]

{47) Henslow story [172, 257]

{48) drills she repeated [173] {ambiguous citation)

{49) psychiatrist said Scientology probably precipitated attack; interview with Youdell [172] {50) (51) Sharpe a clear [171]

{51) (52) Sharpe statements [172]

{52) (53) claim they don't accept mental patients [29]

{53) (50) other girl disturbed in Scientology [172] {ambiguous citation)

{54) processing psychotics [18]

{55) take disturbed for feel sorry for them; quote on taking money [255]

(56)    IQ of 77 (73?), etc. [43]

(57)    have needed hospitalization [261, 272] (ambiguous citation)

Extraneous citation notes:

(58)    (60) poem [42]

(59)    (61) Hubbard poem [45]

Conclusion

In this book, I have tried to explain what Scientologists believe, what they do, how Scientology started and is expanding, and what happens to a person once he joins Scientology. One question I have not yet answered is the one that is most frequently asked of me -- "Why do people join Scientology?"

For one thing, they haven't read this book -- or anything else that really tells them about the group. Most of the people who attend the introductory lecture or visit the Org out of curiosity know nothing about: the people who joined and found that their emotional difficulties were being aggravated instead of alleviated; the people who spent thousands of dollars on Scientology in one year; and the people who were harassed after they left.

The Scientologists have done everything possible to keep these stories private. Not only have they sued and harassed those who have spoken out publicly against the group, but they have also tried to discredit them by sometimes "revealing" their supposed "crimes" in lurid and ludicrous detail.

While the people who join Scientology usually have not had a chance to hear the Scientology critics, they also haven't heard the Scientologists themselves either. They do not really know what Scientology has to offer or what they are getting into. Those who join the group spend quite a bit of time in it before they find out what the Scientologists really believe, about the Scientology auditing process, or even that there is a Scientology auditing process.

That's because Scientologists are very evasive about their activities, usually answering (or avoiding) questions about what Scientology is or what Scientologists do with such statements as "it's beautiful," "it'll make you free," and "you'll have to try it for yourself." In fact, people have to try it for themselves for quite some time before they discover how deeply involved both financially and emotionally they have become. Sometimes, by that time, they are too deeply involved to leave.

For the deeper a person goes into Scientology, the deeper he may have to go into Scientology. The more courses he takes, the more time he spends with Scientologists. The more time he spends with his new friends, the less time he spends with his old friends. If he leaves his job and goes to work for Scientology, as many do, he will soon be living and working only for Scientology, spending time only with Scientologists, and, as many people who have met them have discovered to their dismay, talking only about Scientology.

But while this may explain why they stay there, it does not explain their initial attraction to the group. I think one thing that attracts people to the group is its appearance. It appears to be religious (ministers, clerical robes, etc.) It appears to be scientific ("Scientology"). It appears to be involved with technology (the E-meter). It appears to have a philosophical body of knowledge (Hubbard's writings). Another thing that attracts them is the appearance of some of the people themselves.

Although by now it may seem that Scientologists have crazy stares, talk gobbledy-gook language, and act as if they're from outer space, the usual initial impression that most people acquire when they walk into an Org is that of people who are young, very attractive, and often, intelligent.

Furthermore, many of these young people are unattached, so that single or lonely people are attracted to Scientology's social life. Some people join Scientology because they have already met their mate -- a person who was or became a Scientologist. Some of the most ardent Scientologists admitted that they initially joined or became interested in the group because their spouses or loved ones were Scientologists and the only way they could continue to see that person, or have something in common with them, was by joining the group themselves.

In addition to those who join because they are seeking a mistress or a mate (a person), many people join because they are seeking a group to which they can really belong and be a part. Scientology is really just one big family. Hubbard, of course, is the father, and his wife plays the role of the mother. Scientologists are children who, if they're good, will be taken care of; if they're bad, and protest or question anything, father says they will be expelled from the family unit.

Everything in their life is planned for them. There are certain courses for them to take and certain goals they must achieve in each course. If they disobey, or balk at any level, the punishments are rigidly set forth. Fortunately for the Scientologists, Hubbard treats his children somewhat kindly -so long as they don't ever grow up and try to leave his home.

Like any family group, or in fact any group, Scientology fulfills some of the personal needs of its members. Someone with a strong desire to be respected by others can easily become a Scientology minister and be treated with the reverence generally accorded to men of the cloth. Someone with feelings of intellectual inferiority believes he can have his I.Q. raised by Scientology, and can, in fact, get a (Scientology) B.A. or a (Scientology) Doctorate degree. Someone who feels lonely has a place to go to and friends to see once he joins Scientology -- Scientology brings meaning into his life where once there was only emptiness.

