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Antonina Maga: Meeting with a former personal secretary to the founder of Scientology
Translation of a Russian article posted on May 19, 2011 on the Russian Orthodox website pravoslavie.ru: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/jurnal/46602.htm
“Scientologists collect the most intimate information about people to turn them into obedient slaves”
Meeting with a former personal secretary to the founder of Scientology
by Antonina Maga
May 19, 2011The activities of destructive sects are one of the most dangerous phenomena of present times, but not many are aware of this danger, because they consider sects as numerically insignificant groups of fanatics with an intense gaze handing out flyers on the streets. This subject has become less popular today, though for a time the media overfed us with stories about various frauds, charlatans, and even sorcerers, and all sorts of pseudoscientists have traditionally enjoyed the respect of multitudes.
The word “spirituality” for us today has lost a vivid practical sense, so everyone can assign their own meaning to it. To the man in the street, sect members appear “religious” in the same way as those who represent traditional religions.
A meeting with Gerry Armstrong at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University provided an opportunity to learn about the real dangers of one of the most powerful sects in the world, a sect that has over the past 20 years made inroads even in Russia. Armstrong was a former personal secretary to the founder of the Scientology sect, L. Ron Hubbard. He became a defector after, having earned the trust of the sect’s creator and gained access to key documents of the organization, he began to understand what he had fallen into.
The meeting was chaired by the president of the St. Irenaeus of Lyon Center of Religious Studies and head of sectarian studies at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Alexander Dvorkin, who helped translate Armstrong’s words from English to Russian.
The former sect member related the story of his life. Today as he travels the world bringing the truth about Scientology to the people of various countries, he is actively tracked, as he has been for the past 30 years already, by the organization’s adherents because, for them, he is now a “suppressive person” and “fair game”. This is what people who think differently are called in Scientology. They are people who prevent Scientology from achieving “world domination” and their destruction is allowed and encouraged with the promise of impunity by Scientology doctrine.
“Any Scientologist fighting a suppressive person may lie to him, sue him, deprive him of property and physically destroy him. Hubbard developed a special technique to destroy a person’s good name, wreck a person’s family and take away property through black PR. There have been repeated attempts on my life. Six lawsuits were launched against me and, as a result, I was bankrupted. The art of waging war by black PR is one of the cult’s fundamental teachings,” says Gerry Armstrong.
According to a U.S. court ruling, Armstrong is prohibited from uttering the word “Scientology”; for each use of this term, he must pay a fine of 50 thousand dollars. People who communicate with Armstrong likewise have to pay the same amount.
The mere fact that, in America, whose highly organized and developed legal system is an example for many countries, such an unprecedented and absurd court decision was handed down is testimony to the might of the Scientologists.
“In Hubbard’s teaching, I was very attracted by the fact that he presented himself as a civil engineer and physicist, and all of Scientology as built on scientific rather than religious principles. But the more I became acquainted with the doctrine, the more I found that these ideas are occult in nature and have no relation to science.
“I was told that my IQ would increase by one point after each hour of auditing – special training similar to confession. I had over a thousand hours of auditing. This evidently means I must now be very smart. Of course, I’m kidding – my IQ did not rise one iota. However, I did have enough sense to run away from there.
“Each auditing session is recorded and the persons who conduct the training are not required to respect the secrecy of the ‘confession’. On the contrary, they collect the most intimate information about people to turn them into obedient slaves,” says Gerry Armstrong.
However, America is not the only place where the sect’s followers have ample opportunities. Not very long ago, in the 1990s, their activity spread throughout Russia.
One only has to recall that, at every turn, there are research institutes bearing “Dianetics” signs and that the Faculty of Journalism library at Moscow State University pompously opened a reading room named after L. Ron Hubbard, touting him as a prominent science fiction writer and nuclear physicist.
Answering a question from the pravoslavie.ru correspondent about how much Scientology has expanded in Russia today, Armstrong replies that, unlike Americans, people in our country are less attracted to such ”pseudoscientific” theory, but cult members are actively developing different ways of recruiting members in accordance with the mentality of the people with whom they work. Armstrong says, “In Russia, there are enough educated people who won’t fall for the promise to raise their IQ and won’t consider that all the evil in the world is due to suppressive persons against whom a war has to be waged. But in third world countries today, Scientology has a great number of followers, and this is a very dangerous trend. Our opposition to Scientology can be described as a state of balance: the cultists have not won, but they have not lost. The danger is that, at any time, this balance can be broken.”
“Scientologists themselves consider that there are about 500,000 followers in Russia today and 125,000 in Moscow. I think this is a lie, just self-PR, the cult’s favorite technology,” he adds.
