13 The E-Meter Experts

Day 5, June 3: Scientology called two expert witnesses to defend the effectiveness of the e-meter used in their counselling sessions – but did not quite get what they had bargained for.

At the start of the day’s proceedings, Judge Sophie-Hélène Château had read out a fax from one of the court-appointed experts in the case, a M. Ionesco.

M. Ionesco had written a report in 1993 on the electrometer, a device used in Scientology’s counselling sessions, for an earlier trial involving Scientology in Lyon, in 1996.

Jean Christophe Hullin, the investigating magistrate in the present case, had added it to the dossier and so M. Ionesco had been summoned to explain his findings.

But in the fax, M. Ionesco sent his apologies, explaining that for health reasons he was unable to attend.

Scientology had produced its own experts however – and they were available to give evidence. First however, Judge Château summarised the findings of the investigating magistrate in this area.

The e-meter is a device that is essential to Scientology auditing, or counselling, sessions.[1]

In Scientology auditing the subject holds a pair of cylinders in his hands, which are attached to the e-meter. The auditor seated opposite interprets the readings produced during the session.

The device is used to locate moments of distress, bad memories, in order to dissipate their negative influence.

Scientologists believe that e-meter readings help locate such memories – engrams in Scientology’s terminology – and then determine if their negative effect has been dealt with.

Hullin’s indictment drew in particular on two expert reports from the earlier Lyon case: Ionesco’s and another by a M. Kirchner, drawn up in 1994.

For Kirchner, the e-meter simply measured electrical resistance: its claim to be a precision tool in the search for engrams was a non-starter.

For one thing, Kirchner had argued, any number of variables could influence the readings on the e-meter. But in any case, he rejected as completely unscientific the notion that the device could somehow measure one’s psychological state.

“In these conditions, it becomes clear that the device is nothing other than a front aimed at giving a scientific aspect to an operation that is anything but,” he concluded.

Ionesco’s report reached a similar conclusion, regarding the device’s accuracy and its scientific value.

Hullin’s indictment also noted that one model of an e-meter, advertised in a 2004 Scientology magazine, was on sale for a little over 4,800 euros. Sold on the open market, an equivalent device measuring electrical resistance – an ohm-meter – cost a tenth of the price, he wrote.

Today however, it was the turn of the defence witnesses.

Philippe Ripoche, 63, was a tall, distinguished looking gentleman, dressed in dark trousers and a cheque jacket and wearing spectacles. During his testimony he described himself as a Catholic, but sceptically inclined.

Ripoche explained that he had been approached by Scientology to give his opinion of the e-meter in his capacity as an electrical engineer. He had agreed provided he could work independently and that his conclusions were either used in their entirety or not at all.

As well as examining the e-meter, Ripoche had access to the reports by Kirchner and Ionesco, and his preliminary findings were much as theirs had been: it was essentially a device designed to measure electrical resistance.

But having tested it, he disagreed with their conclusions regarding the e-meter’s lack of accuracy. “I noted it was an excellent device for measuring electrical resistance.”

While he did not accept the official Scientology account of what the e-meter did, there was nevertheless something interesting going on.

“Scientology’s explanations are far-fetched, but you can still observe a phenomenon,” he said.

“This does allow for precise measurements”

Ripoche was fascinated to see during demonstrations that when a subject thought of a painful memory it registered on the e-meter. He tried the device himself, with the same result.

“I was intrigued, so I took them in my hands… I brought up a painful experience and immediately saw the needle fall to the right,” he said.

Ripoche decided to take one of the devices home to pursue his research. To this purpose, he recruited some of his friends as informal experimental subjects.

“I asked people to think of certain painful things,” he said – and more often than not, the e-meter registered something. And when people got that painful memory out of their system, he noted another phenomenon.

“What I did not expect was that the electrical resistance fell by between 10 and 30 percent,” he said.

Certainly, the device had to be reset with each individual to take account of their different base-level of resistance, said Ripoche. But he felt he had come across something worthy of note: a measurable physical phenomenon. “When people remembered bad memories, the resistance fell,” he said.

Ripoche had only tested his device on 18 people and he made no claims for that being a scientific sample: simply an interesting experiment that deserved further investigation. He also cautioned that he was neither a doctor nor a psychologist.

But he said of the device: “This does allow for precise measurements, and there was a correspondence between bad experiences and a drop in the reading.”

Ripoche was reluctant to criticise the authors of the previous reports, he said. But contrary to what they had suggested, he felt that the e-meter was a perfectly accurate measuring device – and his experiments had revealed that the device was measuring a physical phenomenon.

As to the correct use of the machine, he said, he had nothing to add: he had not read the user’s manual.

Under questioning by Judge Château, Ripoche elaborated. “It measures electrical resistance that seems to be correlated with changes in the emotional state that you are evoking – a painful subject”

Was he saying that the device was somehow measuring, or locating things from the past, asked the judge?

“The device itself, no,” said Ripoche. “Perhaps a competent psychologist could do that – but the device itself no. You cannot distinguish emotions with a machine.” But you might be able to detect a change, he added.

And what if you simply talked to someone without using an e-meter, asked the judge?

“A psychologist could be perfectly effective without an e-meter,” said Ripoche.

Judge Château expressed unease at the notion of an exercise whose object was to track down one’s problems and past painful experience. “Should that not be done by people with a certain competence?” she asked. People who could assume the risks that might come with such a practice?

“I think absolutely as you do,” said Ripoche. He would want the person using it to be qualified – and not as an engineer. He would expect them to have some competence in psychology.

Judge Château could see how intrigued Ripoche was by the device’s possibilities: why, she wondered had the device not been used in this way outside of Scientology?

“I ask myself the same question,” said Ripoche. “If there is something in it, then it should be brought to the attention of doctors.”

Judge Château noted that the Scientology literature spoke of the e-meter readings in terms of absolute certainty: did M. Ripoche share that certainty?[2]

No, he said: the readings were an indication perhaps. As for the more ambitious claims made by Scientology, he said: “That seems to me to be exaggerated. We find a lot of far-fetched claims in the literature.”

Scientology made great play of the microprocessors fitted in the latest generation e-meters improved their performance, for example: “There is a bit of folklore there,” he said.

Judge Château gave the floor to Olivier Morice, the lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“A far-fetched, ambitious and laughable stream of verbosity”

Had Ripoche never explained a satisfactory explanation of just what was going on with the e-meter, of how how it actually worked, he asked?

Again, Ripoche said he had not read all the Scientology literature: just a few documents. But he had not been impressed by Scientology’s talk of thoughts having mass.

“That is what is far-fetched,” he said. “There must be more scientific documents somewhere. Thought does not create mass and mass does not create resistance.”[3]

Morice produced a document by Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard, extolling the virtues of the e-meter.

“…the electropsychometer utterly dwarfs the invention of the microscope, for Leeuwenhoek found the way only to find bacteria; the electropsychometer provides the way for man to find his freedom and to rise perhaps to social and constructive levels of which man has never dreamed and to avoid the perils in that route which man, in going, would have found more deadly than any bacteria ever evolved or invented.” [4]

What did he think of that, asked Morice?

“A far-fetched, ambitious and laughable stream of verbosity,” said Ripoche (une logorrhée fantaisiste, ambitieuse et risible).

Judge Château intervened to ask how much he thought the device was worth.

Produced industrially, he reckoned the factory cost would be around 500 euros per unit. For a reasonable mark-up, he estimated the sale price would be around 2,500 euros. In fact, the actual price was a little over 4,800 euros – which struck him as excessive. “Perhaps it has its own value,” he said, a little uncertainly.

Prosecutor Nicolas Baïetto took over, getting Ripoche to confirm that in his research he had only tested a limited number of people.