The man I described in the first chapter who said that before he discovered Scientology he used to lie in bed and stare at the ceilings may not have been that different from some of the others who joined. But now that man has a place to go and something to do. People understand what he's saying because he's speaking their language. People look him straight in the eye when he talks to them. People like him now because he has the same goals. More important -- now he has some goals. He is working hard to bring everyone into Scientology so that together they can all save this world. It would be a laudable goal, too, except for one thing: no one is allowed to disagree with or criticize the manner in which the Scientologists think they're going to save the world.

When all is said and done, what Scientology has to offer is merely their treatment or processing. They believe that it is our only road to salvation. The Scientologists like to say that there can't be two sides to the truth. Since they believe that they have found the truth, those who disagree with them are wrong. Perhaps. Sometimes when I am most skeptical about the efficacy of their methods, I think back to what one Scientologist said (using typically inflated figures) about their membership: "Fifteen million people can't be wrong." But history has often proven otherwise.

Many of the theories and teachings of scientology are so fanciful that the reaction of the normal individual on hearing them is generally one of amusement and incredulity ... the impression may exist ... that scientology is just harmless nonsense and its followers merely queer people, that its theories are foolish but funny and that not much harm is being done by allowing silly people to have their silly beliefs and carry on their silly practices. Such an attitude is welcomed by the scientologists, for it serves to obscure the real nature of scientology.

-- from the Australian Report{1)

Incredulity of our data and validity. This is our finest asset and gives us more protection than any other single thing. If certain parties thought we were real we would have infinitely more trouble ... without a public incredulity we never would have gotten as far as we have. And now it's too late to be stopped. The protection was accidental but it serves us very well indeed. Remember that the next time the ignorant scoff.

-- L. Ron Hubbard{2)

Citations & Notes

{1) (58 in Chapter 21) final quote by Australian [261 ] {2) (59 in Chapter 21) final quote by Hubbard [93a]

Appendix The Scientologist's Story

In January, 1971, I wrote to David Gaiman, Public Relations Director of Scientology in England, with whom I had had some earlier correspondence, informing him that this book was to be published and offering him a chance to give the Scientologists' side of the story in brief. I also requested information on some of Scientology's rehabilitation programs -- their Human Rights Commission and Narconon, their program in India -- so that some of this could also be included.

Unfortunately, instead of a response to my letters, my publisher received three telegrams from the Church of Scientology of Hawaii, California, and Washington threatening a lawsuit if the book was published.

Around the same time, I received a telegram from David Gaiman stating that he would write me that afternoon. But there was a British mail strike, and his response did not reach me till March 7, when the galleys were already completed. The information he gave me, therefore, could not be incorporated into the text proper. All I can do now is reprint his letter which replies to a number of questions I asked. His covering letter was as follows:

Dear Paulette,

I did receive your letter and replied by telex.

It was the American Ambassador in London who said, "A man's nomenclature is very important to him." While I do not agree with the Ambassador, I do notice that your opening sentence misduplicates my name[*] and the rest of the contents maintain a consistently high standard.

Old-fashioned is a phrase which has a multitude of constructions; "old-fashioned girl" is often a compliment; old-fashioned jewelry is much admired; I think I've heard of an old-fashioned cocktail, on which I cannot comment, but was, if I do not misremember, very much in vogue when I was a child. Old-fashioned could apply to the great master of the arts, the literary classics. Perhaps you agree that there is a certain quality which ignores or improves with the passage of time which makes "old-fashioned" a complimentary expression.

Then on the other side, the Edsell motor car, Community and involuntary psychiatry, English stage musicals of the fifties, the Inquisition, gunboat diplomacy, Colonel Blimp, and the 3rd Reich, (make your own list). They are old-fashioned too. The old hack 'let's smear the Scientologists' routine was old when Martin Gardner[**] was hired by the A.P.A. or morticians union or whatever it was.

You really can do better than the manuscript I corrected [***] and I do hope that the forthcoming piece is less archaic that the tired old piece in Queen .[****]

The mail strike is in full bloom in the U.K., and I have no guarantee of when this will reach you.

However, best regards,

Sincerely,

David B. Gaiman

[*] Footnote:

I probably spelled it "Gaimen" instead of "Gaiman."

[**] Footnote:

Gardner wrote an article a long time ago against Dianetics in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.

[***] Footnote:

A harassing letter I had received from David Gaiman stated that he had gotten hold of several chapters of my book-to-be and that there were a number of inaccuracies. I wrote him back and stated that if this was true, to please tell me the full story and send me all documentation immediately so that I could make some changes in my book. I never heard from him again until the letter above, and I assume he's referring to that manuscript.

[****] Footnote:

I wrote an article on Scientology for Queen magazine which the Scientologists didn't like.

The following is a list of questions (in boldface) that I presented to Gaiman and his replies (in standard print).

