The Getting Clear conference, 2015

Coverage of the June 2015 "Getting Clear" Conference on Scientology in Toronto 

I am attending the June 2015 "Getting Clear" conference on Scientology in Toronto, both as an invited speaker and to cover the event.

As part of efforts to evolve my coverage, I am experimenting with a new online platform for this event.

But I will use this page as an index to the reports, updating it throughout the week as and when I file.

1 Introduction: the Father Christmas Principle 

2 The Man who would be Hubbard
Jon Atack and Russell Miller on the lies Hubbard and Scientology have told about his life

3 "What are Your Crimes?"
 Scientology can convince you that its faults are actually your own, argues one former member.

4 Nora Crest in Toronto
Growing up in Scientology means indoctrination from birth.
(At the Underground Bunker.)

5 PI Hacked Scientology Critics
A private investigator has been jailed for a hacking operation, but two Scientology critics targeted want officials to dig deeper.
(Not a conference event, but too interesting to ignore.)

Atack on Roux on Scientology

Earlier this year Scientologist Eric Roux gave a talk on his movement at a academic conference. How well do his claims stand up to scrutiny? Jon Atack marks his copy.

Jon Atack

Since today Eric Roux is presenting Scientology’s perspective on life to an audience of academics at SOCREL, organised by the British Sociological Association, now seems a good time to take a closer look at one of his previous talks.

Jon Atack, for those of you who don't know, is the author of the definitive history of Hubbard-era Scientology, Let's Sell these People a Piece of Blue Sky.

Below, I've put the excerpts from Roux's February presentation to the INFORm conference in London in italics, followed by Atack's response.

The links in the body of the text Jon Atack's, but the footnotes at the end are mine, added to help readers follow the trail of evidence he has laid out.

I've cut back substantially on the passages from Roux that Jon quoted, but you can find the full text over at his website. You might even want to start by going there and reading the complete talk before turning to Jon’s critique.

If anybody wants to chip in down in the comments section with other supporting material, they are more than welcome. Naturally, I have contacted Roux and invited him to respond.

Roux: In 1984, L. Ron Hubbard was no longer involved in Church management affairs and had not been for years.

Atack: Hubbard had continued to run Scientology through his ‘advices’, as attested by various former members of the management team – for instance, DeDe Reisdorf, who ran Scientology under Hubbard’s direction as Chairman of the Watchdog Committee in 1981, and Larry/Denise Brennan, who reformed the corporate structure of Scientology in the early 1980s. Chuck Beatty was privy to these advices and can attest that they were orders, which were complied with by Scientology management.1

Roux: He (Hubbard) was kept informed but his primary activity was to work on his research in order to complete his work regarding the Bridge to total freedom that was the culmination of a life of research and which he left for all those who wish to travel it.

Atack: Hubbard was incapacitated by dementia from about 1983. His post mortem showed that he was taking the psychiatric drug, vistaril, by the time of his death to counter the effects of dementia.2

Roux: The Church of Scientology, especially in the US, was undergoing some quite vicious attacks from some of its detractors, some of whom had the plan to close the Church down.

Atack: Eleven executives of Scientology, including Hubbard’s wife and immediate deputy, pled guilty to breaking and entering US government offices, theft, falsifying official credentials and false imprisonment of a whistle blower. Mary Sue Hubbard signed a confession over 200 pages long. The Sentencing Memorandum in US vs Jane Kember and Morris Budlong further shows the criminality for which Scientology was brought to book. Ron Hubbard was an “unindicted co-conspirator”, and documents clearly show that he ordered harassment of critics and the infiltration of government offices all over the world.3

Roux: … [P]art of this plan was a tremendous number of civil trials that had been instigated throughout America, on fabricated charges by Church detractors… and these false charges were repeated throughout every single state in the USA.

Atack: It should be added that Scientology is the most litigious organization since the beginning of history, and has initiated literally thousands of law suits. “The law can be used very easily to harass” as Scientology scripture states, urging that defectors should be “ruined utterly” by this means.4

The supposed conspiracy of “detractors” is fanciful. Thousands of people have a legitimate claim against Scientology. Many such claims have been upheld. Scientology’s admitted attempt to frame Paulette Cooper for a bomb threat clearly shows that she was not protected by any conspiracy, but rather the focus of a Scientology conspiracy to silence her. She is one of tens of people paid hush money by Scientology (and thankfully, it has not hushed her!).5

Former senior executive, Mark Rathbun, has asserted that there were 2,700 active suits at one point. [Urban, The Church of Scientology, p.171].6

Roux: Facing these attacks, Scientologists from all over the world decided to unite… formed the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) ... to unite all Scientologists as one international body “to Unite, advance and protect the Scientology religion”.

