Mike Rinder and Leah Remini at the 2018 Creative Arts Emmy Awards – Day 2 at Microsoft Theater on September 09, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
We begin with an excerpt from the letter Scientology’s bogus STAND League sent to The Walt Disney Company. Mike Rinder reported on this in his recent blog post:
The letter expresses Scientology’s concern that Disney may not hire a job candidate if it is discovered that said candidate is a Scientologist. Aside from this being blatantly absurd, STAND League conveniently ignores the fact that an essential component of Scientology’s Fair Game policy is to get people fired from their jobs and to destroy them utterly.
Look at the Scientology hypocrisy:
1. Scientology’s STAND League worries aloud about Scientologists being discriminated against for employment at Disney even as its main hashtag is #FireMikeRinder.
— Hypocrisy and contradiction: Scientology wants job candidates who are Scientologists protected from discrimination at Disney even as Scientology demands that Disney fire Mike Rinder.Firing Mike would be discrimination against his right to Free Speech and his right to earn a living. Scientology claims to be opposed to discrimination — except of course when it comes to Mike Rinder, Leah Remini and everyone else who exposes Scientology.
2. Scientology engages in phony concerns about Scientologists being discriminated against at Disney even as Scientology uses Taryn Teutsch and Cathy Bernardini to push a thoroughly debunked story that is actually a slanderous attack against Disney and A&E executives. This attack maliciously, and falsely, accuses Disney and A&E executives of supporting domestic abuse because they will not fire Mike Rinder.
— Scientology wants it both ways: It is engaging in a slanderous Fair Game attack against Disney executives even as it demands that Disney executives give Scientology special protections and considerations. This schizophrenic thuggery is typical of Scientology.
— The implicit Scientology extortion racket going on here is obvious: Scientology will continue to attack Disney executives as champions of domestic battery until and unless they fire Mike Rinder. This malicious Scientology tactic fails because it is based in fraud.
3. The Church of Scientology’s ridiculous claim that anti-religionists “out” Scientologists online is just plain stupid. Scientology has for decades published several monthly promotional magazines in which it provides the entire world with the names and photos of its own members. Two examples:
SCIENTOLOGY IS CREATING ITS OWN PROBLEMS
If the Church of Scientology has such concerns about protecting the privacy and identities of its members, then it stands to reason that Scientology should immediately stopouting its own members by publishing their names and photographs in the many magazines and promo pieces it mails out weekly and monthly to everyone on its mailing lists.
Scientology will never do this because L. Ron Hubbard’s policies order that Scientology magazines and other promotional materials are to include the names, photos, and success stories of Scientologists. Hubbard ordered promotional materials to be mailed out in large volumes. “Outflow equals inflow” he wrote. The Church of Scientology continually boasts about Bridge Publications, its enormous printing factory in Los Angeles that produces a huge amount of PR materials.
Ignoring its massive PR efforts which include numerous pamphlets, DVD’s, magazines, websites, and now Scientology TV, the Church of Scientology is now trying to blame “anti-religionists” for the fact that the names of Scientologists are discoverable in online searches. Sorry but this problem was created by L. Ron Hubbard’s policies — and Hubbard’s policies are Scientology’s scriptures. Hence, Scientology has a scriptural PR mandate which has resulted in Scientologists being discoverable in online searches. This is not the fault of “anti-religionists” or whomever else Scientology tries to blame for its own intrinsic problem.
SCIENTOLOGY’S HORRIBLE REPUTATION IS SELF-CREATED
The underlying issue at hand is that the Church of Scientology’s reputation is horrible due to its own actions, and, individual Scientologists are associated with this horrible reputation. Rather than changing its conduct and thereby improving its reputation, Scientology wants to keep harming people, financially destroying its own members, engaging in Fair Game, and then wants to complain when its members are made to bear the stigma of Scientology’s own actions and awful reputation. And yet individual Scientologists are enabling and funding Scientology’s brutal conduct and horrible reputation by their donations to, and ongoing participation in, the Church of Scientology.
SCIENTOLOGY TV
David Miscavige has added to the problem by launching Scientology TV and its “Meet a Scientologist” episodes. Is the viewing public supposed to watch Scientology TV and never publicly mention or discuss the Scientologists who are featured on the program? The inconsistency of Scientology’s position is that it wants to feature Scientologists in its PR materials even as it demands that these materials not be studied, compiled, analyzed, or uploaded to the internet by the public to whom these materials are widely and regularly disseminated.
GREG & JANET DEERING AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROBLEM
Scientology TV featured Greg and Janet Deering, makers of the finest American made banjos on the market. Greg and Janet create a quality product, create jobs, and are proud Scientologists. Greg and Janet Deering’s donations to Scientology help to create and fund Scientology’s programs of Fair Game. Greg and Janet share in the collective moral culpability of the Church of Scientology’s Fair Game attacks as do all other Scientologists. If one were to Google “Greg and Janet Deering” the results on the front page all lead to Scientology websites. The Church of Scientology created these search results; the critics did not.
SCIENTOLOGY PR EVEN INCLUDES CHILDREN
Scientology publishes and mails out magazines and other PR pieces that shows photos of the children of Scientologists. The Church of Scientology promotes its members and their children and does so very publicly without any regard for their privacy. Scientology then turns around and blames critics for what? Posting the stuff Scientology mails us? Scientology even mails out photos of its Sea Org members:
It gets worse: People find it very hard to be removed from Scientology’s mailing lists. Countless people who left the Church long ago, bought a book, or did a course have written and asked Scientology to remove their names from all mailing lists and yet Scientology refuses to do so. This refusal occurs due to Scientology’s need to show weekly “stats” of promotional materials being mailed out. The policy was written by L. Ron Hubbard and must be obeyed. “Outflow equals inflow,” wrote Hubbard.
SCIENTOLOGY FAIR GAME
The Church of Scientology wants to portray itself as a persecuted victim even as its makes vicious Fair Game attack websites and videos on people who expose its evil and deceitful machinations. These hate-motivated attacks, including the attacks on Disney and A&E executives, are based upon the sadistic and insane policies of L. Ron Hubbard:
* SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.
* This is the correct procedure: Spot who is attacking us. Start investigating them promptly for felonies or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies. Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them. Start feeding lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press. Don’t ever tamely submit to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way. — “Attacks on Scientology” (25 February 1966).
* If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace. — Dept. of Govt. Affairs (15 August 1960).
* The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly. — A Manual on the Dissemination of Material (1955).
THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them. — Lecture: “Off the Time Track” (June 1952) as quoted in Journal of Scientology issue 18-G, reprinted in Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology Vol. 1, p. 418.
The Bottom Line: The Church of Scientology is becoming increasingly incoherent, absurd, inconsistent, paranoid, and contradictory on social media.
(This article by Jeffrey Augustine was first published on The Underground Bunker. It is republished here with added content and archival material.)
L. Ron Hubbard’s original flagship, the Apollo, met a freak ending when it was hit and destroyed by a 3,750,000 pound freight train. This is somewhat ironic when you remember Hubbard’s 1963 claim…
“I notice that we all believe that Venus has a methane atmosphere and is unlivable. I almost got run down by a freight locomotive the other day — didn’t look very uncivilized to me.” – L. Ron Hubbard, “Between Lives Implants” lecture, SHSBC #317. 23 July 1963.
Commodore L. Ron Hubbard in his office on the Apollo. In this photo we can see Ron wearing a Rolex; his pack of Kool cigarettes; ashtray; and his daily glass of Coca-Cola. Ron’s fake war medals can be seen on the right side of the photo. The fake medals are hanging in a display case leaning against the wall.
Train-ship collisions are as rare as David Miscavige doing a network television news interview, which is to say that both have only happened once, according to the record. How did this bizarre collision occur? The story begins in 1975 in Daytona Beach, Florida when the Sea Org left the Apollo and went ashore.
When Hubbard and the Sea Org went ashore in 1975 and began surreptitiously to take over the town of Clearwater, Florida, the Apollo became a forgotten discard, a sort of second wife the Sea Org never had. The vessel was now a 39-year-old boat that guzzled expensive fuel oil. Accordingly, a seven-man skeleton crew was assigned to maintain the vessel while the Church worked to sell it and make some money. The crew dropped anchor in Nassau and would remain there for two years as only a tiny handful of prospective buyers came and went.
The Apollo was finally sold for $90,000 in 1977 to Consolidated-Andy Inc., a shipbreaking firm in Brownsville, Texas. The poster russ tee k9 added this comment on the sale of the Apollo on Tony Ortega’s blog:
Originally intending to dismantle the ship for scrap, Richard Jaross, Vice-President of Consolidated-Andy Inc., told the Brownsville Herald in October 1977 that the company had decided instead to turn it into a floating restaurant and locate it at the highly popular tourist town of South Padre Island.
Consolidated-Andy Inc. then changed its plans and sold the ship at auction to Zanzibar Shipping in 1978 for $188,000, doubling its investment in a one-year flip. Rechristened the Arctic Star by Zanzibar, the ship would never leave Brownsville for South Padre Island. Zanzibar Shipping would later be described in court papers as a, “Panamanian corporation with its headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” This makes no sense, but it gets more tangled as Zanzibar Shipping claimed in court papers that it did no business in the United States.