1.    Please tell me something about Scientology clearing programs in prisons.

There is no such program, there is a rehabilitation self help program called Narconon which uses Scientology technology in Prisons and other places. Designed by its founder, a rehabilitated drug addict, for drug addicts, it is producing rehabilitation in over 70% of its graduates, over a five year period. For further information write to A. Maren, Narconon Co-Ordinator, 2005 West 9th Street, Los Angeles, California 90006, or A. Graham, Burnt House Farm, Forest Row, Sussex, or David Bath, 16-18, View Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 3, New Zealand. It is the only program of its kind which is national in the U.S. and international in the sense pilot projects exist in the U.K. and soon in New Zealand. It operates without any Government or state subsidy at this time.

2.    The News of the World reported a story about Linda Hicks, who married a Scientologist and disappeared aboard the Sea Org. The paper said that the Scientologists claimed that she was pressured by her parents to marry someone else and that they were using Scientology as an excuse to break up the marriage and that she fled because she feared her parents would kidnap them. Is this true?

Linda Hicks' case was investigated by the Member of Parliament for Brighton, d. Hobden M.P., and he found the facts as related by Mrs. V. Standen true. The Linda Hicks affair is now an old one, but fairly typical of the technique known as targeting a person or group by means of media. You are no doubt familiar with the technique. Simply stated, Linda Hicks married a Scientologist and she left him as a result of family pressure after living with her husband in S. Africa. Her M.P. looked into the case (Mr. Hobden) and found it was a storm in a teacup. Another interesting factor is that even the media, which was well used by the WFMH and NAMH and other psychiatric front groups, no longer want these Scientology stories, which were put-up jobs, and are looking into the mental health racket -- involuntary committal and treatment which are infinitely more sensational and gory than any of the stuff about us. Murder, rape, euthanasia -- the psychiatrist is a very naughty boy.

3.    Vic Filson claimed he was hired as a detective to investigate Scientology's enemies and to prepare dossiers on psychiatrists in England, etc. What is the story?

Vic Filson. Yes he was hired to document psychiatric horror stories and went straight to a newspaper. Nowadays we get the facts by means of our Human Rights Commissions -- all documented and as bad as Belsen.

4.    The Observer reported a story about James Stewart, a man who was suspended from Scientology and then died. Why was he suspended? Do you know why he jumped or fell out of the window? Do you think it was a suicide? (The paper said it wasn't.)

The Coroner's inquest was fully reported. He was suspended from a course for medical examination for a suspected physical condition.

5.    What requirements are necessary for becoming a minister or reverend in the Church of Scientology?

Minister's requirements: 1 Vocation. 2) Training to HPA or above. 3) One year's probation as provisional. 4) Minister's checksheet including study of World religions + the bible. [sic] 5) Examination thereon. 6) Thesis on the religion and philosophy of Scientology. 7) Familiarity and examination with Scientology form of Service and observance.

6.    The Times and other prestigious British papers reported that a girl ran off the Sea Org ship screaming, and was dragged in by other Scientologists from the ship. Why did she try to leave? Why was she stopped?

No such story in the Times (of London) ever. You mean that Alex Mitchell from the Sunday Times who paid dear and lost his job for that and other inaccuracies. (They call it targeting you know.)

7.    Why was Hubbard barred from Rhodesia?

Factually he was not barred. His residential permit was not renewed and he left before it ran out. We do know that there was no information in the hands of the Rhodesian authorities to Hubbard's detriment. See South African Inquiry evidence by Rhodesian police Dept. on affidavit (Targeting you know).

8.    In what countries is Scientology expanding right now?

U.K., U.S., Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Israel, South Africa, Rhodesia, Mexico, Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan.

9. The Rand Daily Mail reprinted a portion of the testimony being given at the South African Inquiry. The witness stated that Mr. Parkhouse had been told by Hubbard to arm 5,000 Africans to seize control of South Africa. Do you think the witness was wrong? Do you think perhaps Mr. Parkhouse was fantasizing (or lying) about what his instructions were? What is the story here?

Re Rand Daily Mail report. The nameless witness who told the story of Parkhouse and the 5,000 spear brandishing Bantu. Parkhouse didn't lie or fantasize. The anonymous witness did. Paulette my dear, have you seen the S. African internal security forces? The thought of 5,000 Bantu taking over the country is analogous to 500 Arabs taking over Israel. Good headlines but terrible odds. (Documents enclosed.) [Mr. Parkhouse's testimony on the situation was as follows: "... Hubbard jokingly remarked that should South Africa ever be attacked by black hordes from the North, he would require me to organise an Impi of Zulus and personally lead them, spear in hand, against the enemies of South Africa, across the Limpopo. And I at that time, also jokingly pleaded with him to rather let me be a general who planned things from a desk. The joke in this matter was not in connection with Hubbard's desire to help South Africa in any way he could. The joke was in connection with what was well-known among my acquaintances, of my reluctance to engage in any physical exertion whatsoever. And the idea of me charging in front of a crowd of Africans against the enemies of the State was so out of character for me as to be extremely amusing...."]

