I have to report a sad but unsurprising event.

When I left Scientology, in 2001, before I said anything publicly, I wrote to my Scientologist brother explaining that I was no longer a Scientologist and why. I spoke with him at length a number of times on the phone after that, and while he still believes Scientology is mostly right and very valuable, he told me that he did not intend to disconnect from me. He had been contacted and even visited by Senior HCO PAC concerning his SP brother (me), but he has not been active on Scientology org lines for many years, and has always harbored misgivings about management, the Sea Org, and so on, and I think even about parts of the tech.

We had always been very close, even if we didn't talk to each other or see each other that much. We had a lot in common, in and especially out of Scientology. I was the one who introduced him to Scientology, and he was the one who went straight into it and told me how great it was. He helped me join the Sea Org, back in 1976. He's thirteen years old than I am, and when I was a teenager I thought he knew pretty much everything. Then, when I was a Sea Org member and he wasn't, it was his turn to brag about me. He lives in LA, so when Management moved to LA from Clearwater in 1984, we actually started talking to each other every so often and doing things together sometimes on my days off or at Christmas.

So when I was out, I told him I respected his choice and beliefs, and he already knew mine, and that was fine with both of us. In May, 2002, when I revisited LA, I spoke with him again, but did not visit him. He even came up with excuses for not disconnecting from me, to fend off the Senior I&R. He did this because I am his brother. I told him I had taken part in a picket recently, and some of what I had learned of the corrupt practices that COS constantly engages in, including at least one lie I knew they had told about me, in case they tried to blacken my name in his mind. He thanked me for the warning, and things were fine. I thought.

Months later, he told me someone from the Church had given him a number they wanted me to call. Of course, I know their numbers and addresses, and they know mine and can contact me any time they want, but I told him I'd call. I did, and the person I was supposed to talk to was not there, and I left a message, then told my brother what had happened. He was very glad I had tried to call -- it apparently discharged him of some responsibility he felt bound by. We spent the rest of the long phone call talking, as we usually did, about things that have nothing to do with Scientology. Nobody from COS returned my call and I did not attempt to call them again.

However, in May of this year, I got the following letter from him:

"Dear Dan,

"I wanted to keep our comm line alive until I got you the information you needed. Since the phone call didn't work, please write to

Church of Scientology Continental Justice Chief 1308 L. Ron Hubbard Way Los Angeles, CA 90027

and let them know you are ready to start steps A - E.

"Let's delay any further comm exchange until these steps are completed. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

"Love, Tom"

For those new to the scene, that last paragraph is a "disconnection," meaning my brother will not speak to me or have anything more to do with me until I am back in good standing with the Church of Scientology -- which means forever, for the rest of our lives.

Now, it's clear he was forced to write this letter. It is not at all the way he talks, and he barely ever writes letters at all, and certainly wouldn't hand-write one, as he did this, if he could use his computer. The envelope was postmarked not where he lives but in Hollywood, where the COS is, eleven days after the date he put on the letter itself. It was written on legal-sized paper, which is rarely used for letters but which is very common in Scientology and Sea Org orgs. Obviously, Senior HCO sat him down, gave him some paper, and said, "Write!" And write he did. And they held on to it after he left, most likely shuffling it through the bureaucracy so everybody could approve it before they actually mailed it out for him.

So what had happened? He hadn't seemed afraid of anything they might do to him -- he didn't think he'd ever move again on the Bridge "this lifetime" and didn't have any money anyway. He was already Old OT VII, so as far as he was concerned his case was in good enough shape -- all this combined to make him relatively immune to pressure or threats. Yet he disconnected.

I phoned him up and said I thought you said you weren't going to do this. He said that was before the pressure from the Church. I said what pressure? And then it popped out. His wife. His wife is at the bottom of the Bridge and not very experienced as a Scientologist. Even though he's given up on making any more progress in Scientology himself, he's convinced that it's very important to get his wife up to a point where she will be OK case-wise by the time she dies. Then, I suppose, they can start over with new bodies and new lives and meet up again and both go the rest of the way up the Bridge together in serene OT bliss. Because, as he told me, "This stuff lasts more than one lifetime." This call was brief -- he said I needed to contact COS and do my A-E steps, and I said it wasn't going to happen, and he said then he had to end the call and hung up on me. It is the last communication I have had from him.

She can't get any auditing, if he remains connected with me. It doesn't matter that I have no direct connection with her anyway, and if she believes in it and wants to get auditing, I say fine, go ahead. I wouldn't have bothered her. That doesn't matter, because she is the leverage COS needed to force my brother to disown me. They are not interested in following their own so-called technology or policy concerning Suppressives and PTSes. They are interested in getting even with me, in their mean and petty way, for leaving and for speaking out about them, and especially for picketing one of their events. That's their message -- one of their many messages, in many forms: You speak up, you lose your family. We don't care what they think -- we will find the leverage.

But that's not all. A cult has to have demons. There must be an explanation for all their incompetence, ineffectiveness, and brutality. For some, it was the Jews, or the Communists, or the counterrevolutionaries. For Scientology, it's the Suppressive Persons. And if the SPs won't attack, they have to be goaded into attacking, so they can be fought and so the followers can be kept in line with the fear of what will happen if they don't contribute enough (or work hard enough) and the SPs get the upper hand.

This "disconnection" action, and COS's subsequent refusal to relent (I gave them a chance -- I always do -- it's my way), were intended and designed to enrage me and draw me into a battle with them so they can point to me and say, "See? We told you we're being persecuted!"

But I don't persecute. I do something far more dangerous, in their eyes.

I tell the truth.

And I shall be telling more of the truth, in more places and more frequently.

Dan Garvin

From: "Dan Garvin" <NOdangSPAM_357@skyenet.net>
Subject: Re: Fear is Thicker than Blood
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:04:39 -0500
Message-ID: <3f9ac96f_4@newsfeed.slurp.net>

"Jeff Jacobsen" <cultxpt@ev1.net> wrote in message news:vpl99gnjd9qc4a@corp.supernews.com...

> "Dan Garvin" <NOdangSPAM_357@skyenet.net> wrote:

> > I have to report a sad but unsurprising event.

> [snip]
>
> So... Scientology is the 3rd party causing problems between you and your
> brother? How does Scientology say you should deal with such a 3rd party
> problem?

By doing exactly what the COS has forbidden my brother to do: getting together and each revealing what we've been told about the other.

But this is not a third party situation by definition, because no quarrel or conflict exists between Tom and me. He does not believe the crap they have told him about me, and I haven't been told anything about him. He is simply caving in to their pressure, the "leverage" (as in Battlefield Earth) they have on him.

Disconnection is Scientology's perverted operation of their Third Party principle in reverse: where no conflict exists or should exist, they prevent communication and disclosure, so that lies can be told with no resolution possible, and a conflict can be established and perpetuated.

However, I do not believe in the Third Party Law as stated, nor in any of Scientology's absolutist platitudes that attempt to reduce all of life and thought, essentially complex activities, to a few simplistic functions of a tiny handful of variables.

Dan

> * * * * *
> www.lisamcpherson.org

Go Back