I, Gerald Armstrong, depose and state:

1. I am a Canadian citizen and a resident of the State of Nevada, USA. I am an adult and could competently testify concerning the facts herein if called upon to do so. I am making this affidavit to support an opposition to the Scientology organization's pending application for charity status in Canada.

2. I became involved with Scientology as a customer in 1969 at the organization's franchise in Vancouver, B.C., and worked on staff at that franchise in 1970. In February, 1971 I joined the Sea Organization ("Sea Org" or "SO") in Los Angeles, California. The Sea Org is Scientology's "elite" pseudo- military corps, then one of the two administration and power arms which controlled Scientology around the world. Members of the Sea Org sign contracts of servitude for one billion years. Throughout my Scientology experience I gained a knowledge of organization structure, function, control, finances, personnel, policies and operations.

3. From 1971 to 1975 I was on the SO Flagship "Apollo" in Morocco, Portugal, Spain and the Caribbean. L. Ron Hubbard (also "LRH") Scientology's founder, and at that time its ruler and the Sea Org's "Commodore," was on board and operated Scientology internationally through the "crew" which numbered, during my stay on board of four and a half years, around four hundred. The other power arm of Scientology that Hubbard then used to maintain control of Scientology was the Guardian's Office ("GO"), headed by his wife Mary Sue Hubbard. Following the conviction and imprisonment of eleven GO personnel including Mrs. Hubbard for federal offenses in the United States, the GO was renamed the Office of Special Affairs ("OSA").

4. My staff positions on board the "Apollo" involved personal contact with Hubbard, his wife, administrative organization staff, and people in the ports and countries the ship visited. My positions included legal officer, public relations officer, and intelligence officer. Hubbard patterned his organization's intelligence apparatus on the system of Nazi spy master Reinhard Gehlen. Scientology operates as a global intelligence organization collecting overt and covert information on individuals, other organizations and governments and running covert operations against its "enemies."

5. In the fall of 1975 after the ship operation moved ashore in Florida, I was posted in the GO Intelligence Bureau connected to Hubbard's Personal Office. From December, 1975 through June, 1976 I held the post of Deputy LRH External Communications Aide, handling Hubbard's dispatch and telex traffic to and from Scientology operations. From July 1976 to December 1977 I was assigned, on Hubbard's order, to the Rehabilitation Project Force ("RPF"), the SO prison system. In 1978 I worked in Hubbard's cinematography crew in La Quinta, California making movies under his direction until the fall of that year when he again assigned me to the RPF, this time for eight months first in La Quinta, then at a base in Gilman Hotsprings near Hemet, California.

6. The RPF is a penal camp within Scientology created by Hubbard to punish anyone he felt crossed his will, or he even just disliked. People were assigned arbitrarily, for something as slight as a needle movement on the "E-meter," the " electropsychometer" Scientology calls for "legal" reasons a "religious artifact," but which in reality is, and is used as, a lie detector. I was assigned by Hubbard the first time for "insubordination," and the second time because he considered I was "joking." During much of my RPF sentence I was the " Bosun," the highest RPF member and in charge of the unit. I became intimately familiar with RPF policies and practices. On information and belief, RPF camps still exist in Scientology bases in California, Florida, Great Britain and Denmark.

7. The RPF was, and is intended to be, a degrading experience to break the will of the person assigned. RPF members were segregated, did physical or menial labor for little or no pay, were required to run everywhere, and ate whatever was left after the regular non-RPF staff members finished eating. Telephone calls from RPF members to their family were only by specific permission and were monitored. All mail from RPF members was first read by security personnel. Anyone who took the punishment of RPF assignment lightly was assigned to the RPF's RPF, an even more degrading experience. People assigned were not free to leave, and anyone who did wish to leave was guarded and held until he had, among other things, signed a list of his "crimes" extracted from his "auditing" files.

8. Auditing is Scientology's "psychotherapeutic" processing, which the organization advertises as producing increased IQ, abilities and awareness. In my experience, this advertising is false; auditing does not increase IQ, abilities or awareness. In my experience, auditing is used by Scientology for the mind control, or "brainwashing" of its adherents. Scientology denies that it engages in brainwashing, but Hubbard himself stated in a bulletin about auditing: "We can brainwash faster than the Russians (20 secs to total amnesia against three years to slightly confused loyalty)." (parens are Hubbard's)

9. Statements made by a person being audited are recorded by an "auditor." These statements, which include the person's innermost thoughts, embarrassing incidents from his past, his sexual history, acts which might be legally prosecutable, etc. are available to and used by the intelligence personnel and leaders of the organization for non-therapeutic purposes, such as domination, intelligence operations or blackmail. Scientology promotes to the public that statements made in auditing are confidential, but they are not.