10.    In the case of Karen Henslow, did the Scientologists know she had had nervous breakdowns or did only Murray Youdell know? Why do you think she got sick again?

The Henslow affair has finally been blown. We now have documentation which clearly shows that a) Karen was driven frantic by her mother on that fateful night, b) Her mother was prepared to commit her daughter for a year to prevent her from marrying Youdell, c) There is no evidence, according to the Ministry of Health, to show her breakdown physical or mental was caused by her contact with Scientology. When her mental history was discovered, Karen was not permitted to work or study at St. Hill, a month before her committal. Youdell did apparently know her history.

11.    In your last letter to me, you mentioned something about a Scientology charity program in India. Would you tell me a little bit more about that, and also about any other charity programs you have right now.

Re Charity works: See a) India enclosure b) Apartments in Parkland c) Citizens Commission for Human Rights. [As for these documents a) There was no India enclosure. b) An enclosure from the East Grinstead Observer stated that the Scientologists hoped to build and probably finance (at a cost of $10 million dollars) an estate there for the benefit of the local people which would not necessarily be restricted to Scientologists, in the hopes of solving the local housing problem and as "a gesture of community spirit.") c) There was a pamphlet included on the Victor Gyory story, a Hungarian refugee who was brought to a mental hospital in Philadelphia after slashing his wrists. After other forms of treatment failed, he was given shock treatment, and one of the hospital aides, a Scientologist, reported it to their Citizens Commission on Human Rights. The patient was discharged (under rather strange circumstances) through the help of the Scientology commission and their attorneys.]

12.    How much money does Scientology gross weekly? George Malko wrote $1.4 million in America weekly but I thought this figure might be too high.

No way of obtaining figures as Orgs are autonomous, and missions self-funding in their National or Continental areas. We have never been accused of poverty.

13.    What is the youngest age of a person who has achieved the state of auditor?

The youngest trained Auditor (Dianetic) I know of was 15 years.

14.    What is the oldest?

82 years.

15.    What is the shortest amount of time it has taken someone to learn to become an auditor? What is the longest?

Depends entirely on level of training. Someone could be trained to listen at Zero level, under supervision, in six weeks. Training to class Eight would take from three-four years, including two internships of six months each at Class Seven and Class Eight. I'm still learning after fourteen years.

16.    How many years have our thetans been in existence?

Your question is one of metaphysics. How old is a soul? Answer -- God knows.

17.    Do preclears still run the Boo-Hoo?

PCs never did run the Boo-Hoo. It was a research line on the genetic history of homo sapiens. Reported in History of Man, and quoted ever since by Phelan and Anderson as representative of Scientology technology.

18.    How many people are on the Sea Org?

I don't know, probably less than a couple of thousand.

19.    Do the Sea Org people sign a billion year contract?

Never make an allegorical joke near literal minded, humourless reporters.

20.    Is the contract to help Hubbard help the world? ... to clear the planet? ... Does "clear the planet" mean we should all become Scientologists?

No. Scientology is about Freedom, including the freedom to accept or reject any philosophy, including Scientology.

21.    How much does it cost (in courses) to live on the Sea Org?

I'm not sure I understand the question, but the chaps who work in the Sea Org get paid and "all found"; they do not pay.

22.    How does one qualify to get on the ship?

Do you mean as a crew or a visitor? Crew generally are Scientologists who like that sort of active life. Visitors are generally social, by invitation, or professionals interested in organisational and management studies.

23.    When was Hubbard barred from returning to England?

August '68 his residential visa was withdrawn.

24.    Is it true that the ban has been lifted on him so he could come back for the British Inquiry?

So far there has been no statement to this effect, but the Home Office have indicated that Mr. Hubbard and his family may apply for visas when they wish to visit the U.K.

25.    Does he plan to return and testify?

The terms of reference are into the practice and effects of Scientology. Sir J. Foster has not invited Mr. Hubbard to give evidence.

26.    Did Anderson alone play the role of judge, jury, and executioner in Australia?

No, in Victoria he presided over a farce for which he is now under suit. See enclosure.[*] Scientology is established and growing rapidly in all major Australian centres, including Melbourne.

[*] Footnote:

There was no enclosure.

27.    Which of these are Scientologists: (check if they are) Tennessee Williams, Leonard Cohen, Jim Morrison, the Beatles. Are there any other celebrities (besides Boyd, Burroughs and Mama Cass Elliot who I know are Scientologists?)

A person's religious beliefs are not sequitur to how well-known or not they are. Scientologists are only named if they want to be. I can't confirm any of these names.

