To the best of my knowlege, every statement in this post is factual. If any person, Scientologist, critic, or bystander, can provide evidence that any of these statements are false, I will retract and change this article before (someday) reposting.
Scientology started out as pseudo-medical quackery, and only
incorporated as a "church" to evade regulation
by the FDA and taxation by the IRS.
Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, stated
initially that Scientology was _not_ a religion;
that it was instead a set of precise scientific
techniques discovered through research.
Only after Hubbard's grandiose claims for medical and
psychological benefits were show to be false, and with
fraud prosecution by the U.S. Federal government
looming, did he reorganize Scientology as a church.
Scientology has a secret police.
The Office of Special Affairs ("OSA") is the current
Scientology organization chartered for intelligence,
propaganda, and covert operations.
These covert activities were formerly the job of the
Guardian's Office ("GO"); the GO was reorganized into
today's OSA after eleven top GO officers were jailed
in U.S. federal felony convictions.
http://www.entheta.net/entheta/go/go.htm
http://members.tripod.com/German_Scn_News
Scientology has a gulag.
Scientology's paramilitary elite, the "Sea Org",
maintains re-education camps, known as the "RPF",
at several locations. The lowest levels of RPF have
all the characteristics of a gulag work camp --
involuntary confinement at hard labor; psychological
manipulation; continual harassment; inadequate
food, sleep, and sanitation; gross overcrowding.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/imprisonment.html
Scientology pressures some female members to have abortions.
Women in the Sea Org are instructed that work is their
absolute priority, and that they are thus not to become
pregnant. If they do, they are pressured, and have
have in some cases been coerced, to terminate the
pregnancy through abortion.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/abortions.policy.html
Scientology breaks up families.
When a Scientologist's family members or friends express
concern about the personality changes that are often seen
in new members, or about the extreme amounts of money
suddenly being "donated" to Scientology, the member's
Scientology "case supervisor" often strongly advises
"disconnection" from "suppressive" family and friends.
Disconnection means complete cessation of contact.
Many parents, brothers, sisters, and ex-spouses tell
of spending years, even decades, with no communication
whatsoever from a loved one ensnared in Scientology.
Scientology has repeatedly fostered felonious conspiracies.
* Operation Snow White
In 1978-81, eleven high-ranking Scientologists were
convicted of felonies, fined, and sentenced to terms
in US Federal penitentiaries for their roles in
"Operation Snow White", a conspiracy to infiltrate
and burglarize U.S. Federal government offices,
to steal and destroy government files documenting
some of the ugly facts about Scientology.
The long list of offenses committed may be found in
the court document "Stipulation of Evidence", at URLs:
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul01.txt
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul02.txt
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul03.txt
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology,
was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.
The convicted include Mary Jane Kember, the "Guardian"
(head of the Guardian's Office, then the second-highest
office in all of Scientology after Hubbard
himself), and Hubbard's third wife Mary Sue.
Despite Scientology's claim that these criminals have
been ousted, several of the convicted felons,
including Duke Snider, Henning Heldt, Mo Budlong, and
Dick Weigand, are still active in Scientology.
http://www.wwwaif.net/GO/new.html
Kendrick Moxon, senior attorney for Scientology,
was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.
Today, the bankrupt California Scientology organization
maintains its offices within Moxon's law firm; Moxon
was the lead attorney in the Scott case that drove the
Cult Awareness Network ("CAN") into bankruptcy.
In July 1992, the Church of Scientology was found guilty
of infiltrating the Toronto Police, and the offices of
Revenue Canada, the Ontario Attorney General, and the
Ontario provincial government.
Thousands of files had been stolen.
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/toronto
http://superlink.net/~mgarde/courts.htm#queen
* Scientology's Guardian's Office criminally harassed
Paulette Cooper, author of the early critical book
_The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, by stealing her personal
stationery with her finger prints, forging bomb threats
to themselves, and then calling in the FBI; by stealing
and making public the confidential patient records of
Cooper's psychotherapy; by spreading false and
discreditable information about Cooper among her
neighbors; and much more.