The 1982 Memorandum Decision of District Judge DeAnda tells the story and adds an incorrect detail that would surely have infuriated Commodore Hubbard:
The ship now called “ARCTIC STAR” has seen a colorful and varied career. Christened the “ROYAL SCOTSMAN” in 1936, she plied the rough seas between Belfast and Glasgow and survived. She risked German U-Boats when used as a troop ship in World War II and survived. She even had a name change (to “APOLLO”) and saw use as a spy ship for the CIA and survived. After having successfully avoided these often encountered and expected nautical dangers, it is perhaps quite ironic that she did not survive the night of September 16, 1980, when while lying at berth in the Port of Brownsville, Texas, she was rammed and constructively sunk by a railroad train.
…In addition to its unusual history, the ownership of the “ARCTIC STAR” is also far from ordinary. Although since being rechristened the “ARCTIC STAR” the ship has never left the Port of Brownsville, Texas, it is owned by Zanzibar Shipping, S. A., a Panamanian corporation with its headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The exact makeup of this corporation, created especially for ownership of the “ARCTIC STAR,” is shrouded in mystery; its stock is “bearer stock” and not even the corporate secretary, Ms. Ann Priddy, has any idea who or where its stockholders are. Despite its being headquartered in Wisconsin and having its only known asset permanently docked in Texas, Zanzibar Shipping maintains that it does no business in the United States.
The Apollo was not a CIA spy ship. In fact, L. Ron Hubbard was infuriated when this rumor was circulated during the years when the Apollo was cruising around the Mediterranean. The “Apollo is a CIA ship” rumor caused the Apollo to lose docking privileges in Mediterranean ports. Soon, virtually no Mediterranean ports would accept the Apollo. This forced Hubbard to order the Apollo to cross the Atlantic in July 1974. The Apollo then cruised the Caribbean for about sixteen months. Hubbard decided to have the Sea Org go ashore to Daytona Beach in October 1975.
THE LAWSUIT
“WTF!?” you may be asking yourself. How does a train hit a ship? One of my sources sent me a PDF copy of the newspaper article from the Brownsville Herald which is posted at the bottom of this article. In the article we learn that the collision happened late at night. The four people who were living aboard the ship were not injured; the same could not be said for the Apollo.
Quoting from the July 19, 1981 story we read:
The train, operated by Missouri Pacific, had been rolling along the concrete pier on a siding when seven boxcars detached from an engine, smashed through a blockade and struck the ship…
It was a night Capt. Robert Manning won’t easily forget either.
“I said: ‘I can’t believe this, there’s a train hanging out of the ship.”
Manning, asleep at the time of impact, recalls he was awakened by his wife, Anna, telling him: “ Honey, we’ve been hit by a train .”
“I thought it was a dream,” Manning said.
And it wasn’t easy explaining it to the Coast Guard and others he contacted by telephone. “They said, ‘Right, captain. Now put down that bottle and get yourself some sleep.’
“And I said, ‘No, really, we’ve been hit by a train .’
“And they’d say, ‘Captain, put out what you’re smoking and try to get some rest. Everything’s going to be all right.’”
Captain Manning’s appearance is as colorful as his great story-telling ability:
Trial Judge DeAnda wrote of Captain Manning:
The ship’s master is Captain Robert Manning, all of whose navigational charts seem to point towards the federal courthouse. See U. S. v. Firebird, Inc., No. B-79-116, (S.D.Texas, filed May 17, 1979); Baldwin v. Cisneros, No. B-79-249 (S.D.Tex., filed November 15, 1979); Brownsville Navigational District v. “ARCTIC STAR”, No. B-82-5 (S.D.Tex., filed January 11, 1982); Zanzibar Shipping v. United States, No. H-82-288 (S.D.Tex., filed after January 11, 1982).
Missouri Pacific Railroad Company conceded liability. The locomotive was pulling eighteen fully loaded freight cars. Seven of these cars separated from the train, jumped the tracks, smashed through a concrete barrier, and slammed into the Arctic Star. The only question now was how much Zanzibar Shipping could take Missouri Pacific to the cleaners for.
Here is a photo posted on the Bunker by PickAnotherID that shows the culprit in the crash:
Following the 1980 collision, Engine 2199 was placed back into service.
Fun Fact: Athearn sells a replica of the ship-killer Engine #2199. This makes the perfect gift for model train enthusiasts who want a replica of an engine with an unusual history:
HOW HARD DID THE TRAIN HIT THE APOLLO?
Essentially, the train cars hit the ship so hard that “the nine-inch polypropylene stern lines securing the ship snapped from the impact.” Imagine the sheer force needed to snap 9″ polypropylene lines! The ship’s stern was pushed out and its bow was pushed in and collided with the dock. The net effect was that the hull was twisted from the impact. As the court noted:
Repair of a twisted hull is extremely expensive. The “ARCTIC STAR” is a riveted-hull vessel, a type of construction no longer used in shipbuilding. To determine the exact extent of the damages would require the ship to be towed to a shipyard capable of doing this type of repair work and there drydocking and completely inspecting the ship. Estimates for this repair work were uniformly high…The lowest estimate is $10,000,000.
The court noted that the locomotive and its fully loaded freight cars weighed 3,750,000 pounds. The speed at which the fully loaded train was moving cannot be found by your correspondent. However, physics gives us the simple equation: Force equals mass times acceleration. The train was pulling eighteen fully loaded freight cars at a sufficiently high rate of speed that when seven cars separated from the train and jumped the tracks, they hit the 3,244 ton Apollo with a high enough amount energy to twist the ship’s 340 foot hull. According to the court record, the Apollo rolled during the impact and took on some water. The ship didn’t sink but it did take on water.
The Apollo began life as the HMS Royal Scotsman. Built in 1936 at Harland & Wolff’s Belfast yard, the ship was built to ferry cattle and passengers between Belfast and Glasgow. The ship served as a troop transport in WWII. Scientology purchased the Royal Scotsman in 1967 and rechristened it the Apollo. The photo was taken during the HMS Royal Scotsman’s sea trials. The vessel was 340 feet in length and weight 3244 tons. The beam was 48 feet and the draught 17 feet.
The court discussed the various legal theories in determining damages. This was necessary as the opposing parties were light years apart in what the damages should be. The court noted this discrepancy in whimsical language:
One of Defendant’s experts, Tommy Laing, estimated the damages at $21,000, based on cost of repair; one of Plaintiff’s experts Fergus Fleming, estimated damages at $35,000,000, based on cost of replacement. This is not a shadowland, but the Twilight Zone. Even when considering value alone, the differences are staggering. A surveyor for Plaintiff, Manning Dierlam, estimated the “ARCTIC STAR”‘s market value at $2,500,000… Defendant’s experts’ top value was $350,000.
The court next discussed the actual condition of the ship…
…the photographic evidence introduced during the trial indicates an aging and rusting ship in poor condition…The fact that the “ARCTIC STAR” could not legally sail on September 16, 1980, and the costs of re-securing her seaworthy status are important and relevant factors the Court has considered in determining her value. Because of her poor condition and lack of papers the Court further finds that on September 16, 1980, the “ARCTIC STAR” was not seaworthy.
Two other factors the Court has utilized in determining the value of the “ARCTIC STAR” are her insured value and the ship’s mortgage. Plaintiff’s claims of great value for its vessel are undercut by the fact that it did not maintain insurance on her…Zanzibar Shipping apparently negotiated a mortgage with a foreign bank for $200,000 and had received a Letter of Credit for that amount.
…After considering all of the above factors and findings of fact, the Court concludes that the value of the “ARCTIC STAR” on September 16, 1980 was $350,000. The Court finds her salvage value was $58,400, based on $40 a ton for uncut scrap and a weight of 1460 tons…Plaintiff is therefore entitled to recover from Defendant the sum of $291,600 as damages for the constructive total loss of the “ARCTIC STAR.”
An additional $13,000 was awarded for a small scow and a hatch cover the train destroyed. Costs of cleaning up 10 tons of oil that were spilled were awarded as were survey fees. Zanzibar Shipping paid $188,000 for the ship and collected $291,600 in damages, thus turning a tidy profit. The court awarded 12 percent per year interest from the date of the loss and so Zanzibar pocketed about another $70,000 in interest.
Gulmar Inc. of Brownsville, Texas was given the contract to haul away the damaged Arctic Star and scrap it. The Apollo, the once legendary Flag Ship of Commodore L. Ron Hubbard, was disposed of quietly and without sorrow under the pitiless sun in a nondescript ship breaking yard in Brownsville, Texas.
In a peculiar postscript to this story, parts of the Apollo deemed to be of value were stored by Gulmar Inc. in 1984 only to be promptly forgotten. In 2016, Gulmar Inc. sold these items at auction. An eBay seller purchased the lot and realized he had parts of the Apollo.
The seller offered the ship’s helm for $19,995.95. We contacted him, and he said that he had sold the item, but wouldn’t reveal the identity of buyer or the amount paid.
Consolidated-Andy Inc. purchases the Apollo. Story of October 16, 1977 in the Brownsville Herald. Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:
The Brownsville Herald article on the train hitting the Apollo. Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:
The Memorandum Decision in Zanzibar Shipping v. Railroad Locomotive Engine. Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:
This video of Mr. Farrakhan opens with his indignant declaration that he “didn’t get a dime from Dianetics or Scientology.” In fact, he recalls, the Nation of Islam had to spend a lot of money to buy the books for Dianetics.
