9 Rosenberg's testimony I

Day 4 (June 2): Alain Rosenberg, "managing director" of Scientology’s Paris Celebrity Centre, presented a vigorous defence – to the point where he had to be called to order by his own lawyer.

Having heard from the two defendants charged in connection with the vitamins used in Scientology’s Purification Rundown Judge Sophie-Hélène Château next called Alain Rosenberg.

Rosenberg founded the Celebrity Centre in 1979 and was its executive director at the time of the events in question, for which he was charged with organised fraud and complicity in the illegal exercise of pharmacy.

Judge Château, referring to the case files, told the court that Rosenberg had reached OT 7, one of the highest levels in Scientology.

During the investigation, she said, Rosenberg had confirmed the existence of a users’ manual for the Personality Test at the centre of the investigation. But he had refused to provide a copy to investigators, arguing that it would be misinterpreted.

Rosenberg questioned the impartiality not just of some of the court-appointed experts involved in the case, but also that of one of the investigating magistrates.

Of the test itself, Rosenberg had told investigators that the reference to it having a scientific basis had no particular value. The tests, he said, were used as part of Scientology’s proselytism – to get itself known.

He had also said that as a matter of course, when a Scientologist took legal action against the movement their files were destroyed. And he said Scientology, had a policy of providing refunds to people who were not satisfied with their service.

No one, he said, was ever obliged to write out a success story – the documents in which members testified to the benefits of a course they had completed. On this point, he had referred investigators to Scientology’s Auditors Code.[1]

And he compared Scientology’s Purification Rundown to a religious ritual, just as the practice of fasting during Ramadan was for Muslims.

Rosenberg also told investigators he felt that both he and Scientology in general were being victimised.

Judge Château invited him to address the court.

Rosenberg, 60 years old, was dressed in a dark suit and a light-blue shirt. With the rounded features of his face and his receding red hair, turning to grey, he could have been a distant relative of Hubbard himself – perhaps his younger brother.

In Scientology parlance, Rosenberg seemed determined to be “at cause” over – in control of – the court.

Already during the judge’s introduction, Rosenberg had stopped her, asking her to repeat something he had not heard.

Several times in the hours that followed, he interrupted and the quizzed the lawyers and judges who were questioning him – to the point that he had to be called to order not just by his own lawyer, but by one of the judges.

But he started by setting out his basic position.

“I have been a Scientologist for 30 years,” he said. “I have devoted a large part of my life to helping people,” he added. And for him, those 30 years had been a religious journey.

“I myself have contributed to Scientology and continue to do so,” he said – including buying and using the e-meter so heavily criticised in the indictment. “I have practised my religion as I should have practised it.”

Rosenberg explained why he had not been willing to give the investigating magistrate his full cooperation.

“He never admitted that Scientology was a religion,” said Rosenberg. The magistrate had always viewed Scientology as a kind of psychotherapy. “So there was prejudice.”

As another example of what he and his fellow believers had to contend with, he recalled the comments a short time earlier by Stéphane Lange, the inspector from France’s health products watchdog (AFSSAPS).[2]

“I have just heard from an expert who said we were charlatans,” said Rosenberg. “And all that because he is an expert – but not an expert in religion.”

“I am a man of the church…”

Scientology was made up of a multitude of different elements, he continued: and while it might be Anglo-Saxon in its form, it had a lot in common with mainstream religions.

Scientology was a church that took a modern form, Rosenberg replied: its structure reflected its American roots and recent origins.

“My role is as coordinator of ecclesiastical activities,” he said. There was no secret about that: Scientology’s organisational chart was there for all to see.

But you are at the top of that chart, said Judge Château.

So far as the organisational chart for the Celebrity Centre was concerned, said Rosenberg, the term “directeur général” was an unfortunate translation because it gave the impression of someone who was managing a business.[3]

But that Anglo-Saxon term did not mean he was involved in the day-to-day running of the centre, he said. “It is important to know this because the organisation is the expression of our religion.”

Rosenberg outlined the structure of the Celebrity Centre: its various divisions, each of which had its own chief. “We attach great importance to the correct procedures of our religion,” he said.

“I assure the coordination. My main role is to ensure that the teachings are available to the people so people can benefit from the teaching in the best conditions possible.”

But that excluded anything that had to do with financial or legal matters, he said.

“Apart from that, I do the major rites,” he said, celebrating major events in the Scientology calendar such as the birthday of the founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

“I am a man of the church, and a man of the church is not the managing director of a commercial business,” he said. “I don’t decide things: the Church does.”

His work was confined to his role as a pastoral adviser, as someone who led the major rites, such as marriages, and who ensured that the teachings were applied in an orthodox manner.

“I don’t take care of the financial part,” he said. “I could have done a lot of things in life: if I chose to be a religious person it was so I wouldn’t have to do things that I could do elsewhere.”[4]

Judge Château asked him about his denial of any links to Eric Aubry, who had been one of the plaintiffs in the case until he settled with Scientology. Aubry, in one of his success story letters, had mentioned shaking his hand.

“I never shook his hand,” said Rosenberg. “I don’t even know him.”

Aubry had meant it in a positive way, said Judge Château. “He presents it as a great honour.” For Aubry, Rosenberg had been the most senior figure at the Celebrity Centre.

Rosenberg maintained his position: Aubry was mistaken if he thought he had any executive powers. “If I took care of the finances, I would have said so.”

“But you have a great importance at the heart of the Celebrity Centre,” said the judge.

“Obviously, people know me,” said Rosenberg. “I set up the Celebrity Centre. Yes, I am known – I read the sermons, I carry out the marriages… so obviously I am someone in view. But I am certainly not the managing director.”

Test “shows you can improve on a spiritual level”

Judge Château turned to the personality tests: what was their role in Scientology, she asked? What was their importance?

“There are many different ways of becoming a Scientologist,” said Rosenberg. These days, he said, most new arrivals came to the movement via DVDs or DVDs, he said.

And although the test was not systematically done at the beginning of one’s experience in Scientology, they were used during one’s progress through Scientology.

But the tests were handed out on the street, said the judge. “Why are people given them at the start?” she asked.

That was simply to introduce people to Scientology, said Rosenberg.

But it was not presented as Scientology at the start, said the judge. The leaflets mentioned Dianetics, but not Scientology, she said.

Rosenberg did not know why the leaflets had been marked as Dianetics: perhaps because Hubbard’s first book in this area had been Dianetics, he suggested. In any case, the test was available on Scientology’s website.

Rosenberg’s fellow defendants had for the most part kept their answers more or less to the point. Rosenberg however had a tendency to fall into extended lectures.

After a discourse on the benefits of Scientology, the spiritual path, the rights to freedom of religion, he finally returned to the judge’s original question about the personality test.

“It is the same programme throughout the world, for everyone,” he said. “The test is analysed by the computer for everyone in the same way, without intervention by anyone.”

Including new arrivals, asked the judge?

“The new arrivals – there are perhaps one or two who are going to be taken to talk about the test,” said Rosenberg.

And the personality test was also available at the entrance to the Celebrity Centre, where it was perfectly obvious you were in a church “because it is marked everywhere,” he added.

Whether or not Scientology had been marked on the test leaflet, his point was that once you were inside the Celebrity Centre, where people came to get their test results, it was impossible not to see that you were in a church.

“Sometimes people don’t want to admit to themselves they are in a religion,” said Rosenberg.

The staff at reception explained the main principles of Scientology to newcomers: that man was a spiritual being, that there were different facets of existence. And they would explain the test too, he said.

“It shows that you can improve on a spiritual level,” he explained. For the less aware you are the less well you are.

Promotion “is the right to spiritual health”

But had not Hubbard himself spoken of the tests as a means of promotion that had been shown to be effective, asked the judge?

Which document was that, asked Rosenberg: from which period? The reference was to a document dating back to 1960.

Whatever the document was, Rosenberg appeared to think it required a great deal of explaining.[5]

“It is an administrative document,” said Rosenberg. “You have to look at the intention of the founder… he wants to attract people into Scientology.”

This document had been intended for the South African church back in the 1960s and had to be seen in that context, he said.

He asked again for the wording of the document. “It is not at all a good translation,” he said. “It has a certain historical value.”

But when he began answering in religious terms, the judge reminded him they were talking about a document that dealt with the personality test as a method of promoting Scientology.

“It is normal that as a religious man, I give the response of a religious person,” he replied.

Still referring to same document, Judge Château continued to question Rosenberg, who seemed determined not to lose the initiative – to the point where he began interrupting her.

“What is the sentence that bothers you?” he asked at one point.

The document the judge had cited had historical value, he said. “Obviously we are going to be inspired by these documents, even if we don’t believe it in quite that way.”

But this document had been superseded by another one written in 1972.

“There is nothing in my religion or in the writings of Ron Hubbard that I cannot explain,” he said.

Judge Château asked about how the test was analysed.

“We think that to be a believer you have to have faith in yourself,” said Rosenberg.

If someone scored poorly in one part of the personality test, you were not going to insist on that part: the point was that you could improve it, he said.

In the past, there had been a lot of documents in the Scientology canon that were not Hubbard’s, said Rosenberg.

Rosenberg blamed the “apostate” Roger Gonnet – a former Scientologist turned campaigner against the movement – for having provided the court with texts that were no longer valid.

“Now we have the doctrine in its purity,” he said.

