A Rum Time for Ron in Old Town Las Palmas (Part 1)

Dear Mr. Camacho:

Re:    Your article “1950 Shades of Pinks and Greys: Was L. Ron Hubbard Drugged Out When He Developed OT III?” (( “1950 Shades of Pinks and Greys: Was L. Ron Hubbard Drugged Out When He Developed OT III?” https://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tjoc_5_4_1_camacho.pdf ))

I am grateful for your effort to school your readers on the legal term “burden of proof.” (The definition below is from my old Black’s Law Dictionary Fifth Ed.) ((

Burden of proof. (Lat. onus probandi.) In the law of evidence, the necessity or duty of affirmatively proving a fact or facts in dispute on an issue raised between the parties in a cause. The obligation of a party to establish by evidence a requisite degree of belief concerning a fact in the mind of the trier of fact or the court.

Burden of proof is a term which describes two different concepts; first, the “burden of persuasion”, which under traditional view never shifts from one party to the other at any stage of the proceeding, and second, the “burden of going forward with the evidence”, which may shift back and forth between the parties as the trial progresses. Ambrose v. Wheatley, D.C.Del., 321 F.Supp. 1220, 1222.

The burden of proof may require a party to raise a reasonable doubt concerning the existence or nonexistence of a fact or that he establish the existence or nonexistence of a fact by a preponderance of the evidence, by clear and convincing proof, or by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Except as otherwise provided by law, the burden of proof requires proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Calif.Evid.Code, § 115.

In a criminal case, all the elements of the crime must be proved by the government beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368.

Term has been used to mean either the necessity of establishing a fact, that is, the burden of persuasion, or the necessity of making a prima facie showing, that is, the burden of going forward. State Farm Life Ins. Co. v. Smith, 29 Ill.App.3d 942, 331 N.E.2d 275, 278.

“Burden of establishing” a fact means the burden of persuading the triers of fact that the existence of the fact is more probable than its non-existence. U.C.C. § 1-201(8).

See also Shifting the burden of proof.

Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Ed. (1979) West Publishing Co. )) Your implied understanding of the concept is faulty, and you are perverting how it applies in Hubbard’s “Case of Rum and Pinks and Greys.”

Note that there is no legal “cause” involved in this matter or in this medium; nor is there a court, nor a judge, nor jury. Your understanding or definition of “burden of proof” is useful, however, at least for application to your own fact statements in your article.

I have excerpted a set of your statements, principally your fact statements, which, in my judgment, are some of those you have made in your article without proof. I have made some comments and numbered requests for evidence where you have omitted it, or where your statements were unclear, or your claimed facts unproven. I separated my requests into three parts for manageability, and this is the first part with my initial thirty-three requests.

I believe that a preponderance of reasonable people could adjudge that you made such unproved or faulty fact statements for the purpose of smearing or libeling me; and, in fact, you wrote your article, obtained “peer review” for it, and published it for the same ignominious purpose.

It is widely known that for decades I have been a monstrous victim of the Scientologists and their collaborators. The Scientologists and their collaborators have hated and smeared me monstrously throughout these decades, and still view me as a monstrous threat and target. You are known to be a Scientology supporter, if not an overt or covert Scientologist, and it is clear that you serve the cult operators’ purposes in your “academic” article that buttresses their interminable smear job. I believe it is sensible to publicly acknowledge your existing relationships and biases. (Below is a definition for “bias,” also from BLD Fifth.) ((

Bias ibâyas/. Inclination; bent; prepossession; a preconceived opinion; a predisposition to decide a cause or an issue in a certain way, which does not leave the mind perfectly open to conviction. To incline to one side. Condition of mind, which sways judgment and renders judge unable to exercise his functions impartially in particular case. As used in law regarding disqualification of judge, refers to mental attitude or disposition of the judge toward a party to the litigation, and not to any views that he may entertain regarding the subject matter involved. State ex rel. Mitchell y. Sage Stores Co., 157 Kan. 622, 143 P.2d 652, 655.

Actual bias consists in the existence of a state of mind on the part of the juror which satisfies the court, in the exercise of a sound discretion, that the juror cannot try the issues impartially and without prejudice to the substantial rights of the party challenging. See also Average man test; Discrimination; Prejudice.

Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Ed. (1979) West Publishing Co. ))

Please now provide what explanation, evidence or proof you have as I request.

You write that I assert that founder L. Ron Hubbard drank and used drugs in 1967 at Las Palmas when he researched OT III.

