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Rossiya 1: Cults and False Prophets: The cult of cash

Сults and False Prophets: The cult of cash 1

Broadcast date: February 25, 2015 (Rossiya 1)

Interview date: October 27, 2014 (Moscow)

Segment on Scientology

English Transcript

 

Street preacher: Jesus saves, not Buddha! Jesus saves, not Muhammad! Jesus saves! Now is the time to let go and let God! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! Are you happy?

Narrator (Alexander Klyukvin): What exactly is this organization? Officially, its face is that of top Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta. But its true face is that of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder.

Gerald Armstrong (Former archivist to Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology cult): The man was a pathological liar. He was unscrupulous and, essentially, a psychopath.

(Actual English audio: I was inside the organization for twelve and a half years. A lot of that time, I was very close to the founder and who ran the whole thing, L. Ron Hubbard.)

Narrator: Perhaps no one in the world knows Hubbard better than one of his former close associates, Gerry Armstrong.

Gerald Armstrong: I was inside the organization for 12 and a half years. A lot of that time, I was very close to its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

(Actual English audio: I was inside the organization for twelve and a half years. A lot of that time, I was very close to the founder and who ran the whole thing, L. Ron Hubbard.)

Narrator: Today, Gerry Armstrong is forced to hide from his former associates.

Gerald Armstrong: They have published discrediting information about me around the world, what Scientologists call “black propaganda,” and this has continued for 33 years.

(Actual English audio: I’ve been threatened myself [inaudible], and [inaudible], and they have published what they call “black propaganda” about me around the world.)

Narrator: What kind of power does this organization possess if it pursues its critics with such tenacity and ingenuity? According to the most conservative estimates, the Church of Scientology has monetary assets of around 4 billion dollars. Moreover, the Hubbardists do not pay taxes.

Alexander Dvorkin (President, Russian Association of Centers for Religious and Sectarian Studies): In the United States, Scientology has the right to lock up its members. If they run away, it has the right to catch up with them and convince them to go back. Obviously, “to convince” is an elastic notion. It has the right to censor their correspondence. It has the right to punish them by depriving them of food or cutting their sleep time. And it has the right to force women to have abortions. According to a court decision, as long as these practices have a doctrinal character, the court cannot intervene. As a result, Scientology has the right to do all these things.

Narrator: Remember that all this is happening in the United States of America, which calls itself a bastion of personal liberties and the land of the rule of law. What went wrong? Why is this organization granted such powers?

Gerald Armstrong: Hubbard was an intelligence officer of the United States during the Second World War. He got busted from that position. But, nevertheless, he had some experience in intelligence work.

(Actual English audio: Hubbard was an intelligence officer in the U.S. during the Second World War. He got busted from that position. But, nevertheless, he had some experience …)

Narrator: One of the first procedures for recruits to the Church of Scientology is so-called “auditing,” which is, essentially, asking questions using a lie detector.

Gerald Armstrong: They record everything you say on video and audio during the process. You must reveal everything you feel embarrassed about, that you would rather hide, every illegal thing you’ve done, everything for which you could be convicted, all your sexual history, your sexual thoughts, and all this is written down.

(Actual English audio: During the auditing process, they must reveal anything that is embarrassing in their life, and criminally, anything for which they could be prosecuted, all their sexual history, their sexual thoughts, anything they’ve ever done, anyone they’ve ever been with of either sex.)

Narrator: Once novices have shared their secrets, it is much easier to get them to start sharing their income.

Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov: Every cult is a pyramidal structure for extracting money from the population, so all cults are very rich. They teach every follower that 10 percent of all personal income should be given to the cult, so all cults get rich very quickly.

Narrator: Possessing considerable resources and huge amounts of damaging information apparently went to the heads of the Hubbardists to such an extent that they launched an offensive against their own government. And they failed.

Gerald Armstrong: In 1977, the Federal Bureau of Investigation — the FBI — raided Scientology’s intelligence bureaus in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Eleven Scientology intelligence personnel, including the wife of L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Sue Hubbard, were charged with activities against the state, convicted, and sent to prison.

(Actual English audio: In 1977, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, raided Scientology’s intelligence bureaus in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Eleven Scientology intelligence personnel, including the wife of L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Sue Hubbard, were charged and convicted and sent to prison for intelligence espionage activities.)

Narrator: The Church of Scientology was on the verge of collapse. It seemed that the organization was about to crumble into dust.

Alexander Dvorkin: Until about the mid-1990s, the United States was leading the fight against cults. The most high-profile trials related to cults took place in the United States of America … the most famous investigations. Moreover, cult members were sentenced to jail in the United States of America, not just ordinary cult members, but cult leaders or senior officials. But apparently, in the mid-1990s, someone had the idea that, if a phenomenon such as cults is impossible to defeat, then it’s better to use it.

Gerald Armstrong: A head of the bureau of the FBI — I believe it was in San Francisco — wrote that Scientology’s intelligence network was as powerful as that of the FBI itself. It is a private world-wide intelligence organization. Every Scientologist spies on everyone around him. Husband reports on wife, wife reports on husband. Children report on their parents, parents on their children.

(Actual English audio: A head of the bureau of the FBI, I believe it was in San Francisco, his name was Ted Gunderson… Scientology’s intelligence network was similar to, and second only to, the FBI. It is a private intelligence organization. Husband reports on wife, wife reports on husband, children report on their parents.)

Narrator: The Church of Scientology has thus proved itself a remarkable instrument: an espionage network where agents don’t have to be paid for their work. On the contrary, they were constantly providing money to the cult. Hubbardist branch offices began opening around the world.

Alexander Egortsev (Journalist): In 1999, during searches at the Moscow office of the Hubbard Church of Scientology, prosecutors, special forces, police, and investigators found and seized hundreds of folders that the Hubbardists, for some reason, maintained on members of the State Duma, famous Russian politicians, Russian state agencies such as KGB, FSB, OMON, the Interior Ministry, prominent members in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, and well-known journalists.

Narrator: The Scientologists were particularly interested in Russia’s closed cities.2

Russian officer (1997, in Yubileyny, town in Moscow region): Some truly difficult people made a proposal to organize a Scientology club at the Officers’ Club in a territory in which two research institutes are located. After the request was denied, they bluntly made threats against me, even insinuating that they’d have me fired for the rejection.

Alexander Egortsev: They tried to pressure some governors to have enterprise directors take administration courses developed by the Hubbard cult.

Narrator: Some materials published by the Church of Scientology are classified as extremist in Russia. However, the organization itself is considered a religious association. As a result, it is even granted tax exemptions.

Alexander Dvorkin: If any action is taken against Scientology, the State Department immediately issues a protest.

Narrator: Today, cults and their victims have vanished from TV screens and the front pages of newspapers. As a result, many of us have the impression that cults have simply disappeared. But this is not true at all.

