Response to Krasny Sever article

My response to the October 18, 2017 article in Красный Север (“Red North“).¹

Dear Ms. Rybiakova:

Thank you for your article mentioning my talk in Salekhard. I have posted the complete English text, and anticipate it being translated into Russian quite soon.²

I am particularly grateful that you made the plunge, as you call it, into Scientology, to some degree to find out what on earth I was talking about. That a serious person in a legitimate societal position looked into Scientology as a result of my words at this cult conference, and then spoke up publicly with your own observations and an implicit warning, is a wonderful outcome for the conference.

In your recent research, you learned a lot about the Scientologists’ visible operations – life improvement courses, business training, personal growth seminars, “study technology,” drug cures, blindness, disability and cancer cures, auditing promises. You found them all over the Internet and in offices throughout the Urals. It is then very possible that the Scientologists will, in one way or another, contact a great number of YNAO citizens and try to sell them something.

There are also other aspects of Scientology and activities of the Scientologists that already affect every Russian citizen everywhere and warrant serious people’s serious study of this entity and its operators. The Scientologists are pursuing the right, indeed a license, to deceive, defraud and abuse people, and deprive them of their rights. The Scientologists claim to have such a license in the US. One of the Scientologists’ most important actions in obtaining such a license is acceptance as a religion. This then, the Scientologists say, make deceit, fraud, abuse and the deprivation of rights, doctrinally motivated religious exercise, thus privileged and legally protected.

The Scientologists, operated from the US, have confronted the Russian Federation at the highest levels in pursuit of this antisocial “right” to run their con on every citizen. They have used Russian lawyers, Russian courts, and the European Court of Human Rights. They have used international media, the US State Department, other US agencies, and human rights-championing NGOs. The Scientologists recently used Russia’s celebrated civil rights activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva to lobby President Putin for them. And last month, the Scientologists got a number of parliamentarians at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to sign a declaration urging the Russian Government to intervene in pending criminal proceedings against Scientologists.

In one of his core scriptural edicts that mandate the Scientologists’ war on the “Suppressive Person” class – the SPs — Scientology inventor L. Ron Hubbard wrote:

It is bad warfare to fight battles on your own terrain, in your own subject area. It is not good to fight in the territory of allies. Fight battles wherever possible only on enemy terrain, in and about his subject and his people, not ours. You can gauge your relative success by this. When all your battles are fought on his terrain, you are winning.
Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, February 16, 1969, “Battle Tactics, reissued September 24, 1987.³

The Scientologists have evaluated that the “enemy terrain” for them is Russia, and particularly at this time your country’s laws identifying and criminalizing extremism. The “enemy” the Scientologists envision and engender comprise the Suppressive Person class. SPs are simply the class of people defined in Scientology “scripture,” who stand in Scientology and the Scientologists’ way, who might frustrate their drive for power and control. This links me with Russians, in government, in law enforcement, in the clergy, in the media, in the citizenry, who stand up to the Scientologists.

Where the Scientologists should be fought, I think, is on their Suppressive Person doctrine. Every citizen of every country should stand in the way of this doctrine. It is the Scientologists’ terrain, their subject area. It is bad warfare to allow the Scientologists to fight the battle on the lawfulness of Russia’s laws that might adjudge this terrible doctrine unlawful. It is good warfare to confront the Scientologists on their SP doctrine.

I hope that many serious people in Russia will take the time to fathom the Scientologists’ infantile, but very extremist and very dangerous, Suppressive Person doctrine. It is wholly indefensible by international human rights charters and national laws; so opposition to it is on solid ground logically and principled morally.

Just gaining an understanding of the doctrine to be opposed and the measures its practitioners have taken against the SP class, however, can be daunting. My wife Caroline and I have assembled relevant materials to help. ⁴

Opposing Scientology is essentially speaking up and communicating the understanding gained. This can be threatening for many real reasons, including because the Scientologists will employ the most silver-tongued lawyers, experts, lobbyists and celebrities their billions can buy.

Speaking the truth about the SP doctrine, its inventor Hubbard, his system Scientology, and the cult’s operators is the “sacrilege” that commonly causes a person to be labeled and treated as a Suppressive Person. The truth is what threatens or thwarts the Scientologists in their secular pursuit of power and control.

I know it cost what for me is a lot of money to get me a visa, fly me from British Columbia, book me and other participants in the lovely Yuribey Hotel, dine us superbly, take us to some of Salekhard’s hot tourist spots, translate us expertly, bless us with gifts and amazing memories, and care for us so thoughtfully through our excellent visit.

I also know that the Scientologists’ attack vector on the conference is that it was “financed by the state budget … at the expense of taxpayers … a budget waste … clearly questionable for the region’s value.” The Scientologists imply that I was paid for my attendance at the conference, that I was “earning a living…touring the country.” Although I was necessarily repaid for my costs, I can assure everyone that I received no fee; nor have I been paid for anything I have said or done anywhere in your great country. Your effort to understand Scientology more deeply and speak publicly about it made the conference very valuable.

Many people, even Governor Kobylkin, gave their time to organize and put on this professional conference in this charged and risky subject of cults. I am grateful too for the trust and friendship of Archbishop Nikolay and all the clergy who contributed to the conference.

According to the cults’ battle tactics, the conference was on their terrain, in their subject, their extremist or dangerous doctrines and activities. They seek to move the fight to what their directives say is enemy terrain – the government, the Russian Orthodox Church, the state budget. If they are successful, the Scientologists, and the other dangerous cults, will not have to change, or even address, their own extremist or dangerous doctrines and activities.

It was an honor to be invited to your part of the world to talk about my experiences and knowledge, and I will be touched for a long time by the kindnesses shown me there.

Gerry Armstrong
Chilliwack, BC, Canada

Notes