Monique Yingling, Esq.
Preface: My article below originally appeared on Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker. It is reprinted here with additional material added. I republish the article here because the Church of Scientology has used tens of millions of tax exempt dollars, or more, to pay Monique Yingling (and the law firm for which she works) for her four decades of legal services to Scientology. And yet Yingling had the shamelessness on her recent interview with ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris to criticize Leah Remini for making money to produce and appear in the A&E show Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Monique Yingling’s hypocrisy is staggering: She is a financial beneficiary of the human suffering that occurs in Scientology, and, Yingling helps to enable that suffering by defending it as an attorney for Scientology. Yingling also made a point to ABC’s Dan Harris that she raised her children in the Catholic faith; it is unfortunate that none of the love, compassion, or mercy of the Catholic faith seems to have affected Monique Yingling in her professional work.
Following the sudden departure of Tommy Davis as the Church of Scientology’s spokesman in 2011, the organization no longer has an actual Scientologist to represent it on television or in documentaries. Seemingly by default, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s attorney Monique Yingling — a non-Scientologist – has found herself cast in the unlikely role as the international spokeswoman for the church.
During ABC 20/20’s recent episode, “Scientology: A War Without Guns,” Yingling appeared to speak on behalf of Miscavige at the last minute. Like her previous appearance in April in an episode about Ron Miscavige’s book Ruthless, Yingling was given a lot of airtime to present the church’s side of things. And this time, at one point ABC’s Dan Harris asked her a very straightforward question, and her reply was stunning:
Harris: Scientology has described psychiatry as an “industry of death.” Why is that?
Yingling: Well, I think that’s a catchphrase. But what Scientology has worked hard against are abusive practices of psychiatry. Not psychiatry in general.
Harris: You say, “not psychiatry in general,” but an “industry of death” sounds pretty general.
Yingling: Well because unfortunately there have been a lot of abuses, and psychiatry has caused a lot of deaths.
Right there on national television, this was a pretty spectacular lie.
ABC 20/20’s Dan Harris interviewing Monique Yingling
If you know much about Scientology at all, you know that founder L. Ron Hubbard considered all of psychiatry an abomination that has plagued mankind for trillions — yes trillions of years. Hubbard even claimed that the “evil psychs” were a special race, traceable to the planet “Farsec.” The goal of the psychs, according to Hubbard, is to implant, enslave, and kill humans.
From 1950 until his death in 1986, Hubbard created, expanded, and sustained Scientology’s attack upon psychiatry that continues to this day.
As part of Hubbard’s efforts to expose psychiatry, Scientology created the Citizens Commission on Human Rights in 1969 as a “mental health industry watchdog whose mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health.” But what does CCHR actually do? One thing CCHR does is work to get psychiatrists arrested, tried, and imprisoned for abuses.
CCHR’s Psychiatric Crime Database, yet another typically exaggerated and bizarre Scientology PR effort, puts the lie to Monique Yingling’s claims that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” is merely a catchphrase:
CCHR also markets and sells the book “Psychiatrists – the Men Behind Hitler” on its website. This tawdry book blames psychiatry for the Holocaust:
In 2005, CCHR opened its “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum” in Hollywood. This was the same year Tom Cruise launched into his hostile attack against psychiatry and psychiatric drugs during his interview with Matt Lauer. And then at the 2007 New Year’s event at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles, David Miscavige infamously used animated exploding hand grenades to call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry:
I was in the audience that night and was appalled to see the way in which the gathered Scientologists jumped to their feet to scream wildly and applaud Miscavige’s violent call for the global obliteration of Psychiatry and the mass arrest and imprisonment of psychiatrists. Miscavige further bragged at this event that CCHR had a “smart bomb” that “sniffs out Psych fuel lines and blows the funding mechanism. And in that way, to put it bluntly, we booby-trapped the whole psychiatric ecosystem.”
