Radio Broadcast

Transcript:

HOST: Some listener comments from yesterday’s show. Now we’re gonna talk about Scientology. We had originally planned to do two shows on this subject, one today with the critics and one next Tuesday with supporters of Scientology; but the church contacted us about 90 minutes ago and insisted that they be allowed to have a spokesperson on today’s show, so we’re happy to have with us three ex-members of the Church of Scientology right now, and in a moment we will be joined by one of the—one of the spokespersons for the Church of Scientology. We’ve got in the studio with us right now Birgitta Dagnell, Arnie Lerma and Martin Ottmann. All are ex-members of the Church of Scientology and welcome to WMNF; thanks for coming in.
ARNIE LERMA: Thanks so much for having us

HOST: Good to have you here. Birgitta, let me ask you first of all—you’re from Sweden and you joined this Church of Scientology many years ago. How many years ago?

BIRGITTA DAGNELL: Oh, I joined the Church in 1970.

HOST: And how long were you in the church?

BD: 14 years.

HOST: And you became eventually the head of the Church’s Office of Special Affairs, right?

BD: Yeah, but it hadn’t really started to operate as well at that time. It was about to form, so I was in that office from Spring 1983 up to around October 1983.

HOST: Now what did you do for the Church of Scientology? What were, what were some the positions you had and why did it, did you belong to it?

BD: What I had to handle was external troubles, and to form front groups with Narconon, CCHR, etc., take care of aggressive media and make friends with media, and city officials and so on.

HOST: Now you say that you set up front groups like Narconon and CCHR. CCHR is the Citizens Commission for Human Rights, right?

BD: Right.

HOST: Why did you set up, why do you call it front groups?

BD: Because they are doing things which make Scientology look more public friendly. It should, it’s a facade for the Church to get the Church accepted by the community.

HOST: Why did you leave the Church?

BD: Well, it was several factors. I was put into their camp; they had kind of a concentration camp in Denmark in 1983 and I, together with all the other Guardian Office members, were put into this camp. We should be rehabilitated, meaning they should crack us down and then build us up to what they wanted us to be.

HOST: When you say concentration camps, what do you mean, concentration camp? That’s a pretty, I mean that word is so loaded.

BD: Yeah, I have not seen anything similar so that’s why I call it concentration camp. Because they didn’t give us food and if they gave us food, it was very little food. For instance, at one moment they gave us 16 slices of bread for 82 people and one, one of us took 6 slices of bread so the rest of us almost—how do I say-- [couldn’t hear word] him up because he took too much.

HOST: Why do you think they gave you so little food?

BD: They were suppressive against us. They wanted us to be very, very low. I remember, for instance, once when I had been there for a long time, I met a friend I had known for years. I met him on the yard, and he said to me, "Hi, Birgitta, what are you doing here?" and I couldn’t even remember his name. It took me a month to remember who that person was.

HOST: Was that because you had so little food?

BD: Yes, so little food, so little sleep, so very bad mental conditions.

HOST: Let me switch the focus to Arnie Lerma. Arnie, you were with the Church up until 1978. Tell me about your experience in the Church of Scientology.

AL: I used to be the, what would be considered the Financial Controller for the Publications Division, which is now called Bridge Publications, and, um, I got out in ’78, I believe, and it was—there was no way that I could continue to hold any hope that Scientology in fact was what it claimed to be.

HOST: Well, why did you lose faith with the Church of Scientology?

AL: It—I had been involved with them for 10 years and I think, you know, enough time had gone by that I just gave up hoping that, perhaps, that what they were telling me was true or that something would be revealed on some upper level that would make the madness that you see, you know, day-to-day when you’re in the organization make sense.

HOST: What—what happened that you’ve described as "madness"?

AL: Well, the last straw was being placed under house arrest here in Clearwater at the Ft. Harrison and being held in a hotel room, um, and then being taken to another room and questioned by two staffers--I suppose they were members of the Guardian’s Office then—and, um, was given—see, and I don’t remember the exact wording but I remember the conclusion I had and the decision that I made. And, um, I was given an offer of safe passage out of the state of Florida with no bodily harm, um, if I would give up a plan. Well, we had a marriage license with Suzette Hubbard and we were trying to elope. Of course, during her auditing it came up.

HOST: Well, now, you tried to elope with the daughter of the founder of Scientology.

AL: Right, and I think that, um, I was still a little too independent thinking, and that’s not considered upstat in Scientology.

HOST: They objected to your relationship with her.

AL: Oh, absolutely.

HOST: How long were you held in house arrest in Clearwater?

AL: Oh, just a few days.

HOST: Let me turn to a spokesperson for the Church right now. She is Sylvia Stanard. Sylvia, thanks for joining us, it’s good to have you here.

SYLVIA STANARD: Thank you.

HOST: Is there such thing as house arrest at the Church in Clearwater?

SS: Absolutely not. And Arnie Lerma knows and of course doesn’t mention that he didn’t leave, he was actually thrown out of the Church for quite a lot of other indiscretions and financial--

AL: That’s a fabrication.

HOST: All right, well let me just—um, did your Church hold Arnie Lerma in house arrest in Clearwater for a few days in 1978?

SS: Absolutely not.

HOST: Does your church maintain concentration-like camp situations in Europe as Birgitta mentioned a moment ago?

SS: Absolutely not, absolutely not—

BD: Yes they do.

SS: Birgitta, you were, you were in Berlin at a conference put together by the German government.

BD: Yes I was.

SS: Yes; that’s, that’s my question for Birgitta is, this, what’s happening here is there’s a lot of people who are being paid to come into Clearwater—

BD: No I’m not being paid—

SS: Who are being, who are being financed—

BD: I’m paying--

SS: Who paid for your flight?

BD: I’m paying all my expenses myself—

SS: OK, you’re one of the few. There are quite a few others including a critic of the church who recently had a house bought for him. There’s quite a few people that are being paid to come in and attack the Church, and that’s what this is all about. What’s happening is that these people who are coming into Clearwater to talk about the Church are almost all involved in litigation against the Church trying to win money from the Church, or these kind of things where they have a very big financial vested interest in attacking the Church. And that’s what people in Clearwater need to know. And then the people in Clearwater who are residents here—there are thousands of Scientologists who live in Clearwater and thousands who come every week, and who are very involved in the community, who are doing community activities, who are doing things. People need to come and look for themselves. Come to the Ft. Harrison. Look, you know--take a look yourself. Have you ever seen anybody being held? No. Anybody can come at any time and have a full Open House, go for a tour throughout the Church, go for a tour throughout Ft. Harrison. That’s what the Church is all about, and that’s what people need to really look for themselves, not listen to people who are trying to win money—

BD: No—

SS: Arnie Lerma has a case against the Church—

BD: [couldn’t hear (people were all talking at the same time)]

AL: That case was brought by you, not me—

SS: And you tried to make money on it and you’re alleging now--

AL: Scientology’s lies continue from the first moment you get in till long after you are out.

SS: (snickers) You are involved in litigation against the Church.

AL: You are the one—who sued me? It’s RTC vs. Lerma.

SS: Exactly.

AL: Or are you illiterate?

SS: It is—

HOST: OK, let me back up. It would seem that there’s a giant gulf here and I still want to know about people being held against their will. Is there an independent way that we can verify that other people have been held against their will by the Church of Scientology? Can we—Birgitta, were people who were held in this alleged concentration-like situation—uh, have others come forward to, to second what you have said to us?

BD: Well, my daughters.

HOST: Your daughters can testify that this indeed happened to you.

BD: Yes, yes.

SS: Were they there?

BD: No, they were not there. Um—

SS: There are quite a few statements we have from people who *were* there who say it didn’t happen.

BD: There is people outside, actually, a lot more people who were there who *can* testify about it. Of course.

HOST: Let me bring our other guest in on this too. His name is Martin Ottmann. Martin, you for a time worked at the spiritual headquarters at the Church; you eventually left. Why did you leave the Church of Scientology?

MARTIN OTTMANN: Um, I had to leave the so-called headquarters in 1992 because my visa had run out, and I tried to get back to the United States but, uh, while this was in progress, I had to stay a certain amount of time in Germany, and at that time I worked in a printing company in Frankfurt owned by Scientologists, and finally I left Scientology because of my experience at the printing company, because the Scientologists who—there were several Scientologists who had run this printing company—falsified tax balances and they put money out of the company into Scientology, and finally I reported them to the German CID. The company went bankrupt and one of the former—one of the former owners, one of the Scientologists, went to jail in 1994 for it.

HOST: As a result of, as a result of your coming forward.

MO: I don’t know. Um, he went to jail and it’s for the tax reasons for several things he did.

