March 14, 1998 - Wulfen

First, let me say I am very disappointed that I did not get an attractive female handler to ask me why I was picketing $cientology's Toronto Org. I was under the impression (apparently false) that I would be handled as a suppressive person... :( Maybe it had something to do with the way I would mention Xenu every few minutes? Oh well. If I had been handled by a female $cientologist, I would have had to say, "I'm sorry, my girlfriend is jealous when I talk to other women. I want her to be happy, so I won't talk to you." Well, on with the picket retrospective...

I heard on A.R.S. (where else?) that L.R.H. birthday picket were planned, so I emailed Gregg Hagglund to ask about it. He quoted me 2:00 PM today. Today, I ended up leaving my place of residence at 12:00, because while the Toronto Transit Commission runs good buses, going across town takes a while (Hear that, OSA? I'm giving you a hint as to my location! Can you find me?). I arrived at the Org at 1:20, mainly due to excellent transit connections. I walked around for a bit, keeping an eye on the Org so I could arrive when the picket started.

Well, at 1:45 there were five or six $cientologists outside handing out literature, and what I later saw were tickets for a free something-or-other at, what else, $cientology. A police officer took up station in the alcove by the Org door on the dot of 2:00. At 2:05 Gregg Hagglund, Artemis, and others I didn't recognize from the pictures on Gregg's website showed up. I introduced myself and got the picket advisory (read it on his site!) and my sign.

Before I go any further, I'll make sure that everyone knows which picketer I was! (OSA, this is more hints to my real life identity! Listen closely!) I was the picketer wearing navy blue jeans, blue sweater, black work shoes, blue raincoat, West German army backpack (sturdy, had it since I was 14), and glasses. Brown hair, graygreenblue(flecked) eyes, medium build, clean-shaven. Carrying a sign which said on one side, "Scientology destroys lives and minds" (which was my favourite slogan), and on the other a brief blurb about disconnects. My favourite things to say to passers-by were: "Read about the secret $cientology space tyrant, Xenu!" "Read about the $11,000 courses!" (All amounts in Canadian dollars, of course.) "Read it for free out here, for thousands of dollars in there!" I was handing out the Xenu flyers. Got an idea of who I am now? If not, I think you had better wonder if being Clear is really helping your memory... ;)

Well, on with the saga. I started walking up and down, getting used to keeping the sign up in the high wind. I haven't carried a sign since the last Federal election, and I got back into the swing of things pretty quickly. I started handing out leaflets. Initially I was saying "hundred thousand dollar course of study!" and "learn about the space tyrant Xenu!". Later Artemis advised me to switch to "secret $cientology space tyrant", which was a good idea - more people took flyers after that.

Eventually, I had my picture taken for the very first time! As I was picketing along, something flashed. I looked around, and there behind the glass by the Org's door was a lady with a camera. Well, I have no problem with people taking my picture (even though I won't win any beauty contests), so I stopped walking, and posed with my sign. She smiled at me and took another picture. Then, I flipped my sign and posed again, and she took another picture. Funny lady - she could have gotten a nice picture of me the first time.. I'm not that shy. I also figured that since my picture was going to be taken, I may as well smile and try to look more suppressive than I really am. ;)

Well, soon things started to heat up. Cars started honking the demonstrators. A cabbie stopped his cab, rolled his window down, and asked me what this was all about. Given that he was in a no-stopping zone with a police officer 10 m away, I gave him the 30 second version, a Xenu flyer, and told him to read about it on the internet if he had any more questions. One lady walked up to a $cientologist, tore the pro-$cientology flyer that she had been given into eight or so pieces and threw them on the ground. Pretty declarative, I'd say. I ended up explaining Xenu several times, and a lot of the friendly neighborhood cult's less savoury activities. A couple of teenagers thought I was full of it when I explained Xenu, but hey. I didn't think this stuff up.

One funnier incident, from my standpoint, was the biker-lookalike. He had a huge beard, leather jacket, the works. When I was small, I would have been scared to be even on the same sidewalk as him. He took a Xenu flyer, and asked me what the Co$ believed (in a religious sense). I gave him the condensed volcano-nuke-bodythetans story. He was staring at me in some amazement. He asked me if I believed any of this, and I said no, I'm not religious. I pointed out that the issue with Xenu was not that it was strange, but that a person had to spend much money over many courses (explained a bit of the course structure here) before they learned about Xenu. He said, "It's a scam", to which my response is, "You'd be amazed how many people think that." At which point he came back through the $cientology looking glass to normal Toronto reality and proceeded up the street.

One less funny incident was when I saw a young woman (who I think was a $cientologist) talking to an older $cientologist lady right in front of the Org. Given that they were on the public sidewalk, I looked her in the eye (she maintained eye contact, neato) and said, "Read about the secret $cientology space tyrant, Xenu!" You know, standard line. She said, "What?" I said, "Xenu, the space tyrant, that they teach you about at OT3. You can read all about it on the internet." I walked closer to them as I was saying the internet bit. When I got right by them I stopped walking, and the older lady said (with an unnecessary edge in her voice, methinks), "Keep walking!" My response was "Yes Ma'am!" as I went and handed out a few more Xenu fliers. When I turned around, the young lady was gone. Hope she isn't entrapped by the cult, she seemed to have that element of curiosity which is an essential prerequisite for critical thinking skills...

Well, the afternoon proceeded in much the same way. Another $cientologist was talking to a teenaged male, doing a very hard sell on the personality test. Every so often she would start toward the door to the Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, and he wouldn't follow, so she would tell him that in the time it would take her to explain, he could take the test. I wandered over and offered him a flyer, but his hands were full of pro-Co$ flyers and he couldn't take it. Given that Toronto high schools are on the internet, and many students nowadays are internet literate, I advised him to look up $cientology on the internet and make up his own mind. He never did go in the Org, so I may have done some good for someone today. Gives me a happy feeling, nothing like knowing that I have helped preserve someone's freedom of thought. :)

On or about that time, I noticed a male $cientologist standing outside the Org secretly take a picture of me (well, it obviously wasn't a secret, but he immediately hid the camera, so apparently I wasn't meant to notice). I told him that he didn't have to take pictures in secret, I would pose for pictures. So, just like I did earlier, I posed with my sign and was yet again immortalized in film. On a related note, I learned that we had also been videotaped from inside the Org. Now, I'm in Multimedia at a local post-secondary institution (Another hint, OSA! Your trail gets warmer!), and I'm pretty sure from my video courses that filming from behind glass can degrade your picture quality (because of the refractive and reflective properties of glass). Here's a question: Why didn't he step outside the Org? He would have still been on Org property. As well, they were busy recording us in other ways, why did they have to tape in secret?

Oh, and I should mention that I gave away enough Xenu fliers that I had to get some more about half way through the picket. Thanks to whoever photocopied those, I owe you some graphic layout work sometime!

One thing that amazed me about the picket: The number of people who already knew about the Xenu story, and the greater numbers of people who expressed their disgust with the Co$. Two were pretty sad, one man who said he'd lost his brother to the Cult of Greed and Power (poor guy, was glad to see that he could still smile about Xenu), and one woman who, from what she said (in non-Hubbardspew, of course) that her sister's friend had actually been in the RPF. Scary stuff.

Well, finally the time came to leave, and I handed in my sign. Kept a Xenu leaflet - guess what's now taped to my front (and only, it's another hint!) door? Guess what the future holds for this Wulf? Well, I'm going to keep an eye on Alt.Religion.Scientology, and I will be back! My Suppressive days are not yet over! "Church" of $cientology Toronto, ye have not seen the last of me!