|
Meet Bob Minton:
A WARNING ON THE EVILS OF SCIENTOLOGY
Speaking to the Leo J. Ryan Educational Foundation (CultINFO*) Annual Conference
February 12, 1999.
INTRODUCTION:
Good evening. I would like to give a very special thanks to CULTinfo for having the courage to sponsor this conference and for having me as a keynote speaker. Given the recent controversies I have been involved in, I'm not sure which took more courage.
I am a director of FACTNet. We too are a counter-cult group and we are part of an ongoing strategy on the Internet to use the light of information to defeat a dark and evil enemy - the so called "Church" of Scientology. Scientology dislikes the Internet; it dislikes FACTNet; it dislikes me and it dislikes this conference. One of the major problems of Scientology is that its special brand of evil dislikes any attempt by anyone to expose the true criminal nature of this pernicious cult. I can assure you, however, that I am here tonight continuing to do just that.
More often than not when we detail the dark activities of Scientology, we concentrate on the more obviously outrageous legal and constitutional rights violations committed by Scientology's Office of Special Affairs, or OSA. Truly these acts by Scientology's self-styled police force are evil, their hypocrisy the most notable, and it is easiest to express outrage against this level of Scientology's crimes. It is OSA that targets critics like me and organizations like CULTinfo.
There is more than enough information on OSA's outrageous activities available on the internet and I will not burden you with a further litany of their abuse. However, before I get into the main text of my speech, I do wish to share with you some insights into Scientology that came about last summer as a result of fifteen hours of meetings with top Scientology officials.
I had a series of meetings with two of the top leaders of Scientology, Mike Rinder, the head of OSA, and Marty Rathbun, the head of RTC and second in command of Scientology, under David Miscavige. I agreed to these meetings because at the time I naively thought it might be possible to carry on a dialogue with these people for the purpose of bringing about reforms of some of their most abusive practices.
Without boring you with the details of these meetings, I concluded by the third and last one that communicating on any rational level with these or any other Scientology leaders was impossible. The arrogance and disdain with which they treated me during these meetings was born of a firmly held belief that anyone critical of Scientology is nothing but a hindrance to their forward progress, something to be neutralized in any possible way. I was an irritant, and theirs was an unshakable belief in the infallibility of the technology created by the failed artist, L. Ron Hubbard.
Since these meetings, Scientology has stepped up its attacks on me. But I am not the kind of person who is easily frightened. Although the Scientologists have done everything in their power to complicate my life, I have no intention of turning my back on their insidious evil. Scientology knows this, and they intend to stop me using whatever means they possibly can.
But what has happened to me is only one example of the many tactics Scientology uses to silence its critics and, generally, to keep the outside world at bay.
Indeed, the external-facing Office of Special Affairs is the only part of Scientology that anyone on the outside ever encounters. It is extremely important to realize that none of us outside the tightly controlled world of Scientology are ever allowed even a glimpse of the true face of Scientology. OSA personnel are assigned to attend conferences like this one to monitor the activities, report back to their seniors with a list of attendees, and, if possible, harass and introvert Scientology critics, many of whom are here tonight. The people who carry out the harassment and intimidation of critics are all OSA personnel or OSA's hired investigators and agents. People on the Internet never speak to anyone who has not been specifically assigned by OSA to "handle" the critics.
OSA, therefore, is the interfacing entity between the Scientology world and the real world. There is rarely even the slightest ripple in the mirror-still waters of Scientology's slick public image. To listen to any of the OSA operatives here tonight, one would think that they lived in a constant state of happiness and complete fulfillment.
However, there is one way that we can catch a glimpse of what life in Scientology is really like, particularly in the totally closed world of the Sea Org and OSA. Our only avenue to this information is via the people who have been there.
It is painful, emotionally difficult work to come to an understanding of Scientology. However, it must be done to become an effective critic and to educate others to the danger of Scientology.
I have read many of the testimonials by former Scientologists on the Internet where these heartbreaking stories have been posted. I decided to seek some of these people out and find out for myself what had happened to them. This learning effort has required a large dose of introspection on my part and a willingness to empathize and appreciate the emotional devastation that has occurred to people at the hands of Scientology.
I have gained incredibly valuable insights from my long discussions with both current and former high-level Scientologists about what it is like to be in this cult. Many of these people have become good friends, and I have been able to see that far from being in any way discredited by their experience in Scientology, they have an insight into the dark side of human nature that it would benefit all of us comprehend.
