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Who is Nan McLean?

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Christopher Wood - xenu.ca

unread,

Apr 6, 2001, 10:48:45 PM4/6/01

The following media articles should give some hint as to why the cult
might have reason to fear her... There's also more information on Nan
at http://xenu.ca/nan/index.html in case you're interested.

Maclean's, June 1974, P. 27

Fear and Loathing in Sutton
The McLean family's fight to escape Scientology
by John Saunders
Maclean's

The McLean family first became involved in Scientology in 1969, when
Nan, an energetic grandmother, joined the cult. Her husband, Eric,
their two sons and their daughter-in-law followed. Eric McLean is a
soft-spoken, 52-year-old teacher of auto mechanics now on leave to
work for the Ontario high-school teachers' federation. He and Nan live
in an old farmhouse outside the village of Sutton, north of Toronto.
By 1972, the five McLeans were pillars of the Church of Scientology.
Nan drove 100 miles a day to work in its Toronto branch and she
eventually was ordained a Scientology minister. Bruce McLean and his
wife, Dawn, also joined the church's full-time staff. John McLean
dropped out of grade 13 to join the Sea Organization, Scientology's
naval arm, and served 18 months aboard the yacht Apollo, headquarters
of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the faith. In fact, John signed a
billion-year contract with the Scientologists, who believe in
reincarnation.

The McLeans fell from grace after an extended feud with leaders of the
Toronto Scientology organization. In the fall of 1972, John jumped
ship on a pretext and rejoined his family, who had abruptly parted
company with Scientology.

On February 12 of this year, eight young people arrived in Sutton
(population 1,500) carrying a black, empty coffin. They paraded it
along the main street past the Riveredge Restaurant, Holborn's
Hardware and the Lake Simcoe Advocate, finally putting it down on the
cold sidewalk outside the Bank of Nova Scotia, where they held a
"funeral for lost souls" and pressed leaflets on uncomprehending
villagers. The leaflets, signed "The Church of Scientology of
Toronto," charged that the McLean family had "betrayed all God-fearing
Canadians" and was "succumbing to the mysteries of evil."

Shortly after the McLeans left Scientology, their rural neighbors had
received calls from "credit investigators" suggesting that Eric McLean
was guilty of embezzlement and from an anonymous "outraged husband."
At one stage, a former Scientology colleague stayed with the McLeans
for a month, claiming that he, too, had abandoned Scientology. When he
left, he tried unsuccessfully to have police lay criminal charges
against his hosts.

Scientology officials deny any responsibility for the telephone calls
or the actions of the man who stayed with the McLeans. He is now back
in the Scientology fold, training to be a minister.

The McLeans, who still discuss the church with any writer or
broadcaster who cares to listen, might have expected trouble. Founder
Hubbard issued a Fair Game Law in 1967 declaring that people found in
a "condition of enemy": "may be deprived of property or injured by a
Scientologist without discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked,
sued or lied to or destroyed."

The Rev. Brian Levman, Canada's chief Scientologist, says all that was
rescinded in 1968. But there's plenty of other evidence of Ron
Hubbard's combative streak.

Perhaps the most macabre product of Hubbard's imagination is "auditing
process R2-45," ostensibly a method of Scientology therapy. In readily
available church literature, there is a single cryptic reference to
it. "R2-45: an enormously effective process for exteriorization, but
its use is frowned upon by this society at this time."

What is R2-45? It's long been rumored among ex-Scientologists to mean
shooting the "patient" in the brain with a .45-calibre pistol. On a
Vancouver radio show this past March, a cornered Scientology public
relations man offered this explanation: "R2-45 is not an auditing
process. It is simply a name given in jest by Mr. Hubbard in his
writings. If a person is killed he'll leave the body . . . R2-45 is
someone being killed and leaving the body."

Globe and Mail, Monday, July 22, 1974, P. 1

Probe of religious sect’s practices sought by ex-members

By John Marshall

Directors from the Church of Scientology in Ontario and Alberta are
seeking Government inquiries into its practices.

One of them, Lorna Levett, was the head of the Scientology mission, a
franchise operation in Calgary. After 12 years in the movement she
walked out and took all but a few of her Calgary disciples with her.