It was easy to misinterpret the older documents, but there was nothing untoward about the personality test. “It is mostly to ensure that you are progressing spiritually,” he said.

The idea that the test was a central part of Scientology blew its importance out of all proportion, said Rosenberg. One could perfectly well go straight to Scientology auditing without having done it.

The test helped a person become more aware: it opened up a dialogue, communication. But he added: “It is not the test that is determinant.”

So why bother with the test, asked Judge Château?

“I don’t know,” Rosenberg replied. “Scientologists have faith. They do it much, much less now.”

“You cannot put a price on… spiritual freedom”

Judge Château turned to the question of whether the centre’s staffers took an interest in the financial status of newcomers.

One of the original plaintiffs, Eric Aubry, had said that during an auditing session, he had been asked about his bank accounts.

If Aubry had discussed financial matters during his auditing it was because he had had an emotional need to do so, said Rosenberg. Scientologists certainly did not seek this kind of information.

And what about this talk of donations or gifts (dons) rather than prices asked the judge?

“You cannot put a price on freedom of conscience, on spiritual freedom,” said Rosenberg.

But Eric Aubry, the plaintiff Aude-Claire Malton and even Pierre Auffret – who had refused to file a complaint because he did not believe he had been wronged – had all spoken not in terms of giving a gift but making a payment.

“These three cases are different,” said Rosenberg.

“A person should have the impression that they are giving,” said Judge Château.

“All Scientologists have the conviction that they are giving,” said Rosenberg. But in any case, he added, the prices were not his domain.

And what about the reports that newcomers were pressured to buy immediately to avoid having to pay a higher price later, asked the judge?

“I don’t take care of prices,” said Rosenberg. “They are fixed in the computer.”

Judge Château turned to the financial problems that Eric Aubry had experienced.

Why have someone pay for courses three to four years in advance, taking out heavy credit at exorbitant rates of interest knowing that this would only bring them more problems – when you say you want to bring them spiritual happiness?

“I had nothing to do with these three cases,” said Rosenberg.

“So speak about the principle of paying in advance,” said the judge.

Rosenberg offered the example of a seminarian who would pay in advance for his religious schooling, but the judge did not seem convinced.

“Five years in advance?” she asked.

It was a practice that all Scientologists knew, said Rosenberg. This court was dealing with three particular cases, but for a Scientologist the practice posed no problem.

“I am posing a theoretical question,” said Judge Château.

“It is not the purpose of the church to get people into trouble,” said Rosenberg.

“There, we agree,” said the judge (“Là, on est d’accord”).

But in response to the judge’s theoretical question, he said: “If this caused somebody financial trouble – and this is not my role – I would not do it.”

But this side of the centre’s work was not part of his duties, he stressed.

Judge Château raised the issue of grants, which she had already discussed with another defendant, Jean-François Valli.[6]

It was not in fact a subsidy, said the judge: it was more a matter of “We are going to do you a preferential price.”

But the results in terms of their spirituality had a positive effect on the rest of their life, said Rosenberg.

“But that doesn’t answer the question,” said the judge.

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[1] One of its clauses says that an auditor, the Scientologist running an auditing or counselling session, must not evaluate the experience of the person being audited.
[2] See 7: The Purification Rundown.
[3] The French phrase used, “directeur général”, is normally translated as managing director. So far as I can see though, the post listed at the top of the English version of the Org chart is “Executive Director”. Thanks to Caroline Letkeman for supplying me with a copy.
[4] It emerged during the course of the trial that Rosenberg ran a successful clothing business.
[5] The only 1960 document that I can find that fits the bill is the Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter October 28, 1960: New Testing Promotion Section. The bulletin’s opening sentence corresponds to the judge’s summary: “For some time Orgs have used testing as a promotional means. It has been found that this is a good, reliable method of getting people to come in.” And there is a reference to the techniques being used successfully in South Africa, as Rosenberg mentioned. Thanks to Roger Gonnet for confirming that this is one of the documents he sent to the investigating magistrate.
[6] See The Paris Trial II.

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15 Former lieutenants denounce Miscavige

Hats off to the St Petersburg Times: by getting two of David Miscavige’s key former lieutenants to go public on the violence and abuse at the top of Scientology, they have taken the story mainstream.

Mark Rathbun and Mike Rinder, two former lieutenants of Scientology’s leader David Miscavige, have gone public on abuses at the top of Scientology.

Their revelations appear in the first of a three-part series in The St Petersburg Times, Florida, by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin

Rathbun, Rinder and at least two other well-placed sources, go into key aspects of the movement’s workings: from Miscavige’s violence to the controversial IRS tax deal.

Rathbun was once the movement’s Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center (RTC) and for years Miscavige’s right-hand man.

Rinder used to be the movement’s chief spokesman and was a former Executive Director of the Office of Special Affairs (OSA).

As anyone who has studied Scientology knows, the OSA is among other things, the movement’s dirty tricks department.

In the 1980s it took over from the old Guardian’s office after 11 GO members – including Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard – were jailed for a massive spying operation on the US federal institutions.

Figuratively speaking then, both men know where the bodies lie.

This first part of the series confirms the violence that Miscavige has meted out to senior officers: abuse that this site and others have already reported.

Mark Rathbun goes over the campaign of harassment that convinced the Internal Revenue Service to reverse its policy and recognise Scientology as a church, a non-profit organisation, for tax purposes.

And among the revelations promised in part two are details of how Scientologists “botched the care” of Lisa McPherson.

McPherson's death in 1995 was the subject of extensive litigation – and an unsuccessful criminal investigation that was itself mishandled.

Scientology of course, has done its best to discredit the messengers, drawing on past statements from Mike Rinder in which he vehemently denied Miscavige’s violence.

They have quoted written attestations from Rathbun in which he sings the praises of Miscavige, the man he is now denouncing.

(This sounds strangely familiar: at the recently completed Paris trial, the defence pointed to success stories written by the plaintiffs during their time in Scientology in a bid to undermine their subsequent complaints. They denied such testimonials were effectively compulsory.)

For Scientology, Rathbun and Rinder are simply embittered apostates trying to shift the blame for their incompetence on to Miscavige.

The problem with this line is that Rathbun admits that he does not walk away from the movement with clean hands.

“…I freely admit I got dirt on my hands, and I feel terrible about it,” Rathbun tells the Times.

Rathbun, unlike at least one of the more thuggish former members I can think of, appears to have misgivings about what he has done in the name of Scientology.

To a certain extent, his credibility – and that of Rinder’s – will rest on how much they are prepared to own up to themselves.

For both men were too high up in Scientology’s hierarchy not to be privy to some of its worst abuses.

But hats off to the Times: if anyone was going to get the big fish to talk it’s only fair that it should be this newspaper.

They have been covering Scientology since it arrived in St Petersburg in 1975.

They had to put up with its dirty tricks at a time when going up against the movement was a far more perilous proposition than it is today.

Times reporters Charles Stafford and Bette Orsini picked up a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage back in 1980.

And in 1998, the Times even managed to get a rare interview with Miscavige himself.

The man who pulled off that scoop was Thomas C. Tobin – one of the co-authors of this new series.

---

Don’t miss the video report and interviews with Rathbun and Amy Scobee at the Times website.

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Paris trial: what the prosecution wants

Just a brief update on the trial because I won't get to it in my coverage for a good while yet...Coverage will resume shortly.

The prosecution is asking for the "dissolution des personnes morales" -- which is to say they want the two Scientology organisations in the dock -- the Celebrity Centre of the L'Association spirituelle de l'Eglise de Scientologie (ASES) and the bookshop Scientologie espace librairie (SEL) -- to be shut down.

Update: because of a change to the law introduced just before the trial, this option is in fact not available to the court, even if parliament corrected what the government says was a mistake the week after it was discovered. See "The Great Escape?" for more details.

They also want the two organisations to be fined two million euros each.

For the six individual defendants, they asked for fines and in four cases suspended sentences:

- for Alain Rosenberg, the managing director of the Celebrity Centre, 150,000 euros and a four-year suspended sentence;
- for Didier Michaux, their star salesman, 50,000 euros and a three-year suspended sentence;
- for Jean-François Valli, the other salesman, 25,000 euros and a three-year suspended sentence;
- for Sabine Jacquart, who was president of the Celebrity Centre, 10,000 euros and a two-year suspended sentence;
- for Aline Fabre, who managed the Purification Rundown, and for Marie-Anne Pasturel, who as agent for G&G in France took orders for the vitamins, 2,000-euro fines.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs did their summing up today too and the hearing took place in a packed courtroom.

The defence will plead tomorrow and Wednesday and then the panel of judges will consider their verdict and any sentences. The judgement will be delivered on October 27, 10.00 am Paris time.

It is worth noting that when the investigating magistrate was putting this case together, the prosecutor at the time had said there was no case to answer.

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8 Purification Rundown: defendants

Day 4 (June 2): The court trying six Scientologists and two Scientology associations heard from one of the defendants responsible for managing the Paris centre’s Purification Rundown.

Before calling the next defendant, Judge Sophie-Hélène Château summarised the investigation to date into Scientology’s Purification Rundown.

The programme, devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, involves large doses of vitamins, periods of running and hours in the sauna.

Many of those who signed up for it had been directed by Scientologists at the centre to buy the vitamins required from G&G, which imported them from the Netherlands, said the judge.

Yet the same products could have been bought more cheaply at a Paris pharmacy.

