| HOT NEWS
August 2004
Controversy to Come:
Barricade has just acquired Gagged, an astounding manscript by Gerry
Armstrong. He is the former personal archivist of Scientology cult founder L.
Ron Hubbard.
What the Scientologists, their lawyers and their hired thugs have done for
the past twenty-two years to silence Armstrong about this "religion"
and his experiences is beyond thriller fiction. Assaults, assassination threats,
frame-ups, six lawsuits, dozens of manufactured criminal charges, millions in
legal fees, an Everest of black propaganda, freeway terror in the U.S. and autobahn
terror in Germany.
In 1995 a California Superior Court judge pronounced an end to the First Amendment
guarantee of free religious exercise, and ordered Armstrong totally gagged about
his religious beliefs. When Armstrong continued to express his religious beliefs
about Scientology, the same judge, doing the cult's bidding, ordered him jailed
and issued warrants for his arrest.
Armstrong refuses to be gagged, by cult or court. This book is what he has
to say. Barricade is proud to be publishing his words.
Many unanswered questions swirl around the Scientology cult, such as who or
what killed L. Ron Hubbard?
* Was he really dysphasic in his final years, or does that diagnosis cloak
a more sinister reality?
* Why does the U.S. Government treat Scientology as a state religion?
* Why was National Security Advisor Sandy Berger assigned to handle Scientologists
in the White House during the Clinton years?
* What is the real relationship between the cult and the Bush Administration?
* What does Gerry Armstrong know that is worth $50,000 a word?
Armstrong does not definitively answer all of these questions. But what he
does say is perspicacious, revelatory and revolutionary. A clever literary talent,
Armstrong has balanced his thoroughly researched revelations with his own soul
searching to arrive at shocking truths he delivers with lyrical grace.
The script runs more than 900 typewritten pages and is currently safely ensconced
in a vault!
[...]
Until next time,
[signed] Lyle Stuart |