Ruminations

[Caroline]

It would be interesting to see if Mike Rinder talked about this same time period with someone else, and whether he tells the same story.

I'll bet he doesn't.

Mark Rathbun's Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (edited by Mike Rinder and Russell Williams) goes into this period in Chapter 21, "The Juggernaut".

 

[Alanzo]

Mark Rathbun's Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (edited by Mike Rinder and Russell Williams) goes into this period in Chapter 21, "The Juggernaut".

Yes, this description from your transcript:

"MR: And that was operating in Los Angeles and now taking control of the Guardian's Office organizations around the world. At some point, and I'm, not, I'm not to get too complicated about this, but some point I then returned, by that time I was now considered to be a person, a CMO International staff member.

There was all sorts of things that were going during this period, in 1981, 1982, 1983. The Mission Holders mutiny and the Mission Holder's massacre. All of that was going on and I was brought back to ah, back to Hemet and assigned the post of Chief Officer CMO International.

RM: I got it."

Seems a little different from this:

Mike Rinder's History of Running False Flag Operations on Critics

(And a note to all the RinderNinnies: No, Mike Rinder has not even come close to making up for this. In fact, he is still continuing it.)

 

[Caroline]

Yes, this description from your transcript:

"MR: And that was operating in Los Angeles and now taking control of the Guardian's Office organizations around the world. At some point, and I'm, not, I'm not to get too complicated about this, but some point I then returned, by that time I was now considered to be a person, a CMO International staff member.

There was all sorts of things that were going during this period, in 1981, 1982, 1983. The Mission Holders mutiny and the Mission Holder's massacre. All of that was going on and I was brought back to ah, back to Hemet and assigned the post of Chief Officer CMO International.

RM: I got it."

Seems a little different from this:

Mike Rinder's History of Running False Flag Operations on Critics

Thank you, Alanzo. In a February 16, 2019 letter to Markus Thoess, Gerry wrote about similarities between Mike Rinder's Loyalist Op in 1984 and his behaviors and activities since 2007. From that letter:

I know very little of what Rinder did or had done in Clearwater during his years formally posted in OSA. I know a great deal, however, about what he did and made others do to silence or destroy me. I know a lot about what he did and made others do to silence or destroy the class of persons acting in concert with me, and similarly placed persons in the Suppressive Person religious class. I know about crimes he committed and had committed against me and other wogs, which led to the nazi-esque situation or condition you observe in Clearwater and elsewhere.

What Rinder is doing with you regarding his knowledge of what he did and had done in Clearwater is very similar to the way he “handled” me in his “Loyalist Operation” conspiracy in the 1980’s. He ran OSA in the US at that time, and was responsible, under cult head Miscavige for the op. The major targets were to criminally entrap me and ultimately criminally frame me.

He and his co-conspirators, who called themselves the “Loyalists,” contacted me in 1984 with claims that they were “reformers” who wanted to “reform” their cult and wanted my help. This was a step in what is called the “Armstrong Operation,” which the Scientologists initiated as soon as I left the cult. The Armstrong Op’s goal is my obliteration. [3]

The “Loyalists” knew, they said, that the cult’s leaders were criminal. This was no surprise, because I already knew it in spades. So did relevant agencies and officials in the US Federal Government, so did courts, and so did pretty well everyone else. The “Loyalists” claimed they wanted to end the Miscavige regime’s lies, abuses and criminality, and have Miscavige, the criminal usurper of all things wise and wonderful, criminally prosecuted. Rinder and his co-conspirators claimed to be dedicated to opposing, exposing and reforming the cult. They claimed they wanted my help because I had just prevailed in court against the criminal Scientology leadership and had integrity.[4]

Rinder and his co-conspirators in their Loyalist Operation in 1984 claimed that they formed a new and effective opposition to the Miscavige regime, and, because of their knowledge of cult activities, they were poised to take down the regime in its then present form. When Rinder and his co-conspirators were making their clandestine and illegal videos of me meeting with him, however, he made a big production for the video of insisting that the “Loyalists” had no evidence of anything illegal being done. He was, of course, lying. He had all kinds of evidence of illegalities. And he was serving the Miscavigeites’ criminal purposes.

From my February 22, 1994 declaration:

​

Rinder, who had been represented to me as the Loyalists’ “best legal mind” couldn’t seem to get the distinction between allegations and proof in the complaint, and I was frustrated in our conversation because he seemed so dense. Now, of course, his denseness is fully understandable. He had to appear stupid and had to deny that there was any “proof” of the sort of allegations that would be made in a complaint because he knew he was being recorded on a videotape which was going to be used to attack, and if possible destroy me. Even what the organization has done to me alone (see, e.g., crimes listed by Judge Breckenridge and the list in paragraph 7 above) is enough for actual true-hearted reformers to bring a lawsuit to take control of the organization from the criminals now in charge. (Emphasis mine)​

What Rinder is now doing is so like his first “Loyalist Op” (“Loyalist Op-1”) that his present agenda is known as “Loyalist Op Redux” or “Loyalist Op-2.” He and his current witting or unwitting PR assets again publicly portray Miscavige as a sociopath and a criminal. They again portray Rinder as the person poised with all the insider knowledge, the evidence and the legal acumen to take Miscavige and his regime down, and end the criminality. Rinder’s human assets present him as a leader of the “opposition” to Scientology, and they oppose persons like me, who legitimately challenge him or present legitimate challenges to his getting away with all the crimes and other evils he’s gotten away with.

