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ZEGEL TAPE NO. 3July 1984
Copyright © 1984 Jon Zegel Redistribution rights granted for non-commercial purposes. ((This is the complete and unabridged, word for word transcript of Jon Zegel's tape number 3. Remember that Zegel recants the entirety of his first 3 tapes, including this one, in the 4th tape.))
Hello again, it's July 1984 and this is Jon Zegel. This is tape number 3 in the series of tapes that we've produced. When we did the first tape a little over a year ago, in July of 1983, there were just a few hundred splinters around the world. By the time we did tape number 2 in January of 1984, there were thousands of splinters, a real worldwide splinter movement. This tape, I believe, marks the end of the 'splinter' movement. There exists today a complete new Church. We are no longer a schism of Scientology. In fact, we have arrived. We lack only a common name. As you know, a Church is by definition a collection of people who share the same philosophy and beliefs. The new Church is such a collection, a group of people who believe in the philosophy of Scientology, the basic dignity and rightness of people, they believe that people have a right to improve their lives and the lives of those around them without becoming emotionally or economically bankrupt, and that people, just as they are, are basically good and are seeking to survive. In this tape, we are going to take a hard look at some of the difficult areas to confront. We will look at Church credibility, who is in control, and the most difficult area, LRH's involvement or noninvolvement in what has occurred. We will look at the question I am asked most often, "How could this have happened?" And lastly, we will look at what this all means. Credibility. In any situation where evaluation of data is important, the credibility of information is always a question. Church credibility has been extremely poor, both with the public and the press. Here are a couple of examples of why. In March of this year, a group of people concerned with the Church's failure to make prompt repayments staged a protest demonstration at the Cedars complex here in Los Angeles. The march was covered by both local and national media, TV, radio, press and so on. The Church responded by sending Scientologists out carrying signs saying "Sponsored by the Los Angeles Psychiatric Association" and passing out similar statements to the press. What follows is the report broadcast on KFWB radio:
The credibility problem is not just a US phenomenon. What follows is a recording of a BBC radio call-in program featuring Scientology's UK Director of Public Relations, Mike Garside. He's being asked questions about Church policies on disconnection. The first person you will hear is a caller named George. Caller: "I agree a person should be allowed not to talk to someone if they don't want to, but I disagree with the fact of a Church saying to a person, 'You should not associate with someone else because we decided he is no longer in agreement with our aims, and so you should stop your communication with him.' "
OK, let's see what the Church policy actually says. From the Church Policy Letter 10 September 1983 called PTSness and Disconnection, on page 2, "the term disconnection is defined as a self-determined decision made by an individual that he is not going to be connected to another. It is a severing of communication." The issue here, by the way, is not disconnection, but whether or not it is self-determined. Let's have a further look, on page 4 of the same Policy Letter it states "A pc is connected to a person or group that has been declared suppressive by HCO in a published Ethics Order. He should disconnect." It goes on to say, "No attempt should be made to establish communication with the declared SP to clear matters up or to seek to reform the SP. The SP's reform is strictly in the hands of HCO. The PTS simply disconnects." And later goes on to say, "To fail or refuse to disconnect from a suppressive person not only denies the PTS case gain, it also is supportive of the suppressive, in itself a suppressive act. And it must be so labeled." It then refers to HCOPL 23 December 1965RA, which was revised and reissued on the 10th of September 1983, and is called Suppressive Acts. It was republished just a couple of months before this radio program was broadcast. Let's have a look at it. Sure enough, on page 4 under Suppressive Acts it states, 28.) "Continued adherence to a person or group pronounced a suppressive person or group by HCO." Further, on page 9 it says: "Any PTS who fails to either handle or disconnect from the SP who is making him or her a PTS, is, by failing to do so, guilty of a suppressive act." So, is disconnection self-determined? In fact, no it is not, specifically in two instances. One when handling fails, and when a person has been pronounced an SP by HCO. The only choice is being on lines or not. If you disconnect, you can be on lines. Mr. Garside would have you believe that this is all self-determined. Let's see how it is actually applied. I will read from three actual Church Ethics Orders all issued within the past 12 months. I've deleted the names of those involved for obvious reasons. From the first, this one issued at FOLO West US, it says, "Any Scientologist found to be maintaining a line with, offering support to, or in any way granting credence to ...., and his or her motivations, is also subject to declare and denial of any further service." On another Findings and Recommendations from a Comm Ev, it says "...that this person be declared a Suppressive Person, her only terminal being the International Justice Chief". And on a third, this one from Flag, it says, "All Scientologists and In-Ethics individuals everywhere are warned not to associate with these suppressive individuals or become involved in any treatments with them, as such would be personally dangerous to your progress in Scientology. Any such association would also make any person connected a Potential Trouble Source per the policies governing PTSness. These individuals' only terminal is the International Justice Chief." So does the Church practice a policy of involuntary disconnection? There is no question about it. Just as an aside, the very same policy letter, Suppressive Acts, restates FAIR GAME. On page 10 it says, "Also, until a Suppressive Person or group is absolved, no Committee of Evidence may be called on any Scientologist or person for any offenses of ANY KIND against the Suppressive Person, except for offenses which violate the laws of the land." Is that Fair Game? You bet it is. And I have seen it applied to myself and others recently. All claims that "Fair Game was Canceled" are just more evidence of this lack of credibility. Forgery of Documents. According to the RTC, LRH donated his trademarks to the RTC on two documents called Assignment Agreements. Real questions exist regarding these Assignment Agreements. They have been examined by two professional Questioned Document Examiners, with proven credentials and long careers. These are not people with any axes of their own to grind. They have been examined by John L. Swanson of Boston MA., and Erngard Wassard of Holt Denmark. Both have found the LRH signatures on the Agreements highly questionable. ((In later trials, the credentials of John L. Swanson were thrown into doubt as his training was not as extensive as originally thought.)) Ms. Wassard, after examining the two Assignment Agreements, states,
She then lists 18 specific discrepancies between the real and questioned signatures, and states,
She goes on to say,
And she signs her name at the bottom. The Church had deleted sections of these documents when they first submitted them to the court in the Omaha Trademark case. When complete copies of the documents were later obtained, it was discovered that the Notary Public, the Official Witness to these Questioned Signatures, was none other than David Miscavige. Further examination by the Questioned Document Examiners of the complete documents show remarkable similarities between Mr. Miscavige's signature and the questioned signatures of L. Ron Hubbard. You know the Church is very fond of putting heads on pikes and making grand claims that it has reformed. (('We found and busted the SP, so that isn't going on any more...')) I would suggest to you that such claims be viewed with the deepest skepticism. I say this for two reasons. One, the only remedy for lying is, of course, telling the truth. And I believe that there has been little evidence of that. And Two, the only real evidence of reform is the making amends for damages done. I would point out that there is NO evidence of that at all. So beware of the claims of reform. The same senior personnel are on post, and the same policies are in force. A few minor figures have been crucified to be sure, but I see no evidence of reform. By the way, Lyman Spurlock, who is the Chief Executive Officer of The Church of Spiritual Technology, and a trustee of the RTC, recently said under oath that former Scientologists who wish their folders not be held by the Church can contact the Church, and while present, have their folders destroyed. I wonder if that's true. While the 1982 Mission Holders Conference is old news, it was pivotal in recent Church history. Since I have uncovered some new data about it, I thought I would share it with you. I was very fortunate to obtain an audio recording of the Sunday Evening Meeting, as well as having interviewed several people who attended. First, according to all accounts, those who attended the conference were extensively flashbulbed, that is, flash guns from cameras were fired in their faces every 10 to 20 seconds or so, throughout the first 4 hours of the conference. There were three individuals actually doing this, among them Jesse Prince who is the secretary on the Board of Directors of the RTC. The atmosphere, not being allowed to leave, heavy ethics presence, flashbulbing, etc. is all very typical of implants. Clearly, this flashbulbing was not for photography. Simple arithmetic would indicate that flashing every 20 seconds or so would lead to between 60 and 120 flashes per hour. Since ordinary 35mm film contains 36 exposures per reel, and no film changes were observed, something else besides photography was going on. MAAs additionally patrolled the room making sure every eye was on the speakers. If one glanced away, even for a moment, one of these MAAs would come right in front of you, glare directly at your face, wait until you looked straight ahead and then move out of your way. Not one person on that podium said a word to stop this flashbulbing and intimidation. David Miscavige, trustee of the Church of Spiritual Technology, trustee of the RTC and trustee of Author Services, Lyman Spurlock who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Church of Spiritual Technology, trustee of the RTC, Mark Yeager who is CO CMO INT, that is Commanding Officer of the Commodore's Messenger Org International, and Chairman of the Watchdog Committee, Norman Starkey, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Author Services, Guillaume Leserve, who is the Executive Director International of the Church of Scientology, Raymond Mithoff, the Senior C/S International for the Church of Scientology, Jesse Prince who is the Secretary of the RTC and a member of its Board of Directors and Wendell Reynolds who is the Finance Dictator. The highest tech and admin terminals in the Church sat through this for 4 hours without one protest, so they must've agreed and subscribed to this kind of behavior. That's the only conclusion that can be reached. One of the things that always puzzled me about the Mission Holder's Conference was, why publish the transcript? There is an answer to that question, but I never would have discovered without the audio tape. The answer is what was written up in the transcript does not match what was said. There are hundreds of minor alterations, deletions of 4 letter words and so on. But little of that is significant. What is significant is the major difference between what the Church Attorney Larry Heller said, and what the transcripts said. Now what I am going to do is, I'll alternately read a couple of lines of the transcript of Mr. Heller's remark and then I'll play that segment of the tape, and you'll see what I am talking about. Now what I am doing right now is, I am reading from page one of SO ED 2104 INT, which is the transcript of the Mission Holder's meeting. I am looking at paragraph number 4 of Mr. Heller's remarks that begin as follows: "All of the Scientology/Dianetic trademarks were previously owned by L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard has donated the vast majority of those to a corporation which some of you have probably heard of, by the name of Religious Technology Center. " Now I'll play the corresponding section from the tape. ((Zegel plays actual tape...))