A Scientologist franchise, Mrs. Levett said, is a charter granted by
the Scientology head office. The holder agrees to send 10 3/4 per cent
of the local organization’s weekly revenue to world headquarters. He
also agrees to send anyone who achieves a certain level of training to
another organization for advance training. In turn, he is granted
access to Scientology processes.

Mrs. Levett, a 42 year old divorcee now operates her own counseling
service full-time.

Voicing regret that she lacked the insight and courage to quit before,
she says she induced Calgarians to spend more than $200,000 on
Scientology, half of it for advanced courses in Los Angeles. It costs
anywhere from $50 to $500 an hour for these therapy like sessions.

Scientology, which has described itself as "an applied religious
philosophy" and "the largest mental health organization in the world"
was founded in the United States in the early 1950s by Lafayette Ron
Hubbard, a former science fiction writer from Nebraska.

A precise definition of Scientology is hard to find but it has been
described as having some of the characteristics of a religion, an
educational system, and a mental health program.

Mrs. Levett says one man paid more than $27,000 and a woman in her
70’s seeking self -fulfillment, spiritually and mentally, paid more
than $8,000 in the past two years.

Nearly all the Calgary members, she said, had to borrow to keep up
their payments, and Mrs. Levett induced four to mortgage their homes
to get the cash.

She is asking the Alberta ministry of Consumer Affairs to look into
the movement.

Mrs. Levett has retained her voluminous files, which include factual
policy statements by Mr. Hubbard about controlling the planet from his
floating headquarters, the ship Apollo, as well as directives from
Canadian headquarters in Toronto and information letters about
defectors from various other units.

World mental health movements - the late, highly respected Brock
Chrisholm is named as one of the leaders - are labeled as enemies and
are linked to Nazism.

There are letters identifying ex-members of Scientology and members
fallen from grace, by name and sometimes address, and calling them
homosexuals, drug addicts, "SP" - suppressive persons - or describing
trouble with spouses.

Some of these unlucky people are called "fair game" and "beyond any
consideration for their feelings or wellbeing."

In Ontario, the McLean family of Sutton - Eric and Nan and sons John
and Bruce and the latter’s wife, Dawn - have the feeling that they
have been declared fair game.

The left the organization in October, 1972 - Mrs. McLean was an
ordained Scientology minister and son John was a third mate on the
Hubbard flagship and things immediately began to happen.

A mock funeral was held on Sutton’s main street by Scientologists.
Pamphlets were handed out that called the McLeans "lost souls … who
harass religious people with their irreligious attitudes".

Neighbors began getting phone calls from unidentified persons charging
members of the family with everything from embezzlement to sexual
immorality.

Not long ago, John’s fiancée was called by a women alleging she was
having an affair with John and they were to meet that night in a
motel.

Eric McLean, a 52 year old auto mechanics teacher on leave to work for
the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, has been picketed at
a meeting he was addressing.

The family has been in in touch with various government agencies
seeking an inquiry into Scientoogy.

Mrs. McLean, who still ardently believes and practices Scientology
precepts, has been travelling throughout Canada and the United States
collecting material from other defectors about the organization’s
ethics, economics, and influence.

She has just returned from long consultation and comparison of notes
with Mrs. Levett and others of the Calgary group who are remaining
together as a spiritual counseling service.

"It’s wonderful that Lorna and her people have decided to speak up
publicly," she says "It’s been a long haul alone."

Nearly everyone who leaves the organization, she says, will not talk
about it afterward.

There are Hubbard policies that say when a person joins it is forever
(contracts for those serving on the ship are actually written for a
billion years), and intense follow-ups are used to get people back in.

If anyone speaks against the organization, the McLeans say, the
harassing phone calls begin.

The most recent development - a strange reverse twist - is anonymous
circulation of a Photostat of what purports to be a document outlining
a scheme wherein the McLeans pretend to defect so they can give false
information to publications that could then be sued for libel.

If accepted, it would destroy the McLean’s credibility. What it
doesn’t say is that the documents they have, some duplicated in the
Calgary files, are also bogus.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Levett, too, thinks Scientology techniques can be
helpful in developing a healthy mental and spiritual approach to life.

In fact, she put Mrs. McLean through a higher degree of the
many-classification, never-ending courses while the Sutton woman was
in Alberta. Mrs. McLean wasn’t charged for the service.

But both women say the main stress in the organization is to use the
techniques not so much for self-improvement but to make people into
totally dedicated Scientologists, which means a continuous spending of
time and-or money in the organization.

