James Randi Educational Foundation www.randi.org

From James Randi:

Reader Dan Garvin shares this story with us. It illustrates, perhaps better than I can manage, the purpose of the JREF. As I've said before, there are moments when my resolve is all the more reinforced, and Dan's account has done that, decidedly. We know, having these experiences related to us, that we've only begun.

Read this piece, then click in on the sites listed. It's powerful, it's heavy, and it's scary, and the Church of Scientology has been trying desperately to close it down; that, in itself, means it's important. And please let me know your opinions on both the story and the material you find on the site.

When I was young, I was interested in magic and read a book about some of the better-known magicians, living and dead. I don't remember if you [James Randi] were one of the ones in that book (which I no longer have), but either from the book or from my general interest in the subject, I have at least known who you are, for as long as I can remember.

In 1974, when I was 17, I got interested in Scientology as a "scientific" way to attain mystical super-powers, which I had already believed in before that. I swallowed it, hook line, sinker, rod, and reel. Within two years I had joined their "Sea Organization," the elite group of top Scientologists. "Sea Org"

members have to sign a billion-year contract in order to join. Since Scientologists believe in past lives extending for more than 76 trillion years, and the ability to recall these lives fully, there is nothing symbolic about this contract. They really mean a billion years, and their motto is, "We come back."

Scientology includes and encompasses the correct ("standard") "technology" for everything, from turning a miserable human into a powerful genius superman, to watering plants and washing a car. And every bit of it is from the "discoveries" of L. Ron Hubbard, the greatest philosopher, scientist, humanitarian, aviator, explorer, engineer, nuclear physicist, author, musician, poet, and all-around swell guy the universe has ever known. Scientology's many blatant inaccuracies and inconsistencies â€" not to say outright lies and delusions â€" are quite easily disposed of by a proper understanding of Hubbard's writings and lectures â€" if you've already bought into the basic premises.

Sea Org members are the most dedicated Scientologists of all. In addition to their long-term commitment, they live and eat in communal quarters, have almost no freedoms, or time off in which to exercise freedoms if they had some, or money to enable them to afford those freedoms. They work and study the works of Hubbard, and occasionally are rewarded with bits of "auditing," the Scientology technology for making people better, happier, healthier, more powerful, and ultimately giving them TOTAL SPIRITUAL FREEDOM!! So they say, and so every Scientologist believes, even the ones running things, now that Hubbard's dead.

I think a very tiny handful at the top know it's a crock, but the rest â€"

including some very big bigwigs in the Scientology world â€" utterly believe in it, and are sincere.

Well, I signed my billion-year contract and was in there with the best of them.

It's far too long a story for this account, but I remained wholly convinced of Scientology's effectiveness for almost the entire twenty-five years I remained in the Sea Org. I was a trooper. I never rose to dizzying heights in the leadership of Scientology, nor did I get very far along their path to spiritual freedom â€" and I am so glad I didn't, now that I know the secrets of what that path consists of at the upper levels. It's not just a wacko science fiction rip-off, it's based on practices that, in my opinion, could mentally unhinge a significant percentage of the people who engage in them. At best, these practices create â€" they actually require â€" a delusional approach to increasingly large sections of the world and of life in it.

In about 1999 or 2000, I was still a believer and still a Sea Org member, but I was gradually growing more disgusted with the way the church and the Sea Org were run. That's also another and a somewhat long story, but I was in that frame of mind when I heard you [James Randi] as a guest on Al Rantell's talk show in LA. You were advocating mandatory licensing for people claiming psychic abilities â€" they would have to demonstrate their abilities to a licensing board, which of course none of them would be able to do. Now, I'm not in agreement with requiring that, but I also disagree with the vast majority of other governmental regulation, and none of that is related to my point here.

My point here is that in this radio show I first heard about your million-dollar challenge. I was already starting to think, but it got me thinking just that little bit more: How come some Scientologist doesn't claim this prize? After all, we are the ones who really can do these things. There are prohibitions against showing off in public â€" don't frighten the natives, you know â€" but that came from back when New Age wasn't cool. In today's world, Scientology is actively promoting their wares to New Age adherents of all stripes â€" what a surprise! â€" and a demonstrated proof of mystical powers would give us a great big whomping mojo and get tons of people and money pouring in. Even if no official Scientology church would allow it, there's a tremendous body of people who've left the church but still believe in the tech;

many of these have gone as far as one can go in Scientology.