But when he suggested to him that the e-meter was little more than a lie detector, Ripoche seemed reluctant to go along with the idea. He did concede however that the two devices had points in common.

Baïetto was not convinced that this was the high-performance device Ripoche was making it out to be. What about variables such as excessively sweaty hands or different-sized hands leading to differences in the amount of skin contact with the cylinders, he asked?

All these factors were dealt with by fixing a zero-reading for each auditing subject, said Ripoche. Baïetto referred to Kirchner’s report, which appeared to show that not every Scientologist took such care with the readings.

Curiously enough, when Kirchner drew up his 1994 report, it had been the defendant Alain Rosenberg who had demonstrated the use of the e-meter for him. And according to Kirchner, Rosenberg had not only failed to observe this basic zero-reading procedure but had made another mistake that rendered the readings meaningless.[5]

To this, Ripoche replied that Kirchner had not understood how the e-meter was used – at which point Baïetto’s colleague, fellow prosecutor Maud Morel-Coujard, intervened.

Ripoche had already said that he had not bothered to read all the Scientology literature on how the device was used: so how could he criticise Kirchner for his supposed lack of knowledge?

“You have a point,” Ripoche conceded.

He tried to clarify his position regarding the e-meter.

Certainly, he had been impressed by the accuracy of the device’s readings and their correlation with people’s evocation of difficult memories. But he was not competent to interpret the phenomenon further: a psychologist or an electro-physiologist might be more appropriate.

Meteorologists had the Beaufort scale, he said; and seismologists the Richter scale. “I don’t think a psychologist has created a scale for measuring emotional states.”[6]

Questioned by the defence, he confirmed that the device he had tested was not actually identical to the ones used by Kirchner and Ionesco in their earlier tests. The point appeared to be that the new device was far more sophisticated and thus more accurate.

Pressed a little further, he criticised as nonsense the claim in Ionesco’s report that the e-meter did not measure anything – clearly it did.

And asked to elaborate on his own experiments, he stressed how powerful the effect of recalling distressing events had been in some cases – and how cathartic the process had been for his subjects. Some had even had tears in their eyes, he said.

“That for me is totally incomprehensible”

The second Scientology expert was M. Bernard Denis-Laroque, a tall and distinguished-looking gentleman, like his colleague Ripoche – perhaps a little stouter around the waist.

He agreed with Ripoche that the e-meter was an extremely accurate measuring device. And like Ripoche, he was uncomfortable with some of the more damning criticism in the earlier reports by Kirchner and Ionesco – to say that it measured nothing was hard to take seriously, he said.

Beyond that however, he expressed himself in more cautious terms.

Asked by Judge Château if he thought the device was measuring something other than a physiological phenomenon – memories for example – Denis-Laroque declared that to be outside his stated brief.

“You didn’t test it on yourself?” asked the judge.

“Ah no – I’m an engineer,” said Denis-Laroque. “And those things don’t concern me. I’m a technician.”

In response to further questioning however, he confirmed that he had some knowledge of lie detectors. “It is the same kind of thing,” he said. “It is the same kind of principle.”[7]

And he said that any suggestion that there was some kind of relation between an auditing subject’s psychological state and what the e-meter was measuring was not scientific.

Told the sale price of the e-meter, after having given a modest estimate for its construction cost, he remarked only: "That seems to me expensive."

Questioned by Morice, he was similarly reserved, though it seemed to be out of a sense of professional duty rather than any suspicion the lawyer might be trying to trip him up. He made it clear that he had accepted his brief to examine the device as an engineer and did not want to venture outside his field of competence.

As he had with Ripoche, Morice played his joker card, reading out Hubbard’s encomium to the e-meter that suggested it was more significant development than the invention of the microscope.

At first, the engineer held fast. “That is philosophy,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for philosophy. But I can’t follow you there.”

Pressed a little by Morice, he conceded that inventors sometimes had a tendency to overplay their inventions. “There, clearly he went a bit too far,” he said (…il est allé un peu fort).[8]

As to Kirchner’s suggestion that the device simply served as a kind of a front, a gimmick to give a scientific veneer to the proceedings, Denis-Laroque was reluctant to get involved in that debate.

How could he know one way or another, he said? His point appeared to be that taking a position involved assumptions about people’s intentions – and that was outside his field.

Baïetto, for the prosecution, took over.

He established that while Denis-Laroque recognised the machine was a good measure of a body’s electrical resistance, he shared Ionesco’s doubts that it could measure anything more esoteric.

Of the official user’s manual written by Hubbard, Denis-Laroque remarked that there had been a mixture of the technical and philosophical that had bothered him.

Judge Chateau picked up on that. What did he think about Scientology’s claims that the mental processes had “mass”, or “charge”, that could somehow be picked up on the e-meter.

“That for me is totally incomprehensible,” he said.

He mentioned the fictional belief that some people had that the soul weighed 21 grammes – that when people died, their weight changed accordingly.[9]

But so far as Scientology’s claims were concerned, he said: “That corresponds with nothing I know.

“I prefer Plato, I prefer Aristotle. Mass, energy – that has a very precise meaning in physics.”

“You can’t measure these things with this device?” asked Judge Château.

“Ah non!”

This completes coverage of the second week of the trial.

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[1] While there is a form of auditing that can be done without an e-meter – Dianetics, or Book One auditing – Scientology auditing is done with an e-meter. On the upper levels, you dispense with an auditor and audit yourself on the e-meter.
[2] It is not clear exactly what documents Judge Château had in mind here, but one document quoted in the same hearing was L. Ron Hubbard’s 1952 Electropsychometric Auditing Operator’s Manual. In it, Hubbard writes: “The nimble needle of the electropsychometer can detect with accuracy things which would have been otherwise hidden from man forever… It sees all, knows all. It is never wrong.”
[3] While it was not clear exactly what literature M. Ripoche had read, it is not hard to find claims of these kinds on Scientology websites and in the Scientology literature. One British website for example, declares: “The pictures in the mind contain energy and mass. The energy and force in pictures of experiences painful or upsetting to the person can have a harmful effect upon him. This harmful energy or force is called charge.” The same website describes the e-meter as a “pastoral counselling device”.
[4] See Note 2.
[5] This deserves a separate page.
[6] M. Ripoche had clearly not come across Scientology’s Tone Scale, which appears to do just that.
[7] A point which Hubbard himself made in his 1952 operator’s manual (see the link to note 2).
[8] Of course he could not know that the e-meter as used in Scientology was actually invented one of Hubbard’s earliest followers, Volney Mathison (sometimes spelt Mathieson). See this advertisement for an early version of the device, as published in a 1952 edition of The Aberee, a kind of fanzine for what was then Dianetics.
[9] If memory serves, he referred directly to Alejandro Gonzále Iñárritu’s 2003 film of the same name.

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Note 5: Kirchner on the E-meter

Note Five to Section 13 The E-Meter Experts:

“Curiously enough, when Kirchner drew up his 1994 report, it had been the defendant Alain Rosenberg who had demonstrated the use of the e-meter for him. And according to Kirchner, Rosenberg had not only failed to observe this basic zero-reading procedure but had made another mistake that rendered the readings meaningless.”

Below is a translation of the relevant extract from Kirchner’s report (with a little help from former Scientologist Bruce Hines). You can see the original French version here, starting at the top of page six (“J’ai pu effectivement, constater…”).

“I could actually see during the auditing session the movement of needle, which indicated variations in the electrical resistance of subject. During the session, the auditor, by working the T.A. [tone arm], keeps the needle on the dial. He does not bother to bring the needle back to the position that corresponds to the balance point of the bridge [known to Scientologists as the ‘Set’position].

