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Things To Keep In Mind When Reading alt.religion.scientology

Curtis R Anderson
<gleepy@intelligencia.com>

Revised: December 30, 2003

Contents

1 Abstract
2 Controlling Your Enemy
3 Hubbard’s Paranoid Rants
4 The Suppressive Person
5 Suing Them Into Submission
6 The Silence of the Media
7 The Co$$ Against Governments
8 Conclusion
A Credits

1 Abstract

When you read newsgroups like alt.religion.scientology or many of the web pages of the Church of Scientology (Co$),1 you will want to keep a few quotes from actual policy letters in mind. As you do, the way the church’s leadership works may become clear.

I know: you might be thinking “Why does a church need to have such strict policies for, it’s not a military organization!”2 but then again, this is not your typical church.

2 Controlling Your Enemy

We start out with two ways which Hubbard desired to control his subjects and others:

ENEMY SP Order.
Fair game.
May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.

—Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter of 18 October 1967

Taking a look at this, does this mean that they have religious license to hurt others with impunity? Is this The Inquisition with David Miscavige as Grand Inquisitor Torquemada all over again? Is this the same logic which drove Hitler, Göring, Göbbels and their cronies to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies and intellectuals? The same as the Pol Pot massacres in Cambodia?

There is one minute positive side to all of this. The Co$ stopped using the expression “Fair Game.” It appears, judging from the court affidavits and commentary on a.r.s. that The Practice Formerly Known As Fair Game continues to this day.

THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them. (Boldface emphasis added.)

. . .

[An] individual is lying to you because he is trying to control you—because if they give you enough misinformation they will pull you down the tone scale so that they can control you.

—L. Ron Hubbard, “Technique 88”

Lying to people? Oh, so that’s what Hubbard was up to all these years. The bits about Xenu and clusters and the other stuff you read about in OT III and elsewhere are all lies. Or, at least we’d like to think Hubbard was lying.

And this. . .

The homes, property, places and abodes of persons who have been active in attempting to suppress Scientology or Scientologists are all beyond any protection of Scientology Ethics, unless absolved by later Ethics or an amnesty.

. . .

A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind and actions taken against them are not punishable.

—HCO PL March 1, 1965 “HCO (Division 1), Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists, The Fair Game Law”

Hubbard was crafty enough to insure those who raise doubts like this are disposed of in any convenient manner. Look at the current court cases of Dennis Erlich, Keith Henson3 and Grady Ward. With the exception of using the United States Courts as an executant of their religious policy rather than using hitmen, it’s not that much different from La Cosa Nostra.4

Another long-time participant against Scientology, Robert Penny, had passed away on June 19, 2003. His writings may be found on the Internet, as well as in newsgroup archives.

Never let entheta pass unhandled. Prevention is better than cure. Handle fast, handle with live communication, handle with documentation, use PR technology including tone scale evaluation. Liaise with your senior and the other divisions/bureaux. Maintain ethics presence and see the matter through to a completion including the discrediting of the attacker.

. . .

If there will be a long-term threat, you are to immediately evaluate and originate a black PR campaign to destroy the person’s repute and to discredit them so thoroughly that they will be ostracized.

. . .

It is my specific intention that by the use of professional PR tactics any opposition be not only dulled but permanently eradicated. This takes data and planning before positive action can occur.

—L. Ron Hubbard, “Handling Hostile Contacts / Dead Agenting”

“Entheta” can be described as any discussion or writings critical of the Co$; “theta” is any positive discussion on such matters.

“Black PR” can be defined as any kind of character assassination campaign against an individual or group.

The phrase “dead agent” is most likely from Sun-tsu’s classic The Art of War. (My translation uses the phrase “expendable spy” for the same concept.)

Expendable spies—are employed to spread disinformation outside the state. Provide our expendable spies with false information and have them leak it to enemy agents. (When the deceit is discovered, they are murdered or executed.)

—Ralph D. Sawyer (translator), The Art of War. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1994, ISBN 1-56619-297-8, pp. 232-233.

The Co$ will engage in a typical disinformation campaign about their attacker, never acknowledging the attack on themselves in their attempt to get the attacker disinterested.

An overly simplistic example of such an attack may be as follows:

Critic:
So, what’s this about Xenu, the Marcabs, nuking souls in volcanoes and showing them bad movies?
Co$ Spokesperson:
I. . .  don’t know what you are talking about.
Critic:
Can you just tell me about Xenu, then?
Co$ Spokesperson:
Uhh. . .  Those are confidential materials. Say, didn’t I see your face on a “Wanted” poster for molesting young children? Maybe I should call the police and turn you in!

As you read a.r.s., you may notice how certain people are identified as spokespeople for the Co$, or “clambots” from the evasive way they attempt to answer questions. Many of the clambots which have been observed over the past several years or so have acted a lot like this. They will, most likely, continue to act like this because L. Ron Hubbard told them to act this way. Any attempt to deviate from the standard written procedures will bring harm upon them, from having to repeat a course (after paying for the course in full) to more severe measures.

Is this the kind of action the Founding Fathers of the United States had in mind when they put freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Are we willing to give a “church” like this the license to steal and commit crimes against infidels in the name of religion?

3 Hubbard’s Paranoid Rants

For lack of a better phrase, I would call much of following group of quotes “paranoia.” Let’s take a look at more of the paranoia associated with them. . .

