Matters of ESMB Concern

Caroline posted on Exscientologist Message Board:

At least some of the Aftermath people are still okay with the SP doctrine and declaring certain people “evil.” They just don’t want to be on the receiving end.

Gerry reached out to Leah Remini in February 2019 about the Aftermath’s support for Scientology’s SP doctrine. (Complete letter with images here.)

Poster “dchoiceisalwaysrs” posted in response:

Caroline. Without going through a whole lot here as I have been up for 17 hours reading all kinds of things and I am rather tired, I will just say that there is one key part that I disagree with Gerry. There are two Hubbardian methods of defining an SP and those are A) the 12 Characteristics and B) as Gerry essentially stated the Crimes/High Crimes itemized in the NOT ETHICS book but the conflated, ethics with SCN (in)-JUSTICE, book.
I do however see how in practice the Scientologist’s who adhere to method B as being the predominate and senior deciding method.

About the excerpted transcript of Leah talking about evil as suppressives…I will have to get back on that but it seems ‘out of place or out of context or I am just too tired to have made sense of it…although I think it might actually tie into Gerry’s omission of the 12 Characteristics…NO?

By the way, I was just thinking a couple of days ago that Gerry’s actions resulting in the Admissions are on the top rung in my mind for the greatest reveal of the malignancy of Scientology and their organizations. And please pass along my gratitude for Gerry’s integrity.

And before I pass out..lol, I do hope that Mike Rinder, who has stepped up quite nicely recently, will apologize in person to Gerry for what Mike did while acting as a truth suppressor et al and thus Gerry.

Caroline posted:

Yay! A disagreement!

Seriously, I appreciate you putting your mind to this topic. I’ve forwarded your post to Gerry and he’d like to respond. I’ll post it when he does.

Everyone will get two responses, as it turns out, because I’ll deal separately with “Hubbard’s Twelve Characteristics,” or “Hubbard’s Twelve Attitudes,” and whether they’ve been omitted or unconsidered in the literature treating the Scientologists’ SP doctrine. Other matters I’ll respond to here.¹

1. Thanks for your kind comment about Hubbard’s Admissions. For some time now I’ve used the term “Affirmations,” but “Admissions” is certainly acceptable, and certainly interchangeable. I recently posted a response to academic Scientology collaborator Massimo Introvigne, who challenged the Affirmations’ authenticity, denigrated my honesty, and disparaging their relevance for understanding Hubbard’s thought, even if they are authentic. ²
2. Thanks too for your comment about my integrity. You might not have known that my “integrity” was a button the Miscavige conspirators used on me to lure me into their operation. E.g., from an article I wrote last February, “Blowing the lid off the problem with Clearwater:”

What Rinder is doing with you regarding his knowledge of what he did and had done in Clearwater is very similar to the way he “handled” me in his “Loyalist Operation” conspiracy in the 1980’s. He ran OSA in the US at that time, and was responsible, under cult head Miscavige for the op. The major targets were to criminally entrap me and ultimately criminally frame me.

He and his co-conspirators, who called themselves the “Loyalists,” contacted me in 1984 with claims that they were “reformers” who wanted to “reform” their cult and wanted my help. This was a step in what is called the “Armstrong Operation,” which the Scientologists initiated as soon as I left the cult. The Armstrong Op’s goal is my obliteration.

The “Loyalists” knew, they said, that the cult’s leaders were criminal. This was no surprise, because I already knew it in spades. So did relevant agencies and officials in the US Federal Government, so did courts, and so did pretty well everyone else. The “Loyalists” claimed they wanted to end the Miscavige regime’s lies, abuses and criminality, and have Miscavige, the criminal usurper of all things wise and wonderful, criminally prosecuted. Rinder and his co-conspirators claimed to be dedicated to opposing, exposing and reforming the cult. They claimed they wanted my help because I had just prevailed in court against the criminal Scientology leadership and had integrity.³

E.g., from an article I wrote last December, “Suicide Note:”

In June 1984, following a lengthy trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, I had prevailed in the first lawsuit the Scientologists brought against me. Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. issued an important judgment that besides exonerating me, declared Scientology head Hubbard virtually a pathological liar, condemned the Scientologists’ practice of “culling” auditing folders, and confronted and articulated the functioning of the Suppressive Person doctrine and its criminal application, which Hubbard euphemized as “fair game.”

