For Some It was Hard To Forsake Scientology (new to the net, clearwater sun)
Lermanet.com
Clearwater Edition (front page)
For Some It was Hard To Forsake Scientology
by Craig Roberton
Last in a series
Clearwater Times Staff Writer
CLEARWATER - Former Church of Scientology members tell some pretty
harrowing stories, in the form of recent court affidavits, about life
within the church.
They include bizarre tales of forced labor, substandard living
conditions, brainwashing and tyrannical leaders.
But despite all that, these ex-church members say, leaving the church
can be almost as difficult as living in it. "Emotionally and mentally
I went through quite a trauma adjusting to the outside world," says
Anne Rosenblum, 25, a seven-year church member who left in September
1978 and now lives in California.
IT TOOK ABOUT two months and a lot of "TLC" (tender loving care) by
her parents, Ms. Rosenblum says, for her to "come out of the daze I
was in."
"I was 23 years old," she recalls, "and I didn't know anything about
opening a personal checking account,taxes, investments, buying a car,
shopping, Social Security (that was a word I heard that had something
to do with retirement).
"Watergate was something that I remembered hearing about, but I only
had a vague impression that the President was impeached or resigned
because of something he did to the Democratic Party."
Me. Rosenblum says she experienced a mental "void" after leaving the
church, "where everything you believe in all of a sudden vanishes, and
it leaves you with nothing to hold onto."
"It is a very strange feeling," she said. "I went through a long
period where I simply didn't believe anything - TV, books, newspapers,
etc. I didn't believe because, if I had been so wrong before, how
could I trust myself again to believe anything was right?"
THE MASS SUICIDES of 900 followers of Rev. Jim Jones in Guyana in
November 1978 came a month after Ms Rosenblum left the church. That
sealed her determination to stay out of Scientology, she says.
"I realized that if at any point LRH (church founder L. Ron Hubbard)
had handed me a glass of poison and told me to drink it, I would have,
with no questions asked and no second thoughts," she says.
Church officials do not like it when staff members leave Scientology
end usually make strenuous efforts to convince or coerce them to
return, according to several affidavits, if the effort fails, former
members state, church officials try to make sure that the "blown"
staff members remain quiet about Scientology.
To enforce their will on a wavering or blown member, according to
several affidavits, church officials use two potent tools:
W PC files. PC files are kept on all "pre-clear" staff members. They
contain intimate and supposedly confidential information extracted
during auditing sessions with church auditors. The information
contained in the files - sometimes having to do with past crimes or
sexual behavior -is used to frighten members into staying or to keep
them quiet after leaving.
* Freeloader bills. Staff members of the Church of Scientology are not
required to pay the cost of auditing (which frequently runs into the
thousands of dollars) - as long as they remain with the church. If
they leave, they are hit with an often-enormous bill. It is called a
"free-loader bill."
CHURCH SPOKESMEN deny that PC files and freeloader bills are used to
coerce errant church members. PC files are and always have been
confidential and are available only to the member's auditor and case
supervisor, they say.
As for freeloader bills; church spokesmen say, all staff members of
the church agree in writing to pay for their auditing if they leave
the church. Even so, spokesmen say, the bills are rarely collected,
and the church has never gone to court seeking to collect one.
When Tonja Burden left the church after four years, she says she
received a freeloader bill for $58,000. She says she returned it and
then received a corrected bill for $36,005.70. She has since joined a
federal class-action suit against the church, seeking $200-million in
damages.
In Min Burdens caw, church spokesmen produced a formal statement,
purportedly signed by her, releasing church founder L. Ron Hubbard end
the church "from all rights, claims or any action which (Miss Burden)
and (her) ... successors now have against L. Ron Hubbard, any person,
any Scientology church, their assigns and successors."
Church officials say all members sign similar forms upon joining the
church staff.
MARJORIE HANSEN, an ex-member who lives in Hanover, Mass., left the
church in 1979 after little more than a year. During that time, she
says, she served as a "personnel control officer" and helped keep
track of staff files.
"I later learned that the purpose of my work was for the supervisors
to control and if necessary to threaten staff members with the
potential 'trouble' that would result to them if they left the
church," Ma. Hansen says.
Silvana Garritano, a nine-year staff veteran, says this practice is
called "crime-culling - the systematic perusal of auditing riles and
the extraction of confidential disclosures made during auditing
sessions."
"The purpose," she adds, "is to glean embarrassing, humiliating and/or
criminal disclosures."