Just to recap briefly, what the transcript says is that the trademarks were owned previously by L. Ron Hubbard and donated to the Religious Technology Center. What Mr. Heller actually said was that the trademarks are owned in perpetuity by L. Ron Hubbard and are licensed to the Religious Technology Center. Now the use of those two terms, that Ron OWNED the trademarks and continues to own them and licenses them to the Religious Technology Center are consistent throughout Mr. Heller's speech. The next line of the transcript reads as follows, "In donating those trademarks, L. Ron Hubbard imposed the duty on Religious Technology Center (RTC) of assuring that the source of those trademarks, the technology that those trademarks represent, are given and disseminated to the public in the way that he formulated those trademarks." Now let's listen to what Mr. Heller actually said.
Mr. Heller is clearly speaking of a licensing of trademarks to the RTC, NOT a donation. That, coupled with the question of the authenticity of the signatures on the Assignment Agreements that we covered earlier, leaves some mighty large unanswered questions. It is my opinion, and let us be sure that we have labeled this clearly, THIS IS MY OPINION as to why this was done. I believe what you have going on here is a 'have your cake and eat it too' type set-up. It is very clear that there is the desire on someone's part to file lawsuits to stop other people from using Scientology materials and trademarks. If L. Ron Hubbard is the owner of those trademarks, he is an indispensable person in the lawsuits. If, on the other hand, he has donated the trademarks to the RTC or some other organization, THAT person or organization becomes the principal in the lawsuit and L. Ron Hubbard is spared the inconvenience or the discomfort of having to appear in court. On the other hand, if the Assignment Agreement is genuine, LRH ends up giving up ownership of the trademarks. Now, there was always an outpoint to my way of thinking in LRH GIVING these trademarks away. A lot of things can be said about LRH, but that he gives away the materials of Dianetics and Scientology is not one of them. So that act in itself was an outpoint. If what Mr. Heller said is true, that these trademarks have been LICENSED to the RTC, and I have every reason to believe that what he spoke there was the truth since he was very much involved in the documents surrounding it, then LRH is being paid royalties or other fees for the licenses and the trademarks, and these other documents talking about the donation have simply been created to shield him from becoming a principal in the lawsuits regarding the trademarks. And that's really all that's going on. There has been some question about verbal declares at this meeting. Here, in David Miscavige's own words, he'll tell you about two declares, and you will actually here him say "Declare her!" as Cora Lee Wimbush, having just heard that her husband Kingsley has been declared, rises to leave. Now you will have to listen closely. ((Zegel plays tape...)) David Miscavige:
Next person who I am going to introduce to you is Warrant Officer Lyman Spurlock. He is the Corporate Affairs Director of the Church and he is going to brief you on the new Corporate structure of the Church.
((In transcribing this tape, the sound level was so bad I had to go get the printed copy of the transcript to decipher some of the text. In doing so, I noticed that the printed transcript has a slightly different view than the recorded tape. Here is the relevant section from the transcript. David Miscavige:
Earlier this evening both Kingsley Wimbush and Dan Stokes were here. They have both now been declared, and we are pursuing criminal charges against them. They have both been delivering their own squirrel tech, while calling it Scientology. Kingsley Wimbush's "dinging process" is completely squirrel. You won't find it in any tech, yet he has been calling it Scientology. That's a violation of trademark laws and he now faces some serious charges for this crime. This sort of activity is NOT going to go on anymore." )) As long as we are talking about Mission Holders, I thought it might be a good idea to look at what happened to two of them, because their stories are instructive of something I feel needs exposing. And that is the practice of the Church of Scientology deciding to do something, taking over large missions, or converting their cash into Church assets, those sorts of things, and how they will manufacture a shore story to justify those actions. The process is really quite consistent, and takes place in 4 stages.
Let's watch this in action, and the most important element of this is changing the past, as I think you'll see. The first of these Mission Holders we will look into is Kingsley Wimbush. Obviously, the eval that Kingsley Wimbush did that led to the famous de-dinging has been much maligned. I thought you might be interested to hear his side of the story. In June of 1982, Kingsley owned 6 missions and employed 132 staff. At its peak, this network was taking in nearly $175,000 a week, much of which went to reserves. The staff was well paid, a booming scene all around. Kingsley and others who were around at the time credit the booming scene which was going on there to the eval and the effects that had on the staff. During the summer of 1982, Kingsley made the eval available to other Mission Holders who wanted it, and reports of rave successes in using it were far and wide, stats up and so on. And these are verified by my interviews with those who used it. As Kingsley will now, in hindsight, freely admit, however, there were some minor out-tech points, but those were really minor and the eval did produce results. Nonetheless, in the first week of August 1982, Roger Barnes, who was then with SMI, Scientology Missions International, received a telex from International Management labeling the eval out-tech. Mr. Barnes contacted Kingsley who in turn contacted every Mission Holder by letter and phone instructing them to stop using the eval, return the tapes, etc. He even received a commendation for doing such a thorough and rapid job cleaning up the scene, and he even refunded some of the money that had been paid to him. He was ordered to Flag for Sec Checking and got 25 hours. During the 25 hours, he had an absolutely enormous win, really saw what had gone wrong, and asked to go to Ethics so that he might go ahead and complete the cycle by doing lower conditions. This request, by the way, was denied, but that didn't stop him. He simply got ahold of an Ethics book, sat down and began to apply the conditions anyway. Generally, he was absolutely blown out and delighted with the results that he'd had. He went to Div 6 there at Flag, that is the Public Division, and got a list of those people that Flag said had been upset by the eval. He contacted each and every one of those people, and there was only about 10 or 12, personally, with a resolve to handle them. It was interesting to note that he never really found any people that were upset with his eval. All the people that were on that list were upset with Flag, but for reasons other than the eval. He handled them anyway, and simply continued the cycle. But the Church was not satisfied. They ordered that he take additional sec checking, and in fact, he had nearly a hundred hours more. In hindsight, Kingsley feels that what the Church was doing was just digging up or attempting to dig up dirt to use against him. Anyway, he continued on the sec checking at Flag. He learned along the way that there was to be a Mission Holders meeting in San Francisco, and requested permission to attend. He was told he was not permitted to attend. But on Sunday October the 17th at 6am, that's the day of the meeting, a CMO messenger awoke him and said, "You are ordered to attend the Mission Holders meeting, you have 5 minutes before we leave." Kingsley was delighted, he lept up, you know, cleaned up as best he could, threw some clothes into a suitcase and jumped on an airplane back to San Francisco. He arrived at the Mission Holders meeting expectantly, and was declared on the spot. Obviously, this was a tremendous blow to him. And in fact, it took him a couple of days to fully regain his equilibrium, as I suppose it would any of us. Nonetheless, he caught a plane back to Flag and set up meetings with the SMI Justice Chief, a guy named Jay Griffin. Griffin told him, "Look, you can't stay on as Mission Holder because you are now a declared SP, so what I want you to do is to sign over your missions to SMI, do your A to E, and then we will give your missions back to you as soon as you are undeclared." Kingsley agreed to do it. Soon afterwards, however, an SMI ethics order appeared on Kingsley that said,
That ethics order of course was signed by Jay Griffin. Kingsley is tremendously discouraged, his mission network, complete, has been taken away from him, and he returns home. The Church begins to spread malicious rumors about him, saying that he has been embezzling money, guilty of bribery, he has enough crimes to be put in jail for four lifetimes. Miscavige, as you heard at the Mission Holders meeting, said that the Church was going to pursue criminal charges against him. All that was just hot air. Nonetheless, in November of 1982, Kingsley got a call from Jay Griffin to come to Los Angeles, that they'd "sit down and discuss things and get them straight." Kingsley was delighted, he drove all night from northern California to get to Los Angeles the following day. He arrives and checks into a motel and calls Griffin, only to be told to report to a particular address that Griffin gave him. So he jumps in his car and he goes to the address and he enters a room and he discovers within the room two private detectives and a court stenographer and is given the following recommendation.