Atack: The IAS was formed not by consensus, but on the order of David Miscavige. In 1987, despite claims of as many as eleven million members, the IAS published documents showing that paid up membership was a mere 25,000, world wide, with a mere 15,000 who were new to Scientology paying for courses. The ‘war chest’ of the IAS was spent on litigation costs.

Roux: In Portland one particular trial had turned bad for the Church, the jury asking for many millions of dollars in damages for a Church apostate claiming to have been defrauded out of 3,000 dollars in course fees… That Church could not have afforded to pay the damages, even if it would have used all of its reserves.

Atack: Scientology had reserves in excess of $300 million when the Titchbourne case was ruled upon. The judgement, which included punitive damages for Scientology’s treatment of Titchbourne, both before and during the ensuing litigation, amounted to about ten per cent of these known assets.

Roux: … [T]his trial was set up to serve as a precedent in the US, and with dozens of other similar trials on-going, it represented the intention of bringing about a complete bankruptcy of Scientology internationally. This was the purpose of the opponents of the Church ...

Then, through the work of the IAS, 15 000 Scientologists from all over the world converged on Portland to protest this ruling which was a denial of the protection guaranteed by the first amendment of the US constitution, and asked the Presiding Judge to overturn the ruling. ... Tens of thousands of Scientologists united in the city.

Atack: About two thousand Scientologists attended the rally, but were bussed back to the beginning of the protest march, repeatedly, to make their numbers seem greater.7

Roux: … [T]he result was unmitigated success, as after having seen the proof that the plaintiff had been “deprogrammed” before having filed her complaint, that her witnesses were in fact acting as government agents, and that Scientology teachings were religious in nature, the judge overturned the judgment... .

Atack: The judge rescinded his judgement because of a statement made to the jury by a prosecution lawyer that challenged the religious status of Scientology, not because of any ‘deprogramming’. Scientology lost a similar case against Lawrence Wollersheim, and was forced to pay almost nine million dollars, despite protest marches where it asserted that it would pay ‘not one thin dime to Wollersheim.’

Roux: The Internal Revenue Service had opened a determined national campaign against all the different Churches of Scientology, refusing to allow them religious status … engaging in malicious rumour campaigns against Church leaders, harassing them by conducting fabricated charges for triggering criminal investigations against them…

Atack: Scientologists working for the ‘Church’ have been convicted in several countries for criminal activities.

Roux: In 1986, when L. Ron Hubbard passed away, the Church had to struggle past this point which can be seen as a critical test for every religious movement: the death of its founder. History showed that this test has been very successfully passed, but few really knew what the Church had to endure during the following years.

Atack: Nor indeed what critics of Scientology had to endure by way of harassment through litigation and by private detectives kept on permanent retainer by Scientology. Tony Ortega has shown that in the case of Pat Broeker alone, over $10 million was spent on maintaining a 24-hour watch for over 20 years.8 Scientology lost cases against Canadian judge Casey Hill, Lawrence Wollersheim, Richard and Bonnie Woods and Mary Johnston, among many others, for its treatment of them. It is startling that this should be claimed as some sort of conspiracy, when the evidence is clear that Scientology mercilessly harassed these people, and hundreds of others. Hubbard personally ordered that a cartoonist who had made a mildly derogatory comment about Scientology should have his livelihood ruined (Operation Funny Bone).

Roux: The battle with the IRS sometimes went to a point where the existence of the Church itself was endangered, and this continued up till 1991, when IRS finally agreed to conduct, at the insistence of the Church, a full and transparent examination (as opposed to biased) which lasted 2 years.

Atack: The investigation was by no means ‘transparent’ and aspects of the decision remain sealed to this day.

Roux: This became the most thorough inquiry that has ever been conducted of a religious movement, encompassing all the Church of Scientology’s worldwide activities including all financial records. It culminated with the issuance, by the IRS, of ruling letters, dated the 1st October 1993, recognizing the tax-exempt religious and charitable status of the Church of Scientology International - the mother church of the Scientology religion - and 150 affiliated Churches, missions and social betterment organizations.

Atack: It was determined that since the death of Hubbard, funds were no longer being funneled to a private citizen, as the IRS had found in earlier investigations. This was the reason for denial of exemption in earlier years. Hubbard left $648 million, almost every penny of which had come from Scientology.

Roux: This was of course a real turning point for Scientology not only in the US, but also worldwide. Indeed, even though Scientology had never ceased growing during these years, this engagement with the IRS consumed a lot of attention from Scientology leaders and management...

Atack: Scientology has a membership of about 25,000, and is more likely shrinking. Reports from around the world show that many organizations, including the major UK operation, are in decline.9

Roux: So, when in 1993 the Ecclesiastical leader of the Church Mr David Miscavige announced to thousands of Scientologists in Los Angeles “The War is Over”, he in fact announced that the real work of the Church could start, as all the resources used to fight this battle were now to be assigned to the fundamental mission of the Church: serving parishioners..., building new churches in every major city of the planet, conducting social betterment and humanitarian campaigns..., and other programs dedicated to forward the aims of Scientology: A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights...

