Notice: Fredric Rice may have removed segments of the replies given to
questions if they contained copyrighted materials. After a very short
while, Scientology "experts" refused to answer questions and
started cut-and-pasting copyrighted cult propaganda. Additionally I
removed URLs in some of the replies, and left them in others. And it's
also important to note that eventually the unfortunate "Greg
Churilov" cultist was ejected from
askme.com for his typical Scientological behavior.
Anonymous asked this question on 5/20/2000:
what is Scientology?
Desertphile gave this response on 5/21/2000:
Hi. Scientology is a sinister Nazi-like business pretending to be a "religion."
Scientology started out as pseudo-medical quackery, and only incorporated as
a "church" to evade regulation by the FDA and taxation by the IRS.
Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, stated initially that Scientology was
_not_ a religion; that it was instead a set of precise scientific techniques
discovered through research.
Only after Hubbard's grandiose claims for medical and psychological benefits
were show to be false, and with fraud prosecution by the U.S. Federal
government looming, did he reorganize Scientology as a church.
SCIENTOLOGY HAS A SECRET POLICE.
The Office of Special Affairs ("OSA") is the current Scientology organization
chartered for intelligence, propaganda, and covert operations.
These covert activities were formerly the job of the Guardian's Office ("GO");
the GO was reorganized into today's OSA after eleven top GO officers were
jailed in U.S. federal felony convictions.
http://www.entheta.net/entheta/go/go.htm
http://members.tripod.com/German_Scn_News
SCIENTOLOGY HAS A GULAG.
Scientology's paramilitary elite, the "Sea Org", maintains re-education camps,
known as the "RPF", at several locations. The lowest levels of RPF have all the
characteristics of a gulag work camp -- involuntary confinement at hard labor;
psychological manipulation; continual harassment; inadequate food, sleep,
and sanitation; gross overcrowding.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/imprisonment.html
SCIENTOLOGY PRESSURES SOME FEMALE MEMBERS TO HAVE ABORTIONS.
Women in the Sea Org are instructed that work is their absolute priority, and
that they are thus not to become pregnant. If they do, they are pressured,
and have have in some cases been coerced, to terminate the pregnancy
through abortion.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/abortions.policy.html
SCIENTOLOGY BREAKS UP FAMILIES.
When a Scientologist's family members or friends express concern about the
personality changes that are often seen in new members, or about the
extreme amounts of money suddenly being "donated" to Scientology, the
member's Scientology "case supervisor" often strongly advises "disconnection"
from "suppressive" family and friends.
Disconnection means complete cessation of contact.
Many parents, brothers, sisters, and ex-spouses tell of spending years, even
decades, with no communication whatsoever from a loved one ensnared in
Scientology.
SCIENTOLOGY HAS REPEATEDLY FOSTERED FELONIOUS CONSPIRACIES.
* Operation Snow White
In 1978-81, eleven high-ranking Scientologists were convicted of felonies,
fined, and sentenced to terms in US Federal penitentiaries for their roles in
"Operation Snow White", a conspiracy to infiltrate and burglarize U.S. Federal
government offices, to steal and destroy government files documenting some
of the ugly facts about Scientology.
The long list of offenses committed may be found in the court document
"Stipulation of Evidence", at URLs:
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul01.txt
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul02.txt
http://superlink.net/user/mgarde/stipul03.txt
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of
Scientology, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in this case.
The convicted include Mary Jane Kember, the "Guardian" (head of the
Guardian's Office, then the second-highest office in all of Scientology after
Hubbard himself), and Hubbard's third wife Mary Sue.
Despite Scientology's claim that these criminals have been ousted, several of
the convicted felons, including Duke Snider, Henning Heldt, Mo Budlong, and
Dick Weigand, are still active in Scientology.
http://www.wwwaif.net/GO/new.html
Kendrick Moxon, senior attorney for Scientology, was named as an unindicted
co-conspirator in this case. Today, the bankrupt California Scientology
organization maintains its offices within Moxon's law firm; Moxon was the lead
attorney in the Scott case that drove the Cult Awareness Network ("CAN") into
bankruptcy.
In July 1992, the Church of Scientology was found guilty of infiltrating the
Toronto Police, and the offices of Revenue Canada, the Ontario Attorney
General, and the Ontario provincial government. Thousands of files had been
stolen.
