Caroline Letkeman's Suppressive Person Declare

This is Caroline Letkeman's SP Declare. Caroline is an ex-Scientologist living in BC, who had the temerity to speak out and ask for her money back. I've added some explanatory commentary to the unformatted transcript below for those readers who aren't familiar with the Scientologese used in this document. Note that the explanatory parts are liberally mixed in with my view of the document. You have been warned.

You can also look at a scan of the original SP Declare: first page second page

The scan is also useful if you don't want to wade through my opinionated commentary. ;-)

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION

FLB ETHICS ORDER 1448

This is Flag Service Organization as in the Scientology corporation housed in the former Fort Harrison hotel in Clearwater, Florida. FLB just means Flag Land Base. The "Land Base" part comes from the fact that Flag used to be basd on the Apollo, and other ships that L. Ron Hubbard sailed around in to avoid coming under any one country's legal jurisdiction for too long.

5 February 2002

Note the date. When a Scientologist says things like "but that was so long ago" and "that doesn't happen anymore" in response to criticism of the things bad things that the cult of Scientology does, remind him/her of the date on this latest obnoxious piece of theta.

ALL ORGS
ALL MISSIONS

Orgs are regular Scientology locations, usually located in cities. Missions were originally called franchises, and were exactly that. When Scientology took on its religious guise they started being missions.

SUPPRESSIVE PERSON DECLARE

" person who possesses a distinct set of characteristics and mental attitudes that cause him to suppress other people in his vicinity. This is the person whose behaviour is calculated to be disastrous. Also called antisocial personality. See Chapter 11."

Chapter 11 has this to say about the antisocial personality, on page 413:

"There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes which cause about 20 per cent of a race to oppose violently any betterment activity or group."

Of course, in this context Scientology is presumed to be a betterment group. What the phrasing used here sets up is the idea that anybody criticizing Scientology is a very bad person. Two paragraphs later, the chapter gets to the meat of what an antisocial personality is all about, and just what the solution to the problem is:

"Crime and criminal acts are perpetrated by antisocial personalities. Inmates of institutions commonly trace their state back to contact with such personalities.

"Thus, in the fields of government, police activities and mental health, to name a few, we see that it is important to be able to detect and isolate this personality type so as to protect society and individuals from the destructive consequences attendant upon letting such have free rein to injure others."

So people who oppose Scientology are criminals, who should be isolated so that they can't injure people by doing so. I love it when the cult is honest about its intentions. Albeit that its honesty is buried in the middle of long, turgidly boring cult tomes.

CAROLINE LETKEMAN

Caroline Letkeman, of Chilliwack, British Columbia, is hereby declared a Suppressive Person.

Which is a nasty thing to call her, given the definition above. ;-)

Caroline Letkeman, in November 2001, formally resigned from the Church of Scientology by means of a public declaration. In addition to this, she demanded full refund of all funds donated to the Church.

I couldn't stop myself laughing after reading the above paragraph for the first time. Flag is being unintentionally honest - the reason that Caroline Letkeman was declared (as a Suppressive Person) is because of two reasons: One, she resigned publicly. Leaving Scientology quietly, like you're ashamed of doing so, isn't a crime in Scientology. Leaving and letting other people know that you think there's something wrong with the organization is. Two, she asked for her money back.

In the year 2000, Caroline wrote an essay against Scientology which contained defamatory statements and black propaganda; this was written for a known suppressive group and was published through a broad communication medium.

You can read her essay at the Lisa MacPherson Trust's site. "Defamatory" in this context means "negative about Scientology". Bad things are defamatory, good things are acceptable... (I'm being sarcastic.)

Attempts have been made by Church staff to assist Caroline to come to her senses, however, she refused these efforts to help her and has continued to commit suppressive acts.

Here's that essay:

In HCO PL 23 Dec 1965RB SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS, LRH states: "A SUPPRESSIVE PERSON or GROUP is one that actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by suppressive acts."