1. Where and when did I assert this, and what exactly was this assertion or were these assertions?

You write that in a purported letter to Mary Sue Hubbard from L. Ron Hubbard, he admitted drinking and using drugs at Las Palmas when he researched OT III.

2. What is your evidence for such an admission from Hubbard?
3. Alternatively what is your evidence that someone else stated that Hubbard admitted to his wife drinking and using drugs at Las Palmas when he researched OT III?
4. Have you ever audited on OT III?

You write that I never introduced the letter into court as evidence, nor did it appear in any court transcript, and that I freely admit to these facts.

Whether I ever introduced it into any court as evidence or if it ever appeared in any court transcript is, of course, irrelevant as to whether such letter ever existed.

There are approximately five quadrillion, two hundred trillion pages of other paper documents in the world, which, along with the subject letter from Hubbard to his wife, were never specifically or individually introduced into court as evidence in my case, and none of these incalculable documents appeared in the trial transcript.

You have never shown that these “facts” — my non-introduction into evidence of the subject letter, and its nonappearance in any court transcript — are relevant to the determination of whether Hubbard ever wrote his wife stating (without considering whatever else he stated in said letter) that he was drinking and using drugs at Las Palmas when he researched OT III.

5. Nevertheless, exactly what evidence do you have that this document, the Rum and Pinks and Greys (“RP&G”) letter was never introduced into court as evidence? (Forget what I might have said about something similar previously; now I am quite certain it was introduced into court as evidence.)

Letters, of course, do not appear in court transcripts. Or at least that was the way things were during the pendency of the Armstrong 1 litigation. Discussions of letters can appear in transcripts; testimony about letters can appear. Quotes from letters can appear; or the complete text from letters can appear; or rulings or judgments about letters can be rendered and such rulings or judgments can appear in court transcripts. But not letters; not in this case.

6. Nevertheless, where and when did I, as you claim, freely admit that I never introduced the RP&G letter into court as evidence, and freely admit that the letter has never appeared in any court transcript, and what exactly did I state in this admission or admissions?

Notice that in your “abstract” you refer to court transcripts, “the evidence log,” and “the trial,” without identifying for your readers what trial, what case, or when or where the trial occurred. This apparent inability or refusal to place yourself in your readers’ positions to make your communications understandable to them, is in evidence multiple times in your “academic” papers I have read.

I do not expect you would get any assistance with this condition from Massimo Introvigne or your “peer reviewers.” They obviously approve of your goal of smearing me. Arguably they also approve of your gross unempathy for all your readers, or even disdain for us, which is shown in your numerous untruths and aberrant logic throughout your article. Your writing is insulting for the pettiest of purposes, which is also insulting to us.

7. If the RP&G letter was in court and was not there as evidence, what was it in court for?

You write that all of Hubbard’s letters to Mary Sue Hubbard in the evidence log either lack descriptions or dates.

Even if this might be true, it is, of course, irrelevant as to whether Hubbard wrote the RP&G letter to Mrs. Hubbard. I realize you have strung together many words and even provided evidentiary images and professed great seriousness in your seemingly scholarly paper; but these actions are to make nonexistent connections “real” or irrelevancies “relevant.”

8. Nevertheless, please provide what you consider “the evidence log” in its entirety.

You write: “Notably, Armstrong made this claim after the trial, and others soon echoed him.”

There is a lack harmony between your sentences or thoughts. Whether this is deliberate for confusion purposes, or an organic psychological phenomenon you are unaware of, I have not yet positively determined. Perhaps, now that you have been made aware of it, you can, with God, of course, remedy the need.

“This claim,” correctly understood syntactically, would be the claim that “All of Hubbard’s letters to Mary Sue in the evidence log either lack descriptions or dates.” This, of course, is not even my claim; it’s your claim.

Whether or not it is willful, you are practicing “confusion tech.” The confuser should be silent until he no longer confuses.

Let us assume, however, that I can deduce, having read your whole article, that my claim, the actual subject claim you dance around (the twist) throughout your article, is that I possessed in Hubbard’s personal archive a letter he wrote to Mary Sue Hubbard in 1967 from the Canary Islands in which he wrote “I’m drinking rum and popping pinks and greys,” or very similar words.

That is my claim in the scenario you have been perverting to smear or libel me. I repeat:

I possessed in Hubbard’s personal archive a letter he wrote to Mary Sue Hubbard in 1967 from the Canaries in which he wrote “I’m drinking rum and popping pinks and greys,” or very similar words.

9. Either way, accepting your false and malign assertion of what I claimed, or accepting my actual and relevant claim, what evidence do you have that I made such a claim, notably, after the trial?

