The Making of L. Ron Hubbard

Defining the Theology

It’s a space-age religion that abounds in galactic tales, and its deepest secrets are known to few

What is Scientology?

Not even the vast majority of Scientologists can fully answer the question.

In the Church of Scientology, there is no one book that comprehensively sets forth the religion’s beliefs in the fashion of, say, the Bible or the Koran.

Rather, Scientology’s theology is scattered among the voluminous writings and tape-recorded discourses of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the religion in the early 1950s.

Piece by piece, his teachings are revealed to church members through a progression of sometimes secret courses that take years to complete and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Out of a membership estimated by the church to be 6.5 million, only a tiny fraction have climbed to the upper reaches. In fact, according to a Scientology publication earlier this year, fewer than 900 members have completed the church’s highest course, nicknamed “Truth Revealed.”

While Hubbard’s “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health” typically is one of the first books read by church members, its relationship to Scientology is like that of a grade school to a university.

What Scientologists learn in their courses is never publicly discussed by the church, which is trying to shake its cultish image and establish itself as a mainstream religion. For to the uninitiated, Hubbard’s theology would resemble pure science fiction, complete with galactic battles, interplanetary civilizations and tyrants who roam the universe.

Here, based on court records, church documents and Hubbard lectures that span the past four decades, is a rare look at portions of Scientology’s theology and the cosmological musings of the man who wrote it.

Central to Scientology is a belief in an immortal soul, or “thetan,” that passes from one body to the next through countless reincarnations spanning trillions of years. Collectively, thetans created the universe — all the stars and planets, every plant and animal. To function within their creation, thetans built bodies for themselves of wildly varying appearances, the human form being just one.

But each thetan is vulnerable to painful experiences that can diminish its powers and create emotional and physical problems in the individual it inhabits. The goal of Scientology is to purge these experiences from the thetan, making it again omnipotent and returning spiritual and bodily health to its host.

The painful experiences are called “engrams.” Hubbard said some happen by accident — from ancient planetary wars, for example — while others are intentionally inflicted by other thetans who have gone bad and want power. In Scientology, these engrams are called “implants.”

According to Hubbard, the bad thetans through the eons have electronically implanted other thetans with information intended to confuse them and make them forget the powers they inherently possess — kind of a brainwashing procedure.

While Hubbard was not always precise about the origins of the implants, he was very clear about the impact.

“Implants,” Hubbard said, “result in all varieties of illness, apathy, degradation, neurosis and insanity and are the principal cause of these in man.”

Hubbard identified numerous implants that he said have occurred through the ages and that are addressed during Scientology courses aimed at neutralizing their harmful effects.

Hubbard maintained, for example, that the concept of a Christian heaven is the product of two implants dating back more than 43 trillion years. Heaven, he said, is a “false dream” and a “very painful lie” intended to direct thetans toward a non-existent goal and convince them they have only one life.

In reality, Hubbard said, there is no heaven and there was no Christ.

“The (implanted) symbol of a crucified Christ is very apt indeed,” Hubbard said. “It’s the symbol of a thetan betrayed.”

Hubbard said that one of the worst implants happens after a person dies.

While Hubbard’s story of this implant may seem outlandish to some, he advanced it as a factual account of reincarnation.

“Of all the nasty, mean and vicious implants that have ever been invented, this one is it,” he declared during a lecture in the 1950s. “And it’s been going on for thousands of years.”

Hubbard said that when a person dies, his or her thetan goes to a “landing station” on Venus, where it is programmed with lies about its past life and its next life. The lies include a promise that it will be returned to Earth by being lovingly shunted into the body of a newborn baby.

Not so, said Hubbard, who described the thetan’s re-entry this way:

“What actually happens to you, you’re simply capsuled and dumped in the gulf of lower California. Splash. The hell with ya. And you’re on your own, man. If you can get out of that, and through that, and wander around through the cities and find some girl who looks like she is going to get married or have a baby or something like that, you’re all set. And if you can find the maternity ward to a hospital or something, you’re OK.

“And you just eventually just pick up a baby.”

But Hubbard offered his followers an easy way to outwit the implant:

Scientologists should simply select a location other than Venus to go “when they kick the bucket.”

Another notorious implant led Hubbard to construct an entire course for Scientologists who want to be rid of it.

Shrouded in mystery and kept in locked cabinets at select church locations, the course is called Operating Thetan III, billed by the church as “the final secret of the catastrophe which laid waste to this sector of the galaxy.” It is taught only to the most advanced church members, at fees ranging to $6,000.

Hubbard told his followers that while unlocking the secret, he “became very ill, almost lost this body and somehow or another brought it off and obtained the material and was able to live through it.”

Here’s what he said he learned:

Seventy-five million years ago a tyrant named Xenu (pronounced Zee-new) ruled the Galactic Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets, including Earth, then called Teegeeack.

To control overpopulation and solidify his power, Xenu instructed his loyal officers to capture beings of all shapes and sizes from the various planets, freeze them in a compound of alcohol and glycol and fly them by the billions to Earth in planes resembling DC-8s. Some of the beings were captured after they were duped into showing up for a phony tax investigation.

The beings were deposited or chained near 10 volcanoes scattered around the planet. After hydrogen bombs were dropped on them, their thetans were captured by Xenu’s forces and implanted with sexual perversion, religion and other notions to obscure their memory of what Xenu had done.

Soon after, a revolt erupted. Xenu was imprisoned in a wire cage within a mountain, where he remains today.

But the damage was done.

During the last 75 million years, these implanted thetans have affixed themselves by the thousands to people on Earth. Called “body thetans,” they overwhelm the main thetan who resides within a person, causing confusion and internal conflict.

In the Operating Thetan III course, Scientologists are taught to scan their bodies for “pressure points,” indicating the presence of these bad thetans. Using techniques prescribed by Hubbard, church members make telepathic contact with these thetans and remind them of Xenu’s treachery. With that, Hubbard said, the thetans detach themselves

Hubbard first unveiled his Scientology theories during a series of often breathless lectures he delivered in Wichita, Kan., Phoenix and Philadelphia in 1952.

His talks were sprinkled with tales of interplanetary adventures he said he had experienced during earlier lives.

There was the time, for instance, that Hubbard said he was resting in a peaceful valley on a barren planet in some remote galaxy, and decided to spruce up the place. He said he “fixed up a lake” and “managed to coax into existence a few vines.”

Then, “all of a sudden — zoop boom — and there was a spaceship,” Hubbard recalled, saying “I got pretty mad about the whole thing.”

“I remember bringing a thunderstorm,” Hubbard said. “Moved it over the ship…. And then (I) let them have it.”

Hubbard told associates that he had been many people before being born as Lafayette Ronald Hubbard on March 13, 1911, in Tilden, Neb. One of them was Cecil Rhodes, the British-born diamond king of southern Africa. Another, according to a former aide, was a marshal to Joan of Arc.

