March 14, 1998 - SP Bill

This was my first picket. I had expected to encounter a bunch of OT's with "the right stuff" who would get in our faces and order us to leave immediately. Instead there was no resistance from the clams whatsoever. Gregg's previous picketing must have softened them up to the point where they just stood around helplessly and let us take complete charge of the situation. Gregg sure had those clams well-trained!

The weather on Saturday morning was partly cloudy, temperature around freezing. We met a few minutes before the picket was due to start at a nearby coffee shop. It was nice to be able to greet all the familiar a.r.s. names in person for the first time.

At 10 am we headed over to the Org, which was just opening up. They were caught completely off guard. The ground floor of the Dianetics shop is pretty much enclosed by large glass windows so we could peer inside. Sorta like keeping a bunch of clams in an aquarium for pets. Within moments of our arrival on the scene every scieno in the place was on the phone. They all wore serious, even grave expressions. Very efficient. No laughing, joking, smiling - strictly business. I thought, "Aha, we are going to get handled." A few minutes later a taxi pulled up at the side of the Org. It was delivering a package which contained about a dozen of those white foam-board placards. A female staffer came out, paid the cabbie and took the placards inside. Were they going to counter picket? I had my video camera with me and turned it on the sea ogre types inside the building. They definitely don't like being photographed. Of course there were several cameras on the inside looking out. They were determined to get all of us and our signs duly recorded. One twit was even using a flash unit, trying to photograph us from inside the main Org lobby (very dark) through a plate glass window. We were outside on the sidewalk where there was a whole lot more light. Silly clam.

After a while they quit photographing us and settled down to business. The first body router they sent out was a frail-looking woman who has been at the Org for eons - I remember seeing her hanging around outside the org some twenty years ago! She still carries the same haggard, drawn expression like her life is such an overwhelming burden. I don't think I've ever seen a sadder-looking creature. I asked her if she was willing to communicate with me. She gave me the best death-stare she could muster. Pretty pathetic. I should have flunked her for not "just being there." I could read the intense disapproval of the pickets and what we were doing all over her face. She wasn't going to say one word to me.

More body routers (BR's) showed up. They were trying to lure potential victims into the Dianetics shop. Foot traffic on Yonge Street was picking up nicely now, lots of people strolling on the sidewalk. They needed half a dozen body routers to keep up with all the pedestrians. The approach is always the same - they use young women to step out into the stream of people, shove a "free pass" into the hands of some startled fellow, smile invitingly, then try to get them into the building for a free "stress" test. They don't give up easily. But things weren't going all that well for them on Saturday. They had two or three men out on the sidewalk and I don't think there were any takers for their pitch. With so many picketers marching right in front of the org the publics had to navigate through a maze of bodies just to get past. The BR's stood very close to Org property, then darted out to intercept each mark a second or two before he'd come directly abeam. Some of the people ignored them, looked straight ahead and charged through. I saw that many of the inherently more polite Chinese (Toronto has a large Asian community) walkers would accept the tickets, mumble some excuse about why they could not stop, and keep walking. As soon as they got a certain distance away (where the clams weren't likely to notice) they'd place the tickets on a convenient window ledge or deposit them in a waste bin. It was like running a gauntlet - not one member of the public wanted to have any dealings with the scientologists; they were accosted by the CoS body routers and hounded mercilessly to go inside. Some of them actually went in, but we could see the pained expressions on their faces. They were protesting, too polite to refuse. They hoped their ordeal would soon be over so they could escape and continue walking to wherever they were going. I saw that if a picketer walked reasonably close to a clam BR, in the middle of the sidewalk say, the publics would always take a wide berth to avoid both. When picketers stay on the edge of the sidewalk (far from the Org) the publics are "herded" between picketers and clams and become easy prey. Once this mechanism obvious to me, I made a point of not walking on the outside edge of the sidewalk so much :-)

The clams must have noticed their stats were going down so they sent BR's far away from the Org where there were no picketers. Didn't work. It is one heck of a lot harder to convince someone to walk a block and a half back to the Org to do a stress test. On the way back he has the time to think about it and make up an excuse. Those BR's couldn't get anyone in.