Kingsley, as you might imagine, freaked out a bit. He said look, I am not going to get into this until I talk to an attorney, and goes off and does so. He spends a little bit of time with the attorney, explains exactly what's occurred, the attorney says look you have absolutely nothing to worry about, go and talk to them all you want. And so he does. In fact, he goes back and he discusses with the PI's, the Private Detectives, Private Investigators if you will, precisely what is going on in great detail, and all this is typed up by the stenographer and so on, and the Private Investigators, frankly, couldn't be less interested. The Church had apparently told them that Kingsley was responsible for blood highway from one end of the country to the other, and they were very disinterested in what they discovered from him. Nonetheless, shortly thereafter, a comm ev was held. Of course, the findings and recommendations for it were never published. The loss, well, from the Mission Network there was a loss of about $400,000 in cash that went into the Church, another $400,000 approximately in real estate equity, and those missions have never recovered. Why was this done to Kingsley? Well, we are going to look into the story of another large mission holder, Steve Surry, because he was TOLD why. Steve owned 5 US missions, Salt Lake City, Denver, 3 in the Seattle area called Bellevue, Seattle per se, and University Way. As of October 1982, his network had highest-ever stats of nearly $40,000 per week and the 5 missions have a net worth of cash and liquid assets of nearly 1 million dollars. Steve, as did the other mission holders, attended the 1982 Mission Holders Conference, was as shocked at its content. But he was more shocked at what came next. By Wednesday, October the 20th, Bridge, a private profit-making corporation, had called him on the phone and told him that every single one of his missions must have 100 copies of every Scientology book as their book stocks. He was told "If you don't, the Finance Police will be at your door." Well, a deal was struck. By Thursday, October the 28th, the Commanding Officer of FOLO West US, Link Elliot had, unbeknownst to Steve, traveled to the Salt Lake City Mission and had begun conversion of it into an Org. As a matter of fact, on Friday the 29th of October, he called a meeting of all the Mission public to announce it. On Sunday, October 31st, Steve received a call from the Salt Lake Mission ED. "Lieutenant Galloway of the International Finance Police is here and he wants $15,000 per day for inspections." Steve considered carefully his position at that point, and he realized that either he would pay the $15,000 a day or they would simply declare him and take the money anyway. So he paid $30,000 for 2 days inspections to the International Finance Police. Monday, November the 1st was not to be a good day. To begin the day, Steve received a call from the Seattle area missions telling him that the University Way Mission broke. On the same day, later on, the Salt Lake Mission ED, whose conscience was really bothering him, called Steve up to tell him about becoming an org. Steve, as you might imagine, was shocked, dismayed and angered. I asked Steve what he got for the $75,000 that he paid to the Finance Police. After considering his answer carefully, he made it very clear that what the Missions got out of it was literally nothing. What was being done to the missions at that point was simply a gigantic reg event for Flag, both public and staff were being ordered and/or encouraged to go to Flag. They didn't inspect any books, any folders or anything. He was additionally ordered to get 10 staff members to Flag at a cost to the Mission network of an additional $17,000. On Wednesday, November the 3rd, Steve got the answer. This is the answer for Kingsley, and it's the answer for him. He had a meeting with Link Elliot again, who is the Commanding Officer of FOLO West US, and asked him what the heck was going on. Link said very clearly that he was under orders from the Watchdog Committee to turn all large Missions into Orgs, and any mission holder who refused would be declared. Steve asked, "Well what exchange am I to get for this, I have put these years of my life into building these missions..." and the answer to the question was nothing. By the end of the day, of Thanksgiving Day, November 25th 1982, beyond the $45,000 for the Seattle area missions, beyond the $30,000 for the Salt Lake City Mission, an additional $87,000 in fines had been levied against the Mission network. The total paid in 5 weeks time was $75,000 in inspections, $25,000 in books, films and so on, $17,000 for staff training and $87,000 in fines, for a total of $204,000 paid to the Church of Scientology. But there is a Catch-22 in all of this, as well. In December of 1982, Steve was recalled to Flag, obviously he had 'bad attitude' by this time, and among the things that occurred was that he was sent to Ethics, and it was decided he would work out of the condition of Treason, as he had been upset with management and so forth. And what was his amends project to be? His amends project was to be turning the Salt Lake City mission into an Org. In January 1983, Steve returned home. He tried to put all of the upsets behind him. He contacted his mission ED's, look we are going to put this network back together, we're going to get back on our feet and go for it. But in the middle of the month he was called by SMI, Scientology Missions International, and told that a Committee of Evidence was called on him, and 22 mission holders, as well. His mission executives around the country were being told that he was being Comm Ev'd, there was lots of third party, and so forth, and so his ability to actually control and manage those missions was diminished considerably. When Steve finally did get to testify before the Comm Ev, he discovered that they had only two reports of dubious credibility on him. The reports had very little information in them, and yet, according to the findings that were later read to him, he was found guilty of dozens of crimes and High Crimes. And yet, those findings and the recommendations that would have gone with them, simply were not issued. In February of 1983, because of his deteriorating ability to manage the missions, as a result of the third party and the unknownness of his findings and recommendations from the Comm Ev, Steve felt it was best for the network and best for his own sanity for him to resign, which he did. On May the 1st 1983, the findings and recommendations of the Committee of Evidence were finally published. It's interesting to note that Steve was NOT declared, he was just given lower conditions. Of course, by that time, his career was ruined, his mission network was torn to pieces, and he started a new life. A number of people have asked me to tell my story. I should say our story, because it involves both myself and my wife Vivian. And although we've been hesitant to do so, it so well illustrates the 4 stage approach that we mentioned earlier, you know, decide to do something, try the usual means, take severe actions, and then change the past to make a justifiable shore story, that I have decided to go ahead and do so. Our story begins in December 1982 when I was called by a Flag reg and asked about doing more NOTS. I was quite candid with him about how I felt about Church activities, including the Mission Holders meeting, the materials revealed in the Ron DeWolfe trial, the Richard Stewart, you know he was the private business owner in Los Angeles that was so abused and so on. And he wrote me up to the CMO, that is, the reg ((wrote me up)). I was called in and an attempt was made to 'handle' me, but their promise to follow up on the cycle and call me back and so forth was broken several times. And as more and more activities continued in Los Angeles, by the spring time we had contacted Vivian's son, who is Mark Yeager, at that time the Commanding Officer of the CMO International, and Chairman of the Watchdog Committee. We asked that he come home and have a talk with us. He said he was unable to do so because he was leaving town and couldn't, but he would meet us within a few weeks. In the interim, we were called and visited by Jeff Chervel (sp?) from the RTC, Ray Mithoff, who is the Senior C/S International and Jesse Prince, who was a principal in the Inspector Generals Network. We were told, as the three of them came in a group, that they had flown in from Flag just to see us. Over that weekend that they called, we had 8 plus or minus hours of meetings with them, and told them specifically our observations and grievances. They were convinced that there was a third party and we, as active field auditors, must have out-tech. There was some yelling, mostly by Jesse Prince, but otherwise the meetings were cordial. What was most surprising was their expression of complete shock and not knowing about any of these activities that had allegedly gone on in Los Angeles. The following Saturday we were visited again, this time by Jesse Prince, Jeff Chervel and his aide named Warren McShane. We were told that the Senior C/S International, Ray Mithoff, had written a program just for us, and that two 'auditors' had been flown in especially from Flag to handle us. We were