After Hubbard’s death in 1986, a Scientology publication described him as “the original musician,” who 3 million years ago invented music while going by the name “Arpen Polo.” The publication noted that “he wrote his first song a bit after the first tick of time.”

Hubbard realized that his accounts of past lives, implants and extraterrestrial creatures might sound suspect to outsiders. So he counseled his disciples to keep mum.

“Don’t start walking around and telling people about space opera because they’re not going to believe you,” he said, “and they’re going to say, ‘Well, that’s just Hubbard.’ ”

Part 1:5 (Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A36:1)

Above L Ron Hubbard using the A Model of Mathisons Electropsychometer with projector features.

The Making of L. Ron Hubbard

Burglaries and Lies Paved a Path to Prison

A web of criminal conspiracy to discredit the church’s foes resulted in 5-year sentences for 11 defendants.

It began with the title of a fairy tale — Snow White.

That was the benign code name Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard gave to an ominous plan that would envelop his church in scandal and send its upper echelon to prison, a plan rooted in his ever-deepening fears and suspicions.

Snow White began in 1973 as an effort by Scientology through Freedom of Information proceedings to purge government files of what Hubbard thought was false information being circulated worldwide to discredit him and the church. But the operation soon mushroomed into a massive criminal conspiracy, executed by the church’s legal and investigative arm, the Guardian Office.

Under the direction of Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue, the Guardian Office hatched one scheme after another to discredit and unnerve Scientology’s foes across the country. Guardian Office members were trained to lie, or in their words, “to outflow false data effectively.”

They compiled enemy lists and subjected those on the lists to smear campaigns and dirty tricks.

Their targets were in the government, the press, the medical profession, wherever a potential threat surfaced.

The Guardian Office saved the worst for author Paulette Cooper of New York City, whose scathing 1972 book, “The Scandal of Scientology,” pushed her to the top of the church’s roster of enemies.

Among other things, Cooper was framed on criminal charges by Guardian Office members, who obtained stationery she had touched and then used it to forge bomb threats to the church in her name.

“You’re like the Nazis or the Arabs — I’ll bomb you, I’ll kill you!” warned one of the rambling letters.

The church reported the threat to the FBI and directed its agents to Cooper, whose fingerprints matched those on the letter. Cooper was indicted by a grand jury not only for the bomb threats, but for lying under oath about her innocence.

Two years later, the author’s reputation and psyche in tatters, prosecutors dismissed the charges after she had spent nearly $20,000 in legal fees to defend herself and $6,000 on psychiatric treatment.

It seemed that no plan against perceived enemies was too ambitious or daring.

In Washington, Scientology spies penetrated such high-security agencies as the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service to find what they had on Hubbard and the church.

In nighttime raids, they rifled files and photocopied mountains of documents, many of which the church had unsuccessfully sought under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The thefts were inside jobs; the Guardian Office had planted one agent in the IRS as a clerk typist and another in the Justice Department as the personal secretary of an assistant U.S. attorney who was handling Freedom of Information lawsuits filed by Scientology.

So bold had they become that one Guardian Office operative slipped into an IRS conference room and wired a bugging device into a wall socket before a crucial meeting on Scientology was to be convened. The operative rigged the device so he could eavesdrop over his car’s FM radio.

The U.S. was losing a war it did not even know it was fighting. But that was about to change.

Two Scientologists used fake IRS credentials to gain access to government agencies and then photocopied documents related to the church.

Their conspiracy was exposed when one of the suspects, after 11 months on the lam, became worried about his plight and confessed to authorities, prompting the FBI to launch one of the biggest raids in its history.

Armed with power saws, crowbars and bolt cutters, 134 agents burst into three Scientology locations in Los Angeles and Washington.

They carted off eavesdropping equipment, burglar tools and 48,000 documents detailing countless operations against “enemies” in public and private life.

In the end, Hubbard’s wife and the others were found guilty of charges of conspiracy and burglary. The grand jury named Hubbard as an unindicted co-conspirator; the seized Guardian Office files did not directly link him to the crimes and he professed ignorance of them.

In a memorandum urging stiff sentences for the Scientologists, federal prosecutors wrote:

“The crime committed by these defendants is of a breadth and scope previously unheard of. No building, office, desk, or file was safe from their snooping and prying. No individual or organization was free from their despicable conspiratorial minds. The tools of their trade were miniature transmitters, lock picks, secret codes, forged credentials and any other device they found necessary to carry out their conspiratorial schemes.”

The 11 defendants were ordered to serve five years in federal prison. All are now free.

Church leaders today maintain that this dark chapter in their religion’s history was the work of renegade members who, yes, broke the law but believed they were justified because the government for two decades had harassed and persecuted Scientology.

Boston attorney Earle C. Cooley, Scientology’s national trial counsel, said the present church management does not condone the criminal activities of the old Guardian Office. He said that one of Hubbard’s most important dictums was to “maintain friendly relations with the environment and the public.”

“The question that I always have in my mind,” Cooley said, “is for how long a time is the church going to have to continue to pay the price for what the (Guardian Office) did…. Unfortunately, the church continues to be confronted with it.

“And the ironic thing is that the people being confronted with it are the people who wiped it out. And to the church, that’s a very frustrating thing.”

(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A39:2)

Part 1:6 The Making of L. Ron Hubbard

Why Scientology not recruit Clearwater citizens

The Making of L. Ron Hubbard

The Man in Control

A protege of L. Ron Hubbard now leads the church, wielding power with the stern approach of his mentor.

The Church of Scientology today is run by a high-school dropout who grew up at the knee of the late L. Ron Hubbard and wields power with the iron-fisted approach of his mentor.

At 30, David Miscavige is chairman of the board of an organization that sits atop the bureaucratic labyrinth known as the Church of Scientology.

This organization, the Religious Technology Center, owns the trademarks that Scientology churches need to operate, including the words Scientology and Dianetics.

The Religious Technology Center licenses the churches to use the trademarks and can revoke permission if a church fails to perform properly. Therein rests much, but not all, of Miscavige’s power.

He is the man in control, charting a direction for the organization that is at once expansionist and combative — in keeping with the dictates and personality of Hubbard, his role model. He refused repeated requests to be interviewed for this report.

Church spokesmen say Miscavige is a tireless, no-nonsense leader who works 15-hour days and whose vision is guiding the church’s foray into mainstream society.

“He has a tremendous ability to cut through bull and get to the point,” said one Scientology spokesman, who has worked closely with Miscavige.

“He’s an initiator,” said another.

High-ranking former Scientologists describe him as a ruthless infighter with a volatile temper. They say he speaks in a gritty street parlance, punctuated with expletives.

One recalled the time that Miscavige became enraged with the performances of Scientology staffers on a church record album. He propped its cover against an embankment outside his Riverside County, office and shot it repeatedly with a .45-caliber pistol, said the associate.