Rinder proclaims himself, and is being proclaimed, as the preeminent challenger presenting the preeminent challenge now to the Miscavige regime. In reality, Rinder is willfully not doing what really could and should be done and really would challenge the conspirators running Scientology.

He titles his blog “Something Can Be Done About it,” which is a Hubbardian meme that means, in this context, doing precisely what he claimed he and his fellow Loyalists were doing about Scientology in 1984: ending the Miscavige regime’s lies, abuses and criminality. Yet he has studiously not done what really can be done about those evils.

While portraying themselves in their Aftermath series as dedicated to ending the Miscavige regime’s lies, abuses and criminality, and while getting all sorts of hopes up for truth and justice, Rinder and Leah Remini have communicated essentially that nothing can be done. Because of their positioning as the preeminent challengers to the Miscavige regime, their conclusion that nothing can be done about it is made to sound authoritative and definitive.
------------------------------
[3] These two declarations dated February 20 and February 22, 1994 provide a basic understanding of the Loyalist-1 Op, including a part Rinder played: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/3138.php; http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/3134.php
[4] Breckenridge Decision: http://legal.gerryarmstrong.ca/1984/06/22/memorandum-of-intended-decision-june-22-1984/

 

[Dotey OT]

Thank you, Alanzo. In a February 16, 2019 letter to Markus Thoess, Gerry wrote about similarities between Mike Rinder's Loyalist Op in 1984 and his behaviors and activities since 2007. From that letter:

Get a room you two.

 

[Caroline]

This is the Ruminations room.

Stacy Brooks Young wrote about her role in OSA's operations against Gerry in the following 1998 a.r.s. post. She goes into the Loyalist Op and mentions various participants, including Mike Rinder.

From: [email protected] (Stacy Brooks Young)
Subject: A classic example of the fair game policy at work
Date: 1998/09/24
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology

(Gerry Armstrong is my friend now that we are both out of Scientology, and I
have already told him this story. I have told him how sorry I am for my part in
trying to destroy him when I was still an OSA staff member. I've told several
other people this story as well, and they have urged me to share it because it
is such a classic illustration of how far DM and his cronies are willing to go
to destroy their enemies.)

I was the managing editor of FREEDOM Magazine in the Spring of 1985, when Julie
Christoffersson's lawsuit against the Church of Scientology was being retried. I
was also the main writer for the Office of Special Affairs, meaning that when DM
needed something special written, he called on me.

Julie Christoffersson had named Gerry Armstrong as a witness in her trial. DM
wanted to discredit Gerry because he was extremely concerned about the
information Gerry had. Gerry had been the LRH Archivist up until the end of
1981, and as such he had had access to all of LRH's personal papers. These
included documents which, I know from my own viewing of them at the beginning of
1982, provide incontrovertible evidence that LRH suffered from clinical paranoid
schizophrenia and manic depression from a very early age.

There were letters to his parents in which he exhibited wildly delusional
paranoia. There was a document, known during Gerry's trial as "the
Affirmations," in which LRH clearly revealed himself to have delusions of
grandeur. There was another document, nicknamed "Blood Ritual," in which LRH
described in grisly detail various methods of horrific sexual torture which he
wanted to inflict on his second wife, Sara, whom he had met when he was heavily
involved in black magic.

Gerry had been the first person in Scientology to see all of these documents. He
was critiquing many of the "About the Author" sections in the LRH books and
comparing the information in them to the documents he had in the archives. In
the fall of 1981 Norman Starkey, then directly under DM in Special Project,
which would soon become Author Services, Inc., received a report that the
information that was being published about LRH's life by Scientology was false,
according to the documents in the archives. It was clear that some of the
documents (such as Blood Ritual) could present public relations problems if they
were ever made public.

When Norman received this report he immediately ordered Gerry in for security
checking, since he was obviously disaffected and clearly critical of LRH, which
of course meant that he had overts and withholds against LRH which needed to be
"pulled." Gerry got into such serious ethics trouble, in fact, that it made him
realize how deeply he had been defrauded by LRH and Scientology.

Gerry was working at the time with Omar Garrison, a writer who had been hired to
write a biography of LRH. Gerry had been systematically making copies of all the
archives materials and taking the copies to Omar for his biography research. By
the time he blew in November 1981, Gerry had photocopied the entire archive for
Omar.

