Sociologist Stephen Kent’s Affidavit for McPherson Case — Page 1

AFFIDAVIT
CITY OF EDMONTON
PROVINCE OF ALBERTA

BEFORE ME, the undersigned authority, Stephen A.
Kent personally appeared, and whom I know on a professional basis,
and after first being duly affirmed by me states:

1. I, Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., the undersigned affiant,
am a professor at the University of Alberta in the Department of
Sociology, and incorporate my attached curriculum vitae to this
affidavit.

2. I have spent thirteen years studying the many
aspects and organizations comprising the Church of Scientology.
I also have published peer-reviewed, academic articles on Scientology,
and in them have discussed its claim to be a religion.

3. Counsel for the plaintiff asked me to provide
opinions, based upon my education, experience, and investigation
concerning: whether Scientology is solely and exclusively a religion;
whether the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization is solely
and exclusively a religious organization; whether Scientology’s
isolation procedures toward perceived psychotics is a religious
practice; whether auditing procedures are solely and exclusively
religious practices; and whether the Introspection Rundown is a
religious practice.

4. As discussed below, my opinion is that Scientology
is a multifaceted transnational organization that is not solely
religious. Among the organization’s non-religious activities are
its practices of both isolating perceived psychotics and auditing
perceived psychotics.These specific activities are pseudo-medical
and pseudo-psychiatric practices, not religious ones. Both practices,
however, are in keeping with Scientology’s primary, secular goal
of eradicating psychiatry and replacing mental health treatments
with Scientology ones. Partly because Scientology’s pseudo-medical
and pseudo-psychiatric practices take place in the Flag Service
Organization, and partly for other reasons that I state below, the
Flag Service Organization is not solely and exclusively religious
in operation

5. In order to determine what role, if any, religion
plays within the Flag Service Organization and the practices that
occur there, I utilize a definition of religion that combines classic
functional and substantive elements (as they appear individually
in social scientific literature). Religion is a set of beliefs in
supernatural beings or forces along with practices related to them
that provides people with a deep and abiding sense of meaning and
order (my definition)

6. On other basic terms I follow definitions given
in the Oxford English Dictionary. Therefore, when I use the term,
medicine, I mean "that department of knowledge and practice
which is concerned with the cure, alleviation, and prevention of
disease in human beings, and with the restoration and preservation
of health"…; the art of restoring and preserving the health
of human beings by the administration of remedial substances and
the regulation of diet, habits, and conditions of life…. By psychiatry
I simply mean, the medical treatment of diseases of the mind. Frequently
in this report I will use the preface, pseudo, when discussing medical
and psychiatric practices, and by that term I mean, false, counterfeit,
pretended, &91;or&93; spurious

7. I base my analysis upon Scientology documents,
legal decisions, and current scholarship about Scientology and its
practices.

II. OVERVIEW OF SCIENTOLOG

8. A. Brief History and Doctrines–Known for his pulp
fiction and science fiction writing prior to and after World War
II, L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986) introduced Scientology’s forerunner,
Dianetics, to the world in 1950. Dianetics claimed that people had
what Hubbard called a "reactive mind" and an "analytical
mind." The reactive mind had imprinted in it painful incidents
along with incidents involving unconsciousness, either of which
could have taken place at any point in one’s life (including in
pre-natal states). These imprinted incidents were called "engrams,"
and various stimuli could trigger them in ways that lead to irrational
or harmful behavior. In contrast, the analytical mind is not subject
to such negative influences, and the goal of Dianetics was to free
the analytic mind by ridding the reactive mind of its engrams, thereby
reaching the state known as clear. This act of ridding the reactive
mind comes about through a process called "auditing,"
which in the earliest days of Dianetics involved exercises in which
an auditor directed a subject (called a "pre-clear") back
into his or her life-events to discover and dispel engrams. The
dispersal of engrams, Hubbard claimed, could lead to a wide range
of cures for what he described as psychosomatic illnesses, including
(among others) allergies, arthritis, asthma, bursitis, eye trouble,
migraine headaches, sinusitis, some coronary problems, and ulcers.
Hubbard also claimed that Dianetics could reduce insanity to neurosis.
Even as Dianetics practitioners allegedly began running incidents
from past lives by the end of 1950, Hubbard remained steadfast that
his new system was a science. He never espoused at that time that
it was a religion.

In March 1952, Hubbard’s introduction of a device
known as the E-meter allegedly enhanced his followers ability to
run current-life and past-life incidents. This device measures changes
in the electrical conductivity of the skin as a small current runs
between two metal cans that the pre-clear holds (usually one in
each hand). Scientologists believe that the device gives accurate
indications of emotional changes, and they continue to use the device
as an auditing tool (and often as a reputed lie detector).