10. When I got out of the RPF in the spring of 1979 and until the beginning of 1980 I worked in Hubbard's "Household Unit" (HU) at Gilman Hotsprings, the SO unit which took care of Hubbard's house, personal effects, transport, meals and so forth. My positions included "Purchaser," "LRH Renovations In- Charge" and "Deputy Commanding Officer HU."

11. My last position inside Scientology involved assembling an archive of Hubbard's personal documents and providing research assistance to a non-Scientologist author Omar Garrison who had been contracted to write Hubbard's biography. In the course of my research I uncovered and documented pervasive fraud concerning representations made by Hubbard and Scientology about his past, credentials, accomplishments, intentions and the claims and efficacy of his psychotherapeutic "mental technology." I attempted to get Scientology's leaders to correct the fraud, and as a result I was ordered to a "security check," an interrogation employing the E-meter.

12. I saw that the trust I had placed in Hubbard and Scientology had been betrayed from the very beginning, that the organization's leaders were ill-intentioned, and that the fraud I sought to correct would continue. As a result, my wife and I fled from the organization in December, 1981. We were fortunate in being able to escape from Scientology, because if we had announced our intention to leave we would have been separated and locked up. I had seen many people locked up and guarded inside, and I had been locked up and kept under guard myself.

13. Shortly after I left, Scientology published "Suppressive Person Declares" on me, falsely accusing me of "crimes" and "high crimes," including promulgating false information about Hubbard and Scientology. The organization's declaring someone a "suppressive person," or "SP," targets him as an "enemy," and subjects him to Scientology's infamous and judicially condemned "Fair Game Doctrine." One version of this doctrine, written by Hubbard, a true and correct copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit A, states: "ENEMY - SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist...May be tricked, sued, or lied to or destroyed." Scientology claims that the fair game policy was cancelled, but this is false. Hubbard merely ordered that the term "fair game" not be used as it caused bad public relations. Being " declared" by Scientology can be a terrifying experience. On information and belief, the practice of "declaring" people " suppressives" or "enemies" continues to this day. The fair game doctrine continues unabated.

14. During the first few months after I left the organization I learned of an intelligence operation being conducted against me and observed that I was being spied on. Scientology personnel also stole photographs I possessed. Knowing that my wife's and my life were in danger, I obtained from Garrison, with his permission, certain documents I believed I would need to defend us. I sent these to attorneys who had agreed to represent me, one of whom was Michael Flynn, then Scientology's most prominent lawyer enemy.

15. From the time I left the organization until the present I have been the target of fair game. Acts against me by Scientology agents pursuant to this basic Scientology policy include:

- filing five lawsuits against me;

- following, surveilling and harassing me and my [ex-]wife;

- spying in our windows and upsetting our neighbors;

- attempting to involve us in a freeway "accident;"

- assaulting me;

- striking me bodily with a car;

- threatening to put a bullet between my eyes;

- attempting on more than 12 occasions to have me prosecuted on false criminal charges, including by the FBI;

- stealing a manuscript and artwork from my car;

- filing false sworn statements about me in various litigations;

- extracting and disseminating information from my "confidential" auditing files;

- illegally videotaping me;

- attempting to entrap me in the commission of a crime;

- threatening me on several occasions if I testified about my knowledge of Scientology;

- threatening my friends;

- subjecting me to a massive international "black propaganda" campaign.

16. Black propaganda or "black PR" is the term Hubbard gave to Scientology's policy and practice of destroying a designated "target's" reputation and credibility or public belief in him by the manufacture and spreading of falsehoods about him. Over the years Scientology has published and disseminated a small mountain of black PR on me, falsely accusing me of perversities and crimes, including crimes against humanity, in an ongoing effort to assassinate my character.

