Title: Edmonton Picket transcripts - Part One
Author: Edmonton Entheta <edmontonentheta@powersurfr.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 02:16:20 -0700

These are transcripts from a picket in Edmonton, Canada, Sept 9, 2000. This was transcribed from video footage, which I hope to have webbed in the near future. Picketers included Gerry Armstrong, Reg Taylor, Darlene Taylor, John Brownlee, and Shane Wilson (yours truly). [ Watch videos. ]

This segment is a conversation between

Reg: Reg Taylor
Gerry: Gerry Armstrong [ old time ex-member ]
Andre: Andre Jurt, Scientologist, the husband of the local DSA, Deborah Jurt.

Reg: This man (Gerry) actually saw all this stuff himself, he handled the original documents - Ron's old diaries, and legal papers from his second divorce, and all that stuff. He found all of Hubbard's personal Papers, and he's out here standing there holding the sign.

Andre: Well, let me put it this way...

Reg: If he told you that he actually saw it with his own eyes, why don't you believe it?

Andre: In all I know about 30 people who worked with Hubbard, and he's one of them out of 30 - there's 29 others

Reg: Right, but this guy actually handled Hubbard's personal papers. He was Hubbard's personal archivist. Hubbard assigned him as his personal archivist. And he was on that post - how long were you on that post, 2 Years?

Gerry: 2 Years

Reg: He was on that post for a full 2 Years, talking to all of Hubbard's relatives, and everybody who knew Hubbard, and he's standing out here saying Scientology is bogus.

Andre: Fine.

Reg: Is OT III the last one you did?

Gerry: Yes

Reg: He's OT III, and we're standing out here and if we're wrong, if we're full of crap, we're putting our eternity on the line here, ok? We know the significance of this. So this is not done lightly. I know that if I'm wrong, my eternity is ruined, and Gerry knows it too. We're trying to say to people, look at this, and say you know what, there are untruths, flat out untruths in Scientology that need to be confronted. How can you base a movement on a lie?

Andre: I have no idea what you're talking about. You're talking in generalities.

Reg: Alright, I can be more specific. Hubbard's biography, ok, ah, I mean maybe it's irrelevant that Hubbard never finished college. Maybe it's irrelevant that Ron is not a war hero, that he's not a nuclear physicist. Maybe those things are irrelevant.

Gerry: That he wasn't crippled and blinded and he didn't cure himself with Dianetics. And you're right, they are, however what is relevant is that he lied about them.

Andre: Well, for one thing, I can't talk to you because you're declared, ok? You're not (meaning Reg).

Gerry: To me, that, what you just articulated, is one of the basic reasons that people should protest, and you yourself should protest. The Suppressive Person doctrine is really the basis of Scientology. It affects your life more than all of your auditing, more than all of your training. Just the acceptance of the Suppressive Person doctrine, the dividing of society on religions grounds, not scientific, pseudo-scientific grounds, whereby it then becomes totally ok for a designated Suppressive Person to be lied to, cheated, stolen from, destroyed.

Andre: Ok, I'm talking to you (Reg), what was your last point?

Reg: Well, my point is, these things are coming out because Scientology no longer has control over information, they can't stop people from posting things on the net.

Andre: What are you even talking about?

Gerry: Am I right? He's not talking to me because I'm declared, but his wife can talk to me because she's the person who's designated to handle me? Is that how it works?

Andre: right

Gerry: See, that's the criminal element in Scientology. The people who may still have some decency left in them, they're not allowed to talk to a basic wog. That's why people should protest. And you should protest. You should stand up and put an end to the Suppressive Person doctrine. Put an end to fair game. Stand up.

Andre: Let's make one point, one point. I choose not to talk to you. Not because I'm told, I choose not to talk to you. If I choose not to talk to you, I won't talk to you. You understand that?

Gerry: I understand that

Andre: Ok, that's my choice, I don't want to talk to you

Gerry: I understand. And you choose because you say I'm a declared Suppressive Person.

Andre: That's correct.