DM, Norman Starkey, Lyman Spurlock, Terri Gamboa, Vaughn and I all tried to get
Gerry to come back to Scientology and also to return the copies of the archives
materials. When it became apparent that Gerry was not going to do either, and it
became known that he had sent LRH's documents to anti-Scientology attorney
Michael Flynn, DM had the Church of Scientology of California file suit against
Gerry for theft of the documents. Because it looked like CSC might lack
standing, DM arranged for Mary Sue to intervene in the suit, because she had the
strongest claim on LRH's personal papers, since she was his wife.

I was part of the Gerry Armstrong Dead Agent Unit -- the GA DA Unit for short.
Vaughn, myself, Andy Lenarcic, Ann Lenarcic, and a few others worked round the
clock to come up with evidence that would prove Armstrong was a " shoddy
researcher" and therefore was wrong in saying that the information being
published by the church about LRH was false.

We did everything we could to find evidence to back up claims LRH had made about
himself. We looked high and low for proof that on a shakedown cruise of the PC
815 during World War II, LRH really had sunk a submarine off the coast of Oregon
in 1942, for example. The evidence just did not exist. We tried to find evidence
that he had really graduated from George Washington University and that he had
studied nuclear physics at Princeton. It just wasn't true. We tried to prove
that he had been on an intelligence mission to break up Aleister Crowley's Ordo
Templer Orientis (OTO) when he went to Pasadena in 1946 and began dabbling in
black magic. There just wasn't any evidence.

CSC's and Mary Sue's case againt Gerry was tried by Judge Paul Breckinridge in
the Spring of 1984. Michael Flynn was Gerry's attorney. He is a brilliant
lawyer, and he ate Mary Sue and the church for breakfast during that trial.
Flynn's defense of Gerry was to show that Gerry had taken copies of the
documents knowing he would have to defend himself against the church's fair game
tactics, the point being that he needed the documents to prove that the church
was lying.

Flynn was so successful in his defense of Gerry that Judge Breckinridge issued a
now-famous decision in which he labeled L. Ron Hubbard a paranoid schizophrenic
and called the Chruch of Scientology an alter-ego of Hubbard's insanity.
Scientology was able to get the documents sealed, and they remained sealed until
the case settled in 1986 (at which time they were returned to Scientolgy), but
Gerry dealt a crushing blow to LRH's credibility during that trial. Needless to
say, Gerry Armstrong became one of Scientology's most hated enemies from that
time on.

Then in the summer of 1984, Gerry testified in a child custody case in London,
the Latey case, which also resulted in a devastating decision against
Scientology. So DM was determined to discredit Gerry so that he would be useless
in any future litigation.

DM ordered an intelligence sting operation against Gerry. Gene Ingram got an
LAPD officer, Phillip Rodriguez, to sign off on a bogus authorization to
wiretap or videotape Gerry secretly. It was not actually authorized by the LAPD
and Rodriguez later got in trouble for it. Then Mike Rinder and Dave Kluge (one
of OSA's intelligence operatives at the time) both set up meetings with Gerry
Armstrong, pretending to be disaffected Scientologists who were considering
going to the authoritites with incriminating information about the church.
Mike's role was important because he was a high-level management staff member
whom Gerry knew very well. He met with Gerry and basically said he was extremely
dissatisfied with the way the church was being run and wondered if Gerry could
hook him up with anyone in the IRS or FBI. Gerry had, in fact, been contacted by
investigators from the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, because at that time
the IRS was seriously investigating LRH and Scientology for criminal fraud. So
Gerry gave Mike the names of the agents he had spoken to.

But DM wanted more than this. DM wanted evidence that Gerry was a paid informant
of the IRS, because this would show the judge that Gerry's testimony was
tainted. The only problem was, Gerry wasn't a paid informant. So no matter how
Rinder and Kluge asked their questions, they couldn't get Gerry on videotape
saying he was being paid to attack the church. Rinder and Kluge asked him all
kinds of leading questions, trying in every way possible to get Gerry to say
what they had been ordered to get him to say. But to no avail.

So DM called me in and ordered me to edit the transcripts of the videotapes to
make it look like Gerry was admitting to being a paid informant, even though he
never had admitted any such thing. I was to edit out Rinder's and Kluge's
leading questions so it looked like Gerry was volunteering information, when in
fact all he was really doing was answering a hypothetical question that had been
posed to him.

I went through the transcripts and pulled the "best" parts I could find, doing
my best to comply with DM's orders to make Gerry look like a paid informant.
Privately I thought it was obvious, even after the editing, that Gerry was being
set up, but I dutifully turned in my doctored transcript to DM, who then turned
it over to Ted Horner, a Gold staff member in charge of film editing, to use my
edited transcript to do the final edit on the videotapes.

