WARNING TO INDEPENDENT SCIENTOLOGISTS: This blog entry contains verifiable proof that the abuses of Scientology pre-date David Miscavige. Such truth may constitute “entheta” and could be harmful to your belief that DM is the root of all evil in the Church of Scientology. Read at your own risk.
Back in 1969, when current Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige was nine years old, an American journalist named Paulette Cooper had an article published in the British magazine Queen entitled The Tragi-Farce of Scientology.
Read the article today and you may have trouble believing it was written more than four decades ago. Ms. Cooper discusses many of the same issues protesters (and independent Scientologists) are talking about today: Disconnection and its affect on families, misuse of personal “confessions”, junk-mail barrages, and the use of religious status to avoid paying taxes. She even cites the high cost of Scientology courses, something many Independents fervently blame on David Miscavige.
Ms. Cooper expanded her article into a book, The Scandal of Scientology, which she published in 1971, about the same time David Miscavige’s father first became interested in Scientology.
Scientology retaliated with a campaign of terror that was unusually brutal, even by their standards: Lawsuits, death threats, smear campaigns, Church spies posing as friends, even an alleged attempt on Ms. Cooper’s life. A Scientologist stole her stationary and sent bomb threats to a New York Church of Scientology; the frame-up was successful and Ms. Cooper was arrested and indicted. Full details of the campaign against her weren’t discovered until 1977, when the FBI raided Church offices as part of the investigation into Scientology’s theft of documents from government offices, although the Church continued to file lawsuit against Ms. Cooper until the mid-1980s. Ms. Cooper eventually settled, with the Church reportedly paying her $400,000.
I consider The Scandal of Scientology a must-read because it illustrates what the Church of Scientology was like when LRH was at the helm – before David Miscavige had even heard of Scientology. Read it and decide for yourself if Scientology has really changed all that much in the last 40 years. The Scandal of Scientology, which includes the original Queen article, can be read online or downloaded in HTML, zipped HTML, or PDF format.
I also recommend Paulette Cooper’s account of Scientology’s campaign of harassment against her, which she didn’t publish until 2007. Ms. Cooper demonstrates that many of the very same tactics that Marty Rathbun claims David Miscavige is using against him – and many that were much, much worse – were being employed by the Church years before David Miscavige joined the Sea Org in 1976. Her account leaves no question that many of the methods of harassment that Marty and the Independents blame on David Miscavige were originated under the leadership of L. Ron Hubbard.
If you want to read more about Paulette Cooper and The Scandal of Scientology, you’ll find lots more information on this HolySmoke.org page.
ML,
Caliwog
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