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From: snipe@starburst.cbl.cees.edu (Mark W. Heaney)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Daily Affidavit [3/?] - Gerry Armstrong
Date: 17 Oct 1995 22:52:08 GMT
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Gerry Armstrong testifies about the religous <NOT> nature of the
"Church" of Scientology:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
LA VENDA VAN SCHAICK,
Plaintiff
CIVIL ACTION
vs. NO. 79-2491-G
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, et al,
Defendants
AFFIDAVIT OF GERRY ARMSTONG
I, Gerry Armstrong, hereby swear under the pains and penalties of
perjury as follows:
1) I have personal knowledge of the following facts:
2) I was a member of the Sea Organization of Scientology from February
1971 to December 1981, during which time I held many positions and was
in many locations where I directly observed L. Ron Hubbard and other
Scientology executives. At no time did I ever get the impression that
Mr. Hubbard or any other senior executive considered that Scientology is
a religion. My own understanding, held throughout all the time I spent
in Scientology, and the policy expressed to me by other Sea Org members
was that Scientology operated totally as a business, and its efforts to
be recognized as a "religion" were only to evade taxation and government
regulations.
3) In January 1980, I was assigned to a project to collect materials about
L. Ron Rubbard for the purpose of providing documentation for a biography
to be written by Omar V. Garrison. During the following two years I read
several thousand pages of documentation, much of it written by Mr. Hubbard
himself. Never before had anyone within Scientlogy ever had all this
information assembled in one place or had the opportunity to view and
assimilate the whole truth about L. Ron Hubbard. From these documents and
other sources I learned that Mr. Hubbard had continually misrepesented
himself and had lied about his past, his accomplishments and credentials.
I learned also from the documents I collected that Mr. Hubbard had lied
about how and why Scientology had been established as a "religion". In a
despatch he wrote in early 1980 to the people in charge of the projects
he had ordered to remedy his legal problems with the IRS and various damage
claim cases, he stated that the creation of Scientology as a "religion" was
not his idea but had come about when the membership of Scientology in the
early 1950's, unbeknownst to him, had voted to form a "church". I
personally saw and read that despatch. Mr. Hubbard's statement is a lie.
In a letter to the head of Scientology in the US in early 1953, Mr.
Hubbard stated:
"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 in 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."
I found a great deal of similar evidence in the materials I assembled
before I left Scientology. Mr. Hubbard's life has been a continuing
pattern, since the early 1940's, of fraudulent business practices, tax
evasion, flight from creditors and those seeking recompense, and then
going into hiding, outside the reach of wronged individuals and legal
jurisdictions. In short, it is the life of a con man.
4) In early 1980 I was also assigned to a mission, the purpose of which
was to work out legal strategies, and get them implemented, which would
allow Mr. Rubbard to still control all of Scientology via his Commodore's
Messenger Organization while being shielded from any lawsuits or legal
invlvements and responsibilities. One of the main problems which had to
be resolved by this mission, and one of the arguments .used in various
court cases as proof that Scientology was not a religion, was the fact
that Scientlogy was set up so that funds inured to the benefit of L.
Ron Hubbard. For years Mr. Hubbard had had his legal representatives
claim that he was not paid by Scientology, other than a $35,000.00
annual consultant's fee, and royalties from sales of his books. Another
claim was that he did not control Scientology monies. The fact is he had
absolute control of all Scientology accounts. As late as 1980 I saw a
despatch from him in which he ordered that unlimited Scientology funds
were approved for a project to get him a Nobel Prize. Another fact is
that he received millions of Scientology dollars directly from a foreign
corporation called Religious Research Foundation. Payments for auditing
or courses at Flag by non-US Scientologists went into RRF accounts which
Mr. Hubbard controlled absolutely and used totally for his own purposes.
5) I learned through my study of the documentation I assembled, and from
more than ten years of observation of Mr. Hubbard and the Scientology
movement, that Mr. Hubbard has cruelly deceived his followers to the
point where they will themselves lie and attempt to deceive others about
the truth cncerning him and Scientology. Scientology spokesmen and
witnesses have stated that Mr. Hubbard doesn't control the organizations.
The fact is he has absolute control, including financial control, and
Scientologists know it. Between 1978 and 1980 I participated, along with
at least 250 other Scientologists, in several massive operations to
destroy or hide the evidences of Mr. Hubbard's control. Scientology
spokesmen and witnesses have claimed that throughout 1980 and 1981 Mr.
Hubbard could not be reached through the organization, or that
organization executives did not know where he was. The fact is, the most
senior executives were in continual communication with him throughout
this period. Scientology spokesmen and witnesses have gone to great
lengths to "prove" that Scientology is a valid religion, while knowing
that it was simply a behavior therapy masquerading as a "church", and
making a mockery of actual honest religious practices. In 1980, Watchdog
Committee, the senior CMO body, responsible only to Mr. Hubbard and
senior to every Scientology organization, ordered that every Sea Org
member had to complete the Minister's Course in two weeks or they would
be assigned to the RPF. The reason given was to make every Sea Org
member a "minister of the church of Scientology" and so avoid the US
Selective Service draft then pending. What most Scientologists, and
especially Sea Org members, don't know is that Mr. Hubbard had duped
them. My knowledge based on documentation and observation, is that the
major reason for Mr Hubbard's calling Scientology a "religion" in
addition to tax evasion, is to hide behind Constitutional guarantees
for religions and so carry out his scheme of mind control to keep his
followers duped. He has systematically and knowingly lied to and
defrauded his followers, kept them from finding out the truth or becoming
free with cruel and bizarre treatment, as for example with the RPF, and
kept them economically and mentally suppressed,.while he made millions of
dollars from their labor.
6) I am personally aware that Mr. Hubbard's policy of Fair Game is still
a practice of Scientology. Since I left the organization with my wife in
December 1981, I have been declared an enemy, and I believe my life and
my wife's life, are in danger.
Signed under the pains and penalties of perjury this
22 July, 1982.
GERRY ARMSTRONG
Mark
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the Church of $cientology declares War KoX "Some call it Allah,
on the Net and your freedom of speech! SP3 some call it God,
More info: alt.religion.scientology some call it Buddha,
or ask me: snipe@starburst.cbl.cees.edu I call it Love"-C.Blonde
>>>>>> PGP Key available via finger and from MIT Keyserver <<<<<<
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