But the essence of Scientology’s teachings is very close to the modern world view. They offer an applied art of making money, instead of answering the eternal questions. Sect members insist they make people rich and happy. No need to think about the distant afterlife; everything is here and now.
The work of Scientologists is likened to the operations of intelligence services. Their penetration is aimed at enterprises in the military-industrial complex and at secure facilities. For “religious dissemination”, the cult has always chosen strategically important targets. “Scientology itself is an intelligence agency. I think that, in 1993, when the U.S. government stopped prosecuting adherents of the sect, government agencies in the U.S. may have reached an agreement with them to use espionage information gathered by Scientologists,” says Armstrong. “One of the main goals of Scientology is to collect and store a large volume of information so that it can be used to discredit anyone and gain control: from the rank and file sect member who strays from the fold to the high and mighty over whom control opens up unlimited possibilities,” asserts Armstrong.
In the late 1990s, Russian authorities waged war on Scientology: offices were scrutinized by intelligence agents and the tax police. The State Duma declared Scientology a totalitarian sect and called for a ban on its activities in Russia. This ended when the European Court of Human Rights decided to register Scientology as a religious organization. Today, the 1997 law “On Freedom of Conscience” is in force and Scientology cannot be registered as a religion, so Scientologists are not entitled to receive tax benefits from the state (as, for example, they managed to do in America). However, the law allowed them to register as a non-profit partnership, which can freely exercise its activities in Russia, like any other non-profit organization.
Stanislav Kolotvin: Gerry Armstrong: “A U.S. court has authorized the Scientology cult to forcibly retain its recalcitrant members”
Translation of a Russian article posted on May 19, 2011 on the website of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University: http://pstgu.ru/news/tech_notice/2011/05/24/29993/
Gerry Armstrong: “A U.S. court has authorized the Scientology cult to forcibly retain its recalcitrant members”
by Stanislav Kolotvin
Photos by Alisa Merkulova
May 19, 2011
Gerry Armstrong is in Russia for what is already the fourth time. He has previously traveled to cities such as Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod. Each of his visits has, like the past 30 years of his life, been devoted to exposing the true nature of the Scientology sect, a task for which Mr. Armstrong uses the documents he has preserved concerning the activities of L. Ron Hubbard.
The central theme of Mr. Armstrong’s lecture, which was translated by his longtime friend, Professor Alexander Dvorkin, head of sectarian studies at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, was Scientology’s doctrine regarding “suppressive persons” – the evildoers and psychopaths who are to blame for all the troubles on earth. However, among the people that Scientologists have put on this list, there are no criminals or even mentally ill persons. All “suppressive persons” are critics of Scientology, such as Mr. Armstrong. According to the teachings of L. Ron
Hubbard, whose word, for Scientologists, is sacred and requires compliance, “suppressive persons” are subject to the doctrine of “Fair Game”, according to which any suppressive person becomes a “legitimate prey” for Scientologists. It is incumbent on followers of the sect to strive to seize the person’s property and, if necessary, to physically destroy an opponent. The “suppressive person” doctrine is highly reminiscent of the Nazi theory regarding “subhumans”.
After he left the sect, Gerry Armstrong was declared a “suppressive person” and there have been six attempts on his life in the U.S. and in Germany. In addition, a campaign of “black PR” has been waged against him for many years on the internet, and Scientologists brought lawsuits against him in the U.S. and complained about him to the FBI and even to courts in Yekaterinburg. Five million dollars were spent over 30 years for the services of lawyers around the world whose sole concern was to send Mr. Armstrong to jail on fabricated charges!
The reason for which Scientologists have no scruples about the means they use to fight against Gerry Armstrong becomes clear when one considers his biography. Mr. Armstrong became involved with the sect in 1969 and he began working in a low-paid post as a dishwasher. However, he quickly rose through Scientology’s ranks of Scientology and he was soon accepted into the “Sea Organization”, which united the members of the sect who were close to Hubbard. In 1972, he became head of legal services, and, in 1974, he was the head of Scientology’s own intelligence service. Throughout this time, Armstrong was on Hubbard’s personal ship, the “Apollo”, as the sect’s founder sailed along the European coast (with the exception of 1973, when Hubbard was convicted of fraud in France). Armstrong was soon entrusted with a mission to go to Los Angeles and establish a central Scientology base there, but he got into an argument with the secretary of Hubbard’s third wife and was sent to the so-called “Rehabilitation Project Force” (RPF), a kind of Scientology gulag.
The RPF is designed to break a person’s will. Offending Scientologists are assigned the dirtiest and heaviest labor, and they are forbidden to speak to
other sect members, except to answer questions. He literally had to eat the food left in plates by others after their meals. He did not have the right to walk normally; he could only run. His already low Scientology wages were reduced and, during his 17 months in the RPF, Mr. Armstrong received 4 U.S. dollars and 30 cents a week. For the slightest offense, RPF inmates were forced to run to exhaustion up and down stairs. The duration of stay in the RPF was not specified at all, but only depended on the mood of the sect’s leaders.