Gerry: And I say that that doctrine is the reason why Scientology, and people like yourself should be opposed, you should be exposed, it is a doctrine...

Andre: I don't talk to an enemy the same way I don't take my son to a child molester for babysitting, ok? I choose not to do that, I choose not to talk to you.

Gerry: And I'm an enemy because your organization designated me an enemy.

Andre: No, it's because of your destructive actions.

Gerry: And what are those destructive actions, do you know any of them? Speaking the truth? Is that a destructive action? Having an opinion? Articulating my opinion? Adhering to the Creed of Scientology?

Andre: As a matter of fact, yes, it is, according to the policy

Gerry: And that's what I'm saying. That's what you need to oppose. That is itself a suppressive policy. It doesn't give you the opportunity, in your life, to really think for yourself. You can't - you follow policy, which is a suppressive policy.

Andre: I happen to agree with the policy.

Gerry: That's fine. You agree with a suppressive policy, and it was designed to suppress you, to keep you from communicating.

Reg: The Church believes that all men have an inalienable right to think freely, to write freely, to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others.

Andre: That's right.

Reg: Ok, now the word inalienable ...

Andre: he has the right

Reg: The word inalienable means it can't be taken away. So for Scientology to then come along and write a policy that says we're taking his right to speak away ...

Andre: Oh, no, we don't

Gerry: Yes, you do.

Andre: He can speak whenever he want's to, we don't take that right away.

Gerry: Do you know that your organization has obtained a court order, they've paid millions of dollars for, to stop me from communicating, do you know that?

Andre: Well, if there's illegal stuff going on, I would support it. There's a law.

Gerry: No, it's not the law. It is a simple violation of your creed. But that's ok, because you people violate your creed every day. Your creed is crud.

Andre: You don't even make sense, because the church cannot get a court order based on internal policy.

Gerry: Your church did. Why would your church want to silence me about your church?

Andre: You must have broken laws, that's the only way you can issue court orders, don't tell me anything else.

Gerry: You don't even want to listen. But let me ask you this. If you learned, that your organization was seeking, through the judicial system, to prevent people, myself or others, from speaking about their experiences in Scientology, or about L. Ron Hubbard, or about the organization [car horn honks, Reg waves], wouldn't you agree, that that was a breach of your code, and wouldn't you oppose that?

Andre: Except if he breaks the law

Gerry: How could...you tell me, in what country is it against the law to talk about Scientology?

Andre: I don't know about that.

Gerry: Right, so there is no law to be broken.

Andre: Well, I'm just saying...

Reg: Speaking of the law, we need to keep moving.

Reg: Ok, so the group designates where you can and can't go.

Andre: Pardon me?

Reg: Scientology tells you where you can and cannot go. It tells you what you can read.

Andre: What are you talking about, I can read anything.

Reg: Ok, but only if you don't have one of those Scientology web sites on your computer. That web site has a filter on it that filters out web sites like xenu.net.

Andre: Well, let me tell you, I've got that filter, I can go on it no problem.

Reg: Well, you may think that you can go on there no problem, but that website, that disk that you put in, the beginning of it has software that filters out words like xenu, lerma,

Gerry: And Gerry Armstrong.

Reg: And Gerry Armstrong. It filters these things out.

Andre: Well, how come I can see these no problem? I've seen his name, I've seen...

Reg: Have you been to this one here, xenu.net?

Andre: Yes

Reg: So you've read Andreas' site.

Andre: Well, not for a long time, but I've been there. I've been on Factnet...

Gerry: Have you read Hubbard's Admissions?

Andre: I don't read all this crap.

Gerry: Well, he wrote it, so if it's crap, then it's him.

Andre: I'm not interested in any of this stuff. I can take about five minutes of it, then I've had enough.

Gerry: Five minutes of what Hubbard wrote, I agree, is generally enough.

Andre: I'm talking about ARS and stuff like that.

Gerry: I'm talking about Hubbard's Admissions. The stuff that he writes that leads up to Dianetics and Scientology.

Andre: No, I haven't read it, but how would I know he wrote it anyway? Anyone can post anything under any name anywhere.