Referring to court papers, Judge Château noted that during the investigation many of those questioned about G&G had been evasive about the links the business had with the Celebrity Centre in Paris.

Investigating magistrate Jean-Christophe Hullin had tried to find out more about G&G from the Dutch authorities, but having received no response to his inquiries had abandoned that line of investigation.[1]

Judge Château called defendant Aline Fabre to the stand. Fabre, dressed plainly, seemed tense and nervous. She spoke quickly when she answered the questions put to her.

Fabre is accused of illegal exercise of pharmacy because of her work supervising the Purification Rundown at the Celebrity Centre.

She had described the programme to investigators as a religious ritual comparable to fasting in other religions. And she argued that under European Union law the vitamins and other products required were available on open sale as food supplements.

She had also denied any suggestion that the Purification Rundown was dangerous. In any case, she argued, a medical certificate was required before anyone started do the programme.

In her personal experience of the programme, she credited the Purification Rundown with having cleared away a kind of “mental fog” that had prevented her from thinking clearly.

She had supervised hundreds of people through the programme who had emerged perfectly satisfied and she had only known two complaints about it.

Fabre had stressed that her job was to ensure that Rundown participants followed the instructions set out in the book Clear Body, Clear Mind, by Hubbard.

But Judge Château recalled the problems that plaintiff Aude-Claire Malton had experienced during the Rundown, including stomach cramps and perpetual fatigue.

She mentioned too, Malton’s reservations concering the rather home-made packaging in which the G&G products had come and their unpleasant smell, which had made her reluctant to take them.

Did the medical check-up for participants include tests to see if they had any vitamin deficiencies, Judge Château asked Fabre?

“Before taking the programme, each person has to read the details of the programme, including the doses,” said Fabre.

Participants also had to ensure that they had eaten and slept well before starting the programme, she added.

And of the doctor's visit, she said: “The person goes to see him and explains what he is going to do. The doctor must determine if there could be contra-indications.”

When Judge Château asked about any training Fabre might have had to carry out her duties, Fabre said that she had read Clear Body, Clear Mind. (She had also been trained in animal biology, she added – but that had nothing to do with this work.)

Were the doses taken during the Rundown the same for everyone, asked Judge Château?

She did not decide the doses to be handed out, said Fabre: it was all in the table in Hubbard’s book: “You follow the table.”

But what happened when people reported feeling uncomfortable, the judge asked?

“If someone has a cramp because they didn’t eat enough then obviously you will correct that,” said Fabre.

“Nobody ever spoke of hallucinations”

Judge Château went over the issue of the medical clearance.

Scientologists provided participants with a questionnaire, a list of possible conditions, to take to their doctor. The doctor was then expected to tick off any relevant conditions such as diabetes or liver problems.

“I am a bit surprised,” the judge confessed. How was the doctor supposed to know about the large doses of vitamins involved?

The person could show the doctor the doses as set out in the table in Hubbard’s book, said Fabre.

“But what is there in the certificate to show that the doctor knows about it?” asked the judge.

“I think the doctor had already seen several people who had done the programme,” said Fabre.

And what happened if the doctor said the patient had a vitamin deficiency, asked Judge Château? Did you change the dose?

“No,” said Fabre. “It is not me who decides the dose.”

“Could it not be dangerous to give these vitamins at a fixed level, as you yourself said, and without any knowledge of pharmacology?” asked the judge.

That was for the doctor to decide, said Fabre.

Judge Château mentioned the experience of Eric Aubry. (Aubry was one of the plaintiffs who had settled with Scientology and withdrawn his complaint before the case came to trial. But his testimony remained on file.)

During the initial investigation, Aubry had described how he had become delerious and had experienced hallucinations during the Rundown.

What concerned the judge was that the instructions in Hubbard’s book appeared to be that participants should keep going to the end of the programme.

Had Fabre ever had to deal with these kinds of hallucinatory states in participants?

“I have never known that,” said Fabre. “M. Aubry never spoke of hallucinations. Nobody ever spoke of hallucinations. But if anyone ever had a problem with that, I would advise them to go and see a doctor.”

And what about the difficulties that Aude-Claire Malton had experienced: the stomach cramps, the flushing, the extreme fatique, asked the judge?

“I remember Mme Malton as being very happy,” said Fabre. “She stopped when she felt liberated. I remember that she was very happy, she felt very light.”

Fabre stressed that the five hours daily in the sauna was a maximum figure. And in any case, she said: “They don’t stay there all the time.” Participants were free to leave the sauna for breaks of up to 30 minutes and to take drinks to re-hydrate themselves.

Of her personal experience of the programme, she said: “I felt a great sense of liberation.”

But the judge persisted. Aude-Claire Malton had spoken of feeling completely washed out: “Are there not risks of negative effects if you persist?”

“This fatigue I never observed at the time,” said Fabre. “It is not at all what Mme Malton and M. Aubry talked about at the time. They talked about an immense energy at the end – which is in fact what people feel.”

For the plaintiffs, Maître Olivier Morice wanted to know why Fabre had sent Aude-Claire Malton to Marie-Anne Pasturel, the French intermediary for G&G – and another of the plaintiffs.

She had done so simply because that was to whom she had gone when she herself bought the ingredients for her Rundown, said Fabre. “So I just got out my address book.”

And if all the instructions were all in Hubbard’s book, what was her role during the Rundown, asked Morice?

To maintain the premises and to provide drinks when requested, said Fabre. “Sometimes people have things to communicate… because it is a spiritual programme,” she added.

Morice, exasperated, noted that every time the defendants were asked about the vitamins they started talking about spirituality.

“It can also eliminate radiation from the body”

Maud Morel-Coujard, one of the two prosecutors, asked Fabre about Aude-Claire Malton’s account of the Rundown. Malton had described how participants were handed their doses of red, blue and yellow pills by the supervisor.

No, said Fabre. “They prepare the doses themselves.” She just made sure that they had everything they needed, that they took breaks from the sauna when they needed to and kept drinking so they did not dehydrate.

Malton had also spoken about how, during her experience of the Rundown, there were at times as many as six people in the sauna.

“It didn’t go well because the atmosphere was not good,” Malton had said.

Fabre disagreed. “For me, there is a very good atmosphere,” she said. While there might sometimes be the odd dispute, that was very rare, she added.

Morel-Coujard also asked her about reports that children had done the Rundown.

“It is very rare that a child does it,” said Fabre. But if a child wanted to do the Rundown and the parents agreed, then they could.

And was that indicated in the book, asked Morel-Coujard? No, said Fabre.

Had people ever come back from their doctor saying they had been refused clearance to do the programme or the programme had been criticised, asked Morel-Coujard? Yes, said Fabre.

“Contra-indications are very rare,” she added – though doctors did sometimes raise objections to the running part of the programme.

And what margin of manoeuvre was there on how many vitamins were taken?

“If a person has a problem with the dose of vitamins, they can be carried over to the next day,” said Fabre.

The prosecutor pressed her on how much discretion she had as supervisor, how much of an active role she played during the programme.

“If someone has a problem, I will look at the book with them,” she replied.

“You never interpret?” asked Morel-Coujard. No, said Fabre: that was forbidden.

And did Hubbard deal with the different tolerances that people might have to vitamins, asked the prosecutor?

“The doctors determine that,” said Fabre. “If ever there is a problem the person goes back to the doctor. It is not me who changes anything at all.”

Morel-Coujard asked Fabre about claims that Hubbard had made that the Rundown could eliminate radiation from the body.[2]

Yes, said Fabre. “It can also eliminate radiation from the body.”

She said she had seen signs of toxins coming out of the body, when the marks of somebody’s swimming costume had appeared on their body during the sweating process in the sauna.

For the defence, Maître François Jacquot reminded the court that Fabre was being questioned about what was a religious rite, but that in any case, the Rundown did require a medical certificate.

And while some of the programme’s participants had ordered the necessary products from G&G, others, at least eight people interviewed during the investigation, had got their products elsewhere.

Questioned by Jacquot, Fabre confirmed that she had been supervising the programme for 15 years; that she had done it herself and had experienced its benefits.

She only wanted other people to share those benefits, said Fabre. “I really want people to experience this… to have the stable state I have had since I did it.”

People had real breakthroughs during the Rundown, she said: they became aware of things they had not previously understood.

She described the sauna itself as being about 11 or 12 square metres (130 square feet), with different levels at which you could sit, depending on how much heat you could take.

“I don’t really see what I am doing here”

Earlier, Morice had asked if his client Aude-Claire Malton could be allowed to speak again and now Judge Château recalled her to the stand.

Morice asked her about the table that Fabre had mentioned listing the vitamin doses to take.

“I don’t remember a table for taking these vitamins,” said Malton.

Judge Château asked her about what literature she had consulted for the Rundown.

“The book I had was an illustrated book showing how the Purification Rundown went, but I don’t remember a book with a table,” Malton replied.

“Mme Fabre gave you the vitamins – and I don’t remember taking a book to the doctor,” she added.

So how could they make a proper assessment, the judge wondered?

At this point it emerged that although candidates for the Rundown were free to go to their own doctor, there was a doctor to whom many were sent who was perfectly familiar with the programme.

Fabre returned to the stand and Maître Olivier Saumon, the lawyer for the National Council for the Order of Pharmacists, asked her if the medical tests for candidates involved blood or urine tests. No, said Malton: they did not.