At the end of his first assignment to the RPF, Armstrong was entrusted with organizing the shooting of films about Hubbard, but the sect’s founder soon thought that Armstrong was allowing himself to refer jokingly to these films, so Hubbard again ordered the offender to the RPF. After 8 months of confinement, Armstrong oversaw the creation of Scientology’s current headquarters in California.
During searches in 1977, American police uncovered documents that resulted in jail sentences for 11
high-ranking Scientologists, led by Hubbard’s third wife. When it became known in 1979 that a new search was imminent, Armstrong was ordered to destroy all documents that compromised L. Ron Hubbard. He faithfully executed the order, until he found about 20 boxes of various old documents, including Hubbard’s personal diaries. He did not destroy them because he felt they had historical value, and he requested that he be assigned to the drafting of a new autobiography of the sect’s founder. It is at this point that the total deception on which Scientology is built was unveiled to Armstrong.
He had previously admired Hubbard as a nuclear physicist, as a recipient of 27 senior military awards that he supposedly earned at the sacrifice of his health (including his eyesight, which was miraculously restored), as the author of numerous scientific studies, as an exemplary family man. Now he had before him evidence that Hubbard sat out the war on the home front, was expelled from his second year of university, and abducted his own children from different marriages. Armstrong realized that he had wasted 12 years of his life, that after a thousand hours of Scientology “auditing” procedures, his IQ had not increased at the promised rate of 1 point per hour, and that he had not received the promised super-powers.
Armstrong thought about everything and he fled from the sect in 1982. He immediately became the target of lawsuits. Scientology lost the first case, but then came a series of absurd court rulings, o
ne of which allows Mr. Armstrong to be fined fifty thousand dollars for each utterance of the word “Scientology” or for mentioning any of the members of the sect or any organization that cooperates with Scientology. The same fine, according to the court order, applies to all individuals and organizations that cooperate and are in agreement with Mr. Armstrong, for example the Russian Orthodox Church and the police of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Mr. Armstrong explained why the U.S. federal government, which had previously opposed Scientology, decided in 1993 to make it an ally. One reason was the activities of the Scientologists to undermine the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its upper management. After 1993, the IRS began providing help to Scientologists, a complete reversal. But the main reason for U.S. cooperation with Scientology is the sect’s mode of operation. During the “auditing” procedure (for which each session costs a considerable amount of money), all members of the sect have to give an account of themselves to their seniors and to disclose the most secret and embarrassing aspects of their lives and of the lives of their relatives and friends. Their revelations are recorded on audio and in writing and then transferred to the sect’s headquarters in California. Scientologists thus possess intelligence from around the world. Since Scientologists primarily try to attract influential persons – intelligence specialists, famous actors, business people and politicians – it becomes clear why the U.S. government has so zealously been trying to aid the spread of Scientology.
However, by working with Scientologists, the United States is betraying its own citizens. In 2010, a U.S. court handed down a ruling according to which Scientologists may legally hold recalcitrant members of their sect in custody and forcibly take them back if they escape! In addition, U.S. authorities support a number of committees established by Scientologists which supposedly fight for human rights and even help … victims of Scientology!
During Mr. Armstrong’s conference at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, the lecture hall was full and people were standing in the aisles. The main part of his talk ended with a long round of applause and the speaker was then bombarded with questions. Responding to one question, for example, Mr. Armstrong explained how Scientology is dangerous to sect members themselves – it is dangerous for their mental health, it destroys their families, their financial savings disappear with the ever-growing number of costly hypnotic procedures, and cult members mobilize to fight against “suppressive persons”.
When asked about the number of people fleeing the sect, the lecturer said that the scale is difficult to evaluate because Scientologists have many levers to force these people to remain silent: the compromising information collected during their time in the sect, death threats, restricting contact with relatives who remain in the sect. News of senior members leaving the sect resonates more loudly. Books have recently been published by four persons who not very long ago belonged to Scientology’s elite. True information about Scientology is the best way to prevent its spread in Europe and Russia, but Scientologists are now directing their efforts toward third world countries where knowledge of the cult’s sad reputation has not yet gotten through.
The university’s guest also mentioned that, during this visit, he will meet with officials of Russia’s Ministry of Justice to offer advice in connection with complaints against Russia filed at the Strasbourg court by Scientologists.
Summing up the evening, the Vice-Rector of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Archpriest Georgiy Orekhanov, said that all those assembled are, of course, Mr. Armstrong’s friends, with all the judicial consequences this entails, and that the university’s administration would be glad to have him as a guest whenever he decides to come back to Russia.
