12 Reader Responses

1. hebrides Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 10:18 am

   Afew things I’d like to quibble with from the FAQ you linked to…

   “Have Scientologists harassed and threatened people?

   Yes and no. While Scientology tends to encourage evangelism and can be somewhat aggressive in their recruiting technique, many of the rumors of bizarre behavior or violence have been largely exaggerated… insinuations that this is somehow “official” Church policy is nothing short of ridiculous.”

   The Cult Awareness Network is now essentially a Scientology organization on account of hundreds of nearly identical lawsuits filed against it by “individual” Scientologists during the same period of time. There is evidence that this was not coincidence but an orchestrated effort aimed at destroying and taking over that organization. This was in the late 90’s and covered on 60 minutes and elsewhere. It has also been cited (though unfortunately I do not have a reference handy) that one of Hubbard’s directives, the so-called “fair game” doctrine makes it ethically (by Scientology ethics) okay to fuck with anyone perceived as an enemy of the Church.

   “Didn’t several Scientologists go to prison for spying on their enemies?

   Yes. During the eighties, ten members of the organization were sent to prison for either spying on individuals or government agengies in an attempt to block criminal probes. This spying included ilegal wiretaps.”—What the FAQ writer fails to mention is that one of the ten sent to prison was Hubbard’s wife. I believe this gets mentioned in the book co-written by Ron, Jr. “L.Ron Hubbard: Madman or Messiah?” There’s a case for her having taken the fall for Ron who, by this time, like Dick Cheney or Mo Berg of the Children of God, bouncing around between various “undisclosed locations” so the Feds couldn’t nab him.

   That being said, I’m intrigued by and have sympathy for the person of L. Ron Hubbard. He synthesized lots of interesting and useful mental disciplines (Dianetics itself strikes me as just one form of conventional hypnotherapy given a cool new name and cool new terminology like “engrams”). He was a very smart, very cunning but also very unhappy person. Had he not have been such a narcissist (a seeming requirement for being a cult leader), the legacy he left would not be rife with so much potential for and actual history of negative use for its practitioners and the critics of their beliefs

2. Fu Manchu Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 10:56 am

   Here’s a follow-up on The Pilot…

   He originally wrote Self-Clearing and Super-Scio under that name because he was still inside scientology at the time and had to write anonymously. He is an old-timer with previous experience in metaphysics so was able to synthesize a lot of the material on his own to make it more accessible. For instance, some of the earliest processes in Self-Clearing are very advanced ones in CoS (you’d spend many thousands to get there) and his material doesn’t rely on e-meters.

   Eventually, he was outed as The Pilot by his ex-wife, and I’m pretty sure some bad things happened to him as a result, but I’m not sure the details. I believe he was assaulted and became in a coma. He’s since recovered and working on a new philosophy of his own.

3. alistair Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 11:29 am

   to venture into any of these indoctrinal realms one does have to have one`s metaphyisical ducks in a row. without a steady grounding in the patterns of hypnosis and deprsonalisation one can get sucked into the undertow of cult practices before you know it. the jesuits state openly and clearly “give me your child before the age of seven and we have him for life.” and they say it like it`s a good thing.
   who is driving the cult awareness network news? they attacked the practices of a.l.williams, now known as primerica, who i worked for in the early 90`s, as a cult. primerica is a multi-level company selling life insurance and investments. they do tend to be evangelical in thier motivational practices. so does any sales organisation,sports team or business, if they want to be successful.

4. alistair Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 12:13 pm

   the pilot makes some interesting observations about the development of scientology and of l.ron himself. i see many similarities in the early developement of nlp.(nuero-linguistic programming.) not only with nlp,the process, but with richard bandler. another self taught “genius” who was able to make giant logical leaps. and possibly someone who wasn`t personally all that happy.

5. Occult Investigator Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 12:27 pm

   A few things I’d like to quibble with from the FAQ you linked to

   Just to point out, I didn’t write this. I’m merely linking to it. It’s a starting place for information, and not an ending place.