17. The first case Scientology filed against me went to trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul G. Breckenridge, Jr. in 1984, resulting in a decision in my favor. A true and correct copy of that decision is appended hereto as Exhibit B. Judge Breckenridge stated:

"In addition to violating and abusing its own members civil rights, the organization over the years with its "Fair Game" doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile." (Ex. B, pp 8,9)

18. Judge Breckenridge condemned as well Scientology's abuse of its participants' auditing or psychotherapy records:

"culling supposedly confidential "P.C. folders or files" to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and/or harassment is repugnant and outrageous." (Ex. B, pp 11,12)

19. Judge Breckenridge also described in his decision an incident of Scientology's destruction of evidence:

"In January of 1980 there was an announcement of a possible raid to be made by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies of the property. Everyone on the property was required by Hubbard's representatives, the Commodore's Messengers, to go through all documents located on the property and "vet" or destroy anything which showed that Hubbard controlled Scientology organizations, retained financial control, or was issuing orders to people at Gilman Hot Springs. "A commercial paper shredder was rented and operated day and night for two weeks to destroy hundreds of thousands of pages of documents." (Ex. B, Appendix, p 2)

On several occasions, and pursuant to organization orders, I participated in destroying evidence, including during this incident identified by Judge Breckenridge. In my opinion, Scientology's practice and policy of destruction of evidence makes the organization's representations in any legal context untrustworthy.

20. The 1984 decision by Judge Breckenridge was affirmed on appeal in its entirety in 1991. A true and correct copy of the opinion of the California Court of Appeal, Scientology v. Armstrong, 232 Cal.App. 3d 1060, 283 Cal. Rptr. 917, is appended hereto as Exhibit C.

21. Scientology also subjected my attorney Michael Flynn to many years of fair game attacks, which included infiltrating his office, threatening his family, paying known criminals to testify falsely against him, suing him and his office some fifteen times, framing him with the forgery of a $2,000,000 check, and targeting him with an international black PR campaign. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Kattar, 840 F.2d. 118). Flynn became desperate to have the attacks and threats end, and ultimately, due to that desperation, compromised his ethical responsibilities to me and his other clients litigating against Scientology.

22. In December, 1986 Scientology and Flynn entered into an agreement to settle all his some twenty clients' claims against the organization, plus Flynn's own lawsuit seeking damages for the years of fair game. I was to settle my claim for the years of abuse inside Scientology and the years of fair game after I left. Scientology and Flynn positioned me as a deal breaker, only showing me the "settlement agreement" they wanted me to sign after my arrival in Los Angeles from Boston, where I had been working in Flynn's office.

23. I protested that I could not sign the document, which required that I be absolutely silent about my then seventeen years of experiences with Scientology, and which contained a $50,000.00 liquidated damages penalty for any utterance I might make to anyone. In response, Flynn stated that the conditions were "not worth the paper they're printed on." He told me, "You can't contract away your Constitutional rights;" "the conditions are unenforceable." When I argued that the settlement document opened me up to future problems with Scientology Flynn said, "I'll be there for you."

24. Flynn said that he was sick of the litigation, the threats to him and his family and wanted out. He said that Scientology had ruined his marriage, his wife's health and his life. He said that as a part of the settlement he and all co-counsels had agreed to not become involved in organization-related litigation in the future. He expressed a deep concern that the courts in the US cannot deal with Scientology and its lawyers and their contemptuous abuse of the justice system. He told me that if I didn't sign I could look forward to more years of fair game harassment and misery.

25. Flynn told me that the settlement's global form was to give Scientology the opportunity it sought to change its combative attitude and behavior by removing the threat he and his clients represented to it. He said Scientology had promised to cease fair game and that he and all his clients depended on my signing to have fair game against them cease. Because of Flynn's representations that the offensive conditions were not worth the paper they were printed on, and to have fair game end for Flynn, his family, his other clients and myself, I did sign Scientology's document.

26. Although I sought peace and did nothing to irritate Scientology, the organization had no intention of ending fair game attacks on me or anyone else. Immediately following the settlement Scientology delivered black PR documents about me to the Los Angeles Times. Over the next three years, and before I responded in any way, Scientology's attacks included:

- delivering black PR to various media representatives;

- publishing its own false and defamatory descriptions of my Scientology experiences;

- disseminating to the media an edited and defamatory version of the illegal videotape it had made of me;

- disseminating my own documents which had been sealed in my case;

- filing affidavits about me in a civil lawsuit in England which falsely charged that I had violated court orders and was "an admitted agent provocateur of the US Government;"

- threatening to sue me if I even talked to attorneys in the case in which the false charges were being made;

- threatening to expose a private writing if I did not assist Scientology's effort to prevent a third party litigant from accessing my LA Superior Court file;

- threatening to sue me if I testified even after being served with a deposition subpoena.