Then I went back to editing FREEDOM Magazine and my other normal duties and
thought no more about it.

One night about a month later I was called over to the OSA Int conference room
along with several other key OSA US staff. DM and Norman were both there,
looking extremely morose. DM told us that they had taken the videotape into
court and demanded to show it to the judge, saying it would prove conclusively
that Gerry Armstrong was a paid liar. The judge agreed to see the videotape in
camera (meaning in his chambers, not in open court). But the judge did not have
the reaction DM and the others had expected. After seeing the videotape, the
judge was enraged and told the Scientologists, "I have heard about these dirty
tactics that you use against your perceived enemies, but now that I have seen it
for myself I think you are much, much worse than I had ever imagined! " And
kicked them out of his chambers.

Now, you have to understand that in Scientology the "wilful suspension of
disbelief" is a way of life, so much so that no one, from DM on down, ever
admits for even a moment that everything that happens in there is nothing more
than play-acting. Everyone is so good at it that they fool themselves into
thinking they really believe what they're pretending.

So it was with the GA videotapes. When DM ordered me to doctor the tapes he
never for a moment acted like he actually knew that he was ordering me to doctor
them. With a straight face he ordered me to edit the tapes to take out all the
irrelevant bits so it would be a concise record of Gerry's confession that he
was an informant. And when I edited them that was truly what I told myself I was
doing. Everyone joined in the delusion that we were simply tightening up the
videotape.

And when DM told us about the judge's reaction, he managed to sound absolutely
convinced that the reason the judge had reacted that way was that the judge was
biased against Scientology. DM put on a very convincing show of being totally
outraged at the judge's reaction. Now, looking back on the experience, I think
it is possible that DM really is that deluded. I also think it's entirely
possible that DM and the others at the very top know exactly what they are doing
and are simply manipulating all of the lower level staff into doing their dirty
work for them. To this day I'm not really sure which it is.

I know that for myself, there was a part of me that wasn't surprised at all at
the judge's reaction. In fact, there was a part of me that, even that night as I
listened to DM's performance, wondered it he was really that delusional.
But that part of me was buried deep beneath my Scientology persona. Certainly I
would never have voiced such thoughts. I just wanted to do what I was ordered to
do as quickly as possible so I could get some sleep and have maybe a few minutes
of privacy. That was all I cared about back then.

DM ordered me and the rest of the FREEDOM staff to turn the edited GA videotape
transcripts into a special edition of FREEDOM. If the judge wouldn't listen,
then we would take the issue to the people of Portland! That was what DM said.
So Andy Lenarcic, Tom Whittle and I spent the next several days putting together
the copy for this special edition of FREEDOM. When it was completed I had to fly
up to Portland and personally present the manuscript to DM for his approval. I
stood there in his condominium watching him read, hoping he would approve it the
first time through so I wouldn't have to fly back up with a revised version. To
my great relief, he signed off his approval and I was permitted to fly back to
Los Angeles.

I was then responsible for getting two million copies of that special edition of
FREEDOM printed and distributed to every doorstep in Portland, Oregon. [1] Jonathan
Epstein, Finance Chief Int at the time, was the one who pulled the money out of
various corporations, including CSI, IAS, CS WUS and several other local outer
org accounts, to pay for this monstrous, ridiculous, useless project.

I doubt anyone in Portland ever read the damn special edition. I certainly
wouldn't have if I'd found it on my doorstep. It certainly didn't help
Scientology win the Christo case, either. When the $30 million judgment came
down DM ordered every Scientologist on the planet up to Portland for the
now-famous Religious Freedom Crusade, in which thousands of Scientologists
marched through the streets of Portland demanding that the judge reverse the
jury's decision in the Christo case.

I have no idea what other pressure was brought to bear on that judge behind the
scenes. All I know is that DM's strategy worked. The judge finally declared a
mistrial in the Christoffersson trial, which served to confirm for DM and
Scientologists all over the world that if you use enough force and intimidation
you can get whatever you want.

[1] See Freedom Special Edition (February 1986)

 

[Alanzo]

This is the Ruminations room.

Stacy Brooks Young wrote about her role in OSA's operations against Gerry in the following 1998 a.r.s. post. She goes into the Loyalist Op and mentions various participants, including Mike Rinder.


[1] See Freedom Special Edition (February 1986)

Compare this kind of disclosure about the assets and methods of OSA Int by Stacey Brooks with ANYTHING Mike Rinder has ever "exposed".

In fact, Rinder has never exposed anything new. He has only repeated what was already known.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

I debated for a while as to whether or not I wanted to post anything else on this board. I finally decided I would get this off my chest.

A few kind of fragmented thoughts I want to express here.