Now Judge Château called Marie-Anne Pasturel, another of the defendants, to the stand. Pasturel, a well-groomed woman in her mid-to-late 40s, seemed a little bemused at her presence in court.

“I don’t really see what I’m doing here,” she said. G&G had proposed that she act as their intermediary and she had agreed, she said. People would phone her or leave a message on her answering machine and she would pass on the orders.

“It was a part-time job,” she explained, a supplement to her regular job selling advertising. All she earned from it was between 500 and 2,000 francs (75-300 euros) a month.

Pasturel confirmed that she had done the Purification Rundown herself and that she knew Fabre.

And did she have any training concerning vitamins, asked the judge? No, said Pasturel.

“Nobody ever asked questions,” she said. “People just placed orders.”

“So you thought you could sell vitamins like you could sell potatoes?” asked Judge Château.

“I just passed on the orders,” Pasturel replied. And you never asked any questions, asked the judge? No, she said.

Judge Château, referring to the case files, noted that some of the advertising for G&G said they could cure illness, that they constituted an “effective treatment”.

That was legal in the Netherlands, said Pasturel.

“But we are in France,” said the judge. “In the Netherlands, you can buy hashish in the coffee shops. You should bear that in mind.”

Pasturel replied that she had had no idea at the time that what she had been doing might be illegal.

Maître Saumon, for the Order of Pharmacists, asked her if she had not checked with anybody about the situation in France, she asked?

She had put a few questions, said Pasturel. But she added: “For me, it was just a favour I was doing for friends.”

“But it was a paid service,” said Saumon.

Yes, said Pasturel, but she explained: “A lot of people didn’t want to phone to the Netherlands.”

Having a French phone number to call reassured them that there would not be any language problems, she said. “A lot of people think that they can’t speak French (in the Netherlands).”

Questioned further however, she said that she had been able to place the orders in French.

Questioned by Maître Morice, she confirmed that she had stopped the work in 1999 because she had thought it might be a problem.

“French law seemed confused and I didn’t want to take the risk,” she said.

Following up on this point, prosecutor Nicolas Baïetto asked Pasturel why, after having acted for G&G between 1993 and 1999, she had suddenly changed her mind.

“What happened to make you make you realise there might be a problem?” he asked.

“Nothing in particular,” said Pasturel.

---

Later in the trial, at the start of the fifth day, Dr Véronique Brion, a specialist in clinical pharmacology, appeared as a witness for the two plaintiffs, Aude-Claire Malton and Nelly Reziga.

She had been asked to examine the vitamins that Malton had been given for the Purification Rundown. Her view was that the doses were far too high to be described as food supplements.

Taken at high doses, she said, Vitamin A could be toxic. She also thought the doses of calcium taken together with the vitamins were potentially dangerous.

She could not see how taking vitamins at the levels required by the Rundown could be justified – especially given that the one’s daily vitamin needs could be obtained from a normal diet.

Aude-Claire Malton had reported problems during her 13 days on the Purification Rundown, a programme combining running, high doses of vitamins and hours in a sauna.

Malton’s account of stomach cramps, a skin rash and sleeping difficulties leading to constant fatigue seemed perfectly coherent with what she had been through on the programme, said Dr Brion.

Maître Olivier Saumon, asked her opinion of an account of a purification programme set up for New York fire fighters in following the 9/11 attacks, identical to the one used in Scientology.

The defence had supplied dramatic details of fire fighters’ experiences on the programme, which was devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Their sweat had turned black, blue, violet and yellow, said Saumon. One account had spoken of particles of sand emerging from a subject’s eyes.

Saumon, representing the National Council for the Order of Pharmacists, plaintiffs in the case, was clearly not looking for an enthusiastic endorsement.

What did Dr Brion make of such accounts, he asked?

Dr Brion looked uncomfortable. As a scientist, it was difficult for her to judge or analyse a phenomenon that she could not check, she said. She had never heard of the phenomena as described.

But then it was true that vitamins could change the colour of one’s urine, so perhaps the accounts were not so astonishing, she added.

---

[1] From subsequent testimony, it would appear that G&G was an English company, based at East Grinstead, the nearest town to Scientology’s Saint Hill base. It was set up by veteran Scientologists David and Sheila Gaiman (http://www.gandginfo.com/en/)

[2] If the prosecutor cited a reference here, I missed it. But Hubbard made these claims in a 1957 book All About Radiation. According to some researchers, some of the more controversial claims along these lines were edited out of subsequent editions of the book.

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7 The Purification Rundown

Day 4 (June 2): an expert witness dismissed Scientology’s Purification Rundown as quackery as the Paris trial considered the high doses of vitamins used in the programme.

One expert witness described Scientology’s Purification Rundown as quackery, as the court considered whether the high doses of vitamins used in the programme constituted illegal practice of pharmacy.

But proceedings in the second week of the trial of six Scientologists and two Scientology organisations in France opened with a complaint from the lawyers of defendant Sabine Jacquart.

Jacquart had, they said, been subject to harassment outside the court, which they described as an unacceptable attempt at intimidation.

The President of the Court, Judge Sophie-Hélène Château, while regretting any such incident, made it clear that every precaution had been taken to ensure that the trial took place in secure conditions.

The lawyers on all sides called for calm, though the defence side did note that while things might be proceeding properly in court, the atmosphere outside the court was far from serene.

Morice, for the plaintiffs, argued that there were two sides to that question, recalling how during the actual investigation, the defence had questioned the impartiality of the investigating magistrate.

The letter was duly noted and the judge moved on to the business of the day.[1]

Judge Château introduced the issue of Scientology’s Purification Rundown, from which the charges of illegal practice of pharmacy had arisen.

Château, working from the court’s files, said that the stated aim of the programme was to get rid of toxins that encumbered the body and prevented the person’s spiritual progress.

The programme involves taking large doses of vitamins and a calcium-magnesium solution known as Calmag, going for runs and spending extended periods in the sauna. It normally lasts for about 15 days.

Before doing the programme, the participant is required to provide a doctor’s certificate confirming that there are no medical objections.

While a lot of people had said the Purification Rundown had done them a great deal of good, others had quite a different recollection of their experience, said Judge Château: and among the experts, opinion also appeared to be divided.

“But we are not here to study the benefits, or otherwise, of the Purification Rundown, but the use of these vitamins,” she said.

Judge Château read extracts from a report submitted by a Dr. Pepin*, a biologist who had been asked by investigators to examine the products that one of the plaintiffs, Aude-Claire Malton, had been given to take during her Purification Rundown.

The vitamins were bought from a company called G&G, recommended to Malton by one of the staff members at the Celebrity Centre.

The package Malton had received for the Rundown, contained Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12, C, D and H, together with magnesium, potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, copper and zinc.

Pepin concluded that the manufacture, distribution and sale of these products were normally reserved for pharmacists. And in any case, these products required prior clearance by the French authorities before being put on the market.

A preliminary report from France’s health products watchdog, the AFSSAPS, had reached a similar conclusion.[2]

It was for this reason that France’s National of the Order Council of Pharmacists had become a plaintiff in the case.

The court called the head of legal and European affairs at the AFSSAPS, Mme Elisabeth Hérail, to give evidence.

Hérail explained that a medicine could be defined in terms of its presentation and function.

Under French, law, if a product was presented as having curative or preventive properties regarding illnesses then it was a medicine by presentation. If it was used to restore, correct or change a person’s physiological condition, it was a medicine by function.

“Everything is a question of dosage”

Judge Château wanted to know if the vitamins seized by investigators in 1999 could be categorised as food supplements.

If all these products were marketed as having a medical use, then they were medicines by presentation, said Hérail. And the large quantities of, for example, Vitamin A and Vitamin E meant that they were being used as medicines.

The doses being used in the Purification Rundown were very much superior to normal doses, said Hérail. “It is clear that taking these vitamins in such large quantities can lead to side-effects.”

The levels of Vitamin A being taken, for example, would normally require a doctor’s prescription.

Hérail’s presentation was enthusiastic: she smiled a lot, her manner towards the judge assessors and the various lawyers was extremely polite: but she was not to be moved on the points she set out.

She was asked three times by the defence whether the vitamins in question could be considered legitimate food supplements.

“Everything is a question of dosage,” she answered, each time.

But could these vitamins not legitimately be taken as food supplements, asked the defence?

Normal consumption of food in developed society meant that these kinds of food deficiencies did not occur, Hérail replied.

“When you have doses that are 10 times more than normal, it is absolutely obvious that they can change the function of the organ,” she added.

The two sides went back on forth on recent jurisprudence in the area and both sides seemed to know the territory well.

But Hérail stuck to her basic point: once you were dealing in very large doses for normal, healthy people with no obvious vitamin deficiencies, you were no longer dealing with vitamins as food supplements but as medicines.

Before calling the next witness, Judge Château had a large plastic bin bag brought in from where it had been hanging outside the courtroom window: this was what remained of the powders and pills Aude-Claire Malton, one of the plaintiffs, had been given for her Purification Rundown.

She explained that they had left it outside for the initial part of the day’s hearing because of its rather strong smell. Now she placed it on display in front of the bench and called the next witness.[3]

If Hérail’s presentation had been animated, her colleague, Stéphane Lange, a senior inspector at the AFSSAPS, seemed more reserved – at least at first.