Mr. Farrakhan then goes on to defend Dianetics by arguing that it will help members of the Nation of Islam overcome the trauma of sexual abuse. However, what Mr. Farrakhan ignores is that the Church of Scientology covers up rape, sexual abuse, and even pedophilia.
This begs the question: Why is Mr. Farrakhan looking for help with sexual abuse from a group that covers up sexual abuse? Mr. Farrakhan should demand that the Church of Scientology first cleanse its own house and expel all known rapists, child molesters, and those who have committed spousal abuse or domestic battery. The Minister should demand that Scientology stop covering up these crimes and sheltering the criminals simply because they are Scientologists.
Where Mr. Farrakhan is to be commended is that he, unlike the Church of Scientology and the Catholic Church, acknowledges that sexual molestation exists as a problem. Pope Francis, to his disgrace, has gone the way of John Paul II in attempting to cover up and protect pedophile priests. The recently published paper entitled The Testimony by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has served to intensify the pressure on Pope Francis by calling for him to resign. Archbishop Viganò claims that Pope Francis knew about and covered up the sexual crimes that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick perpetrated upon his subordinates and seminarians.
By contrast, Mr. Farrakhan has acknowledged that spousal abuse and sexual abuse exist. Accordingly, he incorporated both into the pledge that Black Men signed at his now legendary 1995 Million Man March. This section of the pledge reads:
I pledge from this day forward I will never abuse my wife by striking her, disrespecting her, for she is the mother of my children and the producer of my future.
I pledge that from this day forward I will never engage in the abuse of children, little boys or little girls for sexual gratification. For I will let them grow in peace to be strong men and women for the future of our people.
Again, we ask the question: Given the Nation of Islam’s decades-long willingness to forthrightly acknowledge the problem of sexual abuse, why does Mr. Farrakhan turn for help to a group that will neither acknowledge the problem nor punish the perpetrators?
WHITE JESUS
Even as Mr. Farrakhan warns the Nation of Islam that they were given a white Jesus to keep them enslaved, he leads the Nation to uncritically embrace and accept a white Savior named L. Ron Hubbard. NOI Western Regional Representative Tony Muhammad has called Hubbard, “an angelic messenger sent from God.”
Scientology leads to slavery. That is how the system is designed. L. Ron Hubbard wrote in his Admissions:
All men shall be my slaves. All women shall submit to my charms. All mankind shall grovel at my feet.
— Scroll down to the bottom of this page to read the Admissions of L. Ron Hubbard–
The Nation of Islam is focused on the 400 years of slavery, brutality, and injustice Black people in North America have suffered at the hands of the White man. And yet it seems Mr. Farrakhan is taking the Nation back into the bondage of Egypt when he submits the Nation to L. Ron Hubbard, the white man whose stated Magickal goal was to make all men his slaves.
We wonder if Mr. Farrakhan is cognizant of the Master Race ideology at the heart of Scientology or if he is simply dazzled by the auditing experience? Many public Scientologists such as Mr. Farrakhan are so dazzled by auditing and the wins they get from auditing that they just do not care to know what Scientology actually is at its core. Most Scientologists are not aware of the deliberately calculated and methodical ways in which the Church of Scientology traps them legally, psychologically, and spiritually.
Mr. Farrakhan publicly stated that any member of the Nation of Islam who refused to do Dianetics would never have a place of leadership in the Nation. Instead, he said, “they will be thanked for their labors and asked to step aside.” This is called an “enforced reality” in Scientology and that is what Mr. Farrakhan is doing: He is enforcing his reality upon others. In doing so, he is taking away their self-determinism. To take away the self-determinism of another unless they comply with your demands made under threat or duress is itself a form of slavery.
In the video, Mr. Farrakhan repeats his long-standing rationale that because Scientology is useful and can help the Nation of Islam, all criticisms of Scientology should be ignored. Farrakhan says, “They’ve beaten the hell out of Scientology now so everybody wanna run away. Farrakhan not that kind of man.” Farrakhan’s comment that “everybody wanna run away” is quite revealing. What group of persons is the everybody who wants to run away because of Scientology’s reputation? It appears there are cracks in the Nation of Islam over Scientology.
The Church of Scientology has been exposed and called to account due to its inhumanity; greed; lies; Fair Game attacks on former members, journalists, and critics; breaking up families by Disconnection; and its cynical exploitation of Sea Org members — and this includes the use of child labor in the Sea Org. If Mr. Farrakhan willingly chooses to ignore the evil, malice, abuses, greed, and lies at the heart of Scientology then that’s all on him. Farrakhan can “not is it” all he wants, but his not-isness doesn’t change reality.
“Not-isness” is a Scientology word for denial. To “not is” something is to pretend it doesn’t exist or deny its existence because you can’t confront it. Our critique of Mr. Farrakhan is that he wants the best of what Scientology has to offer and will “not is” the rest.
Many Scientologists have used this approach and it typically ends in failure when Scientology’s brutality suddenly and utterly destroys one’s ability to remain in a state of denial. It is an overwhelming experience that shatters all hopes and dreams. There is usually a triggering event in which all of the years or decades of repressed and pent up frustration, anger, and pretending break the dam and it all floods into full awareness. This necessary crisis is one way out. The easy way is to just leave Scientology.
TO WHOM DOES THE MONEY TRAIL LEAD?
Mr. Farrakhan specifically rebuts the oft-heard claim that he personally makes money from Dianetics and Scientology. The basis of his denial refers to the fact that the Church of Scientology pays a 10% commission to its salespeople — who are called Field Staff Ministers (FSM’s) or registrars — whenever they sell Scientology goods and services to others.
This raises the obvious question: Given the fact that the Church of Scientology is a business based solely upon the payment of money in exchange for overpriced goods and services, who then is paid commissions on the monies generated by sales to the Nation of Islam? While we welcome any information, here is our short list of three obvious candidates:
Tony Muhammad — Nation of Islam
Jim Mathers — Scientologist
Alfreddie Johnson — Scientologist
L-R: Tony Muhammad, Jim Mathers, Alfreddie Johnson
Jim Mathers is a white Scientologist who is seemingly omnipresent at Nation of Islam events related to Scientology. Mathers’ presence at NOI events since the beginning of the Nation’s involvement with the Church of Scientology has been left completely unexplained. Aside from Jim Mathers, white Scientologists are seldom ever seen at NOI events.
Mathers is frequently photographed in the company of Tony Muhammad and Alfreddie Johnson. Does Jim Mathers make money as an FSM to the Nation of Islam? Or does he serve another purpose?
Do Tony Muhammad and Alfreddie Johnson make money as FSM’s to the Nation of Islam? Nation of Islam members have never been told who gets the 10% Scientology commissions. This lack of financial transparency naturally creates questions.
Mathers recently donned the garb of a clergyman to appear at the Ebony Awakening event held in the ballroom of Scientology’s Fort Harrison Hotel located at Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida. The available literature gives no explanation for his appearance at the event which was largely attended by members of the Nation of Islam who are also Scientologists.
WE KNOW WHERE SOME OF THE MONEY DIDN’T GO
When Scientologist Alfreddie Johnson brought Nation of Islam Western Representative Tony Muhammad into Scientology, there was one problem: Tony Muhammad didn’t have the money to begin his Bridge.
Word went out to the Celebrity Centre that money was urgently needed to get Minister Tony Muhammad onto the Bridge. Leah Remini, who was then still in the Church, stepped up and loaned Minister Tony a good amount of money to begin his Bridge.
Tony Muhammad has never paid Leah back, this despite the strict Islamic teaching that a Muslim may not enter Paradise until all of his or her debts are paid:
Muhammad ibn Jahsh said: ‘We were sitting with the Messenger of Allaah (Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam) when he raised his head towards the sky, then he put his palm on his forehead and said: “Subhaan-Allaah! What a strict issue has been revealed to me!” We remained silent and were afraid. The following morning I asked him,
“O Messenger of Allaah, what is this strict issue that has been revealed?” He said, “By the One in Whose hand is my soul, if a man were killed in battle for the sake of Allaah, then brought back to life, then killed and brought back to life again, then killed, and he owed a debt, he would not enter Paradise until his debt was paid off.” (Hasan-al-Nasaa’i).
When will Minister Tony Muhammad correct the stain upon his honor as a Muslim by repaying this debt? Or has Minister Tony embraced Scientology to the extent that debts to SP’s do not have to be repaid? This is how the Church of Scientology actually views the matter.
Leah publicly chided Minister Tony about his unpaid debt as these two tweets show:
THE TRUE HISTORY OF JESUS BY THE HONORABLE ELIJAH MUHAMMAD
Mr. Farrakhan is quite correct in stating that Jesus was not white. One widely-held opinion is that Jesus was most likely an olive-skinned, black-haired, Jewish Palestinian. Nevertheless, Jesus is rendered in white Christian art as a white man. The Mormons, for example, depict a clearly out-of-place white Jesus preaching in Mesoamerica:
In his 1959 sermon The True History of Jesus, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that Jesus was a black man. The question of Jesus’ color has therefore been long established in the Nation of Islam:
Below is a PDF transcript version of The True History of Jesus as Taught by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame.
