Dear Mark:
I’m writing you politely to request your help to correct the black PR on me included in Scientology’s submissions or other statements to the IRS. The IRS’s grant of tax exemption to Scientology and its separate pieces is based in clear part on that black PR.
The specific black PR on me that I’m asking for your help with is contained in a set of Scientology’s answers to the IRS’s questions in the period before it granted tax exemption. In your video with the SP Times, you confirmed your involvement in events with the IRS before these answers were prepared and in writing and presenting the answers:
Rathbun: […] I mean we were literally commuting to Washington D.C. almost every week. It was Monday, or Sunday out to D.C., see the IRS, present the answers to their, their set of questions, get another set of questions, go back to L.A., get the information together, get the, you know, some would entail audits of certain units, or this sort of thing, you know, you have to account for different things, [Scratching left ear] in, in operations, in finances, and that sort of thing. Boom! Next Sunday, back on a plane, back to D.C., another meeting with– That went on for two years.
Reporter: And this process is, is it, is it you and Mr. Miscavige primarily?
Rathbun. Primarily.
(A transcript of the IRS part of your interview on the SP Times site is about 2/3 down the first page of the thread.)
Why I’ve said some of what I’ve said in my communications to you so far has been because of the need for other people to understand where we’re coming from. You know all about the black PR on me that you and Miscavige submitted to the IRS, and all about all the other black PR and all the fair game attacks on me, but other people won’t necessarily know. Other people will undoubtedly see this letter because I’ll also post it publicly, and I’ll make it public and available to everyone for optimum transparency and to make the best possible record. Otherwise, thinking courteously of course, people might get the mistaken idea that I didn’t send it. I just believe it’s most considerate to eliminate such a possibility and excuse as early as sensible. So, please understand why I am, as considerately as possible, stating facts that in most instances you already know.
I actually left the US in 1997 when I discovered online part of this black PR in sections of Scientology’s answers on someone’s web site. I’ve provided the facts concerning these events in a number of sworn declarations, documents filed in Scientology’s legal proceedings against me, and in many public statements. This is from a 2006 declaration I wrote to support Keith Henson in his defense against the cult:
6. In January 1997, while living in San Anselmo, California, I obtained an Internet account and discovered for the first time a section of Scientology’s IRS Form 1023 responses that included several pages of Black Propaganda on me. Scientology had obtained its tax exemption, and consequently “full religious status,” in October 1993 on the basis of this 1023 submission. “Black Propaganda” or “Black PR” is Hubbard’s and Scientology’s term for the organization’s practice of covertly and overtly, widely and relentlessly, defaming and defiling their targets to destroy their reputations, credibility, relationships, livelihoods and lives. Black PR is a key channel in the Fair Game campaigns Scientology wages against SPs such as Caroline, Mr. Henson and me. The Black PR Scientology and its agents have generated and used against Mr. Henson over the past decade is in fact a confirmation of his classification as an SP. Scientology only Black PRs or otherwise Fair Games people whom organization leaders identify as SPs.
7. Scientology is a “religion” and its Suppressive Person doctrine, Fair Game and Black PR policies and practices are laid down in “religious scripture.” SPs comprise a religious class, established by the religious dogma and religious hierarchy of the Scientology religion, and are portrayed and viewed within the SP doctrine as roughly equivalent to “demons,” “devils” or “bogeymen” in some other religions. Hubbard and Scientology teach that SPs comprise two and a half percent of the planetary population and are totally evil, totally destructive, totally criminal and totally insane. Hubbard and Scientology teach that SPs are the cause of all illness, accidents and bad conditions and should be given no civil rights. Hubbard and Scientology impute to SPs the characteristics given in psychiatric texts for “antisocial personality disorder” or “sociopathy,” and in fact Scientology scripture also refers to SPs as “Antisocial Personalities.”
8. Hubbard and Scientology teach that Scientologists will lose all their “gains;” which are the “wins,” abilities or awarenesses the Scientologists had “gained” by doing Scientology; just by being connected to a Suppressive Person. Hubbard and Scientology also teach that SPs are unsalvageable, cannot be reasoned with, and may not be listened to. These teachings justify an organization-wide practice called “Disconnection” that prohibits Scientologists from communicating with or even “granting credence” to SPs, on penalty of the Scientologists themselves being declared SPs. The only Scientologists or organization agents that the leaders permit to have any contact with SPs are those persons whose specific duties are to Fair Game the SPs. Disconnection justifies and mandates even the breaking up of families if Scientology’s leaders declare a family member an SP.