told we would be getting some word clearing, and sec checking, and all of this was going to be done for free, provided that we handle other disaffected field as exchange. We agreed and spent a week being sec checked up one side and down the other. Our sec checkers, we later learned, were both in the Finance Police. By Saturday night, we were called to a meeting with Ray Mithoff, Warren McShane and Jesse Prince. During the meeting, Jesse became abusive, vulgar and threatening, when we refused to take a Condition of Confusion purely on his say so. He accused us of all manner of crimes and High Crimes, none of which we were guilty. After some minutes of the yelling and the threats, I stood up and Vivian with me, and said, "That's it. We've heard all we're going to of this, good night", and tried to leave. It was then that we were assaulted. Ray grabbed Vivian and yanked her back into the room, Jesse and Warren grabbed my arms and held me. Finally, amid their yelling and cursing, we struggled free and escaped. There were attempts by our auditors to patch things up, but all they were allowed to run was "What withhold did Ray miss on you?" or "What withhold did Jesse miss on you?" and so forth. Approximately two months later, we learned that we were to be Comm Ev'd. We had already resigned from the Church, not so much because of our cycle ((with Ray and gang)) but because of what we saw being done to others. The Committee of Evidence, nonetheless, went on. Vivian, always the more direct of the two of us, refused to attend. I did attend, but made it clear that it was only as a courtesy to the members. Besides, we had learned previously that the findings and recommendations for the Comm Ev, although it had not yet taken place, had already been written up at Int. My reporting that fact made them angry. That I would even think that they would allow such a thing to go on. But it turned out to be true, and when the findings and recommendations were finally published, 3 of the 4 committee members wrote really serious knowledge reports to the Church saying that the findings and recommendations had been significantly altered. By the way, for anyone that's interested in seeing them, I have copies of those Knowledge Reports. A mission, as a matter of fact, was fired to Los Angeles to handle the "Zegel Comm Ev which was flapping". What was the Church's response to altered findings and recommendations? "We can't change the findings and recommendations because that would be following the enemy line." I guess it means more to the Church for the lies to stand. Coming up a little closer to present time, I thought we would talk about the recent Church caper in Germany. The OT Committee, which is an association of Free Scientologists from around the world, was holding a convention in Munich, West Germany and the Church fired two missions and 10 detectives to try to disrupt that meeting. These missions came from COST, the Church Of Spiritual Technology, which is the new alter-ego of the Church of Scientology and the RTC, the Religious Technology Center. They discovered that attending this meeting was one Silvie Herman, a former staff member from Munich, and what the missions attempted to do was to collect an affidavit from some of her former staff memeber associates, indicating that perhaps she had misappropriated funds or embezzled money or some such things while on staff, so that they could present criminal charges against her. In fact, they did collect such an affidavit, they went to the German Police and the German Police came and arrested Silvie Herman and put her in jail. The Free Scientologists that were there got real real busy when this occurred, gathered up a huge amount of documentation indicating that this was a typical kind of Church activity, that they had submitted false affidavits and so forth in the past, and had this material delivered to the judge prior to the hearing. When the hearing for Silvie took place, the judge looked through the materials and said that there was considerable question in their minds regarding this particular affidavit. As a result of that, he released Silvie on her own recognizance, but unknown to the Church Officials at that time, the State Attorney, which is the next higher level Attorney in the German legal system, had had a meeting with the judge scheduled for just 15 minutes after this trial was to be over. In fact, that meeting took place and a decision was made that there should be a raid against the Orgs in Munich. The following morning at 8 am, 100 police officers arrived in front of the Munich Org and another 15 or 20 arrived at the local mission. 4500 kilograms of files were taken at the Org. Approximately 300 kilograms of files were taken at the nearby Mission, a total of nearly 5 metric tons of documents. Of those materials, no pc folders were taken. After reviewing that information, and looking through the financial records of the Church, a hearing on the status was held and it was found that the Church of Scientology, in fact, was not a Church at all, but a trade or commercial activity, a for-profit corporation in Germany. Scientology has lost its Church status. They now, all the staff members, have to apply for trade licenses to be Scientologists. There was another Church caper recently in Spain. John Caban, who is one of the principles in the OT committee, lives in Madrid, and had arranged with Peers Gartstrom (sp?), a former CO of the Madrid Org, to come to Spain to speak to Spanish officials regarding alleged illegal activities of the Church in Spain in previous years. Melissa Caban, John's wife, went to the airport to pick Peers Gartstrom up, and as he was walking up the ramp toward her, three plainclothes "officers" took Peers away. Later, Church detectives approached Melissa and said to her, "Your husband is next." Melissa was obviously very shaken by what she had seen. She went home, she got on the phone, she called all the Spanish legal officials that she could think of, the local police, the state police, other individuals of that nature, simply trying to find out what had happened to Peers, and none of them knew anything about it at all. Ultimately, how it turned out, was that the Church had sent private detectives to pick him up. They had identified themselves, pretending to be law enforcement individuals, had taken Peers away, apparently scared him to death saying that Interpol was after him and he was going to have to run for his life and so forth. Peers was put back on a plane and went back to Denmark or another one of the Scandinavian countries, and has not been seen or heard from since. But what Melissa did was to go to the Spanish authorities, identified the three Church detectives that had impersonated police officers, they were arrested by Spanish authorities and charged with impersonating police officers, criminal charges. I thought perhaps it would be worthwhile to take a few minutes as well and talk about Robin Scott. For those of you that haven't heard, Robin Scott was involved in an operation in the early part of 1984 where individuals entered the Org in Denmark wearing Sea Org uniforms or the like, and collected a NOTS pack, walked away with it, and had it in their possession. The Church, obviously, was very disturbed to hear that this had happened, since that obviously would cut into their monopoly on the NOTS technology, or so they thought, and so an operation was planned to 'get' Robin Scott. Peter Glass was the Scientologist that was chosen to assist the Church in this activity, and what Glass did was call Robin on the phone. He told Robin that he was a musician working in Denmark making very good money, and wanted to do Solo through advanced section 3 ((OT III)) for himself and his wife. He wanted his advanced section V, what the Church calls NOTS and other auditing. He invited Robin to join him at a rather posh resort, where he was to be going on a vacation, and the two of them would discuss the details, exchange money, and so forth. On March the 13th, 1984, Robin got on a plane flying toward this resort, and the plane had a stopover in Copenhagen. And while that made him a little bit nervous, he really didn't think too much about it. As he got off the plane, policemen stopped him, there were GO staff members about, hiding behind pillars, taking photographs and carrying on, and one of them had been present to identify him for the law enforcement people. It was a very smooth operation on the part of the Church, and in fact, you know, one of their better operations. Robin was first taken to a holding area in the airport, where he was questioned, his luggage was searched, it was, in fact, determined he was the person that the Church was talking about. He was then taken to jail in Copenhagen. He spoke extensively to the Danish Police, felt that coming completely clean with them, telling them every single detail of not only what he did, but why, was the most important factor, and essentially found them to be very affable and very helpful to him, and were not hostile or mean or unpleasant to him in any way. At any rate, he found that a lawyer was appointed for him by the Danish authorities, the lawyer turned out to be an exceptionally skilled and really very helpful individual, who placed calls to Robin's wife, and