HOST: There’s a—

MO: Against the—

SS: That was a private company, you’re saying, it wasn’t a Church company.

MO: It was a private company and the former Scientologists were all patrons of the IAS, um, high-ranking public members who paid each $250,000 to the IAS from the company who went bankrupt in 1993.

SS: So it’s a private company that went bankrupt that you worked for.

MO: Yeah.

SS: Exactly. And just like any other church, there are quite a few private companies--that are owned by Baptists, that are owned by Catholics, that are owned by Muslims--that go bankrupt and that might have—I don’t know about this particular case, but that’s, that’s the point is what’s happening here is that if you take individual cases, particularly as this is happening in Germany, where individual Scientologists who are members of the church, who might have a company. Their company—some companies do very well, just like any other business; some companies don’t do as well. And when a company doesn’t do well, suddenly it’s the Church of Scientology. Well that’s not—that’s not true and it’s not fair. If you have a Catholic company that is—not a Catholic company, a company that is owned by someone who is Catholic—that goes bankrupt, do you say the Church—you know, the Catholic Church did this? Absolutely not. No one would ever think of it. And that’s, that’s an abuse that we’re concerned about is this generalization.

MO: These people were so-called regged—this is a Scientology term—they were persuaded to give the money to the Church of Scientology by Church staff. I can tell the name—the name is Achim Bendig, who was the IAS registrar; and I have published on the Internet an internal Knowledge Report made by the owner where he can, where he can, he describes the registration cycle—this is another Scientology term--which led to the funding of the Scientology organization; and it was clearly that the Scientology organizations were set up on these persons to get a lot of money out of it, from it, and, and this registrar, Achim Bendig, knew about the financial status and the financial situation of the company.

HOST: So you’re saying that the Church was set up deliberately as a way to, among other things—I mean the company was set up as a way to pass money to the Church?

MO: They, uh, the Scientology officials, they viewed this organization and other companies as a money pool, and this is not a single incident in Germany. There are others. For example—

SS: This is, this is what’s happening in Germany and this is why there are four years in a row the U.S. State Department has condemned what’s going on in Germany, the United Nations has issued reports about what’s going in Germany, because this is exactly the kind of thing that we’re facing in Germany—

AL: They didn’t do it the last report--

SS: Where, where people—yes they did, quite--a page and a half, a full page and a half. The longest report on Scientology in the U.S. State Department report in the last four years was this year. The reason that this is going on is because in Germany, because of the kinds of things that this man is saying, that just because a person is a member of the Church, there are these wild accusations that—you’ve just heard the accusations, but there are these wild accusations just because they are a member of the Church. Now there are thousands and thousands of members of the Church that are good upstanding citizens that pay a lot of taxes, that are very involved in the community, that do well in business. There are a lot of major corporations that I have family and friends that are involved in that are high executives and, that are name-brand corporations. Just because a person is a member of the Church of Scientology or just because a person is a member of the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church doesn’t mean that their personal business and their personal tax returns is something that should even be the subject of a radio show.

HOST: All right, well, let’s, let’s talk some more about it because I think obviously people in this community are very interested in the subject of Scientology. Uh, there is going to be a demonstration this weekend at 9:30, 9:30 on December 6 and 6:30—9:30 a.m. December 6 and 6:30 p.m.-- in Clearwater opposite the headquarters of the Church of Scientology to protest among other things what the critics say is the cruelty to its own members; and you folks are using the death of Lisa McPherson two years ago as a way to try to encourage people to protest the church. I wonder if, if one of you could take this question of Lisa McPherson’s death two years ago and tell us what you think it shows to us about Scientology. Arnie?

AL: I’m, I’m not completely familiar with the case but I can point out what I’ve noticed. Um, the logs—there were logs that were kept, um, detailing Scientol—Lisa’s confinement in the Ft. Harrison. The logs start before the incident where she was running down the street--when she was in that car accident and then was going down the street taking off her clothes, which indicate to me that that was her first attempt to escape. Um, Lisa McPherson worked for an outfit and was getting paid a large sum of money, um, selling some kind of insurance forms or something like that. And, it’s, and it was a Scientolo—or, it was a WISE corporation where they pay 10% of their income or profit to Scientology.

HOST: What, when you say "WISE", what does WISE stand for—

AL: World Institute of Scientology International or some—what is WISE?

SS: World Institute of Scientology Enterprises.

AL: Enterprises.

SS: Which, which are corporations that use Mr. Hubbard’s technologies and--management technologies to help their business do better—

AL: May I ask you one question while, while you’re on a roll here?

SS: I’m not on a roll, you are. (snickers)

AL: Um, can you tell me if this quote that I’m about to read is correct? All right?

SS: If you’ll let me then use a quote from you after that-

AL: As being true? "The court record is replete with evidence that Scientology is nothing in reality but a vast enterprise to extract the maximum amount of money from its adepts by pseudo-scientific theories and to exercise a kind of blackmail against persons who do not wish to continue with their sect"—

SS: What court record is that?

AL: "The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard."

SS: What, what court record--

AL: Judge Breckinridge, Los Angeles Superior Court.

SS: I don’t know, I’m not familiar enough with the exact position—

AL: Don’t you work in the Legal Department?

SS: No, I don’t. But I’ll tell you what I’m concerned about and I think people don’t know about somebody like Arnie Lerma and I think it’s important people in this community do know where you’re coming from. Uh, the, this picket was advertised in the Spotlight newspaper. The Spotlight newspaper, according to a new book out called "In Hitler’s Shadow", is one of the biggest neo-Nazi publications in the United States.

AL: Oh, [couldn’t hear words]--

SS: Liberty Lobby, according to the Anti-Defamation League in a new booklet just published, "Hate on the Internet", is the number one anti-Semite group in the United States. Arnie Lerma is on the board of policy of Liberty Lobby.

AL: That’s not true.

SS: You--I’ve got your postings saying you are.

AL: What’s the date of it?

SS: I don’t have it with me--

AL: Yeah--

SS: But it’s a year ago.

AL: Mm-hmm.

SS: So you’ve resigned now from the Liberty Lobby.

AL: There’s no resign, that’s a--you pay $15 extra and they let you vote.

SS: And you spoke at their national convention a year and a half ago.

AL: And you know what I spoke about?

SS: Yes!--

AL: I spoke about the Liberty Tree and the fact that the Internet is the Liberty Tree of the ‘90s--

SS: And, and it’s a neo-Nazi publication, it’s the number one anti-Semite hate publication--

AL: Well--

SS: In the United States, according to the ADL, and you’re going to the national convention—

AL: All right, now we don’t need to argue about this, but perhaps the most neo-Nazi anti-Semite part of it might be described as a part called Institute for Historical Review. Correct?

SS: Yes--

AL: In your opinion? Good.

SS: Absolutely.

AL: IHR was taken over by Tom Marcellus, Scientologist--

SS: Not--

AL: Field Staff Member--

SS: Not, not true.

AL: Yes it was—

HOST: OK, we should say—let me just back up.

SS: (laughs)

HOST: For the audience that doesn’t know, the Institute for Historical Review denies that the Holocaust ever happened. It is a, it is--by some, by some estimates it is a neo-Nazi group. I think they would argue with me. Now you’re saying, Arnie—

AL: Scientologists took it over.

HOST: All right--

AL: They went and used the names against Germany in their fight against Germany.

HOST: All right, and, and, Sylvia of the Church of Scientology, you’re saying it’s not true that one of your top staff members has now taken over IHR?

SS: Absolutely not.

AL: Is Tom Marcellus a Scientologist--

HOST: Is Tom Marcellus a Scientologist?

SS: Tom Marcellus, at least several years ago, was a Scientologist. I don’t know—

AL: Is he [couldn’t hear word]

MO: He is--

SS: He is not a staff member, he has never been a staff member.

AL: He’s a Field Staff Member--

SS: And the point with the IHR that is of interest is that there is a rift between Willis Carto that, uh, Arnie Lerma and Larry Wollersheim and quite a few other people who are involved in this picket are good friends with. He is the head, he is, according to this book, internationally known in neo-Nazi movement.

