by Andy Porter

For 20 years I was an active member of the Church of Scientology, first as a public person taking courses, then as a staff member and finally as an international missionary. My trajectory through the church traces a dual path of increasing awareness and improvement while at the same time trying not to notice the things that were wrong. The problem was that the more aware I became the harder it was to ignore what wasn’t right.

My story is not heroic. I made and accepted excuses for the “bad” parts of the Church. In many cases I perpetrated wrongnesses on others, led witch hunts and used force and threats to get compliance. In the end it was only when I, personally, had been repeatedly betrayed that I was prompted to take action.

Last week I received a call from the local Org ethics officer, informing me that I had been declared a suppressive person. No reason was given, I was not sent, or shown, or even read my SP declare. Such was my ignoble ending of church membership!

The trip started in 1980 in Bellevue, Washington. I had just moved to Washington and was looking for a job when I was stopped by an attractive gal in the street and asked to do a survey. This led to taking the personality test and signing up for the Communications Course.

Back then the course consisted of reading the definitions of basic scientology terms and then doing the Training Routines (TRs). I completed the course in a few weeks and was then signed up for an auditor training package at the mission.

In a few more months I completed the training and became a New Era Dianetics Auditor. I then went over to the local Scientology Org and did my internship and started the next training levels.

Things seemed pretty cool in Scientology, there were lots of young people, like me, and the idealism was up my alley. “To hell with the “authorities” let’s create a better world.” The concept of the reactive mind was very real and as I audited more people I could really see that there was a hope.

Andy at Clear Lake

In June 1981 I joined staff at Bellevue Mission. I was posted in Division 6 and was a body router, basic course supervisor and Div 6 registrar. I was good at doing test evaluations and started giving introductory lectures.

In 1982 the Bellevue Mission went completely off the rails and got into the de-dinging (a whack-o squirrel process), flowing power to those above us (meaning that staff were forced to do favors for those above us) and other Nazi-scientology stuff. We went whole-hog: the mission sold intensives of de-dinging, engaged in group crush-close regging and generally went crazy. I recall graduation events at the local org during this time period. A normal Friday night graduation would take an hour or so. But during the “de-dinging” era they took three hours! This was because you couldn’t stop clapping! No one wanted to be the first person to stop clapping because it would mean that you had some out-ethics…so when a speaker made a mention of how great LRH was we all started clapping, and clapping, and clapping…then we’d start to nervously look sideways at each other, each person secretly wanting to stop clapping, but no one wanting to be the first one to stop. Ah, the good old days…

Anyway, we (Bellevue Mission) languished for three (1982 to 1985) long years after this, and what pulled us out was the beginning of the consulting companies starting up and sending in public. Our old Mission Holder, Mike Chatelain, started to work for David Singer in 1985 (they opened a west coast office near by) and we started to get Chiropractors on lines. I became very active with the other WISE groups, Hollander, Latch and Sterling. I traveled all over the US and signed up their clients for mission services like Life Repair Auditing, some of my favorite time on staff in the US. The mission went from 1 and 2 First Service Starts a week to 10 and 12.

From my view the mid to late 1980’s were the time of greatest expansion of the Church. The Dianetics TV ads were going, there were new covers for the books and generally there was more acceptance of the Church. The future looked bright.

I became the Executive Director of the Mission (1987), did the complete Organization Executive Course, had two missions (Bellevue and Honolulu) and in 1990 found myself as the Executive Director of the Seattle Day Organization (during the Good Will Games).

Being an Org ED was a complete nightmare. The incessant stupid orders and three times daily phone calls, the endless computer generated non-compliance reports, the idiotic emphasis on getting people to the “events” and the complete lack of any effective Div 6 was awful. I found the Org environment much more robotic and stultified than the Mission network. In the missions we were more allowed to think and do what we thought was best to service people. In retrospect it wasn’t that we were actually “allowed” to do more, it was simply that no one could see what we were doing. We would often and with great happiness break the rules to provide unselfish service. I used to make a joke while working at the Org that they were “so standard that they were empty.” (Empty of public, that is)

Seattle Org had moved into a 28,000 sq. ft. building before the GW games ($18,000 a month rent) and since the entire Good Will Games were a complete dud, dissemination wise, the Org was broke.

I tried to route off Org staff (I was in debt up to my eyeballs), I asked for a Committee of Evidence, was denied, blew from LA, then I was told that I was going to get some justice action. While awaiting my beheading I got in comm with Greg Hughes (he was in International Management at the time), who I knew fromSterling, and he helped me escape and come back toSeattle. I routed off Org staff, worked for a few months to pay my debt to the Org and some other debts and went back on staff at Bellevue Mission in 1992.

I was in no hurry to get back on any management line and so became the Course Supervisor for a while. Being the Supervisor was by far the best staff position I ever held. By that time I was OT 5, OEC, KTL,LOC, and had done almost every course at the Org. I completed the Elementary Data Evaluators course, (actually I liked it so much I did it twice) and felt I had a good grasp of the basics by then.

Creating an expanding course room was easy; I discovered that the most vital tool was using ARC. If the students felt that you cared about them, their lives, their problems and were really there to HELP them then they came back. It was always a mystery to me that when I would send new staff for Course Supervisor training, either to Flag or LA that they would come back with some fascist attitude towards their students. They would return with some sort of “standard” fanaticism and order the students to use their demo kit or clear words, not really helping them, or personally caring, just acting like some sort of prison guards. In my view the idea being pushed was that being “standard” meant being tough, rough, rude, almost mean and it shocked me that people thought they could service the public (or other staff!) without loads of ARC. Especially new public.

In 1993 I was asked by SMI to go to Russia for a mission project, I was always interested to see for myself what Russia was really like, so I raised some money and went. I was there two weeks with 4 or 5 other mission holders. When I got on the plane to go back I just wanted to stay. The people there in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (both missions had about 8 staff at that time) were so intent on doing Dianetics and going clear and helping others it was very theta. I got back to my post at Bellevue Mission and decided to move to Russia. It took a while to get replaced and overcome the counter intention to my leaving staff, but in 1995 I moved there.

I was well known at Scientology Missions International (SMI), due to being a mission holder, and headed to LA to visitSMIINTand set up my duties with them before heading to Russia.

By the time I arrived back in Russia (October ’95) to live and work Moscow and St Pete had grown to large booming missions and I was reluctant to go inspect or advise them as I was worried that I would mess them up (and get in trouble). My reasoning was that they had built much larger missions than I ever had, so I didn’t feel that I should be ‘advising” them. I felt like I should be learning from them!

For the first year or so, I went out to outlying cities, Perm, Nizhny Tagil, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladivostock, Novosibirsk and many more places in Russia. I also visited new Dianetics Centers in Belorussia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine. I had a great time riding the train, staying with families, lecturing and helping to expand missions. Many of these missions had never had a Clear or OT or trained Scientologist come for a visit. My duties were to inspect the mission and help them in any way needed, train staff, observe and help them get in standard tech for servicing public. I went to more than 30 missions while I was there, (1995 to 1999) inspecting, correcting and lecturing.

With out a doubt it was the most fun I ever had in Scientology, nothing before or since compares. I was not around in the 1950’s when DMSMH was released, but have heard the stories, and Russia in the late 90’s seemed just like those stories. The overall excitement was awesome. Moscow and St Pete expanded to over 100 staff each, with huge successful Div 6/s. There were co-audits going on all the time and hundreds of auditors in the missions. The course rooms were filled and the place was buzzing with excited, optimistic people. The missions had very Spartan quarters, sometimes there were 10 auditing “rooms” squeezed into what would be 2 rooms here in the US. But MEST didn’t matter, they had big booming missions, there were tons of students, FSM’s, booksellers, it was all fun and exciting. My purpose in Scientology was revitalized. Somewhat ironically my time there also formed the basis for my waking up and (slowly!) seeing how psychotic things were and eventually leaving the church.

Later, in 1997 I was asked to do projects at Moscow. I recall doing an inspection there and on a Thursday morning was inspecting and noticed that no one was on post. I was like, “Well, where are all the staff?” I was told that they were on study, as they were every morning.