Alexander Filippov: Former personal secretary to Scientology founder at St. Tikhon’s University
Translation of a Russian article posted on May 19, 2011 on pravmir.ru, a website devoted to Orthodox news: http://www.pravmir.ru/v-svyato-tixonovskom-universitete-vystupil-byvshij-lichnyj-sekretar-osnovatelya-sajentologii/
Former personal secretary to Scientology founder at St. Tikhon’s University
by Alexander Filippov,
Student at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University
May 19, 2011Gerry Armstrong, former personal secretary to Ron Hubbard, founder of the “Church of Scientology”, spoke at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University on May 18 at 7 P.M. The meeting was attended by university teachers and associates and by numerous guests. The hall was filled to capacity and the meeting lasted two hours.
Gerry Armstrong
During his talk, Gerry Armstrong spoke about the history of the “Church of Scientology “, one of the most dangerous cults in the world today, and about his work in this organization, his personal impressions of his encounters with Hubbard, the contents of Hubbard’s personal documents, his escape from the totalitarian organization, and his subsequent fight against it.
Gerry Armstrong answered many questions from the audience. He spoke about the danger that the sect poses for private individuals and for society as a whole. In particular, he explained how cooperation began between the cult and the U.S. government in 1993 and how security services, as well as then U.S. President Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, were involved in taking the decision regarding this cooperation..
Gerry Armstrong will meet on May 19 with officials of the Russian Ministry of Justice to provide information for combatting the spread of this destructive organization in Russia.
Archpriest Father Konstantin Ivanchenko: Meeting with former Hubbard archivist and biographer Gerry Armstrong
Translation of a journal entry posted in Russian on May 19, 2011on the blog of Archpriest Father Konstantin Ivanchenko:
http://okonstantin.livejournal.com/17269.html
Meeting with former Hubbard archivist and biographer Gerry Armstrong
by Father Konstantin Ivanchenko
May 19, 2011 2:32 A.M.Alexander Dvorkin invited Father Alexei Volkov and us to a meeting with Gerry Armstrong at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University, where we are studying.
Gerry Armstrong is the former archivist of Ron Hubbard, the founder of the American totalitarian sect, the “Church of Scientology”. At the end of 1981, he left the sect and devoted his life to aiding those who suffer from this organization.
Gerry talks at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University May 18, 2011
Source: http://pstgu.ru/news/university/2011/05/11/29777/
Gerry Armstrong, former personal secretary to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University
On May 18, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University will host a meeting with Gerry Armstrong, former personal secretary to Ron Hubbard, founder of an American totalitarian sect, the ”Church of Scientology”. Since leaving the sect, he has devoted his life to aiding the victims of this destructive cult.
After entering the sect, Gerry Armstrong rose to the elite circle that completely controls the lives of ordinary members. He received a special assignment to compile the official biography of cult founder Ron Hubbard. As he gained familiarity with authentic documents while working on the biography, Gerald became convinced that the entire Scientology empire is based on lies and exists solely for the sake of money and world domination.
The sect’s leadership first tried applying to him to the standard practice of “re-education”, depriving him of contact with people and assigning him to hard physical labor in the company of other “offending” members of the sect. When Mr. Armstrong decided to finally break with the sect, he was subjected to every aspect of Scientology’s “fair game” doctrine, which is directed against the sect’s critics. To this day, he is unable to return home to the U.S.A., where Scientologists, using their lobbies in the country’s political and judicial system, had Gerry Armstrong sentenced to multimillion-dollar fines and imprisonment. Armstrong was forced into exile in Germany.
Despite repeated attempts on his life, Gerry Armstrong continues to reveal the true nature of Scientology, as attested by the documents he has preserved.
Location: Rector’s Building, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University (Bakhrushin Street 2/ 5), 1st floor, room 101
Time: May 18, 2011, beginning at 6 P.M.
Admission is free. Bring personal identification.
Some of the details about me are inaccurate, but understandable and forgiveable because of translations into Russian from the English language documents on my site, and common editorial errors. I will have the opportunity to correct the record during my talk at St. Tikhon’s University and during the rest of my trip to Russia.
I was Hubbard’s Biography Researcher and Archivist in his Personal Office, not his personal secretary.
Hubbard twice assigned me to Scientology’s re-education camps, the RPF, but this was before I became his Researcher and Archivist. I would have been locked up, and I believed killed, if the cult’s leadership had discovered I was planning to blow while on the biography project, but I successfully escaped.
I’m a Canadian citizen, and my home is in Canada. In 1997, I left the US, where my home then was, because of threats from Scientology, and returned to Canada.