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/cooper/index.html
* In "Operation Keeler", just one of a long list of
"ops" against Gabe Cazares, then Mayor of
Clearwater, Florida, the GO damaged Cazares'
political career by staging a faked hit-and-run
accident, and then "leaking" the incident widely
just before the next mayoral election. (Cazares
had opposed the virtual occupation of his town by
Scientology's "Flag Land Base".)
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/cazares.html
http://www.xenu-city.net/
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/timeline.html
During the enormous FBI raid of Scientology facilities
that led to the Snow White convictions, documents were
seized that planned for future criminal activities
by the Guardian's Office:
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/index.html
Operation Snapper: A plan to discredit California
Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Tapper, and to
force him from public office, by fabricating
circumstantial evidence that Tapper was trafficing
in drugs and had fathered a child out of wedlock.
Operation PC Freakout: further harrassment of Cooper:
sending forged bomb threats to Arab consulates in
Washington DC and to Henry Kissinger.
Operation Quaker: a plan to spirit material witnesses
out of the country.
Operation Street-man: a deep background investigation
of Clearwater mayor Gabe Cazares, with the intent of
finding discreditable facts or material for blackmail.
Heber Jentzsch and Warren McShane were officials in the
Guardian's Office, under whose auspices these felonies
were planned and carried out.
Today Jentzsch is the president of the "Church"
of Scientology International, and McShane is the head
of the Religious Technology Corporation ("RTC"),
which presses "copyright" lawsuits against journalists
and critics on behalf of Scientology.
Scientology explicitly teaches its representatives to lie.
Scientology has an official training routine,
"TR-L", that is used to teach its public
spokespersons to lie convincingly, and without
remorse.
Lying defamation of enemies is standard policy in
Scientology, and is termed "dead agenting".
In 1995, the "Church" of Scientology Canada paid the
largest libel judgement in Canadian history,
$1.8 million, to the Hon. Casey Hill, because their
official spokesmen continued to maliciously "dead-agent"
Hill when they knew their claims to be lies.
http://superlink.net/~mgarde/hillmann.txt
Scientology maintains files ("PC folders") of potentially damaging
admissions confessed by adherents, and uses them as a
threat to control members, and to smear ex-members.
During "auditing", the person being audited ("the PC")
is hooked up to a crude lie-detector (the "E-meter"),
and is asked a long series of detailed and intensely
personal questions about their sex life, illegalities
they may have performed, anything they may regret or
be ashamed of.
All responses are carefully recorded in the PC folder.
Persons attempting to leave Scientology have been
threatened with public disclosure of the contents
of their PC folder; ex-members who have made trouble
for Scientology have had these threats carried out.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum/culling.html
Scientology has several times publicly announced a "religious"
crusade to destroy the psychiatric profession, and
to remove psychotherapists of all kinds
(except Scientology's own "auditors")
from "the face of this planet".
Yet Scientology itself refuses to offer help of any
kind to persons suffering from schizophrenia,
autism, bipolar disorder, depression, or any other
mental or emotional disorder.
Scientology strongly condemns all medication taken for
psychiatric conditions (such as Prozac, Zoloft,
lithium, Paxil, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, etc.).
Through its front-group CCHR, Scientology seeks
to make these medications unavailable to anyone.