10.Hubbard began what he named, "Scientology,"
in the Spring of 1952, and he introduced it as an extension and
expansion of the reputed science of Dianetics and not as a religion.
Only in December 1953 did Hubbard initiate his assertion that Scientology
was a religion. In Scientology he developed teachings about past
lives (including ones in different galaxies) more than he had in
his initial Dianetics system. The entity that Scientologists believe
continues through countless lives is called a thetan, which is roughly
analogous to a soul or spirit that has forgotten its true nature.
By 1967, Hubbard claimed he had learned that individual thetans
had become burdened with clusters of lost and confused entities
("body thetans") attached to people’s bodies. These attachments
were the result of billions of victims having died when an evil
galactic warlord named Xenu captured and sent them to earth’s volcanic
areas, then exploded the volcanos by dropping hydrogen bombs. Scientology’s
upper level courses, called the "Operating Thetan" or
"OT" levels, claim to free one’s body and its thetan from
the numerous body clusters of confused and frightened thetans.

9. As a network of interrelated organizations, Scientology
insists that it is a religion when it represents itself in the United
States, Canada, Australia, and most of Europe. In 1983, however,
Scientology entered one European country,Greece,by claiming that
it was a ,philosophic association, not a religion (see Angelis,
1996: 3 &91;100&93;), and two years later it called itself Scientology
philosophy when it entered Japan. Scientology therefore, is willing
to compromise its demanded self-designation as a religion when entering
countries whose cultures might not respond favourably to a foreign
religious incursion (Kent, 1999a: 155). As Scientology’s calculated
self-representation suggests, the organization is much more than
merely a religious organization. Its complex, international structure
actively markets, promotes, and advertises material related to business
management, education, mental health, physical health, drug rehabilitation,
taxation, moral revitalization (to use its own term), and entertainment
(Kent, 1999a: 148). Similarly, in another article I discuss components
in Scientology that extend beyond religion to include its political
aspirations, business ventures, cultural productions, pseudo-medical
practices, pseudo-psychiatric claims, and (among its most devoted
members who have joined the Sea Organization), an alternative family
structure? (abstract in Kent, 1999b).

10. Support for my conclusionthat Scientology is
much more than merely a religious organization comes from a top
Scientology official, Norman Starkey, who is the Trustee of the
Estate of L. Ron Hubbard. In 1997, when controversy erupted over
Scientology’s (ultimately successful) efforts to get some of its
educational material approved for use in the California school system
(see Helfand, 1997), Starkey wrote a letter to the editor of the
Los Angeles Times in which he stated, "the fact of the matter
is that L. Ron Hubbard wrote prodigiously in numerous fields. His
books on the subject of study are not a part of the religion of
Scientology any more than his prolific output of fiction would be
considered part of the church’s doctrine" (Starkey, 1997).
Without wishing to analyze closely the exact content of Starkey’s
claim (especially about Hubbard’s fiction and church doctrine),
my argument about the Introspection Rundown and its related practices
of isolation and auditing parallels Starkey’s statement about Hubbard’s
educational writings. Said directly, the Introspection Rundown and
related practices of auditing and isolation are part of Hubbard’s
prodigious output in fields related to pseudo-medicine and pseudo-psychiatry,
and are not religious in nature or content.

11. In 1956, Hubbard himself identified Scientology
as psychology and science, and specifically denied its religious
nature: Scientology is that branch of psychology which treats of
&91;sic&93; human ability. It is an extension of DIANETICS which is itself
an extension of old-time faculty-psychology of 400 years ago….
Scientology is actually a new very basic psychology in the most
exact meaning of the word. It can and does change behaviour and
intelligence and it can and does assist people to study life (Hubbard,
1956: &91;1&93;).

12. To bolster his scientific claims, Hubbard proclaimed:
Tens of thousands of case histories, and individual records, all
sworn to, are in the possession of the organizations of Scientology.
No other subject on earth except physics and chemistry has had such
gruelling testing…. Scientology falls within the definition of
sciences, and is more rigorously organized than any other group
of data which bear the designation of science. It is derived from
closely defined axioms which are then uniformly discoverable and
applicable in the physical universe (Hubbard, 1956: &91;2&93;). Hubbard’s
’scientific? claims for Scientology could not be clearer.

13. Regarding religion, Hubbard stated: Scientology
conflicts nowhere with the truth, and will be found to agree with
known facts in whatever field it overlaps. It does not conflict
with any religious truths. On the contrary, it has something to
offer everyone, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Mohammedan &91;sic&93;, Agnostic,
and Atheist. It does not try to change the beliefs, doctrine or
creed of the individual’s church, on the contrary it brings the
individual to a point of better understanding of them, whatever
they may be (Hubbard, 1956: &91;2-3&93;). Hubbard is very clear that both
Dianetics and Scientology are psychological sciences, and that Scientology
does not conflict with any religious or non-religious belief system.
In this document, therefore, Scientology is not a religion, according
to Hubbard himself.