27. In the fall of 1989, after service of the deposition subpoena on me, I received a series of telephone calls from a Scientology attorney threatening that I would be sued if I testified about my experiences, even though I had been subpoenaed. This attorney stated that I should refuse to answer the deposition questions. As a result of his threats and Scientology's other post-settlement fair game I concluded that the "settlement agreement" and the organization's efforts to enforce it were acting to obstruct justice, and that if I allowed myself to be intimidated by the threats I would be abetting that obstruction. I concluded that I could not avoid a confrontation with Scientology, and subsequently responded to defend myself and to try to correct the injustices created by the "settlement agreement" and its misuse.

28. From that time until the present many people who consider themselves victims of Scientology's abuse have contacted me to request my assistance in their efforts to obtain redress or defend themselves. I have come to believe that all people have a God-given right to assist their fellows, which cannot be taken away by human "contract." I have also come to see that a person's right to participate in a public controversy, certainly a controversy involving himself, should not and cannot be taken away by "contract."

29. When I did respond to Scientology's attacks the organization sued me in 1992 to enforce the "settlement agreement." In the case of Scientology v. Armstrong, Marin County (California) Superior Court Case No. 157680, the organization was awarded by summary judgment $300,000 in liquidated damages, $334,000 in costs and a permanent injunction prohibiting me from discussing Scientology or Scientologists, or assisting in any way Scientology's victims or fair game targets. This judgment is suspect because, among other things, the judge ignored and refused to address the US Constitution First Amendment religious and due process issues and defenses. The judge ruled that Scientology may say whatever it wants about me, no matter how false, obnoxious or defamatory, and that I may not respond in any way to defend myself. I believe that this ruling is so illogical, so antisocial and so violative of basic human rights in a civilized society that it cannot be legal.

30. Scientology's policy and practice of attacking and compromising judges presiding over its legal proceedings is well known. An article in the December 1980 American Lawyer entitled "Scientology's War Against Judges," which focused on the criminal trial of the eleven Scientology intelligence personnel in connection with their burglarizing of US Federal offices and theft of government documents, stated that Scientology's "strategy amounts to an all-out war against the D.C. district court judges, a war much more sophisticated, better financed and more successful than the bizarre tactics used by some other groups against their courtroom adversaries, such as Synanon's attempt to murder an opposing counsel by putting a rattlesnake in his mailbox." This all-out war continues to this day, and renders suspect every legal decision obtained by Scientology, including the tax exemption it obtained from the IRS in 1993.

31. It is widely known that Scientology agents were involved in a scheme to set up and compromise US District Court Judge Charles Richey with a prostitute. Another widely known operation was reported in 1984 in the Clearwater Sun (Florida). "The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa currently is investigating a purported plot involving an attempt to lure U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman aboard a boat off the Pinellas Suncoast where prostitutes and drugs were to be used to put the judge in a compromising position."

32. Another US District Court Judge in California James M. Ideman stated about Scientology and its lawyers in a declaration executed June 17, 1993, a true and correct copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit D:

"[Scientology] has recently begun to harass my former law clerk who assisted me on this case, even though she now lives in another city and has other legal employment. This action, in combination with other misconduct by counsel over the years has caused me to reassess my state of mind with respect to the propriety of my continuing to preside over the matter. I have concluded that I should not." (Ex. D, p 1)

Judge Ideman also criticized Scientology's litigation practices:

"[Scientology's] noncompliance [with Court orders] has consisted of evasions, misrepresentations, broken promises and lies, but ultimately with refusal. As part of this scheme to not comply, [the Scientology parties] have undertaken a massive campaign of filing every conceivable motion (and some inconceivable) to disguise the true issue in these pretrial proceedings. Apparently viewing litigation as war, plaintiffs by this tactic have had the effect of massively increasing the costs to the other parties, and for a while, to the Court." (Ex. D, p 2)

33. It is a well known fact that Scientology carried out intelligence operations against Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Swearinger during the litigation of the case Wollersheim v. Scientology, LA SC No. C332027, which resulted in a 1986 $30,000,000 damages judgment against the organization. After Judge Breckenridge rendered his decision following my trial in 1984, Scientology carried out a black PR campaign against him. Organization "president" Heber Jentzsch took this black PR campaign on radio and even on CBS Television's "60 Minutes" to falsely accuse Judge Breckenridge of being under the influence of German Nazis.