I was about to go pull all the staff off course and lecture them about on Thursday we DON’T study in the morning because that’s when we get the stats up, but caught myself and realized (not for the first time) the insanity of the stat push mentality. I had dozens of other epiphanies while at Moscow and later while at St Pete missions. It started to dawn on me that one major reason for all the expansion in Russia was that they didn’t have the whacko western Sea Org nut jobs there every minute looking over their shoulders, giving them stupid orders.

I was in St Petersburg for the Dianetics (May 9th) Event in 1998. The event was held at a huge auditorium, it held more than 1,000 people. The event started at 2pm, and lasted until 8 at night. There was food, music, performances, cakes, games, balloons, prizes, speeches, and lots of fun. And this was all before the “official” event, where the DVD of the actual May 9th event was played for the public. The place was packed. No one wanted to leave early, or escape. It was night and day different from events back in the US. Can you even imagine an event in the USA where 1,000 people attended? Anyway, I was there in St Pete doing a project for SMI and it so happened that there were several Sea Org Execs there, from LA. They came to the event and were shocked. I was sitting right behind them and could hear them speaking to each other, they were aghast that the event was so long, that there were children singing, that a rock band played, they thought that this was disrespectful to LRH. They didn’t like the games or the prizes or poetry reading…(the Russian people LOVED all of this) The Sea Org Execs all thought this “fun” stuff was off purpose and not okay. The event ended with the showing of a brand new LRH film, “The Evolution of a Science”. I still recall the playing of the movie, to this day…the movie sucked! It was supposed to be for new people, but was all about psychiatry and shock therapy, it was a stupid film for new people. The Russian people were shocked and dismayed by it. Here they were having a fun party and now here is this horrid film, a real turd in the punch bowl! The Sea Org people all tried to look proud of the film, while the Russians made their displeasure known… the general consensus of the brainwashed execs was that the translation of the movie must have been poor…

By this time, after 17 years of being on staff, I had seen and experienced many countless examples of stupidity, injustice and misapplication of any rational management technology, but always wrote it off as some middle management virus. I had this idea that the guys at the top (DM and Int. Mgt.) were super cool, smart, and that they just didn’t know how whacko the middle management nut jobs were. I couldSEEthe out-points but I could not confront what they meant, wasn’t willing to follow the thought to its only logical end.

Another interesting thing was that as I stayed more and more in Moscow and St Pete in 1998 and 1999 advising the missions and lecturing I was always under pressure to study more LRH for lecture material. I read and re read all of the LRH books many times including “History of Man”. And I recall a section in that book where LRH describes a space opera society where the citizens were so indoctrinated that if one of them even had a bad thought that they would immediately turn them selves into the nearest police station.

This really hit me. I had had so many sec checks by then, for OT levels, for this and for that, so many “ethics cycles” (which of course were NOT Ethics cycles, but justice cycles in disguise) that I was stunned. I could plainly see that I was indoctrinated just like LRH described in HOM. This was a horrible idea to me because I “knew” we were freeing people, not enslaving them. Yet I could see that I was behaving like one of these implanted “citizens”. I wondered if it wasn’t just something wrong with me. I couldn’t really come to grips with it, so I just shelved it, and went on.

While I was in Russia I was sent to other countries for projects, I went to India twice to help establish missions, once to Bombay (SMIsent me there, to work with Helmut Flasch), twice to Patiala, I was also sent bySMIto Japan (to work on the Shinto project).

I was in Moscow Mission from the summer of 1997 until the end of the birthday game in 1998. Moscow Mission won the game that year (for the first time). I still have all their b-day stat graphs from then. They were doing 150 to 200 first service starts a week, 1200 to 1700 NBSTI Raw (Number of Books Sold to New People) a week and the rest of the stats there were commensurate with those Division 6 statistics. As a side note I spoke to the Moscow Org ED in September, 2010. He was in LA for some cycle and called me. His name is Anton and he was the Tech Sec when I was there in 1998. He said that they were getting around 7 first service starts a week at that time.

In March 1998SMIsent my wife and I to Fiji on a mission with Manu Tupou and Jean Harness. We opened a new mission there, recruited staff and sent them to ANZO for training. In the fall of 1998 I was also sent by the IAS to open up a Mission in the country of Burkina Faso, in West Africa.

While I was working as a pioneer, or missionary, I was awarded as a PowerFSMtwice, and as an EliteFSMtwo times, I was in fact never anFSMand never put inFSMslips on anyone while doing this work over seas.

My first award for my activities as a pioneer came in December of 1995. I was at theOTL(Sea Org Base) inMoscowand got a call fromSMIINT. Apparently there were quite a few, 10 to 20 Russian people who were FSMs and had gotten in 100 or more new people to start their first services, and they were all hoping to go to LA for the NY event. But none of them could get visas. Of course, the reason they didn’t get visas was that no one had the foresight to start the visa application process until mid-way through December, and by then it was a “hill 10” to get bodies on stage for the New Years Event.

So,SMItold my wife and me that we should come to LA and get awarded! Of course the people I spoke to atSMI, Beate Gordon and Claire Gaiman knew exactly what we had been doing, they knew we were not FSMs and had not selected anyone in, but no matter, we could come and go on stage, and we didn’t need visas! So, they bought us tickets and had us come, we were provided a place to stay. To us it was like a free (warm weather!) vacation! My wife was awarded as a powerFSMand I was awarded as an eliteFSM.

My system of pay (as worked out by Chief Officer SMIInt) was that I would go to the missions primarily to train and correct staff, and that the project financing would come from lectures. I would give lectures to the public, the mission would charge a small fee for each lecture and I would get half of the money, the mission keeping the other half. So even though I was never an FSMI was on stage. Usually I would arrive to LA a few days before the event and be given a hat of helping push other people living in LA to become power FSMs so there would be more bodies on stage. I have lots of insane stories about all of that. The last event where I was given some award was the 2000 May 9th Dianetics event where I was awarded as a top international pioneer.

As a side note about awards and the sheer insanity of them, one of the Russians I was close to was Vladimir Kiropatnik. He was the original ED of Moscow Mission. I met him when I was first there in 1993. He was a very theta and dedicated guy and worked hard to expand the Mission. In 1997 Vladimir was awarded the IAS Freedom Medal, at the event they portrayed him as the single person who opened up all of Russia to Scientology and saved the country. The PR was so over the top! I know that Vladimir was upset over how they grossly overstated what he had done. Actually this set him up for criticism from others, as many thought that he was the one who made up the lies. I was close to him and I know it was quite a PTP for him. Later when the Executive Director of Saint Petersburg Mission won the same award (Galina Petrovna) they did the same thing. It was the same with anyone and everyone I personally knew, they would over sell, exaggerate and even outright lie about the accomplishments to make them sound incredible. From my direct experience, both Vladimir and Galina definitely deserved the Freedom Medal awards. They are both incredibly hardworking and dedicated people. But the point is, why lie and exaggerate their accomplishments? Just telling the truth would have been perfectly fine. The fact of lying about the accomplishments of these people is illustrative of the entire current church management. Of course nothing beats the absurd lies they made for Tom Cruise when he won his IAS award…I recall it was an award for introducing more than a billion people to Scientology.

As I discovered at a much later time receiving these awards may have been one of the main reasons that I wound up leaving the church.

I returned toRussiain Jan 1999 and I went back to work forSMIdoing the usual. I began to get antsy about going up the bridge and wanted to get on OT 7 so I decided to start working as a WISE consultant. I worked about 7 months as a consultant inSt Petersburg, paid for OT 6, OT 7 and 10 intensives and arrived at Flag in Dec. 1999.

My plan was that I would use one or two intensives on eligibility and set ups and then have lots of intensives left over for future 6-month checks, I would be back out pioneering and be on OT 7!

But what came next was a completely horrible nightmare.

I wound up using 13 intensives of auditing, almost all of it on security checking. I cannot describe in email format how utterly awful it all was. It was unjust, demeaning, stupid, introverting and actually made me feel like I was psychotic. As I look back, I felt a sort of desperate feeling, slightly propitiative, wanting to throw my self at the feet of someone and beg forgiveness. A down tone “need to show that I’m valuable to the group” attitude and underlying this was the basic concept of “I am bad”.