Because of Scientology’s actions and threats while I was in Canada, in early May 2002, Caroline and I traveled to Germany, where we had greater security and where we built my web site to defend against the cult’s legal and extralegal fair game. We stayed there until the end of January 2004, and had to return to Canada in order to defend against Scientology’s lawsuit (Armstrong VII) that was served on me in Germany. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a7/3388.php
Although Scientology sought $10,050,000 in liquidated damages against me in that case, the cult obtained a judgment in April 2004 for $500,000, which is just as unconscionable and unlawful as the multimillions the cult was seeking. The fines Scientology obtained against me are in addition to the liquidated damages judgment.
Scientology obtained orders sentencing me to jail in California, and those are still pending. If I ever showed up in California, and possibly anywhere in the US, I could be jailed, and because of my hundreds of thousands of violations of the cult’s unlawful injunction, potentially I could be jailed for the rest of my life.
There haven’t been any attempts on my life that I know of, although Scientologists or the cult’s hired agents have physically assaulted me six times, threatened to assassinate me, terrorized me very dangerously on highways, and certainly Miscavige and his cohorts want me dead. As the pressures increase on Miscavige, et al., and they don’t sue for peace, the likelihood of an attempt on my life will predictably also increase.
The great debate debate
Dear Jesse:
I’ve read what you’ve written.
You wrote:
@Jerry Armstrong: Dear Jerry, just so you know I don’t argue or debate with anyone on news groups or blogs. You seem to have many questions and you seem to have many contridictions to “My Story”. I have two suggestions for you.
1. Please take the time to read what I have written. I think if you do, many of your questions will be answered.
2. Write your own book or start your own blog. You don’t need to ride my coat tail to suddenly bring up all of these counter points.
Well okay it’s three.
3. Keep reading, it can only help.
Thank you, Jesse Prince
In most instances, I really wasn’t seeking arguments, or even debate actually, but facts. I understand why you would characterize my requests for facts as requests to argue or debate, but these are different things.
It’s true that in my first communication in the recent series I asked you to rethink what you had written about people who settled with Scientology. I would certainly have been happy to debate my request, or my facts in support of my request, but the rethinking of what you had written could have been done without debate.
A debate, of course, on blogs, is a discussion of a proposition – something offered for consideration or acceptance — between two or more people. And debates, virtually necessarily, involve facts; the better the facts, potentially the better the debate.
When a blog permits comments, as you do, the blogger, essentially, is inviting debate; that is, discussion of what the blogger offers for consideration or acceptance, and discussion of what the commenters offer for consideration or acceptance.
I haven’t opened up my blog for comments, so I’m not, on my blog, inviting discussion of what I’m offering up for consideration or acceptance. Maybe that will change, but for now I’m clearly not inviting debate. Whenever I post something on a newsgroup, message board or blog like yours, I know I am inviting others to debate whatever I write; that is, to discuss what I’ve offered for consideration or acceptance.
That doesn’t always mean, of course, that I debate everything that’s offered for my, or others,’ consideration or acceptance. I wouldn’t consider, however, not discussing what’s offered for consideration or acceptance – debating — because of a policy or rule of never discussing what’s offered for consideration or acceptance – debating. I could see where not discussing anything offered up for consideration or acceptance could be desirable on, for example, Mount Athos, or in Scientology, but not on blogs that invite discussion.
People are free to take whatever I post on my blog to forums where debate is invited, and I would have an expectation of what I write being debated, or at least being there for debating, at such sites. So really I am inviting discussion of what I offer for consideration or acceptance on my blog. I’m just not having the discussion on my blog.
The fact is that you offered a number of significant claimed historical facts and opinions on your blog for consideration or acceptance. Accepting only acceptance, or saying you don’t debate, on a blog you control that invites debate, is debatable as a strategy.
Regarding my taking the time to read what you’ve written, I debated this in a discussion of what Michael Hobson offered on this topic for consideration or acceptance on your blog. I also posted my response to his offer on my blog: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/archives/4856
I assume, to be at all reasonable, you must mean in your suggestion that I am to read what you’ve written on your blog. Ironically, as you can imagine, it was precisely because I did read what you had written on your blog that I had the questions I had to ask.
I think that, where it was relevant or appropriate, I quoted that part of what you’d written that I was asking questions about. I attempted to provide from what you’d written enough context to make what I was asking about or discussing easy to understand. Along with the questions I asked, these quotes from your blog should demonstrate that I’d read what you’d written, or at least that I had made a real effort to demonstrate that I’d read it.
I could have made it easier to get, I suppose, and stated, as I’ve done above, that I’d read what you’d written before quoting what you’d written and asking questions about it. I really thought that would have been obvious, but, perhaps obviously, it wasn’t.
The idea of debate, on forums that invite it, being something to be avoided, as if avoiding it is a superior activity or path to debating, has acquired some new proponents recently, on the forums, and to me, there’s no debate.