He hunched forward over the microphone and, speaking extremely fast, plunged straight into the technical details. He confirmed first that high doses of some of the vitamins in question, such as Vitamin A, could be toxic.

He agreed, too, with the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Maître Olivier Morice, that whoever advised on a treatment involving such a combination of vitamins should be medically competent.

Morice described Mlle Malton’s experience with the Purification Rundown: the flushes she had experienced, the skin rash. Were these not contra-indications, said Morice?

“Everything can have side-effects, said Lange. “But whatever the medicine there is always a risk of intolerance: I can’t tell you more than that.”

But what about doses of 5,000 milligram’s of Vitamin A, asked Morice? “At that dosage there, it becomes medicine,” said Lange.

And Vitamin D? “There can be overdoses of Vitamin D,” he confirmed.

“This seems to me to be quackery”

Judge Château took him back to the fact that these vitamins were being taken at the same time. What then, she asked?

“That can have side-effects,” he said. But he was not a toxicologist, he added: he did not want to go further than that.

Surely, said one of the defence lawyers, if you took too much Vitamin C, the body would eliminate it. “Not necessarily,” said Lange. “It can have a toxic effect.”

Judge Château recalled Aude-Claire Malton, the plaintiff who had reported problems with the Purification Rundown, to the stand.

Malton had ordered the package of vitamins she needed for the Rundown from G&G. How had it been presented, asked Judge Château? Was there a letter explaining the products?

Malton explained the products had arrived in little sachets in a transparent plastic bag. There had been no instructions, just a list of vitamins which she had been asked to bring in when she did the Rundown.

“We had to take some before running and others before going into the sauna,” she explained. “The person who took care of the Purification gave us the daily doses.

“There were certain doses of vitamins to take and then as the days passed the doses of vitamins became bigger.

“After a certain number of days I started to have stomach cramps. I spoke to her [the supervisor] and she said I could take them in different parts of the day.”

So there were no instructions with the package, said Judge Château? No, said Malton: she was told to bring them in for the programme but there had been no instructions on how to take them.

Malton did not know if everyone was taking the same doses or not, but she said that every day the supervisor checked the doses they had taken before and then handed out doses she had prepared for that day.

But as had been the case on her first day of testimony, she could not identify who had supervised her from among the defendants in court.

Judge Château turned back to the pharmacist Lange, who had been listening to Malton’s account. She indicated the plastic bag full of pills and powders: was this kind of packaging normal, she asked?

“I would be very surprised if this kind of packaging would be authorised,” he said.

And as far prescribing the vitamins was concerned, did that require a particular competence or could anyone do it who could read the instructions, asked the judge?

“That is not exactly the question,” said Lange, and for a moment, he appeared to be ready to leave it at that. But then, unprompted, he spoke up again.

“Do you want a direct answer? This seems to me to be quackery (charlatanesque).”

---

* This is probably Professeur Gilbert Pepin, a biologist with a doctorate in pharmacy and an appointed expert to the Paris courts.

[1] At some point during discussion of the letter – or it may have been in the letter itself – there appeared to be a suggestion that the court itself might not be impartial. Judge Château described any such insinuation as “extremely unpleasant”.
[2] AFSSAPS: l'Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des produits de santé (the French Agency for the Safety of Health Products)
[3] Since I had a heavy cold that week, I'm afraid I couldn’t smell anything.

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6 Pierre Auffret's Story

Day 3 (May 27): a Paris court heard how a company director's massive spending on Scientology put his business at risk.

The court had been due to hear from Pierre Auffret, a businessman who had spent more than a million francs of his company’s money on Scientology training.

In the end, however, he wrote to inform the court that he would not be able to attend. Judge Château set out the details of his story.

Auffret’s status was very particular: he was a témoin assisté; an assisted witness. In French law, this is someone who was investigated with a view to possible prosecution, but against whom charges were not actually laid.

Auffret had been questioned as part of an investigation launched in October 1999 into the misappropriation of company assets, following an anonymous tip-off to police.

A couple of months later, in December, Auffret’s brother Yves had filed a complaint against Scientology. He accused the movement of extortion against Pierre Auffret, who had himself refused to act against the movement.*

Yves Auffret said that from 1996, his brother had paid out massive amounts of money to Scientology, jeopardising not only his family’s finances but those of the company he ran.

The company’s accountant, who had resigned once he found out what was happening, said that when he left, the company’s was short 1,278,314 francs (194,878 euros).

Investigators found that money from Parangon, the engineering company he ran in Finistere, Brittany, northwest France, had indeed been improperly used to pay for Scientology training.

Questioned by investigators, Pierre Auffret said he had been a Scientologist since 1996, after having taken a personality test that showed he needed training in communication skills.

He had started by spending his own money on Scientology training, buying hundreds of hours of training in advance from Jean-François Valli, one of the defendants.

By 1999 however, he had spent large sums of the company’s money on Scientology training and on various materials from Scientology’s bookshop. He had also spent substantial amounts of money travelling from Brittany to the Celebrity Centre in Paris for his training.

Auffret acknowledged that he had improperly mixed his personal spending with spending for the company.

But he was never formally charged over his abuse of the company finances: neither his brother nor his wife wanted to file a complaint against him, as they believed that Scientology had manipulated him.

And much of the company’s money was recovered. Auffret paid back 475,344 francs (72,466 euros) to Parangorn; Scientology refunded 489,744 francs (74,661 euros).

Judge Château called Valli back to the stand.

In earlier testimony, Valli had already mentioned that he had been disciplined by the movement for having failed to respect Scientology’s own financial rules regarding Auffret.

Scientology had a separate organisation the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE) that handled businesses.

Why, asked the judge, had he accepted cheques from Auffret’s business when he knew that this was something WISE would normally handle?

“The first thing is that M. Auffret most of the time he made his payment by debit card and I never looked closely, I did not see that it was a professional debit card and each time I signed him up I made out a receipt in his name personally,” said Valli.

It was only in 1999 that Auffret contacted him to say that, after having consulted with his board, he wanted the receipts made out to his business account, he added.

“I asked him if that was right and he said yes, so I redid the receipts.”

But Auffret appeared to have been very clear that he was spending his company’s money, said the judge.

She pointed to the massive sums of money paid out for courses in advance; and the vast quantities of books and other Scientology materials he had bought.

“I thought it was for him personally”

“No,” said Valli. “For me it was clear it was personal.” Auffret had spoken about the professional as well as the personal benefits the training was bringing him. But he said: “I thought it was for him personally.”

Auffret’s recollection was that Valli had handled his personality test, said Judge Château. He had also talked in terms of him being the client and Valli the salesman.

No, said Valli. He was not trained to interpret the tests, he said. And he described the training programme he had worked out with Auffret as a “spiritual plan”.

For the prosecution; Nicolas Baïetto asked him about the problems he had with Scientology over this affair.

Valli explained that by rewriting the receipts for Auffret as business expenses he had failed to respect Scientology’s own rules. For this he had been sacked from his job at the Celebrity Centre, and as a consequence had also resigned from his occasional work at the bookshop.

But Baïetto was also troubled by what he saw as the divergence between Auffret’s account of his experience and Valli’s.

“He did not talk about a spiritual process. He never spoke of spirituality. There is a gulf between what you say it [his training] gave him and what he says.”

And how could he suddenly discover there was a problem in 1999, three years after the payments started, the prosecutor asked?

Valli explained that the first time he had any notion something was wrong was when Auffret had contacted him and asked him to change the receipts.

For the defence, François Jacquot established that the forms Auffret had signed for his training made clear mention that these were for religious service. “So he knew perfectly well.”

Under further questioning from the defence, Valli explained that he only really realised something was not right when he learned that an investigating magistrate wanted to talk to him concerning a possible case of misappropriation of company assets.

Judge Château also recalled another defendant, Didier Michaux, to the stand.

Michaux, who had sold Auffret his books, had told investigators that he had not realised that Auffret was spending his company’s money rather than his own.

But 305,000 francs was a lot of money to spend on books, said the judge. How much time would he have to read them? Did it happen a lot that people bought so many, she asked?

Not often, said Michaux: but for certain Scientologists it was important to build a complete library.

“I am before everything a Scientologist, though it is true that I am also a salesman,” said Michaux. Once the circumstances of the purchases became clear, he had been happy to refund the money.

In the circumstances, he would not have wanted to keep it, he added.

---

* The charges eventually retained against Scientology’s Celebrity Centre and some of its employees were for fraud.

This completes coverage of the first week of the trial.

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5 The Psychiatrist's Testimony

(Day 3: May 27) Scientology’s techniques abuse the transference process familiar to all therapists, a psychiatrist told the Paris trial of the movement and six of its members.

Psychiatrist Dr Daniel Zagury, a court-appointed expert, was called to explain what he thought had happened to the three plaintiffs during their time in Scientology.

He said they had been drawn into the movement when they were at a vulnerable point in their lives: they had hoped to get help, they had seen those hopes dashed and felt a certain resentment as a result.

Aude-Claire Malton came to Scientology still vulnerable from the end of a relationship, said Zagury (see The Paris Trial, Part I). She was emotionally insecure, she had an inferiority complex, she did not like the way she looked; she was ill at ease with herself and her body.

Zagury talked in terms of the transference phenomenon, as first outlined by Freud: the transference of a patient’s expectations – his or her parental images – to the therapist.