You'd think at least one of those would claim the prize, not being encumbered by the church's regulations. You know, Ingo Swann [a "psychic" artist who was actually scientifically validated by Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff!] was once a Scientologist before he was cast out and demonized â€" somebody like that, or even Ingo himself. They could spend the dough on their next levels of Scientology advancement, you know. The unauthorized organizations outside the church are much cheaper, and the winner might even end up with something left over.

Randi comments: Targ and Puthoff were the "Laurel and Hardy of Psi" who discovered and brought us Uri Geller. Interestingly enough, Puthoff himself became a "Thetan Eighth Class" in Scientology. Why am I less than astonished?

Dan continues:

Well, I didn't leave right away, or even want to leave right away, but one wicked thought leads to another, and that one never strayed too far from my consciousness. It took a year or two, but I finally had to decide that the reason nobody claimed the prize was probably that nobody could, not even top Scientologists. There was plenty of other missing evidence to support that conclusion. I certainly had never observed any paranormal phenomena that couldn't be explained conventionally. Of course, when you're truly on the inside, you aren't buying any conventional explanations....

My heretical thinking eventually reached critical mass. (Remember from your e-meter show: thoughts have mass!) It was a controlled fission, not a nuclear explosion, but it generated enough energy for me to leave the Sea Org. I didn't leave Scientology yet, but I knew that before I invested any more of my life into it, I was going to have to see some actual evidence, not just more glowing success stories or PR from the church itself. Sea Org members are utterly forbidden to access the internet, and all Scientologists are forbidden to look at information critical of Scientology, though that's impossible to enforce outside the Sea Org. So at that point I didn't know much.

One of the first places I looked, after I got out, was the JREF website. There wasn't much about Scientology, but it was clear that no Scientologist had won or even tried to win the challenge money. Within a couple weeks I got up the resolve to look at Scientology's secret upper- level materials, posted in part on www.xenu.net. They're supposed to kill you if you read them without the proper preliminary Scientology levels, but they've been out there for quite a few years and nobody has died, so I looked.

It wasn't really any more outré than a lot of the non-secret stuff in Scientology. The difference was, it made specific claims about Earth's history that could be disproven â€" thoroughly, with no wiggle room, no maybes, just plain wrong. And since it was wrong, it meant all of Scientology's top levels, where you get your magical superpowers, were based on a lie, a mistake, or a delusion. Whatever effect they do have on people, it's definitely not what Hubbard says is happening.

That was what took me from doubter to full-blown ex-Scientologist. Once I was out from under the spell, I learned a tremendous amount that had never made it past Scientology's censors: criminal behavior, horrible abuses, vicious reprisals against critics and especially against plaintiffs â€" once again, beyond the scope of this article, but well documented on www.xenu.net and a number of other excellent sites.

Randi comments: Please go to the Paulette Cooper story at http://home.snafu.de/tilman/krasel/cooper/index.html and learn about a very brave woman who escaped from Scientology, but not without much pain and reprisals. She's one of the heroes of this fight. Dan continues:

Scientology's lies and practices cost me my marriage and well over half my life. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have escaped with my mind intact. Others have been driven to acute or permanent mental illness, and some to suicide.

To be fair, there are thousands of them who will tell you it's the best thing since even before sliced bread, and it saved their lives or their marriages, or whatever. They really mean it, and believe it. It's all subjective and anecdotal, but that's fine with them. It had better be, because Scientology will never allow its procedures to be tested by outsiders. Hmm, I wonder why that would be.

And thank you, Mr. Randi, for being there when I needed you.

But wait! There's more! Are you ready folks? The JREF conference â€" now officially titled, "The Amazing Meeting," on January 31st â€" February 2nd, will have the author of the above piece, Dan Garvin, as a featured speaker! The title of his talk is still to be announced. And you can count on it: there will be Scientologist infiltrators there hungering to hear Dan slip up and say something slanderous. They're creatures of habit. Ring the bell, and.....

I'm really grateful to Dan for agreeing to join us at the conference. He's our kind of guy, someone who made a mistake, saw it, and changed direction. He'll be answering your questions and giving the real lowdown on just what happens behind those closed doors of the Sea Org.

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