AL: Hmmm—

SS: Now that’s, that’s what we’re talking about—

AL: I went to Willis Carto to find out about you folks, because when I heard, when I found out about the takeover, that Scientologists had taken over IHR—

MO: Can I--

AL: And we compared notes about Scientology--

SS: Scientologists did not take over IHR--

AL: I gave him a book sort of like the book I just gave you--

HOST: All, right--

MO: Can I say something--

HOST: Tom, Tom, let me get you in on this--

SS: Well that, well that raises up the question of what’s happening with this picket and why we’re so, the Church is so concerned about it—

HOST: Tom, we’re gonna get to that in just a second--

AL: Scientology is [couldn’t hear word] organization--

HOST: But let’s--Martin Ottmann--

MO: I have some background information about Thomas Marcellus. He was the Executive Director of IHR from 1981 until 1995. In 1991 he attended a course in the Scientology headquarters, the Dynamic Sort-Out Assessment. In 1992 he became sponsor of the IAS. He paid $5,000 to the IAS—

HOST: The IAS is the Inst--

MO: International Association of Scientologists. It’s the official membership of Scientologists. So while he was the Executive Director of the IHR, he became a Scientologist per the documents. It’s from the "Impact" magazine, from an official Scientology magazine and later--

SS: And then resigned from IHR--

MO: And later--

HOST: Let me ask--

MO: Thomas Marcellus was kicked out of IHR because the other Nazis in, within this organization accused him of, uh, undermining the organization with Scientology.

HOST: All right--

MO: Then he became a patron of the IAS. He paid another 40, he paid another $35,000--

AL: Incidentall-

SS: But what--

AL: The president of International, of IAS, is Heber Jentzsch, and it’s my understanding that he’s out on $1 million bail on charges--

SS: He’s the president of IAS? That’s news to me.

AL: He used to be. Is he not? You’ve changed it now.

SS: He’s the president of the IAS?

AL: Yes.

MO: No.

SS: He’s never been, he’s never been—

AL: Who’s the president of IAS?

MO: Janet McLaughlin.

HOST: All right, you know, guys, let me just slow this down a little bit here because I hope the audience is keeping up with us. We’re talking about the Church of Scientology today, and our guests are three critics, three former members of the Church. They are Birgitta Dagnell, Arnie Lerma and Martin Ottmann. Also here is one of the officials in the Church, the External Affairs Director, Sylvia Stanard. Sylvia, did, did L. Ron Hubbard ever subscribe to conspiracy theories? Did he ever think that the big bankers were out to get him and to undermine the Church?

SS: I personally don’t know exactly every theory he ever subscribed to. I have never read anything from Mr. Hubbard saying anything like that.

HOST: Um--

SS: I don’t know--

HOST: It is a theory that neo-Nazis and conspiratorialists hold, that, that the big bankers and all that, all that are out to get them, right? Did, did L. Ron Hubbard ever hold, hold that theory?

SS: I’ve, I’ve never read anything saying that--

HOST: Let me just play, let me just play a tape of L. Ron Hubbard here for just a moment and get everybody to respond to it. Here is, in his own words, L. Ron Hubbard:

TAPE OF L. RON HUBBARD: --on this planet are less than 12 men; less than 12 men. They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they are, oddly enough, directors in all the mental health groups in the world which have sprung up. These chaps are very interesting fellows. They have fantastically corrupt backgrounds—uh, illegitimate children, uh, government graft—um,a very unsavory lot; and they apparently, some time in the rather distant past, had determined upon a course of action. Being in control of most of the gold supplies of the planet, they entered upon a program of bringing every government to bankruptcy and under their thumb so that no government would be able to act politically without their permission.

HOST: All right, well, there’s, there’s a--according to L. Ron, there’s a conspiracy of international bankers. Uh, he goes on to say that this conspiracy is aimed towards the Church of Scientology. He was a believer in conspiracy theories, wasn’t he?

SS: I, I don’t know, I’ve never personally met the man to know that. What I know is what I as a Scientologist have read and studied about the religious beliefs of Scientology; and that--*that*--the issue here really is my First Amendment right to believe what I want to believe about my religion without my religion being attacked by people coming from out of state—out of the country—to come to protest here at the international headquarters of my church, and to not—

HOST: Do you believe that these protesters are violent?

SS: Absolutely. I have postings saying, "Blow up your local Church of Scientology today", "So-called Church ought to be destroyed". I have a whole, whole raft of postings from many of the people who are supposed to be here tomorrow. Um, the oncology bomb--the ontology bomb detonated in Oklahoma was meant for Scientology". "If only someone would bomb their new tourist trap"—these are the kinds of things that--

HOST: Let, let me get—

SS: That are being said on the Internet

HOST: Let me get—all right, let me get the critics to respond. Uh, earlier this week, the Church of Scientology tried to prevent you folks from holding a protest, saying that you were gonna be violent. Uh, let’s take that first and then let me ask her about—let me ask you about her religious freedom. Are you guys gonna be violent at this protest?

AL: Absolutely not. We’re worried about them.

BD: Yes.

HOST: Why are you worried about them—

AL: They were pushing us and shoving us around at the last picket.

HOST: You had a protest a year ago and they were pushing you around?

AL: Yes—

SS: Not true. I was there—

HOST: Now wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on, let me just ask him: How did they push you around?

AL: Um, they would block your—they would block your ability to walk. They would surround us with other pickets. Um, they would place themselves in a position where you could not walk any further. It was sort of like what they did to Keith Henson in bringing some fellow that, you know, they, they deceived a judge the same way they deceived Judge Brinkema to get the, um, writ of seizure on my home, which was later vacated—all of your raids have been vacated after they get all the details—but they’re, they’re adept at deceiving judges and baffling them.

HOST: All right, uh, so, so, let me, let me turn it back to Sylvia. Sylvia, your people pushed, uh, this group of anti-Scientology protesters around last year at the protest.

SS: No, we didn’t and he didn’t say we did. He said that they were blocked from walking further; that’s not the same as pushing. I didn’t, I didn’t see that personally.

AL: We were bumped and jostled below camera level--

SS: We tried to talk-we tried to talk with them. There were quite a few people, including myself who was out there with Arnie, saying "Come on, Arnie, let’s talk." That’s been our position all along—

AL: I’d like to talk about the last time I talked with her—

SS: "Let’s talk about the Church of Scientology. Let’s talk about your complaints. Let’s negotiate; let’s see what your real upsets are." But it comes down again and again and again to being a financial issue where they are vested interest in trying to make millions of dollars from the Church. And that is--

BD: You are-

SS: The Lisa McPherson story that you’re talking about isn’t a story. It happened two years ago—

BD: You are the one who are-

SS: Suddenly, when the aunt tries to sue—hold on a minute—for $80 million, now it’s suddenly a story. Now that’s what’s happened time and again. Larry Wollersheim is getting paid. Arnie Lerma is getting paid—

AL: What do you mean—what are you talking about, I’m getting paid?

SS: You’re getting money under the—under the counter. It’s been on the Internet. You’re, you’ve been financed. Larry Wollersheim—

AL: I’ve been soliciting postage stamps—

SS: Larry Wollersheim—you’ve been handing out flyers saying "Donations received--willingly received" constantly—

AL: Absolutely—

SS: Absolutely, you’re, you’re—

AL: Absolutely—

SS: You’re getting financed—

HOST: Who do you think is financing—

SS: Larry Wollersheim—

HOST: Laura—I mean—I’m sorry, Sylvia, who do you think is financing them?

SS: Well, a guy named Bob Minton has been admitted in court cases, has, for instance, uh, been involved in giving money to, to, um—

HOST: OK, Bob Minton. Let me toss it back to Arnie Lerma and, uh, the critics. Are you guys being financed and what do you think of this accusation?

AL: At one point during my litigation, after two years of the most intense litigation that the attorneys that were representing me had ever experienced, I offered to sell my computer to Bob Minton, the one that I used to log on to the Internet with, because I was out of money.

SS: The insurance company paid for all your legal fees and you know it.

AL: Yes, but who was feeding me while I was doing all of that?

SS: You were. You were out busy. You were telling me that you—

AL: Absolutely—

SS: You work only one or two days a week because you like to lay around the house the rest of the time--

AL: But I mean, this is all, this is all the time that you were keeping us tied up with litigations—

SS: You told me that—

AL: And the litigation stress—

SS: But you did give the false impression—

AL: Once you inflict the same way you use the RPF, you can destroy people’s minds—

SS: You just gave the false impression that--

AL: So that they don’t remember what happened to them while they’re in.

SS: The point is, you just gave the false impression that you paid for this litigation—

HOST: OK—

SS: The insurance company paid for this litigation—

AL: No, no, no, no, the insurance company paid the attorneys’ cost—

HOST: This is all, this is all kind of inside baseball to everybody.

SS: (laughs)

HOST: Let me get out—let me get to some of the larger issues.

SS: You’re right.

AL: The last time I talked to this lady she swore a false affidavit in my case—

BD: I am not paid by anyone—

AL: So I don’t want to talk to her.