Mrs. Levett’s files are full of exhortations to seek our those who
have quit elsewhere, particularly from the Hubbard flagship, to get
them to pay the thousands of dollars they allegedly owe for courses
they have taken.

The stress is on the commissions (10 percent) that she could make -
with afterthoughts about getting them back into Scientology.

Be prepared with handfuls of promissory notes, she was told in one
notice right from the top. Get them to agree to any form of repayment,
however small, and rush the money immediately to Flag (the
organization on the Hubbard ship which drifts around the
Morocco-Portugal area).

One bulletin gives leader Hubbard’s glowing endorsement of Big League
Sales Closing techniques, a book by a U.S. supersalesman type, "Use it
to the hilt, Make More Money," she claims she was told.

Mrs. McLean also did her part, she says, to make more money for the
organization when she was a highly regarded member of the Toronto
unit.

She says she twice falsified her income so that she could sign for
bank loans needed by two students who wanted to buy more courses. The
McLeans put more than $9,000 of their own into the organization.

John, who jumped ship on the pretext that he was going to try to get
the others of his family back into the movement, is on what is called
the Flag Freeloader List. They say he owes $17,500.

The January list names a Mississauga man who supposedly owes $5,000; a
Toronto woman, $5,000; a Scarborough couple, $10,000; and a Sault Ste.
Marie man, $4,930.

An earlier list had another Ontario man billed for $28,723. The
amounts are usually run up by people who have become staff members,
which means courses are obtained for nothing or are partly subsidized
while they are serving on staff. If they quit, they are charged the
full amount.

Being on staff can mean anything from handing out pamphlets on the
streets of Toronto to working seven long-hour days a week on the
converted cattle ferry Hubbard uses as one of his homes. It’s one of
four ships Scientology operates.

Very few have talked about their experience on the ship because to get
off they must apply directly to the leader for the release of their
passport, John McLean says, and they sign promise not to talk.

John didn’t sign it.

Ottawa Citizen, July 25, 1974

Harrassment Campaign

Anyone out to suppress or damage Scientology is ‘fair game’

"Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of
Scientology, we have found crimes for which the person could be
imprisoned…Over and over we prove this."

L. Ron Hubbard, Founder of the Church of Scientology

Once attacked the Church of Scientology does not turn the other cheek.

In fact it operates on the principle handed down by it’s foundr that
any group or person who criticizes Scientology is "to say the least
not sane".

To combat the flow of criticism, the cult has established its own
agency — called the Guardian’s Office — to handle governments, the
press, and "suppressives with very muddy intentions."

The Canadian Guardian’s Office is staffed by several Scientologists
who have used such techniques as lawsuits, harassment, and a mock
funeral to discredit the cult’s attackers.

For Scientology defectors, the harassment campaign has been
particularly severe.

The Eric McLeans of Sutton, Ontario, serve as an example of what
happens to anyone who leaves the cult and tells what he knows.

The family was expelled from Scientology in 1972 after they had
collectively spent $9,000 in "fixed donations". Scientology insists it
is a non-profit organization and the costs charged for any of it’s
courses are not fees but fixed donations.

Had Suspicions

Mrs. McLean had reached the rank of minster when she began to suspect
that the statistics given to Hubbard in weekly reports were falsified
and that counselling duties were abused.

As a Scientology minister Mrs. McLean conducted counselling services
for the cult’s followers in a process known as "auditing."

Scientology maintains a belief in reincarnation and part of the
auditing process involves ferreting out those psychological hangups
that persist from a person’s past lives. Using a primitive lie
detector called an E-meter, she would help followers rid themselves of
their hang-ups and achieve a state of "clear."

The cost of the various auditing sessions ranges from $50 for the
initial course to $500 an hour for advanced training.

Before leaving the Toronto chapter Mrs. McLean submitted her
suspicions to Hubbard that auditing was being abused. She received
some vague replies. However, the Toronto office was furious.

Over the past two years, harassment of the family has varied in
intensity but never ceased.

In the small town of Sutton, 60 miles north of Toronton, neighbors
complain of receiving anonymous calls from strangers "investigating
the McLeans for criminal activities." The McLean home has been
picketed by Scientologists brandishing placards accusing the family of
being atheist.

As part of Scientology’s retaliatory campaign Eric McLean and his son
John were charged with making menacing phone calls to the cult’s
former Toronto president. The case was dismissed.