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/toronto
http://superlink.net/~mgarde/courts.htm#queen
* Scientology's Guardian's Office criminally harassed Paulette Cooper, author
of the early critical book _The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, by stealing her
personal stationery with her finger prints, forging bomb threats to themselves,
and then calling in the FBI; by stealing and making public the confidential
patient records of Cooper's psychotherapy; by spreading false and
discreditable information about Cooper among her neighbors; and much
more.
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/cooper/index.html
* In "Operation Keeler", just one of a long list of "ops" against Gabe Cazares,
then Mayor of Clearwater, Florida, the GO damaged Cazares' political career
by staging a faked hit-and-run accident, and then "leaking" the incident
widely just before the next mayoral election. (Cazares had opposed the virtual
occupation of his town by Scientology's "Flag Land Base".)
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/cazares.html
During the enormous FBI raid of Scientology facilities that led to the Snow
White convictions, documents were seized that planned for future criminal
activities by the Guardian's Office:
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/docs/index.html
Operation Snapper: A plan to discredit California Deputy Attorney General
Lawrence Tapper, and to force him from public office, by fabricating
circumstantial evidence that Tapper was trafficing in drugs and had fathered a
child out of wedlock.
Operation PC Freakout: further harrassment of Cooper: sending forged bomb
threats to Arab consulates in Washington DC and to Henry Kissinger.
Operation Quaker: a plan to spirit material witnesses out of the country.
Operation Street-man: a deep background investigation of Clearwater mayor
Gabe Cazares, with the intent of finding discreditable facts or material for
blackmail.
Heber Jentzsch and Warren McShane were officials in the Guardian's Office,
under whose auspices these felonies were planned and carried out.
Today Jentzsch is the president of the "Church" of Scientology International,
and McShane is the head of the Religious Technology Corporation ("RTC"),
which presses "copyright" lawsuits against journalists and critics on behalf of
Scientology.
SCIENTOLOGY EXPLICITLY TEACHES ITS REPRESENTATIVES TO LIE.
Scientology has an official training routine, "TR-L", that is used to teach its
public spokespersons to lie convincingly, and without remorse.
Lying defamation of enemies is standard policy in Scientology, and is termed
"dead agenting".
In 1995, the "Church" of Scientology Canada paid the largest libel judgement
in Canadian history, $1.8 million, to the Hon. Casey Hill, because their official
spokesmen continued to maliciously "dead-agent" Hill when they knew their
claims to be lies.
http://superlink.net/~mgarde/hillmann.txt
Scientology maintains files ("PC folders") of potentially damaging admissions
confessed by adherents, and uses them as a threat to control members, and
to smear ex-members.
Desertphile gave this follow-up answer on 5/21/2000:
During "auditing", the person being audited ("the PC") is hooked up to a
crude lie-detector (the "E-meter"), and is asked a long series of detailed and
intensely personal questions about their sex life, illegalities they may have
performed, anything they may regret or be ashamed of. All responses are
carefully recorded in the PC folder.
Persons attempting to leave Scientology have been threatened with public
disclosure of the contents of their PC folder; ex-members who have made
trouble for Scientology have had these threats carried out.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum/culling.html
Scientology has several times publicly announced a "religious" crusade to
destroy the psychiatric profession, and to remove psychotherapists of all kinds
(except Scientology's own "auditors") from "the face of this planet".
Yet Scientology itself refuses to offer help of any kind to persons suffering
from schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder, depression, or any other mental
or emotional disorder.
Scientology strongly condemns all medication taken for psychiatric conditions
(such as Prozac, Zoloft, lithium, Paxil, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, etc.). Through its
front-group CCHR, Scientology seeks to make these medications unavailable
to anyone.