To the public, the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, is portrayed as Scientology’s top official. He appears regularly at news conferences and on talk shows, and was one of a group of Scientologists detained recently by Spanish officials investigating the church. In reality, Jentzsch appears to be chiefly responsible for church public relations.

The real power is consolidated among a handful of Scientologists, led by Miscavige, who keep low public profiles.

Miscavige’s climb to prominence is a lesson in the origins and nature of power in the church that Hubbard built.

At the age of 14, with the blessing of his Scientologist parents, Miscavige joined a cadre of trusted youngsters called the “Commodore’s messengers.” In the beginning, they merely ran Hubbard’s errands. But as they emerged from adolescence, Hubbard broadened their influence over even the highest-level church executives.

In time, the messengers controlled the communication lines to and from Hubbard — a critical component of power in an organization that revered him as almost saintly. When messengers spoke, they did so with Hubbard’s authority. Bad-mouthing a messenger, Hubbard said, was tantamount to personally challenging him.

When Hubbard went into hiding in 1980, he left behind but did not forget Miscavige, one of his favorites.

It was Miscavige’s job to ensure that Hubbard’s orders, secretly relayed to him, were followed by church executives. In effect, Miscavige became the sole link between church leaders and Hubbard.

Miscavige also was put in charge of a profit-making firm called Author Services Inc., which was established in 1981 to manage Hubbard’s literary and financial affairs. The job further enhanced Miscavige’s reputation as having Hubbard’s confidence.

Church defectors say Miscavige wasted no time flexing his new muscles.

Among other things, he spearheaded a purge in 1981 of upper-echelon Scientology executives accused of subverting Hubbard’s teachings and plotting to seize control of the organization.

He also cracked down on owners of Scientology franchises, or missions, who pay the church roughly 10% of their gross income.

At a 1982 church conference, Miscavige accused the mission owners of cheating the “mother church.” He and his aides announced that “finance police” would audit the missions to ensure that the church was getting its fair share of money. And the audits would cost the missions $15,000 a day.

In taking command of Scientology after Hubbard’s death, Miscavige survived a challenge from two other Hubbard lieutenants once thought to be his likely successors: Pat and Anne Broeker, who had been in hiding with Hubbard.

The power struggle was so intense at one point that even Hubbard’s final Scientology writings, revered as sacred scriptures, became the object of a tug of war between Miscavige and Pat Broeker, according to Vicki Aznaran, a top Scientology executive who left the church in 1987 after a falling out. Aznaran said Broeker threatened to use the writings to start his own church.

Miscavige today has achieved exalted status within the Scientology movement.

He has personal aides who walk his dog, shine his shoes and run his errands, according to Aznaran, a top Scientology executive who left the church in 1987 after a falling-out. In his rare public appearances, he is surrounded by respectful subordinates.

And like Hubbard, who was frequently referred to by his initials, David Miscavige is called D.M.

David Miscavige

(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A41:4)

Part 1:7 The Making of L. Ron Hubbard

If You’re a Scientologist, be Proud!

Staking a Claim to Blood Brotherhood

As L. Ron Hubbard told it, he was 4 years old when a medicine man named “Old Tom” made him a “blood brother” of the Blackfeet Indians of Montana, providing the inspiration for the Scientology founder’s first novel, “Buckskin Brigades.”

But one expert on the tribe doesn’t buy Hubbard’s account.

Historian Hugh Dempsey is associate director of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Canada. He has extensively researched the tribe, of which his wife is a member.

He said that blood brothers are “an old Hollywood idea” and that the act was “never done among the Blackfeet.”

As for “Old Tom,” Dempsey has informed doubts. For one thing, he said, the name does not appear in a 1907 Blackfeet enrollment register containing the names of hundreds of tribal members.

For another, “It’s the kind of name, for that period (1915), that would practically not exist among the Blackfeet,” he said. “At that time, Blackfeet did not have Christian names.”

In 1985, church leaders produced a document that they say proves Hubbard was not lying.

Typed on Blackfeet Nation stationery, it states: “To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of L. Ron Hubbard becoming a blood brother of the Blackfeet Nation. Tree Manyfeathers in a ceremony re-established L. Ron Hubbard as a blood brother to the Blackfeet Tribe.”

The document actually is meaningless because none of the three men who signed it were authorized to take any action on the tribe’s behalf, according to Blackfeet Nation officials.

The document was created by Richard Mataisz, a Scientologist of fractional Indian descent. Mataisz said in an interview he tried to prove that Hubbard was a Blackfeet blood brother but came up empty-handed.

“It’s not,” he said, “something you go down to the courthouse and look up.”

So Mataisz, using the name Tree Manyfeathers, said he held a private ceremony, made Hubbard his own blood brother and, along with two other men, signed the commemorative document.

“You should not give it (the document) very much credibility,” said John Yellow Kidney, former vice president of the tribe’s executive committee. “I don’t.”

(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A38:5)

The Making of L. Ron Hubbard  Part 1: 8

Part 1: The Making of L. Ron Hubbard 9

Church Scriptures Get High-Tech Protection

(Sunday, 24 June 1990, page A40:5)

Scientology is determined that the words of L. Ron Hubbard shall live forever.

Using state-of-the art technology, the movement has spent more than $15 million to protect Hubbard’s original writings, tape-recorded lectures and filmed treatises from natural and man-made calamities, including nuclear holocaust.

The effort illustrates two fundamental truths about the Scientology movement: It believes in its future and it never does anything halfheartedly.

In charge of the preservation task is the Church of Spiritual Technology, which functions as archivist for Hubbard’s works.

It has a staff — but no congregation — and its fiscal 1987 income was $503 million, according to court documents filed by the church.

The organization has purchased rural land in New Mexico, Northern California and San Bernardino Mountains to store the Hubbard gospel.

According to Church of Spiritual Technology documents, the New Mexico site has a 670-foot tunnel with two deep vaults at the end. The tunnel is protected with thick concrete and has four doors with “maintenance-free lives of 1,000 years.”

Three of the doors purportedly will be “nuclear blast resistant.”

All this to house mere copies of the original works, which include 500,000 pages of Hubbard writings, 6,500 reels of tape and 42 films. The originals themselves are being kept under tight security on a sprawling Scientology complex near Lake Arrowhead.

While details of the facility are sketchy, a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy, who requested anonymity, said the group has burrowed a huge tunnel into a mountainside.

At the Arrowhead repository, sophisticated methods are being used to prepare Hubbard’s works for the bomb-proof vaults. Here, according to Scientology officials and documents, is the process:

First, the original writings are chemically treated to rid the paper of acid that causes deterioration. Next, they are placed in plastic envelopes that church officials say will last 1,000 years.

From there, they are packaged in titanium “time capsules” filled with argon gas to further aid preservation.