The Affirmations of L. Ron Hubbard are next. Again, please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:
Scientology’s phony STAND league just issued a tweet decrying the vandalism of Jewish graves in Missouri. STAND’s tweet declares: “It’s Time to End the Bigotry.” However, STAND’s tweet is easily exposed as fraudulent given Scientology’s complete unwillingness to address Scientologist Louis Farrakhan’s bigotry:
Scientology is calling on others to end bigotry when it refuses to end its own bigotry and hypocrisy. Scientologists considers themselves a Master Race. As such, Scientologists are inherently prejudiced against the inferior race they calls “wogs” and “homo saps.” This is pure bigotry and hatred. Where is STAND’s call to reform Scientology’s own discrimination?
L. Ron Hubbard’s racial bigotry is well documented and Scientology has never apologized for it. Here are just a few infamous examples of Hubbard’s racism:
You shouldn't be scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. Get yourself a nigger; that's what they're born for. -- L Ron Hubbard, in a letter to first wife, Polly Grubb
Actually, have you ever noticed how a Negro, in particular down south, where they're pretty close to the soil, personifies MEST? The gatepost and the wagon and the whip and anything around there? A hat. They talk to them, you know. "What'sa mattuh wi' you hat?" They imbue them with personality. -L. Ron Hubbard, Therapy section of Technique 80, Part I, "Route to Infinity", 21 May 1952
The Arab is to a point where he won't even follow a decent leader. He's got to have a man of blood, a man of cruelty, exaggeration and bigotry. Then he'll follow him...the Arab is trying to be pleased with death and murder and mayhem and disease and poverty and political unrest. -L. Ron Hubbard, 20th Advanced Clinical Course, "Case Analysis Rock Hunting", lecture of 4 August 1958
L. Ron Hubbard blasphemes the Prophet Muhammad and the Kaaba in Mecca:
Scientologist Louis Farrakhan is himself cognizant of Hubbard’s racism and explained it away as being inconsequential relative to the value of Scientology’s technology.
It may be that because Farrakhan gave Hubbard a free pass on racism that Scientology, in turn, has to give Farrakhan a free pass on Anti-Semitism. Hence, Scientology’s silence on Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitism speaks volumes even as Scientology pretends to care about Jewish graves.
The issue here that the Church of Scientology cannot have it both ways. Scientology cannot call for an end to bigotry even as it allows Scientologist Louis Farrakhan’s attacks on Jews to continue unabated. Indeed, Mr. Farrakhan attacks Jews even as Scientologist Tom Cruise received the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s highest award in 2011, this as covered in our previous article. Scientology is clearly hypocritical in these matters.
Scientology cannot call for an end to bigotry even as it fails to apologize for Hubbard’s bigotry and racism. Hubbard is presented by Scientology as the wisest and most spiritually enlightened man who ever existed. L. Ron Hubbard’s racism and bigotry cannot be reconciled to his claimed enlightenment.
STAND League’s disingenuous hand-wringing over the vandalism of Jewish graves is just another Scientology fraud.
Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.
Scientology OTVIII William Rex Fowler was convicted of first degree murdering for shooting and killing his business partner at point blank range. Fowler was sentenced to life in prison with no parole:
A private investigator working for the Church of Scientology via cut outs is arrested for hacking the phones of Mike Rinder and Tony Ortega. Radar story:
Marty Rathbun admits to destroying key evidence in the death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. This video is from the Tampa Bay Times seminal series The Truth Rundown. The interview is between reporter Joe Childs of the TBT and Marty Rathbun:
The Church of Scientology sent this now widely-circulated photo of Tom Cruise and David Miscavige to the Los Angeles Times for its feature article on Scientology. Published December 5, 2004 both the photo and the Times caption are unintentionally hilarious:
A STAR AND HIS LEADER: Tom Cruise and David Miscavige after a brunch at Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Hollywood about a year ago.
Tom Cruise and David Miscavige send mixed signals in the photo. They want to present a sinister image of themselves as planetary-clearing, Psych-busting, bad-ass, leather-wearing Scientologists on their matching Ducati’s. However, bad-ass bikers don’t do brunch. The photo looks like a sultry urban bromance more than anything else.
In the L.A. Times article of 2004 we learn several interesting facts:
1. David Miscavige had molds made of his feet so that he could order custom made shoes:
2. Scientology acquired the old Gilman Hot Springs resort for $2.78 million in 1978. The resort became the home to Scientology’s Gold Base where the infamous “musical chairs” event occurred. This event was first reported on by Marc Headley at xenu.net. This was when Marc was writing under the screen name Blownforgood. Marc’s book Blown For Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology is a true classic.
3. The Church used the names “Scottish Highland Quietude Society” and “Western States Scientific Assn.” to purchase the Gilman Hot Springs resort. Scientology did not want anyone to know who the real buyer was. This was the same dishonest method whereby Scientology acquired its first properties in Clearwater.
4. Scientology spent “at least $45 million” on improvements Gold Base in the period 1978-2004. The LA Times article does not mention Scientology’s sniper nest and lookout station at Gold Base that was named the Eagle’s Nest. Details are in my 2014 podcast with Jackson Morehead, the former Security Chief at the Base. In this podcast Jackson covers the big fire that was caused by toilet paper being set afire, the razor wire fences, and the sniper rifles at the Base:
5. Scientology was planning on a television station as early as 2004. Scientology TV was launched March 12, 2018 — a glacial fourteen years later. The “speed of particle flow” was slow on this project.
6. Scientology spent $9.4 million to build a mansion on its Gold Base for the deceased L. Ron Hubbard. The article informs us that Ron’s mansion is named Bonnie View and has a lap pool and a movie theater. Looks like Ron wants to do laps in his pool and watch movies when he returns from Target 2.
7. David Miscavige told Sea Org members that the Bonnie View mansion needed to built quickly as L. Ron Hubbard was returning and would make himself visible within thirteen years of his 1986 death. Former Sea Org member Karen Schless Pressley, author of Escaping Scientology: An Insider’s True Story, was quoted in the LA Times 2004 on Hubbard’s mansion and David Miscavige’s claim that Hubbard would soon appear:
A teenage L. Ron Hubbard never made himself visible by 1999 as promised by Scientology leader David Miscavige.
This is hardly surprising as David Miscavige’s prophetic track record has been abysmal:
* The Ideal Orgs have not boomed Scientology or even moved the needle
* Scientology TV was dead on arrival. Scientology’s “uncorrupted communication line to the billions” is an infomercial of incredible boredom and repetition.
* The new Flag Building in Clearwater did not boom Scientology.
* Scientology did not destroy Psychiatry by the year 2000 as Miscavige predicted
Finally, Miscavige got these predictions incredibly wrong when he made them in 1992 during the 25th Anniversary of the Sea Org:
Scientology’s Damage Control Team: L-R: Stacy Francis, Taryn Teutsch, Joy Villa
As season 3 of Leah Remini’s Emmy winning show Scientology and the Aftermath approaches, David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology have gone into an apoplectic foaming-at-the-mouth hysteria of rage. This rage betrays the intense fear of exposure at the core of Scientology.
In response to the upcoming third season of Leah Remini’s show, Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs has conducted an erratic and schizophrenic damage control campaign that is quite transparent.
Even as OSA wages a malicious campaign of Fair Game against Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, and the brave guests who appear on Leah’s show, OSA has also fielded Scientology operatives Joy Villa and Stacy Francis in an attempt to convince Christian Evangelicals that people can be both Christians and Scientologists.
Scientologists Joy Villa and Stacy Francis have promoted themselves as ardent Christians and Donald Trump supporters in what appears to be a desperate attempt to pander to the Trump Administration. Given that Scientology’s long-time Washington D.C. lobbyist Greg Mitchell is involved behind the scenes, we consider that OSA is orchestrating this in a frantic hope of staving off an inevitable IRS investigation into Scientology’s tax exemption.
From our perspective, Stacy Francis and Joy Villa are trying to “safepoint” Scientology in Washington D.C. However, when one contrasts this with the 1990’s and 2000’s when Scientology was able to deploy John Travolta and Tom Cruise to D.C. to influence President Clinton and the Bush 43 Administration, it becomes apparent that OSA is scraping the bottom of the barrel with Villa and Francis.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
One of the central contradictions with Scientologists pretending to be Christians is that Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies. We read the words of Jesus in Luke 6:27-36:
But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Christ’s commandment that Christians are to love their enemies is directly antithetical to L. Ron Hubbard’s incredibly violent policy of Fair Game in which he calls for the literal bodily injury and destruction, or death, of Scientology’s enemies:
“ENEMY SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”- L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis have never publicly disavowed L. Ron Hubbard’s Fair Game doctrine. This fact alone puts the lie to their claims to be Christian.
Scientology wants to portray itself as religious even as it continues to savagely attack those it deems enemies. Scientology’s three main actors in its recent psychotic soap opera are Scientologists Stacy Francis, Taryn Teutsch, and Joy Villa.
JOY VILLA & STACY FRANCIS
Scientologist Stacy Francis singing at Ralph Reed’s Faith & Freedom “Road to Majority” event in June 2018. Along with her fellow Scientologist Joy Villa, Stacy Francis also passed herself off as a Trump supporter and a Christian at this event.
