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Not a Rocket Scientist’s Guide to Insiders: Open letter to Chris Shelton

 

Dear Mr. Shelton:

I deeply disagree with a few of your claims in your book Scientology: A to Xenu An Insider’s Guide to What Scientology is Really All About. It is obvious that while presenting your book as a factual guide, you are propagandizing in key areas, and in a way that serves certain purposes of the Scientologists and their collaborators. I will try to communicate my criticisms in the next few days as time allows. Right now, I am writing and asking about your use of the identity or status of “insider” in the subtitle of your book.

As it is commonly used, especially these days in the media and legal arenas, an insider is someone who has special knowledge or access to confidential information. People with insider information about criminal or dishonest activities in a company or organization, and who divulge it publicly are often referred to as “whistleblowers.”1

Maybe you believe you were, or are, an insider, in relation to Scientology, just by being a Scientologist. You could be, or could have been, an insider in the way that I have for many years been an outsider.

In the Scientology scheme, however, and where it matters, those who participated in the criminal conspiracy against persons, ran the intelligence, legal, PR and finance networks, and dealt directly with L. Ron Hubbard or David Miscavige, were actual insiders. Mark Rathbun was an insider.

In Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Mr. Rathbun describes one of his earlier books, The Scientology Reformation, as “an insider’s account of the abuses at the top levels of Scientology management.” He does not actually provide an account of the abuses he knows about of good persons who did not support the abusers. “Wogs” the Scientologists call us. Nevertheless, you did not know about even the abuses Mr. Rathbun does describe while you were a Scientologist, because you were not an insider.

Abuse could be a useful determinant for insiderness. The abusers in Scientology who direct, finance and enforce the abusing of people (“wogs”) that do not support the abusing are the insiders. Certain wogs, of course, collaborate with the Scientologist insiders in the abusing of these wog victims. For 27 years, you supported these abusers, the insiders and their collaborators. Throughout all those years, I did not support the insiders or their collaborators, and I opposed these abusers abusing people like me who did not support them or their abusing.

It is true that the insiders also abuse their supporters. Their supporters also support the insiders’ abusing of supporters. Insider supporters also abuse each other. You have acknowledged abusing your fellow insider supporters. I also did not, and do not, support the insiders abusing their supporters, as you were. The insider supporters, however, sign on, or stay signed on, to be abused, and they have a right to do so to a significant extent. People, wogs, however, who do not support the Scientology insiders or their abusing of anyone, have never signed on to be abused.

There can be a “Church of Abuse,” definitely in the US, where the members all get lied to, tricked, cheated, stolen from, sued or destroyed as free religious exercise. The Scientologists have proven this, and the US Federal Government encourages it. When church members assemble to abuse their non-supporters, people who oppose them and their supporters, however, the church members form a criminal conspiracy. The knowing participants in that criminal conspiracy are insiders like Mr. Miscavige and Mr. Rathbun.

Mr. Rathbun uses the term “insider” elsewhere in Memoirs, which might help in understanding what he understood by it. E.g.,

Objectively speaking, even though I did not fully appreciate it then, in a little more than a year from the time the quest for All Clear had begun, the enemy’s hand had been strengthened beyond its wildest dreams. All compliments of the man L. Ron Hubbard had charged with ultimate responsibility for All Clear: David Miscavige.
To make matters worse, Miscavige had only a month earlier supplied yet another stable of high-level, former-insider witnesses for Flynn’s arsenal, and new lawsuits against Hubbard for the future. Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, p. 194

Mr. Rathbun considered me one of those high-level, former-insider witnesses for Mr. Flynn’s arsenal. I suppose this was because of my insider knowledge of Mr. Hubbard’s personal archive, his personal staff, his history and a few other areas of Sea Org operations. I was not like Mr. Rathbun an insider in the criminal conspiracy that provided him the opportunity to do so much evil and destroy so many good people. Mr. Flynn was my attorney Michael Flynn who obtained the famous judgment you quoted from at the beginning of Chapter 6 “Who Was L. Ron Hubbard?”

“The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that his charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during the trial as a ‘genius,’ a ‘revered person,’ a man who was viewed by his followers in awe. Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology.” Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, October 1984

To be correct, it was June 1984 when the judge signed his decision. I would cite it as Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr., June 1984 in Church of Scientology of California and Mary Sue Hubbard v. Gerald Armstrong, Los Angeles, California Superior Court, No. C420153. For most purposes I would shorten the citation to Scientology v. Armstrong, or Armstrong 1.

There’s also a typo in your quote: “it appears that his charismatic” should be “it appears that he is charismatic.” 2

I believe that you have stated that you knew virtually nothing about the criminal conspiracy until after you were an Exscientologist and had read or heard about it from knowledgeable persons; i.e., not from Scientologists but persons of the “wog” race. Yet the criminal conspiracy went on, and good persons who were not members of your religion or cult, were criminally fair gamed through all the years you were a member. Mr. Rathbun knew that whole time he was running a criminal conspiracy because he was an insider. He withheld that from you, lied about what he and his coconspirators were doing, lied about the good people they were fair gaming, kept you ignorant, and kept you contributing, as you say elsewhere, your 27 years of dedicated, nose-to-the-grindstone work.