34. I had never agreed when I settled my initial litigation with Scientology to be the organization's defenseless punching bag. I believe that a judgment in a US court which orders that someone submit to being a punching bag, especially to a known abusive and dangerous organization like Scientology, is itself abusive and dangerous, and illegal. That Scientology should use the courts to obtain such an order and unfair advantage is indicative of its antisocial goals and disregard for civil rights and basic equity.

35. If US Judges, with all the power and authority of the US justice system, can be attacked by Scientology with relative impunity, and caused to recuse themselves from presiding over Scientology cases, certainly an individual litigant against Scientology has little chance of survival in court. Scientology uses its immense wealth to maintain a litigation machine of dozens of lawyers and law firms to attack and ruin its perceived opponents or critics. In my opinion, until such time as Scientology ceases its use of the legal system to attack people and deny them their civil rights the organization should not be granted charity status. Scientology does not act charitably, is not charitable, and its present overreaching policies and practices towards critics and legitimate criticism make the organization incompatible with charity.

36. Scientology's policy is to never deal directly with legitimate criticism, but to attack the critic, with its litigation machine, with covert intelligence operations, and with terrible black propganda smear campaigns. Hubbard stated in his policy entitled "Attacks on Scientology:"

"NEVER agree to an investigation of Scientolog. ONLY agree to an investigation of the attackers.....

This is the correct procedure:
(1) Spot who is attacking us.
(2) State investigating them promptly for FELONIES or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies.
(3) Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.
(4) Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence on the attacker to the press. Don't ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way."

This policy and practice is the way Scientology deals with criticism to this day. If Scientology's agents do not actually find "lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence," they are required by policy to manufacture the "evidence." Scientology, as required by policy, ruins reputations and lives with this antisocial and dangerous practice.

37. After Scientology sued me following the "settlement" I learned from Michael Flynn that he had signed a "contract" with Scientology which prevents him from assisting me in my defense. His promise to "be there" for me was merely an inducement to get me to sign so that fair game toward him would hopefully end. Throughout the post-settlement litigation, Flynn, while admitting that his contract with Scientology is illegal and unenforceable, has refused my requests to come forward and assist in my defense, stating that he fears again having his life ruined by more fair game. This too is indicative of the organization's continuing antisocial goals and rights abuses.

38. In January, 1997, while residing in California, I was served with a subpoena for production of documents by Grady Ward in the case of Scientology v. Ward, USDC Northern District of California, case no. C-96-20207 RMW. Ward is accused of posting some of Scientology's "secret scriptures" to the internet. After receipt of the subpoena I received a letter from a Scientology attorney threatening me with prosecution if I produced the requested documents. I therefore advised the presiding judge in the Ward case of the threat. For my communicating to the federal judge Scientology was able to then obtain an order of contempt against me sending me to jail and fining me. I believe that this order is illegal and illegally obtained. I also believe that it is indicative of Scientology's disregard for due process and its abuse of the legal system to forward its anti-civil rights goals. One of Scientology basic policies, as stated by Hubbard, is to use the law to harass its opponents. This remains a basic policy and practice of Scientology to this day.

39. Also in January, 1997 I discovered that in its 1991 IRS Form 1023 submission, pursuant to which Scientology obtained its tax exemption, the organization included a four page section about me containing the same sort of black PR the organization spreads to the media and public. What Scientology wrote about me, in response to the IRS's questions concerning my Scientology-related litigation is factually and in conclusion false. It is also disgusting, asserting that my state of mind was "proved conclusively to be one sordid, sado-masochistic nightmare." Scientology submitted this and other false statements about me to the IRS during a time when the organization believed it had me silenced by its gag contract, and thus unable to respond to correct the lies. I have asked Scientology to correct the lies submitted to the IRS and it has refused.