David Miscavige’s violent 2007 rant against psychiatry was nothing new. In October 1995, Miscavige promised Scientologists that psychiatry would be destroyed in five years:
“There are a lot of opinions out there as to what is wrong with Earth, 1995. But if you really want to eliminate those problems all you have to do is work for the objectives that we, as members of the IAS, have set for the year 2000: Objective One – place Scientology at the absolute forefront of Society. Objective Two – eliminate psychiatry in all its forms. Let’s get rid of psychiatry, and let’s bring Scientology to every man, woman and child on this planet.”
Finally, and here we arrive at the crux of the matter, L. Ron Hubbard was infuriated that psychiatry had obtained what he thought was a fraudulent monopoly on mental health treatment. To Hubbard’s way of thinking, psychiatry was rigged because it required an eight-year medical degree plus a four-year psychiatric residency to become a psychiatrist. This conspiracy to require medical degrees and residencies effectively locked Hubbard and his e-meter out of the tens of billions dollars per year in government funding spent on mental health treatment.
Hubbard wanted that money. He wanted Scientology to have an exclusive global monopoly on mental health treatment and the billions of government dollars pouring into psychiatric and mental health programs. As Hubbard wrote in his confidential 1969 memo Intelligence Actions:
Our war has been forced to become to take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms… Our total victory will come when we run his (the enemy’s) organization, perform his functions and obtain his financing and appropriations.
Monique Yingling was prevaricating when she told Dan Harris that “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” was a catchphrase. Yingling knows that, per its own policies, Scientology will not accept anyone as a member who has been suicidal or has been treated with psychiatric drugs. In a paradoxical coda to this article, we note that these two prohibitions disqualify L. Ron Hubbard from Scientology.
In 1947, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to the US Veterans Administration complaining of suicidal ideations and moroseness, or what we would today call depression. Hubbard asked the Veterans Administration to provide him with psychiatric treatment.
And at the end of his life, in January 1986, L. Ron Hubbard suffered a stroke and was treated with the psychiatric tranquilizer Vistaril.
Hubbard’s intense hatred of psychiatry was most curiously book-ended between his request for psychiatric help in 1947 and his use of a doctor-prescribed psychiatric tranquilizer at the end of his life. I wonder how Monique Yingling would spin that?
— Jeffrey Augustine
When I was doing research for this article I thoroughly examined many CCHR websites. While it feels like internet dumpster diving, the fact is that one has to study Scientology websites in detail in order to be a good researcher. Scientology websites are a gold mine of the Cult’s paranoid mindset and CCHR has the most gruesome and weird of all Scientology websites.
As to “Industry of Death” being a catchphrase, one CCHR website has a CGI reproduction of the actual Industry of Death museum in Hollywood. I toured the museum after it opened many years ago. The decor reminded me of a Marie Calender’s restaurant, sort of a French farmhouse motif, festooned with photos of Nazis and ghastly photos of lobotomies and ECT. There are also psychiatric appliances. The net effect led me to conclude that CCHR itself is in dire need of psychiatric treatment.
On one wall there is a big sign that reads: Psychiatry. Torture & Death Sold as Miracle Cure. When I saw this, I realized Scientology was projecting what it does onto Psychiatry:
There is also a Eugenics display. Curiously, it has never occured to Scientology that its goal to create a master race of Homo Novis and to “dispose of quietly and without sorrow” all those 2.0 or below on the Tone Scale is a form of both Scientology eugenics and genocide.
The Industry of Death museum has a strange display that features a collage of images that are weird and creepy:
On a final note, one CCHR website has a Mr. Lage Vitus correctly condemning the South African philosopher, psychologist, and Prime Minister Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd (1901-1966) as the architect of apartheid. However, Scientology then engages in a leap of logic to blame Dr. Verwoerd’s work in psychology — and by extension psychiatry — for apartheid. Scientology is incorrect for apartheid was rooted in racism, segregation, and the goal to keep Black South Africans in a perpetual state of poverty and illiteracy. Apartheid was a function of racism and not psychiatry. That Scientology also blames the Holocaust on psychiatry shows its deeply flawed Cultic ideology in which psychiatry must be to blame for all the evils of the world.