There was one scientology body router who was much more successful than the rest: a blonde woman who had difficulty with her English. Evidently not a native Canadian, but this is a real professional. Her name is Dianne S. Her technique was to jump in front of each young man as he came past, shove a yellow card into his hands and while he was still startled she'd say, "come in and do our stress test, it only takes ten minutes and it's free. C'mon, C'mon" [gesturing towards the org door, which was always only a foot or two away]. Then without waiting for any response from the mark, she'd flash her best "come-on" smile, turn abruptly and head toward the Org door, pushing it open. By that time she had already turned her back on the mark and was walking away so he had no chance to say anything, no way to make up an excuse. Many of those young men followed her into the dungeon. They probably thought she was going to administer the stress test. No such luck! The poor suckers got stuck inside with some registrar. Each time, Blondie would reappear on the street again within seconds to find her next catch. She had another neat trick: whenever someone was walking along the far sidewalk, on the other side of Yonge St (a busy street) she'd hold out a clipboard with some writing on it, as if to show it to the guys on the other side of the street. Lots of arm-waving and gesturing. Of course they couldn't read what was written because they were much too far away. They would squint, she'd point at the clipboard and hold it out in a gesture of making it easier for them to read. The idea was to get them to cross the street so they could read the words. If they took the bait she had them hooked. I learned she was a "Field Staff Member" (FSM). Apparently every time she "selects" someone for training or processing it entitles her to a commission on whatever he winds up spending in the church. I have heard they get ten percent but I'm not sure if that is accurate.

The lady seemed to shy away each time I panned my camera in her direction; she was obviously trying to avoid being photographed. If you want to see just how camera-afraid she was:

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Others disliked being photographed but they simply stood there and glared at me. I began to wonder... with her shaky English our high-stat blond body router couldn't have been in Canada very long. But she'd obviously had some very extensive training in Scientology's recruiting techniques. Could she have worked in some other Org in a different country before coming to Canada? In Europe maybe? Why was she so worried about being photographed? What was she hiding? I've seen those same furtive glances before in people who happened to be working illegally in Canada.

I noticed three Scieno staffers standing outside the Org watching us picket. They hadn't said anything to us, so one time when I passed I turned to them and said I'd be happy to communicate with them if they wanted. One of them told me they were very happy we were picketing because on each day pickets showed up the number of publics going into the Org was much higher than on normal days. I told him I'd heard that story before but that we had our own data which gives an entirely different picture. I followed up by asking where his information came from - could it be .. Freedom magazine? He then blurted, "I am not stupid"! We all had a good laugh over that. Seems the staff realize "Freedom Mag" is a propaganda rag which puts a severe spin on the news. They don't believe a word of it. While we were chatting a stern-faced clam was observing everything from the Org door. He seemed dismayed the three staffers were in comm with a picketer and obviously building up ARC. I had to keep moving so I turned to leave. Instantly, Sourpuss rushed over and started to severely dress down the three guys I had been talking to, even before I was out of earshot: "You are not supposed to communicate with them or to interact with them in any way! You knew that!" The three staffers couldn't have cared less. They ignored the (OSA?) goon. I'd say they were hi-stat auditors who knew they couldn't be touched by ethics. These guys have a little game going where they intentionally break the rules now and then to provoke an outburst of tongue-lashing from their local OSA asshole. Then with their body language they tell him to get lost. Politely of course :-).

All in all, Saturday's picket was a good experience for me. I hadn't had any contact with Scienos in years so I could see them from a better perspective than when I was in. One big cognition was that they were really no different from devotees in other religious cults. I never realized that before. Always thought Scientology was something special. I had given it too much benefit of the doubt. Now I see all the scienos as victims - not of any cult leader or of church management, but victims of misunderstanding and ignorance. All the clams I observed on Saturday were in pretty bad shape case-wise. They seemed to be wondering around in a daze. Especially big Al Buttnor. That guy is pathetic. Oat tee nothing! I pity the lot.