With most of my posts, I use X-No-archive: yes because I don't want the hassle of dealing with Google archives later, if I decide I don't like what I posted.

This one's different, and was prompted by the "plonking" post I saw today. Before reading this newsgroup recently on a regular basis, I had pretty much abandoned Usenet because of the generally contentious nature of the medium.

I find a.r.s. to always be interesting, however, and filled with useful information and interesting people. While I salute people who are actively spreading the word about the inherent destructive nature of $cientology, I don't have time to do that. I have other ways of creating influence that seem to work well enough.

What I wanted to tell anyone who reads this post is my view on the personalities of people involved and who have left. It's been around 10 years since I left the evil cult, thanks largely to my wife, who has been a constant source of support and encouragement in my life. I'm not in touch with any former $cientologists and only a few who are peripherally involved in it.

Why am I not involved with formers? Because the problems I had with them after our mutual involvement aren't much different than those I had while involved with the organization. Here's an example. Some time back I happened on a.r.s. and ended up being in contact with Spanky Taylor, who has a business answering celebrity fan mail. She put me in touch with Chris and Nancy Many and we went to a party at the Many's house. I thought the house would be perfect for a low budget film I wanted to shoot, and asked about using it. Both Chris and Nancy told me (separately) "Let me check with my [spouse] and get back to you." And neither of them ever did.

I should add that this was after Spanky telling me that when Chris split with Geoff Levin and the Celestial Navigations group (due to his decreasing interest in $cientology), I was the only one who called Chris to offer support in his new endeavors. Of course, Many never told me that, Spanky Taylor had to tell me.

So that was the end of my interest in being involved with the Manys. I'd experienced the same kind of callous insincerity from both the Manys when they were on staff. One time, when I'd been put in a "lower condition" by a "Committee of Evidence" headed by a vindictive jerk named Jon Murakami, Chris Many, who was then the head of the Hubbard Communications Office at Celebrity Cenre, made me stay up for three days straight working putting files in order. Why? Because (a) he had a bit of a personal vicious streak and (b) he used the excuse of "it doesn't say you get to sleep in the conditions formula." Nancy Many, who had been an "executive" at Celebrity Centre (read: pretended military as they all are), had generally always been rude and haughtily condescending to me from the "lofty status" of her "executive" status.

So when I heard her stories about her "horrible treatment" after leaving the Guardian's Office/Office of Special Affairs and her psychotic break, etc. gee I just didn't have a lot of sympathy. It's karma, which is an immutable law and one that Elround Humbug didn't make up. What goes around comes around. And if you believe the Wiccans, it comes around thrice, whatever you put out.

Over the almost two decades I was involved with what I now see to be the consummately evil "Church" of $cientology, I met most of the main "players" involved, both current and past. On staff, off staff, you name it. The main thing I noticed with the most high-ranking of the staff members was an extraordinary arrogance and callous disregard for even the most simple of human needs or failings. There was also a psychotically insistent desire on the part of most to escape what the Buddhists would call the "wheel of suffering" (life on Earth) via $cientology and not have to deal with we smarmy little humans.

I never felt that desire. Maybe it's because I generally love the human race and see life on Earth continually improving.

Because I am not one to remain silent about inequities and offenses, I was "Comm Eved" several times and declared a "Suppressive Person" twice, and in every single instance, I fought back within the "system" (I put things in quotes that are specific $cientology terms or something I consider a joke, like the idea that $cientology has ANY workable systems). In each case, by sheer logic, forthrightness and persistence on my part, all "charges" were reversed. And by the time I left, I had completed all but two or three of the necessary requirements to be a "Magistrate" which is the "ethics" equivalent of a "Class 8 auditor"

within $cientology. So I knew that system pretty well.

What I find to be increasingly clear the further removed I am from the evil cult is how very confused were most of the people in it, and how misguided they could be. I remember one of the first "Class 8" auditors searching for my "life ruin" once on an E-meter and being astonished that I got into $cientology on a "fourth dynamic" (survival of Mankind, if you're not familiar with the term) purpose to help people. I was the first person he'd ever who did not get involved for some personal "me, me, me" reason, but rather to be able to better help others.

I've since realized that I initially saw Humbug as a substitute "father figure" but that's beside the point, and he damned sure wasn't a good father by any stretch, from what I've seen of his kids and known about his family life.

What anyone who never actually did any $cientology should know is how misguided some of these people can be. For example, I remember Fred Harris (who was at Author's Services and did a sci-fi disguised $cientology TV show that I told him how to put together), told me once that he was convinced that all the main "players" in $cientology at the time were reincarnated early Christians, maybe even Christ's disciples.

