From: Patrick Jost
Date: Mon, Nov 22 1993 11:37 am
Email:
[email protected] (Patrick Jost)
Groups: alt.religion.scientology, alt.clearing.technology
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In the late 1970s/early 1980s I was involved with a consulting firm operating in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. This was after I had been declared SP and "blown" a CoS org.
I left this business to complete my Ph.D., get married and so on. The parent company of this business is still operating, so some information has been left out intentionally at their request.
We were approached by a very unusual group of people. All young, mostly American and British, most wearing some sort of naval uniform. They wanted help getting some supplies for their ship as well as in solving some problems with the local authorities. Even though we were winding down operations there, we agreed to help.
After an initial meeting, I thought for sure that they were some sort of terrorists or drug dealers. They were obsessed with secrecy, and their story of "offering courses for executives on the ship" sounded very funny. I asked them what country they were from, as no one recognised the uniforms and few countries had many women naval officers. After getting more nonsense, I told them that we would not even take a chance with them, and asked them to leave.
Two days later, they came back and said that they had "talked it over, decided to tell you we are the Church of Scientology". I asked them how they intended to pay. They said they had cash... wrong answer. I said this is too much like drug dealing, we can only accept a wire transfer to our bank in London. At this point, they went out to talk among themselves.
When they came back in, they asked me if I'd be willing to talk to "the Commodore". I asked them if they meant L. Ron Hubbard, they said yes. I told them that he'd have to come to me, as I wasn't about to get on their bloody ship.
The meeting was about a week later...some of my associates were going to be away.
The usual entourage (in very spiffy clean uniforms) arrived, the Commodore about fifteen minutes later. We had planned a way to control the meeting; all of us spoke Farsi, which was not the local language, and is a language we figured none of them could speak or understand. I would be the only one to speak or "pretend" to understand English (although almost everyone else actually did).
Hubbard came on very strong...we were interfering with important work, blah, blah, we didn't know who we were messing with, and so on. I told him a brief version of my experiences with the CoS, and that I was not impressed. At this point, he changed...on came the charm that allowed him to con people. He told me that if we would help them, he'd undo the SP declare, arrange for all sorts of free processing.
I told him that I thought the processing was worthless. I told him that he would have to demonstrate, then and there, what clears, OTs, etc. could do. I told him that someone in his "crew" probably "knew" either the local language or Farsi, that if someone could demonstrate this ability we'd be convinced.
I proposed this test. An associate of mine, who spoke only the local language or Farsi would come into the room. Hubbard, or his designate, would ask the person to ask some of the people in the room (CoS as well as non-CoS) their name, place of residence, a few simlpe things like that. I said that I'd be willing to have this in a sealed envelope for our group, and that we'd be happy to get the same answers back. I told them that this was a simple...they had to demonstrate adequate ability in speaking and reading...Hubbard obviously gave this a lot of thought, he stared off into space, then he said something like "fine...we'll show you!"
Hubbard and the group said they would want to do an auditing session. We said they could go back to the ship to do it, or they could do it in our office under supervision. He laughed and said something like "well unlike all of your native talking we have nothing to hide". He sat three or four of them down and said something like "recall a time when you could speak Farsi"; when the person said "ok" he would say "ok".
(I must admit to having expected something wilder)
After this-it must only have taken 15 minutes, he said, "OK, time for the test". We brought in someone who only spoke the local language. I said "converse with our friend here, all of us will be able to understand". Hubbard motioned to one of the men-he started babbling in a passable "imitation" of the local language...sort of like going "ah so, ah so" for
Japanese. My friend just sat there. Then the man started speaking "pidgin": "hey, buddy, you good buddy" and then "ask buddy how many bambino, writey down" and so on...
I said "flunk" (Hubbard gave me a VERY dirty look).
The next person (one of the women) tried much the same thing, but without the nonsense, just lots of body language-waving of hands and so on.
I said "flunk, you can't do it".
Hubbard said "fine, we'll pay you". I told him to come back tomorrow, that we were tired of his nonsense.
The next day they came back, projecting a funny mixture of politeness and aggression. I asked where his "linguists" were; he said "in the RPF". I told him he belonged in the RPF, if all of this worked, he should have been able to do it. I told him releasing them from the RPF was now a condition of doing business, he sent someone to the ship to see to it.
At this point my partner, who had said nothing in English said "Mr. Hubbard, if you do not behave like a civilised man not only will we throw you out but we will tell the locals that you are practicing black magic".
I spent about three hours working things out with Hubbard and "officers". I have to say not one of them was all that bright- Hubbard chain smoked like mad, seemd to have a bad memory, and kept complaning about costs. His officers didn't say much, but it was clear few of them had much education.
We solved their problems. At one point I had to go on board their ship-with three or four "friends" as my level of trust was low. Several people said fairly nasty things to me, the people I had to work with were pretty sullen. The ship was very dirty, and I got the impression few, if any of these people knew anything... (I was fortunate to have a former merchant seaman with me to tell me these things, I'm not a sailor).
At one one point, Hubbard came in, made an expanisve gesture, and said "you are invited to eat at the Commodore's table". OK, off to lunch...
After some small talk, he gave me a "lecture" on how I had "missed the point" of what Scientology was all about. I told him that I didn't care what he said, he made claims he could not prove (a few gasps from CoSers in the room), and that since I had verified the wire transfer to London, I didn't care what he thought. I finished my lunch, and left the ship.
About a year later I was living in Los Angeles, and I was contacted by the secetary of Rev. Heber Jentszch. I had no idea who this was, and ignored the call. She persisted. She said he wanted to discuss the wire transfer from Mr. Hubbard. I told her to have him call me himself.
Two days later he called. He said that as part of a routine internal audit, the charges had been examined and deemed excessive. He said he would appreciate it if I could help arrange for a full refund until appropriate charges could be determined. I told him that this was out of the question. He asked for a meeting, I told him this was also out of the question. He said that I was being unreasonable; I said I'd come down and talk for two hours for a consulting fee of $500 (I did not think they would pay). He said that if would come down tomorrow, a bank cheque would be waiting for me.
I went down the next day. I went in and got the cheque, and gave it to a friend who was waiting in my car...then I went back in (yes, you're right, I didn't trust them either).
I was taken up to a very nice office and introduced to Heber Jentszch and David Miscavige. They said that they wanted to clear up the meeting I had with Hubbard. They said that I had tricked Hubbard, overcharged him, and caused all sorts of problems. They asked to "take a look" at the cheque that had been given to me at the reception area...they were not amused when I told them it was out of the building.
I told them that they'd paid for 2 hours of my time. They went into no end of drivel, altnernating science fiction with threats about what OTs could do to me. I told them that I thought I'd shown OTs could not do much except act like monkeys. At this point, Miscavige picked up a letter opener/knife and said "you know, bad things could happen to you". I laughed-Miscavige is a little tiny guy...I told him not even a poodle would be afraid of him.
Jentszch wanted to know why I had "tricked Hubbard with the language test". I told him that it wasn't a trick, but a real test...one they could not pass either. Jentszch told me that I was missing the point, that in the long run OTs really could do these things, that they'd be happy to help me if I'd just get the money back.
At this point their 2 hours were up. I got up and took my leave, after making it very clear that I would have NOTHING else to do with them, and that I wasn't afraid of them...
Since then I have had no contact with the CoS. I will say that L. Ron Hubbard seemed to be an interesting fellow, and I was sad to hear of his passing. A con man can still be a nice guy, you just have to watch your wallet...
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Patrick Jost / U.S. Department of the Treasury /
[email protected]
semi-tame computational linguist / fretless bassist / troublemaker
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