I hated the auditing, but couldn’t complain because you can’t complain while you’re on a sec check unless you want it to take longer. I tried to act happy and get it done. Somehow by some miracle I was able to get my needle to float and get done. Then I pleaded that I was broke and owed money and I was allowed to leave.

This was the first time I was at an Advanced Org as a public person. I spent a lot of time in the MAA office (as a result of all the Knowledge Reports from 9 intensives of security checking). I was appalled at what went on. A day down there included lots of nervous waiting to even get in to see the MAA. Then they would review the KR’s from your sessions and assign you conditions. It was NOT a self-determined action. I tried several times to say that I didn’t think I needed to do ANY conditions for my overts, but was ordered to do so. I pointed out many times that this entire process was NOT an ethics action, but a justice action. But the deal was: Do it our way, or you’ll never get on the OT levels and go free. I saw person after person there in the MAA’s office doing lowers and amends for such stupid things as reading a site on the internet, or looking at “pornography” or masturbating. The idea that was being enforced by the MAA’s was that these actions were severely out-ethics and could bring disrepute to Scientology. I argued that labeling these actions as wrong or in any way out-ethics was itself very wrong and out ethics, as doing so would only drive in a persons anchor points. But all that I accomplished with my arguing these points was the certainty on the part of the MAA that I needed MORE security checking.

I was on the OT 6 meter drills when I left and knew I would never return. I felt that there was something definitely wrong with the auditing, but also had some idea that it was me that was nuts. I knew I liked helping people and so just wanted to go back and get busy.

From there things were a bit unsettled. I had planned to go back to Russia but was denied a visa. I discovered later that I had been blacklisted by the Russian FSB (state security agency) along with several other foreigners who had been invited to Russia by Scientology, like Malcolm McClintock, Lynn Irons and others. So, I was not allowed to return. I wound up moving to Nice, France for 6 months in late 2000, then on to Pavlodar, Kazakhstan where I worked as a WISE consultant for 9 months, then on to Copenhagen for 8 months. All the time trying to get back toRussia.

The more I was on WISE lines I noticed that things went worse for me. It seemed that as long as I was basically volunteering my time (as a Mission or Org staff member or full time pioneer) to help expand missions I was alright. I was still looked down on as I wasn’t Sea Org, but sort of barely accepted. Having been staff many years I was familiar with the pecking order, and understood how it all worked.

But now that I was mostly working in the WISE sector I was considered more of a public and less of a staff member. I could sense a change. I started to feel like a farm animal, people were eye-balling me for what they could get from me, could I be an income cycle, could I be student points, could I donate money to IAS? I was ordered to events, to ethics interviews, ordered to be on course. As a WISE consultant here were quotas for the number of our clients that were sent into a local Org orMissionfor services. There was a tacit threat over my head; if I didn’t comply with the above requirements then I would be in danger of losing my license and ability to deliver WISE courses and consulting.

I wanted to get out of consulting and I wound up going to the NYC area in 2001 (where I am from originally) to work. I had two jobs; one wasCOOof a company in NJ with several interesting patents we were trying to get going. As that company was getting just started I needed more pay and started to work as a consultant again in the WISE sector.

In 2002 I got an 11 page KR written on me by Walter Kotric (CO CLO EU). He accused me of every crime under the sun and said that I was never allowed back on his continent. I sent back a more or less fuck you response and asked for a Committee of Evidence. Nothing happened. Every product I had achieved was attacked.

One might think it strange that a person who was routinely honored by Int. Management each year would be attacked. But in truth the awardees on stage at the Int Events had routinely had their production stats puffed up (NOT by the person, but by the management terminals!) to look stellar. There was no real recognition from Int Management of having DONE anything really good, we were all just statistics, bodies gotten on stage, part of the PR for the church.

Interestingly I had heard from 2 people, Barb Wiseman (a pioneer in Russia in the early 1990’s) and Malcolm McClintock (he ran the Sea Org Base in Moscow in early 2000) that Walter Kotric HATED any Scientologists who went Pioneering “on his Continent”. Barbara told me that Walter went out of his way to attack her when she was awarded as a Power FSM for her work there in 1993, an award that she NEVER asked for.

In April of 2003 I received a phone call and ordered by WISE International to report to LA. No reason, just come,NOW. I arrived and met two other Russian Pioneers there, Bud Reichle and Lynn Irons. We went to the Scientology Headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard and met with some high up woman in OSA (Judith?) and a guy by the name of Dan Brown. They explained that we were all called there because of our involvement in Russia. They told us that currently there was trouble in Russia and that the plan was to do ethics cycles on us three, sort of to destimulate the area from afar. I was shown some reference from the Suppressed Person Rundown. The idea was that if we three did an ethics cycle, related to tour work inRussia, the result would be a bettering of the overall conditions of Scientology inRussia. It was sort of like: Currently Scientology in Russia is under attack, and if you three write up your overts and come clean then the conditions over there will improve.

As I began to get in comm., the report written on me by Walter Kotric came up, and then a cycle fromKazakhstan.

I had visited Kazakhstan several times in the late 1990’s and at that time met a local scientologist named Bolat Agzamovich. Bolat was working in the oil industry, but had later gotten into politics and had become the deputy governor of his region.

In late 2000 while I was still in Nice, France, I was personally invited to move to Pavlodar, Kazakhstan by the CO WISE CIS, Vladmir Kiropatnik. Bolat had been the deputy governor of his region for sometime; he had communication lines with the leaders of industry all over the country. The idea was that I would move there, work with Bolat, establish a WISE presence, consulting these businesses and maybe start aHubbardCollege.

Bolat had been donating HUGE sums of money to the church to aid expansion. He had donated hundreds of thousand of dollars to start a whole pile of Missions, Narconons, Applied Scholastics groups all acrossKazakhstan. He was quite famous for this.

I saw the annual IAS Event in October of 2000. There was direct mention of expansion of Scientology inKazakhstan, specifically mentioning the opening of the many new groups and also a report that the President of Kazakhstan had officially welcomed Scientology to the country!

This sounded like what I was waiting for and I packed up and moved there in December, 2000. When I actually arrived inPavlodar, Bolat was inCopenhagenfor auditing, he arrived home a week later and announced that he had decided to quit his government post! This was a surprise!

He took over a transportation (tram) company owned by the state and I went to work for him. I worked with him in the Tram company and we had a blast, it was a huge success.

As a side note after my arrival in Kazakhstan I excitedly asked the staff and public about the report that President Nazarbayev had proclaimed an official welcome to Scientology. Well, none of the people there had heard such a thing. I had several people directly contact the government to query this, and we discovered that this reported acknowledgement of Scientology had never taken place.

While I was there I heard some allegations that Bolat had accepted bribes while he had been deputy governor. I was close to him and asked him a few times about this and he said no, he didn’t, so I left it alone. I left Pavlodar in the summer of 2000 and moved to Copenhagen.

What had precipitated being ordered to Los Angeles was that Bolat had been to Copenhagen some time in 2001/2002 and confessed in some sec check that he had in factALLof the money he had donated to the church, forALLthe mission starter packages and Narconons, applied scholastics, etc, all of it, was money he had received as payments for his services while deputy governor. From what I could understand, Bolat finally relented and confessed that all the money he donated to the church came from the bribes he received while Deputy Governor.

This came out right around the Reed Slatkin Ponzi scheme scandal, and so there was a real hornet’s nest over this. I thought it was all a hoot, and I asked if the church was going to refund all the money so Bolat could give it back. My two interrogators failed to see the humor in any of this. .

I was surprised by all this and I pointed out that if anyone cared to look at any facts like dates of when he took the “bribes”, the dates in my passport, etc, it was easy to see that I was never physically IN Kazakhstan when Bolat “took the bribes” but no matter. Logic had no merit. I asked how I could have stopped him from taking bribes if I wasn’t in the country. I was told that I “should have known” and done something. I felt trapped. If I wanted to keep consulting and making money, I had to do it. My choices were to walk out of Scientology right then, or just bend over and do it.

So I did. I fudged my way through it and told everyone what they wanted to hear. I prayed my needle would float at the right time and that no one would suspect that I fucking hated them and that I was on my way out.