Reg: Well, that's true. You would actually have to see the original documents, right?

Andre: Yeah, but even then, I don't know, I mean that goes for any material.

Reg: Even if you saw it in his own handwriting, you would still go, well, maybe somebody else wrote it?

Andre: I've seen somebody fake his handwriting pretty good, actually.

Reg: Yeah, I think there's a whole crew of them that know how to fake his signature. I mean you know that and I know that. And so does he (Gerry), and so does Darlene.

Andre: I'm not interested in that stuff anyway, so who cares about it?

Reg: Well, it's deception, people are being deceived.

Andre: Oh, and you're the hero rescuer, huh?

Reg: Well no, I'm not the hero rescuer, I'm more like somebody saying, hey, wake up, you know, it's ok to look. That's all I'm saying, that's my message. It is ok to look. You can read what you want, you can make up your own mind, but the church should not be deciding what you can look at.

Andre: Doesn't in my case.

Reg: I find that hard to believe.

Darlene: He's married to Deborah, Reg.

Reg: He's married to Deborah, Yeah.

Darlene: [inaudible due to passing motorcycle] ... Messiah or Madman, you know.

Andre: Well actually you're not forbidden, you have a choice, you can read it and leave the Church.

Reg: Yeah, and if you leave the Church what happens? You are damned for eternity. So the only way that you can get out of the trap is by not reading these books. And that is an even bigger threat, and I mean, you know that. I mean, we are talking about a major threat. If you read that book, you have to leave the church, and you will go to Scientology Hell for eternity. Hey, don't read the book Andre.

Andre: I don't know where you come up with that stuff, but, ah, if you want to do it.

Reg: What stuff, what are you talking about. Well, no, I know there's no Hell in Scientology, because there's no God in Scientology. Scientology is Godless and you know it.

Andre: That's a lie

Reg: Andre, you cannot sit there and with a straight face say that Hubbard promoted the idea of God. The class 8 tapes, and Hubbard saying "There was no Christ. The man on the cross, there was no Christ".

Gerry: God and Christ are implants.

Reg: Part of the R6 implant.

Andre: Now, let me ask you something ...

Reg: You're a class 9 auditor, don't tell me that you don't know that.

Andre: You're a Christian, that equals God and Christ, but how about the Muslims, How about...

Reg: Hubbard has a lot to say about Islam too. And you can bet your ass that if the Muslims really knew what Hubbard was saying about Scientology, you think we're a problem, you get a few of these fundamentalist Muslim groups down your throat ...

Gerry: Yeah, wait till they here that he was a second rate booster. Mohamed was a second rate booster.

Reg: I mean, look at what happened with Salmon Rushdie, when he wrote that book, The Satanic Verses. They called the death penalty down on him. They would do the same thing with Scientology, if they really knew about Hubbard, and what the upper level Scientologists are expected to believe about Mohamed and about God. They would be on you like brown on rice.

Andre: Why are they expected to believe it?

Reg: What do you mean why are they expected to believe it?

Andre: I'm sorry, I don't get it.

Reg: Well, when you sat down, and you did your class 8 auditing, obviously you had to show, I mean, you had to sit down across from a word clearer, who said, is there anything in this material that you disagree with? And what is the handling if there's a disagreement? The handling is "find your word". This tech is totally infallible, what Hubbard said is totally above reproach, and if you don't agree with it you have a misunderstood word.

Andre: That's not even true.

Reg: No?

Gerry: What's the datum?

Reg: If you're sitting across from a word clearer, the question is "is there anything in this material that you do not agree with", and the handling is you find the misunderstood word.

Andre: That's not true.

Reg: What do you mean that's no true? I was Qual word clearer for a Year and a half.

Andre: Misunderstood words and false data stripping are two different technologies.

Reg: If there is something in your material that you disagree with, the word clearer is to find your word. Andre, you're not telling me that you don't know that rudimentary tech.

Andre: That is actually not true.

Reg: You're not telling me that you are that ignorant of the tech.

Andre: You only have a little bit of the tech.