Scientology has systematically stolen and destroyed library copies of critical
books, magazines, and newspapers, including:
_A_Piece_of_Blue_Sky_, J. Atack
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/BOOKS/JON.TXT
_The_Road_To_Xenu_, M. Wakefield
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/xenu.html
_Bare-Faced_Messiah_, R. Miller
http://xenu.phys.uit.no/books/bfm/
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/bfmconte.htm
_Religion,_Inc_, S. Lamont
http://pweb.netcom.com/~seekon/lamont.html
_L_Ron_Hubbard,_Messiah_or_Madman_, B. Corydon
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/BOOKS/CORYDON.TXT
_The_Scandal_of_Scientology_, P. Cooper
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/cooper/index.html
_The_Road_To_Total_Freedom_, R. Wallis
"Scientology Unmasked" Boston Herald, March 1, 1998 First Prize,
Investigative Reporting 1998 New England Press Association
http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/
"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power" Time Magazine, May 6, 1991 page 50
(cover story)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html
"The Scientology Story" Los Angeles Times, June 24-29, 1990
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/dst/Library/Shelf/la90/
"The Prophet and Profits of Scientology" Forbes, October 27, 1986
"Scientology: The Sickness Spreads" Reader's Digest, September 1981
http://www.xenu.org/factnet/GEN/FILES/MEDIA01/METHVIN2.TXT
"Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult" Reader's Digest, May 1980
"Scientology Brings Four Years of Discord" and thirteen other related
investigative articles Winner, 1980 Pulitzer for national reporting The St.
Petersburg Times, December 1979
"Scientology: A Long Trail of Controversy" and six other related investigative
articles Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1978
http://www.rpi.net.au/~marina/latimes/index.htm
SCIENTOLOGY IS ENORMOUSLY LITIGIOUS.
The "Church" of Scientology has an in-house legal department, and has
amassed an incredible history of lawsuits:
- Against legitimate news media, such as _Time_, The Readers' Digest, and
the Washington Post, in a partially-successful attempt to stifle accurate
reporting of its history, actions, policies, and beliefs.
- Against individuals or organizations that use any part of Hubbard's
"technology" outside the auspices of Scientology.
- Against ex-members who seek to make public Scientology's continuing
abuse of the legal system, and of its members.
- Against the US Internal Revenue Service, when that organization originally
(and quite rightly) ruled that Scientology was *not* a non-profit charitable
organization, and was thus not entitled to tax-exempt status.
Scientology is legally structured as an incredible tangle of dummy corporations
and shells, serving as a shield against legal accountability.
SCIENTOLOGY KILLS.
On December 5, 1995, dedicated young Scientologist Lisa McPherson was
pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital north of Clearwater, Florida.
According to the coroner's report, Lisa's body was severely underweight and
exhibited numerous bruises and insect bites; the cause of death was listed as
a blood clot caused by extreme dehydration.
On November 13, 1998, the Church of Scientology's Clearwater "Flag Service
Organization" was indicted on 2 felony charges in Mcpherson's death.
Lisa's family has brought an additional civil suit for wrongful death. The family
claims that Scientology's "technology" damaged Lisa's mental health, and
that after she attempted to escape Scientology control, Flag Service personnel
recaptured her and confined her, sometimes drugged, for seventeen days
without adequate food, water, or medical care.
Konrad Aigner, Patrice Vic, Noah Lottick, and Susan Meister are four other
young people whose lives were tragically cut short by their involvement in
Scientology.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/Art54.html
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/noah.html http://davel.www.cistron.nl/susan.htm
http://home.wxs.nl/~mike_gormez/deaths.html
http://www.scientology-kills.net
A FEW WWW SITES FOR THE BEGINNING RESEARCHER:
Critical introduction to Scientology:
http://www.modemac.com/cos/
Index to Scientology's own web site:
http://www.scientology.org/search/indxmstr.htm
First person narrative of one person's career in Scientology:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu
The first critical Web page, and still good:
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/index.html
More detail, well organized:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum.html
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/audit/index.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/
A fine example of Scientology dead-agenting on the Web
http://www.parishoners.org/Intolerance/
The Sekret Skripchurs
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/
Canonical list of all Scientology Web resources:
http://www.xenu.net/archive/arsweb/
http://www.best.com/~mchong/arsweb.shtml
Further facts
about this criminal empire may be found at
Operation Clambake and FACTNet.
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
Subject: would like to know?
Answered by: Desertphile
Asked By: Anonymous
http://www.xenu-city.net/
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/timeline.html
This web page (and The Skeptic Tank) is in no way connected with
nor part of the Scientology crime syndicate. To review the crime syndicate's
absurdly idiotic web pages, check out www.scientology.org or any one of the
many secret front groups the cult attempts to hide behind.
The views and opinions stated within this web page are those of the
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