I don’t remember everything about Mike Rinder’s history on staff. What I can piece together from what I recall and what others who were there have said is this:

The GO still existed when I got into the SO in 1982, but it was on its last legs. When I was on the RPF in 1984 it had just been officially disbanded. A ton of GO people were on the RPF with me. They were put there because the GO was now a terrible place filled with terrible people and they all needed to be punished. As I said in another post, Rinder was on the RPF with me, too. Ex-GO plus David Mayo followers plus everyone else Miscavige was mad at made for a big RPF.

The CMO took over the functions of the GO. That was when Mike Sutter was running it (Mid 80s). It had a different name at first. (Special Unit? Does that sound familiar?) Then it became OSA. The CO in the late 80s was Kurt Weiland. To my knowledge, both of these people came from CMO Int.

At some point Mike Rinder became CO OSA Int. My best guess is early 90s. He came from somewhere in the CMO, too. Mick Wenlock said he had been VA’s communicator in the 80s, so it may be that he wound up in OSA from that post. He bounced back and forth from the CO OSA post, to D/CO OSA post to WDC OSA (that’s CMO Int) to LRH PRO Int (head of RPR), to the RPF. And then back again. With some missions thrown in. (Now that I think of it, he was on a mission into AOLA at some point while I was there.)

I don’t know how many years Mike Rinder actually ran OSA, but I can tell you that, number one, it was not 22 years and number two, he got his orders from RTC. OSA Int is just an execution arm for RTC, which is of course just an execution arm for DM. OSA got its orders from RTC (IG Ethics RTC to be exact, who was Mark Rathbun). RTC took orders from DM. Nothing got done by OSA which wasn’t essentially a DM order.

One thing to keep in mind is that juicy little LRH datum that “stats are internally caused”. Every time OSA had a big loss (which, as you can imagine, was a LOT) the inference was that it was the fault of the staff. So, as a result, they’d get an ethics mission followed by a production mission and heads would roll. Every. Single. Time. The CO was the first head that would get lopped off. No one lasted on the CO OSA Int post for long.


There are a lot of upper level positions where a lot of terrible things were done to others. Some of you may remember my post about Bitty Miscavige. Lots I could say about her. Mariette Lindsteen, who was in RTC before she left the Sea Org, is another personal fave of mine. Both of these people are now out. Mariette lives in Sweden and writes books about cults. Bitty lives in California near or with her daughter who wrote a book about being DM’s niece. In my eyes, they did as much or more damage as Mike Rinder ever did. But no one is putting them on trial here.

As I said in another post, we all have our “items”. This list is a whole lot longer than these few people if you ask everyone theirs.


Some of us were on posts where we could do minimal direct damage to others. This is a combination of the level you were on and the position you held. I was on a post like that. Emma, who was an auditor, was on a post like that. (Unless you consider that an auditor can write “actionable KRs” which will from that point on cause untold misery for pcs. Someone out there probably hates her.)

Did I not have a post where I fairgamed people and destroyed their lives because I was somehow on a moral higher ground? Because I was incapable of inflicting that kind of damage to another person?

Well, no. The truth is, I wasn’t considered to be qual’d for OSA because of my pre-Scientology history. I wasn’t qual’d for Int, or for HCO, because of the same. So, I stayed in my little place in my service org until I finally came to my senses and blew.

Now I can safely say that I didn’t do terrible things like Mike Rinder did or like Marty did or Bitty did or like whoever did. But, if I was to have been given the jobs they had, would I have done the same things they did?

Yup. And anyone else I knew on staff would have, too. And those who say they wouldn’t either have terrible memories or are deluding themselves.

Because those were the rules and you followed them unquestioningly. What you wound up doing was totally a function of the job you wound up holding in the org you wound up holding it in. And, to a very great degree, at least in the Sea Org, what job you wound up holding and the place you wound up holding it in had little or nothing to do with what you wanted to do. And certainly what you did while you were in that position had nothing to do with what you wanted to do.

Those of us who lived it who have any kind of personal honesty know this. We may still harbor ill will to those who fucked us over or fucked over someone we knew or cared about. But even so, we get it. Those were the rules, and we followed them.


I’m not totally sure about what I want to say here. Except...the purpose of ESMB was supposed to be “Meet other exes. Share your experiences. Reunite with old friends.”

Not to run some group sec check on other exes who got put in the unfortunate position of doing damage to others when they were in.

But, that's just my opinion.

I guess that’s all I have to say.

Thanks for this brilliant post Lulu, it needed saying and you said it so well ... I've also enjoyed your other posts here over the many years we have all shared the board.