At the same time, Dan Sherman, an “old friend” from my Sea Org days, a writer, contacted me and said he was in touch with a group of “reformers” inside the cult, and communicated they wanted my help. He said they respected my “integrity” and what I had done, considered that Hubbard and his regime had somehow been usurped, and the usurping Scientologists were criminals. Sherman said the “reformers,” who called themselves “Loyalists,” wanted to get usurper head David Miscavige prosecuted, and intended to make the organization honest and decent.

I met with four Loyalist-connected persons perhaps a dozen times over a four month period, including twice with Rinder, whom I had known at that time for more than ten years. He was presented to me as the person in charge of the “Loyalists’” legal affairs. He pretended to be friendly and on my side against the Scientology “criminals,” and looked to me for a lawful way to take control and stop the criminal behavior. My lawyer drafted a “bare bones” complaint on behalf of the “Loyalists” to have the court put the organization into receivership.

Rinder and the rest of the claimed reform-seeking Loyalists were actually being directed by Miscavige, and were scheming and acting to set me up and destroy me. The Loyalists even took me to a lawyer Thomas Janeway who pretended to be on my side against Scientology, but was actually working for the Scientologists.⁴

And way back in a February 1994 declaration that was filed in Scientology v. Fishman and Geetrz:

4. During the 1984 trial of the organization’s case against me, Church of Scientology of California and Mary Sue Hubbard v. Gerald Armstrong, Los Angeles Superior Court no. C420153 (“Armstrong I“), Sherman told me that one of these friends, whom he called “Joey,” had told him that there was an actual group inside the organization who were dedicated to reforming it because management had become suppressive. They called themselves the “Loyalists,” claiming to be “loyal” to the preservation of the ideals of Scientology, “what worked.” They also recognized that its leaders were criminal, crazy, dangerous, and not dedicated to those ideals but were acting to destroy them. The “Loyalists” wanted to take control in a well-planned, effective and peaceful action before some tragedy happened. They claimed to know of criminal activities and a key part of their plan was the documenting of these activities.

5. Sherman said they were 35 in number, or at least there were 35 who knew they were “Loyalists,” all smart, reasonable and not fanatics. Some of them were his old friends from B-1. Such persons tended to be smart, reasonable and often were not fanatics. The people whom I knew to be, including Hubbard, the organization leaders, prided themselves on their recognition of unreasonableness as a virtue, and maintained an abiding fanaticism to justify their abuses and keep their positions of power. Sherman was smart and gave every appearance of being reasonable and unfanatical. He said the Loyalists knew he was in communication with me and wanted to talk with me but were afraid for their lives. This was not surprising to me because I knew from my own experiences that the organization had a brutal side and its leaders were dangerous, armed and desperate. Thus the first communications with the Loyalists were a few messages relayed by Sherman. They said that I had a proven record against the organization, that my integrity had been unshakable and they wanted my help.⁵

Ironically it was Judge Breckenridge, who had presided over the Scientologists’ trial against me in LA Superior Court in the spring of 1984, who provided the conspirators with the integrity button:

However, just as the plaintiffs have First Amendment rights, the defendant has a Constitutional right to an attorney of his own choosing. In legal contemplation the fact that defendant selected Mr. Flynn rather than some other lawyer cannot by itself be tortious. In determining whether the defendant unreasonably invaded Mrs. Hubbard’s privacy, the court is satisfied the invasion was slight, and the reasons and justification for defendant’s conduct manifest. Defendant was told by Scientology to get an attorney. He was declared an enemy by the Church. He believed, reasonably, that he was subject to “fair game.” The only way he could defend himself, his integrity, and his wife was to take that which was available to him and place it in a safe harbor, to wit, his lawyer’s custody. He may have indulged in overkill, in the sense that he took voluminous materials, some of which appear only marginally relevant to his defense. But he was not a lawyer and cannot be held to that precise standard of judgment. Further, at the time that he was accumulating the material, he was terrified and undergoing severe emotional turmoil. The court is satisfied that he did not unreasonably intrude upon Mrs. Hubbard’s privacy under the circumstances by in effect simply making his knowledge that of his attorneys. It is, of course, rather ironic that the person who authorized G.O. order 121669 should complain about an invasion of privacy. The practice of culling supposedly confidential “P.C. folders or files” to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and or harassment is repugnant and outrageous. The Guardian’s Office, which plaintiff headed, was no respector of anyone’s civil rights, particularly that of privacy. Plaintiff Mary Sue Hubbard’s cause of action for conversion must fail for the same reason as plaintiff Church. The documents were all together in Omar Garrison’s possession. There was no rational way the defendant could make any distinction.

