Scientology Critical Information Directory

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Gerald Armstrong

  
Prominent critic, former scientologist, left after 12 years.
Library: “Gerry Armstrong”
«If you have even a doubt about Scientology, that doubt gets completely suppressed. You certainly cannot talk to anyone about those doubts. The goal is domination and control. What makes a Scientologist a Scientologist is unswerving obedience.» — Gerry Armstrong, as reported in "Web not helping Scientology", The Globe and Mail, Jan. 20th, 1998.
«Gerry Armstrong was the client of Michael Flynn and formerly a Hubbard aide assigned to shred a mountain of documents relating to Hubbard after an FBI threat. He kept back many of these documents to assist in the biography which Omar Garrison was commissioned to write. He discovered that many of the documents did not verify claims being made by the Church of Scientology about Hubbard's achievements, and Armstrong soon became disaffected. He left Scientology, taking many documents with him which he claimed would help to vindicate him and defend himself against attacks from the Church of Scientology. The Church sued for the return of these documents, accusing Armstrong of theft and invasion of privacy. Judge Paul Breckenridge could not pass up the opportunity to comment on the irony of Mary Sue's complaining about invasion of privacy when she had, as Guardian supremo, been responsible for invading the privacy of others. The judge ruled that Armstrong had been justified in retaining the documents and awarded costs against the Church of Scientology. — Lamont.» [Source: "Who's Who in Scientology" by Martin Hunt]
Scientology, the Last Laugh
In May this year, Belgian magazine Le Soir published an astounding cover article, or spread of articles, by Julie Barreau, headlined “la Scientologie vise Bruxelles.” The cover featured a photo of Scientology’s mega celebrity “Operating Thetan” and ambassador Tom Cruise. The article treated a range of issues relating to Scientology, identifying it as a political organization seeking to seize power and establish a dictatorship, announcing its purchase of a large and strategically located office building in Brussels for its new European headquarters, and impugning some of its claims as fraudulent, its cost as exorbitant, its psycho-social system as robotizing, and its head David Miscavige as a bully boasting of shooting down critics or “Suppressive Persons” like ducks in a pond. The article also provided an update on the pending criminal case against Scientology’s Belgian branch on charges of fraud, illegally practicing medicine, violating the privacy law, and being a criminal organization.

Scientology® Versus Gerry Armstrong

I was inside Scientology from 1969 through 1981, worked most of those years with its leader L. Ron Hubbard, held positions in the organization's intelligence, legal and public relations bureaus, and during the last two years did the research for a biography of Hubbard. I left the organization at the end of 1981 with a knowledge of massive fraud, of its antisocial core nature, its criminal intelligence operations against labelled enemies, and its victimization of its own members.

Gerry Armstrong: Scientology's Salman Rushdie

When I attempted to get Scientology executives to correct the lies that the organization was promoting about Hubbard, and which Hubbard promoted about himself, I was attacked and ordered to be security checked. A "sec check" is an invasive, incriminatory Scientology interrogation technique using its E-meter lie detector. During my years in the SO, I had been subjected to hundreds of hours of sec checks, and had twice been ordered by Hubbard to the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) [1], the organization's punishment and reprogramming camps, for a total of twenty-five months. Rather than being again locked up and forced to submit to further abuse and degradation, I fled.
Suppressive Person Defense League
The Suppressive Person Doctrine makes Scientology a hate group, and makes SPs, although they comprise more than two and a half percent of the planetary population, a persecuted minority. Because Scientology teaches that Scientologists are a new master race – “homo novis” or “homo scientologicus” [6] – and that SPs are a component of an inferior race – “homo sapiens” or “wogs” [7] – the Suppressive Person Doctrine is a racist ideology.
German Documentary (1999): "Missing in Happy Valley" (dubbed in English, transcript at Rick A. Ross Institute)

Off-camera commentator: [...] Among them they have years of experience in the Scientology reform camps such as where Wiebke H. is said to have spent some time. One of them is Gerry Armstrong. He was a coordinator in the Scientology intelligence service and a confidante of Hubbard, the organization's founder. But even he fell from grace. He spent two and a half years in the camp.