I actually did read what you had written before I formulated my questions, and I even read what you had written after I formulated them in order to discover if you had provided answers in a different place from where I had excerpted the quotes that caused me to have the questions. I won’t repeat my questions now, but I was quite sure that the answers are not in what I’ve read that you’ve written.
In a situation like this, where the person asking you questions is sincere, and his questions are on-topic and reasoned, it’s not great form to tell the sincere questioner to go read what you’ve written. If the answers do exist in what you’ve written, the appropriate response is to direct the questioner there.
Regarding writing my own book or starting my own blog, I imagine that from the links in my comments on your blog, you know that I have a blog. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/
I have a couple of books, but, as you know, I have the Scientology judgment to take care of in the case in which I asked for your testimonial help, the case in which Bob Minton was my co-defendant.
You’re right that I don’t need to ride your coattails to suddenly bring up all of these counter points, whatever they were. I think you must mean my bringing up facts, or what I’d considered facts, that might have counterpointed certain facts in what you’d written. Rest assured that I brought up whatever counterpoints I brought up as suddenly as I did simply because you had just brought up the points I was moved to counterpoint. And, importantly, you provided the opportunity to counterpoint your points by opening up your blog to questions, or to discussions of the points you offered for consideration or acceptance.
I have an approach that is different from refusing to discuss facts I offer for consideration or acceptance, and actually necessary for my survival and peace of mind. I appreciate when someone questions my facts, especially when someone points out something I’ve said or written that is not the best factually. I’m very aware that anything I write can be used in court cases to challenge me or impugn my facts and character. Consequently, if I have my facts wrong, I’m grateful when they’re pointed out and I have an opportunity to correct them. I’ve testified in Scientology related cases something over 70 days and written many declarations or affidavits, and this approach and standard have served me well. I’d suggest giving it a try and see if it doesn’t work for you.
Riding your coattails in order to bring up counterpoints, or for any reason frankly, is a very funny image. I hadn’t even thought of you with coattails until you suddenly announced I was riding them. And then it reminded me, and just keeps reminding me, of this old sailors’ work song sung, so they say, in Canada’s donkey age. The original mentions Québec and Miramichi. I got my implant in Music class, I think in Grade 7. Way O and away we go.
About cases Bob Minton settled
Because I refused to cooperate with Scientology my punishment was “disconnection” and “fair game” as practiced in Scientology. With the exception of the Wollersheim case, Bob and Scientology made sure that I was not paid for any of the work I’d done in the cases they were able to settle. Even though I stood with Ken Dandar till the end on the Lisa McPherson case, I was not paid a dime for my work. It was the same in the Dennis Erlich case; I never even got a call thanking me for helping. The Scientology plan was to starve me and my family and cause us to lose everything we had. Their plans worked for the most part. http://princejesse53.blogspot.com/2011/04/finale-here-it-is-for-you-now.html
Dear Jesse:
I’m hoping you’ll provide some details about the matters you’ve raised here.
What cases were Bob and Scientology able to settle?
They didn’t settle McPherson, Wollersheim, or Erlich. They did settle Armstrong VII, but you could not have worked on that case surely. I asked you for help in that case, but, as I mentioned, you wouldn’t. Bob and the LMT settled out of that case in, I believe, 2003, and I have no details about what the conditions of the settlement were. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2003-07-24.html
I have no doubt that Bob was pressured mightily by a number of people to turn on me, but I have seen no evidence that that happened. It’s possible the Scientologists have a stack of documents they got Bob to sign that they’re waiting to dump on me and the world when it suits them, but so far I have to be grateful to Bob for not totally giving in as the people who hate us wanted.
Scientology didn’t file Armstrong VII until April 2, 2002, which was after Bob and Stacy were, essentially, not working with you on Scientology cases.
The Haney case was also not settled by Bob and Scientology. So I’m wondering what were the cases they were able to settle that you worked on?
It seems to me that Bob couldn’t be responsible for you not being paid in the McPherson case, and actually Scientology couldn’t either. This settlement, of course, was in 2004, two years after Bob’s withdrawal from any involvement in the case. The people responsible for paying you or not would be the Estate representative and attorneys for the Estate at the time of the settlement. According to this SP Times article, “it was Lirot, Dandar and his brother, and McPherson’s aunt, Dell Liebreich.” http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/29/Tampabay/Scientologists_settle.shtml
Regarding Dennis not calling you and thanking you for helping in his case, the same happened with me. But he settled with Scientology in 1999, three years before Bob’s agreements with Scientology. I think I recall too that Bob was not happy with Dennis settling as he did, and not acknowledging people like yourself, because Dennis had apparently stated that he would never be silenced or some such thing, and then became silent. But I can’t see how Bob made sure you weren’t paid in the Erlich case.