You were a Sea Org member, so you were inside the Sea Org. You were a Scientologist so you were inside Scientology. With that standard for “insider,” however, anyone who was ever added to the religion’s stats, e.g., a body in the shop, or a name to Central Files, would be an insider. No matter what such a person wrote about Scientology, it would be an insider’s guide.

I also have to reject the idea that you’re representing your book as a guide or primer for an insider. You see this concept in, e.g., The Birder’s Guide to Wren Nests, which is intended for birders; or in all the Idiots’ Guides, which are written for idiots. You have not written something here for Mr. Rathbun, Mr. Miscavige, or other actual insiders. Your book is not meant to be instructive or a guide for them.

You write in Ch.14 “Scientology’s Most Powerful Lie:”

It’s not overstating the case to say Scientology is a house of lies, built on one careful deception after another after another. Through this ongoing practice of duplicity, L. Ron Hubbard and his successor, David Miscavige, have been able to keep Scientology going all this time. The organization indoctrinates its members into an “end justifies the means” philosophy where anything is acceptable so long as it forwards Scientology’s existence. What none of those members realize is by buying into this, they are actually contributing to what amounts to an international criminal organization.

The organization, of course, does not indoctrinate anyone. Scientologists indoctrinate people. You indoctrinated people as a course supervisor, and recruiter, and on other posts. Insider Scientologists direct the indoctrination and duplicity scam and the criminal fair game machinery. Insiders do realize they are contributing to, indeed running, a criminal conspiracy. Insiders know they are committing crimes against persons when they commit them. If you are to be believed, they successfully kept you ignorant of the fact you have now realized that you were contributing to a criminal enterprise. The insiders kept their actual criminal intentions and actions secret from you just because they were criminal, and the insiders knew it. That is why Mr. Rathbun, while professing to have left Scientology and the criminal conspiracy in which he was a long time insider, does not tell the truth about his victims, but in his new life still victimizes them.

I believe there are instances in your book when you present as having knowledge you do not actually have, which you could actually have had if you were actually an insider. It is certainly obvious that a great amount of the information you communicate in the book you acquired not as an insider of any kind but only after you became an outsider.

I think therefore you should clarify that you are not really an insider or even an ex-insider. You could more accurately subtitle your book “An Exscientologist’s Guide to What Scientology is Really All About,” even if it really is not what Scientology is really all about, but what one person asserts it’s all about.

To better express your humility, which is described in your book’s foreword as so distinctive that it marks you out from most former members, you could subtitle your book “An Idiot’s Guide to What Scientology is Really All About.” You could explain that you were not writing for idiots but that you were acknowledging yourself as being an idiot by contributing all those years of youth and potential to all those lying, bullying criminal insiders like Mr. Rathbun.

Since Scientology, as you acknowledge, is an international criminal organization, an insider’s guide would be something like an insider’s guide to the mafia, or an insider’s guide to what the mafia is really all about. Here’s “An Insider’s Guide To Getting Into The Mafia.” http://me.askmen.com/mr-mafioso/914008/article/mafia-101-part-2-an-insiders-guide-to-getting-into The author claims, I believe, to be a made man. Analogously, you were not a made man. Analogously too, Rathbun was a made man. Extending the analogy, you would have been lower management in the human resources and distribution departments at the olive oil company. You did your job as if your life depended on it, but you really thought the business was olives. Although you went to staff Christmas parties, you weren’t in on closed-door meetings, and you accepted that condition. You thought the whole organization was a big happy family, because you weren’t an insider. You knew a lot of employees came and went, and some when they went spread tales about criminality, but you kept nose-to-the-grindstone, hated these traitors, and granted them no credence. You took a lot of abuse on the job, because the bosses acted like thugs. You saw a lot of employees abused, and dished out some abuse yourself. You put in 27 years, saw you had a dead end job, had an affair, or realized the oil you were selling was rancid, and you left the company. You then began to read the reports from all the Exemployees, whom you’d hated all those years and never granted any credence, that you had actually been working for a criminal enterprise. You had been contributing to making the insiders rich so they could be criminals and run the enterprise.

Jesse Prince describes insider, closed-door meetings this way from the period when he was an insider:

There were years of board room meeting at ASI to figure out how to get rid of Gerry Armstrong, L Ron junior, David Mayo and a few other people who had devoted their lives in servitude to L Ron and his grand ideas. …

We would be sitting in the board room at L Ron’s Author Services organization reading advices from L Ron calling for the heads of staff he felt offended him somehow. Listening to Miscavige and other staff figuring out ever clever ways to get rid of the people who were aggravating poor L Ron. As we sat there making up plans to attack the very same people who were at L Ron’s side doing everything in their power to do his will. L Ron never wavered when it came to annihilating the oldest and closest devoted adherents he had. There is no retirement in the business of Scientology. Ron taught his prodigy to quickly and quietly get rid of the most loyal staff members without remorse.

There were banker boxes full of “advices” from L Ron spewing hate filled vitriol about Gerry.
[Misspellings corrected out of care.]3

It is my understanding that unlike Mr. Rathbun, you never attended such meetings. You never read the banker boxes of LRH orders spewing hate-filled vitriol about me, but Mr. Rathbun had to have. You were never involved in figuring out how to get rid of me, but Mr. Rathbun was for years, because he was an insider.