Atack: Under this slogan, governments the world over were infiltrated by agents directed by the very man who claimed to want a civilization ‘without crime.’ Scientology is implicated in the insanity of certain of its former members. Wollersheim was able to prove in court that his own manic-depressive illness was caused by Scientology procedures. Lisa McPherson suffered a psychotic break down and died while under the care of leader David Miscavige. These are two examples among many. Many Scientologists have also committed suicide, see, for instance, the James Stewart case in Let’s sell these people A Piece of Blue Sky (‘The Empire Strikes Back’). Stewart was a Scientology executive, and was on Operating Level Three. He had been ordered to stop having epileptic fits. See also the tragic suicide of Hubbard’s son and successor, Quentin, who had achieved the highest level available in Scientology (ibid, ‘The Flag Land Base’).10

Roux: This was the start of a period of expansion for Scientology that has continued, as the USA became a “safe place” for Scientology, permitting the Church management to focus on global expansion plans… .

One of these major plans has been what Scientologists called the “Golden Age of Tech”, Tech being a shortened form for “Technology”, being the whole body of Scientology religious techniques aimed at bringing total freedom to individuals as spiritual beings… . The goal of auditing is to restore the innate ability of oneself, the spiritual being. This is accomplished by: (1) helping individuals rid themselves of any spiritual disabilities; (2) increasing spiritual abilities,. These “Golden Age of Tech” exercises had been compiled following instructions of the Founder, L Ron Hubbard and their compilation had necessitated hundreds of thousands hours of work … .

Atack: Scientology is a systematic form of thought reform. Its ‘processing’ (to use Hubbard’s term) uses profoundly hypnotic techniques to bring about euphoria and compliance. (Tweet this) Hubbard himself described the techniques used in his Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health as hypnotic, commenting in particular upon the counting technique and the ‘flickering of the eyelids’ as the subject entered trance. He banned use of these techniques for their hypnotic effect in 1951, yet they were reintroduced in the late 1970s and continue to be used. Many far-fetched claims continue to be made for Hubbard’s ‘technology’, but, as yet, no cure for cancer or leukemia has been shown; nor is there any individual who has become immune to illness or achieved perfect IQ. Nor has anyone demonstrated a single psychic ability, despite over six decades of claims.11

Roux: Between 2005 and 2010, Scientologists experienced the completion of a 25-year program to recover, verify and restore the Scripture of the Scientology religion… In all, these materials comprise more than 1,000 lectures and 500 written issues chronicling the day-to-day record of L. Ron Hubbard’s path of discovery in Dianetics and Scientology.

Atack: The sheer quantity of Hubbard instruction should be seen in light of his own statement: “In altitude teaching, somebody is a 'great authority.' He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be. He has become defensive down through the years, and this is a sort of protective coating that he puts up, along with the idea that the subject will always be a little better known by him than by anybody else and that there are things to know in this subject which he really wouldn't let anybody else in on. This is altitude instruction ... It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance. Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude. There are ways to create and lower the altitude of the subject, but if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject the same way, he doesn't have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as hypnotic suggestion.” (Hubbard, Research & Discovery, volume 4, p.324)12

Roux: This review culminated in November 2013 when the Church announced the release of what we called “Golden Age of Tech phase 2”. All these projects have tracked back the original writings and lectures of the founder, tens of millions of words which have been studied in chronological order, and compared to the various existing manuscripts and other primary records, in order to find any departure from the original and correct any impact it had on the delivery of Scientology to Scientologists. This has led to significant changes in the way the Bridge to total freedom is delivered to parishioners,... .

Atack: Levels which previously took tens of hours – at hundreds of dollars per hour – now take hundreds of hours – at hundreds of dollars per hour. Christian Szurko, one of the most eminent authorities on cults and hypnosis, has pointed out that where other groups have only a handful of hypnotic techniques, Scientology uses every available method, in hundreds of procedures. The frequent conflicts and contradictions between Hubbard’s statements have not been addressed. For some of these, see my paper “Never Believe a Hypnotist”.13

Roux: This project has been driven not so much by an ideological desire to have something in its original form but quite simply because, as has been experienced again and again by scientologists, when the technology is applied correctly, it works.

Atack: Scientology has signally failed to achieve any of the many claims of physical and psychological cure made by Hubbard. A few of these fantastical claims can be found here.

Roux: In addition, a major auditing action never released previously, described by Ron Hubbard as able to put Scientologists into a new realm of ability enabling them to create a new world, was released for the first time… .