“During the session, the device’s counter, adds up the tone arm movement’s downward movements. The total thus obtained in the course of the sessions is used by the auditor to judge the behaviour of the subject. And this tone arm motion only has any sense if the needle is brought back each time to the position corresponding to the balance point of the bridge [‘Set’].

“This is not what the auditor does at all, moving the tone arm in a quite chaotic manner simply to keep the needle on the dial. It is notable that the frequently moves in one direction and then the other without leaving the dial. Such movements are not taken into account.

“It also happens that the auditor, who has a finger permanently on the tone arm knob, makes it move without there being any corresponding natural movement of the needle. Thus the meter records movements that have nothing to do with the subject but rather depend on the auditor.”

Former Scientologist Bruce Hines, who was considered a good enough auditor to run sessions with celebrity members such as Tom Cruise, was good enough to run through this with me.

His comments on the auditor’s mistakes were as follows: “The auditor was randomly adjusting the tone arm even when this was not necessary to bring the needle back to SET.

“Also, an auditor is supposed to adjust the tone arm with the thumb and not leave the thumb resting against the tone arm. So the counter on the e-meter would not accurately show the actual downward motion of the tone arm for the session.”

In other words, even by Scientology standards, this was sloppy work.

Dr. Dave Touretzky, a longstanding critic of Scientology whose website offers a detailed critique of the e-meter as pseudo-science, offered the following remarks.

“Scientifically speaking, all of this is utter rubbish. Scientology equates mass with charge, and ‘mental mass’ with physical mass, and makes lots of other laughable errors. It's just mumbo-jumbo designed to impress the scientifically illiterate.

“The point the Swiss expert makes is that if the auditor is randomly running the TA knob back and forth instead of responding precisely to what the needle is doing, then he will accumulate lots of drops in TA (since rises don't count) that make it look like there is lots of auditing progress when in reality nothing is happening.

“It's a small technical point, since auditing is such complete bullshit, but I guess the argument is that the Scientologists are so sloppy and incompetent they can't even apply their own bullshit properly.”

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12 The Defendant Jacquart II

The second half of Sabine Jacquart’s testimony proved to be as emotional as the first as the prosecution and lawyers for the plaintiffs took over the questioning.

Judge Château gave Maître Olivier Morice, the lawyer for the plaintiffs Aude-Claire Malton and Nelly Reziga, his chance to put questions.

How had Aude-Claire Malton come to be at the Celebrity Centre, he asked? Malton had already testified that she had been recruited after having filled in a personality test.

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart. Perhaps through friends, she added.

“You said she had never done a personality test,” said Morice, referring to statements she had made to the investigators.

“When I was asked the first time, I may have said some stupid things, it is possible,” said Jacquart.

“Not the first time,” said Morice.

“The first time you refused to answer, because you considered that you didn’t have to answer an investigating magistrate until you had been confronted with the person who accused you.

“So you don’t know,” he concluded, referring to his initial question.

“I can’t be sure now,” said Jacquart. “It was more than 10 years ago now. I was president of the association. I didn’t handle reception – I couldn’t know.”

Morice asked her again, pointing out that fellow defendant Jean-François Valli had said that Malton had taken the test, but again Jacquart said she did not know, that this had not been part of her duties.

Morice asked her about her dealings with Aude-Claire Malton.

Jacquart acknowledged having met her “once or twice”, including the time they had discussed the job at the Centre, but she did not recall a letter Morice mentioned in which she had written to her offering her the job.

Morice turned to issue of refunds: were there many such requests made at the centre, he asked?

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart. “I don’t think so.” Hundreds of people passed through the centre every week, she added: if there had been a lot of such requests, she would have noticed.

But a Mme Noukrati, who had served as treasurer at the Celebrity Centre at the time in question, had told investigators she recalled several people requesting refunds during that period, some of which were granted.

“That is what she said,” said Jacquart. “I have nothing to say. I don’t remember a lot of requests.” And in any case, if anyone had requested a refund they would have received it, “if that is what you are trying to get me to say...”

But Mme Noukrati had suggested that you, Alain Rosenberg and other members of the board handled these refunds and that they had to go to the United States for approval, said Morice.

No, said Jacquart. None of that was true.

But she had testified on oath, said Morice.

“Tant pis pour pour elle,” said Jacquart: too bad for her.

Morice persisted, suggesting that Rosenberg, as a member of the board, was privy to everything that went on.

“I have already told you that she was not on the board of administration…” said Jacquart. “All our accounts are verifiable, so if money had gone abroad that would have been seen,” she added.

“Scientology is demonised (in France)”

Now she was getting upset. “It’s insane,” she said. “A person who wants a refund says so to the chaplain and they are refunded,” she insisted. “How would that concern the United States?”

But Aude-Claire Malton had requested a refund hadn’t she, said Morice? You sent her the photocopy of her refund cheque, but she had to fill in a form before she could get the cheque itself, renouncing any court action. Morice declared he found that rather surprising.

“It is not bit unusual,” said Jacquart. She had not written that letter, she added.

“But you sent it,” said Morice.

Jacquart was becoming increasingly rattled. “If someone leaves the Church of Scientology, they absolutely have the right to,” she said. She could hardly force them to progress in Scientology if they did not want to.

“The Church of Scientology is an organisation that is very badly accepted in France, which is one of the few countries where Scientology is demonised. So I feel that it is perfectly correct that we should protect ourselves in this way,” she said, referring to the no-litigation clause.

Now she was beginning to raise her voice.

There were 45,000 Scientologists in France, she said, “and I find myself in court because two people find that Scientology is responsible for all the bad things that have happened to them despite the time the time we took with them, a lot of time –”

“— but most of all a lot of money,” said Morice.

“— please don’t shout into the microphone,” said Judge Château.

By now, Jacquart was beside herself. It was not about the money, she said, whatever some people would like you to believe.

“I am a Scientologist because I won’t stand for the fact that drugs are still coming into our schools! We have a campaign of support and prevention and I am proud to support this campaign,” she said, still shouting.

“Do you want to know how much my husband and I have spent on Scientology?”

“I put the questions,” said Morice. And he brought her back to his original question concerning refunds.

“A person knows that she can be refunded,” said Jacquart. “That is why I don’t understand why she [Malton] did not take the refund.”

Morice did not look convinced.

Could she explain why, several years after Aude-Claire Malton had left Scientology and as the investigation into the two Scientology organisations was in full swing, she suddenly received 4,000 euros in her account, without a word of explanation?

“I can’t answer – I don’t know what it was,” said Jacquart.

“You were president of the Celebrity Centre, you are in court, you know about this,” said Morice.

You are in court, he continued – and you are facing charges. “You didn’t try and find out if the Celebrity Centre had refunded Mme Malton and when?”

By this time her lawyer, Yann Streiff, was intervening, protesting that she had already answered the question.

“I was not president at that time (2004),” said Jacquart. “I don’t know.”

Morice turned to the electrometer, or e-meter, the device used in Scientology therapy sessions. He picked up on Jacquart’s earlier remark to the judge that although she owned one, she had never used it.

Jacquart explained that this was simply because she had never decided to become an auditor: someone who conducted the movement’s auditing therapy, rather than being its recipient.

“When someone doesn’t have enough money, would it not be better to pay for the courses they need rather than buy an e-meter?” asked Morice.

“I don’t understand your question,” said Jacquart.

Morice’s point was that the e-meter was not indispensable to progressing in Scientology, to which Jacquart agreed.

“So if someone has limited resources, why try to sell them an e-meter?” asked Morice.

“Because they have decided to be an auditor, as Mme Malton had decided,” said Jacquart.

Now Maître Olivier Saumon, for the other plaintiffs, the Order of Pharmacists, took his turn.