Ma Garritano says she was personally told to "cull" a file on a
wavering Scientology staff member in California. "I WAS TOLD to look
for homosexual tendencies, child abuse, crimes, any strange
relationship with his family or anything the guy would not want
known," Ms.Garritano says. "My supervisor told me this information
would be used to keep John Doe silent and prevent him from revealing
anything about Scientology."
Edward Walters of Las Vegas, elm a nine-year former staff member, says
in his affidavit that pre-clears are led to believe that the
information they reveal in auditing is just between them and their
auditors.
"But I know as fact," Walters says, "that the Guardian's Office has
systematically, through the years, used pre-dear data as a tool
against any pre-dear who would cause'& flap' or who would threaten to
go to the authorities or see a lawyer to sue or get his money back."
That is just what LaVenda Van Schaick is trying to do. She is the lead
plaintiff in the $200-million classaction suit. filed in Federal Court
in Boston.
In her own affidavit, Mrs. Van Schaick says that after she approached
her attorney, Michael J. Flynn, late last year, church officials
called Flynn and "without my permission disclosed to him information
that I had disclosed during auditing and which was contained in my PC
file."
FLYNN CORROBORATED Mrs. Van Schaick's story. But rather than dropping
the case, the 35-year-old lawyer said the disclosures only motivated
him to take it.
"It really p----- me off," Flynn said in an interview with The Times
in his Boston office. "And I said that's ' not constitutional end
decided to go after them."
Church spokesmen deny using materiel in Mrs. Van Schaick's PC rile
when they contacted Flynn. They said the information they gave Flynn
was from other sources.
In an apparent effort to discredit Flynn, spokesmen also allege that
Flynn "lied" on his application to the Massachusetts Board of Bar
Examiners. They produced copies of the application in which Flynn
wrote "no" after a question asking if he had ever been arrested or
"complained of" for any violation of the law, including for a motor
vehicle violation.
Spokesmen produced documents purporting to show that Flynn was sued as
a result of a traffic accident in 1964, when he was 19, that he ran a
stop sign when be was 18 and that he "failed to comply with the color
indications in a certain traffic control signal" when he was 19.
FLYNN SAID HE discovered end corrected the mistakes on his application
before he was admitted to the Bar. He said the Church of Scientology
recently riled a complaint against him regarding the application with
the Board of Bar Overseers in Massachusetts. Flynn said the board
dismissed the complaint four weeks ago A spokes-
an for the board, contacted by The Times, said information about the
complaint - including whether it had been dismissed - could not be
released.
Since filing the suit Dec. 13, Flynn said he has been approached by
"over 100" ex-Scientologists interested in joining the action.
All of them an the victims of "a scheme to swindle, abuse, threaten,
blackmail and divulge auditing information," Flynn said.
Among them is Me. Rosenblum, whose personal affidavit covers 58 pages
of testimony. She concludes her statement on a note of hope-
"Although I now live in a great deal of fear end terror because of
what Scientology did to me, the constant control end deprivation
imposed on me has left me with an Appreciation for the simple things
in !life. Things like being able to get in a car and go for a ride,
being able to be alone, being able to walk outside, feeling the sun on
you, and all by your own choice.
"I don't think I ever really understood what it means to be free and
have freedom until it was taken from me."
--------------------
Images of microfiche have been webbed here
for evidenciary use
http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/clearwatersun/cwsun-1980.tif
Text of this article has been webbed here
http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/clearwatersun/cwsun-1980.txt
ocr'd by Lermanet.com volunteers
Arnaldo Lerma
Lermanet.com Exposing the CON
I'd prefer to die speaking my mind than live fearing to speake
If the Borg were to breed with the Ferengi you'd get Scientology!
29 November 1995 - Memorandum Opinion Judge Leonie Brinkema
"the Court is now convinced that the primary motivation of RTC in suing Lerma, DGS and The Post is to stifle criticism of Scientology in general and to harass its critics. "
The internet is the Liberty Tree
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com
http://www.lermanet.com/idacamburn/cultsandkids.htm
http://www.lermanet.com/faqs.html#psychiatry
http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hubbard-the-hypnotist4.htm
http://www.lermanet.com/scientology-and-occult/
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/
both with IMAGES!!