14. Hubbard’s statements about the pseudo-scientific
nature of Scientology, including his medical and psychiatric claims,
are part of Scientology’s alleged ’scriptures.? One of the standard
Scientology dictionaries, for example, states, ’scientologists recognize
and revere the spiritual leadership of L. Ron Hubbard as the Founder,
and as the Source of the religious philosophy of Scientology? (Hubbard,
1976: 486 &91;boldface in original&93;). Subsequently, the high-level
administrative group, called the Watchdog Committee for the Church
of Scientology International, issued a ?policy directive? entitled,
?The Integrity of Source.? The policy stated: It is hereafter firm
Church policy that LRH &91;L. Ron Hubbard&93; ISSUES ARE TO BE LEFT INTACT
AS ISSUED. No one except LRH may cancel his issues. No one except
LRH can revise his issues whereby changes are incorporated into
the text and re-issued. Any valid revisions must hereafter be made
in a separate issue stating the change and how the revision is to
be read. It must also state why the change is being effected, for
example, if there has been an ecclesiastical change or a technical
development. Changes in Church policy become valid Church policy
by being adopted by the Board &91;of Directors&93;…. However, the original
LRH issue (regardless of type) shall remain intact so that the original
wording is kept. In this way, his writings retain their integrity
and there is no mystery as to what he wrote and what the revision
stated and why. The only occasion for any revision of an LRH issue
is if a typographical error is found in the original. Already existing
issues stand intact and valid. Any further changes will be dealt
with on an issue-by-issue basis. This policy will allow the integrity
of Source to be reinstated (Watchdog Committee for the Church of
Scientology International, 1982 &91;capitalization and underlining
in original&93;).

When, therefore, I quote Hubbard himself in this
report, I am quoting sources that MUST remain unaltered within the
Scientology organization unless Hubbard himself subsequently had
changed them.

II. IS THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION
SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION

15. A. Courses–Currently Scientology offers numerous
courses to its members at a variety of locations. Members can take
lower level courses at local Scientology organizations (called "missions"),
while they must go to larger Scientology facilities to take more
"advanced" material. The Flag Service Organization, for
example, in Clearwater, Florida, offers all of the courses provided
in other, ?lower? Scientology organizations, plus delivers numerous
higher level courses along with some exclusive auditor training.
According to a Scientology publication, Flag Service Organization
is both a religious retreat and the world’s largest Scientology
church (Church of Scientology International, 1992: 356). Together
the courses and related training programs constitute what Scientology
calls "The Bridge to Total Freedom."

16. Important to note is the controversy over whether
the auditing and courses that Scientology offers at the Flag Service
Organization are secular, rather than religious, in nature. For
example, in late 1999 the United Kingdom’s Charity Commission ruled
that Scientology did not qualify as ?a body established for the
charitable purpose of the advancement of religion? (Charity Commission,
1999b: 1) for several reasons, one of which involved the nature
of auditing and training: The Commissioners, having considered the
activities of auditing and training, which Scientology regards as
its worship, concluded that auditing is more akin to therapy or
counselling and training more akin to study and that both auditing
and training are not in their essence exhibitions of reverence paid
to a supreme being and such Scientology practices are not worship
for the purposes of charity law. The Commissioners decided that
auditing and training do not constitute worship as defined and interpreted
from the legal authorities (Charity Commission, 1999b: 2). In the
complete version of the decision, the Commissioners concluded: that
auditing appears in essence very much akin to counselling, conducted
on a one to one basis, in private, and addressed to the needs of
the individual receiving auditing. Scientologists themselves describe
auditing as counselling (for example in the video presentation to
the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales). On the whole they
do not appear to describe auditing in terms of worship (Charity
Commission 1999a: Auditing, therefore, did not appear as a religious
activity.

17. Specifically concerning Scientology training,
the Commission: further concluded that training in Scientology,
involving the detailed study of the works of L. Ron Hubbard, according
to particular set formulae or methods of study, similarly lacks
the elements of reverence or veneration necessary if it is to constitute
worship. Scientology training appears more like an educational activity
(the acquisition of knowledge and practical skills in the application
of Scientology theory and technology) than a religious activity
or worship in the sense defined by the Commissioners (Charity Commission,
1999a: 25). Like auditing, Scientology training appeared to be non-religious.

18. In a similar vein, the Commission ?considered
the core practices of Scientology, namely auditing and training,
and concluded that the private conduct and nature of these practices
together with their general lack of accessibility meant that the
benefits were of a personal as opposed to a public nature.? The
Commission concluded, therefore, that Scientology’s application
for charitable status had not established public benefit, nor had
it established Scientology’s auditing and training as religious
practices. Accordingly, the Commission rejected its application
for charitable status (Charity Commission, 1999b: 4; 1999a: 47-49).

19. B. Scientology’s Penal System: The Rehabilitation
Project Force?An additional factor weighing against Flag Service
Organization’s claim to be solely and exclusively a religious organization
is the operation on its premises of Scientology’s forced labor and
re-indoctrination program, the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF).
This program is decidedly not religious. Moreover, it almost certainly
violates a number of human rights conventions involving: the right
to fair and public hearings by impartial judges: the right to freedom
of thought; the right to freedom from unlawful interference with
privacy; the right to just and favourable work conditions; and the
right to appropriate standards of physical and mental health.

