03 Sep 2000

Beverly Rice <dbj1120@ao.net>

From Tallulah's site (what a gal!!)

http://www.wwwaif.net/loose-ends/cst/index.htm

The Church of Spiritual Technology - Jewel in the Corporate Crown

Even for the Church of Scientology, notorious for its labyrinthine corporate structure and administ rative shell games, the Church of Spiritual Technology stands out.

To call the CST 'mysterious' is rather like calling Mount Everest 'quite a hill.'

Its very existence unknown to most low-level scientologists, even critics who have spent untold hours trying to unravel the web of confusion that lies at the heart of the CoS can find themselves at sea without a compass when trying to navigate the shoals of the CST.

If this were a mere shell corporation, it would be forgiveable to leave CST wrapped in the obscurity its founders craved. But for some, it represents a body of unanswered questions, any one of which could prove to be the Rosetta Stone for comprehending the true power structure within the cult.

The Church of Spiritual Technology - An Overview

Officially, CST's corporate raison d'etre is to act as copyright holder of L. Ron Hubbard's vast collection of published and unpublished works, findings, random ruminations and "research" known within scientology as "the Tech."

Beyond this seemingly straightforward mandate, however, is another, more mysterious responsibility. It is the CST that is charged with ensuring the "survival of the tech," into the millennium and beyond, through a painstaking archiving project that will see Hubbard's every written utterance immortalized on titanium plates, and stored in underground vaults that -- according to CoS legend -- will withstand even a nuclear blast.

This preservation project, virtually unknown to all but the upper ranks of COS officials, operates in strict secrecy, in remote locations throughout the Southwestern United States.

Although it is the Religious Technology Centre that takes on the day-to-day job of enforcing copyright, and policing the use of the tech, when it comes down to it, even RTC - widely considered to be the most powerful organization in the CoS hierarchy - derives the bulk of its powers from its agreements with CST.

On paper, at least, the CST may be the ultimate authority - the power behind the throne from which current RTC Chairman of the Board David Miscavige rules the corporate, spiritual and fiscal roost. .

With assets that totalled more than $500 million (US) at the time of the IRS settlement agreement in 1993, it is clear that the CST is, at the very least, more than just a paper tiger.

Conspiracy theories abound as to its real purpose, from the prosaic suggestion that it acts as a slush fund and money launderomat for illicit funds collected by the CoS that go straight into the pockets of the top executives,

to the radical claim that it is not scientologists, but the U.S. government, in the body of the Internal Revenue Service, that really controls the 'tech', and thus, the church.

Whatever the answer may be, the questions, then, are worth asking, if only to separate the facts from fiction.

ARC for everly little bit helps,

Beverly