REDLANDS, CA

It was reported that Redlands' weekly open market every Thursday night, had a $cn recruiting table and booth set up.

A friend of mine and I arrived at the city parking lot at approx. 6:30 PM. We met another SP and former $cieno (D-Rad from Operation Clambake) and his wife who were native to that area. The Main Street downtown was closed down for about 6 or 7 blocks. The atmosphere was pleasant and quite festive. There were 3 bands playing at different locations (no Rap music thank God.)

The exhibitors were primarily food, fruit, and vegetable vendors. There were many crafts and art booths too. Dotted through out were several commercial enterprises. At the entrance, on the right, was a Dianetics booth set up with tables and chairs, LRH posters, dozens of $cn books, and 2 e-meters at each end of the table.

Their initial sales pitch was "Come and take a stress test."

The booth was manned by 3 $cienos -- a grey haired man with a beard in cowboy boots, a middle aged lady, and a young girl. We approached the booth. I asked them "if they were getting any feedback from the recent rants and antics of Tom Cruise in the press?" They all looked at me funny. The young girl replied, "He is who he is!" in an almost robotic pat response. Her eyes were glassy. The man gave me a stern look. The woman handed me a pamphlet to redirect and deflect any questions. The brochure had the return address of;

"Church" of Scientology
S.E. Citrus, St., Suite 106
Redlands, CA 92373

and...

Hubbard Dianetics Center
(same address as above)

The 2 inside pages were filled with their 200 question personality test with a 1991 copyright service mark. Lead in questions on the outside jacket were "Who are you? Can you be happier? Will you reached your goals? Improving your relations with others?. ... Succeeding in life?"

The 4 of us strolled off to experience the rest of the events and vendors, and to grab a bite to eat.

At 8:30pm 2 of us returned to the Dianetics exhibit. We were armed with Xenu.net fliers downloaded from Operation Clambake as hand outs. As a precaution, D-Rad shared them with the local Redlands Police Dept. Officers zipping about in stand up scooters. They didn't have a problem at all, and were actually quite interested in the truth about the cult that has a presence in their town.

For the next 25 minutes, we we handed out xenu fliers. First to the vendors all around $cn's booth. More importantly as each person left the Dianetics table as new raw meat prospects, we handed them xenu fliers with the verbal comment of "Read about the secret and dark side of Scientology." All were receptive, friendly, and thanked us.

After this exercise, D-Rad and I strolled down Citrus St., just off Main St. to visit the actual Co$ storefront center. No one was there. There was brochure rack out side in front next of the entrance door. They were filled with Hubbard propaganda schtuff. We replaced them with Xenu.net fliers! LOL! :-))

At 9pm, we concluded by handing out fliers to to the Scientols manning their booth. The bearded cowboy guy looked at us as though he was quite miffed. The young gal still looked glassy eyed. The woman said she would read it later, but asked me if I wanted to take a stress test. I replied "Mame, I took one of these tests back in 1978, and it got me into a world of hurt." I said "all my current testing will be done by real doctors and authentic licensed practitioners of medicine and mental health -- not self-help groups pretending to be "religions" and "churches." Oh if scowls could kill, I'd be dead on the spot there!

I added, "Give my regards to Tom Cruise." We departed for the parking lot and called it a win-win evening. Wish we had brought a camera though.

Tom Padgett 10/20/05

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We figured this would be a good quarterly event for the future.

Every little bit helps!

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