Picket Report - San Francisco Org, 83 McAllister Street, Oct 6, 96

Hi Everyone,

As soon as I appeared out front these two guys from France immediately approached me and asked if they could take my picture standing in front of the Org. They told me that Scientology is so hated over in France that they just HAD to have a picture of someone picketing an Org. They wanted to be able to show it to their friends back home. What a fun way to start the afternoon!

Strangely, not more than 60 seconds later two staff members came out, both with cameras, and they too started taking pictures of me. I'm watching this spectacle and thinking, "The novelty of this picture taking thing has certainly worn thin. I wonder what they're up to now. Maybe I'm just having a really good hair day." God only knows why they have this sudden renewed interest in taking my picture again. It couldn't be because there were Sea Ogres inside and they were trying to make a good impression on them. I often see Sea Ogres in there. Sometimes they even stand at the door watching me all the while taking notes on a clip board. The only thing I can think of is that they must have kind of freaked out when they saw those two guys taking my picture in front of THEIR building.

Anyway, once this "photo shoot" ended I resumed my normal picketing mode. Right around 1:00 P.M. I noticed this guy approaching me who was wearing a T-shirt that read "PSYCHIATRY KILLS". When we were about ten feet apart he looks me right in the eye and then spits on the sidewalk right in front of my feet. He looks me right in the eye again and then turned and walked straight into the Org without ever saying a word. I guess he was just expressing his opinion to me.

Last post I mentioned how Janet Meinsma (the registrar ) always looks like she really despises me as if she sees me as a traitor. Well today she just happened to be coming out of the bakery next door just as I was approaching it. We suddenly ended up face to face for the first time. There was no possible way for her to avoid me this time. In that situation she suddenly turned on the charm, put a big smile on her face and responded to me as if we were the best of friends. THAT'S a skill she uses to get money out of people. She pretends to be their best friend. I was not surprised by this sudden chameleon-like change because I've watched several staff members get put through the "tone scale drill". That's a drill where the member is trained to be able to express any emotion at will. They're trained to be able do this so that they can manipulate the other person. The staff tried it on me when I first started picketing the mission. Jeff Quiros tried it on me when I first started picketing the Org. Now Janet tried it on me when it was impossible for her to ignore me. It's what these guys do. I'm not falling for it anymore. I've been duped enough times by technique.

A short while later this guy was sitting on their planter by their front door. He calls me over because he has a few questions for me. Within two minutes this staff member comes out and says to me in a stern voice, "I'm going to have to ask you to step back out there on the sidewalk". This was the same person who told one of their members that he was not allowed to talk to me and sent him back inside. He's also the one that took pictures of me earlier in the day. Since I don't know his name I'll just call him "this staff member". Anyway, I got a bit angry by this because I don't like being ordered around like that. Fortunately I had already answered all the guys questions so that was taken care of. Secondly, I much prefer the sidewalk because out there I'm A LOT more visible and I get a lot more attention. Because of those two reasons I decided it was in MY best interest to go back on the sidewalk. This confrontation resolved without escalating. It does, however, show how "reactive" they are and how low their "confront" is. These are conditions that LRH says Scientology is suppose to improve. Here was an example that clearly shows the tech DOESN'T work.

Today I heard the first real "horror" story about Scientology outside the Org. So far most people have told me how they've just nibbled on the clam bait and then spit it back out. Outside the mission I heard horror stories all the time. This one girl came up behind me and started clapping for me. She said she was so happy to see me out there. She had seen what happened to her grandmother after she had gotten involved in the cult. This girl told me that her grandmother eventually died blind and with cancer and that right to the very end she absolutely refused to go to a doctor because she was so convinced that Scientology would heal her of all her ills. When I meet real people with stories like this it makes me wish that I could be out there every single day.

Wayne Whitney