Alexander Egortsev: The flyers are usually green and white and they say: “The environment in Moscow is very difficult. Answer five of our test questions, and you will find out how greatly your body is contaminated with chemical residues and other harmful substances.” The questions are worded so that you can only answer one way. No other answer is possible. “Come to our rehabilitation center. We will help you and offer you a special technology to cleanse the body.” They invite you to take the test and they say: “You’re very contaminated. It’s so good that you came to see us! If you’d waited another month, you would’ve had to be hospitalized for an operation. But God saved you. For any problem you have, we have a first course. It costs such-and-such a sum. Come on over!” And then the indoctrination and involvement in the cult begins.

 Notes

by

Chris Shelton: logic and loyalty, on the line

Last year, someone sent me some Facebook posts of Chris Shelton that smeared me. Shelton’s purpose was obviously the same as cult head L. Ron Hubbard gave for Scientologists’ black propaganda: to help Ron, et al. destroy my reputation or public belief in me.

I had never met Shelton to my knowledge. I had never communicated to him or about him, and he had never to my knowledge contacted me. His out-of-the-blue smearing related to the Scientologists’ IRS tax exemption, which I have shown was unlawfully obtained for unlawful purposes.1

Shelton black PRed me in comparisons to Mark Rathbun, which was similar to the function of Michael Hobson, who had been cyberstalking me on Rathbun’s behalf.2Rathbun, of course, committed crimes continuously against me for the Scientologists, most egregiously to obtain and keep the 1993 tax exemption.

I sent Shelton an email with his FB comments via his site’s contact form and asked him to confirm he was the person who posted them.

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Can you please confirm that you are the Chris Shelton who posted the following statements about me on Face Book:

Chris Shelton: An interesting theory, Jane, but not one that deserves your support. Panda is 100% on point with this. Gerry Armstrong’s claims are not based on the actual facts, which you can find in the actual eyewitness accounts and information on record from the 1980 – 1993 time period. Marty’s book, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, is probably the best account I’ve read yet of this and gives the exact reasons why the IRS capitulated.

[…]

Chris Shelton: Marty’s book talks about a conspiracy against Scientology itself with the AMA, APA, FBI, etc. from the dox recovered from the FBI raid and GO files. I don’t know if Marty still believes this conspiracy to be true or not, but he claims it was based on the dox he saw, not his own opinion about it. I can’t claim for sure that there was or was not such a conspiracy but I personally don’t believe there was. Organizational incompetence and human error are often interpreted in hindsight as conspiracy by those who like to see such things. That conspiracy that Marty was talking about has nothing to do with the nonsense that Gerry Armstrong is spewing about in the quote above.

[…]

Chris Shelton: Ok but you’re using Gerry Armstrong to refute Marty Rathbun, when the whole point of this was that Gerry Armstrong is full of it with the original claim on this thread. So this is kind of going nowhere.

My main point with the IRS thing is that Rathbun was there on the front lines of the IRS handlings and was intimately involved with the whole deal worked out with the IRS and he gave a very detailed account in his book about that. Anything Rathbun said about this is not refuted by other errors he may or may not have made about earlier conspiracies which he did not have any direct knowledge of. Gerry Armstrong was nowhere near any of the IRS dealings. So I don’t understand why I would listen to any opinions or conjecture of Armstrong about the IRS deal, especially when they openly defy logic and reason, such as the original quote in this thread. Armstrong may well be a reliable source on other points which he was directly involved in. I can’t say one way or the other because I haven’t read a lot from him. But I do know that when it comes to the IRS deal specifically, I will absolutely give “reliable source” status to Rathbun way before I will give it to Armstrong. That’s pretty much my whole point on this.

[…]

Chris Shelton: I will concede that Marty’s book may not be a 100% factual account of everything that occurred because it is a “memoir” – which means it is a book which tells the story from one person’s viewpoint or position. That doesn’t mean Marty was lying. You seem to write off every single thing the guy says as “lies” but haven’t actually proved that point. Marty’s book is a historical account told from his point of view. I cite it as a valid source for information about what went down with the IRS and I think I have a good reason to use it as a source for that. You notice I am clear in my comments here that I am only citing Marty’s data for the IRS information because he was intimately involved with the entire IRS handling from beginning to end. I did not cite Marty’s factualness with FAMCO or earlier conspiracies or anything else. You haven’t provided any proof that Marty lied about the IRS information. You have just used ad hominem to invalidate Marty’s IRS information because he may have been wrong about some other things.

I’m not even trying to defend Marty. Wasn’t my point in this thread at all. I was just citing a source that has more direct information about the IRS than Gerry Armstrong has. Now it’s all about what a liar Marty is, but even that case is not made by Tony Ortega. Tony even says “Rathbun doesn’t even seem to have read the reporting that was done to counter the church’s point of view at the time, because he never brings it up.” Maybe Marty never did read that other information! That doesn’t make him a liar. And Tony doesn’t call Marty a liar. He accuses Marty of writing a memoir – which is exactly what Marty did. He told an accounting of events as he saw them. And since Marty directly saw the IRS data, I tend to believe his reports about what happened with that. I hope I’m being clear about this. I’m refuting this one unfounded conclusion that Gerry Armstrong is making about the IRS and some bizarre idea that the US Government is somehow in cahoots with Scentology and is “so zealously been trying to aid the spread of Scientology.” That is the most ridiculous assertion I’ve heard in months.

If you are the person who made these FB posts, I would like to speak to you about some of the statements about me in them.

Thank you.

Gerry Armstrong
[contact info]

Shelton emailed me back that he was the same person who posted these statements, and added a somewhat snotty comment that any easy examination of his FB page and blog would show this.

I then emailed him:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

There is nothing else about me on your blog that I’ve found. I am not on FB. It was necessary to have you confirm that you posted the FB comments I quoted.

Please identify what you are talking about when you refer to “Gerry Armstrong’s claims.” Also please identify how you know these are my claims.

When you state, “Gerry Armstrong is full of it with the original claim on this thread,” what original claim did I make that you are claiming makes me full of it?

Is it your position that Marty Rathbun did not submit any false statements to the IRS in the materials on which the Scientologists’ tax exemption is based?

If yes, what do you base that on?

If you believe that he might have made false statements to the IRS to obtain the 1993 tax exemption, do you think he has any responsibility to correct those false statements?

Clearly, throughout your FB comments, and when you state, “I do know that when it comes to the IRS deal specifically, I will absolutely give “reliable source” status to Rathbun way before I will give it to Armstrong,” you are positioning yourself as my enemy. This makes sense because, of course, Marty Rathbun, whom you openly support, and David Miscavige, whom you also support, although probably not openly, have been fair gaming me for 32 years.

You can certainly correct the record you have made, and change your position regarding to me. We’ll see.

Hopefully,

Gerry

I didn’t hear back from Shelton, and six months went by.

When I saw recently that he had posted a video “Scientology: And Justice for All,”3 I thought that perhaps he might have had an ethical change; so I emailed him yesterday to see if he was ready to address his earlier smears. I included my earlier two emails for easy reference. I have been fighting for justice against the Scientologists for thirty-three years, and the Scientologists and their collaborators hate and attack me for doing so.

Rathbun, as is well known, perpetrated injustices against me, and other similarly placed wogs, as a duty, and a paid and in other ways rewarded full-time activity, for many years. Some of those injustices persist, and, in fact, Rathbun not only has done nothing about them, when something can be done, but acts to make them persist or add to them.

