Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review Volume 0, Issue 38 01/14/96 by Rod Keller [rkeller@voicenet.com] copyright 1996
Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review summarizes the most significant postings from the Usenet group Alt.religion.scientology for the preceding week for the benefit of those who can't follow the group as closely as they'd like. Out of thousands of postings, I attempt to include news of significant events, new affidavits, court rulings, new contributors, whatever. I hope you find it useful. Like many readers of a.r.s, I have a kill file. So please take into consideration that I may not have seen some of the most significant postings.
The articles in A.r.s Week in Review are brief summaries of the articles. Many include an excerpt, and all include message IDs for the articles I cover. This may or may not be useful to you, depending on how long your site stores articles in the newsgroup before expiring them.
Free A.r.s Week in Review subscriptions are available, just email me at rkeller@voicenet.com It is archived at:
http://www.amazing.com/scientology/ars-summary.html
http://users.aimnet.com/~jdiver/scieno.htm
http://www.thur.de/religio/publik/arsfaq.html
http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html
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Grady Ward this week made available the complete recording of Hubbard explaining the R6 "space opera" theory. The URL is ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/gr/grady/assists.RA
"A 45 minute recording of L Ron Hubbard discoursing at length on BT's, injecting glycol and alcohol into lungs, exploding volcanoes. Includes his famous 'Christianity is part of R6' and 'there is no Christ' passages. RealAudio2 (28.8) format"
Message-ID: <DKtKEG.J7x@news.zippo.com>
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Jeff Jacobsen announced a protest against the harassment of cult critics, to be held March 9th in Clearwater, FL.
"This demonstration will be a peaceful public protest against Scientology's written and practiced policy of harassment of critics, and those it judges internally to be 'suppressive persons,' whether they are members or not.
"Many internet users know about the church's attacks on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.) and against church critics there, such as attempting to rmgroup (close down) a.r.s., church attorneys sending threatening mail after critics post fair use quotes from Scientology scripture, private investigators being sent out to harass and 'dead agent' (smear the reputation of) critics, and many other actions.
"The demonstration is not attacking the religion of Scientology, but rather it is to protest and expose the church's consistent and harmful use of harassment as a tool to silence its critics."
Message-ID: <4csjed$bp3@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>
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Dave Touretzky announced Pledge Week on a.r.s, to be held for the benefit of FACTNet. It's being held from January 11-18, and consists of donations for every post made by known cult members.
"During this time, I personally pledge to donate money to FACTNet for every post to ARS by the following Scientologists:
"Helena Kobrin $5 Vera Wallace $2 Chris Miller $2 Cory Brennan $1 Ivan Durekovich $1 Andrew Milne $1 Standup $1 (aka Jean Hornnes) Roger Urban $1 (aka Judy Short or Michellengang) Whippersnapper $1 (aka Keith Little) Ricky Sherwood $1"Other readers of ARS are invited to make similar pledges. Pick your amounts; even 5 cents/post will be fun, and generate a few bucks. The money is needed to support FACTNET in pursuing Arnie Lerma's defense. This is a *critical* case because of the many important cyber-rights issues raised, such as the Church's mis-application of civil writs of seizure to computer systems, and its illegally reading private email on the seized machines. The trial begins January 29 in Judge Brinkema's court in Arlington, VA.
"Mail in your donation. Make checks payable to 'F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.', write 'Defense Fund' in the memo field, and mail to: F.A.C.T.Net 601 Sixteenth Street #C-217 Golden, CO 80401 USA"
Message-ID: <4cvahc$lrg@casaba.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
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Arnie Lerma posted a summary of FACTNet finances to date this week.
"FACTNet has received about $2,300 since 12/21/95, and we are grateful for your contributions, but we need much more. Right now FACTNet has $4,400 in its account, but our monthly overhead is $4,500 (Used to pay for the FACTNet office; maintain our archive; pay insurance; send mail, buy supplies, and pay for labor, so that we may continue to provide assistance to victims of Scientology.)
"We at FACTNet are currently looking at $7,000 worth of new legal bills, and this is only the tip of the iceberg of what we will be facing in January. FACTNet's need is only temporary. The most important hurdles we must overcome are producing financing for the January 29th Virginia trial, and financing for the FACTNet case in Boulder, Colorado.