If Dennis, Dandar, Dandar, Dell, Lirot and Haney didn’t pay you for work they should have paid you for, they certainly helped Scientology, which I have no doubt would have loved to see you ruined and starving. I just don’t think it’s right to view Bob as responsible for these people not paying you in cases in which he had zero control.
Answer to Ray Hill on Jesse’s blog
@Gerry: I read the contract, and at first I thought it must have to do with protecting a then ongoing lawsuit. But there are disturbing terms in there, like “shall remain confidential forever.” Forever?
I also find troubling that the expert would have to agree beforehand that a breach “will cause irreparable damage” and yet further state that “damages may be difficult to ascertain.”
The most troubling part though is that “injunctive relief” may be entered against the expert’s “employees, family members and/or business” along with a minimum of $2.5M fine… WTF!?
I can see why would anyone balk at signing this, Caroline sure did the right thing.
This boggles me. Is this standard contract for expert witnesses?
I have testified as an expert witness in several Scientology-related lawsuits, and I never was requested to sign such a document.
Before Caroline flew to Florida, when Ken Dandar spoke with her about her future freedom to communicate if hired as an expert, he told her that she would be free to talk to me. When she arrived in his office, however, with Ms. Greenway, Lirot and Dandar there, she was told that the “agreement” would apply to talking to me. This was unacceptable for obvious reasons. She would not be able to tell me even if the people on the McPherson side lied to her or abused her in any way, which, it had already been observed, could happen. The “agreement” and its interpretation would create a situation between Caroline and me that Scientology would love and exploit.
See these a.r.s. threads from that period:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/browse_thread/thread/d7931f3080e4a31f/a1097a00c3189b78?hl=en&q=McPherson+caroline+group:alt.religion.scientology#a1097a00c3189b78
There is a bunch more attacks from that period by people ostensibly on the McPherson side.
When all this happened, we thought that this “agreement” sounded like it was related to protecting movie rights – The Lisa McPherson Story, not The Profit – and not protecting the interests of the Lisa McPherson Estate.
Edit: Here’s Bob’s April 24, 2002 statement about Caroline:
54. Subsequently I caused to be issued a check dated March 7, 2002, in the amount of $250,000 payable to Ken Dandar. Mr. Dandar called me on the 15th of March to tell me my check had not been received at his office. I told him I had sent it to his PO Box. I included the check with other papers so it wouldn’t be seen by his staff. I enclosed the check in an essay from Caroline Letkeman. (Caroline Letkeman had written this essay in an LMT essay contest and was paid a few thousand dollars as a prize by the LMT. In response to an inquiry from Mr. Dandar, I had advised him to use Ms. Letkeman as an expert witness.) I told Mr. Dandar that the check was inside that document, at page 23. Mr. Dandar, who was out of town, told me he sent Donna West to pick up the overnight mail pack and then Mr. Dandar called me to confirm it had been received. alt.religion.scientology
To Jesse about Hubbard at Gilman Hot Springs
Dear Jesse:
You write:
What the above people and myself had in common was we had all worked and communicated directly with L Ron Hubbard at some point in our Scientology sojourn and times of our mutual experiences varied greatly. Few of us had worked together with L Ron at the same time. I realized what I had that was unique among my peers. I’d been there with L Ron and for L Ron during the last four years of his life. L Ron did not live in the same place where I lived at Golden Era Production nor was he there all of the time. He was there some of the time and that’s what needed to be talked about. To date no one has written anything about this part of L Ron’s life and this became a valid subject for me to write about. http://princejesse53.blogspot.com/2011/04/finale-here-it-is-for-you-now.html
I last saw Hubbard at Gilman in 1979. I was based in LA from early 1980 through 1981, but came to Gilman a number of times throughout that period, and had never heard of Hubbard being there after 1979.
I have never before heard that in the period from the fall of 1982 when you arrived at Gilman through January 1986 when Hubbard died he had been there some of the time.
I think Marty has said that he never met Hubbard, and it seems odd that you would have been working with Hubbard at Gilman when Marty had not.
So you know, there are people who have written about that part of Hubbard’s life actually. Steve Pfauth, who was with Hubbard in Creston, comes to mind. He’s never mentioned, that I know of, Hubbard coming back to Gilman during the year you were there.
I agree that the time Hubbard was at Gilman is worth writing about, so I hope you’ll post about your interactions with him at Gilman.
You write in your August 20, 1999 affidavit for the Estate of Lisa McPherson v. Scientology case:
5. In the position of “Deputy Inspector General, External”, I was in charge of supervising all activities in every aspect of Scientology, i.e., supervising senior management structure of the “mother church”, Church of Scientology International, CSI. In the hierarchy of all of Scientology, I was only two steps removed from L. Ron Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard gave his orders to David Miscavige who in turn gave them to me to supervise, delegate and enforce their execution. http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/prince19990820.html
This was the idea I’d gathered from that affidavit and your early similar statements.