20. The RPF is a penal program that Scientology operates
to correct alleged deviations by members of its elite Sea Organization
(commonly called Sea Org). Scientology leaders send Sea Org members
to the RPF if they received a particular type of reading while being
?counseled? (or what Scientology calls ?audited?) on an E-meter
(which is a device that gives readings about galvanic skin responses).
Sea Org members also enter the RPF program if they are producing
poor results on their jobs, have poor personality indicators (presumably
such things as depression, grumbling, or expressing doubts about
Scientology or its techniques), or are obviously making trouble
(Boards of Directors of the Churches of Scientology, 1977: 1).

23.Scientology’s official policies allow a person
to refuse an RPF assignment by resigning from Sea Org and/or by
signing a statement documenting his or her alleged ?crimes? and
absolving the group from future legal action (see Anonymous, n.d.).
Unofficially, however, numerous accounts exist of Sea Org members
who simply were taken into RPF facilities against their will. Moreover,
inmates in the RPF program who deviate from its strict rules may
have their RPF overseers assign them to the harsher and more punitive,
?RPF’s RPF,? and these assignments are unlikely ever to be ?voluntary?
in any manner.

24.The RPF involves: forcible confinement; hard physical
labor and other forms of physical maltreatment: long hours of study;
various forms of social maltreatment; forced confessions; and (as
a final condition of release from the program) obligatory ’success
stories? (see, for example, Boards of Directors of the Churches
of Scientology, 1980). Inmates remain in the RPF for indefinite
periods of time, and accounts from former Scientologists who were
in this penal system report that some people remain in it for well
over a year.

25.While Scientology operates RPF programs in various
locations around the world (East Grinstead, England; Copenhagen;
Los Angeles; Hemet and Happy Valley, California), one of these programs
takes place in and around Flag Service Organization’s Fort Harrison
Hotel in Clearwater. Publicly available accounts of people who have
been in the Clearwater RPF program include: Gerry Armstrong; Tonya
Burden; Dennis Erlich; Nefertiti &91;Pseudonym&93;; Anne Rosenblum; Margery
Wakefield; and Hana Whitfield. Former Scientologist, Lori Taverna,
spoke about the RPF in the City of Clearwater Commission Hearings
on Scientology in 1982. Erlich reported being locked in a cage in
the basement of Flag Service Organization’s Fort Harrison Hotel,
and Whitfield declared under oath that she saw a woman (Lyn Froyland,
who was on the RPF’s RPF) chained to a pipe in that same basement.
The RPF is not a religious institution and apparently was not discussed
in Scientology’s charitable tax exemption decision with the Internal
Revenue Service. Its existence and operation in the Flag Service
Organization mitigates against Flag’s claim to be a religious institution.

26.In 1984, the Clearwater Sun ran an article about
the RPF. The article begins as follows: ?The young man?by all appearances
a teenager-crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed
the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the ?flag
Land Base? headquarters of the Church of Scientology. ?Are you in
RPF?? queried a reporter.’sir? he asked quietly, peering up from
his work.?Are you in RPF??
?Yes sir I am.? RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which,
depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman’s approach
to improving an employee’s lagging job performance or a form of
punishment for Scientologists who are banished to serve penance
for their misdeeds and ?bad thoughts.? Two others?adult men who,
like the youth, were dressed in blue shorts and faded blue shirts?worked
two floors below, also cleaning the stairs. They spoke not a word.
Former Scientologists say that those in RPF ?are not to speak unless
spoken to.? Those who have spent time in the RPF at the Fort Harrison
tell a harrowing tale of long hours at work?as much as 100 hours
a week?and of months of humiliation and mental abuse at the hands
of other Scientologists. But their vivid recollections of hard work
and abuse contradict current Church of Scientology statements that
the RPF is ?an entirely voluntary? program (Shelor, 1984: 1B).

21. Taken together, these accounts indicate that
the RPF has operated in the Fort Harrison Hotel from Scientology’s
earliest days in Clearwater. Since, in 1996, Scientology maintained
a website devoted to the RPF (Church of Scientology International,
1996), I have every reason to believe that the RPF was in operation
during the period in which Lisa McPherson was on the Introspection
Rundown (or some other Scientology program). Likewise, it continues
today.

28.C. Vacation Resort–In addition to Flag Service
Organization’s role in delivering Scientology courses and housing
Scientology’s RPF penal system, it also serves as a vacation resort.
One Flag publication, for example, states: It’s the perfect time
to take a vacation at Flag! Located on Florida’s Suncoast?a favorite
vacation paradise?Flag is convenient to a wide range of vacation
attractions. The Flag Social Director can help arrange the activities
of your choice. Clearwater’s sparkling beaches are only minutes
away. Family attractions such as Walt Disney World and EPCOT Center,
Busch Gardens, Sea World, Cypress Gardens and more can be reached
by daily bus excursions. Summer sports enthusiasts can still enjoy
waterskiing, sailing, wind surfing, jogging, bicycling, or tennis.
Or just relax by the Fort Harrison pool and enjoy the many Flag
activities! (Flag Crew Church of Scientology Flag Service Org, Inc.,
1989: &91;8&93;).