"Since Scientology's August 22nd 'copyright' raid on our nonprofit electronic library and archive, FACTNet has spent almost one million dollars in legal fees defending all of our Internet free speech and criticism freedoms. When this one million dollars is gone (as it will be by early January) it will use up all of our Errors and Omissions insurance policy coverage. We will temporarily be without the second layer of our insurance coverage until we 'qualify' to completely activate our second 1 million dollar Directors and Officers insurance policy.
"We need to immediately put down an additional legal retainer of $3,000-5,000 for other critical legal services to FACTNet's long term defense against Scientology's bad faith lawsuits which is also not covered in our current insurance policy.
"Finally, we need to file our counter (Slapp Back) suits for damages against Scientology and all the law firms and parties representing Scientology for perpetrating these outrageous raids."
Message-ID: <4csfe2$co5@news.dgsys.com>
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Steve Fishman posted an account of recent investigations by the cult with his former employers.
"Today I received a phone call from my former employer, Larry Cumbie, from the Westbrooke Retirement Center. Several days ago he was visited by a private investigator by the name of Margaret Dellerson, who claimed she worked for 'The Internet', and asked him questions about what I was doing in Holland. When I went to Holland, it was to help the Internet Provider there, xs4all, to defeat Religious Technology Center, who was suing them.
"She also wanted to know about my job performance and why I was no longer working there. What she did not realize is that I left the retirement center under the best circumstances, and on good terms with my employers. I left because investigators for the Church of Scientology had contacted several of the residents and told them that I had been in prison, and I did not want to bring my troubles and Scientology's dirty trick tactics to where I worked. I also did not want the elderly residents to feel uncomfortable about my working there once they knew that I had been in jail. My ex-employer told Margaret Dellerson that I was very well liked on the job.
"I called the Florida Department of Regulation, and they told me that Margaret Dellerson may have committed a crime under Florida law when she misrepresented who she was to a party she was questioning. I plan to file a complaint and have her license taken away from her. I will be getting a Declaration from my former employer in order to set forth these facts in my complaint."
Message-ID: <4cvfiq$dfp@cloner3.netcom.com>
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German Minister for Family and Youth Claudia Nolte this week called for action against the cult. I've taken excerpts from two accounts posted this week.
"She thinks that Scientology is not religious but merely interested in making money and taking influence on German economics. This alone would not be bad (they would have to register as a company) but in addition she asserts that the goals of Scientology are against the German constitution. She therefore called for observation of the Church by the German Verfassungsschutz ('protector of constitution'), however, it is not the German government which has the authority to do this. She also suggested to strip the local Churches of certain rights (such as to be a 'eingetragener Verein', and to forbid them to advertise for their 'religion' publicly."
"The minister accused the church of bilking and bankrupting its followers, who were said to be typically recruited with the famous Free Personality Test, then charged 'tens of thousands of dollars' for 'courses and workshops of dubious value' to 'solve' the 'problems' turned up by the test. The 'Church' was said to be very active in the German property market, but German banks were reported to have lost enthusiasm for lending to It due to Its 'unscrupulous business practices'. A 'Church' spokesman was quoted in saying that its protected status as a religion had withstood a number of previous challenges in the German courts. The report concluded that if the 'Church' *was* shut down in Germany, it would be a serious blow to Scientology, as (get this) a FULL THIRD of Scientology's worldwide income is generated in Germany and Switzerland."
Message-ID: <4d1a0j$haq@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> Message-ID: <4d1hj1$nj6@murrow.corp.sgi.com>#####
Grady Ward announced that he expects to be deposed in the Dennis Erlich case. Grady and his mother have been visited by cult members attempting intimidation.
"I understand that the RTC (one of the litigation arms of the criminal cult of scientology) is seeking to have me deposed in the case of their immoral attack on Dennis Erlich.
"But my only personal knowledge is the criminal lawbreaking by Quiros and my mother's account of Eugene Martin Ingram's theft from my mother."