​

 

[Voodoo]

"CSC's and Mary Sue's case againt Gerry was tried by Judge Paul Breckinridge in
the Spring of 1984. Michael Flynn was Gerry's attorney. He is a brilliant
lawyer, and he ate Mary Sue and the church for breakfast during that trial.
Flynn's defense of Gerry was to show that Gerry had taken copies of the
documents knowing he would have to defend himself against the church's fair game
tactics, the point being that he needed the documents to prove that the church
was lying.​

​

Flynn was so successful in his defense of Gerry that Judge Breckinridge issued a
now-famous decision in which he labeled L. Ron Hubbard a paranoid schizophrenic
and called the Church of Scientology an alter-ego of Hubbard's insanity.​

​

Scientology was able to get the documents sealed, and they remained sealed until
the case settled in 1986 (at which time they were returned to Scientology), but
Gerry dealt a crushing blow to LRH's credibility during that trial. Needless to
say, Gerry Armstrong became one of Scientology's most hated enemies from that
time on."​

This is powerful stuff. It shows that the upper echelons of Scientology managers knew of L Ron Hubbard's lies, con games, and insanity way back, and that they did everything in their power to bolster and forward those lies for decades.

Those managers (both current and ex) who were there at the time, are still hiding the truth about LRH and the church.

 

[ILove2Lurk]

This is powerful stuff. It shows that the upper echelons of Scientology managers knew of L Ron Hubbard's lies, con games, and insanity way back, and that they did everything in their power to bolster and forward those lies for decades.

Those managers (both current and ex) who were there at the time, are still hiding the truth about LRH and the church.

Bingo!

 

[PirateAndBum]

I don't recall ever seeing this "Blood Ritual" document. Is it online?

 

[ILove2Lurk]

I don't recall ever seeing this "Blood Ritual" document. Is it online?

Here's some interesting info about it and Hubbard.

 

[Caroline]

I don't recall ever seeing this "Blood Ritual" document. Is it online?

Michael Flynn questioned Gerry about the "Blood Ritual" document at trial in Armstrong 1. The document was given an exhibit number but was not admitted into evidence. With Mike Rinder's intimate knowledge of the Armstrong case for many years, he would have been familiar with it, and undoubtedly handled it.

Q In your experience had Mr. Hubbard written quite a bit on what insanity was?

A Yes.

Q And did insanity have to do with the ability to perceive time, place, form, and event, truth?

A Yes.

Q And did you correlate at all Mr. Hubbard’s writings with regard to insanity to his own inability to perceive time, place, form, and event?

A Yes. There has — since I set out on this project or since probably the beginning of 1981 there has been an increasing awareness of his inability to perceive time, place, form, and event; of his inability to perceive the truth and of his compulsion to lie to everyone, followers, courts, everyone.

Q And when you joined Scientology did you understand the pursuit of truth to be the foundation of Scientology?

A Yes.

Q Now, directing your attention to exhibit 500 quadruple K, why did you send that to me, Mr. Armstrong?

A This is a document entitled "The Blood Ritual." And it is a ritual — it is a magical rite which was — which Mr. Hubbard has written. And it invokes the powers of various, I believe, Egyptian gods. And it concerns a ceremony that he and his second wife Sarah went through.

The significance that this had to me is that Mr. Hubbard claimed that he had broken up a black magic ring. This was the black magic ring of the OTO in Pasadena, California, and this just added to the preponderance of evidence that showed conclusively that the man was not working for Naval intelligence, did not break up the black magic ring, but was himself involved in Crowleyite Black Magic.

Q And that is in L. Ron Hubbard’s handwriting?

A Yes.

Q And did you form an opinion as to the approximate date that that was written?

A Yes.

Q And when was that?

A 1946.

Q And that was during the period when Mr. Hubbard claimed he was blind?

A Yes.

Mary Sue Hubbard's attorney interrogated Gerry about the Admissions and Blood Ritual document in a October 28, 1983 deposition:

MR. MAGNUSON: Back on the record.

Q Are you familiar, Mr. Armstrong, with a document or file that's labeled "Affirmations"?
Well, maybe you can explain it to me. Was there within the archives materials that you were working with while you held the archives position some documents that had been labeled or identified "Affirmations"?

A. That's correct.

Q. Can you explain to me what these were.

A. The affirmations were handwritten materials, handwritten by L. Ron Hubbard, which went over various of his problems, and they were self-hypnotic commands that he was writing to himself, affirmations. And they were from the late 1940s, and they referred to his war career, his physical and mental condition, that sort of thing.

Q Then, were these separate documents, or were they all one document? How were they physically compiled?

A. They were assorted. There's a number from the same kind of period or same style of writing.

Q. And these were handwritten --

A. Yes.

Q. -- by Mr. Hubbard?

A. Yes.

Q. And were they gathered together by you and put into one file or stored together, or did you receive them in that same form?

A. They were either in one area or one box, something like that. They were roughly together.

Q. And these were in the nature of personal notes or personal thoughts or ideas? Is that essentially what these documents consisted of?

A. Personal writings.

Q Approximately how many different documents are we talking about?

A. Maybe six.

Q. And they all come roughly from the late 1940's period?

A. Yes.

Q. While you were holding the archives post, where did you obtain these documents?

A. They originally came from the boxes in Del Sol on the Gilman Hot Springs property.

Q. And did you transfer those materials to Mr. Garrison?

A. Yes.

Q. Approximately when did you make that transfer?

A. I don't recall. Sometime I guess in 1981.

Q That was while you were holding the archives post?