made sure that those kind of communication lines stayed open, and that he got mail and visits and all the things that one would want given in that rather unpleasant circumstance. During this period of time, Robin was approached by Church officials and offered a deal. If he would merely return the materials that he had taken, and sign an affidavit they had prepared, they would drop the charges against him. He had largely returned the materials already, but he was horrified when he read the affidavit that they had prepared. What the affidavit did was indicated that there was a large international conspiracy of which Robin was only a part, and that the conspirators included David Mayo in Santa Barbara, Bent Corydon in Riverside, Lawrence West in San Diego, California and a wide variety of terminals in Europe. Robin simply refused to sign the affidavit, that information, in fact, was not true, he states it's unequivocably not true, and I have talked to the majority of the other people that those affidavits were designed to implicate, and they said they simply had no knowledge or understanding of what was going on at all. This is another instance of the Church simply attempting to manufacture bad news about these people that it is trying to discredit when, in fact, that bad news, that discreditable information, does not exist. Robin's trial date was set for Wednesday, April the 18th. Five days prior to that on Friday April the 13th, he was informed that he had a visitor. A strange event in itself in that he had already had his prescribed visitor that week. His lawyer, of course, could see him as often as necessary, but he was only permitted one visitor. Nonetheless, he was escorted down to the visitors area and he found that in this small room, which was about the size of an average auditing room, there were 10 people jammed in there. The RTC had fired a mission to Copenhagen to try to get something more going against Robin Scott. In that room was a Judge, the Judge's Bailiff, a stenographer, an interpreter, three Church attorneys, including Thomas Small that had been flown in from Los Angeles, Warren McShane and a variety of other Sea Org members in full uniform and regalia. The attempt here was to get an injunction served on Robin to prevent him from distributing the materials that he had collected from the org in Denmark. Because, in fact, he had already returned those materials, the Judge found in Robin's favor. That was the end of that. The cost of that was inestimable. On Wednesday, April the 18th, came the trial date for Robin. He went into court, the Church charged that he had damaged them to the tune of $200,000, because the GI at the Denmark AO had crashed by that much apparently, charged him with theft, and charged him with entering the premises with the intent to obtain documents or information, essentially an industrial espionage-type charge. Regarding the damages, the Church was unable to establish in court that the criminal court was the right place to sue for damages. The judge threw that charge out because that, of course, is a civil damages activity, and he was very surprised that the Church had tried to get away with that in criminal court. The second charge of theft was withdrawn by the Church, they couldn't prove that Robin had stolen anything. The third charge however, of entering premises with intent to get documents, Robin had pleaded guilty to, and the judge looked at that, and said, "Yes, indeed that's the case, the ordinary sentence for that is 4 months. However, you have already served one month, I will suspend the remaining three months, and so you are free to go." The Church, of course, had very bad indicators on that, Robin was tickled pink, and within 24 hours was on a plane and back together with his wife in Candacriag in the UK. So, we are very pleased that Robin is free, we are sorry that any religious group exists on the face of the Earth that hides its materials, or holds its materials so far from the public that the only way that one can get them is to undertake such Herculean tasks. Perhaps the period of time when that is the case, is now behind us. Probably a dozen times a week I am asked this question, "How on Earth could this have happened?" How could the Church and the tech that I love get so far off the rails. Hundreds of thousands spent on private investigators for harassment, millions and millions spent on lawyers, dozens of law suits, the Church lying to the press and to the public, missions closed, all manner of abuses, how on Earth could this have happened. It is my conclusion that there are three closely related factors that brought this about. The first of these three factors is the spill-over of tech into admin. It is important to remember that, to a large degree, tech was developed for use in auditing, in that closed environment. As the Church grew, and being an admin terminal became a career, we discover more and more instances of the tech being misapplied as an admin tool. We find admin terminals studying the tech with the viewpoint of "How can I use this to get my stats up?" The result is that there is a bending of the technology. For example, a pc who natters in session is indicating the presence of a missed withhold, a simple technical matter. The auditor locates and handles the missed withhold because, and this is important, because the pc will directly benefit. He will feel better, the session will proceed more smoothly, and the pc will get more gain. You can see the direct benefit. This benevolent tech, however, has been bent to mean that anyone with any complaint has crimes against the org, and is used as a justification for all types of acts against the person involved. The paranoia and relief confronting actual outpoints is terrifying. Anyone with a complaint is a potential criminal, and boy is that convenient. This altering of the tech is squirreling, if you will. Let's take a look at Ethics. Remember when Ethics was the 'Reason and Contemplation of Optimum Survival'? Boy, have we come a long way from that to on-the-spot declares, dirty tricks, private investigators, a variety of illegal acts, and so on. Is this Ethics? I think not. I see it more as arrogant lawlessness in the name of Ethics. We have to deal with this Technology in the frame for which it was developed, rather than buttering it all over the universe. Let's take another simple piece of technology as an example. What turns it on, will turn it off. I would suggest that if I were to talk over to you and put an anvil on your foot, that my continuing to put anvil's on your foot would not turn that off. The datum, put back in context, and there's the key factor, IN CONTEXT, means if an auditing process produces a reactive response in the pc, the continuation of that process will ultimately run out that reactive response. That is demonstrably true, and also demonstrably of benefit to the pc. So what turns it on, will turn it off, but not when you are dealing with anvils on the foot, or when you are dealing with lies to the press. You can not eliminate dishonesty with more dishonesty. Do you see? And it's a trap. We recognize the basic truth of the technology, we have seen the successful applications, and yet we are trapped in the misapplications or the applications out of context. The tech MUST be applied in the context for which it was created. Otherwise, it can be a real trap. The second part of the answer to the question, "How could this have happened?" is what I call 'The NO LOOK'. Those people within the Church, or out, who don't want to look at anything but what the Church of Scientology tells them to look at. You've encountered them and so have I, you know, 'No, don't play me any tape, no, I don't want to read that' and so on. Why would a person, in a subject that reveres LOOKING, you know, look--don't think, if it's true for you it's true, and so forth, why would, within that philosophy, we have people who won't look? It's troubled me for some time. In fact the answer came just after Christmas of this past year. I was given a sweater that was the wrong size and I took it back to the store to exchange it. The clerk was not at all attentive to me. He kept walking away and so on. Just before I started to say something, and I wanted to say something sharply to this person, I hesitated, 'He'll think I have a missed withhold' I thought. Now why did I think THAT? I was really puzzled, my universe sort of went 'creeeak!', and I was determined to figure out why I had this particular computation. And I did figure out what had gone on, to explain... Let me create an example, and it's really quite simple. Let us suppose I walk into the org and the reg wants me to sign up for a service. I say "Are you kidding me with these prices or what?" Now the reg, seeing that I am upset, and of course, the basis of my upset you must understand, most likely, is that I want Scientology and can't get it... Nonetheless, he arranges a free session for me, so at least I am going to get SOME Scientology. I go into the session, and this issue of prices is on my mind. Now, of course, the auditor will check for ARC breaks and Problems, but eventually we are going to have to handle prices, and since I am complaining, he's not going to have much choice but to pull the withhold, you know?