22. A similar advertisement appeared again several
years later: Summer’s the perfect time to vacation at Flag! Located
on Florida’s Suncoast?a favorite vacation paradise?Flag is convenient
to a wide range of vacation attractions. The Flag Social Director
can help arrange the activities of your choice. Your children can
learn to sail or windsurf at the Flag Sea Org Cadet Sailing School!
Clearwater’s sparkling white beaches are only minutes away. Attractions
and Theme parks such as Walt Disney World, Busch Gardens, Sea World,
Universal Studios, Cypress Gardens and many others are a short drive
away either by car or by special bus excursions. Summer sports enthusiasts
can enjoy waterskiing, sailing, wind surfing, jogging, bicycling,
tennis and many other activities. Come to Flag now and take advantage
of the summer accommodations specials for Visitors and Vacationers!
Bring your family and friends! (Church of Scientology Flag Service
Organization, Inc., 1992: &91;11; boldface in original&93;).

23. In summary, Flag encourages Scientologists to
use its facilities even if they are not doing courses and are simply
vacationing with family and friends.

24. This portrayal of the Flag Service Organization’s
Fort Harrison Hotel merely as a hotel is in keeping with statements
that some Scientology spokespersons made after Lisa McPherson’s
death. Speaking about the period in which Lisa McPherson was in
the Hotel prior to her death, ?Church officials have described that
17-day period as little more than a normal stay where McPherson
sought ?rest and relaxation.? Indeed, a top church official suggested
in recent days that her death could have occurred at any hotel?
(Tobin 1997c: 7A). The ?top church official? was Mike Rinder, who
wrote to the St. Petersburg Times in an effort to clarify remarks
that he had made to a German television crew that Lisa McPherson
?died in a hotel room? (Tobin, 1997b: 8A). In the clarifying letter,
Rinder insisted, ??the point being made for a German audience completely
unfamiliar with this issue was that the only connection between
the church and Lisa McPherson was that she had been staying in a
hotel room at the church and that, had this occurred in any other
hotel or with someone from another religion, it would not have been
a media event? (Rinder quoted in Tobin, 1997b: 8A).

25. While vacationing, Scientologists can go to the
Flag Bookstore and purchase a non-religious item that will allow
them to ’study the craft of writing? through tips provided by L.
Ron Hubbard. A 1997 publication from the Flag Land Base told its
readers that, in a new edition of Ron Magazine, ?the esoteric subject
of writing is brought to light with candor and authenticity? by
Hubbard himself, since he ?was among the world’s most enduring and
widely-read authors of popular fiction, with over 60 million words
to his credit.? Readers, therefore, were encouraged to ?call the
Flag Bookstore to order your copy today? (CSI, 1997: &91;27; emphasis
in original&93;). Learning the skills needed for fiction writing is
not a religious activity; it is a professional or leisure activity.

33.Viewing all of this material together, one can
say that Flag Service Organization operates facilities that provide
auditing and training that may be closer to counseling and study
than they are to religious activities. Added to this ambiguity is
the use of Flag Service Organization facilities as a penal system
against some members and a vacation resort for others. The combined
weight of the evidence, therefore, leads me to conclude that the
Flag Service Organization is not a religious institution.

III. IS SCIENTOLOGY’s INTROSPECTION RUNDOWN A RELIGIOUS
PRACTICE?

34. In reaching a conclusion about whether the Introspection
Rundown is a religious practice, it is important to keep the rundown’s
threefold intent in mind. First, it intends to correct the conditions
that psychotics suffer, including their (frequent) violence and
destructiveness (see Hubbard, 1991: 1). Second, it intends to attack
reputed critics of the Scientology ideology and/or organization.
Third, it intends to eliminate psychiatry by introducing a treatment
procedure for psychosis that makes the profession unnecessary. According
to Hubbard’s teachings for Scientologists, the introduction of the
Introspection Rundown ?MEANS THE LAST REASON TO HAVE PSYCHIATRY
AROUND IS GONE? (Hubbard, 1991: 1 &91;emphasis in original&93;). Hubbard’s
desire and attempts to replace psychiatry with his own form of ?counseling?
appears in Dianetics material that pre-dates his creation of Scientology.
An examination of that early material in combination with subsequent
Scientology information leads to the inescapable conclusion that
the Introspection Rundown is, fundamentally, a pseudo-psychiatric
(hence pseudo-medical) practice, and is not a religious practice.
Flag Service Organization provided a facility?the Fort Harrison
Hotel?that allowed Scientology to engage in this pseudo-medical,
pseudo-psychiatric practice.

35.Two basic claims that remain at the heart of both
Dianetics and Scientology auditing appear in a very early Dianetics
publication. In the May 1950 edition of Astounding Science Fiction,
Hubbard included in his summary of Dianetics the following claims:

1. Dianetics is an organized science of thought built
upon definite axioms; it apparently reveals the existence of natural
laws by which behavior can uniformly be caused or predicted in the
unit organism or society.