“I am not a pharmacist”

He asked her if she had done the Purification Rundown. Yes, said Jacquart, about 20 years ago – and it had gone very well. She had followed the instructions in the book on the vitamins doses to the letter.

In answer to further questioning, she replied that she had gone to a doctor – her own doctor – but she could not remember who had supplied her with the vitamins for the programme.

“And how did it feel?” asked Saumon.

“Exactly as is written in the book: a great relief,” she replied. “I don’t really want to talk about it, but I felt very good – and if I had felt bad, I would have stopped.”

When Saumon questioned her closely on what her role had been as president, insofar as the Purification Rundown had been concerned, Jacquart insisted on the fact that this was a religious ceremony.

But had she checked whether it was legal, asked Saumon?

“I didn’t see the need,” said Jacquart. “If the writings did not conform [to the law] then it seems to me that they would have been forbidden a long time ago,” she said.

“But it did not start in France, but in the United States,” Saumon pointed out.

Saumon referred back to the earlier testimony of Stéphane Lange, of France’s health products watchdog, the AFSSAPS. Asked about the cocktail of vitamins in high doses used during the Rundown, he had described the process as quackery.

Saumon was aware that the defence had produced some experts who had vouched for the programme – he just wondered if they had ever read a book on Scientology.

“I am not a pharmacist,” Jacquart protested. “I am not a doctor, and you are asking me to give a view on whether the doses were dangerous.”

“I am asking if you checked its legality,” said Saumon.

“Absolutely not,” said Jacquart.

And what did she know about G&G, the company that sold the vitamins, he asked?

“I have vaguely heard of it,” she said. She had come across a leaflet from the company one day at work, she added – “and that is all. I put it in the bin.”

Nicolas Baïetto, for the prosecution, took over the questioning.

A Mme Noukrati, former treasurer at the Celebrity Centre, had told investigators that major decisions concerning finances had to be referred to the United States, said Baïetto.

“Absolutely not,” said Jacquart. “Each church has its own independence.”

“So there would not be negative points if there were too many requests for refunds?” the prosecutor asked. No, said Jacquart.

Baïetto consulted the complex chart that set out the different posts inside the Celebrity Centre. There was a Public Contact Division with a Mailing Contact Unit, he noted.

Also this was evocative of a marketing operation, said Baïetto.

“I understand, absolutely,” said Jacquart. “We want people to share what we have gained in Scientology.”

Baïetto went back to the chart, noting a Communications Department and a reference to potential buyers (“unité pour des acheteurs potentials”).[1] Jacquart said something about poor translations.

There was also something called a Celebrity Correction Unit, Baïetto noted.[2] He asked her to explain.

Jacquart explained how celebrities, who had more influence than other people, could lead by example and thus help in campaigns against drink and drugs. That is why they had a unit dedicated to celebrities.

“I don’t know… I don’t know”

Now Baïetto asked about the client transfer accounts. Large sums of money had passed through these accounts between the Celebrity Centre and the SEL bookshop.

It required explanation because the organisations – both of which were on trial for organised fraud – had insisted they were entirely separate and independent of each other.

Jacquart explained that sometimes, a person who had made donations to the Celebrity Centre wanted to buy books at the SEL bookshop.

These accounts had been set up to allow these people to take advantage of this facility, transferring some assets from the Celebrity Centre to the bookshop.

Baïetto was not convinced. “I wonder if there isn’t more of a link between the ASES [Celebrity Centre] and SEL than you are admitting.”

It seemed to him that these accounts served simply to mask the for-profit activities of the Celebrity Centre, which had been set up as a non-profit association.

No, said Jacquart. Everything was accounted for. “Everything is separate,” she said, referring to the non-profit and for-profit activities.

But the transfers showed precisely the opposition, said Baïetto: that there had not been a separation of activities, that this separation was artificial.

He returned to what Mme Noukrati, the former treasurer had told investigators. According to her, some members of staff had been earning a good living, including the president.

No said Jacquart. Staff members were not paid a wage as such, but were rewarded for their work proselytising for the Church.

But who got what, asked Baïetto?

Staff members at the centre got their Scientology services free, said Jacquart. And if a parishioner wanted to spend time proselytising – bringing in members – they would be rewarded for their efforts by a percentage of the donations.

But how was this calculated, Baïetto asked?

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart.

Baïetto looked incredulous. How could that be, when the founder, L. Ron Hubbard, had organised everything very clearly, he asked?

Baïetto turned to the false receipts that the businessman Pierre Auffret had asked Jean-François Valli to prepare to cover the fact that he had used his company’s money to pay for his training.

It was only several years later, in 2002 that Valli had been sacked by the Celebrity Centre. If Valli had admitted his mistake, why did it take so long for him to be disciplined, asked Baïetto?

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart. “Nobody told me about it. I wasn’t informed about this.”

Baïetto persisted, and Jacquart’s lawyer, Yann Streiff, intervened to contradict him: the receipts had in fact only been changed much later.[3]

And Jacquart added: “We didn’t know that M. Auffret was using the money of his business.”

Baïetto turned to comments Jacquart had made to investigators concerning how the personality test helped weed out weak people they could not help.

”If the test reading reveals a graph below a certain level, you do not accept that person because that person would be under the influence of another person,” she had said.

“If a person can’t take a decision by themselves, you have to be realistic. If they are on drugs…”

You speak about dependence on other people, said Baïetto.

Yes, said Jacquart. That happened a lot because of the drugs problem. But that was not the problem. “Scientology requires that you have a minimum interest in studying.”

“I don’t handle that”

When Baïetto started asking her more technical questions about the rebilling of cheques between the bookshop and the Celebrity Centre, Jacquart made it clear that she could not answer – that this was beyond her competence.

This struck Baïetto as strange, given that the staff members appointed as treasurers were scarcely better qualified (one was trained as a shorthand typist). Who was qualified to deal with these matters, he asked?

“We have an accountant who goes through everything,” said Jacquart.

And he had never raised any issues with you, asked Baïetto?

“No,” said Jacquart. “If there had been a problem, he would have said a long time ago.”

Replying to a series of questions from the judges, she denied that staff ever tried to find out about newcomers’ incomes: that would be completely inappropriate, she said.

She was asked too, about the distribution of the personality tests: who decided where that was done?

“I don’t handle that,” said Jacquart.

“You were the president and you didn’t take care of that?” asked one of the judges. No, said Jacquart.

It was put to her that, as president, the incident in which personality tests were handed out students outside their high school was ultimately her responsibility.

She accepted that, but said that at the time it had happened, “I had never heard about it. I don’t take care of that.”

Three people handing out leaflets on the street, said one judge? There were no recommendations or guidelines, asked another?

The division that took care of that was Division Six (Public Contact), said Jacquart, “and I didn’t take care of that at all.”

She was asked too about the plaintiffs’ complaints that they had come under tremendous pressure to pay up before Thursday 2:00 pm.

Why was this deadline so important and what happened at this weekly staff meeting, she was asked?

“The staff members simply met to share the good news,” said Jacquart. “We take stock of what we have done.”

Wrapping up what had been a marathon examination lasting several hours, her lawyer Yann Streiff picked up on one of Judge Château’s earlier questions.

The judge had recalled Mme Malton’s claim that a woman named “Sabine” had evaluated her personality test for her. Jacquart had denied that it was her – and Malton had not identified her in court.

Streiff read out Malton’s description of the woman who had handled her test: it did not correspond to Jacquart’s appearance, either then or now, he concluded.