Hubbard’s writings also are being etched onto stainless steel plates with a strong acid. Scientology officials said the plates are so durable that they can be sprayed with salt water for 1,000 years and not deteriorate.

As for Hubbard’s taped lectures, they are being re-recorded onto special “pure gold” compact discs encased in glass that, according to Scientology archvists, are “designed to last at least 1,000 years with no deterioration of sound quality.”

 The Selling of a Church Scientology

Church Markets Its Gospel with High-Pressure Sales

(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A1:1)

Behind the religious trappings, the Church of Scientology is run like a lean, no-nonsense business in which potential members are called “prospects,” “raw meat” and “bodies in the shop.”

Its governing financial policy, written by the late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is simple and direct: “MAKE MONEY, MAKE MORE MONEY, MAKE OTHERS PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY.”

The organization uses sophisticated sales tactics to sell a seemingly endless progression of expensive courses, each serving as a prerequisite for the next. Known collectively as “The Bridge,” the courses promise salvation, higher intelligence, superhuman powers and even possible survival from nuclear fallout — for those who can pay.

Church tenets mandate that parishioners purchase Scientology goods and services under Hubbard’s “doctrine of exchange.” A person must learn to give, he said, as well as receive.

For its programs and books, the church charges “fixed donations” that range from $50 for an elementary course in improving communication skills to more than $13,000 for Hubbard’s secret teachings on the origins of the universe and the genesis of mankind’s ills.

The church currently is offering a “limited time only” deal on a select package of Hubbard courses, which represent a small portion of The Bridge. If bought individually, those courses would cost $55,455. The sale price: $33,399.50.

As a promotional flyer for the discount observes, “YOU SAVE $22,055.50.”

To complete Hubbard’s progression of courses, a Scientologist could conceivably spend a lifetime and more than $400,000. Although few if any have doled out that much, the high cost of enlightenment in Scientology has left many deeply in debt to family, friends and banks.

Ask former church member Marie Culloden of Manhattan Beach, who describes herself as a “recovering Scientologist.”

“I’m trying to recover my mortgaged home,” says Culloden, who spent 20 years in Scientology and obtained three mortgages totaling more than $80,000 to buy courses.

The Scientology Bridge is always under construction, keeping the Supreme Answer one step away from church members — a potent sales strategy devised by Hubbard to keep the money flowing, critics contend.

New courses continually are added, each of which is said to be crucial for spiritual progress, each heavily promoted.

Church members are warned that unless they keep purchasing Scientology services, misery and sickness may befall them. For the true believer, this is a powerful incentive to keep buying whatever the group is selling.

Through the mail, Scientologists are bombarded with glossy, colorful brochures announcing the latest courses and discounts. Letters and postcards sound the dire warning, “Urgent! Urgent! Your future is at risk! … It is time to ACT! NOW! … You must buy now!”

By far the most expensive service offered by Scientology is “auditing” — a kind of confessional during which an individual reveals intimate and traumatic details of his life while his responses are monitored on a lie detector-type device known as the E-meter.

The purpose is to unburden a person of painful experiences, or “engrams,” that block his spiritual growth, a process that can span hundreds of hours. Auditing is purchased in 12 1/2-hour chunks costing anywhere between $3,000 and $11,000 each, depending on where it is bought.

Even Scientology’s critics concede that auditing often helps people feel better by allowing them to air troubling aspects of their lives — much like a Catholic confessional or psychotherapy — and keeps them coming back for more.

The church makes no apologies for the methods it uses to raise funds and spread the gospel of its founder. Scientology spokesmen said in interviews that it takes money to cover overhead expenses and to finance the church’s worldwide expansion, as it does for any religion.

“You can’t do it on bread and butter,” said one.

Church leaders will not discuss Scientology’s gross income or net worth. But they contend that Scientologists who pay for spiritual programs are no different from, say, Mormons who tithe 10% of their income for admittance to the temple, or from Jews who buy tickets to High Holiday services or from Christians who rent church pews.

“The fact of the matter is that the parishioners of the Church of Scientology have felt and continue to feel that they get full value for their donations,” said Scientology lawyer Earle C. Cooley.

Many Scientologists say that Hubbard’s teachings have resurrected their lives, some of which were marred by drugs, personal traumas, self doubts or a sense of alienation. They say that, through the church, they have gained confidence and learned to lead ethical lives and take responsibility for themselves, while working to create a better world.

Scientology “works,” they say, and for that, no price is too high.

“It takes money,” acknowledged Scientologist Sheri Scott. “It took money for my father to buy his Cadillac. I wish he’d sell the damn thing and give me the money (for Scientology)…. I have never felt cheated at all.”

“I’m not glued to the sky or anything. I’m a very normal person,” she added. “I just wish more people would take a look, would read (about Scientology), before they decide we’re cuckoo.”

While other religions increasingly advertise and market themselves, none approaches the Church of Scientology’s commercial zeal and sophistication.

Its tactics come directly from Hubbard, who wrote entire treatises on how to create a market for, and sell, Scientology.

He borrowed generously from a 1971 book called “Big League Sales Closing Techniques.” Touted as the “selling secrets of a supersalesman,” the book was written by former car dealer Les Dane, who has conducted popular seminars at Scientology headquarters in Florida.

Hubbard said Scientology must be marketed through the “art of hard sell,” meaning an “insistence that people buy.” He said that, “regardless of who the person is or what he is, the motto is, ‘Always sell something….’ ”

Hubbard contended that such high-pressure tactics are imperative because a person’s spiritual well being is at stake.

Among other things, he directed his followers to: “rob the person of every opportunity to say ‘No.’ “; “help prospects work through financial stops impeding a sale”; “make the prospect think it was his idea to make the purchase”; utilize the two man “tag team” approach, and “overcome and rapidly handle any attempted prospect backout.”

One of the most important techniques in selling Scientology, Hubbard said, is to create mystery.

“If we tell him there is something to know and don’t tell him what it is, we will zip people into” the organization, Hubbard wrote. “And one can keep doing this to a person — shuttle them along using mystery.”

Frequently, a person’s first contact with Scientology comes when he is approached by a staff member on the street and offered a free personality test, or receives a lengthy questionnaire in the mail.

Using charts and graphs, the idea is to convince a person that he has some problem, or “ruin,” that Scientology can fix, while assuaging concerns he may have about the church. According to Hubbard, “if the job has been done well, the person should be worried.”

With that accomplished, the customer is pushed to buy services he is told will improve his sorry condition and perhaps give him such powers as being able to spiritually travel outside his body — or, in Scientology jargon, to “exteriorize.”

Former church member Andrew Lesco said he was told that he “would be able to project my mind into drawers, someone’s pocket, a wallet and I would be able to tell what’s inside … ”

Church members are required to write testimonials — “success stories” — as they progress from one level to the next.