Guess he didn't know the truth about Humbug, Crowley, and Humbug's disdain for Jesus.

Harris introduced me to Norman Starkey, and my first impression (which is always right) was "complete asshole." That appellation was roughly applicable to most of the senior officers of $cientology I ever met, whatever wing of the Ron's Loony Bin they bounced in from. It was always interesting to see them plummet from their supposed heights, too. I remember the meekness of Gerald Wolf as I showed him how to do word processing in a law firm, so he could survive. He was the key operative (the one first caught I believe) in the "Snow White" operation that Mary Sue Humbug ran and took the rap on for her worthless husband. Similarly, Jane Kember, the "Guardian for life" according to humbug, was working as a legal secretary the last time I saw her -- not quite the sneeringly arrogant Valhallian bitch she was when running the G.O. Worldwide.

Although Larry Wollersheim and Andre Tabayoyan may be decent people now and may do a lot to bring down the evil cult, when they were involved they were pretty nuts, let me tell you. I remember the day Wollersheim threw Randy McDonald, then the editor of "Celebrity" magazine at Celebrity Centre, up against a wall because he was his "senior" and Randy disagreed with him. It was assault and battery, but like most crimes committed against $cientologists by $cientologists, no one reported it. For McDonald to have done so would have meant he would have been expelled from the "Church" for merely reporting the incident to the police. I don't think Wollersheim got more than a slap on the wrist or some "condition" to do from Yvonne Jentzsch, who ran "Celebrity Centre"

then, just as he got little punishment for recruiting a few hundred Native American bums from Arizona into the "Sea Org." Why? Because Wollersheim "got the stats up," meaning some reportable (to Elround Humbug) increase in statistics and that bought you a lot of leeway. I remember Tabayoyan trying to kick me out of a front seat in the trial in Portland so "the execs" could have a seat, even though the judge had ruled that seat was reserved only for reporters (I was there covering it for "Freedom" magazine, whose editor I had convinced to come to L.A. and work with the organization years before). Tabayoyan was a thug, a punk, an enforcer, a hit man. A jerk to the max.

In short, as long as you did something to increase the influence and (particularly) money of a $cientology organization or enforce the whims of its Flounder or puffed-up asshole "execs", rules and laws didn't apply to you, according to Elround Humbug.

And no matter how glowingly some people who remember Yvonne Jentzsch might think of her, make no mistake about it -- SHE WAS CONSUMMATELY EVIL BECAUSE SHE DID SO MUCH TO FORWARD $CIENTOLOGY IN THE WORLD. She was like a Hitler general in that way, no matter how much she put forth a fairy godmother image. She died of a brain tumor, in de facto abandonment by Humbug and his organization.

Sound like the Mafia? That's because it is. Humbug drew a lot more inspiration from the Mafia in structuring his organization than he did from the U.S. Navy and its command charts (which he claimed came from a ridiculous ancient galactic society).

That's the way it was for anyone who had outlived their usefulness to the organization. Too old to work, like you have here for almost no pay for the last 20 years? Too bad. Hit the streets. You are "responsible for your own condition." I remember a sweet old lady named Adelle who suffered from that condition. And there was Sally Esterman, who died of cancer (like so very, very many "Oatees") and had given up a successful acting career to join $cientology. Her husband Mitch, a former roommate of mine and a talented musician who had I believe toured with Ray Charles, barely even came to see her as she died, from what I heard. I saw him grow harder and meaner over the years, a direct result of $cientology hypnotic conditioning.

Abandoned by $cientology? Try to find some of the family you alienated or "disconnected" from over the years and see if they'll help. Try to learn about services from the government you've been told is evil for so long. Read the newspapers you've been told not to read, and see if you can find a job that you have no qualifications for, because you've been cocooned in the cult away from reality.

To me, the greatest and most pervasive lie was the one that Humbug repeated many times in taped lectures. Maybe he kept trying to convince himself. That was the lie that said you would do worse, even fall apart or die, if you left $cientology.

The truth is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON I have known who left $cientology did better in life. Part of it may have to do with their no longer spending ridiculous sums of money hoping for some "spiritual salvation"

that $cientology cannot deliver IN THE SLIGHTEST.

