Letter to Dan Sherman

Dear Dan:

As you know, I’ve written and published a number of things about our relationship and your “Armstrong Operation,” principally in declarations for different legal proceedings. I’ve had to deal with you Scientologists and your collaborators’ perverse spin on your dirty op and your subsequent black propaganda around the world for almost thirty years. Your Scientology operators, of course, started your op as the “Gerry Armstrong Project” thirty-two years ago.

Persue (sic) the potential existing line that might be available to us via a trusted GAS who is a writer and who is respected by Gerry. This would require some reach from Gerry, though, as he might be suspicious if this GAS made a big reach for him.¹

It is well known that you are employed to purvey your cult’s black PR on me, and on the good people in my religious group or class. Usually, however, you do your black PRing covertly, and I only know of one time where you purveyed your black PR on me over your own name. It was in a letter to the Boston Herald in 1998, which, to my knowledge, was not published in the Herald, but was published in Freedom, your religion’s biggest organ for hate and slime. I haven’t communicated to you in many years, and have never responded before to this particular nastiness, which I’ll quote below. ²

It’s actually Marty Rathbun’s portrayal of the Armstrong Op and your relationship with me in his latest book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior that brings me to write you now. Your part with me in Memoirs is all in chapter 21, which Rathbun calls “The Juggernaut.” The way he has you disappear from his narrative is weird – poof — but accords with other more obvious and ongoing evidence that you and he remain coconspirators against your religion’s enemies or victims, like me.

Rathbun mentions “Sherman” 18 times throughout Memoirs. The first 4 are Sherman Lenske (oops). Then you have 5 through 16, on pages 257 and 258. Then there’s Lenske (oops) two more times at the time of Hubbard’s death. In one paragraph, Rathbun has you meeting with me, whetting my appetite, and dealing me a pack of lies. In the next paragraph, he has you arranging a meeting between Dave Kluge and me in Griffith Park. And then you are never heard from again in the rest of the book.

You certainly have been heard from, and Rathbun knows a whole epic more than he’s written about you in Memoirs. You’ve been the Scientology cult’s official Hubbard biographer probably longer than he’s been dead. You’re widely known as David Miscavige’s gag writer, authoring his event speeches that over so many years have made so many millions gag. And, as I mentioned, you are notorious for generating a shipload of black propaganda over many years targeting your cult’s enemies, including me.

Rathbun titles his chapter about your clandestine op and your lies to me “The Juggernaut,” which is typical Rathbunion double-curve black humor. He had targets on your cult’s 1981 “‘Juggernaut’ Eval,” and then, under Ron-the-Juggernaut-Head, he became the eval’s executive executioner. “Juggernaut,” as the evaluation title and in its “Bright Idea” is straight from Hubbard.³

In his Memoirs, Rathbun projects his juggernautiness onto Mike Flynn and me, accusing us of being the overwhelming, mercilessly destructive force that he has to confront and vanquish. But really, Hubbard postulated you Scientologists as the “tight conspiracy” forming the body of the juggernaut he led, and you all executed the old juggernaut head’s command intention. You postulated yourselves as the mercilessly destructive force that would crush Flynn and me. It is a postulate so iniquitous that Rathbun, dramatizing the criminal mind Hubbard demanded of all Scientologists, projects it onto his juggernaut’s victims.

Your flapdoodle in Freedom overlaps Rathbun’s in his “Juggernaut” chapter in Memoirs, but I’ll deal with his separately. For now, I’ll just address what you had published in Freedom:

Here’s another, perhaps even more to the point: your Joseph Mallia leads off his article with a recitation of Superior Court Judge Paul Breckenridge’s ruling from the 1984 case involving “a top Scientology defector’s court suit against the Church.”

Well, gentlemen, I spoke with Judge Paul Breckenridge. I further spoke – at length – with that top Scientology defector, and let me simply say you have done your readers and your reputation a very grave disservice. The facts are these: that defector is none other than Gerald Armstrong – former Scientology clerk, former paid agent of a renegade government intelligence service and, frankly, a certifiable nut. After failing to seize Church assets in a truly bizarre scheme involving the forging of incriminating evidence and the secret planting of that evidence on Church premises, he next appears in the public eye as the would-be masochist for Saddam Hussein. That is, he actually proposed Hussein accept him as a willing hostage for the release of prisoners, significantly adding: “I will be available for torture.” Needless to say, even those within Hussein’s camp had sense enough not to reply.

But in either case, this is the man whose testimony inspired the Breckenridge decision. This is a man who when asked “How does one prove such testimony?” casually replied, “You don’t have to prove a god damn thing! You don’t have to prove s__t! You just allege it!” Finally this is also a man who was recently found in multiple contempts of court for violating court orders and agreements he had entered into. He now lives as a fugitive from a jail sentence.

Need I say more on the matter? ⁴

Well yes, Dan, you do need to say more on the matter. You need to tell the truth.