The testimonials regularly appear in Scientology publications. Usually carrying only the authors’ initials, they are used to promote courses without the church itself assuming legal liability for promising results that may not occur, according to ex-Scientologists. Here is an example:

We were having trouble with the windshield wipers in our car. Sometimes they would work and sometimes they wouldn’t…. We were driving along, and my husband was driving. I got to thinking about the windshield wipers, left my body in the seat and took a look under the hood. I spotted the wires that were shorting and caused them to weld themselves together, like they were supposed to be. We haven’t had any trouble with them since.

Scientology staffers who sell Hubbard’s courses are called “registrars.”

They earn commissions on their sales and are skilled at eliciting every facet of an individual’s finances, including bank accounts, stocks, cars, houses, whatever can be converted to cash.

Like all Scientology staffers, a registrar’s productivity is evaluated each week. Performance is judged by how much money he or she brings in by Thursday afternoon. And, in Scientology, declining or stagnant productivity is not viewed benevolently, as former registrar Roger Barnes says he learned.

“I remember being dragged across a desk by my tie because I hadn’t made my (sales quota),” said Barnes, who once toured the world selling Scientology until he had a bitter break with the group.

Barnes and other ex-Scientologists say that this uncompromising push to generate more money each week places intense pressure on registrars.

Another former Scientology salesman in Los Angeles said he and other registrars would use a tactic called “crush regging.” The technique, he said, employed no elaborate sales talk. They repeated three words again and again: “Sign the check. Sign the check.”

“This made the person feel so harassed,” he said, “that he would sign the check because it was the only way he was going to get out of there.”

A 1984 investigative report by Canadian authorities quoted a Toronto registrar as saying that members of the public want to be “bled of their money…. If they didn’t, they would be staff members eligible for free training.”

The Canadian report also recounted a meeting during which Scientology staffers chanted: “Go for the throat. Go for blood. Go for the bloody throat.”

Former Scientologist Donna Day of Ventura said that church registrars accused her of throwing away money on rent and on food for her cats and dogs — “degraded beings,” they called her pets. They said the money should be going to the church.

“I was so upset, I finally left the house with them sitting in it,” said Day, who sued the church to get back $25,000 she said she had spent on Scientology.

Several years ago, church members persuaded a Florida woman to turn over a workers compensation settlement she received after the death of her husband, Larry M. Wheaton, who left behind two children, ages 3 and 7. He was the pilot of an Air Florida jet that plunged into the Potomac River after it had departed Washington, D.C.’s National Airport in 1982.

The Wheatons were longtime church members.

Joanne Wheaton gave nearly $150,000 to the church and almost as much to a private business controlled by Scientologists. But the deal was blocked when a lawsuit was brought by an attorney appointed by the court to protect the children’s interests.

The suit claimed that the Scientologists had disregarded the future welfare and financial security of the Wheaton family by taking money that was supposed to be used solely for the support of the children and their mother.

After protracted discussions, the money was refunded and the Scientologists who negotiated the deal were expelled by the church for their role in the affair.

For years, one of Scientology’s top promoters was Larry Wollersheim. He traveled the country inspiring others to follow him across Hubbard’s Bridge. Then he became disenchanted with the movement.

In 1980, he filed a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, accusing the church of subjecting him to psychologically damaging practices and of driving him to the brink of insanity and financial ruin after he had a falling out with the group.

Three years ago, a jury awarded him $30 million. The award was recently reduced to $2.5 million.

During the litigation, Wollersheim filed a 200-page affidavit in which he offered this analysis of what keeps Scientologists hooked:

“Fear and hope are totally indoctrinated into the cult (Scientology) member. He hopes that he will receive the miraculous and ridiculous claims made directly, indirectly and by rumor by the sect and its members.

“He is afraid of the peer pressure for not proceeding up the prescribed program. He is intimidated and afraid of being accused of being a dilettante. He is afraid that if he doesn’t do it now before the world ends or collapses he may never get the chance. He is afraid if he doesn’t claim he received gains and write a success testimonial he will be shunned….

“How many people could stand up to that kind of pressure and stand before a group of applauding people and say: ‘Hey, it really wasn’t good.’?”

Wollersheim said that the courses provide only a temporary euphoria.

“Then you’re sold the next mystery and the next solution…. I’ve seen people sell their homes, stocks, inheritances and everything they own chasing their hopes for a fleeting, subjective euphoria. I have never witnessed a greater preying on the hopes and fears of others that has been carefully engineered by the cult’s leader.”

L Ron Hubbard

Scientology Aftermath Leah Remini

Should Scientology Qualify for Tax Exemption?

The Selling of a Church Scientology

Shoring Up Its Religious Profile

The church has adopted the terminology and trappings of traditional theologies. But the IRS is not convinced.

(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A18:1)

Since its founding some 35 years ago by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology has worked hard to shore up its religious profile for the public, the courts and the Internal Revenue Service.

In the old days, for example, those who purchased Hubbard’s Scientology courses were called “students.” Today, they are “parishioners.”

The group’s “franchises” have become “missions.” And Hubbard’s teachings, formerly his “courses,” now are described as sacred scriptures.

The word “Dianetics” was even redefined to give it a spiritual twist. For years, Hubbard said it meant “through the mind.” The new definition: “through the soul.”

Canadian authorities learned firsthand how far Scientologists would go to maintain a religious aura.

According to police documents disclosed in 1984, an undercover officer who infiltrated Scientology’s Toronto outpost during an investigation of its activities was asked by a church official to don a “white collar so that someone in the (organization) looked like a minister.”

For three decades, critics have accused Scientology of assuming the mantle of religion to shield itself from government inquiries and taxes.

“To some, this seems mere opportunism,” Hubbard said of Scientology’s religious conversion in a 1954 communique to his followers. “To some it would seem that Scientology is simply making itself bulletproof in the eyes of the law….”

But, Hubbard insisted, religion is “basically a philosophic teaching designed to better the civilization into which it is taught…. A Scientologist has a better right to call himself a priest, a minister, a missionary, a doctor of divinity, a faith healer or a preacher than any other man who bears the insignia of religion of the Western World.”

Joseph Yanny, a Los Angeles attorney who represented the church until he had a bitter falling out with the group in 1987, said Scientology portrays itself as a religion only where it is expedient to do so — such as in the U.S., where tax laws favor religious organizations.

In Israel and many parts of Latin America, where there is either a state religion or a prohibition against religious organizations owning property, Yanny said Scientology claims to be a philosophical society.

In the beginning, Hubbard toyed with different ways to promote his creation.

For a time, he called it “the only successfully validated psychotherapy in the world.” To those who completed his courses, he offered “certification” as a “Freudian psychoanalyst.”

He also described it as a “precision science” that required no faith or beliefs to produce “completely predictable results” of higher intelligence and better health. Hubbard bestowed upon its practitioners the title “doctor of Scientology.”