I went back to New Jersey in a state of shock. All my stable datum’s busted. From my experiences as a Mission Holder and Org ED with the admin tech I could see that its “use” was making things worse world wide, not better. From my last trip to Flag I could see that the tech was not working. And that it was in fact being used to control people. From my travels I knew that all the hype and PR reported by management was utter bullshit. And now it was crystal clear that the application of ethics and justice tech was beyond gone.

When I got back home I talked my wife into moving with me to Washington State. Just leaving and moving was in itself a form of escape. I felt like I was escaping from a prison, I didn’t let anyone know where I was going. After 24 years of having to report where I was to someone in the church, I was free (sort of).

For many years, from 2000 to 2004 I spoke to no one about my doubts and disagreements. During those years I knew things were bad and I wanted out, but dared not communicate about it. From 2004 until 2008 I had one friend who was ahead of me on the path out who listened as I itsa-ed and to whom I could speak freely. I communicated my feelings, doubts, self invalidations and slowly the fog lifted. I was so indoctrinated with the idea that I must have my own overts and that to have pulled in this bad shit I must have somehow caused it. But as I destimulated I could reason better and evaluate what I had seen. The overall stats of Scientology are down, and have been for a long time. As stats are the measure, then the management must be bad. I personally saw many lies from management about how great things were when they weren’t. I realized that things were bad. I realized that my stable datum that the guys at the top were smart and cool must be way off.

When I lived inRussiaI once heard an Old Russian proverb: “The fish rots from the head.” Of course that datum lined up with all my observations. The bad shit wasn’t a mistake, it was planned. The middle management guys weren’t just nut cases; they were just pushing down the line the shit that came from the top. That datum really aligned so well with what I had personally seen that I knew it must be the truth.

In 2009 I saw the blog “Counterfeit Dreams” by Jeff Hawkins. I read the whole thing. It blew so much charge for me, reading the details of what happened behind the scenes, getting a real view of what things were like. Jeff is such a great writer and what he describes has real impact. It never made any sense to me, why were the DMSMH question ads ended, why was there no new effective ad campaign, how could leadership be so stupid and not see that without a great marketing plan the church would start cannibalizing the public?

Once the held-down 7’s were handled and I could really LOOK it was easy to see WHY Scientology had horrible PR and WHY it was contracting.

I am more than slightly embarrassed that it took me so long to wake the fuck up!!!

Scientology is supposed to be about LOOKING and evaluating for oneself, becoming more causative, it’s about COMMUNICATION, helping others and building a better world.

But the current “church” is all about NOT looking, NOT communicating; now it’s about not THINKING! A current church member is told what to think, what to say, who they can and cannot communicate with. Its NOT about self-determinism, it’s about being a robot.

The current “church” is really like an insane doctor cutting out the “cancerous” body parts to get rid of illness. Those Scientologists who dare to think for themselves are purged, expelled, declared suppressive.

But the church has taken this to a new level of insanity: now it’s the cancer running the church seeking to amputate, cut out, expel, the healthy tissue! Soon there will be nothing and no one left in the corporate church of scientology besides cancer tissue!

Last weeks phone conversation and news of being declared a suppressive person came as no surprise. It was more like the final process of a grade in auditing, you come to the end and someone asks you “Would you like others to have the gains that you now have?”

And my answer is, Yes! I am happy for what I got out of Scientology and I am very happy to be free from the madness of what Corporate Scientology has beccome.

One of the steps I took to rehabilitate the wins I had with the tech was going in session. I found a great auditor, out here in the Independent Field and (with trepidations) signed up to get a review. Part of the auditing program was to handle any by-passed charge I had related to past auditing I received in the corporate church. I recall the question: “Were you audited while you were under stress?” I laughed and cried and swore my head off answering that question! Was I audited while under stress????? HA!!!! When wasn’t I under stress? Let’s see: there’s the stress of paying the money (or rather borrowing it and worrying about being able to re-pay it) there’s the stress of worrying what will happen when you’re sent to see the Ethics Officer; the stress of losing your post, or not being allowed to take the next step on the Bridge, the worry of being expelled if you disagree. I was worried before I even went to Flag for auditing: scrutinizing my every action wondering if “it would come up” on my sec check and get me sent to the Ethics Officer!!! I realized that ALL of my auditing in recent years in the “church” was all done over heavy stress. I was PTS to the Church!!! Needless to say, handling this was a HUGE relief.

Now my life is full of fun and creation. I have taken back up my dual passions of backpacking and photography. I have a fantastic wife and we have a seven year old son. Life is good.

And some day I hope to head back out on the dissemination trail…

Signed,

Andy Porter
Independent Scientologist

Some of Andy's recent work

John Rafanello

I was directly responsible for bringing thousands of people into Scientology.

I did events and seminars that completely rekindled people’s faith and belief in the power and Magic of Ron’s Tech.

Many people joined staff after attending my events and seminars. Hundreds of others dedicated themselves to doing both sides of the bridge. (All the training and all the processing).

I trained up to Class-VIII, and did nearly all of the Admin and PR courses to record stats.

I did tens of thousands of hours of very well done auditing.

I supervised the Solo Course and Briefing Course to record wins and stats, with hundreds of glowing success stories.

I interviewed the stars at the Academy Awards the day I completed Ron’s 1st PR course

I dedicated over twenty years to making Scientology and Ron’s tech well known, well though of and lived.

I had incredible personal case gain, including many OT experiences so amazing and so fantastic I was often reluctant to say they considering I would not be believed.

Then I was illegally Com-Eved and declared to be a SP (To quote the Dianetics and Scientology Tech Dictionary – “A person who rewards only down statistics and never rewards an up statistic. He goofs up or vilifies any effort to help anybody and particularly knifes with violence anything calculated to make humans beings more powerful or intelligent. A suppressive person automatically and immediately will curve any betterment activity into something evil or bad. “A person who doesn’t get any case gain because of continuing overts.

I presented over 7500 written success stories to the ComEv, and, evidence of the fantastic case gain I had enjoyed. All of it was ignored. (I am attaching a few of the success stories to this report, and a few pictures from people who attended some of the seminars I did at the Founding Church in Washington DC, as one example of the wins people got from my services.)

Every statement on the published golden rod SP declare was a lie.

Also, the ComEv was illegal, because I had been awarded Kakan status personally by Ron and was not supposed to have any ethics action done except at Flag. That was totally ignored, as the ComEv was done in LA by non tech staff.

The Declare was broadly published and distributed throughout the Scientology Orgs, but no copy was ever sent to me.

As a result of the declare, hundreds of close friends were required, to disconnect from me. Subsequently hundreds did so under the threat of losing their Bridge to Total Freedom if they did not. Those who asserted that I was not an SP, and those who protested the idea that they had to disconnect and have nothing to do with me, were either declared because they refused to disconnect, or they were finally coursed into doing so.

The pain I suffered for years, (and to a degree to this very day), because so many loved ones disconnected to me, even when the knew I was not an SP, is indescribable. There is nothing greater than love, and nothing more painful than having it unjustly denied to you. For years the idea that the Church I gave so much of my life to, and the friends that I loved so dearly, would turn their backs on me because the Church said they had to, was pure hell. I had horrible nightmares about it for years, and it took years to confront what had happened, and come to terms with it.

For over twenty five years no one in the Church has made any effort to correct this injustice.

I am putting this on the line now, to see if there is anyone who has the willingness, courage or authority to accept the truth.

In has been my belief and experience that I would have to confess to overts and crimes I did not commit in order to be forgiven by the Church. It seemes that innocence is not something the Church will accept. Guilty as charged, seems to be the only acceptable reality. Confess and you will be allowed to make up the damage and work your way back up the conditions.

Sincerely,

John Rafanello
Class -VIII OT-VII

The picture is not that sharp, click on it to enlarge or download the PDF format.

Charlotte Nød

Life at its best (9 parts)

Your Health Your Choice (8 parts)

Sitting on a Time Bomb (8 parts)

Udderly Amazing (8 parts)

Health and Happiness (8 parts)

http://icanchangemylife.info

Marty Rathbun
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/vincent-magni-truth-revealed/

Également disponible ici dans sa version originale en Français

Vincent Magni – Wahrheit enthüllt

Personal Website: http://www.vincentmagni.com/vincentmagni/index.html

From: Vincent Magni
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 6:31 PM
Subject: Doubt Formula

Hello,

My name is Vincent Magni.  I am an artist.  I am a painter and a sculptor.  I am a public of Celebrity Center Paris, New OT 8 and auditor Class V.