Atack: It has been asserted by Scientology sales people, contrary to scientific observation, that there is a band around the earth which houses ‘implant stations’ where spirits go after they die to be ‘reprogrammed’ before being returned to earth for reincarnation. Scientologists are warned that if they do not take the Super Power Rundown, at a cost of thousands of dollars, they will be snared by these implant stations when they die.14

There is no explanation of the invisibility of these implant stations to satellites, telescopes or space travellers. Hubbard also asserted that both Mars and Venus are populated by ‘invader forces’ waiting to attack the earth. How they survive the furious temperatures on Venus has not been explained, nor why their encampments have never been sighted by planetary rovers or powerful telescopes. As to the ‘new realm of ability’, none of the many claims made for Dianetics and Scientology has been scientifically demonstrated, almost 65 years since the first claims were made. This ‘new realm of ability’ is simply the capacity to mouth the slogans implanted by involvement with Scientology. The harassment of critics shows the moral inadequacy of these teachings.

Hubbard’s own multiple drug abuse and 100-a-day cigarette habit must cause us to question the efficacy of his ‘drug rehabilitation’ system. Hubbard admitted to barbiturate addiction, advocated the use of amphetamines, and was at times a heavy drinker (“Never Believe a Hypnotist” and Let’s sell these people A Piece of Blue Sky).

Roux: In parallel to these programs, another program has been run for some years in the world of Scientology. It’s called the Ideal Orgs program (Ideal org means ideal organization, ideal church). This program is aimed at making Scientology available to a greater numbers of people and consists of opening new church buildings throughout the world, with each of these buildings being either newly built or purchased and fully renovated to meet the highest standards and full panoply of delivery of Scientology religious services… .

Atack: Staff in these ‘ideal orgs’ work a ninety hour week for a few dollars. They are kept from their children, or indeed persuaded to have abortions, so that they will have no children. Diets are poor. Housing is scandalously inadequate. Staff may be punished by being refused a bed or forced to subsist on table scraps. There is no health insurance and health care is notoriously poor. Staff are often expected to work through the night. There is a culture of humiliation and bullying, where staff are screamed at during ‘severe reality adjustments’. There is nothing ‘ideal’ about the way Scientology treats its staff. Worst of all is the Rehabilitation Project Force, a prison camp where members may expect to serve at least three years. They often sleep without beds (‘pigs’ berthing’), cannot speak unless spoke to by a superior, must comply with any order or be forced to run laps; they subsist on a diet of scraps or rice and beans (for years on end). See Professor Stephen Kent’s analysis of the RPF.

Roux: To date, dozens of Ideal Orgs have opened their doors in major cities across four continents, and new ones are dedicated each month… .

Atack: It would be helpful to know the size of these ‘Orgs’, many of which are merely renamed ‘Ideal Orgs’. It would also be helpful to know how many have since closed. In 1992, Scientology claimed 1,039 organizations. Rather more than this ‘expansion’ currently claims. [What is Scientology?]

Roux: While this is just a rapid overview of these last 30 years for Scientology, doesn’t include many other developments in the Church during these years, I can say that there was a real turning point in our history in 1993 with the US recognition… . Even if there are still some skirmishes here and there, the recognition of Scientology as a bona fide religion has spread to many other countries… . On 17 October 2013, in the Netherlands, the Appeal Court of Amsterdam, in addition to recognizing Scientology as an authentic religion, granted it public benefit status after having ruled that the purpose and objective of participating in Scientology religious services was no different than the purpose and objective of participating in the religious services of other religious institutions. And here in United Kingdom, as many of you will know, on 11 December 2013, the United Kingdom Supreme Court ruled that Scientology was a religion and that the London Church of Scientology chapel “is a place of meeting for religious worship within section 2 of the Places of Worship Registration Act”. The Supreme Court accordingly ordered that the Scientology chapel be registered as a place of worship and as a place for the solemnisation of marriages and in so doing brought the definition of religion, as viewed by the British courts, from the 19th to the 21st century.

Atack: On this point, it must be stated that religious status has long been afforded to the satanic Temple of Set in the US. The test is not whether the ‘religion’ is socially beneficial, but whether believers believe. Tax exemption is given to organizations where monies do not go to private pockets, as was the case with Scientology from its foundation (as Dianetics) in 1950 to the death of its creator, Ron Hubbard, in 1986. The UK Charity Commissioners, whose test is whether a group is beneficial to society have repeatedly denied Scientology charitable status.

Roux: In conclusion, … I would say that 30 years ago, the Church was struggling for its very existence because of the intensity of the attacks against it, but that since then, it has won a sufficient number of battles for it to be no longer struggling for its existence and has reached the point where this is a foregone conclusion and it is now able to concentrate on the help it can bring to peoples of the world, through its religious services delivered to a growing numbers of parishioners throughout 167 countries, and through its social betterment programs which now reach millions of people every year.