This characterization, however, landed him in trouble with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a federal judge, who concluded in 1971 that Hubbard was making false medical claims and had employed “skillful propaganda to make Scientology … attractive in many varied, often inconsistent wrappings.”

The judge said, however, that if claims about Scientology were advanced in a purely spiritual context, they would be beyond the government’s reach because of protections afforded religions under the First Amendment.

In the United States, it is easy to become a church, no matter how unconventional — you just say it is so. The hard part may come in keeping tax-exempt status, as Scientology has learned.

The U.S. government is constitutionally barred from determining what is and what is not a religion. But, under the law, there is no guaranteed right to tax exemption. The IRS can make a church pay taxes if it fails to meet criteria established by the agency.

A tax-exempt religion may not, for example, operate primarily for business purposes, commit crimes, engage in partisan politics or enrich private individuals. It should, among other things, have a formal doctrine, ordained ministers, religious services, sincerely held beliefs and an established place of worship.

In 1967, the Church of Scientology of California was stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS, an action the church considered unlawful and thus ignored. The IRS, in turn, undertook a mammoth audit of the church for the years 1970 through 1974.

So began Scientology’s most sweeping religious make-over.

Among other things, Scientology ministers (formerly “counselors”) started to wear white collars, dark suits and silver crosses.

Sunday services were mandated and chapels were ordered erected in Scientology buildings. It was made a punishable offense for a staffer to omit from church literature the notation that Scientology is a “religious philosophy.”

Many of the changes flowed from a flurry of “religious image” directives issued by high-level Scientology executives. One policy put it bluntly:

“Visual evidences that Scientology is a religion are mandatory.”

None of this, however, convinced the IRS, which assessed the church more than $1 million in back taxes for the years 1970 through 1972.

Scientology appealed to the U.S. Tax Court, where, in 1984, it was handed one of the worst financial and public relations disasters in its history.

In a blistering opinion, the court backed the IRS and said the Church of Scientology of California had “made a business out of selling religion,” had diverted millions of dollars to Hubbard and his family and had “conspired for almost a decade to defraud the United States Government by impeding the IRS.”

The church lost again when it took the case before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and the U.S. Supreme Court let the lower-court decision stand.

Stripped of its tax-exempt status, Scientology executives turned the Church of Scientology of California into a virtual shell.

Once called the “Mother Church,” it no longer controls the Scientology empire and does not serve as the chief depository for church funds.

It has been replaced by a number of new organizations that Scientology executives maintain are religious and tax exempt. But, once again, the IRS has disagreed, ruling that the new organizations are still operating in a commercial manner.

Scientology is appealing the IRS decision in the courts.

If You’re a Scientologist, be Proud!

Did Charles Manson get a Scientology hate website?

The Selling of a Church

The Courting of Celebrities

Testimonials of the famous are prominent in the church’s push for acceptability. John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are the current headliners.

(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A18:5)

The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America.

As far back as 1955, Hubbard recognized the value of famous people to his fledgling, off-beat church when he inaugurated “Project Celebrity.” According to Hubbard, Scientologists should target prominent individuals as their “quarry” and bring them back like trophies for Scientology.

He listed the following people of that era as suitable prey: Edward R. Murrow, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hughes, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney, Henry Luce, Billy Graham, Groucho Marx and others of similar stature.

“If you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as a reward,” Hubbard wrote in a Scientology magazine more than three decades ago.

Although the effort died, the idea of using celebrities to promote and defend Scientology survived — though perhaps not as grandly as Hubbard had dreamed.

Today, the church’s most famous celebrity is actor John Travolta, who credits Hubbard’s teachings with giving him confidence and direction.

“All I’ve had are benefits,” said Travolta, a church member since 1975.

Another Scientology celebrity is actress Kirstie Alley, co-star of the television series “Cheers.” Last year, Alley and Travolta teamed up in the blockbuster comedy film, “Look Who’s Talking.”

Alley is international spokeswoman for the Scientology movement’s controversial new drug and alcohol treatment center in Chilocco, Okla., which employs a rehabilitation regimen created years ago by Hubbard.

A former cocaine abuser, Alley has said she discovered Hubbard’s Narconon program in 1979 and that it “salvaged my life and began my acting career.”

Alley also has become active in disseminating a new 47-page booklet on ways to preserve the environment. The booklet, entitled “Cry Out,” was named after a Hubbard song and was produced by Author Services Inc., his literary agency. Author Services is controlled by influential Scientologists.

In April, Alley provided nationwide exposure for the illustrated booklet — which mentions Hubbard but not Scientology — when she unveiled it on the popular Arsenio Hall Show. Since then, it has been distributed to prominent environmental groups throughout the U.S.

Besides Alley and Travolta, the Scientology celebrity ranks also include: jazz pianist Chick Corea; singer Al Jarreau; actress Karen Black; opera star Julia Migenes; Priscilla Presley and her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, and Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice behind Bart Simpson, the wisecracking son on the animated TV hit, “The Simpsons.”

U.S. Olympic gymnast Charles Lakes also is a prominent Scientologist.

After the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, Lakes appeared on the cover of Celebrity magazine, a Scientology publication that promotes church celebrities. In an interview with the magazine, Lakes credited Dianetics for his success and strength.

“I am by far the healthiest person on the team,” he said. “They (other team members) are actually resentful of me because I don’t have to train as long as they do.”

Celebrities are considered so important to the movement’s expansion that the church created a special office to guide their careers and ensure their “correct utilization” for Scientology.

The church has a special branch that ministers to prominent individuals, providing them with first-class treatment. Its headquarters, called Celebrity Centre International, is housed in a magnificent old turreted mansion on Franklin Avenue, overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.

In 1988, the movement tried to associate itself with a non-Scientology celebrity, race driver Mario Andretti, by sponsoring his car in the GTE World Challenge of Tampa, Fla. But the plan backfired.

When Andretti saw seven Dianetics logo decals stripped across his Porsche, he demanded that they be removed.

“It’s not something I believe in, so I don’t want to make it appear like I’m endorsing it,” he was quoted as saying.

For years, Scientology’s biggest celebrity spokesman was former San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brodie.

Brodie said that when pain in his throwing arm threatened his career, he applied Dianetics techniques and soon was “zipping the ball” again like a young man.

Although he still admires Hubbard’s teachings, Brodie said he gave up promoting them after some of his friends in Scientology were expelled and harassed during a power struggle with church management.

“There were many in the church I felt were treated unfairly,” Brodie said.

Part 2: The Selling of a Church

The Courting of Celebrities

Testimonials of the famous are prominent in the church’s push for acceptability. John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are the current headliners.

(Monday, 25 June 1990, page A18:5)

The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America.

As far back as 1955, Hubbard recognized the value of famous people to his fledgling, off-beat church when he inaugurated “Project Celebrity.” According to Hubbard, Scientologists should target prominent individuals as their “quarry” and bring them back like trophies for Scientology.

