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Why This Evaluation?
July 1993

In 1991, [boy] got braces on his teeth.  After they were fitted, 
[boy] and Dr. xxxxx came out to the waiting room where Dr. 
xxxxx explained to [boy] and me that there might be some discomfort 
at first but he should just take a Tylenol and pretty soon it 
would be ok.  As predicted, the first night was painful.  I 
reminded [boy] of what Dr. xxxxx had said -- whereupon I discovered 
one small influence of Scientology in [boy]'s life.  He was afraid 
to take a Tylenol.  This kid, nearing high school age, could 
not tell the difference between Tylenol and crack cocaine.  
They were the same thing, both "drugs," both "other practices" 
(i.e., sources of "help" other than Scientology) which he feared 
would make trouble with his Scientologist mother.

That is a small example which was easily remedied.  Today, we have
another example.  You [the evaluators] are part of the most forbidden
"other practice" of all:  psychology.  You may have seen the
bumperstickers, "PSYCHIATRY KILLS."  Mental health professionals were
the people best positioned to spot the fraud in L. Ron Hubbard's
grandiose claims, and they did.  Ever since, Scientology has been waging 
war (Hubbard's word, not mine) against psychiatry and psychology, 
all of which Hubbard lumps together into a single generalization 
which, according to him, is identified with the psysiological 
school of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920).

What's going to happen if [boy] or [girl] ever have need of counseling?  

Next example.  [girl] and [boy] had childhood buddies, A., 
born within a few days of [girl], and B., a couple of years 
older than [boy].  Their mother, S., is a Scientologist 
who now lives and works at the Scientology headquarters in Florida.  
Their father, xxxxx, is a close friend of mine.  A few 
weeks ago [boy] got a phone call from S., asking if he and 
[girl] see much of xxxxx.  Some days later a very concerned 
[boy] asked me what that was all about.  I answered his question.
S. does not want B. and A., when they visit xxxxx, 
to see [boy] and [girl] if by doing so they would enter a forum 
(xxxxx/[boy]/[girl]) in which xxxxx's opinions critical of Scientology 
would have an audience.  She has already told them what a horrible 
person I am and that they aren't to see me or listen to anything 
that comes from me, but it's more difficult for her to say those 
things about the kids' father.  That's the water she's fishing 
in.  S. did not let B. and A. visit me/[boy]/[girl] 
last summer (she demanded that xxxxx avoid us while B. and 
A. were visiting him).  They will be told again not to see 
me.  S. is trying to decide whether she should make them 
avoid [boy] and [girl] too.  [boy] is feeling the loss of his friend 
and is puzzled.  Presumably [girl] too, but she hides things 
inside, which is one of my concerns.

Three years ago, when I last was with them, B. and A. were 
already afraid to be around me (no, I did not talk to them about 
Scientology or about S.).  I mean afraid.  The phobias 
that cults create are real.  The friendships are not.

About the same time that [boy] got his braces (1991) [mother] went 
to Florida for Scientology for "a couple of weeks." Then it 
was "a few more days" and then "a few more days." This went 
on for 4 1/2 months, a constant tease and frustration for the 
kids.  I believe there is still upset from that.  She missed 
both their birthdays.  She called [boy] on his birthday.  [girl] 
didn't even get a call.  It was during the time that [mother] was 
gone that I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  That was 
a major upset for the kids.

After [mother]'s and my separation and divorce in late 1987 / early 
'88, we maintained an "armed truce." She didn't actively push 
Scientology on the kids and I didn't say anything against it.  
My justification for this evasion was "each day, the kids are 
a day older."

My own recovery was going on -- overcoming the phobias, disorientation, 
isolation, and other problems of emerging from a cult.  After 
about two years I stumbled upon the Cult Awareness Network and 
for the first time found others who understood what I had been 
through.  I began to learn about the nature and magnitude of 
the cult problem.  My background is in sociology, and I found 
it fascinating.