There is a set of people who claim to oppose the Scientologists, but nevertheless nastily and apparently baselessly attack me, and people who might support me. The Scientologists have always, of course, had operatives among their opponents. These people clearly had to do enough of what opponents of Scientology do to be accepted as opponents. It is, of course, not necessary to know whether my nasty, baseless attackers are operatives or if they are motivated by other handlers, groups or psychological phenomena. They all serve the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes.

The Scientologists’ key zone of operation where their evil purposes manifest and matter is legal – wog justice. The key to justice for all in the Scientology war is the IRS decision. Shelton’s denigrating me is specific to the IRS injustice, in which I was personally victimized, and which I seek to correct. He presents himself as a highly logical, reasoning person, indeed he calls himself “Critical Thinker at Large,” and writes instructions on the subject of logic. 4 He also presents himself in his FB posts as an authority about the IRS decision and Rathbun’s honesty.

Dear Mr. Shelton:

I saw your recent video about “justice for all.” Are you now ready to address your black PRing of me that I wrote you about last year? Your treatment of me after I asked you about the black PR was contemptuous, and I suppose it adds contempt that you’ve done nothing about it since.

You supported the injustices and crimes against me for years inside Scientology, and now outside you not only do nothing about them, but you support the black PR and continuing injustices.

I will be publishing about all this, so clearly you would want to have done the responsible thing.

Justly,

Gerry

Shelton emailed me back.

He accused me of creating a conflict that does not exist. This is impossible, of course. If I had actually created a conflict, it would necessarily have to exist. One simply cannot create something that does not exist. You can say, as Shelton did, that someone can create a conflict that does not exist; but that does not make a not-existing conflict exist. Obviously, my conflict is something he started with his statements in his Facebook posts that serve the Scientologists by black PRing me.

He wrote that he couldn’t believe I am still upset about a single comment he made about me. There was, of course, a series of comments. The accusation of upset is what Hubbard called a “double curve,” which is a standard device Scientologists use on their enemies.

Shelton wrote that no one else even remembers the Facebook thread in which he made his comments. The implication was that I was so unimportant it didn’t matter a fig to anyone else what he said about me; and I was wrong for caring. Although serving well enough to belittle me, his assertion that no one else even remembers is wholly illogical. He could not possible know if it is true. On the other hand, I can know it is false. Importantly, that anyone else even remembers is irrelevant, aside from its lame-excuseness.

He wrote that, if he recalled correctly, his single comment wasn’t even about me personally, but was simply a disagreement with a position I had taken. Clearly his multiple comments were about me personally. To claim that as some kind of justification is head-shaking. But to claim that what he wrote about me personally was not about me personally is a baldfaced lie. As I wrote above, I had included his FB comments in my email that he is responding to.

The FB thread, as it turns out, started with a quote from an English translation of a Russian article concerning a talk I gave in Moscow in 2011. The talk was in English and translated orally and consecutively into Russian, which the writer used for his article.5

Shelton’s comments were not simply a disagreement with a position I had taken. He asserted that my claims were not based on facts, without even identifying what my claims are. He accused me of spewing nonsense, even though he does not identify one thing I said or wrote. He stated that I was full of it, in fact that the whole point of the thread was that I was full of it, but does not provide any evidence or reason for my being full of it. He puts down a person for using me — meaning using my facts, evidence and reason — to refute Rathbun’s claims. Shelton’s labels for me in the crucial matter of the IRS tax exemption and the US’s undeniable collaboration with the cult are not position disagreements: “unfounded conclusion;” “bizarre idea;” “the most ridiculous assertion I’ve heard in months.” This is propaganda that serves the Scientologists’ nasty purposes. And Shelton has not supported his smears with logic or reason or facts, while asserting that any opinions or conjecture of mine openly defy logic and reason.

Shelton insisted that he has the right to disagree with anyone he wants to whenever he wants to. Well, duh.

He went on to explain that doing so is not an injustice, but simply voicing one’s opinion. Well, double duh.

It is a very old tack among the Scientologists and their collaborators to call their putdowns, smears or black PR “disagreements.” They then double curve their smears by smearing their victims for objecting to and seeking to correct mere disagreements or differences of opinion.

Shelton wrote that to take slight and offense at a comment made on Facebook, of all places, is to truly be making a mountain out of a crumb. This is another double curve. I logically objected to and sought to have corrected certain statements that constitute black PR, which serves the Scientologists’ antisocial purposes, and specifically concern the IRS tax exemption that affects, in fact victimizes, many people.

It is Shelton who has made his unprovoked and unsupportable obloquys mountainous, to the size where the whole pile should be public for everyone’s sake. It would have been so simple for him to communicate with me civilly, answer my questions, use his reason, support his assertions, and clean up his baseless black PR. Instead, he has refused to do any of these things, but has double-curved his smears and treated me contemptuously. He said some crumby things, wouldn’t come deal with the mountain he was making, and now the mountain must come to him.

It’s illogical for Shelton to depreciate Facebook as a place where what he says matters less or not at all. At the time he posted his comments about me, there were 1.3 billion FB users.

He accused me of having a “grudge match,” but did not explain what he was talking about. “Grudge match” is a term the Scientologists’ supporters use to disparage the importance or relevance of the Scientology v. Armstrong war. It serves the Scientologists’ purposes.

Shelton said that my grudge match is not going to be met by the same from him. It is unclear what he meant.

It is clear, however, that the Scientology v. Armstrong war is not a grudge match any more than framing anyone else with crimes is a grudge match.

He wrote that he has no quarrel with me. A “quarrel” is a disagreement or a cause for disagreement. That he claimed to have no quarrel with me while black PRing me, and specifically in the IRS matter, weighs toward a group agenda. Calling what he was writing about me “disagreement,” while proclaiming himself quarrel free with me is illogical. He picked the quarrel.

He wrote that my email was insulting and unjustified and that he wouldn’t be continuing to carry on any conversation with me if I continued in this vein. He wrote that if I choose to slander or attack him in a public forum, I am going to be disappointed at the results because he was not going to meet me at my level.

I would never choose to slander or attack him in a public forum, or anywhere else, although slandering and attacking me in a public forum was obviously his choice with his Facebook posts. Obviously too, he has taken my objection to his black PR and unreason, and my effort to get him to support or correct his statements against me, as attacks. That is also a typical scientological double curve: initiate black PR against a target and when he objects further black PR him for attacks.

If levels exist, he has never met me at mine. It is illogical then, and mere wishful postulating on Shelton’s part, that I would be disappointed if he didn’t meet me there. My level is full of evidence, reason, justice and humanity.

Shelton wrote that he highly recommended that I review my intentions carefully because sowing dissent in the “ex” community is a lose-lose for all concerned. This is pure projection because Shelton sowed the dissent when he posted the unmerited and unsupported black PR that so clearly serves the Scientologists’ purposes. He had to have wanted to sow that dissent.

He wrote that we should not be attacking one another, we should be helping one another. Well, triple duh. Yet he initiated the attack, and then has refused to help me, and other Scientology victims, by doing what’s right about his preemptive salvo of black PR.

