From: bruce@cco.caltech.edu (Bruce James Bell)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: I have details
Message-ID: <1991Sep25.014304.3471@cco.caltech.edu>
Date: 25 Sep 91 01:43:04 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 93

I have received another letter from my anonymous correspondent,
explaining the circumstances under which he was requested to destroy
books, and also recounting some other *interesting* things about
the COS.  I am free to quote this letter as long as I maintain
anonymity, so here goes:

{ begin letter: }

[ identity deleted ]
In article <1991Sep22.113751.27056@cco.caltech.edu> you write:
[ lines from my posting deleted ]
>By email, Leny Freeman writes:
[ quotes deleted ]
>LF-> Without naming who the person is claiming this offense could I be
>LF-> emailed as to the approx date, city, church and the offending
>LF-> individual(s) who allegedly were ordering book vandalism?  This will
>LF-> be reported to the proper officers of the church and will be
>LF-> investigated.  If the accused individual(s) are still in the church it
>LF-> may come down to a justice action.  

This is the sort of thing I was afraid of stirring up, and the major
reason I saw fit not to post a message to the newsgroup.  I was a
scientology volunteer for about a year and a half and finally became a
staff member.  Bailing out of a staff contract after one year was
one gruesome experience.  It left me confused and with a bill to
scientology for [ abt.$10,000 ] (for my "training"), which I've been able to
duck for the last 10 years.  What I was finally told was that I would
be expected to pay off the bill before I could "continue up the
bridge."  I was assigned a "condition of doubt" by the ethics officer,
a condition that would be upgraded as I paid off the bill.  So, to
summarize: I'm not in the best standing with scientology, and if
they're looking for a scapegoat to pin something on, they've got one.

(Please feel free to quote any of this material in any of your
postings, but PLEASE do not attribute it to me.  I still wish to
remain anonymous for obvious reasons.)

>A point that is easy to overlook in a situation like this is that
>it is *impossible* to prove anything over the net.  Even assuming
>that a letter/posting is not the result of
>  unattended terminals
>  account breakins
>  forged mail/postings
>there is the inescapable fact that all you have is a collection of
>bytes sent by somebody hundreds or thousands of miles away who you
>have probably never seen.  There is no guarantee that *anybody* on
>the net is telling the truth.  The best you can get is a set of references
>to some book or person hopefully more connected to reality.  That does
>not mean that there is no point to discussing things over the net, but
>you should keep in mind the limitations involved.

Amen.  

This isn't an attempt to convince you of what happened, but some of
the details are interesting.  About 10 years ago I was interested in
scientology, and read everything I could get my hands on.  One of the
books I found in the university library was an account by someone who
actually went through clear and the ot levels.  I wish I could
remember the name of it.  I've actually spent the last couple of hours
looking through the on-line card catalogs and couldn't find it.

The book was written by a scientologist who describes his experiences
with becomming clear and OT, his doubt that anything was happening to
him other than his wallet getting lighter.  Good book.

After reading it, I told the mission director about it.  She gave me
fan incredibly fearful look, then told me that I could be audited to
handle it.  It seems that I'd messed up my "case" by reading this
book, seeing that it contained confidential OT-3 course materials that
are not to be seen by anyone below that case level.  Since she was
OT-4, she could audit me back to a "functional" state, but I would now
never fully recover until I completed OT-3.  I was also told that it
would be a good idea to remove this book from the library considering
that it could ruin other people's cases as well, thus denying them
total freedom via scientology.  The "ethics" issue was also stated,
and I was asked to base my decision to remove the book based on the
"greatest good for the greatest number of people."  I never actually
removed the book from the libaray.  I dropped into a 6" crawl space
between two walls in the men's room where it wouldn't be found until
they tear down the building.

I'm happy to report that I haven't suffered any grave consequences
from being exposed to OT-3 materials after all these years.  I haven't
removed any books from librarys either.

{ :end letter }

Well, there you have it.

Judge for yourself whether or not it is true.

Bruce J. Bell                        bruce@cco.caltech.edu