9. In truth, what makes an individual an SP and Fair Game is standing up to Scientology by communicating about its evil, dangerous and religious doctrines, policies and practices, such as Suppressive Person, Fair Game, Black PR and Disconnection, and its organized deprivation of property and rights, lies, trickery, barratry, injury and destruction. In 2001, when Caroline communicated some of her criticisms of certain Scientology doctrines, policies and practices, organization leaders made her daughter Ann disconnect from her, and Caroline has not heard from Ann since. To be an SP and Fair Game, a person must have knowledge of Scientology’s doctrines, policies and practices, must have the calling, ability, courage or other qualities necessary to communicate these things, and must stand up and communicate. The only response that Scientology scriptures permit, and what has been Scientology’s practice throughout its history, when confronted with criticism of its doctrines, policies and practices, is to attack the SPs communicating. Many people with the requisite knowledge are afraid to stand up to Scientology and Fair Game, and some people who are perhaps not afraid have little knowledge and no desire or calling to acquire more knowledge to communicate. Mr. Henson has stood up to Scientology and communicated his criticism of its doctrines, policies and practices for many years, and he has continued to acquire more knowledge of these things. Scientology has forced the SPs, such as Caroline, Mr. Henson and me, to find out ever more about this religion and to communicate that knowledge ever more widely and effectively to everyone reachable and teachable with it. The only safe place to head for is everyone understanding and communicating freely about Scientology’s antisocial doctrines, policies and practices so that there will be too many SPs for Scientology to ever Fair Game or destroy us all.
10. Following Scientology founder Hubbard’s death in 1986, enforcement of the SP doctrine, the identification of SPs to target, and Fair Game activities against SPs, have been directed by David Miscavige. Mr. Miscavige exercises control over the whole Scientology enterprise as head or “Captain” of the Sea Organization, or “SO,” Scientology’s pseudo-military core “elite;” and as head or “Chairman of the Board” of the corporation Religious Technology Center (“RTC”), which claims to own the Scientology trademarks and service marks and to control Hubbard and Scientology copyrights. RTC operates as Scientology’s religious police, and Mr. Miscavige is its “ecclesiastical head,” enforcing the orthodoxy and exact application of Scientology scriptures such as the Suppressive Person doctrine, Fair Game, Black PR and Disconnection.
11. The Black PR on me in Scientology’s submission to the IRS that, as mentioned above, I discovered in January 1997, was particularly alarming because, even by Scientology’s admission, there was a billion dollar tax liability or windfall involved; because the organization had withheld this material from me in the cases it was then prosecuting against me in Marin County Superior Court; because I had already been Fair Game for fifteen years, including being physically assaulted and threatened with assassination; and because the IRS had accepted this Black PR and granted the global Scientology enterprise tax exemption. I almost immediately decided to leave California and to move to Canada, where I had grown up, where I am a citizen, and where I believed I would be able to speak out to correct Scientology’s Black PR on me and to defend against Fair Game’s other forms.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-2006-03-07.html
Please let me very politely tell you, Mark, that this black PR on me, which was submitted to who knows how many US Federal Government agencies and personnel, during a time when you all were trying to silence me, judicially and otherwise, so that I could never respond to your black PR, was shocking and life-altering. If Miscavige, you and Scientology’s signing-off lawyers would do that to me to obtain Scientology’s undeserved tax exemption unlawfully, what would you all do to me to make your black PR be “true,” or to protect the unlawful tax exemption you’d black PRed me to get? Anything. Would you now do anything to correct the wrong done?
It is shocking and life-altering to have a cult full of people led by, and executing the command intention of, a clear, violent sociopath, who want me obliterated. Some wogs said that you probably don’t help people like me that you’ve helped victimize for decades unless they’re extremely polite to you, which is why I’m being perhaps overly polite. If I am being overly polite, please accept my apologies in advance.
The black PR on me in Scientology’s answers to the IRS that I discovered while living in California is included in these excerpts:
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/csi-prod-1993-11-04-152077-152094.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/csi-prod-1993-11-04-152016-152073.html
These are items on my “Scientology Lies To the IRS” page on my site:
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/index.html
A few years later, someone sent me more materials Scientology filed with the IRS that contained even more black PR on me, including this statement:
Our consistent view has been that the civil litigants are solely motivated by greed. The exception is Armstrong who we truly believe to be psychotic.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/csi-prod-1993-11-04-152016-152073.pdf
Scientology agents have repeated this black PR attack line on me around the world endlessly and have done nothing to correct it. If no Scientologists can assimilate the data needed to know that I am not psychotic, when so much is easily available, you prove that Scientology makes you universally hopelessly ignorant. If Scientologists, from Miscavige on down, or up, have all the data needed and know that I am not psychotic, yet disseminate the black PR that I’m psychotic, and treat me as a psychotic to make the black PR “real,” you prove that Scientology makes you universally criminal.
I do understand, just so you understand, that there is a third possibility, which is that Scientology (being a Scientologist and applying Scientology) makes Scientologists both woefully ignorant and criminal. This seems, however, unlikely, because pretended ignorance is so prevalent in Scientologists it is a virtually universal condition. If Scientologists were honestly ignorant of all the things they say or imply they’re ignorant of when they’re Scientologists – such as, and clearly importantly, Gerry Armstrong isn’t psychotic – they wouldn’t, when they become wogs, suddenly lose that ignorance.Yet universally, wogs, and even those who had recently been utterly indoctrinated or completely devoted Scientologists, when given the same evidence as is available to the Scientologists, say that I’m something different from psychotic.