28.    Is Scientology a form of pastoral counseling?

Scientology is a religious philosophy -- auditing is a form of counseling deriving in technology from the philosophy. Thus auditing is pastoral counseling.

29.    How high up did Charles Manson go in Scientology?[*]

[*] Footnote:

After I wrote this book I became friendly with an advanced Scientologist who had gotten his "grades" in Los Angeles allegedly at the time that Manson may have been there. He claimed to have frequently seen Manson at the Org and he also claimed that Manson had reached the level of PC IV in Scientology (a high level but not yet clear). I don't know if this information is at all accurate because some people phantasize about the relationship of (and their relationships with) the infamous as much as others do of the famous.

Not that old one again!

30.    Was he declared a suppressive?

No, he never joined.

31.    Do you think Manson was a member of the "Process" at the time of the alleged murder?

I've no idea! Do you?

32.    Of the three Scientologists killed in Los Angeles, do you think they were killed by a) people who hate Scientology (like the Process), or b) people who hated them?

I think not a or b but C. As far as I know only two members of the Church of Scientology were murdered in L.A. A senseless brutal killing, still under investigation by the police.

33.    How much did the Scientologists have to pay to the NAMH when the Scientologists lost their case?[*]

[*] Footnote:

NAMH -- National Association of Mental Health. This case had its roots in the Scientologists' attempt to stop the annual meeting of the NAMH.

Nothing. We've not lost the case, only the injunction hearing, the trial is due in 1971.

34.    Does the thetan have electrical voltage?

No, it does have energy potential. Read the Axioms of Scientology.

35.    Ten years from now, what percentage of the world will be Scientologists?

There is no doubt Scientology grows and grows. We are dealing in a philosophy not Volkswagens. If people continue to talk to each other, read books, and think for themselves, then we shall continue to do our jobs. Percentages mean nothing in that context.

Two other enclosures in the letter I received also bear mentioning:

A)    letter from Gaiman to the London Sunday Times re their supposed prison in Scotland:

The last time that I had cause to complain on an article by Mr. Mitchell it was given the headline "The Dungeon in Queen Street." There was no dungeon in Queen Street, and we held a press conference after that edition of your journal was published and invited most of the press available in Scotland to inspect the premises.

B)    The Scientologists' statement concerning Hubbards' supposedly practicing black magic (reprinted in the London Times):

Hubbard broke up black magic in America: Dr. Jack Parsons of Pasadena, California, was America's number one solid fuel rocket expert, he was involved with the infamous English black magician Aleister Crowley ... [whose organization] ... had savage and bestial rites. Dr. Parsons was head of the American branch ... which had paying guests who were the USA nuclear physicists working at Cal Tech. Certain agencies objected to nuclear physicists being housed under the same roof.

L. Ron Hubbard was ... sent in to handle the situation. He went to live at the house and investigated the black magic rites and the general situation and found them very bad.

Parsons wrote to Crowley in England about Hubbard. Crowley, "The Beast 666," evidently detected an enemy and warned Parsons. This is all proven by the correspondence unearthed by the Sunday Times. Hubbard's mission was successful far beyond anyone's expectations. The house was torn down. Hubbard rescued a girl they were using. The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered.

Bibliography of Sources Consulted

Scientology Books

[1] .. [12]

Scientology Brochures and Pamphlets

[13] .. [26]

Scientology Publications

[27] .. [65]

Public Relations Releases from Church of Scientology

[61a]; [66] .. [77]

HCO (Hubbard Communications Office) Policy Letters and Bulletins

[78] .. [104]

Additional Publications by Scientology or Hubbard

[105] .. [132]

American Magazines and Newspapers

[133] .. 161]

British Magazines and Newspapers

[162] .. [242]

Other Magazines and Newspapers

[243] .. [252]

Miscellaneous Books, Documents, Inquiries, Letters, Court Cases, Etc.

[253] .. [286]

About the Author

Paulette Cooper launched her career as a freelance writer in 1968, after she completed an M.A. degree in psychology and a summer at Harvard studying comparative religion.

Her first book, The Scandal of Scientology came out three years later, and has been followed by eight others, along with hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. These she wrote, parttime, to support her full-time crusade to expose Scientology, at a time when few outsiders knew much about the cult, and those who did were generally afraid to speak out.

In 1982, the American Society of Journalists and Authors recognized the high personal price she paid to fight Scientology and awarded her the prestigious Conscience in Media Award -- one of four writing awards to her credit.

She withdrew from the cult-fighting front in 1985, after having endured a 15-year ordeal of harassment by the Church of Scientology, including nineteen lawsuits. She married, and co-wrote three books with her husband, including 277 Secrets Your Dog Wants You to Know, and the sequel, 277 Secrets Your Cat Wants You to Know. To date, the dogs have yet to file a lawsuit against her, and the cats haven't slandered her.