He wrote that we are free to disagree on tactics, attitudes and ideas of how best to go about it but we should still work shoulder-to-shoulder.  Sure, but working shoulder-to-shoulder with people serving the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes toward their victims is unacceptable and folly, even if the workers are ignorant of what they are doing.

I emailed him:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Your hypocritical treatment of me is something to behold. Your claims to logic and critical thinking are shown to be fraud. What causes you to risk all that just to deal with me so shabbily has to be extremely compelling. Obviously this calls out for public exposure.

It is black propaganda to call the Scientology v. Armstrong war a grudge match.

I am not on your side in some ex-community any more than Mark Rathbun is on my side.

You could be on my side, same as Rathbun could. But you cannot if you treat people this way, especially the Scientologists’ victims, and in other ways still serve the Scientologists’ malevolent intentions.

I know you can see my points. You are not ignorant of what you say or do.

With good reason.

Gerry

He emailed me back.

He wrote that perhaps I could clarify what gross injustice I consider he had committed against me because he honestly didn’t get it. He asked how had he treated me so badly. He said that he was not tracking with my accusations at all.

I emailed him:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Perhaps you could identify where you think I considered you committed a gross injustice against me. If you can’t find such an accusation, that would explain why you don’t get it. Pretended ignorance is one of Scientologists’ common and major artifices or “beingnesses” for handling their enemies.

I find it impossible to believe that you are so incapable of logic that you cannot find your violations of logic in what you have written, both in your FB comments that started this matter, and in your treatment of me since I asked you to support or rethink your FB statements. (By the way, these statements are below. You implied you didn’t read what you had written when you falsely stated that your comments were but one comment and not about me personally, if you recalled correctly.)

I find it impossible to believe that you cannot honestly understand that your treatment was bad, as in unjustifiably contemptuous.

And I find it impossible to believe that you don’t know when your words and actions show your claims to logic and critical thinking to be fraud.

Yours fairly,

Gerry

He emailed me back.

He said he wouldn’t be answering any more of my emails. He wrote that clearly I have serious issues and that he is not interested in further discourse with me as I am threatening and frankly, very irrational. He said that he didn’t think I deal on well with criticism and that is too bad but it’s my problem, not his.  He said that he doesn’t know what end game I had in mind but he hopes I can learn that it’s totally OK for someone to disagree with me without me feeling the need to threaten and harass them.

I emailed him:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

I am sure we do not have a mutual cause.

It is you who attacked publicly. I have said not one word about you publicly.

It is you who chose in publicly attacking me to serve the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes for whatever pottage it gained you.

Now you have cowered out, rather than deal logically and honorably with what you started illogically and dishonorably.

Your attack on me is a public issue that you made public. You have kept it a public issue by your contemptuous treatment of me after your initial public attack.

May I recommend that you man up and confront the evil you are contributing to? It will not go away with more contempt, more illogic, more pretended ignorance about what you are doing.

It is wildly hypocritical of you to attack me publicly, attack me more when I sincerely ask you to support or rethink your public statements, and then barefacedly ask that I not do anything publicly about your public attack.

Believe me, what I do publicly to address your public attacks, or your private attacks for that matter, will not distract anyone from the real enemy. It will simply show how you support that enemy.

Sanguinely,

Gerry

In Shelton’s FB comments, one of the extraordinary “illogics” or “outpoints,” as the Scientologists would call them, is the idea that Mark Rathbun should be believed about the IRS tax exemption because he “was there on the front lines of the IRS handlings and was intimately involved with the whole deal worked out with the IRS.” This is an absurdly altered importance; or a willful lie, a calculated and defensive falsehood. It is like saying that OJ should be believed about the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman because he was there and intimately involved with the whole deal. The rapist should be believed because he was there from start to finish. The human rights violator should be believed because he was there through it all. Using that illogic, the person most intimately involved with all the crimes and abuses done in the name of Scientology, David Miscavige, should be most completely believed.

If Shelton is sincere about justice, truth, integrity, human rights and victims as he says in his public statements, then what he has done with me is astoundingly illogical. If he is not sincere, and has a hidden allegiance or agenda that can trump logic; i.e., require hypocrisy, then he could conclude that what he has done could be completely logical. That is because logic can serve either good or evil. There is considerable evidence with good reason that using one’s God-given logic for evil is ultimately illogical. Therefore hypocrisy doesn’t work.

That Shelton appears to understand logic, to the level of writing a primer on it, weighs, I believe, against sincerity. I have indicated a point or two of his profuse hypocrisy above. Rathbun’s being there actually weighs against him telling the truth because he committed serious crimes day in and day out in his intimate involvement with the whole deal. And he has not told the truth to date. Shelton’s assertions that in Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Rathbun gave a very detailed account of the whole deal worked out with the IRS, and gave the exact reasons why the IRS capitulated, are willfully false fact statements, easily verified as false with a quick read of the book. There is a conspiracy to maintain the unlawfully obtained IRS tax exemption, and Rathbun is still in that conspiracy. So apparently is Shelton.

He also proffers the corollary illogic to the one in which Rathbun should be believed because of his intimate involvement in the crime. The corollary is that I should not be believed, and my opinions or conjecture about the IRS deal should not be listened to because I was nowhere near any of the IRS dealings. This is like saying that the victim of a burglary shouldn’t be believed if he wasn’t home at the time. The victim of black propaganda should not be believed because he wasn’t there when the black propagandists were black PRing him. A person who assembled a mass of documentation about some evil should not be believed because he was nowhere near the evil dealings. The opinions and conjecture of an investigator who investigates a crime should not be listened to because he was nowhere near it when it went down. Lawyers would never be believed unless they defended themselves in their own crimes or torts.

Shelton’s message in his FB comments was a perfect duplication of Miscavige’s decades-long command intention: I should not be listened to, but the people who victimized me and others should be listened to and believed. Shelton is doing this despite the hurt it causes me and others, and to the cause of justice itself. He is doing it knowing, from the subject matter of the “IRS Deal,” from my communications, from everything easily available online, and from logic, that he was acting to prejudice every man, woman and child, etc. That is true, even if he only knew that he really didn’t know what he was doing, or saying.

Should he choose the debate option, I propose as proposition:

  • that Gerry Armstrong should be believed about what he has said and knows about the “IRS Deal”

He would argue:

  • that Gerry Armstrong should not be believed about what he has said and knows about the “IRS Deal”

Each side could have, e.g., a half hour to make his argument, then a half hour cross-examination, and then a fifteen minute rebuttal.

Notes

by

Scientologists’ core beliefs

Dear Mark:

You recently posted an article on this topic and it brought me to write you this open letter.