Message-ID: <gradyDKz4uw.4C0@netcom.com>
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It became increasingly difficult for the cult to claim Steve Fishman was never a member, with the posting of a letter this week from Issue 28 (1990) of Impact magazine. From the letter:
"A fresh clean viewpoint in dissemination for the Association is to get ethics in solidly on the fourth dynamic. Every new and expanded membership gets this intention in ever more causatively. The more we get in fourth dynamic ethics, the less we have to get in fourth dynamic justice. It is that simple. It is good news. It makes our job of hatting the planet go so much faster and easier. Through our help, when that beginning member becomes an annual member, and when the annual member cognites on a lifetime membership, we are building a theta network of fourth dynamic ethics. And to that extent we are aligned with Sea Org purposes, and we are putting the Aims of Scientology there with a bright, OT viewpoint.
"Steve Fishman, Florida Lifetime Member HSS Class VI NED Completion"
Steve posted a description of the attempt to eliminate the magazine as evidence.
"Impact Issue 28 was the subject of a world-wide 'recall' by the Church in 1991. The Office of Special Affairs sent orders to the DSA (Director of Special Affairs) of every Org worldwide to send back to INT headquarters in Los Angeles every issue they could find of Impact 28.
"In OSA's attempt to re-write my history and claim to the court in the Fishman / Geertz case that (1) I was never a member and (2) I was ineligible for auditing because I was PTS Type A and had an intensive psych history, they OVERLOOKED one little problem: Impact had published an article about me showing not only that I was a lifetime member, but they printed my auditing and training levels: a HSS Class VI and NED Completion at the time.
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A newly posted piece of tech, the Introspection Rundown, was posted this week. It's important in that it describes in detail an official policy of imprisoning people against their will. Some excerpts:
"I have made a technical breakthrough which possibly ranks with the major discoveries of the twentieth century. It is certainly the greatest advancement of 1973 and is now being released after a final wrap-up of research. It is called the Introspection Rundown.
"The purpose of the Introspection RD is to locate and correct those things which cause a person to fixate his attention inwardly, on himself or his bank. This RD extroverts the person so that he can see his environment and therefore handle and control it.
"In 1970 the actual cause of PSYCHOSIS was isolated (as given in HCOB 28 Nov. 70, C/S Series 22, PSYCHOSIS). In the ensuing years this has been proven beyond doubt to be totally correct.
"Man has never been able to solve the psychotic break. In fact, human beings are actually afraid of a person in a psychotic break and in desperation turn to psychiatry to handle.
"Psychiatry, desperate in its turn, without effective tech, resorts to barbarities such as heavy drugs, ice picks, electric and insulin shock which half-kill the person and only suppress him. The fact remains there has never been a cure for the psychotic break until now.
"What was done was an auditor went into the room, sat the person down and corrected the last severe point of wrong indication. Subsequent times of wrong indication in his life were cleared up, the person came out of the psychotic break and into present time.
"THIS MEANS THE LAST REASON TO HAVE PSYCHIATRY AROUND IS GONE.
"The essence of the Introspection Rundown is looking for and correcting all those things which CAUSED the person to look inward worriedly and wrestle with the mystery of some incorrectly designated error. The result is continual inward looking or self-auditing without relief or end.
"0. On a person in a psychotic break isolate the person wholly with all attendants completely muzzled (no speech).
"00. Give vitamins (B complex, including niacin) and minerals (calcium and magnesium) to build the person up.
"1. Locate by study or research of the person's case or via associates or 2-way comm the last severe point of introversion just prior to the current psychotic break or illness. There may be several severe points of introversion, prior or subsequent to the one that triggered the break or illness. These points are identified by their upsetting or worrisome effect on the pc."
Message-ID: <4cv89n$jl9@inferno.mpx.com.au>
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The previously reported December 1st declaration by Kim Baker, disavowing her previous declaration attacking FACTNet, was posted this week by Ron Newman.
"When I withdrew from FACTNet and the conflict, I had no intention of supplying the Church of Scientology with Declarations which could be used against my former collegues [sic] in FACTNet. Having had some time to reflect on those statements and opinions, I have concluded that many of them are not, in fact, my own. Both Declarations were compiled by representatives of the Office of Special Affairs division of the Church of Scientology, after lengthy interviews with them.
"I do not believe that 'FACTNet's only real purpose is to destroy Scientology.' In fact, I believe that it was formed to provide support and help to people suffering emotional distress as a result of participation in New Religious Movements.
"Vaugh [sic] Young is not a FACTNet volunteer insider -- he provided assistance with media relations when requested to do so, and acts as a consultant to FACTNet from time to time, but has no status as an 'insider.'