I did not talk to the kids about these things (the "armed truce") 
but my increasing activity was all over the place.  The kids 
know me very well and are quite good at reading my mind.  They're 
old enough now to start asking their own questions.  But they 
had years of training to ignore the situation, behavior that 
both [mother] and I had modeled for them.  Their avoidance routines 
are skillful and well-practiced.  [boy] is the consummate fence-straddling 
diplomat, trying to offend no one.  [girl] is the porcelain 
doll, unblemished but brittle, perhaps about to shatter.  [boy] 
at least was able to signal a problem by flunking his first 
semester in high school.  After making his dramatic statement he
went back to work and is doing fine in school.  [girl] scares me.

The kids must deal with a divorce, the normal problems 
of growing up, the upsets of [mother]'s disappearance and my multiple 
sclerosis, the stress of a Scientologist mother and a notorious 
"suppressive person" father -- all buried under the long-practiced 
habit of NOT LOOKING so as not to get "caught in the middle" 
between the two parents, or call attention to something that 
each parent would want to handle differently.  The result is 
a mandatory appearance of "tranquility." We do not know what 
problems lurk under the surface of these apparently well-adjusted 
kids.  They have had to learn to "act normal" to survive.  They're 
very good at it.  But the circumstances and the four years of 
"don't look" are prima facie cause for suspecting that there 
may be unconfronted and unresolved emotional issues.  To find 
out is my motive for this evaluation.

In January 1993 I received a letter from [mother] requesting a
mediation session which is required by our separation agreement
before legal action.  The main issue was, in her words:

 "...your continued and vocal antagonism towards Scientology.  
 With the children growing older and becoming more aware of their 
 environment, they are quite aware that your position is in direct 
 opposition to mine and I feel that the stress they feel as a 
 result of this dissention is not good for their well-being.  
 This situation needs to be addressed."

As I have just explained, I agree completely with [mother]'s statement.
I was curious about what kind of remedy she had in mind.  At the
mediation I was surprised to find that she had nothing in mind.
The nearest she had to a suggestion was some vagueness about me somehow 
concealing who I am and my actions and beliefs from these kids 
who know me so well (i.e, more "don't look").

I had a suggestion.  I put the name of a psychologist on the table.  
[mother]'s reaction was in the phobic spirit of "PSYCHIATRY KILLS" 
but of course she insisted she was speaking from her own experience 
and that Scientology had nothing to do with it.

I can not obtain the help which I believe the kids may need because
joint custody requires agreement on any major custodial issue.  I had
to get a court order for this evaluation.  If further action turns 
out to be advisable, another court order would be required -- 
and so on, every time anything comes up.  That is why I have 
petitioned the court for sole custody in the specific areas 
of health care, education, and religious upbringing -- the specific 
areas in which [mother] and I cannot agree because of Scientology.  
I do not seek any change in where the kids live or how much 
time they spend with each parent.

A cult case presents unique issues.  The circumstances are often 
unbelievable, and not believed, by professionals unacquainted 
with the kinds of psychological manipulation and coercion practiced 
by cults.  There are effects too on persons associated with 
cult members.  That is the situation of the kids, who are not 
cult members, but whose lives are intimately affected by what 
I believe to be the crippling effect Scientology has had on 
their mother's life, on her ability to perceive and to face 
issues in her own life.

Cult expert Dr. Margaret Singer (psychology, UC Berkeley) argues 
that cult members are most often perfectly normal people, not 
"nut cases," who are deceived and manipulated.  Their need, 
on emerging from a cult, is usually not psychotherapy.  They 
need INFORMATION.  They need to understand what was done to 
them and how.  Their cult experience was something done to them, 
like rape.

No one intentionally joins a cult.  They think they are doing
something good and worthwhile.  They are recruited by active,
systematic deception and manipulation.  The rationalizations 
and self-justifications which follow can bend people into very 
strange shapes.

In the present case, I believe the kids' main need is INFORMATION.
Before being able to accept or seek it, they will have to get past
the learned habit of not looking, and that will require dealing with
the painful and unconfronted things in their past which now make it
all the easier to go on not looking.  That is where I see a need
for mental health professionals.  It's not that the kids are severely
disturbed, but that their tools for handling difficult situations
are restricted by their history and by the proximity of an authoritarian
and vindictive cult.  That could make trouble for them in the future.