Another complaint lodged with Toronto police was that John had
attacked an 18 year old woman he heard praising Scientology. However
this charch was also dropped after the woman changed her story.

Lawsuits claiming over $5 million in damages have also been slapped on
the family for speaking out against the church.

Mock Funeral

The harassment took a macabre turn when Scientologists paraded down
the main street of Sutton with a black coffin in a mock funeral for
the McLeans. A memorial service was then held for the "lost souls" of
the family.

This kind of treatment is not reserved soley for defectors.
Scientology has adopted special procedures for dealing with dissenters
within its ranks. Anyone who is not "functioning" efficiently is
assigned a condition of liablility ranging from "doubt" to "treason"
to "enemy."

If someone is assigned one of these conditions he is declared a
"suppressive person" or SP in the

[The rest of this article is missing.]

Globe and Mail, Friday, July 26, 1974, P. 5

Scientologists deny they harass defectors from church

'Misrepresentation and distortion' alleged

by Colin Wright and Nancy Cooper

Spokesmen for the Church of Scientology have denied that their
organization harasses defectors.

They were replying to charges by church defectors in articles on
Scientology that appeared earlier this week in The Globe and Mail. The
series has been sharply criticized by Rev. Philip McAiney, Douglas
Pearse and Sue Surgeoner, all staff members at the church's national
headquarters in Toronto.

In a nine-page letter Mr. McAiney, a Scientology minister, said, "The
degree of misrepresentation and distortion . . . is astounding for a
newspaper of your past history."

Mrs. Surgeoner said in an interview she was "surprised that The Globe
and Mail's standard of investigative reporting in this particular
series had dropped to such a low ebb."

Contradictions

In a 3½ hour interview, the three elaborated on Mr. McAiney's letter.
They flatly contradicted the following points made in the articles:

-That when Lorna Levett, the former head of the Calgary mission, left
the church she "took all but a few of her disciples with her." From a
total of 39, Mr. McAiney wrote, eight left with her.

-That a precise definition of Scientology "is hard to find." The World
Book Dictionary defines it as "a religion and system of healing."

-That the McLeans, a Sutton family who left the church in 1972, put
"more than $9,000 into the organization." Mr. McAiney's letter said
that "we know as a fact that they received more than $5,000 back."

-That Scientology has four ships at its disposal. It has six.

A critic quoted in the articles estimated the church's Canadian
membership at 1,000. The spokesmen said this figure was much too low,
but were reluctant to substitute their own, though one of them
estimated 60,000. Mr. McAiney wrote that there are "millions of
adherents" around the world.

He described as a fabrication a defector's claim that between $750,000
and $1,250,000 is sent to world headquarters each week. "It is absurd
to suggest that the church keeps track . . . weekly."

"It is very large and rich," Mrs. Surgeoner said. "And you know
something? The more people who back Scientology, the better I like it.
It means I get more money for my work in reform."

Mrs. Surgeoner is charman of a commission on police reform which the
church has established. Asked the size of her budget, she replied,
"I'm not going to give it to you. That's flat. End of scene."

The three officials denied emphatically that a defector is harassed
after he leaves Scientology. "We attempt to reconcile his
differences," Mr. Pearse said, "to find otu what is troubling him."

Mr. Pearse, the church's director of public affairs in Toronto, agreed
that the church sometimes launches a search for a dissenter, but only
to discover if, in fact, he or she really wants to leave.

In his letter Mr. McAiney wrote that the concept of "fair game" did
not, as the articles suggested, make a defector the subject for attack
by members of the church. It only meant that he was "no longer
protected by its ethics code."

The concept was abolished in 1968. "Mrs. Levett's statement to the
contrary is simply false," the letter states.

The articles reported that the McLeans still "have the feeling they
have been declared 'fair game'." After they left the church in 1972 a
mock funeral was held by Scientologists on Sutton's main street at
which pamphlets critical of the family were distributed.

The officials admitted the funeral was held "some time last year." But
it was organized without the church's authorization. "We can't get
into a defence of an action that we felt was wrong at the time," one
said.

The Scientologists also refute claims that defectors are dunned for
large sums of money allegedly owing to the church.

"We ask for the money invested back, but only if the person wants to
come back to the church," Mr. McAiney said in his letter.