---

[1] Each division’s department has what is described as a Valuable Final Product, a VFP: one such is described as getting promotional items into the hands of potential buyers: Dissemination Division Two; Orientation Department Four.
[2] Qualifications Division Five, Department 15: Corrections.
[3] This will doubtless be settled by the relevant documents, but Valli’s account in the first week of the trial, when called back to answer questions about this affair, suggests that Auffret asked him – and he agreed – to change the receipts in 1999. (See Part 6 of the trial coverage: Pierre Auffret’s Story.) But the defence is presumably arguing that this sleight-of-hand only came to light years later, during the subsequent police investigation of Auffret.

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11 The Defendant Jacquart I

Day 5 (June 3): Between tears and anger, the former president of Scientology’s Paris Celebrity Centre denounced what she called the persecution of her church – and her own harassment by critics of the movement.

The day after Alain Rosenberg had spent several hours on the stand, Judge Château called Sabine Jacquart to testify.

Just as had happened with Rosenberg, her questioning turned into a marathon session, as the judge went over much the same ground in as much detail as she could.

And just as it had with Rosenberg, there were moments of drama, particularly during the more hostile questioning from the prosecution and the lawyer for the plaintiffs.

Jacquart’s testimony moved from tears, to defiance and angry outbursts: and it included more than one passionate denunciation of the persecution she felt that she and her church were suffering.

Jacquart, now 44, who had been president of the Celebrity Centre between September 1997 and October 1999, was facing charges of organised fraud and the illegal exercise of pharmacy.

As president of the Centre at the time of the events in question, she was held her partly responsible for the frauds allegedly committed against Aude-Claire Malton; Eric Aubry; and Parangorn, the company run by Pierre Auffret.

The indictment had noted that she had first been questioned, “not without difficulty”, as a witness in May 2002.

At that time, while confirming her position as president of the Celebrity Centre, she had refused to say anything else. Charges were brought against her the following summer and she was brought in for further questioning in July 2003.

On that occasion, she had told investigators that while she had been president she had not actually run the association. Every person knew what they had to do and took responsibility for their tasks without having to receive instructions from anyone else, she said.

And she said she knew little or nothing about the association’s financial transactions.

Standing in the courtroom six years on, Jacquart, petite, pretty and well-dressed, initially seemed at a loss as to what to say when invited to speak by Judge Château.

She had of course heard the accusations that had been made in court, she said, and she contested them. “I am just waiting for you to put questions.”

Encouraged by the judge however, she started to speak.

Her role as president of the Celebrity Centre had been to represent it and to handle any staff problems that might arise. It had not been that of a director with the final say in matters: there was a council of administration for that, she said.

“I never took any decision…” she said. “The only thing was to ensure that the statutes were respected.”

But she knew what was happening at the Centre, said Judge Château.

Not everything, said Jacquart. There were between 120 and 130 active members using the centre, she explained, “So I couldn’t be aware of everyone.”

And what about financial matters, asked the judge?

“There was a treasurer for that…” said Jacquart. “I wasn’t competent for that.”

Judge Château asked her about a period when the Celebrity Centre, L'Association spirituelle de l'Eglise de Scientologie (ASES), had shared the banking facilities of the bookshop Scientologie espace librairie (SEL): they had let them use their bank card machine and cheque facilities.

The incident was important because it appeared to undermine the defendants’ insistence that these were two entirely separate operations – for both the Celebrity Centre and SEL bookshop were on trial for organised fraud.

This situation had arisen at a time when the Celebrity Centre had been unable to get a French bank to give them such facilities, said Jacquart.

“The association (Celebrity Centre) couldn’t open accounts in France so at a certain moment we found ourselves looking for a bank account,” she said.

“We found it impossible to use bank cards for the association (and) that created a real problem because most of our clients paid by bank card, so we asked SEL if they could help us and that is what happened.”

But it had been a temporary arrangement with the bookshop until the problem was resolved. For while the two organisations shared the aim of promoting the writings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, that was where their association ended, said Jacquart.

“I have nothing to do with SEL [the bookshop],” she said.

“M. Aubry was very demanding”

But some of the bills that Michaux had issued to Eric Aubry (one of the initial plaintiffs in the case) appeared in both the Celebrity Centre and the bookshop’s accounts, said the judge.

(Co-defendant Didier Michaux had been the bookshop’s star salesman at the time of the events in question. He had not worked for the Celebrity Centre.)

“How do explain this?” asked the judge.

“M. Aubry didn’t want to see anyone but M. Michaux, which was a problem. But when a parishioner asks for one person and one person alone, I don’t see how you can say no,” said Jacquart.

“M. Aubry was very demanding,” she added. He only ever wanted to see Michaux. “I dealt with him one or two times and it was always like that: ‘M. Michaux, M. Michaux.’”

Judge Château turned to the use of the personal bank accounts of some of the Scientologists. Investigating magistrate Jean-Christophe Hullin had stated that large sums of money had passed between the accounts of individual staff members at the Centre.

“We have the impression that your (personal) accounts are used like a bank,” said the judge.

Jacquart said that while her personal accounts were for her own use, her husband worked for a dance school, which was why there were two names on that account.

“My accounts are being audited, so you can see that there was no bank movement that cannot be accounted for.”

Judge Château pointed out that she had had plenty of time to do this earlier.

When she asked about the money that was sent abroad, Jacquart explained that this was payment for goods and services from the US.

“The Mother Church comes from time to time,” she said, to help sort out problems. The Celebrity Centre also had to pay for the hiring of the films they needed for training purposes.

She could not give an exact figure, but it was something like two percent of their income, she said.

“And the rest?” asked the judge. That went on paying the various bills, from the rent to the electricity and taxes.

In her 20 years as a Scientologist and a staff member, said Jacquart, she had made between 20 and 100 euros a week. She did not need to earn more because her husband worked as a music teacher.

Now Judge Château started asking about the personality tests and, as fellow defendant Alain Rosenberg had done the previous day, Jacquart seemed to minimise their importance.

But as she had done the previous day, Judge Château persisted.

Newcomers could do the test at reception and more experienced Scientologists could choose to take it after having a major step in their training, said Jacquart. “It is not the most important thing,” she added.

In her 20 years as a Scientologist, most of the people she knew had come to the movement via family or friends. “They don’t come via the personality test.”

So why bother with it, asked the judge? “That is a lot of paperwork for something that isn’t very important.”

Yes, said Jacquart: “That is why we have it on the Internet now: it is much more convenient.”

The idea of the test, she added, was to show people that they could improve their lives if they wanted to.

“For a week all I have heard is insults”

Judge Château reminded her what her fellow defendants, the salesmen Didier Michaux and Jean-François Valli, had said about the test being a way of checking one’s spiritual progress.

“If people take such care to do it so many times, it is a bit contradictory to say it is useless,” said the judge.

“We use it doing our programmes in Scientology,” said Jacquart. When a Scientologist did the test, nobody used it to try to tell them what they should do. “I do the test, and if I have made progress, that is all!” she added.

And what about interpreting the results, asked Judge Château?

“That will be someone who knows the programme,” said Jacquart.

And the manual used for that purpose, asked the judge?

“I don’t take care of that.”

“So you never evaluated other people’s tests?” asked the judge. Never, said Jacquart.

“So you never evaluated Mme Malton’s test?” No, she replied.

Because Mme Malton had spoken of a Sabine, said the judge.

Aude-Claire Malton, one of only two remaining plaintiffs, had told investigators that somebody called Sabine had interpreted her personality test for her. In court however, she had not identified Jacquart as the person responsible.

“I’m still wondering about the importance of these tests,” the judge continued, “because it’s a bit contradictory.”

“Some people do the test for fun and then they leave,” said Jacquart.

“And for those who do not leave?” asked the judge.

“The test evaluator only gives the test result, that is all,” said Jacquart.