The next page demonstrates the quality of Scientology's teachings 
about psychiatry.  Following that is a brief overview of Scientology 
by Dr. Richard Ofshe of Berkeley, a colleague of Dr. Singer's.  
Under separate cover I attach a variety of materials on this 
subject to take your curiosity and interest as far as they wish 
to go.

The general topic here is possible situations to watch out for 
in a cult case.

====================================================================
GUARDIAN ORDER

GO 82								29th June 1971
DGs
AGs
PRO Hat

For Public Advices

It is time we began to label Psychiatry for what it is, the
greatest failure of the Nineteenth Century.  Every notorious
criminal and defector of the Twentieth Century was in
psychiatric hands before the crime.  Burgess, MacLean, the Texas
Tower murderer, Manson and all the rest were psychiatric
failures first.  Every infamous modern assassin was a
psychiatric failure.  Psychiatric victims are endless trouble 
to our society.  We are tracing social turmoil, unrest, widespread
drug addiction to psychiatry.

We wish to issue a public warning that psychiatry kills.  We in
Scientology stand ready to help anyone, and help Governments rid
themselves of psychiatric crime.  There is urgency in this.  In
too many cases we are asked to repair persons already maimed
beyond human tolerance by psychiatric interference and
brutality.  We blame psychiatric failure for the state of modern
society.  We will do all we can to help, but Nineteenth Century
Psychiatry must go.  We have never had a failure or upset that
psychiatry had not first ruined.

							L. RON HUBBARD
							FOUNDER

LRH/PC
====================================================================

							by Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.
							University of California, Berkeley

A Very Brief Overview of Scientology

Scientology markets itself to the general public as a psychotherapy 
program utilizing the book Dianetics (by L. Ron Hubbard) as 
propaganda for the treatment method.  Once someone has become 
involved with Scientology they learn that the organization delivers 
an "applied religious technology" that will confer on individuals 
supernatural mental powers including the ability to travel through 
the universe at will, materialize physical objects and other 
extraordinary abilities.  A person who advances in the program 
is supposed to progressively gain power over Matter, Energy, 
Space and Time (m.e.s.t.).  Full realization of these powers 
comes with completion of the program.  Completion of the program, 
however, never comes.

Influence Tactics

The belief that auditing produces cures for emotional disorders, 
promotes unlimited success in life and leads to para-normal 
abilities is produced through a complex system of social influence.  
The system depends upon several factors.  It works by involving 
a person in a group in which these ideas are treated as true; 
reinforcing agreement with the ideas; explaining away doubt 
as a sign of personal illness or the work of hostile persons 
in the person's environment and/or essentially demonic forces; 
preventing the person from learning about and/or accepting external 
criticism of Scientology and using hypnosis during "auditing" 
(the name for Scientology therapy sessions) as an influence 
tactic.

Although control of a person's interpersonal world and sources 
of information is vital to successfully leading an individual 
to accept Scientology's authority over their decision making, 
the auditing process is the core of Scientology's influence 
system.  At the heart of the auditing procedure is the use of 
hypnosis.  Hypnosis is important because it is used within Scientology 
to deceive clients and cause them to believe that they are able 
to accomplish para-normal feats and regain memories of past 
life experiences.  Typically, a person's confidence in the Scientology 
theory of reality and their acceptance of Scientology's authority 
in their lives is based on the mistaken belief that the hypnotically 
induced fantasies they experience during auditing are valid 
evidence of the truth of Scientology's claims.

It is probable that the individuals most likely to accept Scientology 
influence over their lives are persons who are good hypnotic 
subjects.  For such individuals, the auditing procedure seems 
to allow them to do wondrous things.  They can leave their bodies 
and travel to any point in the universe, vividly re-live emotionally 
important events in their lives and experience with seemingly 
equal clarity events from their numerous "past lives." The fantasies 
that are induced through hypnosis have the quality of seeming 
more real than most memories.