"Taneli Huuskonsen posted publically [sic] that she intended $2000 to be transferred to Dennis Erlich for use in his case -- it was clear that this money was not intended for his personal use. In addition, I never personally saw any postings from Dennis Erlich of the 'upper level' copyrighted materials -- I only saw commentary on them by him.
"On the basis of the points mentioned in paragraph 7 above, I wish to repudiate the Declaration signed by me on October 25th, 1995, in its entirety. At the time I signed this document, I believed all the statements to be true. I did not have sufficient time to reflect on them, and due to my extreme emotional instability at the time, I had not considered the implications of signing them."
Message-ID: <rnewman-0601960948270001@dial1-19.cybercom.net>
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An article was posted from the January 12th issue of Entertainment Weekly. Scientologist Kirstie Alley follows the party line in attacking Psychiatry.
"FREE ADVICE - Producers of Frasier take note. Don't expect Kirstie Alley to join the parade of former Cheers stars (..) dropping in on Kelsey Grammer. The actress admits she disapproves of Dr. Crane's profession. 'I don't condone psychiatry or helping people with drugs', says Alley, whose views are in keeping with her status as a card-carrying Scientologist. 'When he was on Cheers, Frasier was so goofball. But Frasier [the show] makes a hero out of a psychiatrist, and in my book they ain't heroes'. Alley confesses there might be one way to lure her onto the hit NBC sitcom: 'I'd do a cameo if I could play the world's most screwed-up psychiatrist.'"
Message-ID: <4cnd6t$gs2@clarknet.clark.net>
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High cult official Kurt Weiland has been assigned to help handle the case in The Netherlands. He faxed defendant Karin Spaink, proposing a meeting over coffee. Karin posted both the fax and her reply.
"My name is Kurt Weiland and I am, as you know, an official of the church of Scientology International. I am here in Holland with a colleague to finalize the preparations of the lawsuit.
"Leisa Goodman told me of the meeting you nearly had. I am now getting in touch with you because I believe that such a meeting should take place. It is always better to establish a dialogue and possibly resolve differences. As nothing has yet been filed in court, this is the right time for us to meet.
"I also have with me proof of our copyright ownership in the form of registrations that have been certified by the United States Copyright Office, as well as other evidence at issue in the impending litigation. I would like to show this to you in the interest of avoiding the litigation if at all possible.
"For these reasons I hope you will agree that a meeting should take place. Perhaps the best place would be at Felipe's restaurant over a cup of coffee.
And the reply:
Thank you for your message, sent by fax on Jan. 6. Regarding your invitation to meet over a cup of coffee, I must decline. There are several reasons for this.
"You state that you have with you proof of your copyright ownership, and would like to show this to me. I would kindly ask you to sent any such material to my lawyer. In this way, it would be available to more people than just me.
"But I feel obliged to tell you that even if you can prove conclusively that you indeed have the copyright to the OT's included in the Fishman Affidavit, this will not necessarily provide sufficient reason to remove this Affidavit from my home pages. After all, what I have on my home pages is nothing but a court document and under Dutch law I am allowed to do so. Apart from that, the Affidavit contains only a small percentage of the full OT's, which seriously hampers your claim that I am doing something illegal.
"Secondly, I have some doubts about the sincerity of your invitation and your wish to hand over some documents. People from your organisation have wanted to meet me time and again, always promising to then be able to hand me some interesting documents. I have always declined such invitations and asked to be sent the material through mail; I have never ever received anything. Martin Weightman did not follow up on his promise to sent me material; Leisa Goodman has not followed up to her promise to look into the mail I sent her at her request (forwarded postings from alt.religion.scientology).
"Thirdly, I am loath to meet on a personal basis with people who are part of an organisation that refers to me as 'a conspirator' and whose members refer to me as 'KKKSpaink'. I would expect apologies first.
"Fourthly, you reputation as 'the Church's troubleshooter' (viz. your activities in Spain and in Hamburg) is such that I hardly consider you to be the kind of man I would like to meet in private and have a cup of coffee with. Various people that I trust and value have seriously warned me that one should never meet you without the presence of a lawyer."