She makes her home in Manhattan, but reaches the world on the Internet, where she answers to PauletteC@aol.com.

Changes from the Paperback Edition

Every effort was made to render the text of the Web edition exactly as it appears in the paperback. Listed below are the intentional differences.

Global changes

Web edition:

Added the Prologue, an Index, and "About the Author".

Moved citation notes into each chapter, and cross-referenced citations in the Bibliography.

The Web editor's occasional notes are set off by {curly brackets).

Ellipses: within a sentence, three dots; at the end of a sentence, four dots.

The surname of the author of the Australian Report is correctly spelled ("Anderson", not "Andersen").

About 280 new paragraph breaks have been introduced to make the Web edition more suited for reading on screens. These paragraphs may be distinguished by their paragraph numbers, which are visible in the HTML source: new paragraph numbers end in a letter (e.g., "p4b"), whereas numbers for the paperback's original paragraphs do not.

Introduction

Paperback edition (page 15):

The movie stars a man named L. Ron Hubbard -- who they realize, is the same man....

Web edition:

Inserted comma after "who".

Chapter 1

Paperback edition (page 22):

In addition, the followers took on faith in everything Hubbard said.

Web edition:

He discussed the case of one person who was treated by the Dianetic institute...."

Web edition:

Capitalized "institute".

Chapter 2

Paperback edition (page 27):

The "Church of Scientology" as they call themselves today, no longer claims to cure people....

Web edition:

Inserted comma after "Scientology".

Chapter 3

Paperback edition (page 31):

Hubbard's theory never makes it really clear ... exactly how engrams can be planted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense organs which which to register an impression, ....

Web edition:

Changed "organs which which" to "organs with which".

Chapter 4

Paperback edition (page 37):

One Scientologist claims he fell out of a spaceship 55,000,000,000,000,000,000, years ago ....

Web edition:

Deleted comma after "55,000,...,000".

Paperback edition (page 39):

His faith didn't falter even when one of his Scientology friends, after spending hundreds of hours in the group getting rid of all of his engrams and becoming a "clear" moved to Albuquerque and committed suicide.

Web edition:

Chapter 5

Paperback edition (page 44):

One girl was approached ... by a man who handed her Dianetics; The Modern Science of Mental Health told her it would change her life, ....

Web edition:

Changed semicolon after "Dianetics" to colon, and inserted comma after "Health".

Paperback edition (page 46):

"In "Casualty Contact," the third method, Hubbard recommended....

Web edition:

Deleted open double-quote at the start of the sentence.

Chapter 6

Paperback edition (page 50):

The following is a composite ... over the years: 1) .... 2) .... 10) That he agrees to "release ... from all liability ... methods used by Scientology.

Web edition:

Enumerated as vertical list, and closed the quotation after "Scientology."

Chapter 7

Paperback edition (page 51):

... a trio of secret ships that sails the Mediteranean.

Web edition:

Spelled "Mediterranean" with two Rs. (also on page 53)

Paperback edition (page 51):

LRH or Hubbard, has the title of "Commodore"....

Web edition:

In Corfu, Greece, where the Scientologists were said to be spending about $1500 a day....

Web edition:

Inserted comma in "$1,500".

Chapter 8

Paperback edition (page 61):

In return, the Scientology newspaper Freedom has made some rather unflattering statements about Kenneth Robinson....

Web edition:

Italicized "Freedom".

Paperback edition (page 63):

While a private inquiry, with no cross-examination and on oath, may not be in keeping with most people's idea of English jurisprudence, ....

Web edition:

Inserted "not" before "on oath".

Paperback edition (page 65):

(The Scientologists ... their markee....)

Web edition:

Corrected spelling of "marquee".

Paperback edition (page 67):

Kevin Andersen ... spent 160 days listening to four million words totally 8,921 pages of testimony.... Web edition:

Changed "totally" to "totalling"; and corrected "Anderson".

Chapter 9

Paperback edition (page 70):

The Scientologists attitude toward litigation....

Made "Scientologists'" possessive.

Paperback edition (page 71):

(... they had hired Melvin Belli, the famous flamboyant attorney who once unsuccessfully defended Jack Ruby for their case.)

Web edition:

Inserted comma after "Ruby".

Paperback edition (page 78):

... until he "handled" in other words, persuaded the errant person to make amends,....

Web edition:

Parenthesized "in other words, persuaded".

Chapter 11

Paperback edition (page 85):

quote from someone who took the security check reprinted by Howard and Arlene Eisenberg in June '69 Parents

Web edition:

Parenthesized "reprinted ... '69 Parents".

Paperback edition (page 88):

As for the sexual questions, ... conspicuous in its absence are any questions....

Web edition:

Changed "its" to "their".

Paperback edition (page 92):

... in celebration of John McMaster's becoming "clear"....