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis showed up last month at Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” event. We covered this in a previous article, Ralph Reed, the Faith & Freedom Coalition, and Scientology. Despite her claims to be a Christian, when Stacy Francis appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2017 she showed her true colors:
That Ralph Reed and his people were taken in by these two Scientology charlatans who claimed to be Christians is not surprising: Villa has been taking advantage of the trust of Evangelicals for the past eighteen months. Villa has falsely claimed to Evangelicals that Scientology is merely a set of self-help tools. She has also said that a person can be both a Christian and a Scientologist. However, this is demonstrably false from a biblical perspective. See our essay: Why You Can’t be a Christian and a Scientologist.
SCIENTOLOGY & THE NATION OF ISLAM
Scientology’s efforts to position itself as a Christian-friendly organization is completely exposed as a lie given Scientology’s partnership with the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan’s account was decertified by Twitter for his recent incendiary tweet and video in which he railed against the Jews:
Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.
— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) June 7, 2018
We note that the Church of Scientology never publicly censured nor rebuked Mr. Farrakhan for his incendiary anti-Semitic tweet. We are therefore forced to conclude that the Church of Scientology condones Mr. Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism and that of the Nation of Islam. To this point, Stacy Francis certainly appears to have no problem with Mr. Farrakhan’s views and seems quite fond of him as can be seen in this photo taken at a Scientology event:
Scientologists Stacy Francis, Alfreddie Johnson, and Louis Farrakhan
Long-time Farrakhan supporter Congressman Danny Davis (D) of Illinois recently took the extraordinary step of publicly disavowing Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. Congressman Davis issued a statement on his official Congressional webpage in which he unequivocally stated, “I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan’s views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.”
That Scientology leader David Miscavige refuses to make a comparable statement shows the Scientology leader’s apparent tolerance of, or even agreement with, Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism. David Miscavige has long claimed to be a “global ecclesiastical leader” and yet shows no moral leadership whatsoever on this issue.
Joy Villa and Stacy Francis claim to be enthusiastic supporters of President Trump. However, Mr. Trump has unequivocally stated his support for Israel and the Jewish people. Given the President’s position here, it would seem incumbent upon Joy Villa and Stacy Francis to fall in line with the President’s position, and particularly as they claim to be Republicans and Evangelical Christians, and publicly condemn the anti-Semitism of Mr. Farrakhan.
TARYN TEUTSCH
Over against Scientology’s incursions into pro-Trump Evangelical Christian circles, Scientology has been engaged in an absolutely hellbent non-Christian Fair Game campaign against Mike Rinder.
As we documented, Taryn Teutsch outrageously tried to link her sleazy Fair Game campaign to the #MeToo movement. This is an utter disgrace and a deep insult to the women who are the actual victims of sexual harassment and rape.
We must point out that this attempt to link Taryn’s Fair to Game attacks to the #MeToo movement was ordered by none other than Scientology Cult boss David Miscavige — the man who has kept his own wife Shelly Miscavige locked away in a high security Scientology facility for over ten years.
Below are links to our continuing coverage of Taryn Teutsch and Scientology’s Fair Game attacks on Mike Rinder. We plan to continue our coverage of this Scientology Fair Game campaign in order to document the exact conduct of Scientology.
As reported by the watchdog Independent Scientology News, we learn that the Church of Scientology has officially opposed a proposed new law that makes it a crime to target police officers for assault or murder specifically because they are police officers.
The proposed new law is called The Protect and Serve Act of 2018. Following a shocking series of murders of police officers killed in premeditated ambush slayings, a literal War on Cops by criminal elements, this new law is needed. However, the Church of Scientology has signed a coalition letter opposing the Protect and Serve Act of 2018.
The question we ask is this: Why does the Church of Scientology oppose giving police officers additional legal protections? This question is particularly relevant due to the fact that the Church of Scientology and its front groups rely heavily upon police officers for PR purposes. Indeed, the Church of Scientology wallpapers its websites with photos of Scientologists and police officers.
Given Scientology’s opposition to The Protect and Serve Act of 2018 we conclude that the Church of Scientology cynically exploits the men and women of law enforcement for PR purposes and has no real or actual commitment to law enforcement. These self-serving Scientology PR photos of Scientologists and cops should be immediately removed from Scientology’s websites given Scientology’s publicly stated opposition to increased protections for police officers:
Scientology’s actual view of law enforcement was stated Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard hatefully dismissed police officers as “professional dangerous environment makers” who deliberately create a fake “dangerous environment” in order to profit from it financially. Even as Scientology uses police officers for PR, Scientologists actually despise police officers as rank opportunists and frauds. Hubbard even states that police are “chaos merchants” and as such are the worst enemy of Scientology. Here is the damning evidence in Hubbard’s own words:
Police agencies everywhere should take notice: Scientology is quick to exploit police officers for its own PR purposes. However, when push comes to shove, Scientology opposes supporting a proposed new law that would give police officers extra protections. This is hypocritical in the extreme on the part of the Church of Scientology.
Thee letter Scientology signed outrageously portrays the increase in ambush-style cop killings as “an unhelpful and dangerous narrative to uplift.” Here then we see the Church of Scientology wanting to use cops for PR but calling the in the increase in cop killings “an unhelpful and dangerous narrative to uplift.” This is as vile as it gets.
We further note that another signatory to this letter is the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It is no surprise to the Scientology Money Project to see the Church of Scientology in bed with criminal defense lawyers. Law enforcement should take note of this as well.
Here is the letter the Church of Scientology National Affairs Office signed:
Coalition Letter Urging US Congress to Oppose H.R. 5698/S. 2794, the Protect and Serve Act of 2018
May 14, 2018
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20515
RE: Coalition Opposition to H.R. 5698/S. 2794, the Protect and Serve Act of 2018
Dear Members of Congress:
On behalf of the more than 20 undersigned civil rights, civil liberties, faith-based, and government accountability organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 5698/S. 2794, the Protect and Serve Act of 2018, which creates a new crime for offenses that target law enforcement officers.
First, police already have substantial protections under federal and state law, rendering this bill superfluous. Second, this bill signals that there is a “war on police,” which is not only untrue, but an unhelpful and dangerous narrative to uplift. And finally, bills similar to Protect and Serve that have been introduced in states around the country—so called “Blue Lives Matter” bills—appear to be a political response to the growing national movement for police accountability in the face of continued killings and assaults of unarmed African Americans; therefore, this bill is divisive and will have a negative impact on the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
I. Federal and state criminal laws already offer ample protection to police officers.
Federal law already has extremely strong penalties for people who commit crimes against law enforcement officers and other public officials. For example, federal laws impose a life sentence or death penalty on persons convicted of first-degree murder of federal employees or officers,[1] killing state and local law enforcement officers or other employees assisting with federal investigations, and killing officers of the U.S. courts. All fifty states have laws that enhance penalties for people who commit offenses against law enforcement officers, including for homicide and assault.
Moreover, there is no record that crimes against law enforcement go unprosecuted or are otherwise treated frivolously. There is no record to suggest that prosecutors are unwilling or unable to charge individuals with crimes against law enforcement. In fact, crimes against police officers are treated as among the most heinous criminal acts, given the high degree of culpability and punishment attached to such crimes.
II. The Protect and Serve Act does not advance any stated policy goals, because law enforcement is not subject to increasing or widespread attacks.
There is no doubt that police work is a dangerous undertaking, but the reality is that there has been a continuing decline in the number of officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty over the last several decades. In the past ten years, the number of officers feloniously killed has fluctuated, yet not significantly increased or decreased, as have ambush-style killings of officers. Given these facts, this bill perpetuates a false narrative that police are under increasing attack by their communities. Such a message is unhelpful and unsupported.
Furthermore, the Protect and Serve Act does nothing to meaningfully improve officer safety and wellness if that is an intended policy goal. For example, it does not call for support services, better training, improved safety measures, increased supervision, or any of the other multiple measures available to law enforcement that are widely accepted as promoting officer safety and wellbeing.
III. The Protect and Serve Act is polarizing and harms community-police relations.
This bill is being contemplated at a time when our country is in the throes of a national policing crisis, with a never-ending stream of police shootings of unarmed African Americans captured on video. Creating a new, yet superfluous, crime for offenses committed against law enforcement is a particularly disconnected and non-responsive policy choice. Unfortunately, the Protect and Serve Act is similar to other “Blue Lives Matter” type bills that create new criminal offenses and penalty enhancements for crimes against police.
Collectively, these policy efforts, which have sprung up amid the national call for police accountability, appear to be a political response to the powerful activism of grassroots movements that demand fair and constitutional policing. Rather than focusing on policies that address issues of police excessive force, biased policing, and other police practices that have failed these communities, the Protect and Serve Act’s aim is to further criminalize. This bill will be received as yet another attack on these communities and threatens to exacerbate what is already a discriminatory system of mass incarceration in this country. Continuing to undermine police-community relations in this manner sows seeds of division, which ultimately threatens public safety and undermines the work of law enforcement.
For the reasons summarized above, we urge you to vote against the Protect and Serve Act as it comes before the U.S. House of Representatives. There is no justification for creating a new crime for offenses committed against law enforcement. At a time when we need to foster healing between law enforcement and our communities, we should not be considering legislation which not only does nothing to advance the goal of officer safety, but will further erode the relationship between police and communities.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. If you have any questions, please contact Kanya Bennett of the ACLU at 202-715-0808 or kbennett@aclu.org; Sakira Cook of The Leadership Conference at (202) 263- 2894 or cook@civilrights.org; or Sonia Gill Hernandez of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.at 202-216-5569 or sgill@naacpldf.org.