You could observe the same phenomenon in different contexts, said Zagury: in the teacher-pupil or the doctor-patient relationship, for example. And this transference process lent the recipient a certain power.

There was a tendency to caricature the process of psychological manipulation, said Zagury. “In reality the mechanism is more subtle and perhaps more effective,” he added.

In the conventional therapeutic situation, he said, the patient seeks out a therapist. “There is a clear expectation of help – and they [the therapists] are supposed to know what to do to help you.

“In therapy, it is active: the request is direct. There is a link to offer and demand,” he added. And in the context of analysis, the idea is that the patient will progress.

In Scientology, the context is different: for whereas in therapy, conflicts are meant to be analysed and worked through, in Scientology they are not. And while in therapy, the transfer effect is meant to eliminated, in Scientology it is not.

And there was one element of the transfer process that was often overlooked, said Zagury: the negative element of resentment.

When the transference took place and the hopes were disappointed, then the feeling of hostility could be very strong. This explained why those people emerging from Scientology had such a strong feeling of having been manipulated.

Zagury set out seven stages to Malton’s passage through Scientology.

He pointed out that although she had not explicitly asked for help, she had accepted the offer of help after having filled in the personality test and gone for the meeting, after which she opened up about her personal life.

She had submitted to the protocol of the Dianetics training, which involved a certain psychological dependence. “She was looking for something new, so she played the game.”

And when her supervisors proposed more courses, given her insecurities, it was only natural that she would be interested.

By now however, serious financial pressures were beginning to build up, so they played on her sense of self-worth. When pressing her to buy more courses, they would tell her: “You are worth it.”

At a certain stage however, she felt that she was not getting the promised benefits – and a tension was developing between her new group, the Scientologists, and her family. They coached her on how to talk to her family, but she felt torn between them.

The moment of rupture had come when she decided she had been deceived. “They weren’t interested in me: they were interested in my money,” she said.

It was when this disenchantment set in that she felt she had been a victim of manipulation mentale (mind control).

“What is left for her is the impression of having been deceived. She wants to take some meaning from this,” said Zagury.

“There was an abuse of the transference process”

Zagury said he did not feel qualified to say whether the way she had been treated was punishable under the law. Nor would he speculate on the intentions of the Scientologists involved.

But from the psychiatric-psychological point of view, there had been a clearly identifiable process at work, he said.

“There was an abuse of the transference process,” said Zagury. “It wasn’t at the service of the subject, but at the service of enslaving the subject.”

Zagury stressed the importance of the transference process. “You are in a phase when you think your interlocutors are going to bring you the happiness you have looked for for so long,” he said.

Olivier Morice, the lawyer for the individual plaintiffs, asked him to comment on a remark he attributed to one of the defendants, Alain Rosenberg, to the effect that getting a psychiatrist to study Scientology was like getting a Nazi to study a Jew.

Zagury, who up until then had presented his findings with the animation and enthusiasm of an academic immersed in his subject, smiled apologetically.

In carrying out his study, he said, he had tried to stick to the psychological processes that had been involved. "If we are going to start talking about Jews and Nazis…” he smiled again: that was a different question, outside of his field of expertise.

When Judge Château asked him how people could come to spend so much money, Zagury referred her back to the phrase that had come up during the sales sessions: happiness has no price.

Eric Aubry, for example, had told him more or the less the same thing. “What is a lot of money when you expect to at last find the solution, the answer, to all the problems you have had during your whole existence?

“It is a lot of money but at the same time it is not a lot if happiness is at the end [of it],” he added. “But when happiness is not at the end, then…”

Zagury turned to Eric Aubry’s case (Paris Trial III). Aubry had known that by going to the police, by filing his complaint, in the eyes of the Scientologists he had betrayed them – it was as if he was the one who had committed a crime.

It was possible to identify with the aggressor, said Zagury: and a central feature of some traumatic experiences was that the victim would sometimes wonder if they themselves were not somehow to blame.

But that helped explain why Aubry had gone to the police, said Zagury: “He wanted the courts to vindicate him.”

When Eric Aubry came across Scientology, he was waiting for something new in his life – a change.

When it came to the people with whom he had dealings in Scientology, Aubry was extraordinarily sensitive, said Zagury: “That is an essential element of transfer,” he said.

“He saw himself to be suggestible, but there was a conflict: he trusted his interlocutors even when his instinct told him he was making a mistake. But through curiosity, he pushed the experience.”

He had bought into the promise of change that the Scientologists had offered him: the change that he had been looking for.

And while in his professional life, where he knew the rules, he was thriving, in Scientology it was a different situation entirely. “He was in a process of which he did not have the rules.”

Aubry had not come to terms with certain aspects of his personal life, and was looking for answers. So when some Scientologists had made indiscreet remarks about just this aspect of his life, it was all the more wounding.

Aubry was extremely sensitive to any intrusion into his intimacy, said Zagury. And that became a problem during his time inside Scientology.

Not only were his conflicts not analysed, not only did he fail to find the interior peace he was looking for, but on the contrary he felt more alone, he felt a lack of peace.

“He needed an authentic therapeutic experience”

If he had been ill at ease with himself before he went into Scientology, he was even more so afterwards, said Zagury.

Aubry was plagued by guilt and shame about his own personal problems. When he started criticising Scientology, he was plagued by doubts, by the possibility that they might be right and he wrong. “That is why he so needed the courts to intervene,” he said.

Aubry had been vulnerable because of his personal neuroses, his lack of self-confidence (despite his thriving professional life). “He needed an authentic therapeutic experience,” said Zagury.

Judge Château asked why after writing a 12-page letter denouncing his treatment in Scientology in May 1998, he had nevertheless continued to take courses for months afterwards.

Zagury said that although Aubry had been hurt, he had been determined to see the experience through.

For the prosecution Nicolas Baïetto asked Zagury what he made of a past life experience that Aubry had recounted about having been a member of the Renaissance nobility living alongside Leonardo da Vinci.

Zagury saw it as a kind of role-playing: the past life he felt had discovered – and the conclusions he had drawn from it – related to aspects of his private life that preoccupied him.

But that was not the real problem, said Zagury. “It is more the questions that are put to him than the answers that are problematic.”

Zagury had spoken of a brief delirious state that Aubry had experienced during the Purification Rundown during which he hallucinated (“Which doesn’t mean he was mentally ill,” he added).

But when Zagury spoke about delirium in relation to the past life experience, the defence picked him up on it.

Was he suggesting that the Buddhist belief in past lives was a delirium? Not at all, said Zagury. Then what is the difference between the Buddhist belief in past lives and that of the Scientologists?

Zagury said he could not answer: that was not his area of expertise. But it did seem to him that the cultural context had something to do with it.

In the Hindu culture, for example, it might not be considered at all delirious to speak in such terms; in the western culture it was more problematic.

It was not the job of a psychiatrist to dismiss someone’s religious beliefs in this way. The problem, he said, was when someone started to suggest such beliefs to someone.

As for Scientology’s belief system, he said: “I’m not an expert on Scientology and frankly, I don’t want to be.”

---

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4 The Second Plaintiff

Day 3 (May 27): the second plaintiff in the Paris trial of Scientology told the court how her employer put her under ever-increasing pressure to take the movement’s courses.

Having heard from defendant Didier Michaux and again from Jean François Valli, the president of the tribunal called the second of the remaining individual plaintiffs: Nelly Reziga.

Before asking Reziga to speak, Judge Sophie-Hélène Château read a brief summary of her story from the case files.

In October 1998, Reziga was hired to work for an estate agents (realtors) run by Max Barbault – part of the recruitment process had involved filling in a personality test, though at the time Reziga was not aware of the Scientology connection.

It was only after she saw Scientology literature lying around the offices that she realised that her new boss was a follower. Before long, Barbault was putting her under pressure to follow courses at the Celebrity Centre.

Judge Château asked Reziga to tell the court her story.

The first day she had met Barbault and she had done the test, he had said there were some things that were not going well for her – he had suggested she needed help.

“I said I felt fine and I refused,” she said.

She had not at first realised that her boss was a Scientologist.

“I started to have my doubts…” she said. But she could not put her finger on what was wrong. It was when she found stocks of Scientology books lying around the office that she began to understand.

It became clear too, that at least some of the other employees were Scientologists.

She realised something was not right when she didn’t receive her monthly salary. “I asked why, and they said … that it was down to me,” she recalled.

Before she ever joined the agency, she had heard of Scientology – she had heard it was a cult – but other than that she would have been incapable of saying what it was.

It was about two months into her time at the agency that Barbault again recommended she take a communications course.

“Little by little, he insisted. He harassed me to go to a course,” she said. And in the end, she went to visit the Celebrity Centre. The people there were very nice to her.

But she was troubled by a second personality test that she filled in there – a longer test than the first one. “It struck me as very, very strange. Some questions said the same thing, but rephrased.”

She spent some money – about 1,000 francs (150 euros) – on the Communications Course. But she never finished the course.

“I went three times and then I refused to continue….”

Why, asked the judge?

“You had to look people right in the eyes without flinching. I couldn’t do that so they proposed me other things, which I refused.”

But why had she done it in the first place?

“When he said, ‘All you have to do is a course,’ for me, that was an hour or so, so I thought, ‘Why not?’”

But why could you not say no, the judge asked?

“Because he was always after me, all the time,” said Reziga.

She tried to tell him she did not have the time to do the course. He told her to do it in the evening. “But I have children,” she said.