Under hypnosis one can be made to go far beyond the mere recall 
of events that actually occurred.  The experience can be one 
of reliving actual events and seeming to re-live that are merely 
the suggestions of the person controlling the hypnotic session.  
For the subject, a vividly re- experienced memory of a real 
event can be indistinguishable from a fantasy dreamed up in 
response to a suggestion.  If someone has reason to believe 
that the created fantasy is in fact the memory of a real event, 
it is likely that they will accept the fantasy as an actual 
memory.  Scientology provides people with reasons to treat fantasies 
as if they were memories of real events.  The early training 
of a Scientology client is a tour de force of hypnosis training.  
By the time a person has engaged in auditing for any length 
of time they are likely to be quite skilled at entering trance.  
The term for this in Scientology vocabulary is "going exterior." 

Once an auditing session begins, a customer is led through a 
series of suggestions that move him or her towards recalling 
events that are of emotional significance.  The person re-lives 
meaningful exchanges with parents, traumatic life events, events 
involving loved ones, events involving fears, happiness, etc., 
etc.  Once clients have learned to "go past life" they follow 
the suggestions of the auditor and imagine events of a dramatic 
character from one or more of their past lives.  This supposed 
past life history can be traced back for 76 million years.

The theory underlying these procedures is that once a person 
has fully experienced all of the emotions associated with "engrams," 
(i.e., traces of emotionally powerful or painful past events) 
they will be freed of the debilities caused by these damaging 
events.  Once freed of these debilitations the individual will 
gain access to superhuman powers.

The auditing theory, if applied only to events from this lifetime 
and viewed in its most reasonable form, is not terribly different 
from Freud's idea of beneficial abreactive reactions under hypnosis.  
The idea was to use hypnosis to get patients to recall and express 
feelings about important events that had been repressed.  Freud 
and other practitioners of hypnosis quickly learned that the 
technique could be used to generate strong emotional responses 
(catharsis) in patients.  Freud abandoned this technique early 
in his career.  He realized that all it did was generate strong 
emotional reactions and produced no lasting beneficial effect.
Hubbard drew on Freud, but used this very predictable effect 
of hypnosis to build an influence system designed to convince 
people that they were being cured of their problems and gaining 
para- normal abilities.  The particulars of the auditing procedures, 
combined with the well understood (in the Scientology community) 
expectation that after a session a person will feel better combine 
to add up to a suggestion to feel better made under hypnosis.  

For many people the suggestion is likely to result in a short 
lived sense of well-being following a session.  The experience 
of this real, albeit short lived, sense of well-being can be 
used to convince the person that Scientology technology works.  
Although the feeling of well-being is the result of a post-hypnotic 
suggestion, the person is told that it is proof that Scientology 
is curing his or her emotional problems.

Impact:

For individuals who are unaware that they are being hypnotized 
and that the experiences they are having are little more than 
stage hypnotist's tricks, these procedure can have substantial 
effects on a person's willingness to accept all of Scientology's 
claims.  When combined with the effect of interacting with a 
group of people who believe, or at least appear to believe, 
that the Scientology theory is valid and working, the program 
in its entirety can produce very powerful influence in a person's 
life.

For example, many people who become committed to Scientology 
are recruited into a sub-unit called the Sea Organization.  
These individuals sign a billion-year contract of service to 
Scientology.  They are worked extremely hard and are paid a 
subsistence wage.  They live under Spartan conditions in the 
larger Scientology facilities.  They subordinate their families 
to the Scientology organization.  Parents turn control of their 
children over to the organization.  If a person's spouse becomes 
critical of the organization it is policy that the spouse be 
declared a "suppressive person." If this happens the individual 
will have to face a decision to either separate from the spouse 
or leave Scientology's service.

Scientology personnel whose loyalty is suspect are sometimes 
sent to facilities that are little more than prisons.  They 
may be subjected to months of punishment in the form of meaningless 
labor and made to live under abysmal conditions.  One former 
Scientologist I interviewed was assigned to a prison ship that 
was anchored in the San Pedro harbor.  Along with the other 
unfortunates sent to this punishment facility, he spent long 
hours cleaning and re-cleaning the same below-decks area.  Although 
he detested the experience he felt he could not leave because 
if he defied the orders of his superiors he would be cut off 
from "auditing." If he were cut off from auditing, he would 
be unable to progress to the point at which his emotional problems 
would disappear and his spirit (thetan) would regain its true 
powers.