Sincerely,
American Civil Liberties Union
Anti-Defamation League Church of Scientology National Affairs Office
CLASP
The Daniel Initiative
Defending Rights & Dissent
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Human Rights Watch
Government Information Watch
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
NAACP
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
National Action Network
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
National Association of Social Workers
National Center for Transgender Equality
The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
National Council of Churches
People for the American Way
PolicyLink
Southern Poverty Law Center
StoptheDrugWar.org
II Corinthians 6:14-17: “Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?
Scientologists Joy Villa and Stacy Francis appeared this week at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to a Majority” event in Washington D.C. The event featured keynote speaker Vice President Mike Pence; several US Senators and Congresspeople; and other Christian Evangelical luminaries including Kellyanne Conway.
This creates quite a tangled mess for Ralph Reed as the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam is a part of the Church of Scientology whereas the Faith and Freedom Coalition are staunch supporters of Israel and the Jewish people, this as shown by Faith and Freedom’s tweets:
The next headache this creates for Ralph Reed is that Joy Villa is pro-LGBTQ whereas the Faith and Freedom Coalition oppose both gay marriage and special protections for LGBTQ people. For Reed and his followers there is no escaping what is written in the books of Leviticus, Romans, I Corinthians, and Timothy — not to mention Yahweh’s wholesale destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The third problem for Ralph Reed is that a person cannot be both a Christian and a Scientologist. Reed knows theology and scripture from his decades of fighting in the trenches of the Culture War. Why did he allow Scientologists pretending to be Christians into his 2018 Road to Majority event? Who on Reed’s staff approved the appearances of Stacy Francis and Joy Villa?
SCIENTOLOGY’S CONTINUING INFILTRATION OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN CIRCLES
For Scientologists Joy Villa and Stacy Francis to appear clearly shows a continuing operation on the part of the Church of Scientology to inject itself into American Christian Evangelical political circles at the highest levels. From my perspective, this is being done in a frantic bid to “safepoint” Scientology and its tax exemption.
The lie Scientology has to repeatedly tell to to get its people into Evangelical political circles is that one can be both a Scientologist and a Christian. Alternately, Scientology will downplay the matter and claim that Scientology is merely a set of self-help tools. However, as we showed in an earlier article, Scientology insists that it not only a religion, but in fact has long promoted itself as the fastest growing religion in the world.
Scientologist Joy Villa has been active in Evangelical Christian circles by promoting the lies that Scientology is a set of self-help tools and that Scientologists can also be Christians. We present the evidence of why these are lies in our previous articles:
In this article we seek to be the Watchman on the Wall and warn Ralph Reed and his followers of the dangerous quicksand into which they are sliding by getting involved in any way whatsoever with the Satanic Church of Scientology. Joy Villa has fooled other trusting Christians.
SCIENTOLOGY’S LOBBYIST GREG MITCHELL
We begin by identifying Scientology’s long-time D.C. lobbyist Greg Mitchell. President Trump has called for criminal justice reform. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Foundation supports Trump’s efforts on criminal justice reform. Unsurprisingly, Mitchell was quick to jump on the bandwagon. This got Mitchell a White House invite as Holly Harris tweeted and Mitchell retweeted:
The Church of Scientology has long been a bottom-feeder in interfaith groups. Greg Mitchell works through a front group called the International Religious Freedom Roundtable (IRF). Mitchell also injects Scientology into secular activities such as Trump’s call for criminal justice reform. The likely play for Scientology and Mitchell here is to get government funding for Criminon programs under the aegis of criminal justice reform. Scientology is notorious for trying to suck on the government teat as it has done with its L. Ron Hubbard-based study tech and Narconon programs. This works until Scientology is exposed as the group behind study tech and Narconon and then funding is cut.
JOY VILLA’S RIDICULOUS 2017 TWEET
In 2017 Scientologist Joy Villa made a ridiculous tweet in which she claimed she and her “political adviser” Greg Mitchell had a meeting that turned into a prayer session. Villa noted that people came up and began prophesying and laying their hands on both herself and Mitchell. This preposterous tale of a breakfast meeting turning into an ecstatic prayer session in which the Holy Ghost descended from on high is made more amusing by the fact that, at the time, Joy Villa was contemplating a run for the US Congress. We are lead to ask if the saints of God prophesying over Villa and Mitchell prophetically informed them that Villa’s Congressional aspirations would be an abysmal failure that ended with her selling Joy Villa singing pens.
SCIENTOLOGY’S LUIS GONZALEZ
Luis Gonzalez is the “Humanitarian Programs Director” at the Church of Scientology International (CSI) and is involved in the Cult’s interfaith efforts as well. Luis Gonzalez’s LinkedIn page. Google “Luis Gonzalez Scientology” and can see the extent of Gonzalez’s involvement. Of interest on Gonzalez’s LinkedIn page is this:
As the Humanitarian Programs Director, I am responsible for providing support to our secular education programs that effectively curb drug abuse, instill tolerance, raise awareness of human rights and uplift morality across whole populations.
Here we have Luis Gonzalez admitting that Scientology’s secular groups are actually supported by the Church. This is key data point to keep in the dossier.
SCIENTOLOGIST SHERRY VAN HOOTEGEM
A tweet sent out by Ralph Reed after the 2017 Road to Majority event was responded to by Scientologist Sherry Van Hootegem on behalf of the Greg Mitchell Group. Thus we see Greg Mitchell and his fellow Scientologists courting Ralph Reed and the Faith and Freedom Coalition in 2017. Last week Joy Villa and Stacy Francis appeared at Reed’s 2018 event. What did Scientology or Mitchell (or perhaps even Reed?) do to get Villa and Francis appearances at the 2018 event?
WHY IS RALPH REED INVOLVED — VIA SCIENTOLOGY — WITH THE NATION OF ISLAM?
The anti-Semitic Nation of Islam is, for all intents and purposes, now a part of the Church of Scientology. NOI members have gone “Clear” in Scientology and many are now moving up and onto Scientology’s OT levels.
In his recent Savior’s Day Speech, Farrakhan attacked Jews and white people. Over against this, Rabbi Heir and the Simon Wiesenthal Center gave Scientologist Tom Cruise its Humanitarian award in 2011. The Church of Scientology is clearly exploiting as many groups as possible as we see in this juxtaposition of images:
Scientologist Louis Farrakhan denounces Jews and white people. Tom Cruise receives a humanitarian award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Scientology Cult works both sides of the spectrum: Anti-Semitism and Pro-Israel. Scientology is using its own “Third Party Law” to simultaneously pander to, and polarize, the anti-Semitic and Pro-Israel camps. This is as hypocritical and two-faced as it gets. But this is what Scientology is all about: Be all things to all people in order to advance Scientology’s own interests.
THE NATION OF ISLAM, SCIENTOLOGY, AND HOMOPHOBIA
In this next juxtaposition of images we see the Nation of Islam attacking the “Homosexual Conspiracy” even as Scientologist Joy Villa celebrates the LGBTQ Pride Month. Again, this is Scientology speaking out of all sides of its mouth. This is what Ralph Reed and the Faith and Freedom Coalition have become a party to by association with Joy Villa, Stacy Francis, Scientology and the Nation of Islam:
Joy Villa has not denounced the homophobia of her fellow Scientologists in the Nation of Islam nor can she do so. David Miscavige and Scientology are playing to both the homophobic Evangelical community and the LGBTQ community.
While Scientologist Joy Villa celebrates LGBTQ Pride, Ralph Reed and Faith and Freedom Coalition condemn the LGBTQ community and gay marriage based upon unequivocal Biblical doctrine that condemns homosexuality. That Joy Villa claims to be pro-LGBTQ when the Bible clearly condemns LGBTQ people shows Villa is not a real Christian and, in fact, is a heretic in this regards. The books of Leviticus and Hebrews state the Judeo-Christian doctrines on LGTBQ matters in unequivocal terms.
Ralph Reed and Faith and Freedom Coalition oppose gay marriage. As Yahoo reported:
Despite national polling showing that support for legal same-sex marriage is growing, Reed said, activists who favor same-sex marriage rights have struggled to overturn longstanding marriage laws through the ballot box. He told the group that supporters of same-sex marriage don’t seek voter initiatives because they believe they will have more success in the courts.
“They have to do this by judicial fiat,” Reed said.
L. RON HUBBARD’S CONDEMNATION OF LGTBQ PERSONS
In terms of the depth of Joy Villa’s lies, L. Ron Hubbard condemned homosexuals. Hubbard wrote in Dianetics:
The sexual pervert (and by this term dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in Dynamic II such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc. and all down the catalogue of Ellis and Krafft-Ebing) is actually quite ill physically. Perversion as an illness has so many manifestations that it must be spread through the entire gamut of classes from (1) to (5) above. Over-development of sexual organs, underdevelopment, seminal inhibition or magnification, etc. are found some in one pervert, some in another. And the sum of it is that the pervert is always a very ill person in one way or another, whether he is conscious of it or not. He is very far from culpable for his condition, but he is also so far from normal and so extremely dangerous to society that the tolerance of perversion is as thoroughly bad for society as punishment for it. Lacking proper means prior to this time, society has been caught between tolerance and punishment, and the problem of perversion has, of course, not been resolved.