Caroline has committed the following suppressive acts listed in HCO PL 23 December 1965RB SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS:

These are listed in the Scientology book "Introduction to Scientology Ethics" as "High Crimes". There's also a list of misdemeanours in that book, which are less serious Scientology infractions. Most democratic societies have lists of Really Bad Crimes, but in Scientology speaking out and asking for your money back are also considered criminal.

VIOLATION OR NEGLECT OF ANY OF THE TEN POINTS OF KEEPING SCIENTOLOGY WORKING.
PUBLIC DISAVOWAL OF SCIENTOLOGY OR SCIENTOLOGISTS IN GOOD STANDING WITH SCIENTOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS.
PUBLIC STATEMENTS AGAINST SCIENTOLOGY OR SCIENTOLOGISTS BUT NOT TO COMMITTEES OF EVIDENCE DULY CONVENED.
DEMANDING THE RETURN OF ANY OR ALL FEES PAID FOR STANDARD TRAINING OR PROCESSING ACTUALLY RECEIVED OR RECEIVED IN PART AND STILL AVAILABLE BUT UNDELIVERED ONLY BECAUSE OF DEPARTURE OF THE PERSON DEMANDING.

Any certificates and awards issued to Caroline Letkeman are hereby canceled. Any trademark licences, for Dianetics and Scientology marks, she may have signed are canceled.

It is hoped that Caroline comes to her senses and recants. She may follow steps A-E as covered in HCO PL 23 December 1965RB SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS.

"Comes to her senses" implies that she's not acting at her full mental capacity. Another impression the cult would like people to have of Scientology critics.

Her only terminal is the International Justice Chief via the Continental Justice Chief.

The Scientologese definition of terminal, from the same page as the Suppressive Person definition:

"A person, point or position which can receive, relay or send a communication."

In this context, it's used to indicate that if Caroline Letkeman wants to get back in the cult's good graces, she can only do it via the International Justice Chief.

This is especially funny - this SP Declare went to every single org and franchise in the Scientology universe and then got posted on their bulletin boards to notify people of Caroline Letkeman's SP Declare, but it's claimed as "unpublished". I think this is to restrict what people can do with the declare in terms of the fair use provisions of the copyright laws of various countries - fair use of published and unpublished works differ a bit, if I recall correctly. Of course, I'm not a copyright lawyer. But it's still funny.

FLB Justice Chief

for
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION

Approved by
INT JUSTICE CHIEF

CSFSO:ME:CG:cl

Grateful acknowledgement is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce a selection from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. SCIENTOLOGY, DIANETICS and HCO are trademarks and service marks owned by the Religious Technology Center and are used with its permission. SCIENTOLOGIST is a collective membership mark designating members of the affiliated churches and missions of Scientology. Services relating to the Scientology religion are ministered throughout the world exclusively by the licensees of the Church of Scientology International with the permission of Religious Technology Center, holder of the SCIENTOLOGY and DIANETICS trademarks. Printed in U.S.A.

This standard legal boilerplate, or something very similar, appears somewhere on nearly every piece of Scientology-originated paper document that I've seen. What's interesting to me here is the emphasis on having permission from trademark and copyright holders. How many other organizations that claim to be churches have such a reliance on trademarks and copyright holders? With apologies to Christians for comparing Jesus to L. Ron Hubbard, we can see how odd this would appear in another cultural context by making a few word substitutions:

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Jesus Library for permission to reproduce a selection from the copyrighted parables of Jesus. CHRISTIANITY and Jesus Communications Office are trademarks and service marks owned by the Christian Religion Corporation and are used with its permission. CHRISTIAN is a collective membership mark designating members of the affiliated churches and missions of Christianity. Services relating to the Christian religion are ministered throughout the world by the licensees of the Christian Church International with permission of Christian Religion Corporation, holder of the CHRISTIANITY trademarks.

If your cultural background isn't Christian, just substitute your religion of choice in the appropriate places in the above example. How many real religions need this kind of permission to do what they do?