The Career of a Scientology Client:

Not surprisingly, no one has ever completed the program.  The 
history of Scientology is one in which newly discovered courses 
and levels are constantly being marketed as people approach 
completion.  Failure to gain the benefits advertised are explained 
as the result of failures to ferret out the deepest roots of 
problems or mistakes in the application of the "technology" 
(i.e. auditing procedures).  Because Hubbard proclaimed that 
the procedures were perfect and invariably worked, the cause 
of any failure had to lie outside the technology.  From a Scientological 
viewpoint, it is simply not possible for the technology to fail.
As a person progresses up the course ladder, treatment becomes 
very much more expensive.  Treatment to repair errors in previous 
applications of the technology or to reach the most advanced 
levels can cost $1,000 or more per hour.

There are probably two principal motivations for continuing 
involvement as the prices rapidly rise.  For some people, the 
reason is that they become convinced that the technology will 
eventually work.  For others it is likely that the auditing 
causes or aggravates mental disorders.  Committed Scientologists 
damaged by auditing are not likely to seek competent medical 
care.  They have been propagandized to believe that at worst 
a repairable mistake was made in the application of the technology.  
They are also instructed that all forms of medical or psychological 
treatment for mental disorders are useless.  Operating with 
these beliefs, persons will likely feel that they have no choice 
but to continue.

The Mythology:

The mythology of Scientology involves intergalactic warfare 
(in keeping with Hubbard's background as a science fiction writer) 
and tales of evil space-empire rulers and rebellious soldiers 
who were imprisoned on earth and destroyed by atomic devices 
75 million years ago.  The central character in Scientology 
mythology is the thetan.  Thetans are, roughly speaking, a person's 
immortal spirit.  They move from human body to body with death 
and birth.  According to Scientology mythology, inhabiting the 
body of each person is a thetan whose powers are reawakened 
through the auditing procedures.  In addition to the "spirit" 
or thetan inhabiting one's body the mythology also allows for 
creatures called "body thetans." These are entities composed 
of the recombined bits and pieces of the rebellious soldiers 
of 75 million years ago.  These invisible creatures literally 
attach themselves to one's body and project evil or disturbing 
thoughts into one's mind.  They are one of the sources of one's 
mental problems or evil intentions.  According to Scientology 
mythology, body thetans can be audited away.  Some of the advanced 
treatments one may purchase consist of engaging in a telepathic 
(mental) struggle with these creatures and causing them to leave 
one's body.  Customers pay hundreds of dollars (perhaps as much 
as $1,000) per hour for knowledge of the verbal instructions 
and routines necessary to drive these invisible entities from 
their bodies.


In Hubbard's words, from bulletin HCOB 24 April 1969:
"Lately public opinion has turned heavily against the suppressive 
groups and the public discovery that illegal seizure, torture 
and murder was the hidden activity of political psychiatric 
groups..."

See also Guardian Order 82, reproduced verbatim below.

	[mother] was in a bind, because our separation agreement (joint 
custody) prevents her from applying Scientology's "disconnect 
policy." This policy requires that a member must "disconnect 
or handle" any source of disagreement with Scientology.  Note 
that per this policy, if the kids were to become Scientologists 
they would have to "disconnect" from me.  Other Scientology 
policy that pertains to me concerns the handling of what they 
call "suppressive persons" (and the cult has so labeled me):  

"An enemy...may be deprived of property or injured by any means 
by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist...may 
be tricked, sued, lied to, or destroyed."

	xxxxx was recommended to me by [girl]'s former teacher 
at xxxxx School who first suggested professional counseling 
in 1991.

 
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DOS FILENAME OF TEXT FILE:  whyeval.txt

DOS FILENAME OF IMAGE FILES:  none

ADMINISTRATIVE CODE:

SECURITY CODE:

DISTRIBUTION CODE:

NAME FOR BBS: statement of why [father] sought a professional mental
              health evaluation of minor children

SORT TO: general - legal

CONTRIBUTOR: Winfax

LOC. OF ORIG: Winfax

NOTES:


For additional verification see image files contained in the file
with same name and .ZIP extension.

UPDATED ON: 3/15/94

UPDATED BY:  bp
 
=================================================================