I will admit that Mallia did get a couple of things about me wrong, although they are unimportant for his series on Hubbard and Scientology, and you don’t even quibble with them. Mallia writes:

“The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be reflective of its founder LRH,” wrote California Superior Court Judge Paul Breckenridge during a top Scientology defector’s court suit against the church.

“The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements,” said Breckenridge, who ruled for defector Gerry Armstrong in the 1984 case.

Judge Breckenridge really did write those things about Scientology and Hubbard in his 1984 decision in Scientology v. Armstrong, and what the judge wrote was true. His decision became the judgment in the case, and was affirmed in 1991 in your cult’s appeal. The decision was not, however, in my suit against your cult; it was in your cult’s suit against me.

It could be said I was a “defector,” and I normally don’t argue with that designation. Usually, however, “defector” refers to a person who leaves one group, cause or country to join another. When I left your cult, I did not join any other group except for rejoining the wogs — the Homo sapiens, or human race. Scientologists like you are a different sort of Homo, calling yourselves Homo novis or Homo scientologicus. Rather than defecting from your Homo group of cultists, I escaped. Thus I was an escapee, and not so much a defector, in the same way that a Jew might have escaped from a Nazi death camp, and would not have defected from the camp. You Scientologists filed Scientology v. Armstrong in 1982, and the trial and Judge Breckenridge’s decision were in 1984. So it should be called a 1982 case, not a 1984 case.

You say you spoke with Judge Breckenridge as if that means something. Did he know you were a covert operative for the Scientologists? When you spoke to him did you tell him you were lying? That would mean something.

You imply that the Boston Herald did its readers and reputation a very grave disservice by publishing what Mallia wrote about me. Then you proceed to wilfully lie about me to support your spurious implication. It’s your reputation that is harmed, Dan. All your cowardly lying all these years in service of Hubbard and Miscavige to destroy good people has been the greatest disservice to your reputation imaginable. Whether you can rehabilitate your ruined reputation is in your hands; but it cannot be done with more lying and hurting more people in your unjust cause.

How incredibly unimaginative that you call me a “former Scientology clerk.” You Scientologists have been disparaging me as a former clerk for more than thirty years, even though I never even was a Scientology clerk. See this response to your fellow cultist, Russian Scientologist Aleksei Danchenkov, who called me the same thing in 2011: ⁵ And note in my response to Danchenkov your “president” Heber Jentzsch’s use of the same term to belittle me in 1983.

Being a former Scientology clerk is certainly much more honorable than being a present Scientology clerk. Being a former Scientology storesman, or former Scientology legal officer, or former Scientology intelligence officer, or former Scientology RPF member, or former Scientology RPF Bosun, which I am, is much more honorable than being a present Scientology storesman, legal officer, intelligence officer, RPF member, or RPF Bosun. Being a former Scientologist of any kind is more honorable than being any present Scientologist, which you are, because Scientology is so consummately dishonorable.

You should become a former Scientologist, Dan, and become honorable again. You cannot be honorable as a Scientologist, because being Scientologist requires that you lie and do other dishonorable things. You know this, I am sure. But you haven’t left your dishonorable Scientology cult because you haven’t summoned the necessary spark of courage that lies deep inside you.

Your assertion that I am a former paid agent of a renegade government intelligence service is a bald-faced lie. It is also a dangerous lie. You have no evidence that I was ever a paid agent, because there is no evidence. I was never a former paid agent of any intelligence service, renegade or not. I was never a former paid agent of any government, or an unpaid agent, or any agent. I understand why you lie about me as you do: cheap, garden variety, cowardly malignance. You are a paid agent of a cult run by psychopathic cult leaders. You apply Scientology. As Hubbard ordered in your scripture, you reduce my image to beast level so that you and your fellow Scientologists can just go all the way in and obliterate me.

You Scientologists have been vomiting out the black PR that I am “a certifiable nut,” or similar, ever since I escaped your cult and your control. Your PR person Tommy Davis is reported in Lawrence Wright’s 2011 article in The New Yorker lying about me “sitting naked” in a photo, and then Davis uses that lie to conclude that I am “not a very sane person.” Also in 2011, in a video interview, your cult’s “former” PR person Mike Rinder black PRed me as “seeing things” and being “a bit of a fruitcake, frankly.” http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/223 Rinder, of course, like Rathbun and you, still executes your cult head Miscavige’s command intention for treating you Scientologists’ wog targets and victims like me. Who will tell the truth?

In 1994, Rinder, as a “director” of your cult, signed a declaration claiming that Stacy Brooks Young told him that I am “psychotic and live in a delusory world” in which I hold “conversations with God.” Later, Rinder confirmed that he had lied about Ms. Young making such a statement, and that it was his own conclusion that I was psychotic because I held conversations with God. Billions of people, of course, hold conversations with God. It’s called prayer. Scientologists like you, on the other hand, hold conversation with imaginary beings Hubbard claimed infest, indeed comprise, your bodies and control and overwhelm you. You Scientologists pay huge sums of money to hold these conversations with your imaginary “body thetans” or “clusters” of them. Conversing with God is free. You might try it.