She felt they were trying to “pull me in, to confuse and to pull me in,” she said. But she kept resisting.

They offered to sell her an electrometer, a device used in Scientology auditing, their confessional therapy sessions; they offered to put her on the Purification Rundown, the programme involving high doses of vitamins, running and then hours in a sauna: “…but I always refused.”

She refused the Purification Rundown, for example, because it was too expensive. “I don’t remember the prices – but I do remember a course that was much more than my monthly salary.”

“He didn’t stop harassing me”

Word got back to Barbault from the Celebrity Centre that Reziga was not buying courses.

“He knew that I had refused the course because it was too expensive. He proposed to lend me the money. I refused,” said Reziga. “He said a Scientology course could bring me lots of benefits.”

Before long, the situation at work had deteriorated.

“My relations [with Barbault] at work were very tense. He kept shouting at me for all kinds of things,” the way she dressed, for example, she said. “An hour of this treatment was very hard to take and it happened a lot.”

Barbault also tried to get her take vitamins, but again, Reziga said no. “I refused to take them because they smelled very bad.” Nor did she like the look of the home-made labels.

Things got worse still when Barbault and a colleague sought her help expanding their business into her apartment block.

Barbault wanted to step up from managing individual apartments to the maintenance of whole buildings and the contract came up in the block where Reziga lived.

They wanted her support at the meeting to decide who got the contract when the issue came up at the meeting of the building’s co-owners.

“Things were already going very badly between us: during a general meeting, I did not vote for his agency,” said Reziga. “There was an explosion.”

Barbault laid into her the next day, she said: “I was the last of the last, and I was given three days’ notice – that was like a breath of fresh air.”

The harassment continued however, with not just Barbault but at least one other member of staff verbally assaulting her on a regular basis. So she went to the police to complain.

Barbault kept it up, phoning her home and harassing her husband and children, so she went back to the police to make another statement. And after several such visits the police called him in.

“He didn’t stop harassing me,” she said. “He was trying to prove something: he told me he wanted me to withdraw my complaint.

“He tried to convince me that Scientology was what I needed. He took me to the police station so I would withdraw my complaint [but] the police officer said even if I withdrew my complaint it would go forward. Some time afterwards, I was fired.”

Olivier Morice, her lawyer, asked her more about the questionnaire she had filled in when she was recruited. She recalled one question about suicide.

“That seemed to me very strange for a recruitment interview,” said Reziga.

(Question 113 on the standard test is: “Would it take a definite effort on your part to consider the subject of suicide?”)

And when she took the second personality test at the Celebrity Centre, she did not like the way the questions were going when they did the interpretation.

“There was a strong emphasis of intrusion into my private life,” she said. “They tried to get me to talk… to find my faults,” she recalled. “They absolutely wanted to find my problems.”

One of the reasons she had done the Communications Course was she thought that afterwards they would leave her in peace, she said.

“I broke down in tears”

At work too, she found Barbault’s attitude disturbing: “He always tried to bring me down,” she said.

He also asked personal questions that she found completely inappropriate. “He tried to find something dishonest [about me]. I said ‘Look, I wouldn’t even take the metro without paying.’”

Barbault even asked her if she was cheating on her husband, she said. “These kinds of questions seemed completely irrational.”

He also started taking her into an office of the agency and subjecting her to sessions of questioning – sessions that could last a long, long, time, she said.

One such session she remembered in particular. “I broke down in tears and he changed his attitude and started to smile.”

Had the people at the Celebrity Centre asked her about her income, asked Morice?

“I think so,” Reziga replied. But in any case, they knew that Barrault had taken her there.

For the defence, Maître Patrick Maisonneuve put it to her that Barrault had advanced her the 1,000 francs for the Communications Course.

“No,” said Reziga. “I had refused advances several times, because I argued they [the courses] were too expensive.”

And did you ask for a refund, said Maisonneuve?

“No. I felt a bit ashamed for having been drawn in – and I was so happy to be out of there.”

But hadn’t she known Barbault was a Scientologist when he arrived at the job? No, said Reziga, it was perhaps two months before she knew.

But she had heard Scientology was a cult, said Maisonneuve. Yes, she answered.

And she recalled what Barbault had said when he showed her the results of her personality test: “He concluded that I was intelligent and capable, but that I had a slight problem.”

There was some confusion among the defence over why she had been unable to finish the Communications Course: she had said in court that she had had to stare at someone with her eyes open, but had told investigators she had her eyes closed during the training.

That was an earlier exercise, she explained, when you sat opposite each other with your eyes closed. “It was restful.” She recalled another when she had to sit and repeat phrases; and another when she had to change her tone of voice.

But she was not impressed by one of the introductory films. “I slept during the film – and I told them so.”

With Barbault, she said: “I was insulted, I was harassed,” she spoke of “a torrent of insults.” On those occasions, no blow was to low, she said: “Tout y passait.”

And for her, that was linked to his being a Scientologist. “He tried to demolish me, to drag me into the dirt.”

Max Barbault would have been the seventh individual defendant at the trial in Paris: he was named in the indictment handed down by investigating magistrate, Jean-Christophe Hullin, in September 2008. But Barbault died before the case came to trial.

He had denied the charge of attempted fraud against Nelly Reziga.

Even after Reziga left the agency, she received letters from the Celebrity Centre: brochures accompanied by signed letters, trying to get her to come back in for courses. They only stopped when she changed addresses.

Nelly Reziga has an employment tribunal hearing pending regarding her dismissal.

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3 The Defendant Michaux

On the third day of the Paris trial of Scientology, the judge told a former plaintiff’s story – and questioned another of the defendants, one of the movement’s top salesmen.

Three out of the five people who originally filed as plaintiffs in the Paris case against Scientology eventually withdrew their complaints. But details of what they told investigators remained on file.

On Wednesday May 27, the third day of the trial, President of the Court Judge Sophie-Hélène Château read out details of Eric Aubry’s story.

Aubry had got involved with Scientology after buying a copy of Dianetics from a Scientologist touring France in a bus to promote the movement.

During a 19-month period – from September 1997 to April 1999 – Aubry had spent a little over 324,000 francs (nearly 50,000 euros) on Scientology and had finished up heavily in debt.

He filed his complaint in September 2000, but in December 2007 wrote to withdraw it, saying he had resolved his differences with those concerned. Aubry had received a refund of some 34,000 euros.

Judge Château read extracts from a detailed 12-page letter Aubry had written in May 1998 to the Celebrity Centre Paris, complaining bitterly about the way he was being treated.

The letter, which appeared to use Scientology’s own terminology against the centre’s staff, denounced the centre’s “suppressive” pressure and accused them of restimulating his mentale réactive – his reactive mind.

In Scientology, the reactive mind is the unconscious part of the mind that is the source of many of our problems. Scientology is meant to free people from the influence of the reactive mind, not restimulate it.

“Suppressive” is a term that Scientology uses to describe what its enemies are trying to do to Scientology.

Aubry blamed two people in particular: Jean-François Valli and Didier Michaux, both defendants in the trial.

He had paid for auditing sessions, Scientology’s confessional-style therapy during which members reveal what are sometimes intimate details of their private life.

He had talked about aspects of his personal life that still troubled him and about which he still felt tremendous guilt, said the judge.

And in interviews with investigators, Aubry told them about the letters he felt he had had to write at the end of each course, testifying to the gains, or wins, he had achieved. Sometimes he had written several such letters in a single day, he said.

Plaintiff Aude-Claire Malton had same the same complaint about these success stories in her testimony the previous day, though defendant Jean-François Valli had denied they were compulsory.

Aubry also complained that he had only signed up for a very expensive course after having been pressured to do so.

One staff member, Didier Michaux had harassed him on the phone on a daily basis – sometimes several times a day, he said.

He had been told to empty his bank account and take out a loan, said Judge Château, consulting the case papers.

“He felt he had been drawn in by the promises of friends. He felt that their contract had not been ethical – when they spoke a lot about ethics in Scientology. They were more interested in sales,” she said.

Aubry had described himself as easily influenced and said that staff had tried to make him feel guilty about certain aspects of his private life, making indiscreet comments at the centre.

Then, when the apartment he rented was being sold and he wanted to buy it rather than having to move out, he tried to get a refund of some of the money he had advanced for courses.

The request was eventually rejected, he said.

But Judge Château noted what she described as a contradiction in Aubry’s behaviour: despite having written his letter of complaint to the Celebrity Centre in May 1998, he had continued his Scientology training there for months afterwards.

“He regretted having spent so much money for nothing,” said the judge. “But you can wonder how he continued to go to the centre and spend the money.”

She called Didier Michaux to give evidence.

“I saw it as a very convivial relationship”

Tall, slim, dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt, Michaux was a more imposing figure than fellow defendant Valli, who had given evidence the day before.

The 42-year-old spoke calmly, at a measured pace, and his answers were more composed.

At the time in question, Michaux worked at SEL, the Scientology bookshop in Paris – one of the two organisations on trial. Michaux himself was accused of fraud against Eric Aubry.

Judge Château noted at first that Michaux had earned a good living at the bookshop. Working on 5-15 percent commission from sales, he had made 342,000 francs (nearly 52,000 euros) in 1998; and 530,000 francs (nearly 81,000 euros) the following year.