"Scientologists believe that most human problems
can be traced to lingering spirits of an extraterrestrial
people massacred by their ruler, Xenu, over 75 million
years ago. These spirits attach themselves by "clusters"
to individuals in the contemporary world, causing
spiritual harm and negatively influencing the lives
of their hosts"
[Judge Leonie Brinkema 4 Oct 96 Memorandum Opinion]
What do we get from getting people out of scientology?
We create an individual who has become a Houdini of
all mind traps.. folks who won't be fooled again.
People who can DE-program, People who can spring mental
traps..
We create, by freeing someone of scientology, a being
who has the ability to break the strongest slave chains
of all.
Those forged of lies. (c) Arnaldo Lerma
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
Android Cat
> CLEARWATER SUN APRIL 1980 (date not known)
> Clearwater Edition (front page)
> For Some It was Hard To Forsake Scientology
> by Craig Roberton
> Last in a series
> Clearwater Times Staff Writer
I notice that there's a Clearwater Library Foundation, Inc. which lists a
project for "preservation and digitalization of the Clearwater Sun
newspaper".
http://www.clearwater-fl.com/cpl/support/foundation/index.asp
http://www.clearwater-fl.com/cpl/databases.asp (nothing specifically the
Clearwater Sun, and access limited for outside use.)
So... have they?
(And since one of *CoS's* projects was to attempt to gain control of the
Clearwater Sun, have they extended that to gaining control of the _history_
of the Sun?)
This would be an excellent story in citable form since it discusses PC
folder information being culled and used for blackmail/damage purposes,
freeloader bills, dirty tricks, the usual CoS SOP, etc. As is, with no
exact publication date, typos in the text version (perhaps even a Missing
Comma of Doooom!), but balanced with a tif scan of a Microfiche copy (link
borked), hmmmm.
Ron of that ilk.
Scamology
vicious cult.
Barbara Schwarz
"Android Cat" <androi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:94192$44fc426d$cf702823$26...@PRIMUS.CA...
> Lermanet.com wrote:
>> CLEARWATER SUN APRIL 1980 (date not known)
That stuff is almost 27 years old. Don't you have any news to post?
http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
Barbara Schwarz
--
Eugenics promoter and American enemy Tilman Hausherr and habitual, sexual
harasser, forger and habitual offender Korey Jerome Kruse (Vivaldi, Lord
Xenu and other sockpuppets) scribbled a defamatory misleading Wikipedia
article about me. Kruse just came out of jail.
http://www.alarmgermany.org/tilman.htm
Shame on Wikipedia:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/6d0746fa85f2f217?hl=en&
Another lying abuser who stalks me from thread to thread is Peat Stapleton
(Eru Avatar), alsimak_three @ yahoo.com, from Redding, California, a dead
beat with several social security numbers, self confessed pimp and child
rapist, and former inmate with a psychiatric history, who runs astrology
scans.
Here is info about my abuser and defamer Michael Pattinson from the UK:
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/pattinsonm2.html
Scamology
vinny
Barbara Schwarz wrote:
> "Android Cat" <androi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:94192$44fc426d$cf702823$26...@PRIMUS.CA...
> >> CLEARWATER SUN APRIL 1980 (date not known)
>
> That stuff is almost 27 years old. Don't you have any news to post?
>
> http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
> Barbara Schwarz
> --
it is all long-ago debunked.
But the cult of arnie patrons like to parade anything they think will
add credence to their hopeless anti-religious cause. Meanwhile, all
their hype after every article like this is proven to be crap.
27 years later, the Church of Scientology has more community presence
in more places around the world, more people active, more staff and
buildings helping more people in more ways...and arnie has a dozen
degraded beings for friends, a few of which will leave during any given
year - requiring a lot of energy and lies to attain new acolytes.
And, oh, yes, Scientology (with thousands of web pages containing
actual helpful data) allegedly hates the internet and is afraid of
arnie, and mr. dildo and their minions because they are so effective.
As his (their) lies cull a few potential and former members every once
in a while, the percentage compared to membership and the amount of
people otherwise helped grows closer to zero...by the hour.
Vinny
Zinj
@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, vincent...@hotmail.com
says...
Gee, sounds like things are just rosy in Cultland. So, why are
*you* here? And anonymous to boot?
For that matter; why are the 'Pych Spammers' still on 'post',
seeing as youse guys eliminated psychiatry back in 2000?
Zinj
--
You Can Lead a Clam to Reason; but You Can't Make Him Think
Crozo
write that wonderful post. I think it is unamious except to
Scientologists that membership is way down. It's obvious. What kind
of idiot wants to pay $400,000 for junk science and to learn of Xenu?