The case in which the subject trial occurred is Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard vs. Armstrong, Los Angeles Superior Court No. C420153. (( Armstrong 1 documents.))

From the time I first read Hubbard’s RP&G letter, which was probably in 1980, until the trial ended in June 1984, was maximally four years. “After the trial” has been thirty-seven years. Of course, I’ve discussed my actual and relevant claim after the subject trial, especially in response to the Scientologists and their collaborators’ attacks on what I might have claimed. How boneheaded that with your pseudo-academic effort to subvert my claim, to black PR me, you have now propelled me to spell out my simple and truthful claim again, and again.

If you mean, with your here-misleading word “notably,” that I only made the subject claim, my actual claim about Hubbard’s RP&G letter, after the subject trial, then I must call BS.

10. What evidence do you have that I did so, that only after the subject 1984 trial did I make the claim that I possessed, or had possessed, in Hubbard’s personal archive a letter he wrote to Mary Sue Hubbard in 1967 from the Canaries in which he wrote “I’m drinking rum and popping pinks and greys,” or very similar words?
11. Who exactly are the “others” you say “echoed” me?
12. Where and when did each of these “others” “echo” me, and what exactly did each of these “echoes” state?
13. If you say you did not intend to claim that only after said trial did I divulge or otherwise communicate that I had possessed in Hubbard’s personal archive a letter he wrote to Mary Sue Hubbard in 1967 from the Canaries in which he wrote “I’m drinking rum and popping pinks and greys,” or very similar words, then what exactly is notable about my having communicated this fact after the trial?

You wrote: “These claims do not hold up well under scrutiny, however, as many self-contradict or contradict each other.”

You suddenly leapt from one misidentified “claim” to multiple claims to many claims. Actually you have leapt to more than many claims, since, in addition to the many claims you say self-contradict or contradict each other, there had to have been claims that did not self-contradict or contradict each other. If, in your view, there were no claims that did not self-contradict or contradict each other, you would have written, wouldn’t you, that all the claims you claim echoed my single claim self-contradict or contradict each other. So the number of these claims you say echo my claim must be more than many. How many more than many is not yet known that I know of.

To “echo” is to repeat. A sound transmitted is the same coming back. Words vocalized are the same reflected. That’s how we know it’s an echo. If all these more than many claims echoed my claim, there would be none that self-contradict or contradict each other.

14. Echo or no echo, what exactly are these more than many claims?”
15. When and where was each of these more than many claims made?
16. What exactly does each of these more than many claims state?
17. Which of these more than many claims self-contradict?
18. What exactly does each self-contradiction state, and what exactly do the claims state that self-contradict?
19. Which of these more than many claims contradict each other?
20. What exactly are the contradictions between each of the claims that contradict each other and each and every other claim that contradicts each other?

This is the applicable definition for “scrutiny” from Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary:

2 a : a searching study or inquiry : close inspection : EXAMINATION, INVESTIGATION <fine old houses T stand open to the scrutiny of the tourists— Monsanto Magazine> <survived the cold scrutiny and judicious pruning of the committee— R.S.Churchill> <are … diplomats to be terrified by the prospect of future public scrutinies staged by politicians— C.L.Sulzberger>

21. Exactly what “scrutiny” – your methodology — did you subject each of these more than many claims to?
22. What exactly do you mean when you state that these more than many claims “do not hold up well;” that is, do not hold up well under your scrutiny, under your searching study or inquiry, your close inspection?
23. Which of these more than many claims neither self-contradict nor contradict each other?

It seems to me that if there is (in your mind of course) a claim that does not contradict any of the rest of the more than many claims, then all of the rest of these more than many claims would not contradict that claim, and consequently would not contradict each other.

Yet you say many of these more than many claims contradict each other. In truth, as far as I know, all these more than many claims have to contradict each other, as you use the pronoun “each other.”

Because contradictions are so expected as to be virtually universal among claims such as these more than many, they are actually irrelevant. What is relevant is the truth. The truth necessarily contradicts falsehoods about it, and falsehoods about the truth necessarily contradict it. Truth and falsehoods are not made equal or the same, or meaningless, or irrelevant, because they contradict each other.

I believe that your ineffectual scrutiny or absence of scrutiny of your own article’s claims, many of which, in my estimation, do not hold up well under my scrutiny, are indicia of the untrustworthiness of your scrutinizing, whether deliberate or not. You appear to be blinded by bias.

You wrote: “Furthermore, publicly available articles and earlier testimonies give an opposite narrative.”