In plain English, here are the core religious beliefs of scientology:

Scientology Beliefs

  1. Planet Earth is a prison. The vast majority of human beings – and billions of invisible other beings – are its inmates.
  2. Xenu is the name of scientology’s Satan who established Earth as a prison and transported billions of beings to serve as its inmates.
  3. Our continued imprisonment is assured by ‘psychs.’ ‘Psychs’ are defined as psychiatrists, psychologists, psycho-therapists, priests, ministers, and anyone else practicing in the field of the mind and spirit.  Psychs were sent here from a planet called ‘Farsec.’    They are a special breed of being created and invested with the sole purpose of keeping humankind mentally imprisoned.
  4. Ron Hubbard is the first to discover the truth of 1 through 3 above, and the only one to have devised a means of escaping the prison planet.
  5. Navigation through the only hole in the wall consists of closely emulating Hubbard and behaving as he did when he lived.
  6. Enemies, including psychs as well as anyone expressing any doubt or reservation about these beliefs, must be destroyed by any means necessary by scientologists. Such means include lying, suing, cheating, harassing, intimidating, blackmailing, smearing and by physical violence.
  7. Scientology ‘technology’ consists of a sophisticated mix of pop psychology and hypnotism carefully designed and administered so as to lead people to wholeheartedly accept and live according to these beliefs.
  8. When a scientologist has expended all of his best efforts in the vain pursuit of these beliefs he is expected to ‘discard’ his body so that he may continue to pursue them without such a physical ‘impediment’.

Whether the ultimate belief, number 8 above, constitutes suicide is a wholly subjective question of religious belief. 1

This is not really true, but it is an excellent topic.

Scientologists’ beliefs cannot, of course, be known. Neither can wogs’ beliefs. Each person can know his own beliefs, or at least potentially know them, but no one can know another’s beliefs. One can believe that he knows others’ beliefs. One can be right in one’s beliefs, or wrong. One can study others’ words and actions to reasonably deduce their beliefs, but again one could be wrong. People can state or swear what their beliefs are; and their words and actions could show their statements are false. The Scientologists’ “creed,” is the classic example: “We of the Church believe…” You personally know how pervasively Scientologists lie about their actual beliefs. (Did you Scientologists really believe you had no way of contacting L. Ron Hubbard? Did you really believe that Michael Flynn or I was guilty of what you were framing us for?)

The conclusion I came to, from being a Scientologist and dealing with Scientologists’ words and actions many years since being reborn as a wog, is that there are two core beliefs among them. They are core because they are crucial. Other beliefs, such as Xenu and the Prison Planeteers, or Farsec and the Psychs, are used as necessary to keep the core beliefs believed. All the beliefs you list hang on these two beliefs, which are expressed as computations.

  1. If I do what I’m told everything will be okay.
  2. If I can continue to get away with what I’ve been getting away with everything will be okay.

When people become Scientologists, they accept the first belief. That is essentially “Keeping Scientology Working.” As they progress in the cult, some will adopt the second belief. As soon as Scientologists commit their first antisocial or criminal acts, e.g., depriving persons of property, injure, trick, sue, lie to, or destroy them, or support those activities, the Scientologists generate the need to get away with it. Some Scientologists such as you tell many lies in their Scientology careers and commit many pettinesses and acts cognizable as crimes in wog courts, so they have much to get away with.

Outward-facing Scientologists, RTC, OSA ops and their hired agents committed most of these crimes, and were best placed to know what was being done that had to be gotten away with. One of the evils such personnel had to get away with was keeping rank and file Scientologists in the dark. To get away with what you’ve gotten away with, conspirators like you in Scientology crimes, have an undeniable motivation to continue the conspiracy even if no longer Scientologists.

When a Scientologist dictates what is Scientology, as Hubbard did and Miscavige does, he eliminates the first core belief in himself, and only operates on the second. That is really all OT is, and what Scientologists work and pay for: to become masters of their universe. Indoctrinated Scientologists usually possess both beliefs, and the first dominates in their lives.2

Doing what they are told goes by various terms for Scientologists: “applying the materials,” “complying with orders,” “being On-Source,” “on-policy,” “in-tech,” “being standard,” “duplicating Command Intention,” “doing Scientology,” “doing what Ron says,” “duty,” etc. etc.

What you call “closely emulating Hubbard and behaving as he did” in your belief 5 above is another such term or concept that Scientologists will learn at certain points in their careers. It is “advanced” thought, presented as a goal, an attainable ideal. Scientologists for some time have been promoting the similarly stated goal of becoming the “living embodiment of LRH Tech.”

Scientologists’ belief that they should emulate Hubbard, or that things would work out if they did emulate him, develops as a result of acting on their belief in doing as they are told. They are told to buy a book, and they do. They are told to give their name and address, and they do. They are told to sign, and they do. They are told to pay, and they do. They are told to start, and they do. They are told to change, stop, flunk, pass, ack, bullbait, walk over to walls, pick up cans, answer, study, starrate, demo, apply, report, disseminate, win, emulate Hubbard, and do thousands of other doingnesses, and they do.

One of the key doingnesses Scientologists are incessantly told to do is to believe. Hubbard did not use the word when he was telling his followers to believe, except in their tongue-in-cheek creed. In fact, he stated that Scientology “demands no belief or faith.” Nevertheless, Scientologists believe him. When they stop believing Hubbard, generally they stop being Scientologists, and stop doing the other doingnesses Hubbard and other Scientology sources such as Miscavige, the reg, the ethics officer or the “tech” tell them to do.

To “believe” means to accept as true or real; accept a statement, supposition, or opinion as true.3
Hubbard cloaked the believing he was demanding of people so well that “belief” or “believing” are not even in the Tech Dictionary. This is despite the undeniable importance of belief and believing in spiritual, mental and behavioral spheres, which the dictionary’s terms were supposedly elucidating. Also missing from the dictionary is “trust,” which is firm belief in the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing; confidence or reliance.4

Hubbard said in a 1971 Flag Executive Briefing Course sermon:

Department Twenty is of course the Office of the Controller, which is really the Guardian’s Office with all Guardian’s Bureaus in it, and is usually manned in an org by an AG, and will often have an AG finance. This has the valuable final product of acceptances of Scientology. It’s acceptances, and you will find out that translates several ways from the middle. It translates in numerous directions. It would consist of combatting an enemy propaganda action, it would consist of getting in good press, it would consist of quite a few things. But the end of all of that is a product, and its acceptance, so you could actually measure up numerically, acceptances. And that too governs, to a marked degree, the viability of the org at large, so of course it adds into all of the other products. 5

The Guardian’s Office, of course, is now called the Office of Special Affairs. But OSA is still Department Twenty on Miscavige’s org board and possesses virtually the same “valuable final product” as the GO: “Handled situations which result in the total acceptance of Scientology and its Founder throughout the area.” The GO’s VFP, the desired result for all the lying and criminal fair game, was Hubbard and Scientology and their integrity, ability and character totally believed. Now OSA’s VFP includes Miscavige and his integrity, ability and character totally believed. To produce their VFP, OSA personnel do what they’re told. Obviously they do so because they believe that is pro-survival, that their compliance is the way to make it okay.

An indispensable Scientology “technology” the Scientologists postulate and apply to achieve their valuable final product of Hubbard, Miscavige, Scientology, Scientologists, et al. totally believed is what Hubbard called in scripture “black propaganda” or “black PR.” In HCOPL 21 November 1971, “How to Handle Black Propaganda [-] Rumors and Whispering Campaigns, PR Series 18” he wrote:

 “Black propaganda” (black = bad or derogatory, propaganda = pushing out statements or ideas) is the term used to destroy reputation or public belief in persons, companies or nations.