Oops, I didn't mean to call you an idiot. Wait... Yeah, I did.
I am being defamed and forged here
vinny wrote:
> Barbara Schwarz wrote:
> > "Android Cat" <androi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:94192$44fc426d$cf702823$26...@PRIMUS.CA...
> > > Lermanet wrote:
> > >> CLEARWATER SUN APRIL 1980 (date not known)
> >
> > That stuff is almost 27 years old. Don't you have any news to post?
> >
> > http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
> > Barbara Schwarz
> > --
> Not only is it 27 years old Barbara, but the anti-scientology 'data' in
> it is all long-ago debunked.
Right, Arnie gives a damn about the truth.
>
> But the cult of arnie patrons like to parade anything they think will
> add credence to their hopeless anti-religious cause. Meanwhile, all
> their hype after every article like this is proven to be crap.
It is always the same with the anti-religious cultists.
>
> 27 years later, the Church of Scientology has more community presence
> in more places around the world, more people active, more staff and
> buildings helping more people in more ways...and arnie has a dozen
> degraded beings for friends, a few of which will leave during any given
> year - requiring a lot of energy and lies to attain new acolytes.
It's it funny? These hate mongers create their own little hate world
here and on Wikipedia and real life, that they don't get.
> And, oh, yes, Scientology (with thousands of web pages containing
> actual helpful data) allegedly hates the internet and is afraid of
> arnie, and mr. dildo and their minions because they are so effective.
They make the false conclusion that other people hate as they do but
they actually don't. Most people are rather tolerant towards other
people's religion, and that includes very much Scientology. In Germany
it is rougher, as they are crazier than any other folk but otherwise on
earth, most people don't fall for the anti-religious hatred.
The "newcomers" on ARS are usually nobody that the usual hate mongers.
They have to play rookies to make each other believe that they didn't
lost the anti-religious war so many years ago.
> As his (their) lies cull a few potential and former members every once
> in a while, the percentage compared to membership and the amount of
> people otherwise helped grows closer to zero...by the hour.
>
> Vinny
Their ship sinks. No ship that is build on lies and defamation ever
makes it. I saw it here in SLC when the mission opened. The Mayor,
officials, VIPs, Representatives welcomed SCN very warmly to downtown
and praised it's social programs, these who Dave Touretzky and his
fanatical friends try to distroy.
No picketing, no hatred, no danger, no bad words, just peace and
harmony and one tasty buffet. ;)
Barbara Schwarz (Looking for the original Mark [Marty] Rathbun. No
impostor, please!)
http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
--
(I am concerned about Dave Touretzky's activities. He also has bomb
instructions on the net.)
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/
Brian J. Bruns aka Burns plays a "cop" on the net but he is a felon
(computer crimes), a spammer, an anti-free speech activist. The abusive
AHBL website is his. He lies about me on his website, and he is
disturbed. Inmate # 445064, County of Suffolk, NY, FBI: 843935WB8. He
was many months incarcerated.
Bruns is the abuser, and he is supported by Korey Jerome Kruse ("Lord
Xenu", "Simkatu" or "Vivaldi") who also just came out of jail and is,
according to the courts, an habitual offender. He also was ordered to
undergo psych evaluation. Of course it didn't help.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/70fdd710bf99c37a?dmode=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&q=%22Korey+Jerome+Kruse%22
Barbara Schwarz (Looking for the original Mark [Marty] Rathbun. No
impostor, please!)
http://www.thunderstar.net/~schwarz/lrh/fbidocs.html
--
(I am concerned about Dave Touretzky's activities. He also has bomb
instructions on the net.)
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/
Brian J. Bruns aka Burns plays a "cop" on the net but he is a felon
(computer crimes), a spammer, an anti-free speech activist. The abusive
AHBL website is his. He lies about me on his website, and he is
disturbed. Inmate # 445064, County of Suffolk, NY, FBI: 843935WB8. He
was many months incarcerated.
Bruns is the abuser, and he is supported by Korey Jerome Kruse ("Lord
Xenu", "Simkatu" or "Vivaldi") who also just came out of jail and is,
according to the courts, an habitual offender. He also was ordered to
undergo psych evaluation. Of course it didn't help.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/70fdd710bf99c37a?dmode=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&q=%22Korey+Jerome+Kruse%22
Eru Ilúvatar
>Right, Arnie gives a damn about the truth.
You certainly don't, Babbles.