Gerry Armstrong: I was the first prisoner in Clearwater, the very first. The people there are real prisoners. Scientology says that the people are there voluntarily. Absolutely not. I was so confused that for the first 36 hours in camp I could not eat anything. I thought my entire life had been taken from me. I knew Hubbard and I knew what assignment to the RPF meant. [...]

     The <Meta> Ball (Apr. 2007): "No Xenu is Good Xenus: Scientology's Quest for Intelligence"
"Can you tell me… what's your connection to Scientology?" The phone line crackled. I assumed I was being recorded. I leaned over and adjusted my recording levels to clearly capture the faint voice while I considered the question. He clarified, "You are not doing this or contacting me for Scientology or any representative of Scientology?"

Is this raging paranoia? I had originally been put in contact with ex-Scientologist Gerry Armstrong by Andreas Heldal-Lund, webmaster of the Operation Clambake site. Heldal-Lund's site recounts attempts by Scientology and its agents to paint him as a terrorist, sexual deviant and to contact his employers in an attempt to get him fired.

If these are, in fact, the tactics used against someone who was never even a member of Scientology, how much more aggressive must the actions be against someone who betrayed the church? That's what I called Gerry Armstrong, who spent twelve and a half years as a Scientologist, to find out. [...]

Chilliwack Times (Nov. 2005): "Grotesque violation of human rights"

A local ex-Scientologist in the midst of a battle with the church is contemplating his next move in California court and he wants Ottawa's help. [...]

Gerry Armstrong (Feb. 2004): "Complaint Report"

7. The events relating to these crimes committed by these individuals and entities span a thirty-five year period, occurred in many locations, and involve numerous civil and criminal legal cases and proceedings. I am limiting what facts and events I am including in this report to only those I believe are necessary to demonstrate the commission of these crimes and to make the circumstances and actions and the special Scientology terms, policies and practices understandable. I am also providing some of my arguments or reasoning for why certain acts or communications by these individuals and entities constitute these crimes in order to assist investigators and prosecutors, to explain my own actions, and to ensure that these arguments or reasoning are considered and addressed. [...]

54. Through this study of Hubbard’s personal records I slowly came to the conclusion that he had lied about virtually every part of his life, and even in the statements he had made about himself, or had Scientology’s representatives make about him, which had drawn me into the organization, and kept me laboring and subjected to frightful abuse all those years. I discovered and documented during the period when I possessed Hubbard’s personal records that contrary to his representations, he:

- was not a scientist;
- was not an engineer;
- was not a nuclear physicist;
- did not have many degrees and was not very skilled by reason of study;
- had not been crippled or blinded in the Second World War;
- had not cured himself with his mental science;
- had not been awarded twenty-one medals, including two purple hearts.

Hubbard lied about his travels, his “expeditions,” his family, his friends, his military service, his involvement in “black magic,” his “research,” his honesty, his “ethics,” his intentions, wogs, Scientologists, and the promised results of Scientology. [...]

Clearwater Sun (May 1984): "Trial reveals Scientology's darker side" by George-Wayne Shelor

[...] Gerald Armstrong was a Scientologist for 11 years. During that time he rose and fell from positions of "ultimate" importance within the organization - depending on the whims of Hubbard.

"He's a 73-year-old spoiled brat ... a crier and a moaner," said the mustachioed Armstrong, sipping a martini at a downtown Los Angeles hotel after the weekend recess of his Superior Court trial.

Armstrong is accused of taking 10,000 Scientology related documents when he fled the sect in late 1981; documents he believes expose Hubbard as a fraud but which are sealed from public scrutiny by the court.

Armstrong's attorney, Michael Flynn, says he plans to introduce many of those documents as evidence. If and when that occurs, the documents then enter the public domain, open for scrutiny. [...]

Time (Jan. 1983): "Mystery of the Vanished Ruler: The fate of L. Ron Hubbard underlies Scientology's turmoil"

Archivist Armstrong concluded in his court statement that Scientology is "behavior therapy masquerading as a 'church' and making a mockery of honest religious practices." [...] Armstrong discovered that even Hubbard's personal background was a sham. [...]

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