The Krafft-Ebing catalogue to which Hubbard referred was created by the German psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft Ebing and was published in his 1886 work Psychopathia Sexualis. The book catalogued what Krafft Ebing called “sexual psychopathologies” in which he, for example, horrifically conflated homosexuality with what he called sexual lust-murder.
Hubbard’s denunciation of LGBTQ persons gets even stranger when we consider that Hubbard cited the German psychiatrist Krafft Ebing as his authority. Hubbard hated psychiatrists with a vengeance and this became institutionalized in Scientology’s declared mission to destroy psychiatry. Nevertheless, early in the Dianetics movement when Hubbard was trying to appear scientific and academic he hypocritically embraced Freud, Krafft Ebing, and other psychiatrists.
Joy Villa disregards both the Bible and L. Ron Hubbard in her embrace of the LGTBQ community. True to Scientology form, Villa is speaking out of all sides of her mouth in her attempt to be all things to all people. Moreover, Villa has to overlook the anti-Semitism and homophobia of her fellow Scientologists in the Nation of Islam. The Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts Jr. recently reported on Scientologist and Nation of Islam leader Mr. Farrakhan blaming the Jews for promoting lesbianism and homosexuality:
The leader of the Nation of Islam has, for years, been a toxic fount of anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric. “These false Jews,” he preached in 2006, “promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. …It’s the wicked Jews, the false Jews, that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s the wicked Jews, false Jews, that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!”
Scientologists Stacy Francis, Alfreddie Johnson, and Louis Farrakhan.
Mr. Farrakhan speaking at the 2018 Savior’s Day event:
“Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men…. White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled a cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through. You good Jews better separate because the satanic ones will take you to hell with them because that’s where they are headed.”
Farrakhan couldn’t give it a rest and had to belabor the point in graphic terms:
Do you know that many of us who go to Hollywood seeking a chance have to submit to anal sex and all kind [sic] of debauchery [before] they give you a little part? It’s called the casting couch. See, that’s Jewish power.
Inasmuch as Ralph Reed allowed Scientologists Stacy Francis and Joy Villa to promote themselves — and by extension Scientology and the Nation of Islam — Reed has given his consent for both himself and his Faith and Freedom Coalition to become tools of the Church of Scientology of the Nation of Islam. This bears further investigation as to how this was allowed to happen.
To add a typically surreal Scientology ending to this matter, here is a video of Stacy Francis (who dined with her fellow Scientologist the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan) singing for Scientologist Tom Cruise (who received an humanitarian award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center):
We depart today from our usual excursions into Scientology financial and legal chicanery in order to explore a theological matter; specifically we examine the Church of Scientology’s claim that people can be both Scientologists and Christians.
We explore this topic because of the recent efforts by Scientologist Joy Villa to gain access to American Evangelical GOP political circles. Villa did this in part by reassuring trusting Christians that Scientology is merely a set of self-help tools. This is hardly surprising as Scientologists have long attempted to minimize Scientology as nothing more than a set of self help tools when it served their purposes to do so.
However, this claim is demonstrably false. Each and every time a Scientology Org has been raided by the police — which is becoming more frequent these days –or Scientology has faced legal challenges, the Church of Scientology is very quick to protest that it is a religion and is entitled to full religious protections. The website scientologyreligion.org header clearly shows Scientology presenting itself as a religion:
Scientologist Joy Villa has stated that she is a Christian and that Scientology is a set of self help tools. In this essay we put Villa’s claims to the test. While there are many ways to analyze Scientology, we do so from an Evangelical Christian perspective in this essay as the claims at hand pertain to Joy Villa’s status-seeking incursions into Evangelical Christian political circles.
EXCLUSIVITY
We begin by noting that Scientology is mutually exclusive from all other religions. Likewise, all other religions are mutually exclusive from Scientology and from one another:
One can’t be a Christian and a Muslim
One can’t be a Jehovah’s Witness and a Mormon
One can’t be a Protestant and a Catholic
One can’t be a Shia Muslim and a Sunni Muslim
One can’t be a Scientologist and a Christian
What makes any religion unique is its distinctive doctrinal structure, beliefs, and practices that set it apart from all other religions. On this basis we can examine the key areas in which Scientology and Christianity radically differ from each other. In doing so, we will able to see the series of sequential barriers L. Ron Hubbard, his executives, and Scientology’s lawyers erected that effectively stop Scientologists from being Christians or members of any other religion.
The first barrier pertains to exclusivity. As we have previously published, in its 1992 1023 application for 501(c)3 tax exemption, Scientology told the IRS that people are expected to give up their existing religious beliefs and practices to become Scientologists:
Although there is no policy or Scriptural mandate expressly requiring Scientologists to renounce other religious beliefs or membership in other churches, as a practical matter Scientologists are expected to and do become fully devoted to Scientology to the exclusion of other faiths. As Scientologists, they are required to look only to Scientology Scriptures for the answers to the fundamental questions of their existence and to seek enlightenment only from Scientology. Thus, a Scientologist who grew up in the Jewish faith who continues formal membership in his synagogue and attends services with his family violates no Scientology policy or tenet. On the other hand, such a person is not permitted to mix the practice of his former faith into his practice and understanding of Scientology so as to alter orthodox Scientology in any way.
Scientology is speaking out of both sides of its mouth in the above statement to the IRS. Translated into simple terms, the statement means that a Scientologist must and will become a Scientologist to the exclusion of all other faiths. As L. Ron Hubbard wrote:
Scientology expects the Scientologist, “to look only to Scientology Scriptures for the answers to the fundamental questions of their existence and to seek enlightenment only from Scientology.” This of necessity precludes a Scientologist from looking to the Christian God and the Bible for the answers to the fundamental questions of their existence and enlightenment.
THE SCRIPTURES
The Church of Scientology does not recognize the Bible as the Word of God, the final and completed revelation of God to humanity. Rather, Scientology’s scriptures are the written and spoken words of L. Ron Hubbard:
L. Ron Hubbard positioned himself above the Bible as the final scriptural authority in the life of all Scientologists. The Scientologist is left to ask, “What does L. Ron Hubbard say about this?” rather than ask, “What does the Bible say about this?” This prohibition is especially effective against young people who were born into Scientology or joined at a young age. These young people read and study the works of Hubbard and are not exposed to the Bible, the Gitas, the Quran, or the scriptures of any other faiths. Unless they leave Scientology, these young people will only ever know the world through the eyes of L. Ron Hubbard.
THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST
Christianity is so theologically distinct from Islam that it is impossible to confuse the two religions. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association discusses and contrasts the many differences between Christianity and Islam. Here is one major example:
Islam teaches that the doctrine of the Trinity is blasphemous. But the Christian faith is essentially and irreducibly Trinitarian. The Bible reveals that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is not merely a prophet, as acknowledged by Muslims, He is God in human flesh. This is precisely what Islam rejects.
Scientology nowhere declares or acknowledges the triune nature of the Christian God. Scientology nowhere teaches that Jesus Christ is God and incarnated in human form to die for the sins of humanity. Scientology by design refuses to affirm or teach the core doctrines of Christianity pertaining to the nature of God and salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. This fact alone makes Scientology incompatible with Christianity.
Christianity teaches that humans were created in God’s image. However, sin entered the human race through Adam. Thus, humans are cursed with the Adamic sin nature. According to Christian scripture, only the sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ’s shed blood is efficacious to forgive sin. Scientology nowhere teaches that one must accept Christ as their Savior in order to be saved.
Jesus declared that he is the only way to God:
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. — John 14:6-7
Scientology nowhere affirms that Jesus Christ is the only path to God. Instead, Scientology affirms that L. Ron Hubbard’s Bridge is the only “exactly taped path” to truth.
Whereas Christianity teaches the centrality of the Cross, Scientology teaches the centrality of its Bridge. Again, these two things are mutually exclusive.
By barring the doors to practicing a personal relationship to Jesus Christ and the Christian scriptures, Scientology effectively prohibits a person from practicing Christianity at all. Scientology ensures this prohibition by forbidding the Scientologist to “mix the practice of his former faith into his practice and understanding of Scientology so as to alter orthodox Scientology in any way.” Orthodox Christianity would inherently alter orthodox Scientology by warning against any involvement in Scientology:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. –Colossians 2:7-9 ESV
MIXING PRACTICES
The Church of Scientology forbids “mixing practices” when one is practicing Scientology. Thus to say that one is both a Christian and a Scientologist would be mixing practices and is therefore forbidden in Scientology.
Scientology arrogantly positions itself as the “religion of religions” and goes so far as to offer procedures to undo past harm caused caused by having participated in other practices. This is based upon Hubbard’s view that other religions are actually what he called “R6 implants” that cause damage and need to be undone by Scientology. Said another way, Scientology seeks to deprogram people from their prior religious experiences — and Scientology does this while screaming loudly about past attempts at deprogramming Scientologists. As a point of clarification, I personally oppose deprogramming of any kind as a gross violation of a person’s freedom.
Below we offer an example in which Catholicism is mentioned by name in a specific procedure designed to undo the harm caused by other practices. Like all Scientology procedures this one is run on an e-meter with the auditor asking prepared questions:
In 1962 when L. Ron Hubbard had licensed Scientology franchises — franchises were later called “missions” to conceal their commercial nature as businesses — he forbid his franchisees from mixing Scientology with other practices. The penalty for mixing practices was to have one’s franchise license and Scientology certificates cancelled:
Hubbard forbid mixing practices in many other places:
Based upon Hubbard’s injunction against mixing practices, one cannot be both a Scientologist and a Christian.