The reason why I am writing you this letter is that I am doing a Doubt Condition.

I became a Scientologist 28 years ago, in 1984.  After a period of being on staff as ED at the mission of Paris, I pursued my road as public in 1987.  At the end of the same year, I was Clear and auditor CL IV.

I then left to Flag to go up my Bridge.  Six months later in July 1988, I returned home on OT 7.  I was 24 years old.  I always paid for my Bridge by my own means.

In January 1989, I started a field group auditor in Geneva.

In February 6, 1989, I attested to OT 7 and in February 27, I attested to OT 8.

In 1999, I left for Flag to do my certainties.   I was returned to OT 7 and audited until April 2004 when I attested to OT 7 for the second time.  I attested to OT 8 soon after.

In July 2004, I attended the Maiden voyage where COB announced as priority number one the purchase of the “ideals orgs”.

In 2006, I bought an industrial fallow of 10,000 square meters in Bourgogne to build a village for artists and a theater.  I was immediately the target of all the regional SPs that did not miss to make the amalgam between my project and Scientology and to attack violently both as an inseparable block.

For these last 6 years, I spent most of my time defending the Church, handling hundreds of persons one by one to make them allies, to deny the enemy lines on the Church, to visit all the personalities, influential people and the VIPS to clean the subject of Scientology.  I then obtained extraordinary products.

As many of us, on January 1, I received and read Debbie Cook’s email.  Debbie raised points on which I had some attention on for several years.  After having asked for the opinion of some friends, I turned to lines suited to handle these questions: HCO CCP (Celebrity Center Paris).

I wanted to obtain simple clarifications but the denial, which HCO made me read to handle this email generated many more questions.

During my second meeting with HCO, the DSA of Paris Org and a terminal from the Freewinds, the Ethics Officer of Celebrity Center Paris made me read a new pack of “Dead Agent” relating to “the lies of a squirrel group” called “Friends of LRH” (www.friendsoflrh.org ).  I did not understand why this group was being cataloged as squirrel liar while they raised only a long list of out tech by indicating exactly the violated references!!!  It seems to me that a squirrel is someone who alters the Tech and not the one who spreads efforts to maintain its standard?

I thus read this list with interest (in HCO).  I was stunned to notice the difficulty of the Church to prove that this out tech does not exist.  The majority of the answers were out of context.  It started to be very disturbing.

My reasoning was the following one: if all these major technical changes made by COB as time goes by and if all these new strategies of continual fund raising, ideal orgs and others were the right things to do, it should be seen directly in the statistics in terms of expansion.  Then I took as stable datum these two references from Ron:

“The most direct observation in an Org (or a country) is statistics.

These tell of production.  They measure what is done.

It cannot be said too often that management is best done by statistics.

Each division in an Org has a GROSS DIVISIONAL STATISTIC.  This is calculated to reflect the production of that division by all its staff members.”

Statistics, Management By, HCO PL 5 Feb 1970 (Management Series, Vol. 7, p. 514)

“Orgs have only 2 major final valuable products. One is well-trained auditors. The other is satisfied Pcs.”

Tech and Admin policy exist only to assist making these two products IN VOLUME.”

LRH ED 131 INT, Re: Life Repair Block, 8 Dec 1970 (OEC Vol. 4, p. 145)

I made the decision to examine these two statistics honestly and only these two because they are both major valuable final products of an Org (VFP).  I voluntarily pushed aside all the new statistics about which Ron has never spoken or “future statistics” which, by definition, have nothing to do with standard statistics which has to measure a realized production and not a future production.

I began by examining a statistic of the Clear attests at Flag, compiled from the lists of completion in Source Magazine.  It gives a screaming Affluence until 1989 followed by Danger until 2001 and Emergency until 2008.  Other statistics of Auditing and Training were appreciably identical.  I have not found the next years yet.

To make sure of the validity of this source, I personally verified some of the Source Magazines of this site with the real copy.  They were perfectly identical.  I could have decided to not-is all of this but I decided to look honestly by creating graphs in a standard way of all these statistics and to read the condition without trying to justify anything.  I could only notice that we were very far from the “unprecedented expansion” announced by COB.

I asked Celebrity Center Paris to show me these two statistics.  I would have never thought that it would be so difficult to obtain these two statistics, which are supposed to be both major VFPs of the Org.  Statistics that were presented to me were not standard.  It gave an approximate figure in 1985 and another approximate figure in 2011 !!!  Or it shows two columns, a small and a large one without indication of quantities and period of time.  The kind of non-standard statistics shown in events, which is exactly one of my disagreements.  The only statistic that had an approximately correct graphic was the refunds one.  Regrettably, this one did not interest me.

Two statistics of the Freewinds over the last 20 years were shown to me.  The statistic of the PDC showed a tendency of normal to Emergency until 2008 and an increase over the last 4 years corresponding probably to the delivery of the Basics.  Nevertheless, this one did not interest me either.

The statistic of Well Done Auditing Hours showed an “Affluence” until 1989 I believe, followed by “Danger” and then an “Emergency” until today (a slight decrease of the graph).  The main statistic of the Freewinds that I could not see was the number of completions of OT 8s since 1988.  Fabienne Bello, supervisor of the Freewinds told me: “It represents too much work, we have other things to do”.  I was not able to see on all the observed statistics “the unprecedented expansion” announced by COB.

What I see at best is an Emergency and at worst a Danger.  “Economize” is one of the Emergency condition step.  So, what do we do instead?  We spend gargantuan sums in buildings, which, not only slow down the progress of the donors on the Bridge but also succeed to weigh down considerably the Orgs FP no. 1 in running costs.  This is not ethical.

I have also personally observed from 1984 to 1990 that there were crowds of PCs and auditors in front of HGCs at Flag, Copenhagen, Paris Org, Celebrity Center Paris as well as Academies full of co-auditing, hubbub, auditors in training.  There was a kind of boiling, a glow, and a great up tone ambiance of production of free people.  People pushed on the Bridge, exactly as Ron asked us to do it.  Those who knew Scientology in this time will confirm it.

Today, I don’t see anybody in front of my Org’s HGC and the Academy resembles more like a local library than a place where we learn to produce Clears.

Like many, I loved studying the Basics, as I had also liked reading them when I arrived in Scientology in 1984.  Having wins reading these books is indisputable.  But, is it really what we are supposed to do?  If Ron had decided that these long studies should be a prerequisite to go up the Bridge, he would have put it on the Grade Chart or he would have written it.  However, he did not and it is in no way what he says about it (see ref. below).

HCOB 7 June 1961 Academy Schedule, Clarification of (OEC Vol. 4, P. 568)

HCO P/L 2 October 1958 Sale and Conduct of Academy Courses (OEC Vol. 4, p. 554)

HCO P/L 17 April 1961 Training, Professional New Policy (OEC Vol. 4, p. 565)

HCO P/L 14 May 1962 Training Sections (OEC Vol. 4, p. 583)

HCO P/L 21 September 1965 Issue V E-Meter Drills (OEC Vol. 4, p. 626)

LRH ED 299 INT The End of Endless Training (OEC Vol. 4, p. 419)

Let us go back on the observation of the statistics.

The 10,015 Orgs, Missions and Affiliated Groups announced by COB in the last Mag KSW News and in the last event seem to be a pure lie because it is obviously impossible to verify, even 8 % of this figure.  A new Org, Mission or Group is something so important!  I cannot imagine that Management is not making sure that each one of them can be found with their address on the Church Web Site.

For example, I cannot imagine the announcement of 100 new Orgs in Paris without saying where they are and how we can contact them!!!  It makes no sense.  The number that I was able to obtain from various publications (green volumes, WIS, Church Web sites, SMI and Internet gives me an optimistic number of 160 Orgs, 600 Missions and 400 Affiliated Groups.  I found no trace of the remaining 8,855.

Always in these same sources, the number of new Orgs opened gives me 22 in the 1970s, 72 in the 1980s, 8 in the 1990s, 1 in the 2000s.  The official site of the Church announces a long list of “new Orgs”.  They are not “new Orgs” but new buildings, which is very different.  The real statistic for the new Orgs is in a condition of Non-Existence.