Moreover, as the Daily Mail noted, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to Prime Minister Verwoerd to praise Verwoerd’s slum clearance projects. In doing so, Hubbard effectively praised and condoned apartheid.
In a letter written in November 1960 to Hendrik Verwoerd, a former president considered the architect of apartheid, Hubbard praises the devastating practice of forced resettlement of non-white South Africans.
‘Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence,’ says the letter, which was brought up during South Africa’s 1972 Commission of Inquiry into Scientology.
While in South Africa, Hubbard developed Scientology’s toughest test: a confessional-style list of probing questions, asked of followers while they hold the tin can electrodes of a lie detector-type device known as an ‘e-meter.’
The Wiki page on Verwoerd describes the brutal tactics he used against opponents of his apartheid policies. If one substitutes “Scientology” for “apartheid” in this quote, the parallels between L. Ron Hubbard and Verwoerd are eerie:
Verwoerd rigidly enforced Apartheid policies through further introducing oppressive laws, which diminished the rights of ordinary individuals… Verwoerd empowered the police, Secret Police and Army to extraordinary levels. During his time in office he ordered a secret all-out offensive against those opposed to apartheid policies….
L. Ron Hubbard created a fascist system of Scientology apartheid in which, if he had his way, only Scientologists would have rights. As Hubbard wrote in Science of Survival:
…any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints.
Categories: The Scientology Money Project
Jeff,your work and your digging up facts about the cult is so so praiseworthy,noteworthy and keep right on lobbing your bombshells at the ramparts!You know the twisted tortured path the cult hobbles on and you know the pain it leaves in it’s wake.Your determination and brilliance shine through all you project.Karen and you are a tremendous unstoppable force and I love love not only you two,but what you do for all.💛💛💛🐾
Mind bending sort of speaking!
Hi Jeffrey.
I have not yet read your article but while searching online on another tangent I came across the following affidavit by Scott Mayer which contains a number of points regarding scientology documents, records and behaviors regarding monies.
http://www.lermanet2.com/cos/scottm.html
Excerpt 1
FRAUD INVOLVING THE OPERATION OF SCIENTOLOGY’S SHIPS
5. In the course of being part of Scientology’s ship
master’s program, I learned that the ships always had fraudulent
licenses and papers. Such phony papers included radio licenses,
ship’s papers, records, crew certifications, seaman’s certificates
and other such matters. For this purpose, Scientology used Pat
Hunter, a woman who lived in South America. She had an excellent
-4-
command of the Spanish language and customs and would go to the
Panamanian authorities and act as the intermediary between
Operation Transport Corporation (Hubbard’s personal holding
company) and the Panamanian consulate. Her name was Pat Hunter.
As a result of various subterfuges, we did not even have to
provide proof that people had successfully completed various
training programs to get certificates. Pat would just go to the
consulate, give them some money, get the books made up and have
them officially stamped. When a new crew member was posted to a
ship, Pat would take the papers down to the consulate and have
them authorized: ship’s papers, seaman’s papers, etc. When
courses were established, certificates from basic seaman up
through captains, deputy captains, first mates and others were
awarded by course supervisors of Hubbard’s courses and then
processed through the consulate as described above.
6. I came to develop an understanding and belief that all
of these illegal things were done on the basis that WOGS (non-
Scientologists) were fouling up the planet and were basically
criminals who were running an insane world. Scientology professed
to be trying to straighten out the planet, trying to get rid of
the insanity and make things right again. So, my understanding
and belief was that this illegality was acceptable as part of a
Jihad or holy war. We were doing things to keep Scientology
working and the things that we were doing were just fine because
Scientology convinced us it was trying to make a better world. It
was similar to rioting for peace. You know it really doesn’t work
but it is a way of getting mass agreement of Scientology’s
movement towards Hubbard’s goals for a clear planet.
