Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology (64 page)

Another witness worked at Flag [in Florida] and
became an “L. Ron Hubbard Public Relations Officer,” one of only three in the
world and a high appointment. In 1977 she declined to undertake a mission that
would cause her to leave her young daughter for at least 2 months.

She was shouted at and abused because she put the
care of her child first. She was subjected to a Committee of Evidence
(disciplinary tribunal): She left Flag.

Those are a few of many illustrations, proved in
evidence, of the ruthless and inhuman disciplinary measures.

Justice Latey then quoted from an Ethics Policy Letter, and
from the 1968 cancellation of “Fair Game.” He gave the following example to
demonstrate that the “Fair Game Policy” (that a Suppressive can be “tricked,
sued or lied to or destroyed”) was still in force after its apparent
cancellation:

Beginning in 1977 the Church of Scientology have
conducted a campaign of persecution against Dr. Clark. They wrote letters to
the Dean at the Harvard Medical School and to the Director of the Massachusetts
General Hospital. They [the Dean and the Director] refused to gag him. Their
[the Church’s] agents tracked down and telephoned several of his patients and
interviewed his neighbors looking for evidence to impugn his private or
personal actions. They submitted a critical report to a Committee of the
Massachusetts State Senate. On three occasions during the last five years a
Scientology “front” called the Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights have
brought complaints against him to the Massachusetts Medical Board of
Registration alleging improper professional conduct. In 1980 he was declared a
“Number One Enemy” and in 1981 they brought two law suits against him
(summarily dismissed, but costly and worrying). They distributed leaflets at
the Massachusetts General Hospital offering a $25,000 reward to employees for
evidence which would lead to his conviction on any charge of criminal activity.

They stole his employment record from another Boston
hospital. They convened press conferences calculated to ruin his professional
reputation.

 Justice Latey quoted Hubbard: “The law can be used very
easily to harass,” and continued:

A sad episode during the hearing was the evidence of a young
man. He is greatly gifted and did exceptionally well at School and University.
His parents are Scientologists as are his brother and sister. They are all
totally committed. He did his first simple course at the age of six and a
further basic course “The Hubbard Qualified Scientologist Course” two years
later. Since then he has continued with course after course ... It became
apparent that he simply could not accept that there was or could be anything
wrong with Scientology. The part of his mind which would otherwise have been
capable of weighing objectively the criticisms of Scientology had been blocked
out by the processing. He has indeed been enslaved.

In his conclusion as to Scientology itself, Justice Latey
had this to say:

Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious ... In my
judgment it is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is
based on lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power for Mr.
Hubbard, his wife and those close to him at the top. It is sinister because it
indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line
unquestioningly and to those who criticize or oppose it. It is dangerous
because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable
young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the
unquestioning captives and tools of the cult, withdrawn from ordinary thought,
living and relationships with others.

Mr. Justice Latey awarded custody of the children to the
mother. Late in the hearing the father had made a heart rending proposal: he
and his new wife would abandon Scientology until the children had grown up. It
was moving, not because he would have to abandon Scientology, but because for
making such a suggestion in court he risked being ostracized by the Scientology
Church and community, whatever the outcome. The Justice felt that because the
father and his wife were committed Scientologists, their removal from East
Grinstead, and from the Church, would not be enough: “The baleful influence of
the ‘Church’ would in reality still be there and the children would remain
gravely at risk.”

The Justice also gave two very telling examples of that
“baleful influence”:

Recently B asked his mother whether he could have a
certain friend to stay for the week-end when with her “because he’s the only
one whose parents will let him come to your house.”

Recently G asked her mother why she was not a
Scientologist. Her mother pointed out that people could be good people without
being Scientologists and observed that two widely respected personages in whom
G is interested were not Scientologists. To this G replied “they would be
better if they were.”

1.
   
“B & G Wards”, Royal Courts of Justice, High Court, London, Decision
filed 23 July 1984.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Since the whole affair had now become
one of religion, the vanquished were, of course, exterminated.”

—Voltaire,
Candide

L. Ron Hubbard seemed oblivious to the drubbing he was
receiving in the courts, and as the Armstrong trial was nearing its conclusion,
bulletins relating to a new “Rundown” started to appear. However, the “False
Purpose Rundown” did show some awareness that all was not well in the
Scientology world. Added to the usual list of items preventing gain in
counseling – “overts” (transgressions), “evil purposes” and connection to real
or imagined Suppressives - were “false purposes.” These were defined as
“non-survival purposes.” In the first Bulletin,
¹
Hubbard took one of
his perennial swipes at psychiatry. By now the association between the
“implanters” who created OT3, 75 million years ago, and the modern-day
psychiatrists was complete. He also said that “psychs” and “priests” are “the
same crew,” so dismissing all mental therapy and all religion (with the
exception of Scientology, of course) in the same breath.

In the wake of their resounding defeat in the Armstrong case
in California, and the damning decision in the English child custody case, the
Church published an Executive Directive called simply “Squirrels,” naming
Armstrong, two former members of Hubbard’s Personal staff who had given
evidence during the Armstrong case, and David Mayo with two of his associates.
The Directive said
²
:

Their actions are destructive and aimed at the enslavement
rather than the freedom of man ... Their continued harmful acts to themselves
and their continued desire to drag others to the level of beasts and animals
devoid of spiritual qualities places them in the psychiatric camp of those who
manufacture madness for profit.