Your book title Scientology: A to Xenu conveys the idea that as an “insider” you knew about Xenu, his incident, his implant, and the “upper level materials” associated with him. Elsewhere, however, you acknowledge that all the information you acquired about Xenu, the OT levels, etc. was from completely outsider sources.

Similarly with Mr. Hubbard’s “Admissions,” which you republish apparently in full in your book, you only heard of and read them from outsider sources, and not while you were in any sense an insider.

Perhaps you have some good, honest reason for calling yourself an insider that I haven’t thought of and you haven’t made clear. Maybe, e.g., you were joking (an inside joke?) or it’s simple marketing and you’re just plugging into the fairly recent but obviously continuing titling rage of Insider’s Guides.

I do acknowledge that before reading yours I had never read any other book in the Insider’s Guide lineup. I did not purchase your book for that reason, however, and as I’ve been saying, your use of the label perplexed me, rather than enticed me to buy the book. I did not really expect to be told by an insider what Scientology is really all about.

I have been having a significant personal experience with you, of course, since I first read your June 2014 Facebook black propaganda targeting me. I have read or listened to a number of your public communications on various subjects not immediately related to me since then. Over this time I naturally learned from you some things about your Scientology history. Before knowing your book’s title, I had certainly read or heard some of your statements of ignorance of the criminal conspiracy that organization insiders operated throughout your Scientology history. So your use of the term “insider” in the title surprised me. Then, as you can see, it interested me enough to write this open letter about it.

In your Facebook smears, you denigrate me, the information I have assembled, and what I have said about the IRS’s grant of undeserved tax exemption to the Scientologists. You supported these smears with the assertion that I “was nowhere near any of the IRS dealings.” I was near, actually, and in an important sense pivotal to both the Scientologists’ and the US Federal Government’s decisions and actions relating to the deal between them. Ignoring this, you conclude that, because of your false fact statement that I was nowhere near the IRS deal, my opinions or conjecture about it shouldn’t be listened to. On the other hand, you claim that Mr. 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.” Based on this claim, you conclude that you “will absolutely give “reliable source” status to Rathbun way before [you] will give it to [me].” I explained in an open communication how illogical these conclusions are.

[Shelton] 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. 4

You have never corrected your smears or black propaganda. You also have never acknowledged your illogic in your conclusion that Mr. Rathbun should be believed and deserved reliable source status because he was “intimately involved with the whole deal worked out with the IRS.” That is, he was an insider. Your reliance on him in your black PR for what went on in the IRS deal – a 30-year war – shows that you were not an insider. So that you should be believed, and deserve reliable source status, you would want to be, or have been, or be seen as, an insider too; and calling yourself one in your book title would be a step in that direction.

If you were to consider your book a “researcher’s guide,” since it is your Exscientologist research that the book is really all about, and not an insider’s guide, which the book really is not about, you could see yourself being held to a higher level or demand for factual support, citations, adultness of writing, crackerjack logic, etc. The accuracy and depth of your research is relevant, certainly, whereas your insiderness really is not. You are not just educating from solid, researched facts, but, as I said earlier, you are also propagandizing, and your research is weighted and skewed for that purpose.

The proximity to a dirty deal or a crime has no necessarily direct relationship to its witnesses’ or its investigators’ truthfulness in their testimony. In fact, it is clear that the makers of dirty deals, perpetrators of crimes, or insiders in criminal conspiracies, such as Mr. Miscavige and Mr. Rathbun, have a monstrous incentive to not tell the truth. And indeed they have not told the truth in this vital area in their lives and legacies.

If you do not really think of yourself as an insider, and would not really accept responsibility for what Scientology’s insiders knew, or did or didn’t do, you might consider relabeling yourself in your title to something a bit more accurately humble.

Yours fully,

Gerry Armstrong

Notes

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Exscientologists’ terrible humility: An open letter to Jon Atack

 

I am writing concerning some statements you made about Exscientologists in your foreword in Chris Shelton’s just-published book Scientology: A to Xenu. I am assuming you wrote what was published.

There is considerable disinformation in the book, and, while presenting as critical of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, Scientologists and their collaborators, it actually serves their antisocial purposes in key areas and ways. I will take these up with Mr. Shelton over the next days. Right now, I will only address a few things from your forward.

You write:

I first heard about Chris Shelton in 2013 when I began blogging at the Underground Bunker. I was pleasantly surprised to find someone who had survived such a profound involvement and managed to dig himself out. Believe me, it is highly unusual: more usually, former members spend years embroiled in the halfway-house of the self-styled Independent movement, until some external event triggers reflection.

Of course, recovery from prolonged trauma does not happen overnight, and Chris has the humility to admit he has further to travel – as do we all – but that very humility marks him out from most former members, who retain the phoney élite status implanted by the cult into its devotees.

Unlike 99% of former Scientologists, Chris was prepared to consider other explanations and to leave the cage of phobias induced by Scientology.