A. Yeah.

Q. Do you know if there are documents in there that contain the term "blood ritual"?

A. I believe so, yes.

Q. Did you read all these documents?

A. Yes.

Gerry also mentioned it in a April 24, 1990 deposition, in Corydon v. Scientology. Mike Rinder ran the Corydon litigation for Scientology.

MR. HELLER: L. Ron Hubbard's reported connection with a group dealing with black magic is relevant to this lawsuit brought by Mr. Corydon? I assume that's the proffer of relevance, and I will object on relevance.

THE DEPONENT: The first one I saw was an article that appeared in the London Sunday Times in 1969. I saw that shortly after, I believe, '69, shortly after I was in the port captain's office.

Q BY MS. PLEVIN: Let's, if we can, identify them; and then to the extent that we need to inquire further as to what was in them specifically, we can do that.

A Right.

MR. HELLER: Object on relevance; move to strike the last question. We are now, I guess, about eight to nine years prior to any relevant act in this complaint. You are talking about a 1969 London Times article.

THE DEPONENT: And then I saw documents in Hubbard's handwriting relating to it.

Q BY MS. PLEVIN: What did you see in his handwriting?

A There is a document which became known as the Affirmations or the Admissions, and there was one called the Blood Ritual, and there was the Hubbard original of the London Sunday Times article.

MR. HELLER: Same objections on relevance.

Q BY MS. PLEVIN: Anything else?

A There were other documents which connected him to Jack Parsons, who was the U.S. head of the OTO.

Q What documents connected him to Jack Parsons?

MR. HELLER: Same objection on relevance. I don't know who Jack Parsons is. He is certainly not mentioned in the complaint, nor was he mentioned in five days of discovery request for production of documents or various written discovery that's been done of the plaintiff.

MS. PLEVIN: That may be because your discovery was inadequate, Mr. Heller.

MR. HELLER: I asked what you based your complaint upon. Maybe your complaint was inadequate. Are you going to go through this deposition trying to prove everything that's said in the book is true?

THE DEPONENT: Those are the principal ones, at least for now, that I can recall relating.

Q BY MS. PLEVIN: Did you give an answer to what documents you saw that connected him to Jack Parsons?

A Oh, on that subject there were some legal documents. There was documents relating to a business venture that they had; there was some correspondence between Hubbard and Sara.

Q Sara Northrup?

A Yes.

Q Regarding Jack Parsons?

A Yes; his name came up. The connection becomes obvious through the study of those documents.

 

[Warrior]

Now I can safely say that I didn’t do terrible things like Mike Rinder did or like Marty did or Bitty did or like whoever did. But, if I was to have been given the jobs they had, would I have done the same things they did?

Yup. And anyone else I knew on staff would have, too. And those who say they wouldn’t either have terrible memories or are deluding themselves.

Sorry, LuluBelle. I would never have run or ordered any Fair Game ops on anyone. It's not in me to lie, cheat, trick, or harm another human being -- not now, and not then. I would never have accepted any position that had any such job requirements.

I'm not deluded, and I have a better than average memory. I know who I am and what my values are; they are based primarily upon following the Golden Rule.

Warrior - Sunshine disinfects
https://warrior.xenu.ca

 

[Caroline]

Here's some interesting info about it and Hubbard.

Thanks. From that article:

When I first met Gerry, he told me about a scale he’d found in Hubbard’s papers, which belonged to the period between Parsons and Dianetics — around 1947. I asked Gerry about this, recently, but he couldn’t remember it, so I foraged through my ancient notes, and there it is:
God
The Fool
Fanatics and Zealots
The Wealthy, Financiers
The Intelligentsia
Labourers and Farmers
Animals
Hubbard believed he’d reached the level of the Fool. There is a fascinating digression about the Fool on the first Philadelphia Doctorate Course tape — and the alligator he mentions on the tarot card leads us to Crowley (the only tarot with an alligator on the Fool card). In the lecture, Hubbard informs us that the Fool is the illumined state, because nothing can affect the Fool — whatever you fire at him passes straight through. He gives this as an early example of what would become the Operating Thetan, OT.
also:

Gerry has a fabulous memory (quoting Judge Breckenridge), and it surprised me to read that he "couldn't remember" the scale, because we had talked about it. I asked him this morning to go back into his correspondence with Jon Atack so we could ruminate about Hubbard's scale too.

Atack e-mailed Gerry on May 14, 2013, saying that he was tidying his paper for a FECRIS conference, and that he remembered talking with Gerry in 1984 about a scale in Hubbard's papers which had on it 'fanatics and zealots.' He wanted to know if Gerry had it, and if so, could Atack have it (too).