And so on. And we'll pick up probably chatter to friends, and go earlier, and maybe pick up an incident in the 5 and dime store as a kid, you know, change the price on a toy or something to buy it when you didn't have enough money. Any rate, that ultimately will F/N and there will be a bit of charge off the case, and you'll feel better. Now, a smart auditor has a broader look, and perhaps will check the subject of money, you know, now that'll get the meter active, for missed withholds. In this society, a good auditor can generally get a chain or two on money almost any time. But we'll take these couple of chains and we'll run 'em off and we blow a bit more charge off the case and you'll end up at the end feeling a bit better. But look at the misapplication. Are the prices in fact lower? No they're not. Is the person's income any higher? No. Well, what are we doing then? Well, apparently, what we are trying to do is to run out the analytical evaluation that prices are too high. Does it work? Unfortunately, sometimes the answer is yes. But perhaps not why you think. It works because the session, which has failed to handle the real situation, is now a lock on the present scene, you know. A = A. The disagreement with prices = the missed withhold on money. And if you continue to speak out, it means you have MORE overts, and of course, you don't want to have more overts, and you certainly don't want others to THINK that you have more overts. Let's look at this a bit further. Look around the room you are in right now and select any object, any object at all. I promise you I can find a chain of overts or withholds in your case regarding that object. Suppose you chose a lamp. "Did you ever do anything you shouldn't have done with the lights on?" How about "Have you ever done anything you shouldn't have done with the lights off?" If you picked up a piece of paper, how about "Ever write a love note you shouldn't have written?" How about "Did you ever read something on paper that wasn't addressed to you?" Do you get the idea? You can find a chain of overts or withholds under ANYTHING in the bank, because A = A, that is Anything equals Anything. Perhaps you committed an overt when there was a plant in the room. Well, we can find that overt, although disrelated, via the plant, because in the bank the plant equals the overt. The fact of a chain of overts under prices or money does not mean that the complaint is invalid, only that there is some charge there. A charge present does not mean that there is no real present time situation. But watch the implication come forward. If you read or hear something you shouldn't, say about the field or Anti-Scientology and you observe it to be true or agree, you must have withholds. That's what the Church would say. And, of course, it's true. Now, no one wants to have withholds or be bad, and certainly no one generally wants their withholds exposed. So all the Church has to do is indicate that any time you agree with anything that they don't like, it means you have overts and withholds. And they do that. All this sec checking business centers around this phenomenon. And the trap is that it is true, 100 percent. Anyone who agrees with the field has withholds. Of course, so does anyone who has ever driven a Volkswagon, so does anyone who's ever eaten fish and chips and so does anyone who has ever breathed. ((Ron wrote a bulletin early on that said ALL ARC BREAKS STEM FROM MISSED WITHHOLDS. He later suggested that the nature of the missed withhold was more related to the wrong or missed item in the GPM than it was to any overts the pc had committed. He makes it clear though that the pc's complaints and natter about the auditor only really indicate a missed withhold when the auditor is doing his best for the pc. If the auditor is not doing his best, and in fact is trying to harm, use, or suppress the pc, the pc will of course get upset and start complaining and attacking and nattering about the auditor. So it takes some skill to determine what's really going on with the pc. It may very well be true that a pc high enough on the tone scale, when faced with blatant suppression, out-tech, or subversive intentions on the part of the auditor, would just turn the session around on the auditor and pull HIS withholds! So it may still be possible that the pc that succumbs to complaints and natter and 1.1. attacks rather than direct handling of incoming suppression is suffering from his own indecisions in the past and his own, as yet, still unpulled overts. The fact is though, that if you really DO pull the withholds of the pc who is being abused by the auditor, he WILL come up tone to suddenly turning the tables on the auditor and putting HIM in session to get HIS overts to stop. When someone does you wrong, you complain and natter to the degree that you have done wrong too and have it justified and restrained, and you handle the wrong coming at you terminatedly to the degree that your own slate is clean. The fact that a pc complains about an auditor means that the auditor is doing wrong, AND the pc has missed withholds on the subject of his own. The Church would have you believe that if you had no missed withholds of your own, you would be able to tolerate any wrong that came your way, WHICH IS TRUE, but that don't make it RIGHT! Get it? The Church is still wrong. The fact that people blow and natter and complain about the Church rather than handle its out-ethics terminatedly merely means that the Church is committing overts that are similar to the overts that are restrained and withheld on the pc's own track. Thus, the Church gets away with murder, and smugly claims that everyone who doesn't like it has withholds. YES, THEY HAVE WITHHOLDS AND SO DOES THE CHURCH, WHICH IS WHY YOUR WITHHOLDS ARE BEING RESTIMULATED! The very biggest problem though that I see in the money arena with the Church is that everyone in the Church has a massive MU on the concept of WORTH. How much is auditing worth? How much is Eternal Freedom worth? Is it worth a million dollars to not go to hell forever? Is it worth your life? Is it worth eternal slavery to those that freed you? Their concept of worth is what you are willing to trade for the end result of the service. Surely, getting free of this joint is worth every penny you have, as long as the price does not ruin your Eternal Future. So when you want to buy auditing you ask, "How much is Eternal Freedom?", they say "How much you got?" And you say, "Well I've got this much." And they say, "Good! It's worth ALL OF IT!" But this can only go on as long as there is no competition from other purveyors of Eternal Freedom. Say the Church is selling auditing at $3000 per intensive. They say, "Well it's worth that much!" And you say, "But I don't got that much!" And they say, "Well tough, come back when you do, we can't sell auditing for less than its worth." Then one day, Joe Squirrel comes along and offers the same auditing services for $2000 an intensive. He is starting competition. And the Church goes to him and says 'But you can't do that, you are selling it for less than it's worth!' And he says 'Worth Smorth. If I sold it for $3000 an intensive I would be making far less money than I am selling it for $2000 an intensive, so IT'S WORTH IT TO ME TO SELL IT FOR LESS.' Then someone else comes along and starts selling the same service for $1000 per intensive and all the customers start coming to him, and obviously pretty soon the Church and the other guy have to both lower their Copyright competitive. So now let's say that 20 people are selling auditing, each trying to steal market share by undercutting the rest because it is WORTH it to them to do so, and the price of an intensive is down around $50 an intensive. How low can this go? Well pretty soon, you find that people just can't charge any less because of the baseline costs of keeping themselves alive, and so when there are lots of competitors, each trying their best to streamline their operation, and give the best service for the lowest amount, you find that pretty soon everyone is charging just about the same price and that price is the minimum deliverable price for that product. Now, here is where the MU on worth gets cleared up. Let's say you bought an intensive with one of the earlier providers at $1000 an intensive, but you never used it. So you are the proud owner of one unused intensive and you held onto it while prices were plummeting. Even though the guy who sold you the intensive for $1000 is now charging $50 per intensive, he certainly does not owe you your money back nor even more intensives to make up for the amount of money you originally paid. This is true for any commodity. If you buy a commodity and then prices come down, you take a capital loss. So, one day you decide you don't really need this intensive that is waiting for you at that provider and you get the idea that maybe you ought to offer it up for sale to someone else who might want to buy it and use it. So you go to market and you set up a stand and you make a great big sign that says 'One Intensive for sale, 1000 bucks.' Someone comes over to you and points out to you that others are selling intensives for $50, how can you expect to sell your intensive for $1000? So you say, "Well that's what I paid for it, that's what I want to get for it." A little discussion with your potential buyer shows you that you don't stand much chance of getting what you want, you certainly do not DESERVE to get what you want just because you want it, right? So you say, "But it's WORTH $1000! It was worth it to me to pay $1000, and it should be worth it to others to pay $1000 for this intensive." And your buyer says, "Yes, no doubt if this were the last intensive in the world, you would probably find a buyer at $1000 very quickly, but intensives are everywhere, and they cost $50, and frankly you can't sell your intensive for $1000 today because IT IS NO LONGER WORTH $1000, it is worth only $50!" So finally, you understand that the WORTH of an item is exactly and only what you can get for it on the open market. It may be "priceless" art from the Orient, but if nobody wants it, it's completely worthless. On the other hand, if someone wants it really bad, and they are willing to give everything they own for it, then it's certainly worth something more. However, if they can get it for $50 dollars down the street, then its never worth more than that lowest price that he can get it for down the street. Saying, "But it's WORTH a million dollars, buy it