2. Dianetics offers a therapeutic technique with which
we can treat any and all inorganic mental and organic psychosomatic
ills, with assurance of complete cure in unselected cases. It produces
a mental stability in the ?cleared? patient which is far superior
to the current norm.

….

13. Dianetics set forth the non-germ theory of disease,
embracing, it has been estimated by competent physicians, the cure
of some seventy percent of man’s pathology (Hubbard, 1950a: 85,
86).

26. In summary, in the founding moments of his movement,
Hubbard claimed that Dianetics was a therapeutic science that could
cure seventy percent of human ills, including mental problems. Scientology
has never deviated from these basic beliefs (see, for example, L.
Ron Hubbard Library, 1996: 50), and it has developed procedures
(most notably the Introspection Rundown) in an attempt to act upon
them.

27. Hubbard’s primary statement about Dianetics also
appeared in May 1950 in the form of a book entitled, Dianetics:
The Modern Science of Mental Health. The very title emphasizes his
pseudo- scientific claims about his new practices, and he reiterated
the claim about seventy percent of human illness being psychosomatic
(Hubbard, 1950b: 108). Already in this work, he made assertions
about the power of Dianetics to eliminate psychosis. He told his
readers, ?it is not known at this writing how long is the average
time to raise the institutionally insane into the neurotic level:
it has been done in two hours, it has been done in ten and in some
cases it has required two hundred? (Hubbard, 1950b: 206). In a long
footnote he added: The dianetic auditor who practices with the institutionally
insane exclusively should provide himself &91;sic&93; with the text now
in preparation on that subject: the techniques are similar to those
now described here &91;in the book&93; but incline more toward heroic
measures: this present volume is addressed to treatment of the normal
person or the neurotic patient not sufficiently violent to be institutionalized.
However, with intelligence and imagination these same techniques
can be applied with success to any mental state or physical illness.
Institutional Dianetics is primarily the reduction of an insanity
to a neurosis (Hubbard, 1950b: 206n.).

28. Hubbard’s claims for the effectiveness of auditing
on insanity and specifically psychosis (Hubbard, 1950b: 151, 152)
were pseudo-medical. He had not yet developed either Scientology
or any religious claims for his practices. This book, however, remains
required reading for Scientologists, so its claims about psychiatric
cures are familiar to all members (including the personnel at the
Flag Service Organization). Indeed, Hubbard would refer back to
this footnote in Dianetics fifteen and twenty years later in publications,
one of which appeared slightly over three years before he published
the Introspection Rundown.

29. Six months after the appearance of Dianetics,
Hubbard wrote again about psychotics. This statement was of ?considerable
historical interest? to the subsequent Scientology organization
because it gave ?the basis of the Auditor’s Code &91;of conduct&93; and
&91;the&93; policy on psychotics,? so the organization reprinted it as
a Policy Letter in 1970. Hubbard made the following claims:

Any school of mental healing in the past has been
victimized by that irrationality known as psychosis. Dianetics,
no matter if it has the answer to psychosis, is yet victimized by
its existence in the society. Psychotics, people with histories
of known breaks, of suicide attempts, of homicidal tendencies, can
yet be expected to apply for instruction in dianetics.

….

A psychotic discovered by screening should either
be routed into processing (if the case is mild and non-suicidal)
or rejected. At such time as the &91;Hubbard Dianetics&93; Foundation
possess adequate and lawful housing facilities for the retention
of psychotics, those who might have been turned away may be routed
to the unit which has such facilities in its charge. Efforts are
being made, and others should be made, to procure such sanitarium
facilities wherein psychotics may be dianetically processed (Hubbard,
1970a: 1).

30. Especially after the Internal Revenue Service
granted charitable status to Scientology organizations in 1993,
it is highly probable that Scientologists concluded that facilities
such as the Flag Service Org facility’s Fort Harrison Hotel was
the functional equivalent of a legal sanitarium facility for treating
psychotics like Lisa McPherson.

31. The animosity that the early Dianetics community
felt toward psychiatry and psychiatric treatment appeared in an
early 1951 newsletter published by The Hubbard Dianetic Research
Foundation. One of its instructors, David E. Cary, died in a murder/suicide
committed by his psychologically troubled wife, Helen (Los Angeles
Times, 1951). After losing a child, Helen became suicidal and took
an overdose of sleeping pills. She repeated her suicide attempts
two or three additional times. ?Each time her husband arrived in
time. Psychiatrists were called in.? On their final day of life,
however, Helen bought a gun, shot her husband, then killed herself.
The Dianeticist who reported the sad news concluded: Helen and David
Cary, directly or indirectly, were still two more victims of psychiatric
inadequacy and ineptitude. We are trying not to feel intensely about
it just because the fact strikes so ?close to home.? But even with
a clinical attitude, we can?t help thinking of the millions of other
homes who have similar good reason to fear for the failures of ?recognized?
psychotherapy. …Yes, David Cary was attracted to dianetics when
and because psychiatry had failed. He learned it well because he
wanted to help the woman he loved, but his efforts to process her
met with only the greatest resistance (Leonard, 1951: 2).