He listed the following people of that era as suitable prey: Edward R. Murrow, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hughes, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney, Henry Luce, Billy Graham, Groucho Marx and others of similar stature.

“If you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as a reward,” Hubbard wrote in a Scientology magazine more than three decades ago.

Although the effort died, the idea of using celebrities to promote and defend Scientology survived — though perhaps not as grandly as Hubbard had dreamed.

Today, the church’s most famous celebrity is actor John Travolta, who credits Hubbard’s teachings with giving him confidence and direction.

“All I’ve had are benefits,” said Travolta, a church member since 1975.

Another Scientology celebrity is actress Kirstie Alley, co-star of the television series “Cheers.” Last year, Alley and Travolta teamed up in the blockbuster comedy film, “Look Who’s Talking.”

Alley is international spokeswoman for the Scientology movement’s controversial new drug and alcohol treatment center in Chilocco, Okla., which employs a rehabilitation regimen created years ago by Hubbard.

A former cocaine abuser, Alley has said she discovered Hubbard’s Narconon program in 1979 and that it “salvaged my life and began my acting career.”

Alley also has become active in disseminating a new 47-page booklet on ways to preserve the environment. The booklet, entitled “Cry Out,” was named after a Hubbard song and was produced by Author Services Inc., his literary agency. Author Services is controlled by influential Scientologists.

In April, Alley provided nationwide exposure for the illustrated booklet — which mentions Hubbard but not Scientology — when she unveiled it on the popular Arsenio Hall Show. Since then, it has been distributed to prominent environmental groups throughout the U.S.

Besides Alley and Travolta, the Scientology celebrity ranks also include: jazz pianist Chick Corea; singer Al Jarreau; actress Karen Black; opera star Julia Migenes; Priscilla Presley and her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, and Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice behind Bart Simpson, the wisecracking son on the animated TV hit, “The Simpsons.”

U.S. Olympic gymnast Charles Lakes also is a prominent Scientologist.

After the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, Lakes appeared on the cover of Celebrity magazine, a Scientology publication that promotes church celebrities. In an interview with the magazine, Lakes credited Dianetics for his success and strength.

“I am by far the healthiest person on the team,” he said. “They (other team members) are actually resentful of me because I don’t have to train as long as they do.”

Celebrities are considered so important to the movement’s expansion that the church created a special office to guide their careers and ensure their “correct utilization” for Scientology.

The church has a special branch that ministers to prominent individuals, providing them with first-class treatment. Its headquarters, called Celebrity Centre International, is housed in a magnificent old turreted mansion on Franklin Avenue, overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.

In 1988, the movement tried to associate itself with a non-Scientology celebrity, race driver Mario Andretti, by sponsoring his car in the GTE World Challenge of Tampa, Fla. But the plan backfired.

When Andretti saw seven Dianetics logo decals stripped across his Porsche, he demanded that they be removed.

“It’s not something I believe in, so I don’t want to make it appear like I’m endorsing it,” he was quoted as saying.

For years, Scientology’s biggest celebrity spokesman was former San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brodie.

Brodie said that when pain in his throwing arm threatened his career, he applied Dianetics techniques and soon was “zipping the ball” again like a young man.

Although he still admires Hubbard’s teachings, Brodie said he gave up promoting them after some of his friends in Scientology were expelled and harassed during a power struggle with church management.

“There were many in the church I felt were treated unfairly,” Brodie said.

Over the years I’ve been asked many questions. Some of them frequently come up and so I’ve listed them here. To submit another question please contact me directly. Many of these questions will be answered more thoroughly in my upcoming book.   (Ed. Scythe Tleppo)

Are you an anti-Scientologist?

I am a former Scientologist. I’m not against the beliefs of any Scientologist and I recognize and fully respect their right to believe anything they choose. I am against lying and deceit that the Scientology corporation and its followers use to obfuscate their intentions and beliefs. I am against abuses and tax-exempt status for abusive organizations. Tax-exemption is support from the government and is deserved only in cases where abuse is not a core feature. Disconnecting families is abuse. I don’t sit around all day thinking about Scientology. I am not “going after” Scientology or Scientologists. I simply work to expose my experience and disallow misinformation around me when it comes to subjects, I have experience with. One of those subjects happens to be Scientology.

Do you have faith now? Are you a Christian?

When I got out of Scientology, I was still a Scientologist in the way that I viewed life and thought about reality. Over many years my viewpoints shifted to be less and less aligned with Scientology. I no longer consider myself a Scientologist in thought or belief. However, I do still hold some very basic ideas as “likely” which are entirely faith-based. I personally believe there is something behind the physical reality which is not physical. I personally believe we are more than the physical sum of our parts. I accept that these are not evidence-backed beliefs. The only dangers I have detected in having these beliefs is that I sometimes find myself more passive in life, believing somehow I have much more time than this life. I am trying to work on this issue.

I strongly feel that the specifics of Christianity, along with every other religion, are quite obviously factually incorrect. I think the value of religions is real. I think the underlying messages have merit: I do believe there is more to life than we can understand. And to me, religion is the attempt of humans to articulate that feeling. And unlike several people I admire, like Sam Harris, I do believe the underlying truth is represented there.

How did you break the indoctrination of Scientology?

I never set out to break the indoctrination of Scientology. As I grew up, I by default believed Scientology. There were always little strange inconsistencies and things that didn’t sit right in my mind but overall I believed it was true. I just didn’t care about the truth in the same way others did. I didn’t care if Scientology was the only way to help the planet and save all our souls and so on… I just wanted to be a kid and live my life. By the time I was out of Scientology, I was already indoctrinated to the deepest levels possible. I believed I was a Thetan. I believed Scientology was all true. I believed in aliens and the entire history laid out by Lafayette Hubbard. Again, I just didn’t care.

I lived on the streets homeless for many years. As I continued my drug abuse that started at the Mace-Kingsley Ranch, I mostly ignored Scientology as a study, and took to observing things for myself. I did not seek out anti-Scientology people or information. I did not seek out counseling or any kind of assistance with understanding the nature of reality or myself.

The break was very, very gradual for me. One of the first things that shook parts of the edges of belief for me was when I started understanding what Scientology words meant in the normal world. “Invalidate,” for example, in Scientology is more similar in meaning to “make fun of” or “insult.” When I realized that “invalidate” actually means to successfully negate something, or to show something as actually untrue, a seed was planted. “Postulate” is a word in Scientology that means to actually create some reality by using intention alone. It’s commonly used in a similar way as “hope something will happen,” but in fact we believed if you postulated strong enough, that thing would actually happen. As I learned that to “postulate” something actually means to assert something as being true, the edges broke a little further. Ironically, by learning the actual words in English, I was in effect “clearing” my misunderstood words; the misunderstood words Scientology itself introduced me to.