Atack: Scientology has made the same sort of claims about its spread and influence since about 1965, when David Gaiman, an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the US case against Scientology, said that there were five million Scientologists. By 1990, official spokespeople for Scientology were claiming eleven million members. In 1992’s What is Scientology? it is claimed that 493,685 people took Scientology ‘services’ for the first time in 1990. However, in 1987, the International Association of Scientologists’ membership report showed only 15,000 people new to Scientology from October 1986-September 1987. Yet, 150,924 were claimed for 1985, in What is Scientology, in 1992. Just over 2,000 people claimed to be Scientologists in the official UK census, in 2011.

---

1   Reisdorf worked closely with the Hubbards in the 1970s at the time Hubbard's wife Mary Sue was arrested and eventually jailed for her part in the illegal activities of the Guardian's Office.

Reisdorf told Janet Reitman: "We all knew that Mary Sue ran pretty much everything by him ... maybe not the details of each mission, but up until then, he was very much in the loop on the Guardian's Office stuff." Page 119 of Reitman's Inside Scientology (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

In the early 1980s, Brennan was involved in setting up "Mission Corporate Category Sort-Out" (MCCS) a new corporate structure for Scientology. He wrote in a May 6, 2008 declaration: "It was expected that the structure hide the fact the Hubbard really was in control of organized scientology and was getting money for same."

Chuck Beatty, who spent 27 years in Scientology's Sea Org cadre until leaving in 2003, gave me details of these advices in correspondence a few years ago.

In an April 2007 email to me, Beatty explained that Hubbard's advices were ...simply despatch orders transferred to despatch format from the tape recorded words dictated by Hubbard onto tape recorder tape routinely by his messengers, who recorded Hubbard when he wanted to issue orders...

He added: On the compilations project I was on in 1983-84, doing my job of researching ALL of Hubbard's administrative orders, I had to skim through many thousands of “advices”. And later, in 93-94, I saw the several thousand advices Hubbard issued to Author Services Inc (ASI) , when I proof-read them to ensure no typographical errors on the copies of Hubbard's advices on ASI's computer system, when I was the computer operations officer over the ASI computers for those years. My estimate there must be around 10,000 total "advices" (Hubbard's day-to-day orders that are in 1-page to multi-page despatch format).

2   See here for the coroner's report on Hubbard, the toxicology report and Hubbard's death certificate.

3  This passage from the sentencing memorandum in the same case shows what the court thought of Ron Hubbard's role – and the movement's complete lack of repentance for what it had done:

Moreover, we submit that in imposing any sentence upon these two defendants, the Court should consider the deterrent effect which a severe sentence will have upon others – besides the defendant Jane Kember who apparently remains the Guardian World-Wide, all other members of the Guardian's Office, and L. Ron Hubbard himself, the ultimate responsible authority. It is clear from the press releases issued by Scientology following the jury's verdict, and their vicious actions against another member of this Court, that they have yet to learn the error of their criminal ways.

(Emphasis added.)

4  “The law can be used very easily to harass...” From Hubbard's 1955 The Scientologist, A Manual on the Dissemination of Material.

5   You can read Cooper's account of her ordeal here.

6   Urban is citing a 2009 interview that the St Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) conducted with Rathbun: he told the paper: “I was tasked with implementing strategies to try to overwhelm the IRS like they were attempting to overwhelm us – it was sort of like a fight-fire-with-fire situation... it was a huge battlefield that was nationwide. It was literally twenty-seven hundred suits ( 2,700) at one point...” You can find the reference to 2,700 lawsuits just over seven minutes into the filmed section titled “From Renovation to IRS...”. In a January 2014 post at his own website, Rathbun writes of more than 2,200 lawsuits against the IRS, but the point stands.

Jon's more general observation about Scientology's enthusiasm for litigation is supported by the movement's own literature. Have a look at page 22 of Impact magazine, Issue N° 125 (this is the magazine of the International Association of Scientology). Here they are celebrating an IAS campaign against psychiatry which involved intensive litigation against GlaxoSmithKline over its anti-depressant Paxil. “The lead attorney coordinating no less than 2,700 lawsuits, also the recipient of the CCHR Human Rights Award, was part of the team that won the test case,” says the report.

The CCHR of course is the Citizens Commissions on Human Rights, which Scientology co-founded.

7   For more on Scientology's campaign against the Titchbourne case, see Atack's dialogue with Tony Ortega at The Underground Bunker last year. In particular, of the numbers involved, he said: “One organizer of the 1985 march later told me about the elaborate bus system used to bring marchers back to the beginning of the parade to trick the numbers up. Even the two thousand then could be an overestimate.”

8   For more on this, see Tony Ortega's landmark piece “Scientology's Master Spies” from November 2012 at The Underground Bunker.

9   Atack has been saying this for years and a Village Voice piece by Tony Ortega bears this out. He talked to former senior Scientology executive such as Jeff Hawkins who had seen recent internal documents and checked census records, arriving at the same figure.