A few days later, on September 24, 1984, the Church of
Scientology lost an appeal against the Internal Revenue Service. In a 222 page
decision, the Tax Court judge gave a remarkably detailed account of the
Church’s financial dealings from 1970-1972, showing the movement of huge sums
out of Scientology and into Hubbard’s control. The judge also described the
tactics of evasion ordered by Hubbard, for example, the deliberate jumbling of
two million pages of tax related material, so that IRS officials would have to
sort it out, at the expense of the US tax-payer.
³

On October 9, a group of Scientology dignitaries, including
David Miscavige, flew to Saint Hill by helicopter, to sign the “Pledge to
Mankind” and to form the “International Association of Scientologists.” The
Pledge contained the usual rhetoric, clumsily written out by an inexperienced
calligrapher:

New religions have been born in blood at the cost of
great sacrifice and suffering by adherents ... Scientology has survived and
expanded because of the dedication of its members and because it is a force for
goodness and freedom which is easily recognized by men of goodwill; despite the
vicious lies which are spawned by those who would enslave mankind and which are
carried by the media...

In the United States, which was once thought to be a
haven of religious liberty, we are the targets of unprincipled attacks in the
court system by those who would line their pockets from our hard won coffers.
Bigots in all branches of government, fearing the success of Scientology, are
bent on our destruction through taxation and repressive legislation.

We have been subjected to illegal heresy trials in
two countries before prejudiced and malinformed judges who are not qualified or
inclined to perceive the truth...

The detractors of Scientology know full well that it
is a proven, effective and workable system for freeing mankind from spiritual bondage.
That is why they attack. They fear that they will somehow be threatened by a
society which is more ethical, productive and humane.

Scientologists paid $2,000 to become lifetime members of the
Association.

In addition to the Pledge, the Church filed yet another law
suit against attorney Michael Flynn, this time demanding $20,600,000 in
damages. In the Complaint, it was alleged that Flynn had engineered the forgery
of a $2 million check presented to a New York bank in 1982, to be drawn on the
account of L. Ron Hubbard. Obviously, they had failed to find evidence which
would interest the FBI or a District Attorney. Undeterred, the Scientologists
published an issue of its Clearwater Sun magazine, which is handed out by the
thousand on the streets. They quoted from affidavits made by the two brothers
who had perpetrated the check fraud, in which Flynn was accused of setting up
the whole operation! After months of such libels, one of the brothers, who was
being held in custody by German police, signed another affidavit, in which he
claimed the Scientologists had paid him for the first affidavit. Eventually the
Church withdrew their ill-founded Complaint.

In December 1984, came another bombshell. Following the
massive raid on the Toronto Scientology Church of March 1983, charges were
finally brought against 18 high-ranking Church officials and former members,
and the Church of Scientology itself. Among the charges was one of conspiracy
to attempt murder (though this was dropped a few months later).

On the last day of January 1985, the Scientologists filed a
lawsuit against the Advanced Ability Centers in Santa Barbara, Aberdeen, and
East Grinstead, along with several of these Centers’ principals, including
David Mayo, Robin Scott, Morag Bellmain and Ron Lawley. Jon Zegel, whose tapes
recounting the CMO take-over were so popular, was also included. The Complaint
was for “racketeering; false description of origin; common law unfair
competition; statutory unfair competition; receipt and concealment of stolen
property; breach of trust; breach of contract; trade secret misappropriation;
injunctive relief and damages.” Scientology attorneys were invoking the
Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, enacted to curtail the
activities of organized crime.

A Washington, DC, judge signed an order on March 13, 1985
(the Commodore’s 74th birthday), requiring L. Ron Hubbard to appear in the
long-standing case of the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC
versus the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The judge deemed Hubbard a
“managing agent” of the Church despite all protestations that Hubbard had
resigned from management in the 1960s. Hubbard failed to appear, and the case
was dismissed. One of the Church’s suits against Michael Flynn was also
dismissed for Hubbard’s failure to obey a court order to appear.
⁴

Also in March, Julie Christofferson-Titchbourne’s case
against Hubbard, the Church of Scientology of California, and the Scientology
Mission of Davis came back into Court in Portland, Oregon. The suit had
originally been filed in 1977
⁵
and arose out of a claim for a refund
of some $3,000 dollars. Julie Christofferson had become involved with
Scientology in 1975, when she was 17. She had taken Scientology courses in
place of a college course in engineering, and had spent her college money in
doing so. She claimed that fraudulent representations had been made to her
about the value of Scientology qualifications, and the changes that Scientology
counseling and training would bring to her. Her original Complaint charged
outrageous conduct, the infliction of severe emotional distress and fraud.
⁶

It was the third time that the case had been brought to
trial. In 1979, Christofferson-Titchbourne had been awarded $2.1 million. In
1982, the ruling had been overturned by the appellate court, dismissing the
claim of outrageous conduct, but also striking the evidence of several
Scientology witnesses.

The 1980s rift in Scientology had started after the
appellate decision. Thousands had either left or been expelled from the Church.
Among them were many valuable witnesses, and since the Armstrong case there was
a greater willingness to go on record. Bill Franks, who had been Executive
Director International in 1981, and had controlled the purge of the Guardian’s
Office, took the stand and when asked by the Church’s attorney whether he had
thought Scientology created “mindless robots,” he responded, “not at the
outset.” When asked his current opinion he replied, “Absolutely.” He complained
about the manipulation of members, and the ludicrously high cost of
Scientology. Franks said abandoning Scientology had been the hardest move of
his whole life. He maintained that most Scientology staff members are decent people,
but added, “Scientology plays on decency. That’s the whole hook.”
⁷

The details of a Guardian’s Office operation were put into
evidence. “Operation Christo” had been aimed at Julie Christofferson Titchbourne,
her family and even a Lutheran minister.
⁸