It is true that there is a set of wogs who are motivated, some even paid, to execute Scientology cult head Miscavige’s command intention to have me black PRed as psychotic. Certainly Scientology’s attorneys in the campaign to get tax exemption fit into that set. The vast majority of earth’s 6.7 billion wogs, however, when they become aware of my communications and documented history, which all Scientologists have freely available to them, recognize the clear and simple truth that I am not psychotic. The only reasonable conclusion then is that Scientologists also universally know that I am not psychotic but they universally lie because Scientology (being a Scientologist and applying Scientology) makes them criminal.
In addition to Scientologists’ willful dissemination of the black PR on me that I’m psychotic, their responses and non-responses to my many requests to correct this black PR also supports the conclusion that Scientology is a philosophy that when applied makes its appliers dishonest, unethical and criminal. Happily, since Scientologists know they’re lying and are only pretending to be ignorant to tell those lies, it’s very easy for them to become honest, ethical and uncriminal. Just tell the truth. If it’s necessary for Scientologists to become wogs in order to tell the truth, the Scientologists should be grateful they have such an opportunity. With all due respect, and unbridled solicitousness, may I suggest that you give it a try.
Given your collaboration in black PRing me to the IRS as psychotic, and undoubtedly your involvement in the dissemination of the same psychotic black PR to other government agencies, governments or individuals, I know that most people would see great irony in official cult spokesperson Tommy Davis’ rant that the SP Times recorded.
And the thing that is so SICK about this is is that Marty KNOWS we can’t talk about them. And he knows we won’t. But they get, they cut right to the core of exactly why he was UNCEREMONIOUSLY removed.
Because let me tell you I’ve dealt with THAT GUY. And when you, when you talk to him again, you tell him that Tommy Davis said he is an outright coward. And that he made him out, himself out like a tough guy and he’s a bastard and a coward. And a PSYCHOTIC. PSYCHOTIC! That he would do this to his friends? The people that he worked with?
Joe, look at me when I’m talking to you!
The people that he worked with? Like US? His friends? Who trusted him? Who thought that he had our backs? In the clutches? When people were trying to destroy us? And he does THIS?
He has no credibility. He’s a bad man and he’s PSYCHOTIC. And you make sure that you tell him that I said that he’s PSYCHOTIC. Because he is. Only a PSYCHOTIC would do what he’s doing.
I realize that you could say that because Scientology’s PR is so terrible, having its spokespersons call you psychotic is an honor. You could even say that because Scientology’s PR was just as abysmal in the early 1990’s, I should be honored by your black PRing me as psychotic. But that’s like saying the Jews should be honored that it was Nazis who black PRed them as vermin, or even honored that it was Nazis who rounded them up and fair gamed them to death.
Scientologists’ organized black PRing of good people isn’t just to make them feel it’s an honor or fun because it’s coming from a cult and its cultists with terrible reputations. It’s to do as much evil as the Scientologists can get away with, including inciting other Scientologists to hate, fair game and even obliterate these people. These people, of course, that Scientology has Scientologists black PR are, of course, already Scientology’s victims. Remember too, that it is Scientologists who publicly and officially proclaim that they have the best, in fact only workable mental science. They claim that they have the tech to identify, and to cure, psychosis. I would kindly point out that you’re still doing that.
I’m not. When I read the black PR in 1997, Scientology’s reputation with me, by which I mean my understanding of its nature, intentions, personnel and actions, was virtually the same as it is now. Hubbard’s reputation with me was essentially identical in 1997 to what it is now. I’ve continue to study Hubbard’s, Scientology’s and Scientologists’ writings and other materials and expanded my understanding of their natures, intentions, actions, etc., but I’d say they’ve had terrible reputations with me since the early 1980’s. And they should have had from the first day I read about them in 1969. But, God even uses ignorance to teach people, although I don’t think that pretended ignorance could be His, because it’s, of course, a lie.
In any case, it’s Scientology’s Suppressive Person doctrine, not Miscavige, that ensures the cult or religion will always enjoy a terrible reputation. The apparent increasing terribleness of Scientology’s and Hubbard’s reputations parallels the increasing number of wogs who are becoming conscious of this evil and stupid doctrine. Yet Scientologists cling to it like it’s their only hope. If you bumped DM off his post, Scientology’s terrible reputation will only continue to spread, and Hubbard’s terrible reputation will as well. The SP doctrine has to be confronted and rejected, and that can only be done by communicating honestly about it. And that, apparently, can only be done by becoming a wog. I would be very happy to help you, having been a successful wog for over 27 years, and also knowing the doctrine inside and out.
Immediately, and regardless of your becoming a wog or not, however, I’m asking most politely for your help to correct the black PR on me, which you know to be black PR in Scientology’s submissions to the IRS. That can be started, as a Scientologist who knows what evidence, facts and black PR are, although I’d admit that you could be even more honest and consequently more helpful as a wog. If you don’t know what to do, please contact me and I’ll tell you. If you do know what to do, then there’s the matter of you doing it, and I would remind you courteously that you haven’t. A key lie to me, and possibly to you Scientologists as well, and perhaps the easiest lie to correct, and the stupidest not to correct, is the lie that I’m psychotic. Please tell the truth.
Yours sincerely,
Gerry Armstrong