from me instead" is ridiculous. So the next time someone says, "Well the reason that auditing is priced so high is because it is worth a lot of money", realize that you are talking to a criminal liar who thinks that price is a function of worth, rather than worth being a function of price. Price is actually a function of VALUE AND AVAILABILITY through independent dealers. The more something is valued the higher its price, until you hit its ceiling price where no buyer can afford to purchase it. And the more available it is, the less its price will be until you hit its baseline floor where no seller can afford to produce it and bring it to market. The monetary WORTH of any item IS its price, and is solely and only what you can buy or sell it for on the free market. Now you understand the fanatical devotion the Church puts towards wiping out free market competition. It places an inflated WORTH on their products.)) The third part of the answer to the question "How could this have happened?" is, like it or not, LRH and his influence. It does not take a genius to recognize that no matter who is holding the Senior Management positions in the Church, the Church has behaved in an irrational and erratic fashion over the years. Just by dumb luck, someone would have risen to Senior Management who is sane, yet almost without exception every Senior Management person has been removed and vilified. And surely the actions of current management, and their influence on the Church, indicates serious problems there as well. The tech says that when there is a constant trouble in an area, look only at those people who have been there throughout the time of the trouble. In this instance, unfortunately, it's Ron himself. And yes I know that current public relations press and so on, is that he hasn't managed the Church since 1966, but that is simply a lie, another in a long line of shore stories. The facade that LRH constructed for himself, to shield himself from blame, or legal liabilities for wrongdoing by the Church, is falling apart. In addition, the PR image that has been presented of Ron is also falling apart. The implications of all this are pretty wide-reaching. Ron's image is going to be tarnished, that's just the way that that is, and not because of enemies, but because of actualities, lies and misrepresentations. We in the new Church are going to have to confront and deal with this truth. We have already proven our ability to do so by our handling of the scene with the Church. Now there is going to be a scene with Ron. This is going to be tougher, but since we know it is a problem, let's simply go ahead and tackle it head on. I have done my best in the past, on these tapes, to collect and verify every bit of information wherever possible. And this tape is certainly no exception. Now this isn't necessarily going to be easy, so fasten your seat belt. The first area we are going to look at is claims about LRH's early life. And before we are too harsh, let any of us who has never exaggerated our own life, or our own accomplishments, cast the first stone. But this information is going to be published, and as believers in this philosophy, we are going to have to handle it. While many many details about LRH's past have been falsified or exaggerated, I intend to concentrate on those that relate to or influence the tech. Let me give you an example, LRH's claim that he was raised on a cattle ranch. Records show however that he lived mostly in small towns with relatives, not on a ranch. This is no big deal, the person who developed the tech could have lived either place without affecting the quality of the work. So who cares about that particular claim anyway. On the other hand, LRH claims to have extensively traveled throughout the Far East as a young man, including being taught by a variety of mystics and so forth. In fact, according to records, his travels to the East consisted of a two week trip to China with the YMCA, and a short period on Guam, when his father was assigned there by the Navy. These travels are NOT extensive, and LRH's diaries and notes from this period fail to demonstrate any significant insights. I trust you see the difference between the two types of discrepancies. OK, here we go. Ron's college career is not as illustrious as we have been led to believe. He spent, in fact, only one year in college, and the nuclear physics course which is so talked about, in fact, he received an F in. He never received any degree at all. The doctorate that he claims came from Sequoia University, a mail-order diploma mill. Some records indicate that Ron had a financial or ownership interest in it. His military career is not as he has represented it either. LRH saw no verified combat that we can determine, and certainly was not a combat hero. He was never wounded, and was neither blinded nor crippled. He did not command a squadron of Corvettes, nor was he returned as the first casualty of the Easter Theatre on the Secretary of the Navy's private plane. There have been claims that LRH won between 20 and 40 medals and Palms, but Naval records indicate that he received only four campaign ribbons. He won no Purple Heart, the automatic decoration for those who are wounded in the line of duty. The shore story was that he was in Naval Intelligence, and consequently, his records fail to show his actual accomplishments. ((Meaning that for security purposes his history has been played down by those employing him in the undercover operations of Intelligence.)) Careful review however shows NO indication at all of an intelligence career, and the important records, such as being wounded and so forth, would not have been the type of records purged from any Intelligence Officer's file anyway. LRH's post-war career takes on a different character, with his claim of being blinded and crippled deleted. Clearly he did not cure himself of those things by his early experiments in Dianetics. What is clear is that after leaving the Military, Ron was very mentally uncomfortable. He wrote repeatedly to the Veterans Administration asking for financial, medical and psychiatric assistance. During this period, also, he was involved with Aleister Crowley, and all manner of cultic ritual. Some of which was, if you will, unsavory. The next area that is important to look at is the development of the tech. Here we have considerable contradictions. LRH would have us believe that he is the Sole Source of all of the worthwhile tech, and that everything that was contributed by others was either useless, dead-ends and so on. However, in my interviews with dozens of people, many many individuals contributed SIGNIFICANTLY to the tech, not just in refinements, or in methods of application, but in terms of genuine basic pieces of tech, most still in use today. ((Thank God, or else the whole thing probably wouldn't work!)) For example, the TRs were developed in Washington D.C. by Jan and Dick Halpern, and early bulletins apparently even included acknowledgements to them for that creation. Later, of course, those acknowledgements were deleted. The CCHs were also developed by the Halperns, with the help of LRH, Jr. or Nibs. The concept of repetitive questioning was created by Jack Horner, ((who)) according to the Church, ((is)) one of the most horrible Squirrels of all times. ((Jack Horner is presently listed on FLAG ED 2830RB Suppressive Persons and Suppressive Groups List. Nibs (Ron DeWolfe) is not listed, but he is certainly not in good standing, and I vaguely remember from somewhere that the Halperns had been declared, but they are NOT on the present list. It should also be noted that John McMaster was the driving force behind the original Power Processes, now considered confidential even though they are no longer on the Bridge. McMaster resigned from the Church in disgust in the early '70's. He too is NOT on the declare list.)) So, as you can see, the tech has come from a wide variety of Sources. Once again, we must put this in perspective, because we don't want to completely negate LRH's contributions to the tech either. Either extreme is incorrect. His contributions are myriad and important. He has been a catalyst, a harvester, and has written brilliantly about the material. But has not created all of it, as we have been led to believe over the years. This is simply another example of changing the past to meet current needs. What WE need to do is to rebalance our affection for Ron. We can still hold him in high esteem for what he really created, and stop the false admiration of him for things he did not. That I believe will be good for all involved. What IS important in this technology is not Source. Now, I realize that's a heretical thing to say, but what is important is not Source, but TRUTH. We can be gracious about past misrepresentations, we could waste our time in useless castigation, but I suggest we simply forgive all past lies, and spend the time and energy we might have devoted to blame and regret to a rededication by each of us to find the Truth. The relationships between LRH, the Church, and the variety of peripheral corporations surrounding it, have been the subject of much controversy. I would suggest that the principle problems faced here are the lies. The Church, its officials, not to mention LRH himself, have had to live double lives, not unlike the woman who is being physically beaten by her husband at home, yet says that all is well while speaking to the neighbors. Living that kind of a lie, and the Church, the Sea Org, the Commodore's Messenger Org, the RTC, Author's Services, and the Church of Spiritual Technology all live that kind of lie, is a nearly impossible and emotionally devastating task. The hottest subject in this area of course is money. LRH has always claimed that his only compensation from the Church has been book royalties, and that, of course, is a half-truth. While he has received book royalties, they have been enormously higher than those paid by regular publishers. However, since LRH controls the publisher, Bridge and New Era Publications, formerly PUBS and PUBS DK, he set the royalties where he liked. Facts. LRH's royalties through 1981 on his book income have been in excess of $50,000 per week. Sometimes much more. No, that was not an error, that was $50,000 per week. Now, an author is entitled to whatever royalty the market will bear. Of course, when one controls the publishing company, it will bear a great deal more. Beyond this, LRH has billed the RRF, do you remember the Religious Research Foundation, he's