Because Scientology is not Judeo-Christian in origin, it becomes axiomatic that one cannot be both a Christian and a Scientologist: Christianity cannot be derived from non-Christian sources. It is impossible to take Scientology, which was founded in 1954 following the bankruptcy of the Dianetics Foundation, and derive from it the practice Christianity. There is nothing Christian in Dianetics or Scientology. One must embrace a Judeo-Christian frame of reference in order to be a Christian. Scientology and Christianity are therefore wholly incompatible on this basis.
Question: Why is a person who represents herself as a disciple of Christ so very busy giving away copies of L. Ron Hubbard’s The Way to Happiness with her photo on them? A Christian preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ and distributes Bibles; she does not “disseminate” the works of L. Ron Hubbard.
PAST LIVES
Christianity teaches that humans live only once and then comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Conversely, Scientology teaches the doctrine of past lives and avers that people have lived countless lifetimes in different universes, on different planets, and in various physical, mechanical, electronic, and even doll bodies. Scientologists learn about past lives in the very early phases of their indoctrination into Scientology. Scientology’s doctrine of past lives prevents a person from being both a Christian and a Scientologist as it clearly violates Biblical doctrine.
Scientology again speaks out of both sides of its mouth in the above statement. While “past lives is not a dogma in Scientology” as the statement avers, Scientology also declares, “It is a fact that unless one begins to handle aberration built upon in past lives, he doesn’t progress.” What Scientology admits here is that while past lives are not a dogma, it is also pointless to practice Scientology unless one handles the aberration from their past lives.
Scientology teaches that the human condition is one of great unconsciousness and pain caused by the reactive mind, various alien implants, body thetans, and a myriad of traumatic episodes that have accumulated across eons of time from a person’s countless past lives. This series of past lives is called a person’s wholetrack in Scientology. This Scientology teaching opposes Christianity’s teaching that the human condition is caused by the Adamic sin nature that has caused humans to be separated from God. In Christianity, the problem is the sin in the human heart:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? — Jeremiah 17:9
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. — Isaiah 64:6
Scientology teaches that as a consequence of one’s accumulated wholetrack aberration, only a $360,000+ program of Scientology auditing will bring about the alleviation of suffering caused by engrams, body thetans, implants, and accumulated trauma from countless past lives.
As an aside, despite Scientology’s high prices, it does not guarantee any results from auditing:
Additionally, while Scientologists spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Scientology, they may not rely on any statements or promises made to them by Scientology staff members:
According to Scientology, the traumatic experiences of both this life and previous rebirths are an impediment to rational behaviour and spiritual development. The purpose of Scientology auditing is to free the thetan from the “reactive mind”, the chains of bad memories, and to recall the possibility of salvation.
The goal is a god-like state of full OT (Operating Thetan), wherein the thetan is free from all limitations in this life.
As in Indian religions, Scientology considers that man must be released from past deeds (compare the karma of Hinduism and Buddhism), which have accumulated in the chain of numerous rebirths. Scientology’s idea of salvation comprises both this life and the life hereafter. It promises in both cases the Bridge to Total Freedom.
Apart from individual salvation, Scientology sees as its task to clean up our whole planet and create a civilization where there is no irrationality, criminality or wars. In Scientology nomenclature, a synonym to salvation is “survival.” This includes both the present life and the life hereafter. Auditing and the E-Meter which is used in it, help the individual to find his actual and original identity.
Dr. Heino’s description makes it clear that Scientology and Christianity are doctrinally and theologically incompatible. In Christianity the believer seeks to become one with God. The Scientologist, however, works to strip away the eons of accumulated entities, engrams, traumas, and implants in order to return to their actual and original state as a god. Scientology Operating Thetan (OT) state is all about the eventual attainment of godhood.
GNOSTICISM
Scientology is clearly Gnostic in concept. Hubbard saw humans as spiritual beings (thetans he calls them) who were pulled down into the material planes of existence. Hubbard declared this when he stated:
I’ve slept with bandits in Mongolia and I’ve hunted with pygmies in the Philippines, as a matter of fact, I’ve studied 21 different primitive races including the white race, and my conclusions were that man, regardless of his state of culture and so forth, was essentially the same, that he was a spiritual being that was pulled down to the material — the fleshly interests — to an interplay in life that was in fact too great for him to confront. And I concluded finally that he needed a hand.
For L. Ron Hubbard to conclude that humanity “needed a hand”, i.e. needed Hubbard’s help is his implicit affirmation that he alone had transcended the material universe and was the only one able to help humanity attain salvation. Thus, Hubbard set himself up as a savior figure while negating Christian salvation altogether in favor of his copyrighted and monetized cosmology. In Hubbard’s cosmology one pays and pays without surcease to find the way out of the trap that is the the physical universe. Hubbard called the physical universe the “MEST” universe where MEST means matter-energy-space-time. This use of neologisms to keep outsiders from understanding what is being said is typical of cultic systems. Scientology is awash in Hubbard’s replacement language system that leads to mind control.
Christianity does not teach that humans were once god-like and were pulled down into flesh. Indeed, Christianity has considered Gnosticism a heresy since the 1st century AD. As we read at Catholic.com:
“Matter is evil!” was the cry of the Gnostics. This idea was borrowed from certain Greek philosophers. It stood against Catholic teaching, not only because it contradicts Genesis 1:31 (“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good”) and other scriptures, but because it denies the Incarnation. If matter is evil, then Jesus Christ could not be true God and true man, for Christ is in no way evil. Thus many Gnostics denied the Incarnation, claiming that Christ only appeared to be a man, but that his humanity was an illusion. Some Gnostics, recognizing that the Old Testament taught that God created matter, claimed that the God of the Jews was an evil deity who was distinct from the New Testament God of Jesus Christ. They also proposed belief in many divine beings, known as “aeons,” who mediated between man and the ultimate, unreachable God. The lowest of these aeons, the one who had contact with men, was supposed to be Jesus Christ.
Scientology’s website affirms its core Hubbardian form of Gnosticism in defense of itself as a religion. In this sense, Scientology auditing can be understood as a Gnostic process:
Scientology is salvation by systematically auditing away one’s reactive mind and implants and telepathically exorcising one’s body thetans. Once this quasi-Gnostic clearing-cum-exorcism is completed over a course of time by use of an e-meter, the Scientologist achieves their native state as a god from which they fell so long ago when they descended into the physical universe and its traps. Scientology’s cosmology is wholly incompatible with Christian cosmology
Question: Why is a person who represents herself as a disciple of Christ selling $5,000 e-meters for Scientology? A Christian disciple is one who preaches the gospel to every nation per the Great Commission.
SCIENTOLOGY AND LYING
It is instructive to note in concluding this essay that telling lies is fully condoned in Scientology when it furthers or protects Scientology’s interests. Lies are called “acceptable truths” or “shore stories.” L. Ron Hubbard taught his PR people to lie:
“Purpose: To train the student to give a false statement with good TR-1. To train the student to outflow false data effectively. … The student should be coached on a gradient until he/she can lie facilely.”–L. Ron Hubbard, Intelligence Specialist Training Routing — Lying (TR-L)
A convincing lie in Scientology is reconceptualized as “outflowing false data effectively.” Scientology’s public relations people are drilled repeatedly, per Hubbard, until they “can lie facilely.” For a Scientologist to say that one can be a Scientologist and a Christian is a Scientology PR tactic. In other words, it is a lie.
Scientologists are quite capable shapeshifters who will become whatever they need to become to accomplish their goals. Given the overwhelming public disdain for Scientology, there are political reasons for Scientologists to downplay Scientology and falsely characterize it as self help tools. It is also to the advantage of certain Scientologists to say that they are both Scientologists and Christians.
In Hubbard’s “moral code” called The Way to Happiness, he does not condemn lying but rather qualifies it when he writes:
“Do not tell harmful lies.”
This bit of moral relativism leaves the door wide open to mischief. In Scientology any lie is not harmful if, as noted, it furthers or protects Scientology’s interests. Thus, when in Rome…. Likewise, when in Christian Evangelical circles that can get one invited to the White House then by all means be a Christian. Just be sure to leave your e-meter back at the hotel.
ALEISTER CROWLEY, THELEMA, AND MAGICK
L. Ron Hubbard’s involvement with Jack Parsons in Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic lodge Ordo Templi Orientis has long been established. Scientology has both Gnostic and Thelemic roots. Thelema involves the practice of Magick. Crowley’s mantra “Do as thou will shall be the whole of the law” was Hubbard’s operating basis and is that of the Church of Scientology.
The Message is a bible translation written by Eugene Peterson, a man who studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary. After seminary, he did not become a theologian but rather served as pastor of Christian church for 30 years. He wrote his translation after he retired from three decades of dealing with everyday life. The Message is my favorite translation of the Bible because it is tempered by real life. With this in mind, this particular passage struck me as descriptive of L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology:
It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. — Galatians 5:19-21
Scientology is indeed an, “ugly parody of community.” The Church of Scientology is drifting aimlessly back into roots as a paranoid Magick Show religion full of expensive trinkets and phony IAS statuses. The IRS needs to take responsibility for the monster it helped to create by revoking Scientology’s tax exemption. Please sign my petition asking the IRS to act.