40. Scientology's IRS tax exemption is based on lies, not just about me, but about other individuals, and about the organization's practices and intentions. In my opinion, the IRS was derelict in its duty to investigate the truth or falsity of Scientology's submissions. In my opinion, the US was derelict in its duty in granting Scientology's tax exempt status, protecting it, and supporting it in its global goals. In my opinion, by granting the Scientology organization IRS tax exempt status, the US turned its back on its citizens who have been and continue to be victimized by the organization, and who are really the people the US should protect and support. When I realized that Scientology's leaders consider that their tax exempt billions depend on silencing me, and that the US courts and government had formed an unholy alliance with the organization, I left California for Canada. I went to Canada where I would be free to some degree to be able to correct Scientology's lies about me, especially to the IRS, without the fear that Scientology could manipulate a court into jailing me for doing so. I pray that Canada will not now be derelict in its duty, and will not turn its back on its citizens whom the country owes protection, but will deny Scientology's application for charity status.

41. Scientology claims to be a religion, and in the US claims all the extraordinary benefits conferred by the US Constitution and Courts on religions. Scientology claims that it is organized solely for religious purposes and that its policies and bulletins, even its intelligence training instructions and its "fair game" policy, are "scriptures." Scientology claims that people and countries opposing its antisocial goals and practices and civil rights abuses are engaging in "religious persecution."

42. In my opinion, it is axiomatic that there is no freedom of religion where there is no freedom to criticize, oppose or reform religion. The US was founded in great part by people fleeing "religious persecution" for opposing, criticizing or seeking to reform a religion, which had the power, often provided by the State, to persecute them. The US recognized the need for its citizens to be free from religious persecution in the Religious Expression and Religious Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

43. Scientology, with its fair game attacks, black PR, gag contracts, and aggressive litigation, is attempting to suppress and eliminate criticism, as well as opposition and reformation efforts. The Courts' enforcement of the organization's gag contracts necessarily assists this one "religion's" suppression and elimination of criticism. Judicial enforcement also results in the promotion and establishment of Scientology by the removal of opposition to its promotion and establishment. Unless the Courts are also willing to become involved in and support every other religion's suppression or elimination of criticism, its judicial assistance to Scientology in its campaign is favoritism, and impermissible. It is a tragedy for all that the US favors the most abusive and irreligious of its "religions."

44. It is inconceivable that any Court in the US or Canada would prosecute someone who under any circumstances signed a "contract" which required that he not discuss God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Bible, or the person's experiences in the Christian religion; or for that matter Allah, Islam, Mohammed, the Koran, the Vedas or Krishna. It is inconceivable that a Christian church in the US or Canada would do what Scientology has done to silence its critics.

45. My case is not unique. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Scientologists and ex-Scientologists in the US and Canada who are bound by this organization's contracts of silence. For this reason alone the statements of Scientology's spokespeople cannot and should not be believed. And for this reason alone charity status should not be granted. Those who would speak the truth have been shuddered by "contract" and by threat into silence. I just happen to be one of the few who have chosen, despite Scientology's threats and attacks using the power of the justice system, to speak up.

46. In the US, constitutionally guaranteed Freedom of Religion has come to mean freedom for the religious corporation and its leaders to persecute the practitioners, as well as the critics, of the "religion." This is a perversion of Freedom, worked by clever lawyers being paid by the corporate persecutors. It must be changed, and true Freedom of Religion reinstituted. The US is the only western country in which people can be jailed for mentioning a religion - Scientology. I pray that Canada not allow Scientology to get the legal foothold it seeks in this country through its application for charity status. If it is granted such status Scientology will be able to more easily persecute its critics and followers and more easily pursue its antisocial and irreligious goals.

47. In my estimation, Scientology is not a religion. It is a psychotherapy cult with a totalitarian nature and destructive organizational goals. It is dangerous, and its leaders are cynical. Hubbard's cynicism when deciding to turn his psychotherapy "clinic" into a religion in the early 1950's is reflected in his comments in a letter Dated April 10, 1953 that he wrote to Helen O'Brien, then his second in command in the US. I had possession of the original of this letter while inside Scientology. Hubbard wrote:

"RE CLINIC, HAS (Hubbard Association of Scientologists) The arrangements that have been made seem a good temporary measure. On a longer look, however, something more equitable will have to be organized. I am not quite sure what we would call the place - probably not a clinic - but I am sure that it ought to be a company, independent of the HAS but fed by the HAS. ....... We don't want a clinic. We want one in operation but not in name. Perhaps we could call it a Spiritual Guidance Center. Think up its name, will you. And we could put in nice desks and our boys in neat blue with diplomas on the walls and 1. knock psychotherapy into history and 2. make enough money to shine up my operating scope and 3. keep the HAS solvent. It is a problem of practical business. I await your reaction on the religion angle. In my opinion, we couldn't get worse public opinion than we have had or have less customers with what we've got to sell. A religious charter would be necessary in Pennsylvania or NJ to make it stick. But I sure could make it stick. We're treating the present time beingness, psychotherapy treats the past and the brain. And brother, that's religion, not mental science."