Web edition:

Moved the apostrophe in "McMaster's" to "McMasters'".

Chapter 12

Paperback edition (page 95):

Scientologists must obey an enormous number of rules, some of which are outlines for them.... Web edition:

Changed "outlines" to "outlined".

Chapter 13

Paperback edition (page 99):

"So he tears up his shirt, wrecks his bed, breaks up his fire engine. It's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, he wrote. He also said in Child Dianetics:....''

Web edition:

Moved the closing double-quote, to follow "BUSINESS,".

Paperback edition (page 100): an auditing tecnique for kids.

Web edition:

Corrected "technique".

Chapter 14

Paperback edition (page 107):

from an interview with Hubbard for "The Saturday Evening Post"

Web edition:

Deleted quotation marks.

Paperback edition (page 108):

... AND FLOG THEM,"), but also films about Hubbard, ....

Web edition:

Deleted commas after "THEM" and "Hubbard".

Paperback edition (page 113):

... and seized 100 E-Meters....

Web edition:

Lowercased "-meters".

Chapter 15

Paperback edition (page 116):

For example, Two Scientologists started a School of Stage Confidence....

Web edition:

Lowercased "two".

Paperback edition (page 117):

But even if they do want to take over," said one former Scientologist, ....

Web edition:

Inserted open quote before "But".

Paperback edition (page 119):

But the Daily Mail reported that Hubbard allegedly alienated people....

Web edition:

Italicized "Daily Mail".

Chapter 16

Paperback edition (page 124):

Hubbard is convinced, actually obssessed with the delusion,....

Web edition:

Corrected "obsessed".

Paperback edition (page 125):

... as "psychoracketeers," "insidious psychopoliticians," "mental con men" "frauds," "pimps," etc.,. Web edition:

Paperback edition (page 128):

... an extract from the Brainwashing manual....

Web edition:

Italicized "Brainwashing".

Chapter 17

Paperback edition (page 135):

... like "recall something real" "recall a communication," and "recall an emotion."

Web edition:

Inserted comma after "real".

Paperback edition (page 136):

... "tell me a solution," Or....

Web edition:

Lowercased "Or".

Paperback edition (page 138):

I couldn't bear to insult someone as unattractive as he who must have been hurt often throughout his life.

Web edition:

Inserted comma after "he".

Paperback edition (page 140):

The relation between the exercise and its purpose is bit more obscure in other sessions.

Web edition:

Inserted "a" before "bit".

Paperback edition (page 140):

Not know something about is temperature.

Web edition:

Changed "is" to "its".

Paperback edition (page 142):

The Australian Report devoted an entire chapter to another danger they saw.... The concluded that these various exercises were a type of hypnosis.

Web edition:

Changed "The concluded" to "They concluded".

Chapter 18

Paperback edition (page 147):

This was because 1) The E-meter has no device to control the constancy of current 2) ... 3) ... 4) .... These experts also explained....

Web edition:

Inserted colon after "because", enumerated as separate paragraphs, and ended each enumerated point with a period.

Paperback edition (page 147):

1) Dr. Erwin Kapphan.... 2) Dr. Bernard Grad.... 3) Dr. Rex Standord.... The press release....

Web edition:

Enumerated as separate paragraphs.

Chapter 19

Paperback edition (page 152):

In addition, a Scientologist may take extra auditing (at about $25 a session) or adidtional courses....

Web edition:

Corrected "additional".

Chapter 20

Paperback edition (page 160):

... with his 1938 book, Excalibur which appears....

Inserted comma after "Excalibur".

Paperback edition (page 161):

... a cursory examination of Hubbard's other stories show no indication....

Web edition:

Changed "show" to "shows".

Paperback edition (page 161):

... Mitchell wrote that ... he allegedly "worked" his two subjects into a sexual frenzy."

Web edition:

Inserted open double-quote before "sexual".

Paperback edition (page 164):

... Hubbard married Sara N_....

Web edition:

Filled in Sara Northrup's last name.

Paperback edition (page 165):

He has also rewritten the calendar to read "A.D. 1, A.D. 10," etc., (to stand for "After Dianetics 1951," "After Dianetics 1961")....

Web edition:

Changed "1961" to "1960".

Chapter 21

Paperback edition (page 169):

... cure such ailments as astigmatism, ... colds, dermitis, ....

Web edition:

Changed "dermitis" to "dermatitis".

Paperback edition (page 170):

Changed "Dianeze" to "Dianezene".

Paperback edition (page 173):

... calcium deposits, for example, can make the ears ring incessently.

Web edition:

Corrected "incessantly".

Paperback edition (page 174):

Some of this may be a put-on, for example, he wrote an article Web edition:

Changed the comma after "put-on" to a semi-colon.