It is not clear what explanation of what exactly Mr. Shelton was considering when he became prepared to consider other explanations. You might be viewing Scientology as providing or being, for Scientologists, an explanation of human existence, or the human condition, or some such thing, for which there are other explanations. You might have an explanation for what you had in mind.

You also, of course, could be seen to be writing that while a Scientologist Mr. Shelton had an explanation for his Scientology-implanted phony elite status, and at some point after becoming an Exscientologist he became prepared to consider other explanations for his phony elite status.

In either case, or whatever the various explanations are that you had in mind, it has never been my experience that 99% of Exscientologists were not prepared to consider other ones themselves. I have not experienced any quantifiable percentage at all of Exscientologists who were not prepared to consider such or different explanations. Without searching out all the explanations Mr. Shelton has said he considered, I do not believe, and I challenge the notion that Exscientologists in any large percentage were not prepared to consider virtually everything Mr. Shelton has said he has considered. I would have to examine a lot of facts, which are not immediately accessible, to confirm for myself your assertion about the Exscientologist class.

What evidence do you have that, unlike Mr. Shelton, 99% of Exscientologists were unprepared to consider the explanations you say he was prepared to consider? And what evidence is there that any meaningful percentage of Exscientologists were unprepared to leave the cage of Scientology-induced phobias you say he was prepared to leave?

Obviously, I consider your conclusion about Exscientologists erroneous. It also obviously denigrates the Exscientologist class, and is worth getting to the bottom of and correcting.

I disagree with your conclusion that most Exscientologists retain the phony elite status that was implanted in them while Scientologists. I also question the claim that it is Mr. Shelton’s humility that marks him out from these Exscientologists. I can say from personal knowledge, which I have made available for some months, that, after you had heard about him and apparently found him dug out and his humility remarkable, he treated me knowingly, arrogantly, indeed contemptuously. In doing so, he also was serving the Scientologists’ inimical purposes. While he has not corrected the black propaganda record he made targeting me, I have also observed that he is generally remarkably unhumble in his public presentations.1

He, of course, has now put his humility, with his corresponding arrogance and resultant hypocrisy, into issue publicly. It is prominent in your foreword, which he published, and, I would guess, he requested you to write.

It is conceivable that you and I could have different definitions or values for “humility,” and what could be the essence of arrogance to me might be ever so humble to you. Just going by the usual, common definitions, however, what is your basis for construing Mr. Shelton’s humility as so deep, profound or clear to you that it marks him out from most Exscientologists?

His book, as I noted, has made his humility or lack a possibly quite educational public issue. Contrasting this psychological trait with the same trait of other Exscientologists has also made the humility or arrogance of the whole class a public issue for educational purposes. So there is a good issue for a public debate.

You write in your foreword:

My friend Christian Szurko, who is surely as expert about cults as anyone else alive, has pointed out former Scientologists tend to be even more arrogant than escapees from other groups. Chris is a notable exception. He has no pretensions to guru hood nor any need to form his own cult of personality. He has done remarkable work thus far, and I have no doubt that he will make many more contributions beyond this exceptional book.

I wrote to Mr. Szurko a week or so ago to have him confirm that he said what you attribute to him, and what he based such a conclusion on. I have not heard back from him. In any case, I have not found Mr. Shelton at all a notable exception to other Exscientologists regarding his level, quantity or manifestation of arrogance. In fact, it is clear to me that an honest analysis of his public persona and communications, and his handling of sincere questioners of his claims, as he did with me, will show that his arrogance or narcissism is a significant characteristic, and a psychological concern, not a virtue. I do not mean that Mr. Shelton’s arrogance or narcissism is a concern to him, but should be a concern to people who might look to him for guidance or tout his humility. Perhaps you can provide whatever evidence you have that he is a “notable exception” to the claim you ascribe to Mr. Szurko that Exscientologists are notably more arrogant than escapees from other groups.

You also write that Mr. Shelton “is driven by the compassionate urge to help those who have been harmed by Scientology.” I have never hidden, but have been very clear that I have been, and am being, harmed by the Scientologists and their collaborators. Yet Mr. Shelton has exhibited no urge whatsoever to help me, when he could, but has shown a determination to help the Scientologists and their collaborators in harming me. Do you really believe that it was compassion that motivated him, after claiming to be free of Scientology, to publicly black PR me, shun me, not grant me credence, all in service of the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes?

I look forward to hearing your answers to my questions, and your thoughts on the humility and arrogance issue generally, psychologically or socially from your perspective.

Yours frankly,

Gerry Armstrong

Notes

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Shelton apology announcement

[Chris Shelton:] Dear Gerry,

You have permission to publish those emails only so long as you also publish the following quoted response on your blog as my final response in this matter.

Thank you. I will publish your response on my blog, but I will not publish it as your final response in this matter because I have no way of knowing if it is your final response in this matter. It is a response, and I will post it, along with your first paragraph.

You have not actually identified what “this matter” is that you are referring to. For now, I assume that you are referring to your smearing me on Facebook and your interaction with me after I asked you to support or correct the smears.

If it is another matter in which your response is your final response, please let me know.

“It is with great sadness and remorse that I wish to express my apologies for having spoken in haste and without adequate foreknowledge about Gerry Armstrong on Facebook, a public social media site.