It is a common tool of agencies who are seeking to destroy real or fancied enemies or seek dominance in some field.

The technique seeks to bring a reputation so low that the person, company or nation is denied any rights whatever by “general agreement.” It is then possible to destroy the person, company or nation with a minor attack if the black propaganda itself has not already accomplished this.

To obtain the product of Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. believed, the Scientologists do their damnedest to destroy public belief in the people who might show that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should not be believed. The Scientologists do not demonstrate by facts, reason, wisdom or humanity that they should be believed. Nor do the Scientologists present reasoned counter-arguments to the idea that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should not be believed. The Scientologists simply promote and market like crazy the idea that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should be believed, hard sell worse-than-useless services on that “reality,” and then black PR and by other “tech” destroy the people who might say otherwise and threaten their operating scope.

As you know, the targets of your black PR campaigns comprise the “Suppressive Persons,” or “SPs.” We are a class of citizens created by Hubbard with his Suppressive Person doctrine in Scientology scripture, and by the Scientologists’ compliance with the doctrine and orders to apply it. Hubbard defined SPs as people who committed “Suppressive Acts,” (also called “High Crimes”) and defined these acts as “actions or omissions undertaken to knowingly suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists,” and “acts knowingly calculated to reduce or destroy the influence or activities of Scientology.”6

What the Scientologists have historically done to persons in the SP Class include the actions against “enemies” you mention in your belief 6 above: lie about them, sue them, cheat them, harass them, intimidate them, blackmail them, smear them, and even get physical with them, to destroy them. The Scientologists’ treatment or handling of SPs, which constitutes a criminal conspiracy against SPs’ rights, is commonly known by the euphemism Hubbard used, “fair game.”

Showing that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should not be believed (because, e.g., they’re gargantuan, even pathological liars) admittedly reduces the Scientologists’ influence and activities and impedes them and their cult. This is because getting Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. believed is such a vital Scientology activity. Keeping the Scientologist believers believing Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. is also an essential activity, which is also reduced or destroyed if the believers should learn that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should not be believed. One of the ways that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. limit opportunities for their believers to learn that they should not be believed is to make dealing with or even “granting credence” to any SP a “Suppressive Act.”

The classic, most specific Scientology edict criminalizing credence is Scientology Policy Directive of 13 August 1982, “Suppressive Act – Dealing with a Suppressive Person.”

To maintain a line with, offer support to, or in any way grant credance [sic] to such a person indicates nothing more than agreement with that person’s destructive intentions and acts. Such dealings in fact act as a covert or overt attempt to undermine and negate the ethics and justice strengths of our ecclesiastical structure.

[…]

However, unless you are the named authorized terminal to deal with the Suppressive Person, to deal with one constitutes  no less than a Suppressive Act. Such an act is cause to have levied against you the same per policy Church justice procedures afforded any Suppressive Person. Full ethics penalties will be applied.

The definition of “Credence”7 is:

–        acceptance as true or valid; belief: I wouldn’t put too much credence in that story.
–        acceptance or belief, esp with regard to the truth of the evidence of others: I cannot give credence to his account.
–        belief as to the truth of something: to give credence to a claim.

So really, in SPD 28, Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. are prohibiting and punishing belief. If believers in any way believe any of the people who might show that Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. should not be believed (because, e.g., it’s dangerous and stupid to), such believers become targets of “ethics” punishment, or the sort of fair game actions you list in your 6 above. It actually feels to me that you have been working for thirty-three years on making sure no one believes me. Remember, only 11 days before Miscavige published SPD 28, you sued me. You knew that suing me could make a lot of things public, which happened, and you had to limit opportunities for your underling believers to learn what I had to say.

Hubbard said that Scientology is the science of knowledge, and Scientologists were learning to know how to know. They were not, of course. He was simply telling them what to believe, and to say that they know it rather than believe it. Scientologists commonly take great pride in their “knowing,” and disparage and reject believing as an inferior activity. They treat believingness as evidence of aberration. Hubbard’s scriptural sermon “Effort Processing Summary,” which he delivered in Wichita, Kansas in 1951, contains some of his dogmas on belief, which Scientologists believe.

What you are processing out of people is belief;
[…]
If you were just to unburden a case of everything the case believed—

Belief is actually identity thinking. It is a static, and every static is every other static. Differentiation is optimum motion.’

[…]

Now let’s take a look at what would be the lightest and simplest technique in Effort Processing: you just disconnect the preclear from the human race. This disconnects him from the beliefs
[…]

The first error of belief which any individual makes is when he says “I believe I am a human being.”

This is the happiest and quickest way I know to do this; you just make a genus “nonsapiens” out of the preclear.

Although very aware that Hubbard and senior Scientologists disparage belief as aberrated, new Scientologists quickly learn that they are to believe everything Hubbard ever wrote or said (except for what he called “fiction”). What he wrote, of course, contained many claims for himself and Scientology that were false. Scientologists are to believe so firmly that they apply what they are being told. That is a very high level of trust in what they are being told to believe. In their time in Scientology, Scientologists will be told to believe all sorts of other things from many sources: disseminators, recruiters, seniors, supervisors, ethics officers, PRs, Miscavige, fellow cult members, etc. What Hubbard tells Scientologists to believe, however, forms their scripture and must be believed, even though he might write that they are not to believe him.

If Scientologists really did not believe Hubbard about anything (except his fiction, of course) they would be in what is known in and out of Scientology as doubt: The state of being uncertain about the truth or reliability of something.8

Among Scientologists “doubt” is a frightful “lower condition,” between “liability” and “enemy.” Doubt was never approached as an intellectual or scientific exercise to determine the truth or reliability of a statement before it is accepted as true. Doubt was “handled” in “ethics,” involved immediate ostracism and other penalties, and was often blamed on SPs. Whatever Hubbard said or implied about his followers not believing him, if they really did doubt him, rather than believe him, they are punished, until they rebelieve.

This is clear in HCOPL 7 February 1965 “Keeping Scientology Working,” where Hubbard made not believing that he had the “correct technology,” a “Suppressive Act.” He also made not doing any of the rest of the ten points of KSW “Suppressive Acts.” The willingness to perform the other acts depended on that belief, that for whatever the problem or issue of the mind or life or the spirit Scientology was the correct technology. From Introduction to Scientology Ethics:

High Crimes
(Suppressive Acts)

Suppressive acts are defined as actions or omissions undertaken to knowingly suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists.

Such suppressive acts include:

Any felony! (such as murder, arson, etc.) against person or property.

[…]
Violation or neglect of any of the ten points of Keeping Scientology Working, as listed here:

One: Having the correct technology.

Two: Knowing the technology.

Three: Knowing it is correct.

Four: Teaching correctly the correct technology.

Five: Applying the technology.

Six: Seeing that the technology is correctly applied.

Seven: Hammering out of existence incorrect technology.

Eight: Knocking out incorrect applications.

Nine: Closing the door on any possibility of incorrect technology.

Ten: Closing the door on incorrect application.