SS: I’ve never filed an affidavit in your case

BD: So why are you saying that I am paid?

HOST: All right, um—

SS: I didn’t say you were—

BD: Yes, you said the critics.

SS: I said he is.

HOST: All right. I don’t think—

SS: And I don’t believe you probably went to Germany on your own.

BD: Yes I did.

SS: OK, I’d like to see evidence of that.

HOST: All right—

BD: Yes you can because I [couldn’t hear word] on a business trip--

HOST: OK, guys, this—

SS: [couldn’t hear word] from Germany?

HOST: OK, I’ll kick you all out of this room if you don’t listen to me. Seriously, um, you guys, you critics, say that the Church of Scientology, um, ultimately aims to take over the world and that it is a fascist organization, secret at the top with the membership of Scientology not completely aware what the aims and the goals of the people at the top are. Explain that to me.

AL: Uh, Hubbard had a plan once to take over South Africa many years ago. Um, I don’t know all the details of it but I remember reading it in various policy letters. They wanted a safe harbor for many years. They wanted a place where they would be the ones making the law.

HOST: What’s the proof of that?

AL: That’s written in policy letters, I mean, that’s, that’s written.

HOST: Did, did L. Ron Hubbard want to take over the, the nation of South Africa?

SS: I’ve never seen that. I’ve been in the Church 22 years and it’s amazing the things that pops out of people like Arnie Lerma’s mouth of "L. Ron Hubbard says this, L. Ron Hubbard says that." I’ve never seen—the large majority of these quotes I’ve never seen or heard, and I’ve studied, and I’ve studied--

AL: And any time we try to post documents to substantiate these we get sued under copyright trying to substantiate your denials—

SS: Not any time. When you posted 136 full pages—

AL: 61 pages. Of a 130 page affidavit.

SS: That was, as the Court found, in violation of copyright.

AL: What did they charge me with?

SS: You—

AL: What was my fine?

SS: Your fine was $2,500, we won the case—

AL: How much did you spend to get that $2,500?

SS: That’s irrelevant.

AL: $1.7 million.

SS: It was—that’s irrelevant.

HOST: All right. Uh, Martin, do you have anything to add to this discussion about the ultimate aims of the Church?

MO: Well, there exists an audiotape, um, called "Rhodesia" in which L. Ron Hubbard describes his attempts to take over, uh, the country of Rhodesia. Then there exists "RJ ‘67" which, uh, was played during my two year stay at the headquarters for several times to the whole staff; and, uh, I also have, uh, have a letter from--

SS: And you’re saying--

MO: A founding Sea Org member, Frank McCall, in which he states that, uh, Scientology wants to take over the world by the year 2000, and this is—and I have also a letter written by the Executive Director International, Guillaume Lesevre, where, in which he states that he wants to clear the world by the year 2000. The term "clearing the world" means the takeover of the world affairs—

SS: (laughs)

MO: By Scientology.

SS: Do you have a crashing misunderstood word there! "Clear" in Scientology merely means that a person is free of their own upsets and troubles, and that they’re able to think on their own, and they’re not controlled by bad incidents that happened to them in the past. It has nothing to do with political—

MO: Well, Hubbard said—

SS: It has nothing. You can look in—there are several Scientology dictionaries which have a definition for the word "clear", and it has nothing anywhere about any kind of political taking over the world; it has nothing in there about it—

HOST: Well, well does that—

MO: I can, I can—can I say something—

SS: I mean, if you can just say all these things, say it—bring a copy of it. Where does it say it? I can—I didn’t bring it with you, me because I didn’t know you were gonna bring this up. The definition of "clear" is very obvious. Anyone can buy "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" in their local bookstore and it talks about the state of Clear. It’s in B. Dalton’s, it’s in all these bookstores.

MO: They have, they have--you know, for public affairs, they have one definition, and for internal affairs, they have another definition. So, so that’s--

SS: Well I’ve never in 21 years seen that other definition—

MO: Yeah, well, obviously you have—

SS: And I have been, I have been in the Church all this time—

MO: Obviously you hadn’t studied a lot, you hadn’t studied enough books to, to keep up with this, with this discussion, because you—do you know of this--

SS: 300-page book, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health--

HOST: Hold on—Sylvia, Sylvia, let him talk—

MO: For the infiltration during the 1980s—to, just to give a little grant for this word clearing—during the 1980s, two agents of the, uh, German Intelligence Service for External Affairs were run by a Scientologist who was before in the Guardian’s Office and he was their Case Officer. So they infiltrated the German Intelligence Service for External Affairs called BND during the 1980s. This is what I understand about clearing. This is what they understand in clearing. This is how clearing gets in action by the Scientologists. This is clearing the planet.

SS: That, that isn’t clearing the planet. I don’t know anything about that case—

MO: Then, then you have probably a misunderstood word—

SS: And I’ve been in Germany and I’ve been working with the State Department and the United Nations about what’s happening in Germany for a number of years. And I have never even seen that allegation before and believe me I’ve seen just about every allegation you can make up under the sun, moon and stars.

MO: Uh, the guy who runs this agent is called—his name is Alfred Kohl--

SS: How about bringing documents? How about bringing documents?

HOST: Let me, let me ask Sylvia Stanard, the External Affairs Director of the Church of Scientology, what does the Church— uh, in its religion, what do you worship?

SS: We believe that man is a spiritual being and that is the crux of our religious belief, that man—that you yourself are not your body, that you are a spiritual being, that you have immortal life, that you can get better, that there can be, uh, ultimate freedom for people. There, you can be free, you can have total freedom. And that’s what Scientology is about. It, it’s—I can’t tell you in—

HOST: Do you worship, do you worship a god?

SS: Well, I can’t tell you in two minutes what Scientology is when it’s 25 million words, but anyone can pick up a book at a local bookstore and read about it—

HOST: How much, how much—if I were, if I were to join the Church today, how much would it cost me to reach the top stage of the Church?

SS: It totally depends on you; many—many people--

HOST: What would be the minimum—what would be the minimum cost for me reaching Clear?

SS: Free.

HOST: What would be the minimum cost for me to be an Operating Thetan?

SS: Free.

HOST: I could, I could reach that position for free?

SS: Absolutely, absolutely.

HOST: OK, let me, let me hear from—because you guys were making the charge earlier that it is a money-making—that money’s—its reasons for being are money making. Can I reach that position for free—

MO: I worked for two years in the Sales Department and I never saw any person who reached the state of Clear for free. The average—

SS: I did.

MO: Money—the average money they have to, uh, put into the Church accounts was at least $40,000, but some people paid $100,000 or $150,000 just to attain the state of Clear. The average money they have to put, uh, to the Church for attaining the highest level, OT8, is $270,000 or $300,000. But, uh, when she—she’s also, uh, disguising that—

SS: (snickering)

MO: When you want to—when you want to attain the state of Clear for free, you have to be a staff member.

HOST: OK--

SS: People can also pick up the book "Dianetics" and co-audit themselves for free and reach the state of Clear. It’s in the book "Dianetics"—

MO: You have—

SS: You can read it at the bookstore--

MO: When you reach the Dianetics "clear", the Dianetics "clear" is a sublevel even beyond the, the lowest course on the so-called Grade Chart. The state of "Clear", what we are talking about, is something different. It’s in the middle of the Grade Chart—

SS: (laughs)

MO: You have a—

SS: I understand—

MO: A really misunderstood word.

SS: You do, too.

MO: She, you know—now you know how she’s disguising. The Dianetics Clear is, is a state which Hubbard described in 1950, but this is not longer the official, uh, term Clear. The--it represents something different. There’s, there are various courses and auditing steps which you have to attain before even—before you even get to the, uh, Clear Certainty Rundown, and I have never seen a public Scientologist who hadn’t at least paid $40,000 or $50,000 to attain that state.

SS: Then—

BD: I had to pay a lot even but I was on staff.

HOST: You had to pay a lot?

BD: Yes, to become Clear and to become OT3. And I met a Swedish OSA man three years ago. He has been on staff since 1976 and he has not been clear yet.

HOST: Um, Sylvia, could you be mistaken or, or could you be dissembling here in that, uh, the vast majority of people who get to Clear or Operating Thetan have to pay money? Or are you--

SS: That wasn’t the question you asked me—

HOST: Well let me ask you this—

SS: You asked me what the minimum amount was.

HOST: What percentage—

AL: An acceptable truth, no doubt.

SS: No, I answered the question, not another question—

HOST: What percentage of the members of the Church of Scientology pay nothing to become Clear or to become an Operating Thetan?

SS: Well, we’ve actually done studies on this, and it was for a comparative that was in the tax case; and 32% of the people in Scientology get their services for free.