The Church publicly announced 12 million scientologists in the world while the IAS lists approximately 100,000 members (including those who left).  Does it mean that 11 million and 900 thousand Scientologists just forgot to take their card?  The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) announces, according to their official studies in the United States, 55,000 Scientologists in 1990, 45,000 in 2001 and approximately 25,000 in 2008. Based on the Institute’ statistics, it is another condition of Danger for the Church of Scientology.

I also noticed that, except for the old Scientologist’s children, I did not see new heads in my Academy since a very very long time.  This does not align with “an unprecedented expansion”.  To think that my Org is an exception is simply false.  A discreet questioning of my entourage and distant acquaintances leads me to the conclusion that it is similar for 99% of the Orgs, including “ideal orgs” which suffer from the lack of public, staff and production.  Two OTs recently took the time to go and visit European “ideal orgs” in order to see it for themselves.  What they saw is overwhelming even though they left with the firm intention to prove the opposite.

The only statistics probably in power are the number of square feet of buildings bought and the quantity of ultra luxurious renovations done.  Frankly, we absolutely do not care about “real estate speculator” statistics while the statistics of released public or the statistics of auditors is lower than ever!!!! It is revolting!!!

To make us believe continuously in an “Unprecedented Expansion” of Scientology is a propaganda lie.  Ron forbids the use of lies in PR.

Further to the observation of real statistics, I note that we are in a low condition.  Here is the reason given by LRH:

“A study reveals that Orgs fade and stumble simply and only because vital actions are dropped out or harmful arbitraries are introduced.”

HCO PL 29 Dec 1971RB REV 4 Sept 1990

Flag Representative, Purpose Of

(OEC Vol. 7, p. 1407)

• Below is a non-exhaustive list of the major changes that I was able to observe:

• Blocking public from moving up the Bridge and not releasing Superpower since 30 years although Ron promised Super Power in early 1979.

“Super Power will be delivered at Saint Hills within the next 6 weeks….”

LRH, Ron’s Journal 30, 17 December 1978

• Golden Age of Tech with longer and more difficult checksheets.

• Added prerequisite courses to auditor training lengthening the time it takes to produce auditors and OTs.

• New interpretation of F/Ns multiplying by four the length of sec checks, causing overruns, upsets and sickness.  I have been through this technical change when I was on solo NOTs and I have seen the effects.

• Mandatory and expanded use of sec checks on up stat pre-OTs even though they are doing well.

• Mixing the rundowns and auditing NED on OTs.

• Invalidation of Ron from COB constantly correcting “his errors”, invalidation of auditing wins and training done before Golden Age of Tech.

• Pressure and unprecedented over-regging without exchange of service.

• Reduction of the concept of the Ideal Org in terms of expensive MEST and excessive luxuries and not in terms of services and production realized.

• Events filled with lies and with false statistics.

• False promises to the staff concerning Saint Hill size and the Universe Corp.

Etc, etc, etc.

DSA France asked me this question, “when did these disagreements begin exactly?”  I thought about it and I found exactly the beginning.  It is not Debbie’s letter.

It started in 1989 while I had just attested OT 8 and was in Saint Etienne’s Org.  The PE told me that COB had just subjected the delivery of OT 9 and 10 on condition that every Classy IV Org reaches the size of old Saint Hill!!! While Saint Etienne, Clermont Ferrand and Lyon Orgs combined no more than about ten staff and around thirty public since approximately ten years.  It seemed to me like a pure and simple blackmail and a suppressive target.

Today I see that it was really about Suppressives Acts no. 44 and 45:

“Calculated efforts to disrupt Church services or the flow of public up the Bridge through the Churches.”

“Refusal to allow staff or public to progress up the Bridge or creating blocks on the Bridge preventing such progression.”

A few years later, COB even added to the list of the prerequisites for OT 9 and 10 to be auditor V Graduate and FPRD!!!  It is in my opinion, another way of saying “I shall personally make sure that nobody will have access to the upper levels of the Bridge before at least thirty years.”  Moreover, everybody agreed with that (or rather was forced to agree with that).  At this time, I wrote a letter to Guillaume Lesèvre to ask him if this new strategy leaned on directives of Ron or not.  I do not remember the exact terms, but his answer was “no, it’s a decision of the management.”

The Bridge that Ron left us was ready to be used.  26 years after his death, a single level of OT was released (considering that OT 8 is the first real level of OT).  There are still several OT levels to be released!!!  I am not certain that he would be very satisfied with this statistic if he came to visit us.  26 years is almost all the time that he needed to develop the totality of the Bridge!!!!  There is something that does not add up.  The justifications like, “we need time to train technical staff,” “we have to setup future dedicated classrooms,” “it is necessary to have so many OT 8s to release OT 9” or “all Class IV Orgs have to be big like that,” makes absolutely no sense for all the OT 8s which have a good reality on this subject.  It is pure arbitraries.

Immediately after I attested to OT 8, I felt sucked up through the top of the Bridge, then terribly deprived, and oppressed by the fact that a single individual closed it arbitrarily since more than 26 years ago.  I am certain that two weeks is amply enough to set up the release of the whole Bridge, and COB aside, nothing prevents us from opening it upward. I also have the absolute certainty that if the Bridge was opened from the beginning, we would have an inconceivable inflow of new persons at the bottom of the Bridge.

An OT 8 attesting to this level is technically and immediately ready for the next upper level.  If there were some reason against it, Ron would have written it.  In addition, if he had written it, we should have the technical knowledge of it.

Why an OT 8 has to “repair” his entire Bridge that was already completed, and why “re-prepare” infinitely and spend again astronomical sums in 10’s of intensives for sec checks that cost 8,000 dollars per intensive???  It is difficult not to envisage an underlying financial motivation.

I protested every implementation of this out tech of COB.  I did not dare to say that it was incorrect except to my auditors and CSs.  I thought about it very hard and then not-ised it hard to avoid having troubles. It is my biggest overt there and I am not proud of it for Ron.

Today, I openly say that IT IS INCORRECT towards KSW no.1.

It is incorrect to justify it as we constantly do.  I refuse to continue to be an accomplice of Miscavige’s overts by applauding his crimes and shouting “he is a genius!”

1,600 OT8s in 26 years is a ridiculously small number since Ron mapped the road and considering the great majority of people want spiritual freedom!!!  Obviously, something actively slows down our expansion. What does Ron say on this subject?  OUT TECH, OFF POLICY.  We would already have without any doubt several tens of thousands of OTs without this out tech.  We would have been delivering the complete Bridge for a long time.  The Bridge would be accessible to all technically and financially including the public, staffs, and the Sea Org.  There would be no regging for other things than services. There would be millions of scientologists (really).  Except for some incorrigible SPs, Scientology would have an extraordinary image because it would bring only the good to all those who would try it.  It would be like that if Ron was still in command.

Personally, money, excessive luxury, pressure, stress, lies and blackmail have never excited me.  Going up the Bridge, helping others to go up the Bridge, creation, ARC, lightness, freedom, respect, wins in auditing and training, Scientology… Yes, yes and yes again.  Regrettably, it seems that we have widely gone away from this ideal scene.  I am worried to notice that old Scientologists who knew the work of Ron in his early stage or the boom of Scientology in the 80s, disappear one by one.  They have been ejected, resigned or declared SP.  What are left are young scientologists who have no point of reference and become “very obedient” scientologists very fast.

I do not know a single person having left the SO and not witnessed the atmosphere of fear, of pressure, financial motivation, oppression and violence which reigns there. We can always not-is this and say that all persons who testify of these horrors became suppressive just like that!  No, a suppressive does not spend 30 years of his/her life to defend and actively expand Scientology successfully as Debbie Cook and many others have.

It is the only reason of the execrable PR from which Scientology is suffering.  Spiritual freedom was never the cause of the problem in spite of what the Church could force us to think. Our own mistakes ARE the cause of this bad PR.  This unprecedented financial pressure pushing the public into financial irregularities, out-ethics and lives of poverty entangled in debt and PTPs is largely the cause of this bad PR.  From an outside viewpoint, a simple look from a non-Scientologist brings the conclusion that we are completely in “la-la land” while we are supposed to be a model to be followed, the example of an ideal society!!!  Being in daily contact with non-Scientologists who look at us from their viewpoint, I know what I say.