6. hebrides Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 1:45 pm

   Certainly. Point taken. The quibble is not with you or even with the fact that you linked to it, but with the FAQ itself which I felt, either out of ignorance or a too-strong desire to seem impartial (or a billion other possible reasons), simply left out certain information which doesn’t support Jennifer’s impressions of Scientology as an organization.

   And I’m all for The Pilot and freezoners as they seek to democratize an organizational structure that too easily stamp out dissent in its ranks to the detriment of individual humans, sort of like what the Catholic Church has done at any time and or place where it has had sufficient power to do so.

7. Haeresis Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 5:07 pm

   left out certain information ___

   As I offer dozens of links to that information, it didn’t seem relevant or even necessary to make a list of names. I also mentioned their agressive lagal action in a number of places.

8. Haeresis Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 5:09 pm

   On a related note, Cultwatch was just as much a bunch of whackos as half of the “cults” they claimed to be “watching.” i totally lost all respect for them when they listed the subgenius as a ‘dangerous’ group.

9. alistair Says:
   June 29th, 2005 at 5:12 pm

   well, subgenius is dangerous……………….:-*

10. Haeresis Says:
    June 29th, 2005 at 5:21 pm

    Pbbllpth!!!

11. hebrides Says:
    June 30th, 2005 at 12:57 pm

    Cultwatch and CAN are NOT the same group, nor have they ever been; it is hilarious though that the former listed the subgenius as dangerous!

    You do mention the aggressive legal action of certain scientologists, but I was not criticizing the fact that you didn’t include a list of names in regards to the wiretaps of the 80’s but the fact that the ONE name that would be important to list, namely, L.Ron’s wife, was not mentioned. This is hardly irrelevant to the question of Scientology’s harrassment of critics, since you say: “The enthusiasm with which many scientologists operate may lead some to “step out of bounds,” as many “true believers” of other faiths may do, but insinuations that this is somehow “official” Church policy is nothing short of ridiculous.”
    In fact, the record of that episode of church history as well as what happened to CAN (they were sued into bankruptcy by hundreds of scientologist lawsuits that “just happened” to occur in the same brief period of time, then the rights to the name were purchased by the church, which now operates the organization), suggest that these “insinuations” are very very short of being “ridiculous.” And there is something called the “Fair Game” doctrine which is a directive that eminated straight from the top of the organization (and was referenced in the 60 Minutes CAN exposé and is also mentioned by the Pilot on his website). You can’t get more “official” than that, even if it is not something widely advertised. Of course, just as in any group, there are many good people involved in Scientology who might not act upon “fair game,” but the climate for fanatical harrassment and paranoia looks to be encouraged by this Church directive. But who knows? maybe this all in the past.

12. Haeresis Says:
    June 30th, 2005 at 9:48 pm

    I didn’t mention the wife mainly because the intent is to hyperlink all the quations to appropriate pages, and second, she was most likely a patsy anyways.

    Whether “Fair Game” exists as described is still a contentious matter…what exactly is meant by that is another again. Anywhere you find a power structure and money, you’re gonna find a policy like that. Shit happens..yet I see nobody insisting republicans be deprogrammed because of Nixon’s similar policy.

    As far as CAN is concerned, I don’t have any sympathy- they were much worse fuckers than the scientologists ever were.

    They might have engaged people intellectually, or offered reasoned criticism of group bahaviors, but in the end, they created a worse “cult” themselves, denying people their basic rights to autonomy. It’s one thing to ridicule belief, quite another to interfere with someone’s right to believe stupid shit.

    The idea that people who believe weird things only do so because they are “brainwashed” was just sick, repulsive shit- and they used this excuse that people have no free will to justify the kidnap and detention of adults. It was wrong and it was discriminatory, too- nobody ever kidnapped Grandma Jones for giving too much money to Bob Larson, because his “cult” was in ‘acceptable’ confines.

    Yes, there’s a dark side to scientology- and often an “us” vs. “them” mentality, which is no different than in any group where people a) strongly identify with one another and b) identify an enemy. Eventually they’ll learn that suing critics makes them look like assholes…but in the case of CAN, I think it was more than justified.