Presenting Rod Keller's
Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review

Volume 0, Issue 1 - April 23 1995


Hana Whitfield Affidavit

A new affidavit (for me at least) was posted this week, that of Hana Whitfield. Her stories of life in the RPF are chilling. This should be used as a standard reply when the RPF is made to sound like summer camp. Here's how Hana sums up her experiences in Scientology.

"I was in Scientology for 19 years from March 1965 to August 1984. The majority of those years, particularly the last 10 were filled with great emotional, mental and physical trauma. This experience as the most humiliating and degrading one I've ever experienced. I still suffer from frequent nightmares, emotional distress and severe headaches because of it."

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Bob Penny on the CoS

 Bob Penny distributed a monograph, "Things That Can Be Said To Work...". It's a description of the tactics and internal logic of the cos. It provides a different perspective of the church than the usual horror stories, systematically categorizing the different organizations, customs and practices that are used, including excellent descriptions of the internal justice system. The standard answers used to explain away inconsistencies and illogic are very interesting. Here are some excerpts.

"The wonder is that I wasted 13 years of my life and more than $100,000 before learning to handle the false loyalties and other tricks in which I was enmeshed for so long. Clearly, something was going on that my basic "street education" had not prepared me to deal with. Rationalizations such as, "it's the best thing we've got," and "at least it's moving in the right direction" (neither of which is true) helped perpetuate the stasis. Even afterwards, it was hard to avoid rationalizations like "but I learned a lot," or "the organization sucks but the tech is good" which were attempts to minimize and not really face the harm which had occurred and from which I had yet to recover. The habits of self-censorship, loaded language, avoidance of contrary data, and other thought-stopping mechanisms took a long time to go away if, indeed, they are gone even now."

"Scientology was not a beneficial experience for me. I avoid the word fraud because it connotes a deliberate and knowing deception which is rare among the misled, but I do believe the organizations practices are based on fraud. The "tech" is certainly fraudulent. But as regards most individual Scientologists, I suggest instead the word trip, in the sense of a self-justifying system of thought which, once entered, leads only into itself.

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How To Spot A Scientologist

 An anonymous posting was made under the ominous title "SCIENTOLOGY INFILTRATION". It is a guide to identifying Scientologists who may be on under cover operations. Quite useful.

"THE GAZE

Scientologists are heavily indoctrinated with training routines to look you in the eye when communicating. This is not meant to be a threat or a show of strength but actually meant to enhance communication. However, it is often performed robotically and feels strange. Anyway, it is a trait rather rare amongst non-scientologists but very common amongst scientologists so it is the primary visual indicator that you have a scientologist in front of you.

CLEAR BRACELET

Many clears proudly wear a bracelet that looks almost identical to a medic alert bracelet except that it carries the scientology symbol and their clear number on the back. If someone is wearing one of these you can bet they are a scientologist."

"-NESS WORDS

LRH was fond of making up words ending with -ness, beingness, doingness and havingness. You will often find scientologists doing the same thing. It will just slip out in conversation."

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Dennis Erlich Update

 Harassment of Dennis Erlich continued this week. A levy of over $40,000 was placed on his bank account. This is in connection with his child support "agreement". His ex-wife's lawyer will be providing Dennis an accounting of the money owed, and Dennis has received the address where his ex and his daughter Holly live. I believe this is the first time he has known this in years.

Cos Lawyer Kendrick Moxon called Dennis this week to inform him that he is filing for a Temporary Restraining Order "to make me cease my "continuing civil harassment of Robert Lippman (a person with whom I've never communicated or met)". Stay tuned.

In an unrelated development, the EFF has set up a fund to pay for expenses that result from his legal entanglements. Make checks payable to the Dennis Erlich Defense Fund at this address:

Electronic Frontier Foundation
1667 K Street, NW
Suite 801
Washington, DC 20006

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CoS In France

 Emmanuel Marin posted some interesting news from France.

"The cult has to pay 90.000.000 F (about 17.000.000 $) to the French IRS and has lost all the juridical tricks it attempted to avoid this. So the US scientology is coming to the rescue. Monique Yingling, the advocate of the International CoS, has proposed to buy the French CoS. The project proposes the creation of two new entities: the New CoS of Paris, and the New Spiritual Association of Scientology of Paris. The former has a 'cultural vocation', and the latter has the vocation to continue the activity of the current French CoS. Note the change in the names to create the confusion: the 'New CoS of Paris' won't be the New 'CoS of Paris', in fact the New 'CoS of Paris' will be the 'New Spiritual..'"

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Soc.Religion.Scientology Proposal

 Mike Chapman posted a Request for Discussion for a new newsgroup: Soc.religion.scientology (moderated), to be moderated by himself. I get the feeling Mike isn't very interested in Scientology. He's certainly not a frequent a.r.s poster. I would have thought this would be a prerequisite for being a moderator.

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Hubbard's Grades at GWU

 Jeff Jacobsen posted a fascinating report card from George Washington. It shows that Hubbard failed just about everything but physical education. I think this should be kept handy as a standard counter to the claims that he was well-educated.

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CoS in "Hard Copy"

 Hard Copy, the nightly scandal show, aired a soft-hitting piece on Scientology on Tuesday. I didn't get a chance to see the show, but to create a piece without a hint of scandal seems like journalistic incompetence at best.

CoS and the Institute for Historical Review

 Arnie Lerma posted the following about the rumors of Scientology taking control of the Institute for Historical Review. This is an excerpt.

"A fellow named Marcellus, an Feild Staff member for the Cof$, worked his way into the confidence of Willis Carto, the Chairman of liberty lobby, which ran the IHR. Marcellus spent 13 years gaining Willis' confidence. Marcellus brought some friends into IHR who were member of Cof$. At an opportune point in the litigion surrounding control of IHR, Marcellus offerred himself as a 'disinterested' party who could be named in control of IHR, as a caretaker whilst the court concluded its business. In a blink of the eye, Marcellus went from trusted friend of Mr Carto, to enemy, as he took control of IHR for someones ends... - Is it just circumstantial that Marcellus was a Scientologist, a Field Staff Member, or was Marcellus acting as a mole for another octupus like group - the OSA of the Cof$?"

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Earthlink

 Sky Dayton posted a defense of his Earthlink Network. Earthlink is the online home of Vera Wallace, who posted personal details of anonymous a.r.s posters. Several a.r.s posters have questioned whether Earthlink is owned or controlled by the cos, since Sky is a graduate of a Scientology-based school. One poster sent email to several of Earthlink's commercial customers, suggesting they might take their Internet service elsewhere. Sky took exception to this, claiming that his customers right to privacy (!) had been violated.

Included in the message were several form letters used to warn users who violate netiquette. It's unclear at this time how many warnings Vera has been given. One would be my bet.

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CoS Not Tax Exempt in 1984

 An anonymous poster contributed a Tax Court ruling from 1984 this week, in which the court ruled that the cos did not qualify for tax exempt status because of the amount of money that the organization generated for Hubbard. The court said in part:

"These references to the alleged debt repayment which pepper the record convince us that L. Ron Hubbard was personally receiving a certain percentage -- in most cases 10 percent -- of petitioner's and other Scientology organizations' gross income in the late 1960s."

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