The current purposes of the Church (and not those of Ron) do not correspond any more to my own.  I do not wish to belong any more to this group and refuse to continue to give my support.  Scientology interests me.  Squirreling does not interest me.

I join the group of Scientologists who go up the Bridge and help others to go up in a standard way, with ARC and simplicity.  I join the group of people who respect Ron and his work.  The group of people whose intention is to set others free, Clear, OT and obtain good statistics on this subject.

I am opposed to those who alter the Technology, who prevent people to move up the Bridge by making it inaccessible, who falsify the statistics, who lie publicly to hide their low statistics.

I am doing what I think is the most ethical.  I have good hope that COB will be corrected, sec checked and removed from its functions.  I have good hope that a more ethical TEAM takes back the reins and restores Scientology according to the Directives and Ron’s intentions to make the Bridge again a priority and accessible and thus bring people to total freedom.  I shall then be the first one to come back and fight again for this purpose.

You probably wonder why I tell you all this and why it does not stay within the framework of HCO?  The answer is that I went to see HCO.  Nevertheless, the unique purpose of HCO is to (1) ruin by all the means the reputation of all those who do not agree with management and compromise them; (2) prove, in an extremely awkward and deceitful way, with rationalization, justifications and falsified statistics that the observed out tech is not in fact out tech; (3) threaten me with an SP declare if I communicate what I have observed.

I would have really wished that with HCO we could honestly look when something incorrect is done by the Church or look if something goes against Ron’s references, and correct it.  This would make management wrong, thus, it is impossible.  COB has locked out any possibility to correct out tech.

I am sending you this letter because (1) “to announce it publicly to both parties” is one step of the Doubt Condition; (2) the solution to this crisis is not dumbness but communication.  We cannot take responsibility if we act like nothing is happening, which is what HCO and OSA wish.  I cannot believe that they do not really see what is happening.

I will probably receive an SP declaration because of this letter. Well, I do not really mind. In many other countries, they cut the throat of those who dare to oppose the dictator in position.  HCO is now going to work on a ‘Dead agent’ pack aimed at ruining my reputation and to compromise my comments. They are already saying that HCOPL of 15 Nov 1968 “Cancelation of Disconnection” does not exist, and thus I am lying and I am a “bad boy.”  This PL does exist in the 1976 and 1984 editions of OEC Vol. 1, page 489.  This reference has been withdrawn by COB in the following editions.

Recently, a good friend of mine told me about the concept of “using LRH’s references to put people in a state of confusion.”  This looks like more an argument of HCO than his personal viewpoint.  I answered him that it looks largely like a good justification to continue with the out tech actions.  Personally, I do not see how an LRH reference could put someone in a state of confusion!!!! It was not written for this purpose!! There is only one reason why a LRH reference could put someone in a state of confusion, if it shakes a stable datum that does not align with it.  How is it possible that a Scientologist has a stable datum that is contradictory to Ron’s reference???

Imagine yourself catching somebody installing a load of dynamite at the bottom of the boat?  Are you going to shut up and keep it to yourself for fear of creating some confusion?  The first reflex will be to jump him in the throat but if you have no possibility of doing that or four big ogres prevent you from it, you will surely want to communicate it, even at the risk of being thrown overboard for yelling and creating a confusion or disturbance.

This is what is happening and today, it is impossible for me to act as if I had seen nothing.

The solution is to have the courage to say “NO” and TO NOT BE REASONABLE WITH WHAT WE KNOW IS NOT CORRECT.

All what I say here is the result of my personal observation and experience.  I leave to each the care of observing for himself/herself and drawing his or her own conclusions if you haven’t already done so.

Looking at this situation, demands confronting and can bring confusion.  I am very aware of it but it is what happens when we put in some order.  What should we do?  Not-is and persuade ourselves that everything is fine, or take responsibility and oppose what seems to us incorrect in spite of the danger which it contains or the confusion which it can generate?

I chose to rely on LRH and his writings.  I chose to be openly against all that deviates from it.

HCOBs and HCOPLs are fortunately still available “approximately” unaltered before a “new golden age” makes them obsolete.  It is what is going to save us!  It would not be surprising for me if the red and green disappears completely from our auditors training to be replaced by titles like “according to Ron Hubbard’s works” which would widely open the door to an altered tech in direct violation of KSW no.1.

The only Golden Age of Tech that will ever exist is Ron’s when he was in command and when he was setting people free by hundreds.  To declare things otherwise and to invent a new golden age of tech is an insult towards him.

Although HCO will force you to cut the communication with me, be aware that Ron canceled the disconnection policy in 1968 (HCO PL 15 Nov on 1968, Cancellation of Disconnection).  Here is another out tech.  Nevertheless, my friends will always remain my friends.  It does not change anything for me.  I shall console myself when receiving my SP declaration by knowing that 38 of 50 staff of the last Org that Ron led personally (the old Saint Hill) were personally declared SPs by Miscavige and chucked out for ever (see the list below).  The 2.5 % (percentage given in the Ethics book) gives us here 76 % SPs!!!  Thinking that Ron would have seen nothing is another insult towards him.  This SP Declaration does not make any sense anymore.

If we are only a few to oppose this unethical situation, statistics will continue to fall and David Miscavige will grow richer.  On the day there are enough of us with the courage to say “stop” to Miscavige’s dictatorship, Miscavige will withdraw to his yacht (that I saw with my own eyes) or will fly away in his private jet on an island with his billions and his buildings.  I have good hope that Scientology will then be back to normal again and we shall meet.

I am leaving the group of David Miscavige and his perverted management, and I am simply re-joining the group of L. Ron Hubbard. I am not leaving Scientology, but I am declaring my independence from the current Church, and I am taking back my freedom.

See you soon.

Vincent Magni

Ken Urquhart LRH Pers Comm, LRH Butler, for 15 yrs (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

J.J. Delance Technical Staff Clear #17 Started Scn in France (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Leon Steinberg Exec Council Clear #10 Personal Friend of LRH One of the original LRH trained Class XII (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Jenny Parkhouse Treasury Staff Clear #54 Personal Friend of LRH (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Pat Bloomberg Dissem Sec (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Peter Hemery HCO Secretary Personal Friend of LRH (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Mike Rigby Dir Accounts (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Joyce Popham LRH Pers Sec (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Joan McNocher: D/Guardian (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Robin Hancocks Deputy HCO Executive Sec (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Frank Freedman D/Qual Clear #127 Class VIII (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Betty James Ad Council Chairman (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

John McMaster SHSBC Course Supervisor FIRST CLEAR (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

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Reg Sharpe LRH Assistant Personal Friend of LRH Clear #7 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Tony Dunleavy Clearing Course Supervisor Clear #20 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Connie Broadbent Dir Accounts Clear #29 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Craig Lipsitz Qual Staff Clear #30 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership, but now undeclared)

Sheena Fairchild Tech Staff Clear #41 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Jennifer Edmonds Tech Staff Clear #15 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Bernie Green Tech Staff Clear #18 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Gareth McCoy Dissem Staff Clear #21 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

John Lawrence Tech Staff Clear #28 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

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Helen Pollen Qual Staff Clear #47 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

Fred Fairchild Tech Staff Clear #49 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

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Cal Wigney Div 6 Staff Clear #57 (DECLARED SP by Current Church Leadership)

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This list has not been verified:

Philip Quirino LRH Comm Living under guard in reclusive retirement home

Len Regenass: HCO Area Sec DECLARED SP

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Otto Roos Ad Council DECLARED SP Clear #25 One of the original LRH trained Class XII (completed A-E of a prior Declare. But Re-Declared by Current Church Leadership)

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Felice Green Tech Staff DECLARED SP Clear #26 (Declared by Current Church Leadership)

For years, Mike Rinder was the Church of Scientology’s chief spokesman and executive director of the Office of Special Affairs, its intelligence wing. In 2007, his defection was among the most surprising in an exodus of high-ranking officials from the church. Since then, he’s given several interviews, but none as complete as the videotaped discussions we had with him last month in his Florida home. In this first segment, he describes the conditions in “The Hole,” Scientology’s notorious concentration camp for fallen executives at its California headquarters. In other segments, Rinder also talks about the confessions forced out of prisoners, the constant indoctrination of church members, and much, much, more…

First, some background that we picked up while getting a tour of Scientology’s spiritual home.