billed the RRF $10,000,000 for the scripts, directorial fees and consulting for the Tech Films. At least $2,100,000 as already been paid, yet LRH maintains control of all the copyrights for both the scripts and the films. Most recently, through LRH's private company called Author Services, he has been collecting huge sums. According to individuals I have interviewed, between March and October of 1982, LRH was collecting in excess of a $1,000,000 per week. That money came from the US, and it went to Bridge, then across to NEP, that's in Denmark, and then by bank wire or transfer to accounts in Luxemborg and Lichtenstein. The shore story of LRH financing all the research and so forth is just that, a shore story. Church critics and the IRS have known about this for years. Such large sums going to an individual is called inurement, that is the proceeds of a non-profit corporation benefiting a private person. Such could cause the loss of tax-exempt status, and apparently the Church as already lost that status. ((They just got it back. 1994)) See how the problems begin to accumulate? The next area we'll look at is MCCS, Mission Corporate Category Sortout. It was run by Laurel Sullivan, LRH's personal public relations director. The mission was to take all Church entities, the Church of Scientology, Bridge, LRH etc etc, and sort them out by category. Now MCCS had a problem that it was supposed to solve. And the problem was, LRH controls the Church and has always controlled the Church, but he couldn't control the Church. Now you solve that problem. For example, the trademarks were an issue. To prevent Trademarks from going into the Public Domain, one must exercise both supervision and control over the marks. If LRH controlled the marks, he controlled the Church. So did he then control the Church, or have the marks gone into the Public Domain. You can see the problem I'm sure. As an aside, the trademark cases, both in Omaha and in San Diego, are brought and funded by the RTC, just as their assertion of control, to establish a legal presence as being in control. Now this is a pretty expensive exercise, and I believe there is a pretty good chance the trademarks will be ruled to be in the Public Domain. ((No chance.)) If LRH had been in control, of course, he would be legally liable in some of the many lawsuits against the case, but LRH had, of course, 'resigned in 1966'. See how the confusions and conflicts begin to mount? MCCS was to create an image by paper trail, an alteration of the past, that would demonstrate, after the fact, that LRH was NOT in control of the Church, when, in fact, he was. LRH's category was to be 'An Author receiving royalties'. That, of course, is a half-truth, and in talking to the people involved, I learned how this works. First, you must become indoctrinated to get this. You must live, underline that, you must LIVE the half-truth. You LIVE 'LRH is an Author collecting royalties'. You do not live 'He runs the publishing company and takes as much money as he likes.' You live only the half of the truth that is consistent with the image that you are trying to create. MCCS was then to clean up any inconsistencies with the half-truth that was being created. And that's all MCCS was trying to do, change the past to make it consistent with the half-truth in the present. There have been a variety of other financial transactions, the details of which are long and dreary. They follow a similar pattern of LRH collecting large sums of money, while PR indicating that such was not the case. So what IS this? What are we looking at? How can LRH have contributed so much to the tech, and yet be involved in these activities of, to say the least, questionable morality, not to mention questionable legality? The answer is found in the dictionary under the term Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia comes from the Greek, schizine which means to split, and phrenos which means mind. And the definition has two parts.
This is not just a psychiatric term, it can be said of nearly anything. For example, a fancy sports car can be said to be schizophrenic when its a great deal of fun to drive, and yet is constantly in need of repairs. LRH, by all accounts of those who were close to him, suffers from schizophrenia. He has disassociated himself to the point that he is in seclusion. He can be, on the one hand, the brilliant author of much of the tech, while on the other, a ruthless, vicious tyrant, screaming, punishing, and intimidating his near associates into submission. Being a vengeful, vicious adversary to any he views as his enemies. The Church, especially its high officials, have had to live this double life. They have had to live the PR half-truths in lies, pretend everything was OK, and yet comply with orders from him they KNEW would cause harm and bring disrepute to the Church. These Church officials, for the most part, I believe, acted with good hearts. They wanted to see people on the Bridge getting gains, regardless of the sacrifices they had to make in their own personal integrity. Those sacrifices, sad to say, were misguided. The lies and half-truths have grown to such a state that the Church has lost all credibility, and if we are not careful, the tech will soon follow. They missed the point, the ONLY remedy for lies is the TRUTH, NEVER more lies. We haven't mentioned the Gerry Armstrong case, and this might be a good time to do so. Gerry Armstrong was accused by the Church of stealing thousands of documents and invading the privacy of LRH and Mary Sue. Gerry had been appointed by LRH ((as)) his biography researcher in January of 1980 and ((he)) worked almost two years on the post, amassing tens of thousands of documents. He was instructed to provide copies of those documents to Omar Garrison. As Gerry read the documents he was collecting, he realized that the Church and LRH had been lying about LRH's past, his credentials and accomplishments. ((Didn't LRH see this coming?)) When he tried to correct those lies, he was sec checked and threatened. He left the Sea Org, delivering the last batch of documents to Garrison in the process. What followed was a false SP declare, and threats from the Church. Gerry collected from Garrison copies of those documents he felt would protect him. Later, the Church paid Garrison $240,000 NOT to write the biography, and sued Gerry. The case, which took six weeks to try, was heard in Los Angeles Superior Court by Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. His finding was issued on June the 20th of this year ((1984)). Judge Breckenridge found that Gerry was NOT guilty of stealing Church documents, invading the privacy of LRH and Mary Sue. He found that 'The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.' He found that Gerry and Jocelyn Armstrong, as well as the other defense witnesses, were credible and extremely persuasive. While saying of Mary Sue, "Her credibility leaves much to be desired, she struck the familiar pose of not seeing, hearing, or knowing any evil, yet she was the head of the Guardian's Office." He went on to say, "The Guardians Office, which the plaintiff headed, was no respecter of anyone's civil rights, particularly that of privacy." Obviously, the Church has appealed. Gerry and Jocelyn Armstrong are interesting heros in all of this, because they have fought a fight, not for themselves, but for the truth. And they have earned our respect and admiration and thanks. I just wish their ordeal was over. Here's a hot bit of news just in from the U.K. The Church had filed an injunction with the courts against Ron Lowery and Robin Scott demanding that all NOTS packs they had in their possession be turned over to the court. The judge, however, has denied the Church's request, ruling that those individuals can keep, copy and distribute those materials in any way they see fit. How about that! ((I would check on the present status of this before doing anything rash.)) Before getting into the conclusions portion of this tape, I would like to invite any of you who would like a free list of New Church centers worldwide, to send me a stamped, self-addressed business-sized envelope to, The Clear Center, 11934 Riverside Drive, Suite 211, North Hollywood, CA 91607 USA. I guess it's time to draw some conclusions about all of this, and the first conclusions I've drawn is that it's necessary to question everything. Stanley Milgram did remarkable experiments in obedience to authority among university students. And he demonstrated an alarming willingness of the average person to perpetrate harmful actions on fellow human beings when they fail to question directives of a superior. We have surely seen that, and all of us right now, share a very special vulnerability. You know the discrediting of the faith leaves the disillusioned hungering for new ideas, and a new faith. In fact, the end of an old fanaticism does not lead to NO fanaticism, but merely moves fanaticism over to a new cause. A quote "No Scientology" fanatic is no less a fanatic, and is closer in belief to the fanatic Scientologist than to their true opposite, the tolerationist. The danger we face is that by bringing down the old, we prepare the path for the new fanatics. This is what we must steel ourselves to and guard against. We must understand it and prevent it. Each of us, in our own way, is vulnerable now to a new faith, a new Way, or a new Guru. The second conclusion I think we can draw from all of this, is that we must return to the basic philosophy, we must LOOK. We were charged in the beginning with the responsibility to determine what was true for ourselves, and our failure to uphold that responsibility has left us vulnerable. Look for yourself, study, investigate, question and examine EVERYTHING. THAT is the real lesson to learn from all of this. The third conclusion I think is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. We need no campaign to defile LRH, no campaign to defile the tech. We need a calm rational evaluation and a reunion with the society we so carelessly shoved aside. I am very pleased, and a little sad to announce that this is the last of these tapes. Their objective has been achieved, a New Church exists. I would like to thank all of you for your help, your good wishes and your support. My investigations, I assure you, continue. Perhaps this is a bittersweet ending, but from our disillusionment can grow a new faith in our own abilities to see and judge the truth. Jon Zegel
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