We need to embrace them as equals and hear, but, most importantly, understand what they have been through. They have literally looked into the eyes of the Devil. They have seen the face of pure evil. They have a powerful and frightening story to tell, and we must listen to them and understand the true nature of Scientology.
One former member has told me of being imprisoned behind barbed wire and guarded by police dogs twenty-four hours a day. He tried to leave but was physically restrained and deprived of sleep and nourishment until he became compliant. Gradually, as he was subjected to ever increasing levels of indoctrination, he felt that his soul lost everything of meaning. Much later, he came to realize that he was being used by something narcissistic and utterly evil; his soul was literally being cracked.
He came to feel that he had lost everything for the sake of Scientology and there was no hope for having or starting another life. Because reincarnation is part of the Scientology cosmology, the only hope for escape from Scientology was death. He had conversations with others in the RPF. They agreed that when they died, and after they were reincarnated, they would wait a long time and have a chance to live for a while before reporting back to Scientology. They were condemned to return, but they would put it off as long as they could. This was the level of despair which this prisoner had reached.
Another former Sea Org member told me the horrifying story of being assigned to the RPF during one of Scientology's many purges. She was pregnant when she was sent to the prison camp. She, along with all the others, was forced to do extremely strenuous physical labor for thirty hours at a time, with only three hours off until the next shift. People became so exhausted that they would fall asleep while working and injure themselves with their hammer, saw or other tools.
Often they were forced to sleep on the roof of the building, in pouring rain. They were utterly degraded, allowed only minimal nourishment, very little sleep, and many became extremely ill and feverish because of the concerted pattern of abuse while their immune systems were already so compromised. They were being punished, she felt, because of the paranoia of the leadership.
My friend told me she was terrified that she was harming her baby and begged her captors to be allowed to sleep and eat for the sake of her unborn child. But no one was willing to risk noncompliance with the orders of senior management. She finally escaped, but her baby was already damaged. Doctors thought the mother had been on drugs during her pregnancy because of the kind of damage the fetus had suffered. They thought he was a crack baby, because when he was born he was severely underweight, under three pounds at full term.
She couldn't tell them the truth, she couldn't tell them what she had actually subjected her baby to. So she let the doctors believe it was drugs.
It took many years of therapy for the child but, miraculously, this woman and her child have normal lives today.
Another woman has told me of the constant terror in which high-level Sea Org members live, the unbelievable paranoia of senior management, in which any criticism at all is taken as evidence that the staff member is working for an enemy of Scientology. She was assigned to the RPF after she voiced strong disagreements with the way senior management was treating staff members, not allowing them to sleep for days at a time, subjecting them to devastating interrogations for hours at a time, bringing staff members to the breaking point with lack of sleep and nourishment, screaming interrogations and beatings, humiliation and punishment for imagined disobedience.
She was accused of being in the employ of Scientology's Public Enemy #1 at the time, attorney Michael Flynn, who was representing a number of former Scientologists in lawsuits against the cult. For this imagined crime, she was forced to run around an orange pole for up to twelve hours a day, interrogated for hours at a time in an attempt to force her to confess to an outrageous range of imagined crimes against senior management and Scientology, and when she was injured severely while running around the pole, she was denied financial assistance for medical care and finally placed under twenty-four-hour guard to keep her from escaping from the prison.
She described several times in which the combination of lack of sleep and nourishment, constant terror, and screaming interrogations, known as "gang-bang sec checks," brought her to the brink of losing her mind, times during which she could not remember who she was, where she was, or anything about her identity. Without question, they were trying to break her to keep her from being a threat to Scientology.
Tragically, we will never have a chance to hear Lisa McPherson's story of imprisonment and abuse. Scientology succeeded in literally destroying her life.
Several women have told of the heart-breaking series of abortions they were forced to undergo on orders of senior management. Because senior management's view of children is that they are nothing but a distraction from production, these women were considered to be disobedient to have become pregnant and were not only ordered to have abortions but were given no financial assistance at all.
Thus one woman told of having to spend the day waiting in line to obtain Medicare, having to lie about her circumstances so that Scientology would not be linked to her abortion or her poverty in any way. Some of these women have had four and five abortions and finally escaped when they became pregnant again and could not bear to abort another child. The scars of such experiences can never be erased.