Michaux was by a long way the best earner at the centre: with the help of a colleague, he had sold Aubry alone 250,000 francs’ (38,000 euros’) worth of books and 75,000 francs’ (11,400 euros’) worth of courses, including the Purification Rundown.

But that was not his main motivation, he said. “I always did it by conviction, not for the money… because I believe in Scientology before everything.”

Judge Château tackled him first about what appeared to be the confusion of bank accounts in his name. He seemed to act as banker for a certain number of people, she said.

Questioned about regular cash deposits in the accounts, he was unable to help: “I don’t know what you are referring to… Perhaps from courses from the active members,” he said.

She noted too that as well as selling Aubry the books, he had also sold him Scientology courses, which was more the preserve of the Celebrity Centre. “That was an exceptional case,” he said. “Normally I only sell books.”

So how did it come about, asked the judge?

“I met M Aubry several weeks after he had started Scientology. He had read several books and done some auditing and he was very satisfied. He asked me how to become an auditor,” he said.

He regarded Aubry, who had a well-paid job as a computer technician, as a thoughtful person, someone who knew what he was about.

“He didn’t sign up immediately. He always took time to think about it,” he said later.

And Michaux said he had had no idea about the details of Aubry's bank accounts at the time.

“It is not really something that interests me. What interests me is what someone can gain from Scientology,” he said.

But why was it you who was recommending Aubry what courses to take, asked the judge? “All I did was what he asked me to do to go up the bridge to [total] freedom,” he said. “I gave him the prices for each stage.”

Judge Château questioned him over these prices, as she had Valli the previous day, and she established again that the client got a list of goods and services available rather than the prices themselves. The prices were listed in the computer.

But again, Michaux insisted that his role helping Aubry arose naturally out of the rapport that had developed between them.

“Each time he came to the centre he came to see me and we hade a coffee and I saw it as a very convivial relationship,” he said.

“I am a Scientologist before everything. It is something I did because he asked me.” Aubry was really someone who wanted to advance, who wanted to become Clear (an enlightened mental state much prized by Scientologists), said Michaux.

“It really happened in the natural course of things,” he added, referring to his association with Aubry.

But why did people book their courses so far in advance, asked the Judge Château? She had calculated that what Aubry had paid for – assuming a certain number of hours’ training a day – would have taken years to complete.

“But you pay it all in advance,” said the judge.

“It is not at all obligatory,” said Michaux.

“I took care of people”

Judge Château also put it to him that he had pressured Aubry to pay before 2:00 pm Thursday by saying that otherwise, the price would go up.

No, said Michaux: it was simply that Thursday was the end of the administrative week in Scientology. “But I never spoke of rising prices,” he said.

And what about the phone calls to Aubry at work, asked the judge? Aubry had complained that Michaux would have him on the phone for an hour, reading the texts of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. That, for Aubry, amounted to harassment.

“I phoned him at his request because it was he who gave me his number – because he had asked me,” said Michaux. “He had a work problem and preferred to talk about it at work.”

He had simply read Aubry texts from Hubbard that he thought would be helpful, he said. “I am not in the habit of calling people.”

And what about the long sales sessions after people had finished studying their course, asked the judge?

People might stay on after courses, said Michaux: “But Scientologists are happy to be there.” It was more a question of like-minded people sharing a fruit juice together, he added.

Michaux did not accept that Aubry had been subjected to pressure. “He was extremely happy to have done his courses. He was really delighted to have signed up for the stages to become Clear.”

“But you are at the top of the list of people in whom he had no confidence,” said Judge Château, referring to Aubry’s letter.

She turned to the cost of Scientology’s e-meters, the devices used in their auditing, or therapy sessions. From the receipts she had in front of her, the price seemed to vary from client to client, she said.

“How do you decide the price you are going to put on an e-meter?” she asked.

Michaux said that the price might vary depending on the items that had been bought along with the e-meter: books on how to audit, for example.

“The prices are fixed by the computer,” he added. “I don’t know how the prices are fixed.”

Judge Château put it to Michaux that he was the de facto manager of the bookshop, since the woman who owned it on paper lived in Denmark and was rarely in Paris.

Michaux disagreed: “I took care of the people. I took care of the sales points. I handled the inventory,” he said. And at the end of the week, depending on stocks, he might order more books.

The judge was also curious as to why there were so many books and other articles stocked in reserve – and why goods being paid for in instalments remained in the shop.

“You can pay for an e-meter in several instalments, but you do not get it until you have paid for it all,” said Michaux.

And did his manager fix him targets, the judge asked? No, not particularly, said Michaux. “I do this by conviction,” he added.

Asked about personality tests in Aubry’s case, Michaux said that this was not his department. So far as he understood it, the results were used to help orientate clients towards the services they needed.

How did he explain the letter in which Aubry had denounced him for harassment, the judge asked?

“I knew that M Aubry wasn’t happy at the time, but I didn’t see the letter at the time,” he said. He had simply informed his superiors so they could take care of it.

He says you suggested he empty his bank accounts, said the judge.

“I never did that,” he said.

“He was very happy with his auditing”

Michaux said he had since seen Aubry’s letter and it had spoken of the pressure he was under at the time. But part of that pressure had come from the reaction of people when they had learned he was a Scientologist, he said.

“The prevailing climate regarding Scientology – sometimes it is difficult to live with,” he added.

Judge Château quoted a passage from Aubry’s letter: “I don’t want to continue to be suppressed by the people at the Centre.”

Pressed on the subject a little later, Michaux again denied harassment.

“What is sure is when I talk to someone about Scientology I am enthusiastic because I want to transmit what I have experienced,” he said.

“But it is not something that can be called harassment.”

Judge Château also went over Aubry's claim that staff had made him feel guilty and ashamed over aspects of his personal life that he had disclosed during auditing.

“He was very happy with his auditing,” said Michaux. Aubry had never spoken to him about any such problems.

The judge turned to Aubry’s financial problems: he had needed money when his car broke down and when he decided to buy the apartment he rented to avoid having to move out. Aubry had tried at that point to get a refund of some of the money he had advanced for Scientology courses.

Yes, said Michaux, Aubry had spoken to him about his financial problems, and about the possibility of a refund. “I contacted the person who handled refunds.”

Judge Château quoted Aubry again: “They led me up the garden path. They pretended to be checking the hierarchy.”

Did Scientology not have a commitment to refund clients, asked the judge?

“Yes,” said Michaux. “I don’t know what happened afterwards.”

The judge finished her questioning by reading more from Aubry’s accouunt: “I felt really guilty and ashamed about what happened. I felt stripped of everything, humiliated.”

Olivier Morice, lawyer for the two remaining individual plaintiffs, contented himself mainly with underlining Michaux’s skills as salesman.

“You are very effective. You are a salesman of great quality,” he said.

For the prosecution, Nicolas Baïetto pressed Michaux on his status at the bookshop.

“Why are you reluctant to say you were de facto manager?” he asked. His signature was on the bank accounts, he pointed out.

“I did it to be of service,” said Michaux: the owner was not always there.

What about Aubry’s experience during the Purification Rundown, Baïetto asked? He had talked about having to spend five hours in the sauna.

“He had real problem with the Purification Rundown… he spent so much time in the sauna that he had numerous hallucinations,” said Baïetto.

No, said Michaux: Aubry had felt better after the Rundown.

“I have done the Purification Rundown, as have thousands of people and I have never known that.”

“I have never harassed anyone”

Baïetto expressed scepticism that Michaux was a simple communicator, passing on information when Aubry was asked for it.

“I just explained the services to him,” said Aubry. “But I know my religion: I know how to talk about it.”

Consulting bills in the case files, the prosecutor also asked Michaux why he appeared to have received money from Aubry that had nothing to do with the bookshop. Was this confusion of payments between the bookshop and the Celebrity Centre normal, he asked?

“For me, no,” said Michaux. But that kind of thing could happen. He had just wanted to be of service to M. Aubry, he said. “I am on the premises, but I have very little to do with the church.”

Baïetto asked him about the allegations of harassment.

“It wasn’t harassment, it was communication,” said Michaux. “I have never harassed anyone for anything.”

Baïetto too, raised the issue of Michaux’s earnings, wondering whether such sums were appropriate in an organisation that was constituted as a non-profit association under French law.

Now Judge Château recalled Valli, the other staffer about whom Aubry had complained, to ask him about their relationship.

Valli explained that Aubry had approached him with certain questions in 1999 and later had contacted him again to discuss it further.

"So you orientated him?" asked the judge. Yes, said Valli. "He asked me questions on his orientation; on auditing..."

The judge asked him about the massive amount of training that Aubry had paid for in advance and how long it would take for him to get through it all.

That depended on the individual, said Valli, and he summarised the opening hours at the Centre.

But when he mentioned that staffers got training for free, the judge switched back to the case of Aude-Claire Malton.

Why had she paid out so much money for training in advance if she was about to give up her job and become a staffer, thus earning the right to free courses?

Was it strictly ethical to sell these courses if that was what was going to happen, she asked?

"Yes, it is strange," said Valli. "But you might want to ask Mme Malton."

At this point, the defence lawyers intervened: it was far from clear from the existing paperwork that Malton had been sold courses in advance after having decided to go to work for Scientology, they said.

The lawyers on all sides rummaged around in their files to try to find a document that would settle the matter one way or another, but in vain.

Judge Château was curious to know what Malton would have to say on the matter. But Malton's lawyer, Morice, doubted he could get her back to Paris to testify.

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