Paperback edition (page 175):

Any yet Hubbard, the same person who wrote the above, is always saying....

Web edition:

Changed "Any yet" to "And yet".

Paperback edition (page 182):

There are fourteen stages of crawling before a child can actually walk; the mind, too, develops in a somewhat hierarchical manner and each of these steps....

Web edition:

Inserted a comma after "manner".

Conclusion

Paperback edition (page 186):

... the appearance of some of the people themself.

Web edition:

Changed "themself" to "themselves".

Epigraph 2

Paperback edition (page 189):

This is our finest asset and gives us more protection than any other single asset. ... Remember that next time the ignorant scoff.

Web edition:

Changed second "asset" to "thing", and inserted "the" before "next time". The paperback accurately quoted the Australian Report; but the A.R. misquoted the original HCO Bulletin [93a].

Appendix

Paperback edition (page 192):

[Footnote:] Gardner wrote an article ... in "Fads and Fallacies in Science."

Web edition:

Deleted quotes; corrected and italicized the title of Gardner's book.

Paperback edition (page 192):

The following is a list of questions (in capitals) that I presented to Gaiman and his replies (in standard print).

Web edition:

Changed "(in capitals)" to "(in boldface)". Whereas the 35 questions were originally set in uppercase, they have been set here in boldface. Also, on page 201, both the letter from Gaiman and the Scientologists' statement, originally set in uppercase, appear here in mixed case.

Paperback edition (page 199):

26. ... play the rule of judge....

Web edition:

Changed "rule" to "role".

Bibliography

Web edition:

Some bibliographic keys that were cited in the paperback's Source Material Notes are missing from the paperback's bibliography. These missing keys have been inserted, along with an explanatory note; see, for example, the entry at [65a].

HCO (Hubbard Communication Order) Policy Letters and Bulletins Web edition:

Changed "Communication Order" to "Communications Office".

Paperback Page Index

Follow these links to locate pages in the paperback edition. A marker has been set into the text of the Web edition at the beginning of each paperback page. If the precise location of a page boundary is required, look in the HTML source, where the page markers are plainly visible. In cases where a hyphenated word crosses a page boundary in the paperback, the marker is placed after the word.

Paperback Cover Notes

1, 2 (blank), 3, 4, 5, 6 (blank)

Table of Contents

7, 8

Preface

9, 10, 11, 12 (blank)

Introduction

13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (blank)

Chapter 1: From Dianetics to Scientology

21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (blank)

Chapter 2: The Confessionals

27, 28, 29, 30

Chapter 3: Life and Sex in the Womb

31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36

Chapter 4: Have You Lived Before This Life?

37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 (blank)

Chapter 5: Spreading the Word 43, 44, 45, 46 Chapter 6: The Org

47, 48, 49, 50

Chapter 7: The Sea Org

51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 (blank)

Chapter 8: The British and Australian Orgs

57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

Chapter 9: Attacking the Attackers

69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74

Chapter 10: The Suppressives

75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84

Chapter 11: The Sexual and Criminal Security Check

85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92

Chapter 12: The World of Scientology

93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 (blank)

Chapter 13: Children and Celebrities 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106 (blank)

Chapter 14: Scientology -- Business or Religion?

107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114 Chapter 15: Is Scientology Political?

115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122 (blank)

Chapter 16: Scientology Versus Medicine

123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132 (blank)

Chapter 17: The Secret Scientology Sessions

133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144 (blank)

Chapter 18: The E-Meter

145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150 (blank)

Chapter 19: The High Cost of Scientology

151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158

Chapter 20: The Truth About L. Ron Hubbard

159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168 (blank)

Chapter 21: Does Scientology Work?

169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184 (blank) Conclusion

185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 (blank)

Appendix: The Scientologist's Story

191,192,193,194,195,196,197,198, 199, 200, 201, 202

Bibliography of Sources Consulted

203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212 (blank)

Source Material Notes

(pages 213-220. These citation notes have been moved to the end of each chapter.)

Table of Contents

The Tragi-Farce of Scientology

Paperback Cover Notes

Preface

Epigraph 1: Introduction

From Dianetics to Scientology

The Confessionals

Life and Sex in the Womb

Have You Lived Before This Life?

Spreading the Word

The Org

The Sea Org

The British and Australian Orgs

Attacking the Attackers

The Suppressives

The Sexual and Criminal Security Check

The World of Scientology

Children and Celebrities

Scientology -- Business or Religion?

Is Scientology Political?

Scientology Versus Medicine

The Secret Scientology Sessions

The E-Meter

The High Cost of Scientology

The Truth About L. Ron Hubbard

Does Scientology Work?

Conclusion

Epigraph 2: Appendix: The Scientologist's Story

Bibliography of Sources Consulted

About the Author

Changes from the Paperback Edition

Index / Paperback Page Index