Message-ID: <4cpuso$ib9@news.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4d4cn4$buv@news.xs4all.nl>#####
The complete letter sent by Todd Blakely in August to FACTNet lawyer Thomas Kelley, detailing the search terms used on Larry Wollersheim's computer, was posted this week. It shows the true nature of the search as an intelligence gathering operation, not a search for copyrighted materials. The statement below is untrue, many of the names used were never connected with the copyrighted materials. Swearinger, in particular, is a deceased judge from a previous cult court case.
"There are two reasons for including such names. First, substantial evidence already exists that Mr. Wollersheim worked together with various attorneys, including Dan Leipold, Graham Berry, and Ford Greene, to violate plaintiff's trade secrets and copyrights by gratuitously filing them in the court file in the Fishman case, and perhaps other cases. Thus, there is a high likelihood that such communications evidence infringement of plaintiff's intellectual property rights. Second, each name included in the list has had some participation in misuse of or efforts to misuse these confidential, copyrighted materials and communications with those individuals are also likely to evidence infringement of plaintiff's intellectual property rights.
"SEARCH TERMS
OT FISHMAN
HUBBARD LERMA
THETAN LEIBY
GPM ERLICH
GRADE V KLEMESRUD
GRADE VA VEGA
POWER ATACK
POWER PLUS KIM BAKER
GRADE VI BERRY
CLEARING COURSE LEIPOLD
OT I YOUNG
OT II WARD
OT III ARMSTRONG
OT IV JACOBSON
OT V GREENE
OT VI WHITFIELD
OT VII BEHAR
NOTs KISSER
NED FOR OTs CAN//CULT AWARENESS NETWORK
SOLO NOTs LAWLEY
CONFIDENTIAL TERMS: ROGUE AGENT
1. ___________ CAPRICORN
2. ___________ RAY RUSS/RRUSS
3. ___________ DAMON CHETSON
4. ___________ COATES
SCAMIZDAT ABRAMS
UNIXER CABERTA
NOBODY@REPLAY.COM CARTO
COCHRAN
SWEARINGER
O'REILLY"
Message-ID: <0kx61o600YUrENc29y@andrew.cmu.edu>
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Ted Mayett continues to post reports from his picket of the Las Vegas Org. The controversy continued over the sign placed to block his path as he pickets.
"Today [1/6/96] the Police were called. The sign was still out by the street. There was a gap of about 4 feet for me to pass through between the sign and the pole right on the curb. So I walked right next to the building.
"10:00 am the police showed up. The cop tried to sneak up on me for some reason but I just waited on the side street for him. I tried to point out that the sign was not leaving enough room for people at the bus stop and for me to march. The cop didn't want to hear it. He decided that a line in the concrete was the property line of the org. That if I walked on the other side of the line he would come back and get me for trespassing. My audience on the porch was happy about this exchange. So I told the cop OK, I'll keep the picket to a ten pace range on the narrow side of the line. Prior to today I had a forty pace range. The cop then went on the porch to talk with the victors of this first skirmish. A second car showed up and joined the first on the side street. My ID was checked and notes were made by them. The fact that I had notified them in advance was to my favor. By the time the two cops left it was about 10:20 and a third car was showing up. I ended this day's picket at 10:30am."
"3:30-4:30pm. The sign was moved. It is back up against the building. The City Code Enforcement Inspector had to have ruled against them. According to the maps it was looking like the State property line goes right to the porch of the building. So if I were to push the issue further I could probably get rid of that yellow eyesore totally."
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Rudolf van der Berg posted news from the University of Twenty (Netherlands), which has received pressure from the cult to remove web pages containing the Fishman materials.
"[T]he University of Twente (UT) received a phonecall from Julia Rijnvis, Dutch spokeswoman for CoS. CoS found out that there were three Fishman pages in the utwente.nl domain. CoS wants them to be removed. The University has decided to do as asked, because they don't want a trial. This because they don't think it is their duty to provide court rulings on such items.
"The heads of faculty are asked to remove the following Fishman pages. http://wwwedu.cs.utwente.nl/~blum/index2.htm http://utbk126.tbk.utwente.nl/CO$files.html This before Friday. The first page was removed. Esther de Boer who keeps her page at her own computer at: http://wit397105.student.utwente.nl/index2.htm was, very nicely asked to do the same. She was also told that her ISP, which is the CIV, would in case of a court ruling order her to remove it from her system. She was also told that the UT wouldn't help her in case of a lawsuit against her."
Message-ID: <4d135k$ad0@driene.student.utwente.nl>