32. This animosity toward psychiatry, and willingness
(often on very weak evidence) to blame it for causing tragedy, existed
within the pseudo-scientific Dianetics community from the very beginning,
and it became a part of the Scientology subculture.

33. This animosity toward psychiatry became a part
of Scientology at the same time that Hubbard and his adherents continued
making claims about the curative effectiveness of the techniques
that he and others had developed. In 1952, for example, Hubbard
spoke about a technique called ?Technique 100" or ?Associative
Processing? developed by the E-meter inventor, Volney Mathison.
Hubbard then added: With reference to psychosis, or severe neurosis,
the technique can be considered to be, and is considered to be,
indispensible &91;sic&93; for both the auditor and the psychoanalyst.
In this state it is especially difficult to pick from the babblings
of a patient the clue for the material which, if brought to light,
may relieve his stress. Despite its importance, associative processing
requires very little technical background or information. It can
be utilized by one who has had no more than the most elementary
instruction on the psychometer &91;i.e., the E-meter&93;’such as how it
is turned on, how the electrodes are connected, and how to keep
the needle balanced in the middle of the meter. The patient is given
the electrodes to hold. If he is particularly disturbed, they are
strapped to his hands with adhesive tape, and a mitten is placed
over one side of the hands holding the electrodes so that banging
them together will not disturb the needle reading (Hubbard, 1952:
5).

34. Noteworthy in this statement is Hubbard’s instruction
to use force against a psychotic by strapping the E-meter’s cans
to a psychotic’s hands.

35. In late May 1953, Hubbard published instructions
in the newsletter of the Scientology Council about how to handle
psychotic cases, and some of his directives continued to appear
in Scientology publications for years: Step VII PSYCHOTIC CASES.
Whether in or out of body. The psychotic looks to be in such desperate
straits that the auditor often errs in thinking desperate measures
are necessary. Use the lightest possible methods. Give case &91;i.e.,
the psychotic&93; space and freedom where possible. Have psychotic
IMITATE (not MOCK-UP &91;i.e., not creating an imaginary picture of&93;
various things. Have him do PRESENT TIME DIFFERENTIATION. Get him
&91;sic&93; to tell the difference between things by actual touch. Have
him locate, differentiate, and touch things that are really real
to him (real objects or items). If inaccessible, mimic him with
own body, whatever he does until he comes into communication. Have
him locate corners of the room and hold them without thinking. As
soon as his communication is up go to STEP VI &91;mentioned earlier
in the newsletter&93;; BUT BE VERY SURE he changes any mock-up until
he knows it is a mock-up, that it exists and that he himself made
it. Do not run engrams. He is psychotic because viewpoints in present
time are so scarce that he has gone into the past for viewpoints
which at least he knew existed. By PRESENT TIME DIFFERENTIATION,
by tactile on objects, return his idea of an abundance of viewpoint
in present time (Hubbard, 1953: &91;6; capitals and underlining in
original&93;). The directives about having the psychotic individual
locate himself (or herself) in present time and in present location,
along with using mimicry techniques in an attempt to get the psychotic
to orient him- or herself, are recurrent (albeit simplistic) themes
that reappear in subsequent publications.

36. Another early example of a statement within Scientology
about treating psychotics came in January 1954, by a member of the
Hubbard Association of Scientologists:

The goal of Scientologists is a sane world. This
can be achieved, but only by freeing people, freeing them from their
own aberrations and from the control of others. The techniques can
be used to cure the seriously ill and the insane, and there is no
reason why this should not be done…(O?Connell, 1954: 5).

37. Sometime in that same year (but not published
until early 1955), Hubbard discussed again some of the issues involved
with auditors working with psychotics:

The auditor, then who is looking at a psychotic,
is trying to understand an incomprehensible, and if we were to cease
using the psychotic and begin to use the word, ?incomprehensetic
&91;sic&93;?, we would have a word which would serve us extremely well.

Thus, an auditor processes the psychotic with considerable
difficulty in the absence of this understanding of incomprehensibility….
The best way to handle a psychotic is with physical form, making
the psychotic mimic the physical form be &91;sic: by&93; mimicing &91;sic&93;,
with the physical form, the psychotic. Thus we have our basic level
of mimicry, and thus we have the entering wedge of communication
(Hubbard, 1955: 1-2).

38. These confusing and vague directions to auditors
seem to imply that they were to get psychotics to begin communicating
to others (and expressing their own thoughts) through simple acts
of mimicry. While no indication exists that Scientologists attempted
any mimicking exercises with Lisa McPherson, they apparently believed
that eventually they would be able get her to communicate through
auditing (see Hubbard, 1974a: 240-241), which seems also to have
been what Hubbard envisioned that these early, simplistic techniques
also were to have done. No auditing, however, took place with Lisa
McPherson. According to Scientology’s attorney and spokesperson,
Elliot Abelson, Lisa McPherson ?was ineligible to receive Scientology
counseling there &91;at the Fort Harrison Hotel&93; because she was having
trouble sleeping. Counseling cannot be done on a person who has
not had six to eight hours sleep, he said. A person also must be
stable to receive counseling, he said. Toward the midpoint of her
stay, Lisa McPherson began to pound on the walls of her room, Abelson
said. ?It was kind of a self-destructive mode she was in?? (Abelson
quoted in Tobin, 1997a: 12A). Even, therefore, if Scientology considers
auditing to be a religious exercise, McPherson did not participate
in it during the 17 days in which she was in the Fort Harrison Hotel
prior to her death.