Hubbard, of course, was demanding that Scientologists believe he had the correct tech, even though he was saying they had to know it. Universally, Scientologists cannot possibly know that their tech is correct, because it has been proven to not be correct. You, for example, are now saying, more or less, that you now know that the tech was not correct. You are not saying, are you, that you still know that the tech is correct? If you had actually known that the tech was correct, you would still know it, because the tech has not changed. I realize you and others blame Miscavige for changing the tech, but that is both false and irrelevant. What changed, if anything changed, was your belief that the tech was correct, which was one of the beliefs you were told to believe and did. Or at least you said you did, by asserting you knew you had the correct tech, and destroying the people who said they didn’t believe the tech was correct, or didn’t believe Hubbard, or wouldn’t do something else they were told to do.

It would be expected that Scientologists who stopped doing what they are told; i.e., stopped applying the materials, stopped complying with orders, etc., would also have stopped believing that if they do what they are told everything will be okay. Clearly, there could be what present as exceptions; e.g., some Scientologists could be so suppressed or imprisoned by their Scientologist seniors they carry on complying without any expectation at all of Scientology ever working, as they were told or sold it would. Despite this, there has to be a virtually direct relationship between compliance with orders and the belief that such compliance, or application, or doingness, is necessary for things to be okay.

Christians are in a parallel situation. Compliance with Christ’s commandments is so important that it defines a Christian. Doubtlessly compliance with the laws laid down by Muhammad similarly defines a Muslim. Obviously, willing or knowing compliance with Christ’s commandments will be based on the belief that it will work, that it will achieve the promised result. Everything will be okay, so to speak.

John 14:

[15] If ye love me, keep my commandments.
[16] And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
[17] Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
[18] I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
[19] Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
[20] At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
[21] He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
[22] Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
[23] Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
[24] He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

John 15:

[10] If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
[11] These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
[12] This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
[13] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
[14] Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

Although Jesus communicates several commandments in the Bible for his followers; e.g., Matthew Chapters 5 – 7, he also simplifies what he seeks compliance to down to two items.

Matthew 22

[35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
[36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
[38] This is the first and great commandment.
[39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Hubbard and Miscavige, of course, have thousands of laws, rules, policies, directives, targets, orders, advices and command intentions that their followers must comply with. Hubbard and Miscavige’s commandments include the actions against “enemies” you mention in your belief 6 above: lying, suing, cheating, harassing, intimidating, blackmailing, smearing, battering and destroying them. These are not included in how Jesus directed his followers to treat or handle enemies; e.g., from Matthew 5:

[43] Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
[44] But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

It isn’t just followers of religions or religious leaders that are defined by compliance with orders. Militaries demand Scientology-level compliance with orders, and I’m sure most criminal gangs do as well. Failure to obey orders or regulations can incur serious penalties in the military, including discharge. Non-compliance with gang policies or crime boss advices can get a junior gangster dismembered.

By the way, I have not been shown where a real difference exists between “religious beliefs” and “non-religious beliefs.” This is especially obvious since the Scientologists determined that Scientology is a religion. The Scientologists solidified this inseparation by determining that everything Hubbard wrote about Dianetics or Scientology is scripture, and what they do in application of scripture, or executing other fatwahs or advices, is religious exercise. Scientologists’ two core beliefs cannot but be religious, but they would be equally religious if held by Mafiosi.

Hubbard never had to comply with orders from seniors or other sources because he treated everyone else around him as his juniors. Miscavige has the same consideration and “beingness.” What they did and ordered others to do, however; e.g. the actions in your 6 above, became crimes or evils Hubbard and Miscavige had to get away with. From this urge for survival, which all criminals share, their belief developed that if they could get away with what they had done, everything would be okay. For them, that would be Scientology working.

There were, as Hubbard probably said, bumps in the road for him, but, after some years, it could also be said that he had gotten away with it. Therefore, having gotten away with it, he had to continue to get away with it. So Hubbard’s core belief became, “If I can get away with what I have gotten away with, everything will be okay.” He would get away with what he had gotten away with by the same way that he had gotten away with what he had done: the antisocial and criminal actions in your 6 above, and more. The GO, the Sea Org, the reorg, The Way to Happiness, VMs, celebs, drugs, Xenu, sci-fi, the tech and everything else were to help him get away with what he’d gotten away with.

When Miscavige grabbed the reins of power in Scientology, he already possessed and acted on the same core belief as Hubbard. He developed it through the years of doing what Hubbard told him. When he became cult head, he simply and seamlessly dropped whatever remained of the first core belief. If you think about it, I am sure you will see that this happened to you as well. To get to where he was when he took over, Miscavige had to do and get others to do the nasty things in your 6 above. These were actions he had to get away with. Although there have been threats to him getting away with it over the years, he has largely gotten away with it, and his belief remains, ““If I can get away with what I have gotten away with, everything will be okay.”

You have pretty much acknowledged that your own admin scale while Hubbard was alive, perhaps more than any of his other juniors’ admin scales, was aligned on the purpose of making sure that he continued to get away with what he had gotten away with. Mission All Clear had that purpose. When Hubbard had successfully gotten away with what he’d been getting away with, it would be “all clear” for him to come out of hiding. And hiding, of course, was his most basic tech to keep himself getting away with it. Mission Corporate Category Sortout, which I was on, had the same basic purpose for Hubbard as MAC. So did the biography project.

When working in MAC, Special Unit, Special Project, ASI or RTC to make it possible for Hubbard get away with what he’d been getting away with, you were doing what you were told to do. You had constant orders from Miscavige, and even orders from Hubbard himself that you carried out; e.g., from Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior:

Hubbard outlined our strategy for All Clear as follows. First, we were to get Hubbard extracted from the suits. We were to make a case, by affidavits and documentation, that Hubbard did not run the church and was by no means its managing agent.
Memoirs (p. 158)

You had to have believed that if you did what you were told it would work. Obviously it did work, to a degree; so your belief in things working or things being okay, as long as you did or applied what you were indoctrinated, hatted, told or scolded to do or apply, was validated. Even though his reputation would never be unbesmirched, by your keeping him at least out of appearing in court and out of prison, you could say that Hubbard got away with it. It is clear that you kept the common core belief in doing what you were told because for many years after Hubbard’s death you kept doing it.

Even though our scorched-earth litigation efforts to keep damning evidence out of the hands of enemies no doubt worsened the courts’ already dim view of Scientology’s credibility, it might well have saved L. Ron Hubbard from spending his final days in jail, alongside his last chosen close associates, Pat Broeker and David Miscavige.
Memoirs (p. 203)

In helping Hubbard get away with what he got away with, you were saving him from responsibility for his words and actions. And you were denying justice to his victims, the people against whom he had committed, and had others including you commit, the acts in your 6 above. Your job was to keep him irresponsible, and enable his criminality. After Hubbard died, you did the same for Miscavige. Pretty well everyone in the cult participated in one way or another in shielding Hubbard and Miscavige from responsibility and keeping them irresponsible. Importantly, for evaluating your list of beliefs, you participated in the conspiracy to shield him from responsibility, by doing what you were told, long before you believed about Xenu and Farsec.