HOST: OK—

SS: That doesn’t mean that necessarily they went Clear. Some of the—some people might go Clear, some people might be Operating Thetans. But quite a lot of people do receive services for free just like any other church. Yes, people do donate and contribute toward the church. They have to, otherwise we wouldn’t have all the things we have—

HOST: Are these voluntary donations—

SS: Absolutely—

HOST: Or are these required to, to reach certain stages?

SS: Well, they’re voluntary donations; a person doesn’t need to donate. But in order to do certain courses there, there are set donation schedules for certain courses.

HOST: If I choose—if I choose not to donate the set schedule, can I still get the course?

SS: It depends; there are many other ways, there are always other ways that people can do it.

BD: Name one—

SS: Yes—you can be on staff; you can be—contribute as a staff member. You can be a Field Staff Member and work in selling books or disseminating information about the Church or you can get awarded—you can get awarded, uh, courses for that. So there’s quite a lot of different ways that people can do things in Scientology. What they’re talking about is somebody who’s a professional, full time type person who might come over from another country, for instance, who might have a lot of money; and they’re including things like staying at the Ft. Harrison for a year. Yes, you stay at a hotel for a year, you’re gonna spend some money. You stay at the Hilton for a year, you’re gonna spend some money. I mean, yes, it does happen, but that’s what we’re talking about. But the real issue that, that we need to talk about I think is the First Amendment rights here where our freedom of religion and our freedom to believe what we want to believe and to practice our religion is being threatened by people on the Internet like Arnie Lerma, like Keith Henson for sure, who’s talked about—

HOST: Keith—

SS: Shooting the—shooting—

HOST: Keith Henson isn’t here so he’s not here to defend himself, but are you guys trying to threaten their First Amendment rights? Do you want them—do you want their ability to, uh, believe what they want to believe limited?

AL: Uh, I have no problem with you believing that the moon is made of green cheese. But at the point that you start lying to the public about your true nature, then I think the public should be very interested in what you believe.

SS: Do you think that it’s OK for people to say, "If only someone should bomb their new tourist trap or museum—yeah, that would make me laugh"? Do you think that that’s OK? Do you think that people writing to our attorneys saying that—I can’t even read some of this stuff on the air, it’s--

AL: Well, how about this—

SS: It’s so vulgar, but "I’m going—I’m going to kill you tonight"?

AL: Yes, well—

SS: "I’ll stick a knife into"—I’ll leave it blank?

HOST: Sylvia, where does this—who, who has made those statements? Any of our guests, have they made these statements?

SS: Uh, Keith Henson, who is here in Clearwater—

HOST: OK, right, but Keith, Keith is not here, Keith--

AL: Keith isn’t here to defend himself—

HOST: Keith is not here to defend himself—

SS: No, but he’s here in Clearwater--

HOST: So I—has, has—

AL: No, but they like ex parte—

HOST: Right, has, has—

SS: I have the copies of the e-mail—

HOST: All right, but, but I think we should—

SS: You can read it yourself—

HOST: Stick to Arnie or Martin or Birgitta. Have they made any of those statements?

SS: None that I have read.

HOST: All right, OK. Uh, uh, the other—Martin, did you want to say something before we go on to another subject?

MO: Uh, well, I would like to return to the costs of the, of the services. There exists just one course which is for free and this is the Field Staff Member Hat where you learn to recruit other Scientologists. All other services cost something. I was in an organization who made $1.5 million a week and I was sitting in these executive meetings where we were screamed at by the Commanding Officer of the Flag Service Organization in Clearwater. Why? Because we just made $1.2 million a week. All that counted was money making, money making, money making.

HOST: You wanted, you wanted to bring your totals up, is what you’re saying.

MO: Yeah. We were urged to go down and urge the publics to spend as much as, as much money as possible. This is what it’s all about in, in, in the Flag Service Organization. It’s a money machine. We had to make--our quota was $3 million a week.

HOST: Just from the Clearwater area?

MO: Just from the Clearwater area.

HOST: All right—

SS: Not true and you know it—

MO: No, it’s true—

HOST: Well, Sylvia, if, if making $3 million wasn’t the quota for Clearwater, what is the quota, if any?

SS: In—I don’t know what the quota is, but he knows—

MO: What do you know, anyway?

SS: What he knows is that Clearwater is—he’s not talking about from Clearwater, he’s talking about internationally from all over the world—

MO: No, that is not true—

SS: To come to the Ft. Harrison. And you’re from what country? Are you from Clearwater?

MO: What are you talking about? No, I’m from Germany, you know that—

SS: Exactly. And where do you think people who are coming to Clearwater are coming from? They’re coming from all over the world, they’re not coming from Clearwater—

MO: What has this to do with the, with the figure of--

SS: Because you said—

MO: $1.5 million a week? What has this to do with—

SS: Well, you changed the figure now, but—

HOST: All right. I’ll tell you what—let’s go to, let’s go to the phones—our phone number is 239-9663. The way we let the people on the air are, we just have them call in with their questions or comments. You get through as you call in. The number to call, 239-9663. Let’s see what some listeners have to say. Um—hi, welcome to WMNF. Thanks for calling in.

CALLER: Hi, Rob. Um, just one question, I guess, for, um, for our Scientologist representative. Um, is it always your religion’s way to be confrontational and incite negativism as opposed to promoting the positives of your beliefs to everybody?

SS: Absolutely not, but realize I’m sitting here with three against one and a little bit of a set-up here, so I’m a little irritated when they’re about to picket in front of my Church. Now if I was here, I would--what I would like to talk about is what’s been done in Clearwater to improve the city of Clearwater, the lighting that has been done for Christmas, the Winter Wonderland that’s being set up. Those are the things that I would like to be here talking about and that’s the things that I would like to see the St. Petersburg Times and the local papers talking about, but they don’t talk about that. So, you know, give me a little credit that I’m a little bit, uh—three against one is—

HOST: All right, well—

SS: In sports it’s not usually fair (laughs)—

HOST: I should say, too, that what we, what we offered, and the Church turned it down—we offered the Church a whole hour by itself, and the Church—

SS: At a later date—

HOST: Right. The Church decided that, uh, next Tuesday, an hour, would not be acceptable and so that’s why we got this show today with everybody here. Uh, caller, thanks a lot for your call. Did you have another question?

CALLER: Um, just, just a statement more than anything else is that a point was brought up that, um, when impeding the process of, uh, an organized and, uh, allowable picket, that, uh, you know, an opportunity was there to negotiate, and to express, um, opposing views. Well, she—do that on your own time, not somebody else’s organized time. I mean, if it’s that important to, to negotiate, you set up the negotiating time, but don’t go over when somebody else has already made arrangements for something else—

HOST: All right—

CALLER: That’s, that’s just gonna be confrontational again.

HOST: OK. Thanks a lot for your call.

CALLER: OK.

SS: But—

HOST: 239-9663--go ahead, Sylvia.

SS: Well, I just would like to respond to that in terms of, yes, it’s confrontational when they come to our Church and picket in front of our Church. It is--it is confrontational, that’s what--they’re the ones coming to us. I’m not going to Arnie’s house and picketing in front of that. Now, if I started doing that, he’d probably, he’d probably be really upset—

AL: But you’ve gone to Vaughn Young’s house and picketed in front of his home, haven’t you?

SS: And how many--you know, but that--

HOST: Who is, who is Vaughn Young?

AL: Vaughn Young is an expert witness, the ex--I think he was the ex-OSA PR and his wife used to be the editor of Freedom magazine.

HOST: So two former Church officials, and they picketed right at their house.

AL: Isn’t that true?

SS: I don’t know, I’ve never heard of that--

HOST: Is that--Sylvia, is that true?

SS: I’ve never heard of it.

MO: Also, Jeff Jacobsen--

SS: But I’ll tell you about Vaughn Young--

MO: Jeff Jacobsen was also picketed by OSA officials and by Scientologists in front of his house and in front of--

SS: At his workplace--

MO: At--oh, so you admit that--

SS: At his disco--

MO: Oh, so you admit that.

SS: Absolutely, of course. And, and—

AL: And they picketed Vaughn Young’s home--

SS: You think it’s OK to come picket our church (laughs)--

HOST: Well, wait a minute, wait a minute--Sylvia, I, I don’t understand; why, why would it be not OK to picket in front of a church, but it is OK to picket in front of somebody’s workplace? Why--why would that be OK?