Scientology has systematically stolen and destroyed library copies
of critical books, magazines, and newspapers, including:
_A_Piece_of_Blue_Sky_, J. Atack
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/BOOKS/JON.TXT
_The_Road_To_Xenu_, M. Wakefield
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/xenu.html
_Bare-Faced_Messiah_, R. Miller
http://xenu.phys.uit.no/books/bfm/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/bfmconte.htm
_Religion,_Inc_, S. Lamont
http://pweb.netcom.com/~seekon/lamont.html
_L_Ron_Hubbard,_Messiah_or_Madman_, B. Corydon
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/BOOKS/CORYDON.TXT
_The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, P. Cooper
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/cooper/index.html
_The_Road_To_Total_Freedom_, R. Wallis
"Scientology Unmasked"
Boston Herald, March 1, 1998
First Prize, Investigative Reporting 1998
New England Press Association
http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/
"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power"
Time Magazine, May 6, 1991 page 50 (cover story)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html
"The Scientology Story"
Los Angeles Times, June 24-29, 1990
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/dst/Library/Shelf/la90/
"The Prophet and Profits of Scientology"
Forbes, October 27, 1986
"Scientology: The Sickness Spreads"
Reader's Digest, September 1981
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/MEDIA01/METHVIN2.TXT
"Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult"
Reader's Digest, May 1980
"Scientology Brings Four Years of Discord"
and thirteen other related investigative articles
Winner, 1980 Pulitzer for national reporting
The St. Petersburg Times, December 1979
"Scientology: A Long Trail of Controversy"
and six other related investigative articles
Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1978
http://www.rpi.net.au/~marina/latimes/index.htm
Scientology is enormously litigious.
The "Church" of Scientology has an in-house legal
department, and has amassed an incredible history
of lawsuits:
- Against legitimate news media, such as _Time_,
The Readers' Digest, and the Washington Post,
in a partially-successful attempt to stifle accurate
reporting of its history, actions, policies,
and beliefs.
- Against individuals or organizations that use any
part of Hubbard's "technology" outside the
auspices of Scientology.
- Against ex-members who seek to make public
Scientology's continuing abuse of the legal
system, and of its members.
- Against the US Internal Revenue Service, when
that organization originally (and quite
rightly) ruled that Scientology was *not* a
non-profit charitable organization, and was
thus not entitled to tax-exempt status.
Scientology is legally structured as an incredible tangle of dummy
corporations and shells, serving as a shield against
legal accountability.
Scientology kills.
On December 5, 1995, dedicated young Scientologist
Lisa McPherson was pronounced dead on arrival
at a hospital north of Clearwater, Florida.
According to the coroner's report, Lisa's body was
severely underweight and exhibited numerous bruises
and insect bites; the cause of death was listed as
a blood clot caused by extreme dehydration.
On November 13, 1998, the Church of Scientology's
Clearwater "Flag Service Organization" was indicted
on 2 felony charges in Mcpherson's death.
Lisa's family has brought an additional civil suit
for wrongful death. The family claims that
Scientology's "technology" damaged Lisa's mental health,
and that after she attempted to escape Scientology
control, Flag Service personnel recaptured her and
confined her, sometimes drugged, for seventeen days
without adequate food, water, or medical care.
Konrad Aigner, Patrice Vic, Noah Lottick, and Susan
Meister are four other young people whose lives were
tragically cut short by their involvement in Scientology.
http://cisar.org/konrad.htm
http://www.rickross.com/reference/Art54.html
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/noah.html
http://davel.www.cistron.nl/susan.htm
http://home.wxs.nl/~mike_gormez/deaths.html
http://www.scientology-kills.net
A few WWW sites for the beginning researcher:
Critical introduction to Scientology:
http://www.modemac.com/cos/
Index to Scientology's own web site:
http://www.scientology.org/search/indxmstr.htm
First person narrative of one person's career in Scientology:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu
The first critical Web page, and still good:
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/index.html
More detail, well organized:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum.html
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/audit/index.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/
A fine example of Scientology dead-agenting on the Web
http://www.parishoners.org/Intolerance/
The Sekret Skripchurs
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/
http://www.xenu.net/
Canonical list of all Scientology Web resources:
http://www.xenu.net/archive/arsweb/
http://www.best.com/~mchong/arsweb.shtml
Go Back
to Shy David's Crime Syndicate Page.