Reg: That's one piece of the Tech. I understand the tech very well.

Andre: When you're OT, you don't go to any word clearer, you don't go to any [???]. Furthermore, false data stripping and misunderstood words are two different technologies.

Reg: I'm not talking about false data stripping.

Andre: Well, you did.

Reg: I'm not talking about false data stripping.

Andre: that question about disagreement is false data stripping.

Reg: It's one of the questions that word clearers use. I used it on just about everyone that I word cleared. And everybody I've been word cleared by used that question. If you disagree with something, you have a misunderstood word. Am I wrong, Gerry?

Gerry: No.

The door opens, and Deborah Jurt (The DSA and Andre's wife) comes out.

Deborah: You're supposed to keep moving out here. Or I'll be calling the police.

Andre: Can I, ah, have a coffee?

Deborah: Yeah, come on in.

Andre: I need a coffee.

Andre and Deborah go inside. Deborah comes back out.

Deborah: You need to keep moving.

Gerry: There's no OTs out here.

Deborah: Are you disappointed?

Gerry: No OTs.

Deborah: Just keep moving or I'll be calling the officer back.

Gerry: Ok, Yeah, please do.

Deborah goes inside.

Deborah Jurt, the Edmonton DSA arrives:

Deborah walks around the corner from the parking lot.

Reg: Hi Deborah.

Deborah: Hi Reg.

Reg: How ya doin?

Deborah: Great. What are you guys doing?

Reg: Picketing.

At this point, Deborah spots Gerry for the first time. She reaches up and actually adjusts her glasses as if they are playing tricks on her.

Deborah: Oh, you. What are you doing here?

Reg: You know Gerry.

Deborah: Yes, I do.

Reg: Gerry Armstrong. A personal friend of L. Ron Hubbard.

Gerry: Where do we know each other from?

Deborah: That's why we have a court injunction against him.

Gerry: Yeah, well, that's bogus.

Deborah: Oh, it is, the State of California didn't think so.

Gerry: They have a warrant out for my arrest, right? And you know what, what's it for?

Deborah: You know what, I'm going to show the police that.

Gerry: Perfect.

Deborah: Yeah, I know, that's interesting.

Gerry: What's it for?

Deborah: What's it for?

Gerry: Right, what's the injunction for?

Deborah: Well, you tell me, there's a whole list of things on there.

Gerry: It's for speaking about Scientology.

Deborah: No, that's not it.

Gerry: Well, what's it for then?

Deborah: Well, I'll show it to you later.

Gerry: It's for speaking about Scientology.

Deborah: No, it's for all the things you've done.

Gerry: What have I done?

Deborah: In regards to the court system in California.

Gerry: It's for speaking about Scientology. Imagine, a Church which sues people for speaking ...

Deborah: Have you talked about your pig letter to these people? I'm sure they'd be interested to see that one, Gerry.

Deborah then goes inside.

Later, Deborah comes back out. At this point Darlene, with a video camera, was the only picketer in front of the Church. The rest of us were along the side of the building.

Deborah approaches Darlene and takes several pictures.

Deborah: Darlene, where is everybody?

Darlene: The side, and all the way around

Deborah: Very nice.

Deborah walks around the corner. Reg and Gerry put their arms around each other and pose for a picture.

Gerry: Perfect, can we get one of you?

Deborah: I think you already have your own camera.

Gerry walks behind her and puts his arm up behind her, as if he was putting his arm around her.

Gerry (to Shane): Can you get one of us?

Deborah (pulling away): No, I don't think I want to be on camera with you.

Gerry: Yeah you do, come one, it'll be great in our ethics file.

Deborah (spots a passerby who has stopped to talk to John): Who's that fellow down there?

At this point, the audio on the tape is no good. Deborah approaches John and the passerby, and tries explaining that we are not allowed to stop people on the sidewalk. The passerby tells her to "fuck off, this is a private conversation". Deborah then took a few pictures of him, then turned her attention to me, telling me (Shane) all about the big file the police allegedly have on me for distributing anti-religious literature. Then she asked me several times, "What else have you done?" and "What other crimes have you committed?"