[…]

Appendix

Defendant Armstrong was involved with Scientology from 1969 through 1981, a period spanning 12 years. During that time he was a dedicated and devoted member who revered the founder, L. Ron Hubbard. There was little that Defendant Armstrong would not do for Hubbard or the Organization. He gave up formal education, one-third of his life, money and anything he could give in order to further the goals of Scientology, goals he believed were based upon the truth, honesty, integrity of Hubbard and the Organization.

[…]

During 1980 Defendant Armstrong remained convinced of Hubbard’s honesty and integrity and believed that the representations he had made about himself in various publications were truthful. Defendant Armstrong was devoted to Hubbard and was convinced that any information which he discovered to be unflattering of Hubbard or contradictory to what Hubbard has said about himself, was a lie being spread by Hubbard’s enemies. Even when Defendant Armstrong located documents in Hubbard’s Archives which indicated that representations made by Hubbard and the Organization were untrue, Defendant Armstrong would find some means to “explain away” the contradictory information.

Slowly, however, throughout 1981, Defendant Armstrong began to see that Hubbard and the Organization had continuously lied about Hubbard’s past, his credentials, and his accomplishments. Defendant Armstrong believed, in good faith, that the only means by which Scientology could succeed in what Defendant Armstrong believed was its goal of creating an ethical environment on earth, and the only way Hubbard could be free of his critics, would be for Hubbard and the Organization to discontinue the lies about Hubbard’s past, his credentials, and accomplishments. Defendant Armstrong resisted any public relations piece or announcement about Hubbard which the L. Ron Hubbard Public Relations Bureau proposed for publication which was not factual. Defendant Armstrong attempted to change and make accurate the various “about the author” sections in Scientology books, and further, Defendant rewrote or critiqued several of these and other publications for the L. Ron Hubbard Public Relations Bureau and various Scientology Organizations. Defendant Armstrong believed and desired that the Scientology Organization and its leader discontinue the perpetration of the massive fraud upon the innocent followers of Scientology, and the public at large.⁶

“Integrity,” and related compliments, can bring risibly gaslighty thoughts to mind. But thanks nevertheless.

3. Rinder has not stepped up. He has refused to step up. I have made it very clear for several years that he is being asked to step up. Throughout these years, he has run standard Scientology ignore tech on me, and kept his black PR working.

After OJ Simpson murdered his wife and Ronald Goldman, he made this public statement:

My first obligation is to my young children, who will be raised the way that Nicole and I had always planned. … But when things have settled a bit, I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman. They are out there somewhere. Whatever it takes to identify them and bring them in, I will provide somehow. ⁷

As used here, “to step up” means “to accept a challenge or responsibility for something; to rise to the occasion.” It certainly sounds as if Simpson was stepping up, right? He sounded like he was rising to the occasion, taking responsibility for bringing the murderer or murderers to justice. But Simpson was doing anything but stepping up, anything but rising to the occasion, anything but taking responsibility.

The same is true, really, with Mike Rinder. If a person really was ignorant of what Rinder had actually and specifically done — his antisocial or criminal actions to silence or destroy real persons in the Suppressive Person religious class – it might look as if Rinder is stepping up, rising to the occasion, taking responsibility. And Rinder even has people preserving or increasing an image of him stepping up quite nicely. Like Simpson, however, despite appearances or PR, Rinder has not actually stepped up.

Just as Simpson never stepped up in the murder of Nicole and Goldman, Rinder has never stepped up in the long conspiracy and multiple programs to silence or destroy me. Simpson and Rinder have doubtlessly stepped up about other things, but in specific cases with real persons, where it really matters, they have not stepped up. Simpson could get an Emmy for making his goal the pursuit of the perpetrators, for providing whatever it takes to bring them in, for stepping up. And just as Simpson really did murder Nicole and Goldman, Rinder really did persecute me, really did conspire to destroy me.

4. Of course an apology from Rinder would be nice. Without him doing the right thing, however, without him stepping up, without him telling the truth that would assist or free his victims, without him repudiating the black PR he propagated, an apology would be heartless, and not an apology at all. I’ve explained this a number of times. ⁸

Notes