24. Any idiot would ask, “An opposite narrative to what?”
25. To all these more than many claims you have pulled out of who-knows-where, many of which you say self-contradict or contradict each other; which are?
26. What exactly is that “opposite narrative?”
27. It is obvious that, if there exist more than many claims, many of which self-contradict or contradict each other, there must be nearly at least as many “opposite narratives;” so what exactly are all these opposite narratives to each and every one of these more than many claims?
28. What exactly are the “publicly available articles and earlier testimonies” that you say give that “opposite narrative;” or each of the “opposite narratives” that were given?
29. How exactly do these publicly available articles and earlier testimonies that you say give that “opposite narrative” actually give it?
30. To whom specifically – to you, or me, or us, or anyone, or everyone — do these publicly available articles and earlier testimonies that you say give that “opposite narrative” actually give it?

Moreover, “furthermore” implies, syntactically at least, that your immediately prior assertion had been ceremoniously proved: that each and every one of these subject more than many claims has not held up well under scrutiny as many self-contradicted or contradicted each other. You have not, however, proved this assertion. See requests 14 through 23 above for evidence I have requested to actually prove your assertion.

You write: “While Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 remain unclear, the burden of proof rests on the accusers, given that the currently available evidence suggests otherwise.”

You have here non sequiturs that leave this sentence logically deranged. It is irrational in the context of this “abstract” and its content. There is no logical connection between Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967, or their unclarity, and the legal concept of “burden of proof,” or who has the “burden” in this matter to prove something.

“Given that” here means “in consideration of the fact that.” You have, however, made no actual connection between Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 and “the currently available evidence,” which, you say, “suggests otherwise.”

You also have made no connection between “burden of proof” and “the currently available evidence,” which, you say, “suggests otherwise.”

31. Another idiot might ask, what exactly is the “otherwise” you say the available evidence suggests?

Making sense of your sentence, what you write is that the available evidence suggests that the “burden of proof” is not on the accusers.

Alternatively, also making sense of your sentence, what you write could mean that the available evidence suggests that Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 are not unclear at all.

32. What exactly do you claim is the “available evidence” that you say suggests otherwise?

It is a stratagem of confusion tech practitioners to state a banality, or something virtually inarguable, right before presenting other “facts,” which may or may not be related, but which the confusion techie also wants accepted as inarguably true.

That Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 remain unclear is certainly true if you were to ask seven billion speaking people to provide their clearest understanding of his whereabouts and activities that year. If you were to question eight million Scientologists I doubt that you could find even one who is totally clear on Hubbard’s 1967 time track.

Your statement that Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 remain unclear is, on its face, in your sentence, in your “abstract,” and in your article, irrelevant. Moreover, if you were to select just about anyone alive in 1967 I believe you would find that their whereabouts and activities are still unclear after all these years, making Hubbard’s unclear 1967 even more irrelevant, if that is possible.

You write as if Hubbard’s whereabouts and activities in 1967 remaining unclear is relevant, and important enough to insert in your “abstract.” You imply that his whereabouts and activities in 1967 could cease remaining unclear and that clarity about a person’s whereabouts and activities throughout a year fifty-four years ago is possible.

33. Who are those people who were alive in 1967 whose whereabouts and activities throughout that year are clear to you?

Your assertion that the burden of proof rests on the accusers is simplistic, and not always true. I have included below the law dictionary definition of “burden of proof,” and I will say more about the concept a little later. I am not a lawyer.

I agree with the principle in this medium and in life generally that people have a responsibility to support their statements if legitimately challenged. I have legitimately challenged some of your article’s fact statements, and I have a particularly legitimate standing to challenge you because your article is a fifty-five page pseudo-academic, Scientology-serving, black PR piece maligning me personally.

The above thirty-three numbered requests for evidence all concern your claims in your “abstract.” For an abstract to a supposedly academic research paper, published in a supposedly academic journal, supposedly peer reviewed by supposedly academic peer reviewers, yours is unacademic, syntactically erroneous, based on false facts, and colored by extreme bias, which could be motivated even by compulsion.

In 2014, Jesse Prince wrote about the cabal running Scientology imposing a “required protocol to hate” me and other named targets. In situations where evaluations or decisions about me and people connected to me must be made, such as in your article, the hatred of the Scientologists and their collaborators for me and people connected to me manifests as extreme, insurmountable bias. (( Also see my article “The Double-Blindness, Deafness and Dumbness of Peer Reviewers” just posted at: https://gerryarmstrong.ca/the-double-blindness-deafness-and-dumbness-of-peer-reviewers/ ))

Yours challengingly,

Gerry Armstrong

Notes