As you know, there was no one you fair gamed more than you fair gamed me, no one you applied more of the actions in your 6 above to more ruthlessly and obediently. If there is someone you fair gamed more, please let me know. It would not have mattered to your willingness to comply if Hubbard had said earth was a holiday destination, instead of a prison planet. Or if he had said we had arisen from clam through sloth, rather than as cubic passengers on Xenu Air.  You would still have complied with his and Miscavige’s orders to destroy me. And you would have believed that by your compliance Scientology would work and things would be okay.

The caveat to all the orders or advices to destroy me was that whatever you do in execution of that intention you get away with. It could be said that the Guardian’s Office did not get away with all their criminal ops against the US Government and certain citizens. I feel quite sure that you would say that you have largely gotten away with your fair gaming me, just because you have not told the truth about it but continued it.  Obviously you still need to get away with it, unless you stop needing to get away with it. From your Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior:

We were to treat the litigants as enemy combatants. We were instructed specifically on the “fact” that every person who had ever criticized Scientology was a criminal, guilty of crimes for which they could be punished. Hubbard wrote a lengthy dispatch directing that we “set the PIs (private investigators) loose” on Flynn and his litigants to prove as much. We were to study and apply his policy and instructions to the GO, since the reason for the GO’s failure, according to Hubbard, was Mary Sue’s and the GO’s refusal to follow his directions. I learned to walk a difficult line. On the one hand, I had to direct a very aggressive, offensive defense, while at the same time avoiding any action that would establish evidence that might contradict the assertion that L. Ron Hubbard and the church were aghast at GO atrocities, and that any violation of the law whatsoever, under whatever circumstances was prohibited by church policy. On several occasions we engaged in acts which, if not criminally prosecutable, certainly would subject us to civil liability if discovered. For one, Miscavige instructed me to never allow damning evidence to be produced in civil litigation discovery.

On several occasions during the early eighties, we conducted massive shredding parties after catching wind that there might be a DOJ or IRS raid (much like the Canadian mop-up described in the previous chapter). When I balked at the idea of destroying evidence, Miscavige accused me of being a GO-influenced idiot. “Don’t you get it that LRH was pissed that the GO got caught?” he asked impatiently. “I was there when the raid went down and he was first informed.” He described the scene in some detail – Ron in his bathrobe at the Rifle house in La Quinta, being told of the simultaneous raids on church premises in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. in July, 1977. “He was in shock – shock that they were so stupid as to get caught. Read his dispatches, damn it. It is clear.”

Reading the entire body of Hubbard’s writings about Mary Sue, the GO and the criminal case, it was rather clear. Whether Miscavige made up the story about Ron’s first reaction was sort of irrelevant, in light of the tone and emphasis of the written directions we had received on the subject of Mary Sue, the GO, and their criminal case. Miscavige’s refrain which went like this, “Mary Sue and the GO stabbed LRH in the back by getting so cocky they got caught. They didn’t follow policy. It’s right in The Responsibilities of Leaders [the “Simon Bolivar” policy ]. Now it’s our responsibility! But we have our hands tied because we have to keep it legal. All because they got caught.”

After that I never thought twice about destroying evidence. I had no problem with running intelligence agents in on enemies, provided they did nothing that could get us into trouble. L. Ron Hubbard was the source of any power we might have. He was the only power worthy of defense, since his power was exclusively directed at clearing the planet of war, insanity and criminality. Therefore, all future warlike, insane and criminal behavior on our part was justified, in that it was the only way to end warlike, insane and criminal behavior on planet Earth. It was cognitive dissonance supreme.

You did not actually emulate Hubbard, or even believe that by closely emulating him and behaving as he did Scientology would work or things would be okay. You obeyed him. No one really can really emulate Hubbard, actually, except for Miscavige, or the leader of a spinoff cult. Your assumption of leadership of Scientology’s independent faction was a form of Hubbard emulation and behavior; and could have been based on the belief that by emulating him independent of Miscavige, that Scientology would work, or everything would be okay. Almost no one else really is allowed to emulate Hubbard, his authority, control of Scientology, “research,” his finding of “lost tech,” etc., even if that might be a promised or demanded goal.

When you left Miscavige’s control and no longer did what he told you, and when you no longer applied what Hubbard told you in all his tech or policy, then you could say that you had moved on up from the belief that if you did what you were told everything would be okay. Obviously, there is no real evidence that you have moved on up from there, whereas there is considerable evidence that you still do what Miscavige’s command intention is for you to do, specifically in the Scientology v. Armstrong situation.

It is also deducible that even if you no longer have the belief that if you do what you’re told everything will be okay, you still possess the core belief that if you can get away with what you’ve gotten away with everything will be okay. Because what you have so far gotten away with in your years of fair gaming me, and people similarly positioned, is so criminal, dastardly and ongoing, your apparent need to get away with it is so compelling and insurmountable. That’s why your over-the-top contempt for me, the lies in Memoirs, the refusal to tell the simple truth about the conspiracy you were part of and still protect, and your efforts to justify what you’ve done. As you probably are aware, these actions, large or petty, add to what you have to get away with.

Just as doing what Hubbard, Miscavige, etc. told you did not make Scientology work or everything be okay, however, so seemingly getting away with what it seemed you’d gotten away with doesn’t actually work or make everything okay either. I think that telling the truth about what you’ve been trying to get away with is the best choice. Memoirs could be said to be an effort to get away with what you’ve been getting away with by seeming to tell the truth. But you could also actually tell the truth. You wouldn’t get away with what you’ve gotten away with, but you wouldn’t want to. And you wouldn’t have to keep doing your damnedest to get away with it.

Your doing what you were told ultimately made things worse. Yes, you got the Scientologists IRS tax exemption. Yay! As you know, however, you and your coconspirators did it by unlawful and very shameful actions. You might have hoped, or even believed at times that you’d gotten away with it. (Certainly Miscavige is enjoying his tax exempt billions and the religious freedom to suppress and destroy good people.) Yet you have to keep getting away with it, and there is every possibility that you won’t. It could be argued that with just what is on the Armstrong Op site, getting away with it is lost. 9

In addition to ending your terrible need to get away with what you’ve gotten away with, you telling the truth about my fair gaming could also help end that need, and its underlying false belief, in others too. It is also Miscavige’s core belief, of course, and his endless getting away with what he’s gotten away with can be ended. Based on what you have said, his part in Scientology v. Armstrong is even more criminal and dastardly than your part.

I seriously hope that you consider examining this core belief and keep open the option of changing it. Telling the truth about a criminal conspiracy is serious business. Certain people will do almost anything they can get away with to get away with what they’ve gotten away with.

Gerry

 Notes

  1. From “Scientology Beliefs”:  https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/scientology-beliefs/ ↩
  2. I’ve written about their core beliefs a number of times in the past; e.g., http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2002-11-01.html. ↩
  3. Definition: Believe http://www.thefreedictionary.com/believe ↩
  4. Definition: Trust http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trust ↩
  5. From “The FEBC Org Board and its VFPs” 7102C03, SO FEBC 12, 3 February 1971 ↩
  6. See http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/826 ↩
  7. Definition: Credence: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/credence ↩
  8. Definition: Doubt http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doubt ↩
  9. See The Armstrong Op. ↩