In my own case, there was an immediate and powerful surge in my career as a result of no longer wasting my time in $cientology. I basically left in 1991. By 1993 I was publishing book after book. Look me up on amazon.com if you want. Not long after that, I started writing for TV (look me up on imdb.com). The only TV episode I've ever sold while in $cientology was to "Zoobile Zoo," which was run by Kathy Wasserman, a devout (and rabid about it) $cientologist. If you care to look into it, you'll find a credit on the same show for Mary Sue Humbug (she might've used her maiden name). In short, Wasserman (who now has a different last name that I forget), specifically tried to recruit as many people from her own "religion" as possible, completely in disregard to fairness or rules from the Writers Guild of America.

That is what $cientologists in Hollywood do, which gives them the apparency of doing well BECAUSE of being in the cult -- they try to stack the deck with their friends in the cult by getting them cast. What they don't realize (and this includes Tom Cruise and Travolta as well) is that most people in Hollywood HATE $cientology and only work with $cientologists out of necessity. For example, the creator of "Dharma and Greg" is an ex-$cientologist, and the report I got was that he was devastated when he discovered Jenna Elfman was involved in the cult. But he'd already cast her, so he was stuck, legally.

I have probably several hundred other specific examples about this type of thing.

Actors like Karen Black and Robert F. Lyons and Michael Roberts and Juliette Lewis never, it seems to me (and this is my opinion based on knowing them and observation and converstations with non-$cientologists in the Hollywood entertainment business) never seem to back away and examine why it was they were once very successful in the business but now have almost non-existent careers. They don't realize how many people they have alienated over the years with goofy ideas and actions on their part that came directly from the idiot who started $cientology, like John Travolta telling Jerry Lewis that "Jerry's kids" were screwed up because of evil tiny beings in their necks and he wouldn't do the telethon, or Jenna Elfman saying something similar about people with AIDS ("they're down-stats") when asked to help with a charity.

If not for Quentin Tarantino's adulation of Travolta and his writing and direction in "Pulp Fiction," my guess is that the jet pilot's career would be permanently grounded right about now.

If Travolta and Cruise made three movies in a row that bombed and failed to turn a profit, they'd also be in Juliette Lewisville right now.

And then what repeater-of-lines-who-couldn't-write-a-story would $cientology have to tout as a hero?

I don't hang out with any former $cientologists, and after meeting a few via Spanky Taylor, I don't really care to.

Why? Because a lot of them still have stupid, reactionary lives. They were Republicans while in $cientology, so now they think they should be Democrats and follow corrupt, vicious people like Gore and the Clintons.

Some are still looking for their "spiritual salvation fix" and into other silly ideas. If I met some whom I thought were actively contributing toward a better society, maybe I'd feel differently.

On the other hand, I applaud and support people like Tory (Magoo) Bezazian, who I always liked while in $cientology. She might have experienced, but never displayed the type of viciousness I've mentioned in others above.

The last thing I should say is about myself. Although I certainly have had my faults in the past and still do today, I was largely extremely popular while in $cientology. Maybe it's because I always went out of my way to help a lot of people, and not just with $cientology. One guy I wrote screenplays with refused to meet with me at the New York George's restaurant near what is now L. Ron Bullshit Way (is that the name of the street?) because so many would drop by the table to say hello to me and interrupt us. When I put on plays at Celebrity Centre in 1983, against the wishes of several $cientologist cast members -- and I did NOT try to stack it only with $cientologists -- we got a big write-up in the L.A.

Times that actually said something favorable about $cientology. It was the only time I've ever seen that paper say something nice about the cult. When I ran a monthly writers group meeting at Celebrity Centre, I got people to show up and speak like the head of development of movies and miniseries at 20th Century Fox (who is still a friend though no longer at Fox).

I add this last because it is INEVITABLE within $cientology that the "executives" with "Oatee powers that be not" will either (a) personally ruin or (b) run off from the cult people of social value and/or personal magnetism who do not toe the line with the latest round of lies and perfidy put forth by the people running the cult of lyintology.

I escaped. I prospered. I regained my sanity.

If you are reading this and still in $cientology, leave. The world will welcome you. If you've been a jerk, maybe you can change, and the world at large will help you do that.

If you remain in the cult and simply cannot see how heavily hypnotized you have been and how steadily your life is being ruined, my sympathies.

I truly feel sorry for you, and hope that some day, somehow, you reverse your decreasing fortunes and find a life again.

Thanks to everyone on this group whose posts have helped, and my continued good wishes for your efforts against this anti-American and anti-life cult of evil.

--

When liberty becomes license, some form of one-man power is not far distant.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

All the best,

Skip Press, the Duke of URL and The Sum of All Hollywood Fears at http://home.earthlink.net/~skippress/

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