Laugh at sums

The three laughed when sums of money in the range of $50 to $500 an
hour were mentioned as the fees for courses.

The novice communications course costs about $15, according to Mr.
McAiney. "That could be $15 a year, if it takes a year to complete,"
he said.

The average cost to become a full-fledged minister is about $1,500 for
courses, he added.

However, Mr. Pearse said the church also suggests that people donate,
and the amount of the donation is also mentioned to the convert.

Mr. Pearse said he knew some people who had borrowed money to take
Scientology courses, but said that they did so on their own. The
church does not urge people to borrow, he said.

John McLean made $9.60 a week whiel on the Scientology flagship.
However, Mr. McAiney said, Ron Hubbard, the founder of the
organization, receives only that much from the church each week.

Mr. McAiney denied that some of the church's world revenue is diverted
into the founder's Swiss bank account. He said all Mr. Hubbard's
income, apart from the $9.60, comes in the form of royalties from his
early science fiction writings.

Mr. McAiney also listed some of Ron Hubbard's credentials. He is "a
respected writer . . . a civil engineer, explorer, former U.S. Nary
officer and licenced master of both motor and sailing vessels."

When pressed for Mr. Hubbard's engineering credentials, Mr. McAiney
conceded that Mr. Hubbard did not graduate from George Washington
University in 1934.

"He . . . still had to do his thesis," the minister recalled. When he
led an expedition into the Caribbean, he gave the thesis to another
person to deliver but that person never passed it on to the
university.

Mr. Pearse produced an affidavit from a U.S. accountant to back the
claim that Mr. Hubbard was not diverting church revenues to his
private use.

The officials question every allegation made by Lorna Levett of
Calgary, who they say was expelled from the organization in May. They
also doubt the authenticity of Mrs. Levett's correspondence, much of
which is now with The Globe and Mail.

They say, for example, that the Canadian headquarters in Toronto would
never suggest that someone visit the Better Business Bureau in Calgary
and attempt to steal its file on Scientology.

The suggestion is made in a letter to Mrs. Levett, dated Aug. 4, 1972.
Mrs. Levett has sworn before a commissioner of oaths for Alberta that
the writer worked at Scientology headquarters in Toronto.

The three officials said that they had never heard of him, but that
they do not know all the 150 staff members in Toronto.

They dispute Eric McLean's claim that he experienced a security check,
that is, a long series of questions designed to test the faith of a
wavering Scientologist.

Mr. McAiney argues that he could not have been subjected to it, as it
was abolished in 1968. "What Mr. McLean experienced was a
confessional," he wrote.

A real problem

Asked what the difference is, Mrs. Surgeoner replied with a question:
"How was an interrogation in Nazi Germany different from a Catholic
confession?"

Church security is a real problem, Mr. Pearse added. "We have to be on
the alert for people from mental heath organizations who come in and
steal files."

The articles correctly stated that Scientologists look on members of
mental health movements, including "the late, highly-respected Brock
Chisholm," as enemies.

"As far as Brock Chisholm is concerned, he was 'highly respected' only
by other psychiatrists," Mr. McAiney states in his letter. "The Nazi
origins and totalitarian usages to which this so-called 'science' was
put are well documented."

Mrs. Surgeoner objects that the articles "give you this picture of the
church putting people in chains, and through interrogations. It just
isn't the case."

She is sure that the current criticism, and all criticism of
Scientology over the last 20 years, has been prompted by private
mental health organizations.

Globe & Mail, April 22, 1975

Scientologists lose court bid to jail woman

Nan McLean of Sutton, a former Scientologist, won’t have to go to jail
for contempt of court.

The Church of Scientology of Toronto sought to have her jailed for
breach of an injunction issued last April 29 by Mr. Justice Frank
Weatherston of the Ontario Supreme Court.

The Injunction prohibited her until trial or other disposition of any
action brought against her by the church from attacking or defaming it
in radio or television broadcasts.

The church alleged that last June 13 and 14 she went to Calgary and
breached the injunction by making radio and television broadcasts
defaming the sect.

Judge Hugh O’Connel ruled yesterday that an affidavit filed in support
of the church application did not prove that Mrs. McLean had breached
the order and had committed the acts of which the applicant
complained. He dismissed the application with costs.

-------------------------------------------
-- Scientology's gate is down. --

Canadian Scientology information is now at:
http://xenu.ca/
-------------------------------------------