10   For more on these deaths and others, see the Why Are They Dead archive. Here's Tony Ortega's Village Voice write-up of the Wollersheim case.

11   For a summary of medical claims made for Scientology, see this section of Xenu-directory.net, which is an excellent resource. Have a look too at my write-up of this 1984 death at a Narconon centre in France; and my two-part investigation into the death of Heribert Pfaff.

12   For more on this subject see Atack's essay, "Never Believe a Hypnotist”.

13   Christian Szurko runs the Dialog Centre UK, which describes itself as “...a non-denominational Christian organization serving people regardless of their religious orientation. We offer assistance to the members and ex-members of abusive religious, political and philosophical groups, and to their family and friends.”

14   If you think Atack is exaggerating then try this April 2013 piece from Tony Ortega's Underground Bunker, which comes complete with a lengthy excerpt from a talk by Hubbard himself about implant stations.

The Third Party, by Jon Atack

'Scientology erodes compassion' (pic by Lizy Atack)

Recovering Scientologists – and other campaigners – need to shake off the destructive mindset typical of those still inside the movement, writes Jon Atack.

‘If somebody does you wrong, you must be willing to retaliate a thousand-fold.’ Eric Theodore Cartman.

Ron Hubbard put forward the notion that the only reason people become upset is a ‘third party’ who is whispering in someone’s ear. This is not true, of course, people can become upset without the least bit of help.

The term is general among Scientologists to mean gossip. So, third partying has come to mean spreading rumours.

It is a tool used by the harassment operatives of the cult. So, in How to Do a Noisy Investigation, Scientologists are instructed to use a generalization (the mark of a Suppressive Person, according to Hubbard) about the ‘criminal’ past of the person they are attacking when calling that person’s friends and colleagues.¹

Not long after I resigned the Scientology cult, almost thirty years ago, and began unravelling Scientology’s mind-knots, I was approached by a man whom I shall call ‘Brian’ (because that was his name). He advised me that he had been in B-1 – Scientology’s dreaded bureau of ‘covert operations’ and dirty tricks – in London.

He wanted to know if he could help the Independents by running covert operations against the cult. I still believed in the teachings of Hubbard, the Technology, and was at the heart of the thriving independent movement.

Once I had lifted my jaw from the ground, I assured him that I’d left the cult when I realized that it harassed people, which to me seemed a very unspiritual and irreligious practice. Unlike the loyal officers of the Office of Special Affairs, I don’t believe that anti-social behaviour helps society.

Brian’s confederates in the US and Canada had been found guilty of the infiltration of government offices, the theft of a mass of documents and the false imprisonment of one of their number who tried to inform the police. Mary Sue Hubbard, the Founder’s wife, was sentenced to a prison term, along with ten other officials of the Church of Scientology.

A few days later, Brian wrote what turned out to be the first of many affidavits impugning me.

In parting, I’d joked that such ‘operations’ were not my remit, and would have to be decided on by my superiors. Someone in the harassment ‘bureau of covert data collection’ should have checked, but here he was, in a sworn document, asserting that I was simply a tool of the Great White Brotherhood. My sense of humour is a constant cause of trouble.

In those heady days, I was privately assured by a member of the Advanced Ability Center, David Mayo’s independent group, that they would put ‘squirrels,’ like the Phoenix Association and Bent Corydon, out of business. I’d been involved with independent Scientology for a couple of weeks by this time, and I was shocked.

I explained the old dictum that we could either hang together, or the Scientology cult would most certainly hang us separately. We didn’t, and they did. Very few of us lasted any distance.

It still shocks me, three decades later, when I encounter the backbiting and infighting of the unhealed Scientologist, whether they are mindlessly following the implanted command to harass others, or simply ‘third-partying’ or ‘rumour-mongering.’

John Hansen, an important critic and a fine man, who travelled the globe delivering relevant documents to we indies, once told me, with evident exasperation, ‘We are the only people on the planet with the technology of third-partying, so why do we do more of it than anyone else!’

Shooting the messenger

This need to humiliate can have severe consequences.

In the spring of 1984, a distraught auditor told me that she had been woken at 2:00 am by a drunken altercation between her case-supervisor and a fellow auditor. She said that one had tried to run the other down with their car.

My days were just packed, back then, so I made the mistake of delegating. The chap to whom I delegated found a fully-hatted Ethics Officer to deal with the situation.

I expected the two people who caused the disruption to be censured, but I had placed too much faith in the ‘sane’ procedures of Scientology ethics.

It took less than 48 hours for the fully-hatted Ethics Officer to create utter chaos, out of which came disaster, as so often happens when Scientology is exactly applied.

Instead of suggesting they be more private in their drinking and even more private arguing, to my amazement, he focused his attention on the complainant, gathering a sheaf of ‘knowledge reports’ about her.