Thank you. After many years of parsing the communications of the most mealy-mouthed, dissembling Scientologists and their collaborators, including big bucks attorneys and bullies, I have had to accept that a great number of people cannot or do not parse such communications. This subject is a study in progress for me.

In this sentence, you write you wish to express your apologies for speaking on Facebook in haste and without adequate foreknowledge about me. With a hasty read, it could sound as if you are apologizing for smearing me, or black PRing me, as I have said.  After all, the words “sadness,” “remorse,” “apologies” and “Facebook” are there. But, it is not the smearing you are saying you are apologizing for. You are wishing to express apologies for your haste and inadequate knowledge when you published your smears. There is no apology for your smears in your “final response.” Your smears did the damage, not your haste or what you didn’t know about your target.

It is easy to tell from my communications to you or about you that I am not seeking, and have never sought, an apology. I simply wanted you to support or correct your smears. That would not have been an unbeneficial undertaking for you as well as for me, because you would have learned the things about me you now suggest you discovered in the last few days and motivated you to apologize for your haste. Accepting that you have communicated your final response, I have to also accept that you refuse to and will not support or correct your smears.

No matter what you did to correct or support your smears, it would require that you violate your postulate that the response I am responding to here is your final response in this matter. I think it’s clear, however, in your case, that you have easily invalidated exactly that postulate in the very recent past and you could just as easily invalidate it again. It is not often a good move to pronounce publicly that one communication or another is the final response in some matter. It might not be.

Obviously, you take pride in your logic. I would think that to improve your game, so to speak, you would be grateful when a person points out illogics, mealy-mouthings or semantic dishonesties.

“My comment about him vs Rathbun was ill-advised and stated an opinion that was not fully founded on the evidence of the matters regarding Scientology’s history with the IRS and Gerry’s personal involvement in those matters.

Thank you. That’s true. Your comments were comments, and they were ill-advised. You stated opinions that were not fully founded on the evidence of the matters regarding Scientology’s history with the IRS and my personal involvement in those matters.

You suggest that now your opinions (there were several, covering different and broad areas) are now fully founded on the evidence. I think you would help to state your present opinions in the process of supporting or correcting the subject smears.

“I have since had time to reflect on this and study more about the issue and found I did not know everything there is to know about the issue at hand when I was commenting on it.

Thank you. The implication here is that although you did not know everything there is to know about how the Scientologists’ obtained their IRS tax exemption, you now do. Can you now support or correct the subject smears.

“It is not my intention to “take sides” with Marty Rathbun (or anyone, for that matter) over any other ex-Scientologists on this or any other matter because I don’t believe that is constructive behavior.

You did take sides with Rathbun against me. Your taking his side is an essential factor in this matter of you smearing me on Facebook and your treatment of me after I asked you to support or correct your smears.

“Not taking sides” is not necessarily an enlightened postulate or declaration. And “taking sides” can certainly be constructive behavior. Why not take the side of justice? Why not take the side of truth?

What if there was an Exscientologist who was black PRing another Exscientologist? What if you knew that an Exscientologist was serving the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes toward Exscientologists? What if you knew an Exscientologist criminally framed another Exscientologist? Charlie Manson is a clear Exscientologist; you wouldn’t side with Sharon Tate? What if David Miscavige declared Rex Fowler, thereby making him an Exscientologist? How about if Miscavige suddenly called himself an Exscientologist, and kept right on doing the same evil things he’s been doing as a Scientologist? Would you stop siding against him? What on Teegeeack is so holy or good about being an Exscientologist that you would make them a special class where taking sides, as in making moral choices, is never constructive behavior?

It seems to me that your postulate to “not take sides” is illogical, morally stunts the postulator, and limits his opportunities.

“I firmly believe we should all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the common enemy, which is the official Church of Scientology.

The standing shoulder-to-shoulder is a metaphor. We do not actually stand shoulder-to-shoulder. So what is it really that you firmly believe here?

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one psychopath or another against a common enemy was what you did throughout your X years in Scientology. It was Miscavige’s command intention, not yours that aligned all those shoulders. You got in line, and stood for X years shoulder-to-shoulder with every other Scientologist, and charged shoulder-to-shoulder when Miscavige gave the order. Didn’t that work out great!

Now you want wogs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Marty Rathbun, the one-time common enemy’s head victimizer. And you acted to dissuade Exscientologists from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me. Use your logic button, Luke.

Your firm belief and a toonie and I can park for an hour somewhere. The faulty implied value in shoulder-to-shoulder standing, is, as an LRH policy wonk you know, one of the classic outpoints.

The logical thing to do is to support or correct your FB comments that smear me, and to grant me the credence to do whatever you do logically.

“No part of my actions were a knowing or willful attempt to forward CofS’s agenda against Gerry.

Oh hogwash. You were simply caught in flagrante delicto.

If you feel you must apologize, please do so for what you did. Not for me, but for logic’s sake. Not your haste leading to your formulation of black propaganda attacking me. I’d apologize for the blackness of the propaganda, the message you sent out on Facebook. Not your speed of particle flow getting it from your mind into people’s consciousnesses.

“I certainly acknowledge that horrible things have been done to Gerry by CofS in the past and it was never my purpose to align myself with those actions.