Others have told of senior management's obsession with illegal weapons, stockpiling AK-47s and Uzis, and of afternoons spent conducting shoot-a-thons, using photographs of critics and blown staff members as targets.
Moreover, Scientology has virtually unlimited funds - they boast of spending a million dollars a week - to pay high-priced attorneys and private investigators to intimidate and harass critics and former members. Their cynicism and relentless vindictiveness knows no boundaries, and they will stop at nothing to destroy anyone who tries to stand in their way.
Given all of this, it is difficult enough for someone coming out of the devastating experience of Scientology. From what these people have described to me -- and mind you, these are the lucky ones, the ones who found the strength within themselves to escape -- they come out of this nightmare terribly disoriented, psychologically and emotionally numb, and with no clear understanding of what has happened to them. This gives rise to a succinct definition of a Scientologist: an individual who has been subjected to the behavioral modification procedures of Scientology, but who doesn't have the slightest idea what has actually been done to them.
For many of Scientology's victims, the stigma of being a Scientologist is so ingrained by the cult's indoctrination that it can never be erased. For others, only competent exit counseling, intense therapy and time can repair the damage associated with Scientology. A key purpose of the counseling and therapy is a greater understanding of the Scientology experience, one which is not simple for anyone I have ever known who has been in Scientology to verbalize.
So what are some of the characteristics of the Scientology experience on a conceptual level? This is how I have come to understand the basic sociopathology involved in this cult:
If you don't want people to recognize that you're a predator intent on possessing everything they have as your own, put on a kindly voice, make them laugh at things that have given them trouble, flatter them, and offer them help in removing whatever is blocking them from living a life of greater abundance.
If you don't want people to recognize their true vulnerability to outside influences (like you), tell them that in reality they are completely separable from any aspects of themselves that they consider vulnerable. Tell them that their essential nature is both non-material and "static" - which implies that they can't really be affected by anything. Weave tales that speak of their immortality. When they finally accept the idea that underneath appearances, nothing can affect them, they won't be able to recognize the fact that you are affecting the essential core of their awareness in ways they never even suspected.
If you want people to be unable to recognize the fact that you're taking control of their behavior, tell them that the only way they can be controlled is via factors in their midst that you want to help them be rid of. Go to great lengths to demonstrate that you are trying as best you can to free them from things that might control them against their will or against their best interests. If the act is convincing, it will be a long while before they finally suspect what you're actually doing.
If you don't want people to realize they are becoming the effect of your will, tell them that your goal is to place them back into their rightful position as cause over their own environment. Tell them that your only interest is in seeing to it that they reach a state of greater freedom and power.
If you don't want people to recognize how little they know about the structures and functions that grant them awareness, make a list of all the common assumptions about the mind, put them all together into one big package, embellish it with some "new discoveries" and teach the subject like a university professor would teach physics. Periodically mention that anyone who completely understands the subject you are teaching, is without doubt, an expert in the field of the mind. Your audience won't bother searching for additional answers because they think they already have all of them in their possession.
If you don't want people to recognize you as someone they can't trust, preach the value of ethical behavior to them. Punish those around you for what you have defined as unethical behavior. Reward ethical people for their sanctioned works.
The artful predator's rule of thumb is this: if you don't want your prey to recognize what you are doing to them, do and say things that they would never expect to see or hear from a predator.
In the inverted reality of Scientology, the soul of evil is bright and shining. The soul of evil is filled with happiness and hope and love. But deep inside, hidden away at the end of a maze of illusions, is the stuff of nightmares. Scientology is an incarnation of the soul of pure evil but the pure evil is actually hate wrapped up in a pretty package of love.
[Airplane story]
Many in this country consider it an exaggeration to compare Scientology to Nazi Germany; yet, Germany today sees Scientology as utterly fascist. An entire country was swallowed by Hitler's insanity, and today, Germany is doing everything they can to stop organizations like Scientology, because they characteristics of another Nazi party.
In November 1996, a task force of representatives of federal and state authorities for the protection of the constitution was establishsed by the Conference of German Ministers of the Interior (IMK) to investigate Scientology. The task force submitted a comprehensive, 200-page report to the IMK in 1998, which was accepted in full.
Dr. Gunther Beckstein stated on behalf of the task force: "This report has shattered Scientology's propaganda facade of a harmless religious community. I welcome the fact that the IMK has followed my proposal and its unanimous vote is also a clear indication that the State is not willing to stand by and watch what this organization is doing. I expect joint surveillance by the federal and state authorities in charge of the protection of the constitution to result in decisive progress in combating the danger emanating from the Scientology Organization for public security and our free democratic basic order."