— 5–
7. The illegal conduct involved in Hubbard’s ships included
receiving a percentage of money from all of the S.O. organizations
in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the world.~ In exchange for this
money, people would come on board the ship from all over the world
and be trained on various basic Sea Org procedures, basic staff
hatting procedures and then be sent back to their home
organizations to assume Scientology posts. At this time, I
floated back and forth between the ships in various executive
positions and other posts concerning the Los Angeles Flag
Operations Liaison office activities. At various times I was
responsible for preparing mission orders and briefing couriers
that would smuggle money out of the United States. I was also
responsible for sending various other missionaires to various
parts of the country to go into Scientology organizations and
force them to make more and more money. This was basically a form
of “Regging.”
Excerpt 2
We got so good at it that
we were sending $250,000 to $500,000 a week out of the Los Angeles
area alone. The money would be sent out of the country to various
1 Wherein the S.O. billed for services provided to
Scientology organizations.
— 6-
places in the world including accounts in St. Hill, England.
Five, six and seven couriers a week would go out from Los Angeles
with their little bundles of documents and their bundles of money
hooked into it. We had a communication center that we delivered
the missionaire to. The missionaires were fully briefed on how to
get through customs and we would take them to the airport and send
them where they were supposed to go which we learned from the
Director of Communications. I was told by the Director, Bill
Price, that there were five phony Scientology companies that
existed at that time and were recognized by customs. As far as
customs was concerned, these companies regularly sent businessmen
all around the world. Internal operations were never allowed to
know what was being sent to where. The only communications were
from the Flag communicator, through coded telexes, saying exactly
where anything was to go to Bill Price at any given time and how
it was to go. We had the money couriers so well briefed as how to
get through customs that they would not be sweating and would be
totally calm and cool. They would overwhelm customs with pieces
of paper if customs wanted to see them.
-7-
THEINVOICE ALTERING SCAM
9. I understand and believe that sometime in 1973 and 1974,
Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, had had enough of being
constantly out at sea. She embarked on a campaign to convince
Hubbard that the Sea Org ships were just a white elephant and that
Scientology was paying too much money for what it got back and
that the fleet should be disbanded and Hubbard’s operation brought
on shore.
10. Subsequently, it was decided to establish the Flag Land
base at Clearwater in Florida.
11. Prior to the establishment of the Flag Land base in
Clearwater, I actually saw the area on the Apollo where the
Guardian’s office financial people were engaged in a massive
invoice altering project.2 My belief and understanding of the
reason for the project was that discrepancies that could have been
discovered between money `regged’ or obtained from Scientology
organizations in the United States and when it arrived on the
Apollo, having previously been diverted in part to various
accounts in Luxembourg,,Switzerland or other countries. When my
wife and I came back from a Scientology mission to South Africa,
we brought back $5,000 each (Rand). Although that was not a lot
of money, it was money that was not supposed to go out of South
Africa into the United States.
/
2 Wendall Reynolds, the Guardian’s Office Flag Banking
Office, took quite a deal of pride in showing me the project.
End excerpt
I am trying to dig deeper for documents to add support to Scott’s affidavit as, at least to me , certain parts of it point to how Monique and the ” compartmentalizing ” of the unreviewed invoices omission on the part of the approval team were very carefully choreographed to obtain the exemption.
I welcome further response from you on this matter.
Keep up the great work.
How do people sleep at night? Seriously has this woman no shame? Every time I see her I get ill. Sad and telling. That a church. An ecclesiastical organization. A non profit supposed to be operating for public good. Can’t even put a member on television to answer the media. That’s pathetic. Tommy Davis said it best. If LRH war record is not true, then Scientology would not be true. What a fucking joke. So tired of this bullshit scam fraud operation, damn it, I want to see a complete congressional investigation, subpoenas, and some asses going to jail. With cash returned to victims