SS: I didn’t say it wasn’t OK to picket in front of a church. I’m saying that--

HOST: You just did--

SS: It was in front of my church, confrontational--

HOST: You just objected, you just objected to them picketing in front of a church--

SS: I’m saying confrontational--

HOST: Right--

SS: It is confrontational--

HOST: And so would it be confrontational to picket at, at another critic’s place of work?

SS: Absolutely.

HOST: So you’re a confrontational group?

SS: It is--no, no, it’s a, it’s a controversy here in that people who are not involved in Scientology like Jeff Jacobsen comes to our church, flies all the way to Clearwater to picket against us and then is involved in litigation and trying to make money from the Church. That’s the controversy.

AL: Jeff isn’t involved in litigation with you--that’s a lie.

HOST: OK, let’s, let’s take another phone call. Our phone number is 239-9663. Hi, you’re on the air; go ahead.

CALLER: Yeah, two observations and then--brief observations and a question. Uh, first of all, I think the, uh, Scientologists are obviously a church, a mainstream international church, and that, uh, you know--they’re, they’re rich. They’ve got all the money. And that, uh, I think that the, uh--you know, the mainstream, the Catholic Church and the, you know, all, all the mainstream churches are corrupt to a degree and Scientology I think is corrupt to a degree as well. And I think that all churches should be taxed after they have, like, a billion dollars in assets. They should all be taxed, all over the world. Secondly, uh, I think that, uh, someone who has, uh, been cleared of, uh, of the reactive mind is, uh, obviously able to pass a lie detector test and that they don’t react to, uh, to the questions in, in the normal fashion and it’s impossible to tell if a Clear is lying or not. And thirdly, a question for Sylvia who obviously is, uh, I believe intentionally uninformed being their External Affairs communicator, I don’t think that she has the knowledge of, uh, of all the internal goings on there. It’s obvious she doesn’t even know what the quotas are or how much money is made there. But the question for you, Sylvia--what is the, uh, the ethical dogma of the Church for good and evil? Aside from clearing the planet of the reactive mind, which, you know, I think is debatable, what is--what is the dogma of the church for, for distinguishing between good and evil and, uh, and, and right and wrong? What, in, in essence, briefly, can you tell me how, how do you all preach, um, that people should be good and not be evil?

HOST: All right, thanks for your question.

CALLER: Thank you.

HOST: Thank you.

SS: That’s, that’s a good question. There’s a whole booklet called "The Way to Happiness" which delineates moral precepts that we believe that people should follow. That includes things like, "Don’t cheat", "Don’t steal", "Don’t murder", the usual Ten Commandments type of ideas as well as other--

HOST: Is lying one of your commandments? Do you believe that--do you believe that lying is wrong?

SS: Absolutely.

HOST: And, and would there be any occasion that your Church would allow lying?

SS: No. That doesn’t mean that no Scientologist ever lies--

HOST: Right--

SS: Just like no Christian-- (laughs)

HOST: Right, but official, we’re talking about official--

SS: But we’re talking about dogma--

HOST: We’re talking about official church dogma. Let me pass it on to the critics; is there an occasion, uh, that you have heard as ex-members of the Church of Scientology that they would allow lying?

AL: There’s--

BD: Well, there was the Lying TRs.

HOST: The, the lying what?

BD: The Lying TRs. We had to learn to lie to reporters; it was among the Reporter TRs.

HOST: This was one of the skills that you were, that you were supposed to have as a member of the Church?

BD: Yes.

HOST: Well, what does the--

SS: Do you have a copy of this? I’ve never seen it--

BD: I had made a copy of it--

AL: So why don’t you have the 61 pages that I posted to the Net that you were supposed to have--

BD: And then we had the fact that L. Ron Hubbard himself lied about--lied about all his life.

HOST: What do you mean he lied?

BD: He lied about, uh, being an atomic physicist and all that things, and what he was doing during the war.

HOST: He lied about his military background.

BD: Yeah

HOST: But, but what--

SS: What are you saying?

HOST: What, let me just--Sylvia, before we go back to you, let me go back to Arnie. Arnie, are you saying that at one time, documents proving that the Church sanctioned lying were available on the Internet?

AL: In this certain document that I was sued about, I got sued for 61 copyright pages that were the Super Duper Secret Levels, the carrot on the end of the stick that they tease the members with. Um, but in that was a section of the levels called the levels zero past, and another section about TR-LY, and that training routine was in that section posted, I believe.

HOST: So, so--

SS: I’ve never seen it.

HOST: So part of--

SS: And I’ve looked for your court documents--

AL: The same way you’ve never heard of Ron’s Journal 67--

SS: I’ve never seen it--I’ve heard Ron’s Journal 67--

AL: That’s, that what this excerpt is from.

HOST: All right. So you’re saying--

SS: So I was lying?

HOST: So you’re--Arnie, you’re saying that these, these documents do exist but you’re prevented from putting them out on the Internet because of a lawsuit by the Church.

AL: Well, um, only these copyrighted OT sections I’m prevented from making copies—

HOST: All right, um, let me, let me turn back to Sylvia. Sylvia, do you use your lawsuits as a way to hide the actual beliefs of the Church, and, and hide your, your teachings on lying and other things? Do you use these lawsuits—

SS: You’re saying our teachings on lying; that is not true. We don’t have a document. They don’t have a document, so let’s not say that. But let me answer your question, which is, the litigations—Arnie Lerma posted over a thousand negative comments against the Church. It wasn’t until he posted 136 pages of copyrighted materials, word for word, verbatim, which the court upheld and said yes, he violated copyright, that we sued him. So it’s not a question of using litigation--

AL: Why do you keep saying it’s your Trade Secrets then?--

SS: Not using litigation to, um, be involved in, in attacking critics or anything of that nature, but involved in—if there is a gross copyright violation, and it’s an increasing problem on the Internet—Microsoft has had many copyright suits, there is new legislation going through Congress right now about copyrights on the Internet because it is such a problem.

HOST: OK, let me ask you this. I want to speak with you for a second then—if, then, your Church is not concerned about money making, why are you so concerned about protecting the teachings of the Church? Why do you copyright the teachings of the Church? For instance, the Christian Church has the Bible, it’s available in any hotel room. If you guys aren’t so concerned about money, then why not let everybody have access to all the documents?

SS: Because one of the very basic traditions are beliefs of the Church. This is one of the very first policy letters and it’s called "Keeping Scientology Working". Our concern is with people who then take copyrighted materials, alter them, use them differently and say that it’s Scientology--

HOST: But why not flood the world with all the documents? Why not print all the documents and flood the world with them so that nobody can alter them?

SS: They absolutely are. They’re in almost every bookstore--

HOST: Right. But I mean, but,but--

SS: But we’re talking--

HOST: OK, so--Arnie, are these documents that you were, um, sued for, are they in every bookstore, the, the 61 pages that you were sued for? Can you go down to the bookstore and find these?

AL: No.

HOST: Well, then, conflict here--OK, Sylvia, why didn’t you put these 61 pages in the bookstore?

SS: These are our spiritual beliefs; the people are not ready for this until they’ve finished the lower levels.

HOST: Well does that mean that you want people to pay in order to find out what these, what these spiritual beliefs are?

SS: No. As I, as I went over--

HOST: If I, if I said I was interested in Scientology and I came over there and wanted to pick up these 61 documents, could I do that? Could I come over--

SS: No.

HOST: Why not?

SS: Because it is our sincerely held religious belief that you’re not ready for it yet. You can get "Dianetics", you can do co-auditing, you can become Clear and free of your reactive mind, which is our word for the negative things that have happened to you in the past that still influence you. And by promoting total spiritual freedom, once you’re spiritually free of those negative things that have happened, then you’re ready for what’s called the Operating Thetan or OT materials. And then you can come into the Church and, and do this.

HOST: OK. Arnie, what’s wrong with that? That in order to, to learn the stages of Scientology you’ve gotta be taken through by them, they’ve got to show you the way.

AL: Well, throughout Scientology, um, you know that there are these secret levels. Before a person knows the information that’s on them, what any, you know, normal person does is that they figure that, well, it’s going to be something that explains every thing that I’ve experienced so far which doesn’t make sense. All right? And that is—and, and they will stay in longer and spend more money. This is part of the trap. And, um, when they do find out, the people that are allowed to find out are only those people who have had extensive security checking and have had Eligibility Rundowns, so that they know that they have every detail about that person’s life copiously detailed, in case they were to read it and think, wait a minute—this is not right.

HOST: Wait a minute, you’re saying that if, that if I were to enter the Church of Scientology, I would confess all my past indiscretions, everything that would possibly embarrass me—

AL: Eventually they get it all.

HOST: And they would have a record of everything that would ever embarrass me.

AL: Yeah.