I’m looking forward to reading your details about Hubbard at Gilman.
More on Jesse’s blog
@Gerry Armstrong: I just reviewed all all of the few posts here on Jesse’s blog and I see no such “smack talk” about you or any of the others who ended up settling with Co$.
You might consider paying less attention to what you are told by others and instead, using your God-given eyes to read what actually is and has been written by Jesse, which you clearly have not.
Michael A. Hobson
TheSneakster on Ex-Scn Message Board
May 2, 2011 11:57 PM
Well, of course, clearly I haven’t read what actually is and has been written by Jesse. Someone would have to be a pretty big blowhard to even suggest he had.
I can’t imagine anyone, other than Jesse, maybe, who has read what actually is and has been written by him. And even he might have written something, or maybe even a lot of things, and then not read what he’d written.
I have read what I know of that Jesse has written that has been made publicly available over the past 13 or so years. But what I’ve read has to be but a fraction of what actually is and has been written by Jesse.
I realize you’re not actually claiming that you’ve read what actually is and has been written by Jesse, but you also imply that you’ve read something that I haven’t. So if you could please refer me to the material you’ve read that you are certain I have clearly not read, it would be enlightening and very helpful.
I trust you’ve read what actually is and has been written by me that I’ve made publicly available over the past many years.
It’s quite a semantic marvel to urge someone to do something you’re urging them not to do. To pay less attention to what I’m told by others, and instead to read what I’m being told by Jesse, is terribly exclusionist, almost Scientological. How many times did we hear, “Pay less attention to what you are told by others and instead read what actually is and has been written by LRH.”
Seriously, isn’t Jesse among the others in the world who have told me, or might tell me, something? You’re telling me I might consider paying less attention to what I’m told by others. I can’t help but put you in that category. I could see how that could apply to you, but I really can’t generalize the idea of paying less attention to you, for example, into paying less attention to others. There are just too many others, and they include some people that I at least would not want to pay less attention to.
I have to assume that you’re not flat out BSing, and that you’re urging me to do something that has worked well for some time for you. It seems appropriate to ask how much less attention you now pay to what others tell you, or are you able to pay no attention whatsoever to what others tell you? And how has replacing paying attention to what others told you with reading what actually is and has been written by Jesse actually worked out for you? It’s clear that you want me to have the gains you’ve had, but I actually would like to know what they are actually are.
It is odd, and I’d think embarrassing, you’d have to admit, that you reviewed all the posts on Jesse’s blog looking for “smack talk” when I had written that, “Some months ago, a longtime friend told me” about Jesse “talking smack about me.” You conducted a search and successfully did not find what wasn’t there and no one said was there.
The reason I was told that Jesse gave for putting me down those some months ago is what is relevant, and relates to what he wrote about Scientology’s victims settling their claims with Scientology. To my knowledge, Jesse has never been in that position or group, and I would guess the same is true of you. I’m aware that Jesse had put me in that group, according to what someone had told me, as I said, some months ago, but it is not a group as Jesse describes us, or them, and I think it is unwise to continue to view the group and talk about the group as he has.
I think that that group should be defended if there’s a defense, which I have provided as well as I could, from undeserved disparagement, and I don’t know of others who are standing up for this group at this time. The group certainly includes Paulette Cooper, who settled with the cult in the ‘80’s, in the same era I did. I’m sure she settled to have Scientology’s war on her end, not to be silenced.
Scientology and Scientologists like Marty will say that Paulette sold a piece of her soul, and doubtlessly those people will claim that they bought a piece of her soul. These would-be soul merchants are lying. Don’t buy their lies. Paulette’s soul is intact. My soul is intact. Don’t postulate me with my soul missing pieces, and don’t postulate the rest of Scientology’s victims missing pieces of their souls.
This is not to say that some settling claimants haven’t done evil things, like the Aznarans, who took the cult’s money and ripped off and turned on their attorney and other Scientology victims. But all settling claimants didn’t do such things, and all sorts people have done such things who are unrelated to the Scientology problem.
I would like to know from you who you put in the group of people who settled with Scientology that Jesse is talking about. I’d also, naturally, like to know from him. I think this is a good issue to get out of the way so that Jesse, and, of course, people like yourself who don’t pay much attention to what others tell them but read what actually is and has been written by Jesse, can rethink their unfavorable and unhelpful opinion of this subset of Scientology victims.
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/15-media/private-eye-reviews-compilation-apologetic-lies-accurately-43736/
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?t=30464&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=