Knowing that horrible things had been done to me in the past, you had to have known you were adding another horrible thing to them. Knowing that Rathbun had done many of the horrible things to me you knew about, you yet aligned yourself with him against me.

I think that anyone with an interest and a clue can get that Chris Shelton smearing Gerry Armstrong serves the Scientologists’ purposes. Perhaps you risked doing it because of the black PR you had been fed about me over the years. But what do you say your purpose for smearing me was?

“I am not an agent of Scientology nor am I acting in any alignment with their motives.

The problem is that when it was pointed out to you that you were indeed serving the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes, you simply denied it, and consequently did not change it. If you insist that you are not serving the Scientologists’ purposes when you are, you would not change. That is why your protestation should be given little weight and instances when you are serving the Scientologists’ purposes should be shown or explained to you.

A very useful criterion for determining if you are serving the Scientologists’ purposes is the truth. As an exercise in logical thinking, take your FB statements about me and write them into a sworn declaration for filing in a Scientology-related case, let’s say Scientology v. Armstrong:

I Chris Shelton declare:

  1. I am over 18 years of age and make this declaration of my own personal knowledge and for those matters stated upon information and belief, I believe them to be true and accurate. If called as a witness to testify as to the matters herein, I could and would do so competently.
  2. I was inside Scientology for X years and held several positions on staff, including A, B, C, D, E, F and G.
  3. I am an expert in Scientology policy and practices, and have lectured on organizational structure, criminal and antisocial activities, history, etc.
  4. I am well aware of Gerry Armstrong because of L, M, N, O and P.
  5. It has come to my attention that Armstrong has made claims about Scientology; the U.S. federal government; their becoming allies; the Scientologists’ undermining of the IRS; the reversal of the US position on Scientology; the cost of auditing; the Scientologists’ collection of  the most secret and embarrassing aspects of their lives and of the lives of their relatives and friends; the possession of intelligence from around the world; the effort to attract influential persons, e.g., intelligence specialists, famous actors, business people and politicians; the US’s aid spreading Scientology; the US’s betrayal of its own citizens; the 2010 US Court decision that clears the Scientologists to imprison recalcitrant members and bring them back if they escape; and something about hypocrisy and human rights. Armstrong’s claims are not based on the actual facts.
  6. Actual facts concerning these claims can be found in the actual eyewitness accounts and information on record from the 1980 – 1993 time period. The best account of these actual facts is the book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior by Mark (Marty) Rathbun. This book gives the exact reasons why the IRS capitulated.
  7. Concerning the claims Armstrong has made regarding the matters listed in paragraph 5 above, he is spewing nonsense.
  8. Concerning the claims Armstrong has made regarding the matters listed in paragraph 5 above, he is full of it, by which I mean that Armstrong is “full of shit” or “full of crap,” i.e. “completely wrong, false, or worthless” (Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms).
  9. 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.
  10. Gerry Armstrong was nowhere near any of the IRS dealings, so I would not listen to any of his opinions or conjecture about the IRS deal. This is especially so because Armstrong’s opinions or conjecture openly defy logic and reason. Also all his opinions or conjecture concerning the matters identified in paragraph 5 above openly defy logic and reason.
  11. I am a logician, and a qualified instructor in logic, reason and critical thinking, and I titled my website “Critical Thinker At Large.”
  12. Armstrong may well be a reliable source on other points which he was directly involved in and I cannot 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.
  13. The conclusion that Armstrong is making about the IRS is unfounded. Armstrong’s conclusion that the US Government is somehow in cahoots with Scentology is also unfounded and bizarre. That is the most ridiculous assertion I have heard in months.
  14. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
  15. Executed in S,T  the Uth day of V. 2015.

___________________________
Chris Shelton

If this declaration was filed in Scientology v. Armstrong, or Armstrong v. US and Scientology, in relation to the IRS deal, as you call it, which party’s purposes would it serve? Not mine. My attorney might file it just show how dishonest the author is and how it serves the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes. But this is an enemy declaration.

Let’s say that you don’t execute a declaration swearing to the truth and correctness of your comments on Facebook, but the Scientologists subpoena you for a deposition. Their attorney has you sworn in, shows you a printout of your comments, and asks you if you stand by your comments about me. Surely you wouldn’t argue that it would not serve their purposes for you to say ‘Yes.’ And if that is the case, then your comments always served the Scientologists’ purposes.

I have to scrutinize everything I publish, or for that matter even communicate privately, with the awareness that it very well could be used in some way in some legal proceeding. Even though I deal with complex issues and with people who seek my harm or destruction, I have to be confident enough about the truth and correctness of what I am communicating to be able to state under oath that I stand by it and can support it. This is an awareness that was generated in me in logical response to the Scientologists and their collaborators’ attacks on my credibility in many contexts including many legal proceedings. You might try integrating such an awareness into your handling of truth in your communications.

“I believe my works speak for themselves as adequate evidence of this.

No. If that was the case, David Miscavige’s works would speak for themselves as adequate evidence of his integrity and beneficence. Miscavige’s “good works” – saving people at catastrophes, saving people from the scourge of drugs, cathedral building, etc.—can justifiably be seen as cloaking his lying, bullying and other antisocial actions. If you don’t correct or support your smears, your seemingly good works can justifiably be seen the same way.