The report made several important points, as follows:
Scientology is striving for a different society, in which even non-scientologists will be "managed" by the Scientology "leaders of tomorrow" with what they consider to be superior methods.
Scientology wants to establish its own legal system that is binding upon everyone, with Scientology standards, but without any guarantee of the course of law, without the due process of law, without lawful and independent judges and without lawful administration.
Scientology disregards human rights (Article 1 of the Constitution) and the principle of equality (Article 3 of the Constitution), since only "cleared", "non-aberrant" scientologists are entitled to enjoy rights.
Scientology disregards Article 5 of the Constitution, as criticism of scientology must be suppressed by every means available, including force.
Scientology is organized along totalitarian lines deliberately including violence and despotism.
Dr. Beckstein said: "The evidence actually collected by the task force indicating anti-constitutional activities on the part of the Scientology Organization is so numerous and so serious that there could no longer be any doubt about the statutory prerequisites for surveillance by the authorities for the protection of the constitution being met. The authorities in charge of the protection of the constitution must therefore fulfil their statutory mandate and keep Scientology under observation."
In a 1995 article published by the Federal Republic of Germany under the title "A Giant Octopus Which is Frightened of Nothing" ["Ein Riesenkrake, der vor nichts zurückschreckt"] in Die Weltwoche, Norbert Blum wrote:
"It is a matter of power. It is a matter of money. If we look at the world around us, then it rapidly becomes clear to us that we are dealing with a new form of sect that walks over bodies. I am thinking of the mass murders of the Solar Temple in Switzerland, the Aum sect in Japan, or the Davidians and militants in the United States. They fight their own battle and conduct entirely personal wars. We must prepare for this type of war, because war is not just when people are wounded or killed. .... Those who subjugate people in their innermost selves are conducting war. What I mean is the worldwide campaign of Scientology. There can be no pardon for that."
This same organization, recognized in Germany as a serious threat to democracy and freedom, is running roughshod in the United States over our civil rights, the legal system, and the civil and human rights of its captives. Our only source of truth on the nature of Scientology is former cult members.
Yet, ironically, it has been my experience that there is a prejudice against former cult members generally that interferes with hearing what they have to say. We must overcome this prejudice if we are ever to comprehend the evil that is germinating through the looking-glass of this nightmare world, happening right here in the United States. It is way past time for the United States to take a stand against this evil cult. Scientology is a menace to our society and to our way of life. We cannot afford to keep our heads buried in the sand.
Despite warnings by governments and judges all over the world for the last thirty years about the evils of Scientology, supposedly "informed critics" on the Internet have recently stated that Scientology is "just a silly little cult that sometimes can be harmful but by and large doesn't really do much damage to anybody," and also that "you can't blame others for not being able to understand Scientology."
I strongly disagree with both of these statements. I am firmly of the conviction that you CAN blame people for not getting it, and in fact, we MUST. History has taught us many painful lessons about apathy, arrogance and ignorance. I consider attitudes reflected by these Internet statements to be the result of sheer laziness on the part of these Netizens. They are not willing to invest the time to understand the fabric or construction of the Scientology experience. And if you don't understand it, you cannot maximize your effectiveness as a critic of Scientology.
In closing I would like to quote from a review of "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" by Milton Sapirstein, which was published in "The Nation" in 1950:
"The real, and, to me, inexcusable danger in dianetics lies in its conception of the amoral, detached, 100 per cent efficient mechanical man - superbly free-floating, unemotional, and unrelated to anything. This is the authoritarian dream, a population of zombies, free to be manipulated by the great brains of the founder, the leader of the inner manipulative clique.
"Fortunately for us this is an unattainable dream, on the rocks of which every great authoritarian leader has sooner or later met his fate. We have learned by this time that a human being cannot exist without effective human relationships, which must fulfill some of his healthy emotional dependencies; and that mechanical, detached self-sufficiency does not exist except in a psychotic state. Healthy dependencies cannot exist without some type of reciprocal give-and-take, or democratic liaison - otherwise, hostilities sooner or later disrupt the inequitable arrangement. In these basic psychodynamic truths lies our own salvation."
END
*Note: The Leo J. Ryan Foundation was previously known as Cult Information Services.
|
|