Here's Gerry's reply:

From: Gerry Armstrong
To: 'jon atack'
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 3:28 PM
Subject: RE: fanatics and zealots

I don’t have Hubbard’s scale, and have only a faint memory of it. I’ve called it his beast-to-fooldom scale. The Scientologists have it. It was quite clearly from his post WW II occult period.

At the bottom of the scale, or ladder, or page, were farmers and sub-farmers. At the top was “the fool.” I think Hubbard had an alligator or crocodile snapping at the fool’s heels. There were what Hubbard called “three fool steps.” There was a magus up there, and Hubbard might even have mentioned God even a bit higher. His scale borrows, of course, from the tarot, and other occult/philosophic sources, probably including his own judgments.

I think he had financiers a couple of steps above scientists. And I’m not sure where fanatics and zealots fit in exactly, but they were pretty high in the hierarchy, far up from farmers.

The post-Hubbard scuttlebutt was that he was coming back next time as a politician.

Your Church of Hate probably parallels my Cult of Total Victimization: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/613 If you send it, I will read it.

Glad your garden is growing. Veg on!

Gerry

I'd say Gerry's "faint memory" was pretty clear.

 

[The_Fixer]

Sorry, LuluBelle. I would never have run or ordered any Fair Game ops on anyone. It's not in me to lie, cheat, trick, or harm another human being -- not now, and not then. I would never have accepted any position that had any such job requirements.

I'm not deluded, and I have a better than average memory. I know who I am and what my values are; they are based primarily upon following the Golden Rule.

Warrior - Sunshine disinfects
https://warrior.xenu.ca

Were you ever in those mentioned positions? If not. would your ethical code have presented itself and got you excluded from that in the first place? I'm fairly sure that they would have bben looking for those who actually fit their criteria in the first instance.

Sorry. I don't really know you and I am not being snarky with you, At least not deliberately.

If so, then you would have been one of the very few. My hat would be off for you then, as I agree with Lulu in the respect that very few of us could resist it.

 

[Dulloldfart]

In case anyone is not familiar with Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

I don't know the best video treatment of this material. Some of the original footage is easily available.

Also relevant is Milgram's famous experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Paul

 

[The_Fixer]

Apt point there, Paul

 

[JustSheila]

Were you ever in those mentioned positions? If not. would your ethical code have presented itself and got you excluded from that in the first place? I'm fairly sure that they would have bben looking for those who actually fit their criteria in the first instance.

Sorry. I don't really know you and I am not being snarky with you, At least not deliberately.

If so, then you would have been one of the very few. My hat would be off for you then, as I agree with Lulu in the respect that very few of us could resist it.

I know Warrior. Warrior wasn't in those positions AFAIK, but stood up to a lot.

I don't think anyone knows exactly how they'll respond in threatening situations. The longer a person is in the SO, the more the person is worn down. I remember an incident when LuluBelle stood up to management in her early years but then was forced to back down.

I've stood up and been forced to back down a few times. That happens when someone uses coercion and control of your child/ spouse/ family/ livelihood/ health/ freedom.

Spiritual beliefs can be extremely powerful as a control mechanism, too.

ADDED: Gerry Armstrong (who Caroline is defending here) was forced to back down in his court case when everyone else did. He would have had to go at it alone to continue. Painful and awful, but if we're being honest here, Gerry also backed down at that time, though he continued the fight in other ways when he felt stronger.

Gerry was betrayed. He has a personal axe to grind with Mike Rinder. Some people have been personally affected by him and they have a right to speak out.

My opinion on Mike Rinder is I love what he's doing now and what he's done with the show and all the work he's put in to helping people who were hurt by the cult of Scientology, but those people personally affected by him have a right to speak and tell their versions of what happened. I know of one, maybe two who are still angry. Alanzo is just stirring things up and has never told a personal story with Mike Rinder.

 

[The_Fixer]

Might also suggest he would not have been invited up there for those reasons.

All cults rely on the same tools though.

Vulnerability is the thing. The people you would fear most would be those without it. You could not control them.

 

[Dotey OT]

Yet another hijacked thread. Think what you want to think, analyze however you want to, declare confirmation bias all you want. Just another hijacked thread.

THE NEW PURPOSE OF ESMB IS TO NAME OUT AND CONDEMN IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE THOSE PEOPLE, EX-SCIENTOLOGISTS OR NEVER INS, THAT CONDEMN THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY.

Anyone passing by would notice this. You wouldn't notice this if you were in the middle of trying to show the fallacies of the arguments. You would not object to this if you were trying to achieve the newly stated purpose.

Take a look at other threads. All this has been since the first week of August.

When I was newly out, I shopped around for a place to listen and learn. I stopped at Alanzo's blog, read a bit. Noticed the oddness and a elected to not stay because of that oddness.

Now that oddness is here at ESMB to stay, well for another 16 days and whatever.

So sad that this is the way it is now.