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$/docs/cazares.html
http://www.xenu-city.net/
http://www.gate.net/~shipbrk/Co$/timeline.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.

http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

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://cisar.org/konrad.htm

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/

http://www.xenu.net/

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.

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