HOST: So like, you know, why--

SS: Those are protected by priest penitence and which is part of the Auditor’s Code which is the basic—

AL: That’s not true--

SS: Tenet of an auditor--

AL: You’re--

SS: That he will not--

AL: You’ll use it when you have to--

SS: Use the secrets divulged by a preclear in session, outside of session. You’re not allowed to even talk about something that--if you’re counseling someone and they tell you something, you’re not allowed to tell your husband or anybody, "Oh, so-and-so told me"--

BD: I think you have forget about that an auditor should write a report to the Ethics File if he thinks he has revealed some crimes in session.

SS: Have you read the Auditor’s Code?

BD: Yes, I was an auditor.

SS: So that’s what it says.

BD: Yes, but still--there is a policy also saying that you should report to the Ethics File--

HOST: OK, let me--let me get this straight; Sylvia says that what you confess--and you confess everything along the way, I take it--what you confess is never revealed because there is a clergy-like relationship between the person auditing and the person being audited.

BD: We had two--we had two men in Sweden, actually, who left the Church. They had revealed in auditing about, um, some--I don’t know how you say it in English--documents--black money? Is that a word you use? When you get money aside--

MO: Black money or--

HOST: Bribes?

BD: Bri--no, not bribes.

AL: Under the table money?

BD: Under the table money, yes. They had revealed about that in session, and when they left the Church, the OSA get them in prison. They--it was OK, as long as they were members in the Church.

HOST: So the Church revealed this to a government agency and then--

BD: Yes, after they left--

HOST: And got these guys in prison--

BD: But not as long as they were members--

HOST: Well, but could that be, could that be a rare example of where--of where the information got out in the public?

BD: Yes--

HOST: Martin?

MO: Um, in a court communication--

SS: Wait a minute--

MO: When part of the Auditor’s file, so-called Auditor’s file, were revealed in the court room by the auditor who was acting as a Field Auditor for the Church of Scientology, and it was revealed that some contents of it, of this pre--so-called pre-Clear files.

SS: What case was that?

[pause]

SS: See, this is the problem, you know; she could say something--

MO: I know this case, I know--

BD: I can give you the names of the--

HOST: OK, Martin, Martin--

MO: It was the case, it was the case of Steve Markesh. Steve Markesh was the Field Auditor. He is New OT-7 and he’s Flag public, so-called public of the Flag Service Organization, and he’s a Field Auditor in Stuttgart; and this happened in 1996.

HOST: OK, go ahead, Sylvia--

SS: I would like to look into that now that I have the information--

MO: Now you can--

SS: I’ll look into that and I’ll be glad to get it to you in a week or so to find out what—what the case is. I’m sure when the court records are checked, it probably won’t be exactly that.

AL: Speaking of court records--

MO: You can check with Yodin Schlafsky [spelling?), you can check with Yodin Schlafsky because he is [couldn’t hear word] Stuttgart.

SS: OK, thank you; I will do that.

HOST: All, right, um, Arnie, go ahead, your turn.

AL: I’d just like to interject another quote here from a court record, seeing as how you brought it up--

SS: OK, then I can interject one of my, another quote from you.

AL: Um, "Scientology is evil. Its techniques are evil. Its practice is a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents are sadly deluded and often mentally ill. Scientology is the world’s largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy."--Justice Anderson, Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia.

HOST: All right, and Sylvia--

SS: And that was--that was in the 60’s, which was overturned by a High Court decision in Australia--

AL: Would you say judges--

SS: In a High Court decision in Australia--yes, and they’re hard bigots; I mean, I assume it is--

AL: Justice Anderson is a bigot--

HOST: All right, Sylvia, did you want to--

SS: Absolutely. If he makes a comment like that, he is a bigot.

HOST: Sylvia, did you want to read a portion of a court record--

SS: No, I was gonna read a posting, because this is what we’re really talking about. Here he has Lawrence Wollersheim, another guy who’s down here with these people--

AL: Is he? Where is he?--

SS: He was referring to--"He planned ops against the Church of Scientology of a military nature. He told me all about his contacts in the intelligence community. If I didn’t know better I would know—I would have thought he was an agent." This is the kind of thing I—and then he talks about, "I don’t know whether the bomb threat is genuine." You know, this is the kind of things we’re talking about—

AL: You’re just fabricating something--

SS: This is a posting--

AL: Hoping to pull the wool over another judge’s eyes--

SS: It’s a posting which you can read, and there are plenty of judges--

AL: A posting that I made?

SS: And there are--no, I told you--

AL: But you’re trying to encourage her, wasn’t she?

SS: No, I told you, Larry Wollersheim made this posting. He is a co-founder of FACTNet, but you are also on the Board of Directors with him.

HOST: All right, we’re, we’re way over time. Let’s see if we can get squeeze in one or two more phone calls. Hi, you’re on the air. Thanks for holding on for so long; you’re on the air.

CALLER: Hi. I was thinking of that quote, you know-- Ross Perot I think it was who said, you know, "Follow the money." And since, um, you know, Arnie and all these guys over there and on how much attention on money--I was wondering, Sylvia, if we follow the money, what will we find on these guys? What’s--who’s behind them? What’s--what’s their motivation? What’s their personal motivation, pardon me?

SS: That’s what I’ve been talking about. I think that’s the most interesting thing that the media tends to ignore is, where IS the money? Why does this guy Minton give a whole house to this guy Vaughn Young? For two-hundred and some thousand dollars, Vaughn Young testified recently in a deposition.There is a lot of money being flowed to people like Larry Wollersheim, Vaughn Young, Arnie Lerma, from this one person. We don’t know. It’s a very interesting question and in fact has been a concern. Suddenly in Germany we have a protest in Berlin with 10,000 people who show up in Berlin--

MO: No, it was just 2,000--

SS: This just demonstrates--

MO: Police reports--

SS: Let me just--

MO: Police reports say 2,000--

SS: Can I just finish--I didn’t cut you, can you--

MO: OK.

SS: And, and this woman shows up at an event the night before. Now she shows up in Clearwater. I’m sorry, but where’s the money?

BD: I have it myself. I paid for myself.

SS: OK.

BD: Yeah.

SS: You’re very rare, then. Because Arnie Lerma told me he’s broke, he’s got no money--

BD: Yeah, but I am not--

SS: But he can fly to Florida--

BD: I am not.

HOST: Um, um, Sylvia--

BD: I do this because I think--

HOST: What do you think the motives--I’m sorry, Sylvia, what do you think the motive here is? Who is supplying the money, do you think?

SS: Well, I know one person is this guy Bob Minton.

HOST: And what’s his motive?

SS: I have no idea.

HOST: All right.

SS: But I know--

HOST: And how much money do you think is being supplied to these folks?

SS: I don’t know exactly except for this--

HOST: Are we talking hundreds of thousands--

SS: Yes--

HOST: Millions?

SS: Hundreds of thousands. Two hundred thousand dollar house.

CALLER: Do these guys have any court cases? Is there something that they would stand to, you know, earn lots of money--

SS: Absolutely--

CALLER: If something would happen to the Church?

SS: Arnie Lerma does this right now. He’s not suing us for anything at the moment but he’s still trying to get money from the Church--

HOST: All right, Martin--

SS: Larry Wollersheim has a multi-million dollar--

AL: [couldn’t hear word] money from the Church--

SS: Has a multi--I’ll tell you in a minute--Larry Wollersheim has a multi-million dollar suit. Lisa McPherson’s aunt is now suing for $80 million. Yes, there’s definitely an interest in money and people have things forthcoming—

HOST: Martin, are you getting paid?

MO: The voyage, the travel was financed through a friend. I have--right now I have 200 Deutsche mark in my bank account, and that’s it.

SS: What friend? Bob Minton?

MO: No, Peter Rieder [spelling?], he will come on Friday.

HOST: All right, and, and Birgitta, you paid for it by yourself.

BD: Yes.

HOST: Let me--as long as we’re, as long as we’re asking you guys about the money, let me ask Sylvia about the money. Sylvia, how much money does the Church of Scientology take in every year?

SS: Uh, quite a lot, because there are a lot of people--

HOST: How much?

SS: Uh, several million dollars--

MO: Several million?

SS: I don’t know the exact figure--several million; a lot more than $2 million. But I will tell you because people are interested in the Church and want to donate to the Church, and they’re getting something out of it. People don’t give money to the Church if they’re not getting a benefit, if they’re not feeling better, if the Scientology counseling and the courses and the training that they’re doing is not helping them--

HOST: And you are--

SS: If they don’t feel better, if they’re not more happy, if they’re not spiritually more aware--

HOST: But you’re not--you’re not prepared--

SS: They won’t be doing it.

