18 Sep 2000

Keith Henson <hkhenson@netcom3.netcom.com>

Arel, Brent and Mirele went off to picket Sunday morning. Since my civil rights have been compromised by the DA acting for the cult, I figured I would--go to church! While this is no doubt a common experience for a lot of people, I have not seen much of the inside of a regular church for 40 years. I picked The Dwelling Place, where, according to two other members of the clergy, the minister had been wire tapped, presumably by the cult, some years go. It might not have been the best choice.

I checked my flyer supply before going. It was kind of low, so I went by Kinkos for a refill. If the congregation members wanted some that would be fine, if not, I could always use them elsewhere.

After picking up the flyers, I spent a little while trying to lose my thugs (multiple thugs today, some had gone out with the others) Frank Petty was my thug-of-the-day. I thought I had lost him for a while, but no such luck. I did manage to trap him where I could get out of the car and get a close up right next to his car. It's a short clip. Perhaps I could get it encoded and shipped off to LMT.

Heh, when I got the clip, I did a U-turn and stopped at a light. There were a bunch of guys picking over some kind of dispute. They were astonished at the wild scene of me stopping and jumping out with a camera. I explained to them that the guy in the car behind me was a PI thug working for scientology and he was tailing me to *church*. Boy will they have a story to tell.

I got to the church about half an hour before service started. I did not intend to subject them to any more than they wanted of this fight. I was very up front with the people directing traffic and the greeters/ushers. Some were very interested in the story in my tale of being followed there by scientology thugs and one of them had read the article in the paper about me from the previous day. Her comment "it was about time somebody got up the nerve." I was intruded to the ministers wife. She was enthusiastic about my "mission" and introduced me Earnie, Bob's assistant.

Bob had not seen the article in the paper, but he had seen me on the corner of Florida and State. His comment was "bless you brother, bless you. I was going to stop and talk, but there is such a jam right there." He had also seen me out at gold about the time I started picketing there. I discussed how scientology turns their people into such psychological basket cases that they can't deal with picket signs about their own "religion." I told Earnie I was looking for allies in this project. Earnie was enthusiastic, took flyers with him and suggested that the pastor might want him to make some more copies since I didn't have nearly enough for the whole group.

Earnie told me to take a seat up front and that he expected I would be recognized and introduced to the congregation. This was *way* beyond my expectations. I took a seat and started talking with two women in the row behind where I was sitting. I told them about my thugs and showed them the video (playback mode on the camera) I had just taken of Frank. They got a laugh out of Franks antics taping me taping him.

I was explaining how a few signs were totally disrupting gold base and was digging out a flyer for them when an usher came up and said "Hi, how are you? I'm Allen xxxxx, what's your name?"

I told him, and he said, "Nice to meet you Keith. You know, I know who you are and we are really glad you are here, but I tell you what, we had rather not be spreading out information and handing things out." I replied "OK." and put the flyers back I was about to hand to the women. He went on, "We have been really talking about it there's really no need to. Were're here to worship Jesus this morning, your welcome to be here and worship Jesus with us but we are not here to draw attention to any one person."

My response was to offer to leave if they didn't want me there and I explained that I had led a number of PIs there. He said they were welcome to come too "as long as it was about Jesus--all right? Nice to meet you and God bless you. Thanks for coming." There was a definite edge of irritation in his voice. Talk about a rapid turn around! But after reading pstc's Call to Arms posting this morning, I could hardly say it was unexpected.

I continued the conversation with the women after he left. One of them asked if we would picket the Mormons and JW? I mentioned that when the Mormons were the same age as scientology they were treated a lot worse. Neither of them were aware of the recent deaths out at gold.

At this point Arel came in and reported that gold was *deserted* except for the guards at the gate. It was much like the times I picketed before and after Memorial Day.

The women got to talking to Arel and one of them had yet another cult tale to tell. She had worked for the pervious census--and, of course, none of the scans had returned a form--if indeed they were even given their mail. She tried a number of times to get into the medium security prison on Kirby. She was told that the people never had time to talk because they were taken off to work early in the morning and didn't come back till late at night and then they went to bed. Eventually, the cult give the census woman a list of the people who were in the various apartments.

It was, according to her, a rather creepy experience.

About this time the service started.

The Dwelling Place was unlike any church I had ever been to. I figured it was worth watching/taking part from an anthropological prospective. I suspect the background of The Dwelling Place is Pentecostal, but I don't really know. Charismatic Christianity what Id called it. The minister himself described the congregation as blue collar.

The church I grew up in was not into instrumental music. This one had a 7 piece band, baby grand, synthesizer, a sax, two electric guitars, and two drum sets, one standard and one bongo set. The minister's wife (who is co-minister) played a tambourine while leading much of the singing. The band was *good*. Out of the two hour service, at least an hour was music. It was fun for me, but the service was clearly a joyous occasion for the members. I think maybe Heinlein said that joy was an easier sell, which might be why there are 100 times as many of these folks than Scientologists.

Shellye Thomson used to publish the net 'zine, Biased Journalism. I wrote a number of stories for BJ in the early days. Shelley insisted on detailed descriptions of what people looked like and what they were wearing. So, in Shelley Thomson mode:

Bob Beckett is a trim man of roughly 50, crew cut hair, slightly graying, salt and pepper short beard, wire rim bifocals, and what I thought at first were almost invisible hearing aids. (They were prompting radio earphones like News Anchors use. Needed to keep track of where he was in a long and complex service.) He was wearing a gray striped shirt, sleeves slightly rolled up, clerical type collar closed with a single pearl button, clip on lavaliere mike under the button (hooked to a transmitter on his belt), and light color, immaculately pressed pants. The mirror polish on his shoes would have passed the most exacting military inspection. Besides his wedding band, he had a sparkly ring on the other hand.

Susan, Bob's wife, is an enegetic, pleasant, nice looking, and very trim ash blond. She was wearing a long black dress worked with elaborate flower embroidery and was wearing gold bracelets. She might be as old as Bob, but if so, she is *remarkable* well preserved. They make a good team. From what I understand, they started this church from nothing some 25 years ago.

There were about 400 people at the service. The church is in the process of putting up a new building and the parking lot is out of service. Fortunately the Seventh Day Adventist church is right across the street so they were able to borrow parking. (Since those folks worship on Saturday.)

The service (which ran two hours) started with a news video of moving things off the old parking lot. The video system was used for sing-along words and read-along scriptures. The sermon part held to a formula I heard over 40 years ago, "If you can't strike oil in 20 minuets, quit boring."

We had things which had to be attended to, so after the service we split, picked up our thug escort and started back to Ida's place. I remembered there was something I wanted, so we went back for a few minutes. I didn't intend to stay after I found they didn't really have what I wanted, but did talk to one guy as he was getting into his car. *He* had a story of decking an auditor who wouldn't open the door when he wanted out.

Ida fed us lunch, hot dogs and goodies left from yesterdays big feast. We loaded up Brent's car and headed back. Brent expected the PI tails to follow us most of the way back as happened to him the last time, but they only stayed with us only to Clairmont, and then either turned back or just lost us in moderate traffic.

I probably won't be posting much till I go back for next weekend for the arraignment on Monday.

Keith Henson

Reporting about Occupied Hemet