These small cracks widened and grew deeper as other things I had always observed to not be true became more glaring. Learning that in fact almost no one had ever heard of Scientology when I got out in 1999, I realized something was wrong with the message of worldwide dissemination Scientology was putting out. Over the years I found again and again smart people. Smart, successful people. None of these people believed in Scientology and yet they were so successful. I examined my family and looked for signs of superhuman achievement and success. I didn’t find any.

As I slowly pulled myself out of the horrible life of homelessness I became more industrious, working any job I could get. I realized my family never enjoyed working and was constantly trying out the latest “get rich quick” pyramid scheme or low-labor job. It became a thorn in my mental side. Why were they so insistent on doing as little work as possible? Why were they so lazy? Something was wrong.

There were many, many other small indicators like these. And over time as I thought about the depths of life and reality, each thing I thought I knew slowly fell apart. There was no single realization that Scientology was wrong. It was a slow cracking and breaking.

Continues – part two ..

More Nathan Rich Scientology Dianetics

Nathan Rich about New York Times lies China Healthcare

Nathan Rich Scientology Scythe Tleppo

… Continued from part one

It’s a bit off for me to explain, as I was actually born into it. But from what I’ve personally observed, the formula for a good candidate to join Scientology includes someone who has good intentions and is smart. There aren’t bad people going into Scientology. They are people who see the problems of Earth and want to help. They feel like the progress we’re making as a race is too slow or neutral. They are smart enough to have some feelings about reality being something that can be improved. But an important piece of this puzzle is that they must also have very little experience with critical thinking. People who understand computers or science are almost never finding themselves interested in Scientology as a source of truth. That is because these people are looking for evidence and real science, things that Scientology is patently against.

Are Scientologists bad people?

No, probably not. Scientologists lie and cheat and steal and break laws, but they do so because they view themselves as serving a higher dynamic of life. They believe that the individual, the family and groups are all less important than the human race itself, and they believe they are the only salvation for the human race. They really do believe that almost no amount of illegal activity or immoral activity is too much, if it means the protection of or enhancement of Scientology.

Did you get paid to appear on Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath?

I spent a lot of my own personal money to fly across the world into Los Angeles to shoot the episode I appeared in. I was not offered any money or lodging. I told the producers upfront that I wouldn’t accept any kind of payment of any kind, for any part of my experience. I wanted to do this entirely to get the truth out and let people hear part of my story. The production crew gave me a T-shirt. I left my own T-shirt behind to repay them. I don’t care about money: I was homeless for seven years. I don’t need money. I care about getting my story out. I need to get my story out.

What is your book about?

I’ve written a book about the first few decades of my life. It focuses on my experiences growing up, how I viewed the world and what it was like to be me. It’s not a sad story, but it’s my story, which can be viewed as sad by some. My life involved Scientology, homelessness, disconnection, drugs and redemption. I hope to inspire people to push past what they think are hard problems in their lives. I hope to share my experience with the world. I want everyone who has ever had dreams to read and get something from my story.

Do you still do drugs?

I generally do not drink alcohol, except on occasion. I do not enjoy smoking weed and was not ever a major pothead, and so I generally avoid it. I have no urges for any other drugs but I do not have a strict policy of behavior about not taking drugs; it’s simply that I’m not interested anymore. So, the short answer is that I don’t do drugs, although I also do not go around trying to get people to stop doing drugs. I can only share what my experiences were like and allow others to come to their own conclusions about what they decide to do with their destinies. I believe that the more people share their stories of how they were able to get out of the depths of drug abuse, the more those people taking drugs will have the confidence and process available to make appropriate changes to their own lives.

How did you break your addiction to drugs?

I didn’t set out to stop being addicted to drugs. My first love in drugs was LSD. The next one was methamphetamine, and the last was heroin. Each one of these started taking its toll on my mind and body. LSD slowly lost its luster as I realized I had really reached the end goal of use and could not have a meaningful new trip without upping my dose to past 25 hits. But by then I already felt like I “got” reality when it comes to LSD. I didn’t feel like there was much more to gain there. I moved on to methamphetamine, which was very addictive. It was the hardest of the drugs to kick for me. I had a little help from a friend, who isolated me in a basement during a total mental breakdown I had. Eventually I found the high-energy and high-intensity of speed too overwhelming. It became less about euphoria and more about being hyper and energetic. During my enormous comedowns from speed someone recommended heroin to ease the transition from high to sober. And in a way they were spot on. Heroin broke the horrible come down that speed brought. And soon enough I moved on to heroin.

Heroin killed me a few times. I died and was just barely kept alive, thankfully, by friends of mine in all cases. Heroin is a much simpler drug than methamphetamine or LSD: it just makes you feel good. Or at least, that’s the beginning stages of it. Eventually heroin makes you feel normal and lack of heroin makes you feel horrible. It was during one of these long stints of being strung out that I hitchhiked to a state I knew heroin was hard to get in. I had no connections and no more of a mental strong will to continue. I drank alcohol to take some of the edge off, but ultimately it came down to a choice: die again, or try something new. I decided to try something new.

What is your relationship with your family like now?

My family situation is complicated. My mother’s side of the family was and is completely comprised of Scientologists. As soon as I came out in public exposing the child abuse I experienced as a child, nearly everyone on this side of the family came out attacking me personally with strange lies and intentionally misleading information. I thought it was quite revealing, as I never mentioned any of them in the video, out of respect. Since they have come out as child abuse protectors and anti-victims, I have lost respect for them and no longer try to hide their identities or protect their privacy, as they themselves have entered the public arena. My mother’s side of the family is completely disconnected from me and have been since I was underage. Other than the two times they randomly showed up in my life to try to get me back into Scientology and/or to not write a book, they have acted as if I never existed.

My father and his side of the family were disconnected from when I was around 5 years old. I have reconnected with a few of them over the years but there isn’t a strong bond, as we actually don’t know each other. They are really nice people and are not Scientologists.

In short, most of my life I’ve had no family at all. And the effects of that are clear to me when I am around other people and their families. It’s not fun for me. But I soldier on.

What are your politics?

I have always been what you would call the left. I was a punk rocker, against the system and against pretty much everything else too. In more recent years I’ve found myself more center and now I consider myself slightly right of center. In general I would say I’m an independent.

Are you a Suppressive Person?

Many times in my life I thought I was an SP. I remember finding out that an SP never thinks he is an SP and finding relief that I couldn’t be one, because I had thought I was one. These days, I don’t even believe that SPs exist, in the Scientology way. If they did exist, I would not consider myself one of them. I don’t feel threatened by others’ success or enlightenment. In fact, I want people to get better. I want to get better. I want us all to heal. Does that sound suppressive to you?

Nathan Rich story

Nathan Rich author of Scythe Tleppo and content creator in team Hotpot 火锅大王.