48. Scientology's cynical viewpoint toward actual religion is also shown in two of Hubbard's bulletins "Routine 3 - Heaven" dated May 11, 1963 and "Resistive Cases - Former Therapy" dated September 23, 1968, true and correct copies of which are appended hereto as Exhibit E and F respectively. In "Routine 3 - Heaven," Hubbard writes:

"For a long while, some people have been cross with me for my lack of co-operation in believing in a Christian Heaven, God and Christ. I have never said I didn't belive in a Big Thetan but there was certainly something very corny about Heaven et al. Now I have to apologize. There was a Heaven. Not too unlike, in cruel betrayal, the heaven of the Assassins in the 12th Century who, like everyone else, dramatized the whole track implants - if a bit more so. "Yes, I've been to Heaven. And so have you. And you have the pattern of itsimplants in the HCO Bulletin Line Plots. It was complete with gates, angels and plaster saints - and electronic implant equipment." (Ex. E, p 1)

49. To the uninitiated, which Scientology calls "raw meat," the organization professes to be compatible with Christianity. It states in its "catechism," published in 1992 in its promotional book What is Scientology?, "Scientologists hold the Bible as a holy work and have no argument with the Christian belief that Jesus Christ was the Savior of Mankind and the Son of God...There are probably many types of redemption. That of Christ was to heaven." In Scientology's actual teachings, however, in the policies and procedures which indoctrinated Scientologists must follow, Jesus Christ, Heaven, and Almighty God, are false ideas " implanted" in man by electronic gadgets to achieve, not man's redemption, but his enslavement. Scientology teaches, moreover, that its procedures, developed by L. Ron Hubbard, are the only way to free man from that "Christian" slavery.

50. In "Resistive Cases - Former Therapy," Hubbard writes:

"Old Therapies include the 2000 yr ago plus or minus Aesculepian drug treatment (hillabore) which produced a convulsion and coma and in which the nut practitioner made up as a God and "visited" the patient in a "dream." This outfit was all over the ancient world.

"Also the Christian Church used (and uses) implanting (with a squirrel version of the "7s"). These gangsters were the Nicomidians from lower Egypt who were chased out for criminal practices (implanting officials). They took over the Niocene Creed before the year zero, invented Christ (who comes from the Crucifixion in R6 75m years ago) and implanted their way to "power." The original Nicomidians date about 600 BC and people who were Christ date at 75 m years ago." (Ex. F, pp 1,2) (parens are Hubbard's)

51. Hubbard claims that his assertion that God, Heaven and Christ are not real, but the content of "implants" from trillions of years ago, is based on thousands of hours of "research."

"It is scientific research and is not in any way based upon mere opinion of the researcher. This HCO Bulletin is not the result of the belief or beliefs of anyone. Scientology data reflects long, arduous and painstaking research over a period of some thirty years into the nature of Man, the mind, the human spirit and its relationship to the physical universe. The data and phenomena discovered in Scientology is common to all minds and all men and can be demonstrated on anyone." (Ex. E, p4)

52. At no time during the years I was inside the organization and working close with Hubbard, did I ever observe that he considered Scientology a religion. At no time during those years did I consider Scientology a religion. Religious status was sought for tax advantages and as a means for getting away with Hubbard's and his organization's abuses and dangerous practices. We in Scientology adopted religious terms and trappings in a very cynical way to forward the organization's irreligious goals. At no time since I left Scientology have organization agents acted in relation to me in a religious manner, nor in a charitable manner. In my opinion, religions should not be officially permitted to get away with a lower standard of conduct and human interaction than non-religions simply because they are "religions." I pray that Scientology be denied charity status in Canada so that its abusive lower standards are not given official sanction, and so that hopefully the organization gets the message that it must cease its abuses.

Sworn to this 27th day of February, 1998, in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

Gerald Armstrong