WHOM TO SUSPECT

Suspect people who have the following:

  1. Criminal connections or background.
  2. Communist membership or leanings (they attack all source).
  3. Low OCA/APA graphs.
  4. Auditors who get bad results on preclears.
  5. People low on the tone scale particularly physiologically (physiology not always reliable).
  6. People who don’t pay their bills and who want it all free.
  7. People who tell you you could reach so many people if only you’d help them or their friends.
  8. Press.
  9. People who can’t work.
  10. People who break up machinery or Mest.5

If you simply swept all these out of every central organization you’d be a real winner.

—L. Ron Hubbard, Manual of Justice. Due to failure to renew the copyright, the document has fallen into the public domain. See New Era Publications Int’l v. Carol Pub. Group, 729 F. Supp. 992, 995 (S.D.N.Y. 1990), rev’d on other grounds, 904 F.2d 152 (2d Cir. 1990).

Analyzed by item number, the following may be observed:

4 The Suppressive Person

Scientology defines a “Suppressive Person” as:

  1. A person who rewards only down statistics and never rewards an up statistic. He goofs up or vilifies any effort to help anybody and particularly knifes with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or intelligent. A suppressive automatically and immediately will curve any betterment activity into something evil or bad.
  2. The person is in a mad, howling situation of some yesteryear and is “handling it” by committing overt acts today. I say condition of yesteryear but this case thinks it’s today.
  3. An SP is a no-confront case because, not being in his own valence he has no viewpoint from which to erase anything. That is all an SP is.
  4. Those who are destructively antisocial.
  5. A person with certain behavior characteristics and who suppresses other people in his vicinity and those other people when he suppresses them become PTS or potential trouble sources.

—L. Ron Hubbard, either Dianetics and Technical Dictionary or Management and Marketing Dictionary.

Well, that confusing prattle is about as circular of a definition as one can get. I’ll try to analyze this by definition.

5 Suing Them Into Submission

If you start poking about in the matters of the Church too much and are effective, you might find yourself at the receiving end of attacks or an expensive lawsuit designed to bankrupt you, take money from your children’s college education and otherwise destroy you.

NEVER agree to an investigation of Scientology. ONLY agree to an investigation of the attackers.

. . .

This is correct procedure:

  1. Spot who is attacking us.
  2. Start investigating them promptly for FELONIES or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies.
  3. Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.
  4. Start feeding lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press.
  5. Don’t ever tamely admit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way. (Emphasis added.)

    —Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter of 25 February 1966, “Attacks on Scientology”

When was the last time you saw a church blatantly want to attack investigators? Even other less mainstream churches and other religious groups will generally accept such a thing.

The purpose of [a lawsuit] is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.

—“A Manual on the Dissemination of Material,” (first published in Ability, the Magazine of DIANETICS and SCIENTOLOGY, 1955) Note: this paragraph has apparently been purged from later editions of the “Manual.”

6 The Silence of the Media

If we do the above as our pattern, we will successfully bring the following facts into public consciousness:

  1. People who attack Scientology are criminals.
  2. That if one attacks Scientology he gets investigated for crimes.
  3. If one does not attack Scientology, despite not being with it, one is safe.

—L Ron Hubbard, Executive Directive ED 149 INT 2 December 1966, “Branch 5 Project, Project Squirrel”

A “squirrel” is one who uses Co$ materials in an unauthorized manner.

More reasons you don’t hear the media talking about them too much:

Another frame of mind we would like to see the public and register is that people attacking Scientologists have something wrong with them (and if you could meet any such people personally you would see that this is no more than truth).

. . .

We are not interested in sensationalism personalities, or the complexity of Scientology methodology being discussed by the general public. At a subdivision of this, we do not want Scientology to be reported in the press, anywhere else than on the religious page of newspapers. It is destructive of word of mouth to permit the public presses 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 presses from mentioning Scientology.

. . .

Scientologists should never let themselves be interviewed by the press. That’s experience talking!

—L. Ron Hubbard, attribution unknown

I wish I knew which publication Hubbard wrote that for so it can be verified.

It also seems a shame that the Scientologists themselves are not allowed to talk about their gains and “wins” to the press. If the Co$ was as good as it has been claimed, certainly there would be more “proof” than unverifiable anecdotal evidence.

7 The Co$ Against Governments

The Co$ has this nasty habit of attacking anything it doesn’t like.

The goal of the department [of governmental affairs] is to bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by a high level ability to control and in its absence by a low level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies.

—L. Ron Hubbard, evidence in Church of Spiritual Technology v. U.S., November 22, 1989.

Also imagine the Co$ becoming a government:

You want to know what happens when you clear everybody in that neighbourhood, the only thing that [Scientology] center can become used for is a political center. Because by the time you’ve done all this, you are the government. . .

—L. Ron Hubbard, lecture 9 January 1962, “Future Org Trends”

This would lead me to believe their intent that “only clears would have any rights.”

8 Conclusion

Which leads me to my conclusion about the way the Church of Scientology attacks:

The Church of Scientology accuses critics of the things the Church does.

A Credits

Ideas for this page came from a series of articles posted over time to the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology posted by:

Certain other material regarding late developments was provided by Gregg Haglund <elrond@home.com>.

In addition, sources for the quotations are as listed at the end of each quote.