“Gerry, I truly hope you can see that I am not and never have been your enemy and have never wished any ill-will towards you.

I have to be honest, No. You were an enemy throughout your Scientology career. In your April 2014 video about fair game, you stated:

By being a Scientologist and giving money and support to the Church, you are funding these fair game operations.

[…]

The blinders need to come off. If you truly support the idea of bringing real freedom to everyone, it starts by granting each person the right to think and speak and write what they choose, in such a way that it doesn’t harm others.1

With your intellect, abilities and time, you supported fair game ops against me that were enemy actions. These ops continue to this day and your FB smears and your subsequent treatment of me constitute enemy actions, which denials do not erase. Change of allegiance, of course, could erase the enemy relationship or condition, but that would require recognition of that condition, which denials of the condition do not permit.

“I am truly sorry that I ever expressed any opinion or statement using your name or disaparaging you in any way and will never do so again.”

That is another odd “apology,” for expressing any opinion or statement using my name, to say nothing of disparaging me. I understand how such “apologies” are used by some people: “I’m sorry I ever mentioned your name.” It’s a variation on: “I’m sorry I ever even heard your name.”

Also you have formed another postulate that is illogical and limiting when you declare that you will never again express any opinion or statement using my name. In certain circumstances, that is an enemy action. You might consider reviewing what you communicate for such postulates that illogically limit your future actions.

I hope you take this to heart, and think critically about what you are doing with your mind.

Yours analytically,

Gerry

Notes

 

by

Re: Fair use and posting Chris Shelton’s e-mail

Draco:And into the fray I go. I read what Gerry said on his blog. I do have a problem with the way he has posted this in that he appears to copy and paste his emails to Chris, but does not do the same with Chris’s replies. Instead he paraphrases and expresses his interpretation of what Chris has said in reply to him. Why not just copy and paste Chris’s replies and let us draw our own conclusions about this? I know it is his blog and he can do what he likes with it. The thing I dislike the most is insinuating that Chris is still pushing the church’s agenda. With what I have seen of Chris’s work, this is certainly not the case.
The whole IRS thing is so filled with conspiracy theories and lies and speculation. I don’t think it helps to speculate about how and why it occurred even though it had a huge impact on the way scientology operates.
What matters is that people keep talking about what really happens inside the church, to people. All of this talk and exposing the abuse will prevent the growth and continue the decline of scientology in the world. In the end they may still have money, but they won’t have people. That’s what counts in my book.
Yes, not having the official religious cloaking would make a huge difference, but fighting about what happened with the IRS does not help the cause at all. Just IMHO.1

I didn’t just post Chris’s replies out of an abundance of solicitude. This has been my reasoning since I started emailing:

“Keep in mind that all private email is considered to be copyrighted by the original author. If you post private email to a public list or forum, or forward it to an outside party
in whole or in part, you must include the author’s permission to post the material publicly. Not doing so can get you into legal jeopardy or trouble with your friends and associates.” 2

Fair use, of course, balances and in many circumstances is the most excellent of exceptions to the exclusive right of the copyright holder to prohibits publication. With the known facts, I have no doubt that I possess a fair use right to publish Chris’s emails.

Caroline and I have been dealing with copyright law and the way Scientologists beat people with it for many years, and we swatted them back with fair use before it was safely in vogue to publish their scriptures. 3

My comments, or as you call them my expressions of my interpretations, about what Chris had written in his emails actually create a greater fair use right to publication, since they constitute or evidence, among other things, commentary, criticism, research and teaching.

Anyway, despite my fair use right, I went to all the trouble of paraphrasing Chris’s emails, rather than just copy and paste them, to be courteous. He had also written that he wouldn’t be answering any more of my emails. And everyone can draw their own conclusions from my paraphrasing.

Nevertheless, because of the interest expressed, including by you, earlier today I sent Chris the email that follows,which is self-explanatory, and asked for his permission.

Dear Mr. Shelton:

In a comment on Tony Ortega’s blog, I mentioned my recent experience with you that started with your black PRing me on Facebook.
http://tonyortega.org/2015/02/…

“An astonishing recent attack on my credibility came from Chris Shelton, and it was directly on the issue of the IRS tax exemption. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi…
Shelton did not deal with the facts or the content of my evidence or argument,
just smeared me in relationship to Rathbun, and then would do nothing to
support or correct his smear. Shelton presented as someone who had rejected
Scientology, called himself an expert, claimed a high level of logic, had never
communicated to me, and cheer-leading “Justice for All.””

As you know, in my article “Chris Shelton: logic and loyalty, on the line,” I quoted my emails to you, but paraphrased your emails to me. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… Some people at the Underground Bunker have questioned why; e.g., Draco:

“I do have a problem with the way he has posted this in that he appears to copy and paste his emails to Chris, but does not do the same with Chris’s replies. Instead he paraphrases and expresses his interpretation of what Chris has said in reply to him. Why not just copy and paste Chris’s replies and let us draw our own conclusions
about this?”