The Police ....

Throughout the Day, we had two encounters with the police. The first time, we did not get it on tape. A police car pulled over, and the officer asked us what we were protesting against. We told him, and he said "ok, ok, have fun", and left.

Here is the second police encounter, as captured on tape:

Officer: Hello.

Gerry: Hi.

Officer: How are you?

Gerry: Good.

Officer: We've received a complaint.

Gerry: Of What?

Officer: Of harassing people walking along trying to use the sidewalk.

Reg: Not at all.

Gerry: Not at all.

Officer: I don't know why you're laughing, I'm out here because we've received a complaint.

Gerry: well, you can see all the people (there was nobody around but us at the time)

Officer: Ok, there's only one rule, general rule that I'm aware of. There's no problem picketing anything, but you've got to keep moving, [a few words that I couldn't make out on the tape], you can't block the sidewalk.

Gerry: Ok.

John: [inaudible]

Officer: Exactly, and that's why we're not arresting anybody, nobody's being hauled away or anything. I'm just explaining the one rule to you, and that's that you have to keep moving, and you can't impede anyone, you can't, say there's ten of you and you're kind of blocking the sidewalk, you can't do anything like that.

Gerry: Ok, we won't. We're good.

Officer: And that's it. And obviously it's no big huge surprise who called.

The officer was about to get back in her car and leave, when Deborah came out and took her into the org, to dead agent us, no doubt.

approximately 20 minutes later the officer came back out ...

Officer: Thank you.

Gerry: You're welcome.

Reg: Have a nice day.

Officer: Thanks, you too. Passersby:

First, a guy pulled over his car and got out to talk to us ...

Passerby: Hi.

Gerry and Reg: Hi.

Reg: Scientology is bogus.

Passerby: I know it is. I believe it 100%. That's why I can't believe, like, you've go people like Tom Cruise and Chick Corea [a few words I can't make out on the tape] that are getting sucked in too. You guys are on your own doing this?

Reg nods.

Passerby: They tried to suck me in there one time, I went to take the personality test, and they take you upstairs and tell you whatever you want to hear.

Passerby (to John, who's sign says "Joan Treasure, please call home, your family loves you"): So is this your daughter or something?

John: That's my sister.

Passerby: Is that right. How old is she?

John: Right now, 47.

Passerby: 47, how many Years have they had her?

John: She's been in there 30 Years. She actually hasn't spoken to me for 20 Years.

Passerby: Unbelievable.

John: And she's got a daughter that my mother's never seen.

Passerby: You gotta be kidding man. They just cut off the family totally, eh?

John: That's because I'm a Suppressive Person.

Passerby: A what person?

John: Suppressive.

Passerby: Ok.

John: That's my official designation.

Passerby: So, you want to suppress the church, or ...

John: No, I'm a Suppressive Person because I've publicly spoken out against the church.

Passerby: Oh, is that right, Yeahh, thats ...

Gerry: They divide the whole world up into, there are two main classes, Scientology and Wogs. You're a Wog. Within the wogs, there's really three classes. There are the Suppressive Persons, which comprise 2.5% of the population, ok. Suppressive Persons, they're the truly evil people, like us.

Passerby: Because they've spoken out against Hubbard.

Gerry: Right. As soon as you do that, you become a Suppressive Person. A Suppressive Person ...

Passerby: What's the third group?

Gerry: They are called Potential Trouble Sources, they are people who are connected to a Suppressive person. And that gives them their justification, so they're able to separate children from parents, because the parents are Suppressive Persons.

Passerby: Is there anybody in the Government, City or Federal, that is helping you out? Or are they all sticking their heads in the sand or whatever?

Gerry: Head in the sand as far as I know. I don't know of anyone in Canada who is interested.

Passerby: What about big lawsuits that are happening? Wasn't there a huge lawsuit that they, Scientology won some money, didn't they?

John: In Toronto, for defamation.

Gerry: No, no, well, Scientology was criminally convicted in Toronto. Their intelligence offices had penetrated the Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP, and a whole bunch of government agencies.