39. In 1956, Hubbard’s discussion about Scientology’s
alleged power to cure insanity was unusually crisp and to-the-point.
?To discuss a field of application? for the ?psychological science?
of Scientology, Hubbard indicated, ?we have assumed control over
insanity, neurosis, and aberration, and can actually vanish them.
In the first book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health,
techniques were present which would place in view, and then vanquish
any mental manifestation known in the field of insanity and aberration?
(Hubbard, 1956: &91;3&93;). Again, Hubbard portrayed Scientology as a
science, not a religion, with the ability to cure insanity.

40. As Scientology evolved, Hubbard continued to
write about psychosis, insanity, and psychotics. In 1960, he produced
a Bulletin titled, ?New Definition of Psychosis,? in which he concluded,
?&91;a&93; psychotic is that person who cannot receive orders of any kind,
who sits unmoving or goes berserk at the thought of doing anything
told him by another determinism. Want to know if they?re crazy?
Give them a simple order? (Hubbard, 1960).

41. A remarkable 1968 document that Hubbard wrote
showed that he felt himself and his organization to be at war with
the mental health profession around the world. In an Executive Directive
entitled, ?The War,? Hubbard proclaimed, ?Psychiatry and ?Mental
Health? was &91;sic&93; chosen as a vehicle to undermine and destroy the
West! And we stood in their way? (Hubbard, 1968: 1). About Scientology’s
challenge to psychiatry and mental health, Hubbard claimed, ?it
is a tough war. All wars are tough. It isn?t over? (Hubbard, 1968:
2). Strategically, Hubbard claimed, ?our error was in failing to
take over total control of all mental healing in the West. Well,
we?ll do that too? (Hubbard, 1968: 2). Likewise, two years later,
Hubbard announced, ?I am working to cohese &91;sic&93; all persons trained
to date into a professional association in every country and getting
things set up to take over ?mental healing? facilities and social
appropriations on the planet? (Hubbard, 1970b: 3).

42. During the mid-to-late-1960s and early 1970s,
Hubbard was very active about writing on the topic of psychosis.
It is impossible to unravel a consistent set of statements or recommendations
about psychosis in all that Hubbard wrote during this period, except
to say that he rejected psychiatry’s ability to deal with insanity
at the same time that he claimed Scientology could. Time and again,
Hubbard made pseudo-psychiatric pronouncements about mental conditions
and their alleged treatment. In 1965, for example, Hubbard identified
what he called a ?Type Three PTS,? who was someone with sufficiently
severe mental impairment that he or she ?is mostly in institutions
or would be? (Hubbard, 1965: 3). The insanity of this type of person
is from having ?been overwhelmed by an actual SP &91;i.e., Suppressive
Person?an enemy of Scientology&93; until too many persons are apparent
SPs? (Hubbard, 1965: 3). (That is, so many of Scientology’s opponents
cause such disruption to the person that soon everyone looks like
an opponent and critic as the person becomes increasingly paranoid.)

43. Hubbard advised against institutionalizing such
a person because doing so simply puts him or her into ?bedlam.?
Instead, Hubbard instructed that Scientologists should give a ?Type
Three PTS? person ?a relatively safe environment and quiet and rest
and no treatment of a mental nature at all…. Medical care of a
very unbrutal &91;sic&93; nature is necessary, as intravenous feeding
and soporifics (sleeping and quietening drugs) may be necessary.
Such persons are sometimes also physically ill from an illness with
a known medical cure? (Hubbard, 1965: 4). In this Bulletin, therefore,
Hubbard gave directions involving both pseudo-medicine and pseudo-psychiatry
that have no religious context.

44. The assumption that Hubbard made in this Bulletin
was that the person would calm down sufficiently so that he or she
could be audited, which supposedly would lead to finding and processing
the cause of the insanity. He specifically recommended occasional
medical intervention (which he was unqualified to do). He also added,
however, a statement that has relevance to the Lisa McPherson estate
case: ?but there will always be some failures as the insane sometimes
withdraw into rigid unawareness as a final defense, sometimes can?t
be kept alive and sometimes are too hectic and distraught to ever
be quiet? (Hubbard, 1965: 4). He gave no direction about what people
were to do in these circumstances. It seems highly likely that some
of the directives in this Bulletin influenced the creation of the
Introspection Rundown, and he believed that it fulfilled ?a promise
given in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health to develop
?Institutional Dianetics? (Hubbard, 1965: 4).

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