I did not publish your emails, of course, because I did not specifically have your permission to do so. This does not mean that I do not believe such publication would be fair use. As you know, the paraphrase I posted paralleled your email quite perfectly.

The issue and the emails between you and me concern public policy in which there is global public interest. The additional public interest in your emails’ exact text, and the
question of the accuracy of my paraphrasing, make posting them now even fairer fair use.

Giving me permission to publish your emails is the most logical thing to do, however, so I thought you should have the opportunity to give it. I am sure you can see good reasons for doing so.

Do I have your permission to publish your emails you sent me?

Yours courteously,

Gerry

Notes

by

Secret Lives interview (1997)

This interview was in Vancouver, BC in 1997. I had left the US earlier that year when I had discovered online a piece of what the Scientologists filed to get their 1993 IRS tax exemption, which included black PR on me. I’ve written about this a number of times.

 

Recently Caroline and I have assembled materials that show that the US Federal Government conspired with the Scientologists to violate public policy in the process of the grant of tax exemption.1

Lawrence Wright did not deal with the public policy issue in Going Clear, nor the content of the Scientologists’ submissions to the IRS that contain false statements and constitute public policy violations. I was not contacted for the Alex Gibney film, but assume per Joe Nocera’s NY Times piece that it follows the Wright plot and does not mention public policy. In his 1997 NY Times article Douglas Frantz provides very useful facts about the conspiracy, but also does not mention the public policy issue. Yet, public policy was central to the IRS’s dealings in and out of court with the Scientologists over decades. It is still central today.

If you are a smart person with a conscience, please study these materials. If you know of smart people with consciences, please tell them about the public policy issue in the Scientologists’ long war with the IRS. 2 This includes smart, conscienceful people in every country, because the Scientologists flourish their unlawfully obtained IRS tax exemption and seek undeserved advantages with this ill-gotten decision in every country.

“After the most thorough invest in IRS history,” my ass.

Anyone who begins to study about the public policy issue in the IRS matter will encounter an almost unfathomable depth of black PR on me, from the most unexpected sources. Please do not be dissuaded from understanding this incredible situation by the assaults on my credibility. In reality, the assaults on my credibility in the Scientologists’ submissions to the IRS are the most blatant examples of public policy violations. The Scientologists and their collaborators committed crimes against me, and a connected set of victims, to be able to commit crimes against everyone. A license from the IRS to criminals to commit crimes against citizens, especially the SP class who expose them as criminals, cannot but be against public policy. The post- submission smears are to reduce my credibility to beast level so no one will grant me an instant of credence.

I wrote Jesse Prince a note recently about the transpersonal factors and effects in my legal relationship with the Scientologists.3This balances the black PR that Scientology v. Armstrong is my personal battle and nobody should do anything about it because nobody is my personal army. Another black PR line is that the Scientology v. Armstrong war is a “grudge match.” Check out how it gets hidden away on ESMB by people presenting as the Scientologists’ opponents. Other common attack lines are that Scientology v. Armstrong is just about me selling out, or just about an injunction I’m sour grapes over, or that the injunction is legal, or that I’m just a scofflaw.

There is no one the Scientologists fair gamed more than me during the period Rathbun ran the fair gaming. If there is someone he had fair gamed more than me, he has never identified that person. The one person Rathbun fair gamed somewhat equivalently was my own attorney Michael Flynn. Yet the Scientology v. Armstrong fair gaming, including majorly the IRS conspiracy, is what Rathbun has done nothing about, except for further black PR and furtherance of his crimes against me, and Flynn, in his 2013 book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior.

An astonishing recent attack on my credibility came from Chris Shelton, and it was directly on the issue of the IRS tax exemption.4Shelton did not deal with the facts or the content of my evidence or argument, just smeared me in relationship to Rathbun, and then would do nothing to support or correct his smear. Shelton presented as someone who had rejected Scientology, called himself an expert, claimed a high level of logic, had never communicated to me, and cheer-leading “Justice for All.”

One of the black PR lines on me is that,yes, I exposed Hubbard and that was good, but that was then, old history, and then I sold out, and now I’m seeing things, or some such putdown. But the history didn’t stop with me exposing Hubbard. The story became what the Scientologists did to prevent his exposure, which was mainly by destroying my credibility so that no one would listen to me exposing him. He has been exposed for a long time. The story therefore has become what the Scientologists and their collaborators have done to destroy my credibility so that no one would listen to me about what they have done and are doing to destroy my credibility. A key piece of what they did to destroy my credibility, and me, is in their submission to the IRS on which their tax exemption was granted.

The Scientology v. Armstrong conflict is not old, or lost, or unwinnable. Neither is Armstrong v. Scientology, US, et al. The Scientologists’ tax exemption is not irreversible, and in any case the coconspirators should be exposed for that crime.

Thanks for the many kind comments. It’s very encouraging.5

Notes

  1. See, e.g., the introduction to the Armstrong Op site: http://armstrong-op.gerryarmst… ↩
  2. See article Public Policy: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  3. See “For Jesse Prince: Who gets helped?”  http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  4. See Chris Shelton: logic and loyalty, on the line: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  5. Originally posted in the comments section on Tony Ortega’s blog article. ↩

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