But what about the positive and negative points the results revealed, asked the judge? Were they not used to orientate people one way or another?

Jacquart was beginning to feel the pressure.

“When I first arrived in Scientology, my aim was to find a philosophy… that imposed nothing on me… because I can’t stand that,” she said, becoming emotional.

One of the first courses she had done was on Personal Integrity, she continued, where she had learnt that “What is true is what is true for you,” she said. By now she was in tears.

“I am sorry, but I am shocked,” she said.

“For a week all I have heard is insults and inappropriate comments about my religion,” she said.

She had been a Scientologist for 20 years and now she was being harassed in the street, she continued. (The day before the judge had referred to a letter from her lawyer in which he complained that Jacquart had been harassed by an anti-Scientology protestor.)

When the investigation had started, said Jacquart, the police had left her for two hours handcuffed in a cell.

“That is 20 years I am an active member of Scientology and I tell you it is not for the money,” she continued. “If you love people you don’t force people to do things,” she said.

Judge Château gave her a moment then asked her to calm down.

“I am not annoyed, I’m just disturbed,” said Jacquart, recovering.

“On top of that I am harassed outside the courtroom,” she said. “This person, it is not the first time he had done this,” she added, referring to one of the protesters attending the trial.

Judge Château made it clear that she did not approve of anything that might have happened outside the court, but said it was important that things remained calm during the proceedings. “Let’s not mix things up,” she said.

“If things happened outside then file a complaint, but try to stay calm,” she added.

“The tests had nothing to do with me”

The judge returned to the question of the tests.

Aude-Claire Malton had said that having had her personality test, she was shown the positive and negative points and was encouraged to take a communications course. So how could one say the test was of no importance, asked the judge?

Jacquart started by sticking to her own experience. “I didn’t come via tests. It was a friend of mine who introduced me to Scientology,” she said.

But then, referring to Malton, she added: “(If) I put myself in her place, perhaps if she had a real communication problem, she obviously wanted to resolve something in her life.”

But Scientology’s books required work, she added: they were not like a novel.

But the judge took her back to the personality test.

Just as she had with Jacquart’s fellow defendant Rosenberg a day earlier, Judge Château referred to Hubbard’s own writings.

Hubbard, she pointed out, had himself underlined the importance of the test as the first point of contact with the public, a way of communicating, of making people come into Scientology organisations. And he had made it clear there was a procedure to follow.

“It is always the same,” protest Jacquart – as Rosenberg had done before her. “It is a directive from the 1960s… I wasn’t even born then.”[1]

“But there are a lot of writings that are very old,” said the judge.

“I don’t know this document myself,” said Jacquart.

“You are president of the association and you don’t know anything about that?” said the judge.

Jacquart pointed out that there Hubbard had written some 3,000 pages of directives – and not all of them had been translated into French.

Judge Château continued setting out Hubbard’s account of the test: the Scientologist should insist on evaluating the test for newcomers, wrote Hubbard; they should tell them that Scientology could help with their problem.

“Are these not general recommendations?” asked the judge.

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart. “I can’t speak on this. This had nothing to do with my duties.” She had been responsible for the statutes of the association, she said. “The tests had nothing to do with me.”

“We don’t make everyone pay in advance”

Judge Château turned to the question of the prices for the course – or donations, as some of the Scientologists had described them. How did the pricing system work?

“The prices weren’t put on the wall but all the prices were available to Scientologists, in the shops and on the computers,” said Jacquart.

And the Centre’s cafés, Scientologists could leaf through the magazines available and find the prices there, she said.

So why had the court been unable to get a magazine with the prices for 1998, asked the judge?

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart.

Judge Château asked if staffers tried to find out about people’s income. No, said Jacquart.

“You never ask for people’s wage slips?” asked the judge.

“No,” said Jacquart. “That has nothing to do with us.”

And what about the practice of paying for courses years in advance, asked the judge? This practice had got a lot of people into debt, she said, “when you say you are there to bring happiness and serenity to people. How do you explain this contradiction?”

“We don’t make everyone pay in advance,” said Jacquart. “The person looks and then chooses the formula they want.”

And what about the loans at 10 percent interest, asked the judge, referring to the loan taken out by the plaintiff Aude-Claire Malton and the SOFINCO Bank?

“That is the choice of each person,” said Jacquart. “I suppose at SOFINCO it works like that.”

Judge Château recalled that Malton had been told that the prices were going to change and that she had to pay before Thursday. “Do you think that is normal?” she asked.

“Mme Malton is someone I saw very little of – I would like to be able to answer you,” said Jacquart.

“I had other things to worry about,” she added.

Judge Château said she was perplexed by the different prices quoted to plaintiffs, which seemed to indicate that different people paid different amounts. And so far as paying in advance was concerned, Malton’s case was not an isolated one, she added.

“We saw there were enormous amounts of things paid for in advance,” said the judge. In addition to which, when the e-meter devices for Scientology’s auditing sessions were paid for in instalments, they were only ever delivered when everything had been paid for.

The prices were calculated in the computer, said Jacquart – “to which everyone can have access, because we have nothing to hide.”

Judge Château turned to the question of Malton having accepted a job with Scientology soon after having taken out the loan to buy for courses well in advance.

Someone at the Centre appeared to have prepared Malton a detailed list of things she needed to do: quit her existing job, move out of her apartment into one nearer the centre; cash in her life insurance etc. What did Jacquart know about this, asked the judge?

“This wasn’t written by me,” said Jacquart. “I didn’t know about this. I will explain. Mme Malton, I met her once – that is why she didn’t recognise me [in court].”

Jacquart had been looking for someone to help look after the premises, she had heard that Aude-Claire Malton worked in the hotel business and so they met in a café so she could explain what the job entailed.

“At that moment, she seemed happy,” said Jacquart: “I had a good memory of my communication with Mme Malton.”

“M. Aubry… was not very stable”

But Judge Château went back to what appeared to be contradiction in Mme Malton having taken out a high-interest loan to pay 110,000 francs (16,700 euros) in advance for courses.

If she was going to become a staffer, surely these courses would have been available to her for free, asked the judge?

“She could ask for us to study the question if she wanted to get some of it back,” said Jacquart. But the question had never arisen because she had quit Scientology shortly afterwards, she added.

Judge Château questioned her more closely, and when Jacquart began to speak of gifts, or donations, to Scientology, as Rosenberg had done a day earlier, she picked her up on it.

This was not how the plaintiffs had described it, said the judge.

Even Pierre Auffret who had insisted he had nothing to reproach Scientology, had spoken of payments rather than donations.

Jacquart bristled at the mention of Auffret.

“M. Auffret used the money of his company,” said Jacquart contemptuously, referring to the fact that he had plundered his company’s accounts to pay for his training. “M. Auffret is M. Auffret: we are not going to mix everything up,” she added.

How many people had been in such a situation: where they had joined staff having already paid substantial sums of money for course that would now, given their staff status, be free, asked the judge? Jacquart didn’t know.

But from what the previous defendants had told her, it seemed to Judge Château that although you could get a refund if you really wanted your money back – the penalty was that you could never do Scientology courses again.

“So one has the impression that you only do this [get a refund] if you leave definitively. It doesn’t look automatic to me.”

That put someone like Mme Malton in a difficult position: since she was joining staff she might want the money she had paid – for what were now free courses – refunded. But she could not get the refund without being excluded from Scientology courses.

No, said Jacquart: nothing was 100 percent. “Each case is different. If someone wants a refund then they are refunded,” she said.

She pointed to the example of Eric Aubry, one of the original plaintiffs who had withdrawn from the case once he had reached a settlement with Scientology. He had got a partial refund, she said.

And what about the letter he had written denouncing the harassment he had suffered in Scientology, asked the judge? As president, what had she known about that?