She was, unsurprisingly, distraught. I was unable to reassure her, because so many willing drones had presented their spiteful and entirely inappropriate observations. So it came as no surprise when the cult swooped in.

Scientology wreathed the poor girl in a fog of promises and she reported her considerable knowledge of the theft of OT materials from Copenhagen. The two people she had complained about had both been involved in the theft – along with former Flag executive Robin Scott, who briefly ran an independent centre up in Scotland.

The victimised auditor’s confession to Scientology led in turn to the arrest and brief imprisonment of Scott in Denmark, and an eleven-year court struggle for Scott and his co-conspirators, in England.

So a single shot reverberated throughout the Scientology world – and all because an Ethics Officer had encouraged ‘third partying’. Not one of those he interviewed had proved unwilling to join in the feeding frenzy.

So instead of dealing with the actual problem – the drunkards – the Ethics Officer had encouraged everyone he could find to ‘third party’ the poor auditor who was the victim of his horrid behaviour.

Of course, such behaviour isn’t unique to Hubbard’s Dev-OTs. A historian studying Gestapo files found that they couldn’t keep up with the flood of reports sent in by vengeful people who were determined to have their annoying neighbours tortured or sent to the camps.

Hubbard cannot claim to have invented the ‘knowledge report’ that Scientologists so gleefully write to the Ethics Office. It was actually old technology. From an earlier civilization that bears marked similarities to Scientology.

When that remarkable film-maker, Carlos Cornier, was at his lowest ebb on the Flag RPF, all hope lost along with all liberty, a protester spat at him. Spleen is not a healthy use of time.

Hate the sin, but love the sinner, as St Paul had it. Hate the thought, but not the person who thinks it, as Gandhi said in agreement.

In this case, I say, hate the disease – Scientology – but not the person infected with it. The spiteful attitude, the rumour mongering and the self-righteousness are part and parcel of the Scientology implant.

Break the vicious circle

The starey eyes and the uncompassionate mindset don’t evaporate, just because you leave the cult.

Too many ex-members are malicious and vindictive, as we see in the chat rooms and message boards. It suggests that they have not recovered. It also suggests that they are very unhappy and want to inflict their misery on others, rather than bringing hope of recovery.

Many years ago, my late and very dear friend, Sheona Fox-Ness, advised me to stop wasting my talents on Scientologists, because, after all, they had ‘pulled it in.’ This is the smug belief that there is no need to help anyone, because of the simplistic notion of karma implanted by Hubbard into his followers.

Sheona had been at the very top of the organization – an L. Ron Hubbard Personal Public Relations Officer – and truly believed that she had shed all of Hubbard’s ideas. I asked if I should intervene, if a child was about to go under a bus, but she didn’t seem to get it.

Maybe she was right. I could certainly do something less stressful with my time than trying to persuade angry people to be more compassionate.

Essentially, Scientology is a system of ‘processing’ and ‘indoctrination’ (to use Hubbard’s own words) that erodes compassion and turns the true believer into a clone, brimming with fear and fury. It will only be done, when the believers begin to care about other people, again.

Or, as Hubbard put it, with inimitable irony, ‘It ill behooves the best of us, to criticize the rest of us.’ Unless they happen to be psychiatrists, communists, journalists, gays or have any reservations about the godlike perfection of the Old Man of the Sea Org.

Luckily, there are many fine and compassionate former members, who make up for the deficiencies in their fellows, and won’t involve themselves in vitriolic pack attacks. I have been charmed and delighted by my contact with them, which has been entirely untainted by ‘natter’ (to lapse into the scientologese).

Sadly, while the intentions of most members of Anonymous are commendable, there are also some among them who delight in spite.

I shudder when I see an Anonymous group venting their amusement on confused cult members. It may cheer up the protesters, but it only rigidifies the members in their cognitive dissonance, making them all the more sure that they are the brave subjects of persecution.

Trolling has become a problem throughout the world, and we have seen the first court cases where such people have quite rightly been found guilty of serious abuse. If we are truly here to help, then we should not resort to public vitriol and should do everything we can to calm down the rage and heal the enraged.

Those who have recovered are able to use taboo words, like ‘victim’, and to feel such emotions a sympathy. They can once again have an open mind and act reasonably.

The clumsy, mock-scientific words are expunged, they once more ‘criticise’ rather than ‘invalidate’; they ‘wish’ instead of ‘postulating’; and those ‘broad generalities’ about the conspiratorial evil of psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists are set aside.

Staring is recognized as a dominance behaviour, in no way reassuring to someone in counselling, and hypnosis has been recognized (just as Hubbard insisted it should be, though he didn’t mean us to understand it well enough to see how it is used on a daily basis in his supposed church).

Compassion and fellow feeling gradually return, but the process need not be so gradual.