Rinder was born in 1955 to Ian and Barbara Rinder in Adelaide. (He has two younger siblings, Andrew and Judy.) Ian was an entrepreneur and owned a series of businesses, including a wholesale grocery distributor, an aerosol canning company, a travel agency, a restaurant — he even raised goats at one time. Barbara kept the books.

Mike went to private schools growing up. “They were Christian but non-denominational. There were a lot of private schools in Adelaide,” he says, calling it Australia’s version of Omaha or Des Moines.

In 1959 or 1960, Rinder’s parents became interested in Scientology — L. Ron Hubbard had given lectures in Melbourne around that time, and left behind some active groups there and in Adelaide. After moving to Sydney for about a year, the Rinders then made a pilgrimage to Saint Hill Manor in England in 1966 or 1967 that lasted nine months. (Hubbard had just left the manor, which remains to this day Scientology’s European headquarters.) After a second trip to Saint Hill a few years later, Rinder had twice been around the world by ship by the time he was 15 years old.

It was about then that Rinder remembers being audited for the first time. It wasn’t something the family was public about, that they were Scientologists. The Hubbard books were hidden at home, and his parents weren’t pushy about his involvement.

After finishing high school, Rinder joined the Sea Org at 18, turning down a full scholarship to the University of Adelaide. His first assignment: the “Tours Org,” which traveled the continent, arriving at individual churches to convince parishioners to sign up for more services — called “regging.” After crisscrossing Australia for several months in the Tours Org, Rinder was then sent for executive training at the center of Scientology’s universe — the yacht Apollo, with Hubbard himself.

But first, he needed to do his formal Sea Org indoctrination, known as Estates Project Force, at Saint Hill. Then, in September 1973, he went to Lisbon to meet the ship. After swabbing decks for a while, he then landed a plum assignment back on land: working PR for the ship in Funchal, Madeira, an island owned by Portugal.

By 1974, the Apollo had been kicked out of several other countries, and Portugal was just about its last safe home in Europe. But having just gone through a coup, the country was becoming suspicious of the Americans and Brits on the odd ship. Rinder and a handful of others were stationed in Funchal to hand out surveys to locals in a bid to convince them that the Apollo was harmless.

“Then the ‘rock concert’ happened,” Rinder says. In October, 1974, rumors had spread through Funchal that the Apollo, which was docked there, was working on behalf of the CIA. An uprising of locals dumped a couple of cars and motorcycles owned by the Scientologists into the water as rocks were thrown at the ship itself. While Hubbard shouted instructions from the deck, the Apollo‘s crew scrambled to get the yacht out of port. Rinder himself — all of 19 years old — was trapped in the house he was staying at in town, and ultimately needed a military escort to get back to the ship. It was that incident that convinced Hubbard to leave for the US — but Rinder says the boat’s agent spotted federal agents waiting for the ship in South Carolina, so instead Hubbard sailed the Caribbean for a while. After another year, he would move operations to land, taking over the downtown area of Clearwater, Florida.

Clearwater is, to this day, the spiritual headquarters of Scientology, and we traveled there in March to spend a couple of days with Rinder, who still lives nearby even though he left the church five years ago.

Today, Rinder and another former high-ranking executive, Marty Rathbun, are leading an exodus of church members who have left official Scientology because of the way it’s being led by their former boss, David Miscavige. Both Rinder and Rathbun, as well as others who call themselves “independent Scientologists” still adhere to Hubbard’s ideas even as they reject Miscavige’s church. We asked him to help explain the difference between the two movements…

Rinder is just one of numerous former executives to go public in the last few years with stories of abuse at the hands of church leader David Miscavige. Like Debbie Cook, who testified to her experience of being held in “the Hole” — Scientology’s notorious office-prison, Rinder explains in the first video, above, some of the conditions there. But we also asked him about the mentality that keeps some executives in Scientology for years even after they’ve gone through that kind of experience. He says it’s a matter of gradual indoctrination…

Rinder says he was held as a virtual prisoner in various places — tents on a golf course, for example, as well as in “the Hole” itself — for almost two years between 2004 and 2007, being let out on occasion to make appearances at church events or to handle the BBC’s John Sweeney. But we asked him, not for the first time, if he could remember what first caused him to fall from grace in the eyes of Miscavige, and sent him from the highest of executive positions to a prisoner…

Debbie Cook testified that besides the degrading conditions of the Hole — sleeping on the floor of an ant-infested, sweltering office, eating disgusting “slop” — that the days consisted of mass confessions that could last hours. Rinder was held in the place far longer than Cook, and we asked him what those confessions were like…

Rinder mentions in that last segment that he and Marty Rathbun, another top former official, had been assigned by Miscavige for four years to handle the fallout of the 1995 death of Lisa McPherson, who perished after being held for 17 days at Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater, the Fort Harrison Hotel. Rinder and Rathbun directed the church’s legal strategy as Scientology was indicted criminally for the death (charges were later dropped). McPherson’s death and the years of bad publicity it garnered for the church is one of Scientology’s biggest headaches in its 60-year history.

Even when he was let out of confinement from the Hole, Rinder says Miscavige could make work assignments feel almost as unpleasant as imprisonment itself. There was the way, for example, he assigned Rinder to do work on what would become The Basics, Miscavige’s 2007 re-release of L. Ron Hubbard’s most essential Scientology books, which all Scientologists were then required to purchase at up to $3,000 per set…

Another strange aspect of imprisonment at the Hole — which multiple witnesses tell us went on at least from the beginning of 2004 to the middle of 2010, if not longer — was that everyone inside were high-ranking executives, all of whom had known and worked with each other for years.

“These were your friends, people you had traveled with,” Rinder says. “But then, you get in the Hole? You can’t trust anybody.”

The forced confessions pitted friends against each other. And the conditions only made it worse. “Everyone sleeping with only about six inches on either side. Above you. Below you. Getting up in the middle of the night, you’d disturb everyone,” Rinder says, and more than once compares it to the madness of Lord of the Flies…

Like Cook, Rinder eventually got out of the Hole because, he says, Miscavige needed them elsewhere. For Cook, it was an event in Clearwater. For Rinder, it was to handle John Sweeney and the BBC while they were filming a documentary about Scientology. But even after he was out, Rinder says he continued to be bullied by Miscavige, and began thinking about “blowing” — Scientology jargon for defecting.

I asked him to describe how he finally broke away in 2007…

So, I asked Rinder, where is this all going?

“I don’t think that the demise of Miscavige and the church is going to be a direct result of people abandoning it,” he says. “I think there is sort of a snowball effect that happens with people who get influenced by Debbie Cook, or the Tampa Bay Times. Other people who know someone affected by disconnection…

“But I think the ultimate demise is going to be either when there is enough media pressure demanding that Miscavige answer up and stop sending lackeys to make excuses, or when he’s forced to testify under oath.

“The minute either of those things happens, he won’t be able to maintain the facade any longer. His facade is built primarily on him doing these events — the New Year’s event, March 13 [Hubbard's Birthday], June 6 [Maiden Voyage], the IAS in October — where he convinces the flock that everything is hunky dory. They believe it, because he’s the one saying it. If he can’t do that, the whole house of cards will fall to pieces.

“The people in the local orgs, they see that nothing is expanding. But they assume it is everywhere else. They figure they’re doing something wrong, and so they don’t want to look anywhere else. It’s like a whole big incredibly elaborate facade that’s been constructed.

“It will just kind of fall to pieces as soon as that source of bullshit is no longer able to convince everybody that the world of Scientology is experiencing its greatest rate of expansion.

“The only thing Miscavige has is a lot of money. So, he is able to create the appearance of expansion with this buying of buildings. Because all you need for that is money.”

On a personal note, I wanted to thank Christie Collbran, Mike’s girlfriend, for putting up with us over two days so close to her delivery date. She and Mike are expecting a baby boy any day now.

John Rafanello – OT8, Class VIII
Website: http://wonderworldonline.com