“When M. Aubry wrote that he was very angry, that is the least one can say,” said Jacquart.

“But he was angry not just with Scientology but with everything: with his family with the world… and there are people in the Church of Scientology who handle these kinds of things,” she added.

When she saw the letter she had sent it directly to one such person to be handled “and I never heard anything more of it,” she said.

“He does raise a certain number of points in this letter,” said the judge.

“He was very angry,” said Jacquart. But one needed to put things in perspective. “M. Aubry was somebody who was not very stable, and when he got angry…”

“He was denouncing very specific points,” said the judge.

“I understand,” said Jacquart. But after having seen the chaplain he could have maintained his demand for a refund and he didn’t, she said. “Why did he keep coming for auditing?” she asked.

“When he saw the chaplain he went back on what he had said. If he had maintained position he would have had his money,” she added.

“We are not a commercial business…”

Judge Château put the same question she had put to Rosenberg about Aubry’s complaint that he had been questioned about his income during his auditing. Was that what had happened, she asked Jacquart?

“Absolutely not,” she replied. “If he spoke about money during auditing, that would be something else.” But those kinds of matters were not asked during an auditing session unless the subject himself raised them.

And what about Aubry’s complaint that after a lengthy auditing session, when it was late and he was tired, they would suggest he talk about buying more courses, asked the judge?

Jacquart confirmed that auditing sessions could last several hours, but an important stipulation of the Auditors Code was that people should be eaten and rested well before entering a session. [2]

“Is there are code to say you don’t ask people to buy courses after an auditing session?” asked the judge?

“There isn’t a code that specifies that particularly,” said Jacquart. “But people know they can’t keep a person who has just come of an auditing session late because they are going to have to be audited the next day.”

How then did she explain Aude-Claire Malton’s experience, who had said that after coming out of auditing sessions she had been pressured to buy more courses, asked the judge?

“I don’t know,” said Jacquart. “I wasn’t there.”

Judge Château turned to the question of the follow-up letters to be people who had stopped taking courses. How did the system work, she asked?

They did not have a follow-up system for parishioners, said Jacquart.

“A very important thing for us as Scientologists is to communicate, so if someone writes to someone, it is to have their news, to see if they are happy. We are not a commercial business trying to follow up leads,” she added.

So how did the system work, Judge Château asked again?

If someone knew somebody, then they would write to them, said Jacquart.

“M. Aubry says he received letters from people who didn’t know him,” said the judge. “Some he knew, but others not.” And then there were the phone calls he had received at work, she added.

“No,” said Jacquart. “You don’t call people at work.”

Were there any recommendations in Scientology on the matter, asked the judge?

“No, there are no instructions on that,” said Jacquart. “But if I want to call a parishioner then I call, if it is just by affinity… but that is all.”

Judge Château turned to the e-meters, which some Scientologists had been sold without actually needing them for the courses they were doing. Some even possessed two machines.

“Personally, I have an e-meter which I haven’t used,” said Jacquart. “I haven’t done the training,” she said. But if one was going to train in auditing, you needed to have your own e-meter, she said, describing it as a “religious instrument”.

But why did people by their e-meters so far in advance of actually needing them, asked the judge? And why did those people who paid for them in instalments have to wait until the full sum had been paid before receiving them?

Jacquart did not seem to know.

---

[1] See the note N°5 in the first part of Rosenberg’s testimony for details on the probable source document for the Hubbard’s account of the personality test.
[2] This is perfectly true: Scientology’s Auditors Code requires that the subject be well rested and not hungry when entering session. But the judge’s question had referred to what happened after the session, not before.

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10 The Defendant Rosenberg II

“Our concern is ethics, honesty, respect”

Now Judge asked Rosenberg about Aude-Claire Malton, who by quitting her job to come and work for the centre would have become eligible for free courses.

“What happens to all the money that she had put aside for the future?” the judge asked. Malton had paid in advance for Scientology training to the tune of 110,000 francs (16,700 euros).

“I don’t know,” said Rosenberg. “I wasn’t there in 1998.” In later questioning, it emerged that he had been abroad studying at the time.

But he added: “I don’t see how you can oblige someone to buy in advance and get them to join staff.”

“You are not answering my question –” said the judge, but Rosenberg broke in again.

“You can pay in advance and work for the Church,” he said.

Perhaps she had wanted to recuperate her money, but in any case, it was not the money that interested them. “Of course we need it to exist,” he added.

“I understand these payments can shock,” he continued. But if she had wanted to have some money back then she could have had it.

The judge returned to the case of Eric Aubry: “He put in enormous amounts of money in advance,” she said. And he had tried to get a refund to finance the purchase of his apartment.

Again, Rosenberg tried to interrupt the judge – and had to be called to order by his own lawyer.

In the exchanges that followed, they established that you could claim your money back, but you would never be able to take Scientology courses again. And you were also expected to sign a document to the effect that you would never take legal action against the church.

But that only covered people who left Scientology definitively, said the judge.

It did not cover either Malton’s case, who had been about to become a staffer; or that of Aubry, who had sought a partial refund without wanting to quit Scientology.

“Is it possible in any other case?” she asked.

Mme. Malton could have made a request, said Rosenberg. And he seemed to suggest that Aubry could also have continued in Scientology given the right conditions. But now he was becoming flustered.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand the question,” said Rosenberg. “They can make a request.”

Judge Château returned to question of the follow-up letters sent to members who had stopped taking services, to try to get them back for more courses. Who decided who sent such letters, and to whom?

“There is no automatic follow-up,” said Rosenberg. “You say it as if we were running a commercial operation,” he protested.

This was a church, he said: they had a right to their beliefs in past lives, he added, à propos of nothing.

“It is not a follow-up: it is a communication,” he said.

Rosenberg also objected to the loaded language – such as “consumer protection” – that the judge was using.

Judge Château pointed out that even Auffret, who had refused to file a complaint against the Centre, had nevertheless regarded himself as a client – as had Aude-Claire Malton and Eric Aubry.

“Our concern is ethics, honesty, respect,” said Rosenberg. “I feel that we respect the law.”

But people were signing over large cheques from the first day, said the judge.

“Nobody commits on the first day,” said Rosenberg. They might buy a book and take it away to read, but that would take at least seven days.

“I think we are all creations of God…”

The judge invited Oliver Morice, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, to put his questions.

Morice reminded Rosenberg that he had told investigators the personality test served as a point of contact: Rosenberg agreed.

Then Morice referred to a 1990s Lyon court judgement against members of Scientology’s Lyon operation. It had criticised the use of the personality test handed out on the streets there.

The judgement had noted that the test contained no reference to Scientology; was analysed by people with no competence in the matter; and systematically revealed serious personality problems, said Morice.[1]

“I don’t know this judgement at all,” said Rosenberg. He had been abroad at the time, studying. Morice was incredulous, but Rosenberg maintained his position.

What about the incident in 1998 when the head teachers of secondary schools (high schools) in Paris complained to the authorities about Scientologists offering their students free personality tests outside the school gates, asked Morice? Was he aware of that?

“Absolutely not,” said Rosenberg. “There are no minors who come through the door of the centre.”

Morice pressed him again as to why he had not provided the investigating magistrate with the users’ manual for the personality test.

Exasperated, Rosenberg said he had already explained that to the president of the court (Judge Château).

Yes, but it had not been very clear, said Morice.

Rosenberg thought he had been perfectly clear, but he explained again: it was because the magistrate had been denigrating his beliefs, which he thought was unacceptable.

The temperature was rising.

What about the personality test, asked Morice? How was it interpreted outside the machine, apart from the graph?

“I would be happy for you to do one,” said Rosenberg. “It is very simple: you use the documents of Scientology.”