If the monstrous ego, inflated by years of self-centring, can be quieted, Scientology can be diminished (reduced from infinity to zero, in Hubspeak), and the recovery process can be achieved in days,.

But for most it takes years or never actually happens. All too often, even decades later, the ex-member holds onto ‘ARC breaks’ and ‘missed withholds,’ and the certainty that anyone who makes them feel uneasy is a ‘suppressive person.’

There is no checksheet, no white-taped route, because we are actually and thankfully all different, and part of the trick is to become genuinely self-determined, which means allowing for independent and even eccentric thought, after years of ‘doing what Ron says.’

'We are nothing without compassion'

With freedom of belief must come freedom of disbelief.

Climbing back out of the abyss whence Scientology deposits its victims doesn’t need any bridge. Rather the dissolution of those famous imprisoning shadow bars, of which Hubbard so fondly spoke.

But, of course, Hubbard even faked the derivation of Scientology. He says, accurately enough, that ‘scio’ is the root for the first syllable, but then wanders off into Latin, not the Greek of the second syllable, ‘logos’. Scio does not mean ‘knowledge.’ It means shadows or even shades, so Scientology is the ‘study of shadows.’ Which is far less useful that studying your own navel, and keeps Dev-OTs assured that they too will one day be like Ron (what a ghastly thought!).

John Gottman, likely the world’s greatest expert on relationship, distinguishes between complaint and criticism: ‘A complaint focuses on a specific problem, addressing the other person’s behaviour, not his or her perceived character flaws. Criticism, on the other hand, is more judgmental and global ... Criticism attacks the other person’s character, often with negative labels or name-calling. It often assigns blame.’²

Relationships succeed when people restrict their complaints to actual difficulties, without adding every horrid thing they can think of to the mix. Better to say, ‘You didn’t do the washing up, this morning,’ without adding, ‘As usual, you dumb ape.’ And maybe Hubbard is right, and sometimes critics are shouting to avoid being found out.

Freud and his chums spoke of ‘projection’ and determined that incessant criticism is usually a direct denial of the critic’s own faults. It is one of the few Freudian hypotheses that has stood the test of time.

Of course, Scientology is not the only reason for people to become distressed. Some were angry before they became involved, and non-members also join in, but there is a festering fury that is often expressed by those who are unhealed, and it flares up and blazes out at the least opportunity.

Such people need help, not a platform, because no one heals by yelling, and yelling spreads the hurt all around. As eminent psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, points out, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can leave you suffering for a lifetime.

So, go easy with the brickbats and don’t encourage destructive behaviour. On message boards, that can mean simply ignoring the flames. Better yet, find a message board where the moderator understands the job description and weeds out personal invective.

Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, wrote a superb book about the amplification of individual anger into all out war. After a review of anti-social behaviour, from spouse battering and child abuse, to assault and rape, he and his colleagues ‘observed a common denominator … the victim is perceived as the Enemy, and the aggressor sees himself as the innocent victim.’³ 

They have no sympathy whatsoever, and, as Hubbard rightly pointed out, they will then claim that their acts were motivated by the victim.

In his essential text, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer said:

That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience. There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.

That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them … Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

I came to Scientology from Buddhism, where compassion is held to be the cardinal virtue. I left Scientology, when I realized that it erodes compassion, causing scorn for ‘raw-meat, dead-in-the-head wogs,’ who are treated as prey, and those evil Suppressives, who always seem to massively outnumber believers and are attacked as enemies.

Jesus advised us to love our enemies, if we wanted to enter the kingdom of heaven (which, as he also said, is all around us). St Paul said that without caritas, or compassion, we are ‘nothing.’

There is every reason for vigorous and open debate, but looking at the message boards, at times, it is as if chains of withholds have been missed, releasing streams of molten natter (for the uninitiated, Hubbard taught that people become hostile if they think someone may have guessed their hidden sins – and they ‘natter’ or criticise the person they fear).

I left Scientology, because I refused to treat people without regard for their humanity. I wouldn’t disconnect from anyone, and I certainly wouldn’t engage in malicious gossip. How about you? Could we try to play nice?

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UPDATE: You can hear a terrific interview with Jon Atack by Australian journalist Steven Cannane at ABC in which, among other things, he describes the harassment that he suffered during when he started speaking out against the movement.

You can read his earlier essay, A Cult by Any Other Name elsewhere at this site. Jon also has a regular dialogue with Tony Ortega at The Underground Bunker, Scientology Mythbusting. For more on Jon at this site, see Atack Reloaded and Atack Unchained.

1   “How to do a Noisy Investigation”, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, September 5, 1966, as quoted on p144 of the 1971 Foster Report into Scientology.

2   Gottman & DeClaire, The Relationship Cure, Three Rivers Press, NY, 2001, pp.72-73.

3   Aaron Beck, Prisoners of Hate, HarperCollins, NY, 1999, p. xiii.