HOST: OK, but you’re not prepared to say how much money the Church takes in.You--you don’t want to tell us that.

SS: I don’t know exactly--

HOST: Now, you’re the External--you’re the External Affairs Director, so if anybody knows, it’s gonna be you.

SS: No, I’m the External Affairs for the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C.--

HOST: But, but you don’t know but you’re a top official in the Church--

SS: I know how much, how much the Founding Church in Washington, D.C. makes--

HOST: Well, I’m talking about the Church world wide. You don’t know yet you’re a top official in the Church--

SS: I’m a top official of the Founding Church in Washington--

HOST: All right, let me turn it over to the guests--about how much money--

SS: Not the International Church--

HOST: Sylvia doesn’t know, let’s see if the outsiders know.

MO: First of all, she is prohibited to tell anything about money. Uh, money secrets aren’t allowed to go outside of the Church.

HOST: Why is that?

SS: I, I did say something about money--

MO: Money--money--

SS: I said we made several million dollars--

HOST: Sylvia, you never answered the question. Sylvia, you never answered the question--

SS: I did; I didn’t say the exact figure--

HOST: How much--OK, let me turn off--

SS: I said several million dollars--

HOST: Let me turn off their microphones, I’m gonna let everybody listen. How much money does the Church of Scientology world wide take in per year?

SS: Several million.

HOST: Three million?

SS: More than that.

HOST: Three--

SS: I don’t know the exact figure--

HOST: Four? Five? Six?

SS: Several--

HOST: Seven?

SS: Several million.

HOST: OK. Now let me--I’m gonna turn off your microphone. Martin and guys, how much money does the Church take in every year?

MO: The biggest money organization of Scientology is the Flag Service Organization. Last year she made approximately $1.4 million dollars a week, and a third of it goes to the International Management in Los Angeles. So this is $1.4 million in 60 weeks so this is about $60--$50-60 million.

HOST: What does the Church do with its money?

MO: Um, they put it in so-called Sea Org reserve accounts, and some of them are in Luxembourg, and, um, they’re using it in stock trades per ex-Scientologists; I don’t know for sure. And, um--

HOST: Does anybody get rich from Scientology?

MO: Well, David Miscavige is paid $55,000 a year and he has no cost for an apartment, for food. He has the working slaves working for him--

HOST: Working what?

SS: (laughs)

MO: Slaves--working--the RPF’ers, in--

HOST: What does RPF stand for?

MO: Rehabilitation Project Force; it’s a labor camp of Scientology--

SS: (laughs)

HOST: OK, let’s ask, let’s ask Sylvia. The RPF is a slave organization.

SS: It’s absolutely not. But I do want to tell you what Scientology--what the money goes for, because that is the key question. And the money goes to disseminate Scientology; I’m sure you’ve seen TV ads advertising books, advertising what’s going on in the Church. It goes for community projects. It goes for the Drug-Free Marshals program. It goes for Winter Wonderland. It goes to pay for the buildings. It goes to pay the staff, to pay the heat, pay the electric—just like any other church--

AL: Money for litigation--

SS: Just like any other church, you’ve gotta pay the heat, the gas, the electric, the water, the food. Of course that’s where the money goes. And that’s what--but the chief thing is why do people donate money to the Church? Because they’re getting benefits.

HOST: All right. And the RPF is not a slave organization, people aren’t--

SS: Absolutely not--

HOST: Aren’t made to work for free at long hours?

SS: No, absolutely not. They’re paid, but they, they also--it is a project that helps people to rehabilitate themselves if they’ve done poorly. The--many, many, many, many people have written wonderful things about how it’s really helped them and it gave them an opportunity--

AL: [couldn’t hear word] write to get out--

SS: It’s given them an opportunity to do a lot better; they feel better having done this program.

MO: And many, many people have written very critical reports--

SS: No, a few--

MO: Oh--

SS: A very few who [couldn’t hear word] out, a few--

MO: I can--from my archives, I can give you 100 reports.

HOST: We’re--we’re gonna give out some phone numbers and some Internet addresses in just a moment. We’re way over time, but let me--let me ask one more question and let’s take one more phone call. Um, Sylvia Stanard of the Church of Scientology, uh, how did Lisa McPherson die? What was the cause of death?

SS: Um, um, lung--a blood clot in the lung, pulmonary--

HOST: Was she suffering from dehydration?

SS: Absolutely not. There are two new slides which have just been released which were not released before which prove conclusively she was not dehydrated.

MO: Why couldn’t you--

SS: And the interesting thing--we didn’t have them; we sued for them and they were suppressed by the Medical Examiner and they were just recently released when we went to get the original slides; and that is what we’ve been talking about very recently.

HOST: Was Lisa McPherson held against her will?

SS: No.

HOST: You guys wanna say anything?

MO: Well, I know of one incident in 1991, when my roommate, whose name is Len Thomas, told me that he had to babywatch a person in the Sandcastle who was held there behind closed doors because she was crazy; nuts in his own words.

HOST: And, and where is the Sandcastle? Is that--

MO: Sandcastle Hotel--it’s, uh, it’s one building of the, uh, Flag Land Base where all the--where all different Scientologist Organizations are located.

HOST: If people are having, um, having troubles, psychotic episodes, are they held against their will?

SS: No. But obviously if somebody is completely psychotic, then you’re helping them or you take them to a doctor. My mother-in-law has had frequent psychotic type episodes, and she’s not a Scientologist. But yes, when we took--when we were taking her to the hospital, if she tries to open the door, yeah, you grab her arm and make sure she doesn’t open the door. That--it happens all the time.

HOST: Is part of the treatment for psychotic episodes depriving people of water and food?

SS: Absolutely not, and that didn’t happen to Lisa McPherson.

HOST: All right. Let’s take one more phone call, and--Hi, you’re on the air. Thanks for calling in.

CALLER: Oh, hi, Rob. It’s an interesting session you have here today; particularly interesting to hear how the woman from Scientology answers her critics. She uses the ad hominem argument. She attacks them personally or even attacks other people personally who she says they’re associated with, and will not reveal one penny about Scientology. My only advice is, if you’re gonna buy something and they won’t tell you how much it costs and are particularly evasive about it, you take your tail and run. Scientology is a money machine; that’s what it’s all about.

HOST: All right, thanks a lot. Uh, Sylvia--thanks for your call--Sylvia, do you want to respond to that?

SS: Yes. If somebody wants to find out about Scientology, go to a bookstore, read a book. That’s the truth. That’s what Scientology is all about. It’s in writing, it’s not a parable. It’s not me telling you something. It’s not Arnie Lerma telling you something. It’s not somebody from Germany telling you something. It’s what Mr. Hubbard said. Read it for yourself; make your own decision. Come for a tour of the Church. It’s open to all, all the time. Come in and look.

HOST: All right, on that note, I’m gonna end this, and I want to thank all of you for coming here today. Uh, Sylvia Stanard of the Church of Scientology, how can folks get in touch with you or find out more about the position that, that you represent?

SS: Well, I’m actually here just for a couple of days. I’m usually in Washington, D.C. But anybody can check our web site at www.scientology.org or www.dianetics.org or www.lronhubbard.org. So they can look on the Internet and look at our web site. They can call the Church. They can come into the Fort Harrison and have a tour any time they’d like.

HOST: All right, well Sylvia, thanks a lot. And let me ask Arnie Lerma--Arnie, if folks want to get, get in touch with you, how can they do it?

AL: Um, my address is on my web site at www.lermanet.com. Or they can go to www.xenu.com.

HOST: OK. And Birgitta, if folks want to get in touch with you, is there a way that we can do it? I know you’re from Sweden so you’re not here. This is the one time you’ll be here.

BD: Uh, well, I don’t really know how people from the States can contact me. I mean, I have a private phone number.

HOST: OK. Well, and let me just leave it at that. And Martin?

MO: I have an e-mail address--it’s a little bit complicated: Rashid Ahmed@ hotmail.com.I’m especially interested in people who were in Scientology and their experiences. I’m open for their experiences.

HOST: OK.

BD: Yes, I have an e-mail address.

HOST: You do?

BD: Yes.

HOST: Oh, you can give that.

BD: Bid@cheerful.com.

HOST: OK--that sounds like a happy one. Well, thanks a lot for coming in; I enjoyed it. Thanks for coming in and again if folks want to find out more about anything that went on here today, you can talk to our guests, you can call us at 238-8001, and some of them may hang around for a few minutes after the show. And if you have comments about today’s show, you can call us at 238-8001 and leave a message on extension 18. I’m Rob Lorei and this has been Radio Activity.