The test was to help someone understand the different parts their life, said Rosenberg.

“When he sees it he will compare it with his life and he will find something that corresponds with his image,” he said.

Morice asked Rosenberg about the International Association of Scientologists (IAS). “Do you know Mike Rinder?” he said. Could he explain what a suppressive person was?

“In every religion, notably in Catholicism and in Buddhism, there is the notion that certain people see only enemies and have no friends,” said Rosenberg.

Morice produced a document from among his files, a French-language copy of Impact, the magazine of the International Association of Scientologists.

He read out the title at the top of one page: “The IAS: the Nemesis of Suppression”. It covered a speech given by Mike Rinder, Commanding officer of the Office of Special Affairs International, said Morice.[2]

In his speech, Rinder had referred to the legal victories that had been won against France with the help of grants from the IAS.

Morice quoted Rinder’s comments. “We won’t stop until those SPs have been shattered: because we do have the technology and the truth.”

Morice turned to Rosenberg.

“Does the fact that I defend the plaintiffs who have lodged a complaint against Scientology make me a suppressive person?” he asked.

No, said Rosenberg: the fact that you are representing the plaintiffs certainly did not, “but I don’t know you (well) enough to know if you are or not.”

When Morice pressed him on the matter Rosenberg protested. “This magazine is for Scientologists: it is meant for informed Scientologists.”

In every group there were people who oppressed others for various reasons, he insisted.

Rosenberg made it clear that he objected to the line of questioning. “My only role is to be able to serve the community,” he said.

“I think we are all creations of God – some people are more aware of it: that is all.”

“We don’t quite have the same vocabulary”

Morice took him back to the issue of refunds. Rosenberg had been talking earlier in terms of gifts, or donations, he recalled.

“A gift is a gift,” said Morice. Was he really suggesting it was possible to “refund” a gift? That was not how it worked with other religions.

This was not his domain, said Rosenberg: he could not give a precise answer.

Morice asked about an unexpected refund that Aude-Claire Malton had received in 2004, years after the events in question. Why had Scientology suddenly paid her back her money, asked Morice?

“I don’t take care of legal disputes,” said Rosenberg. “How do you want me to know what happened in 2004?”

“You don’t actually know much at all,” said Morice and sat down.

For the prosecution, Nicolas Baïetto went back to Rosenberg’s earlier reaction when confronted with the passage about suppressives in Impact magazine. When exactly did one become an informed Scientologist, he asked?

“From the point when one has faith,” said Rosenberg.

Baïetto tried to push him on the point, but Rosenberg stuck resolutely to spiritual explanations and before long the two were interrupting each other in their effort to get their respective points across.

Judge Château intervened to get the situation under control. Rosenberg calmed down. I respect the court, he said.

“The problem is when one puts the question to you, one has trouble understanding the answer,” said Baïetto, clearly frustrated.

The communication problems continued.

Baïetto questioned him about Scientology’s organisational chart. He wanted to know just what Rosenberg, as the executive director, at the top of the organisational chart, was meant to do.

Rosenberg stuck to the spiritual terms of reference he had used earlier.

He asked him if it was worse for a Scientologist to have to miss out on training, or to get into debt to pay for it.

Again, there was no meeting of minds: Baïetto was not getting the clear answers he wanted.

“We don’t quite have the same vocabulary,” said Rosenberg at one point.

“I’m speaking the French language,” Baïetto replied, exasperated.

Referring back to the chart, Baïetto asked Rosenberg what Scientology meant by “crimes majeurs” (high crimes).

Rosenberg explained that this was another poor translation.

A very important tenet in Scientology was that it was a crime, (un délit) not to understand the text one was reading “but not a crime like in court,” he said. It was more like the Buddhist concept of respect, he said.[3]

“I am of good faith”

Baïetto referred again to Scientology’s organisation chart: what were these references to celebrities, he asked?

Rosenberg tried to explain Hubbard’s dictum of how the greatness of a culture was measured by its dreams and those dreams were made by its artists – but this was not what Baïetto wanted to hear.

Referring to the org chart, Baïetto named other departments and units devoted to income and sales: he wanted to know what they were doing in an organisational chart for a church.

By now the exchanges were becoming bad-tempered again, to the point where Judge Château had to intervene to call him to order.

Rosenberg protested: “I have faith and I am of good faith.”

“I am talking about your behaviour,” she replied.

“I apologise,” said Rosenberg “It won’t happen again.”

He explained that for him, his position in Scientology was not a job, it was his calling: he was part of its priesthood.

Baïetto sat down and one of the judge assessors sitting on either side of Judge Château picked up the questioning. She returned to the question of donations, or gifts (dons).

She could not, she said, square the legal definition of a gift with his conception of what it meant. The idea of a gift implied something freely given; but prices were imposed.

And what about somebody on welfare, she asked? How could they progress in Scientology?

Good question, said Rosenberg – and he launched into a lengthy disquisition on the evils of society and delinquency, until coming to what appeared to the core of his answer.

“He can raise his level of consciousness improve his life,” he said – if he really had the will. “Scientology makes people able to take the decisions to improve their own lives.”

Such a person could read books in the library, practice the principles they set out “and then things will sort themselves out in his life.”

But the judge was concerned about the services for which you had to pay. The Purification Rundown, for example, seemed to be an obligatory stage in one’s progress in Scientology, she said: how you could do it without having any money?

“If you really understand Scientology you can change your circumstances,” said Rosenberg.

And what about Mme Malton, the judge asked? How did he feel about the fact that she had not realised she was getting into a religion, and that she had finished by feeling oppressed and depressed?

He felt a great deal of compassion, said Rosenberg.

“Periods of doubts come in a religion. When doubts increase, a person can lose their faith, and we regret it – for her and for others – but I can understand that.

“A person can lose her faith but what I regret that it can translate into an anti-religious activism, because she could very well have obtained a refund, and each party could have gone their own way.”

He didn’t know the defendants, he said again, but for him this whole problem had arisen because of a lack of dialogue.

He ran into trouble again when the third judge assessor questioned Rosenberg on financial matters.

When he denied again that he had any involvement in this area, she pressed him to say who exactly did handle the finances. He replied by quizzing her on what which financial matters exactly she meant, which did not go down well.

“Sir,” she said crisply: “I am the one who puts the questions and it is you who answers the questions.”

She continued to question him on how the money came in and while he was perfectly willing to answer in general terms, he insisted on the fact that the specifics were not his domain.

“In 30 years, you have never had any knowledge of financial matters?” she asked again.

“No,” said Rosenberg. “I have never wanted to take care of financial or legal side: I wanted to take care of the pastoral work.”

---

[1] The original judgement was in 1996 but Morice appears to be referring to the second paragraph of p25 of the 1997 appeal court ruling which refers to: “…fraudulent manoeuvres characterised by extensive advertising, making no initial reference to the Church of Scientology, proposing free personality tests analysed immediately and for free on a computer by people with devoid of any competence in the field and revealing almost systematically serious personal problems...” You can find the French text at Roger Gonnet’s site.
[2] Issue 96 of Impact magazine, page 21 in both the English and French editions: my thanks once again to Caroline Letkeman for providing the English version.
[3] Rosenberg is right on the first point: “neglecting to clarify words not understood” is a high crime. It is one of five points of out-study tech listed in Chapter Seven of Introduction to Scientology Ethics, in the section listing suppressive acts. “Repeated or continued violation,” after two ethics tribunals and a committee of evidence, can lead to the person found guilty being “declared suppressive and expelled with full penalties…” (p219-220 of my edition). Study tech is a system of Hubbard’s devising and therefore sacrosanct in the eyes of Scientologists.

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