Passerby: Is it because of all the money that they .... you've got to turn over your money, basically.

Gerry: Power and Intelligence. At it's core it's an intelligence operation. Everyone reports on everyone else. Moles are in business and in government.

Passerby: I believe it. Ok, well, I wish you all the best of luck in the world, man. See ya. Does the media ever come visit you here or anything?

John: The last picket they did.

Reg: At the last picket they came down for a while.

Passerby: So how long are you doing this for?

Gerry: For the afternoon.

Passerby: Ok, see ya.

Next, we talked to a young man who was at the org taking the personality test and watching the Orientation video. He was out for a smoke break. I'll call him Testguy.

Testguy: Want my commentary on it?

Darlene: Sure.

Testguy: It sucks.

Darlene: That is the perfect word.

Testguy: It does. It's copywrited, it's taken from 5000 Years old or plus, and they're trying to take credit for it. It should be free of charge, like the bible, The Gidion, they give out free bibles. Hare Krishnas, the religion is open for everybody. This one, you gotta pay big bucks to do it. It can't happen. If it's for everybody, why can't the homeless people get it?

Darlene: Exactly. The people who need it.

And finally, towards the end of the picket, a couple stopped to talk to us. Actually, only the woman talked to us.

Gerry: Oh, good, we're glad you did. We are protesting the fraud and abuses of the Scientology cult.

Passerby: Do you know anybody that's been a part of it?

Gerry: Yeah, I have, that lady has, that gentleman has...

Passerby: What happened?

John: Why don't you go in and find out?

Passerby: I really don't want to go in. I've had friends who have gone in and had a really hard time.

Gerry: That's it, they'll give you a hard time going in and a worse time coming out.

Passerby: Really. How long were you a member?

Gerry: 12 1/2 Years.

Passerby: Holy.

Reg: He was actually a personal friend of the founder, the founder of...

Passerby: Of Ron Hubbard?

Reg: Yeah, Ron Hubbard. Ron Hubbard was at his wedding.

Passerby: No kidding.

Reg: And get this, Ron Hubbard opened all the wedding gifts.

Passerby (laughing): Really. So how come there's so few of you guys here? Why isn't there more people?

Darlene: There's probably as many outside as there are inside.

Reg: Yeah, we outnumber them.

Passerby: Huh. Cause I've seen, like, things about Scientology on A&E and stuff, and all over North America there's people talking about it, like how weird it is and all that. Like, there's an outcry against it, but I don't understand why there's only five of you guys standing here. Cause I've heard mostly bad things about it. And I've had friends that like, actually have gone in and...

Reg: 8 million blown Scientologists can't be wrong. See, they claim to have between 8 and 9 million members. But 8 million of them are all out hiding, you know, what they do is they move two or three times and change their phone number so they can't be gotten a hold of, but they're still counted as members.

Passerby: No kidding. Huh. So how did you guys get out of it? If it was really hard to get out, how did you leave?

Gerry: Escaped.

Passerby: You had to completely change your everything to get away from it, or...

Gerry: I escaped. I took my things off the property a box at a time, over a period of a couple weeks, and then just left. If I had told them that i was leaving, I would have been locked up.

Passerby: How would they have locked you up?

Gerry: They would have taken me physically and locked me up.

Passerby: Does it happen a lot?

Gerry: It happens a lot.

Passerby: Really. Do you still have a lot of people that you know that are members.

Gerry: Yep.

John: My sister hasn't talked to me for 18 years.

Passerby: You weren't a member though, were you?

John: I was at one time.

Passerby: And your sister is a member in the City, in Edmonton?

John: She's in California.

Reg: Joan Treasure. She's in California.

Passerby: Really. Well, you've got my support, 100%.

At this point, she looks behind her to see the local E.D, Caroline Kristensen taking her picture.

Passerby: Heeyyy! We're gonna go, it was really nice talking to you. Good luck.

- END - until the next picket

Source: Lermanet (Thanks Arnie, and Thanks Shane)