In 1997, you Scientologists, using one Ute Kock, distributed a black PR sheet in Germany claiming to quote Scientology attorney Elliott Abelson lying that my “normal activities consist of conversations with the dead.” Kock continued quoting Abelson libeling me as “a psychotic person.” Then there are the wogs like Rob Clark, who serves you Scientologists’ malevolent purposes by black PRing me as “a vicious psycho,” “loonboy,” “crazy,” “a fucking nutcase,” “totally batshit,” etc. You Scientologists love it when your “critics” black PR your victims like me. And, then there are Scientology’s superpsychopathically-acting black PR merchants, to whom I sincerely suspect you contributed your writing talent. ⁶

Most infamously, Rathbun, Rinder, Miscavige and your attorneys filed submissions to the IRS to get your undeserved tax exemption stating you all “truly believe” me “to be psychotic.” None of you truly believe that. You all know you are lying. Importantly, I have to accept that there is no lie you will not tell, no crime you will not commit, to keep your ill-gotten money, and destroy the people like me, who are unpsychotic, unnutty enough to stand up to your lying and other criminal behavior. You might try that too.

If I really was a certifiable nut, or psychotic, etc., your treatment of me, your fellow Scientologists’ treatment of me, and your collaborators’ treatment of me would be pathologically cruel. You Scientologists are indeed pathologically cruel to certifiable or psychotic people, as your treatment of Lisa McPherson shows. You locked her up, tied her down, dehydrated her, and killed her. Rathbun continued the cruelty even after her death by destroying evidence of your murderous treatment. I am not, however, a certifiable nut or psychotic, as you know. Your black PRing of me as such, nevertheless, is also pathologically cruel because it is your intention to degrade my image to psychotic level, and even drive me actually psychotic with your battle tactics tech.

Your claim in your letter published in Freedom that I attempted to seize your cult’s assets is a lie. Your claim that I schemed to forge evidence is a lie. Your claim that I schemed to secretly plant such forged evidence on your cult’s premises is a lie. Rathbun tells the same lie, which he knows is a lie, in his Memoirs. I just discovered that your cult’s Canadian attorney told the same lie to help you Scientologists get your IRS tax exemption. ⁷

Your claim that I next appeared in the public eye as the would-be masochist for Saddam Hussein is a lie. Between the time you tried to entrap me in your criminal operation that you call my scheme, which was 1984, and when I wrote to Saddam, which was 1990, you Scientologists continued to black PR me and fair game me around the world. You and your black PR kept me in the public eye all those years. Even after the supposed settlement with you Scientologists in 1986, you went right on fair gaming me, including in your publications and in court cases, and kept me into the public eye.

I have had to confront the fact that no matter what I do in life, no matter how beneficent my actions are, you Scientologists and your collaborators will pervert it all into something evil or degraded. That is a constant and terrible awareness to have to live with. Your profound betrayal brought me to the edge of suicide in 1985. All the lies you told starting in 1982 to become my friend just so you could betray me still hurt. Your sucking me in again with your phony apology and more faked friendship after your betrayal, your continuing hatred and lies, and now Rathbun’s sick black propaganda spin on your op, have almost achieved my obliteration that you Scientologists seek. ⁸
I don’t have all of my written correspondence with you, but I’ve webbed what I still have along with some notes for the record. ⁹

My letter to Saddam was a simple effort to present an alternative to the Gulf War that would bring death to hundreds of thousands of people and wreak untold destruction on the region. ¹⁰
What did you do, Dan? Cower in your cult employing your God-given mind and skills to victimize good people. I am sure that there were other people in the world who didn’t lust for the Gulf War and didn’t want those hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the good citizens who didn’t want all the unnecessary killing doubtlessly communicated in some way in the hope that it wouldn’t happen. Yet I am the only person you black PR for my simple, serious, cordial literary attempt to do something about it. It’s as if you Scientologists and your collaborators would rather have limitless evil happen than tell the truth about me or even have someone grant me the slightest credence.

As for Saddam’s camp having sense enough to not reply to my letter, I would bet that they didn’t even see it. But you will see this letter to you, and everyone will see if you have sense enough, or really courage enough, to reply. Courage versus cowardice is your issue, Dan. You Scientologist generate seven what you call “valuable final products” in your characters or “beingnesses:” vanity, dishonesty, hypocrisy, envy, pugnacity, malignity and pusillanimity. It’s not a pretty picture, and puts many people, both Scientologists and wogs at risk. But something can be done about it. Humility, honesty, sincerity, charity, comity, sympathy, and gallantry can be yours for the asking. But they cannot be with Scientology.

It is true that I am the man whose testimony inspired the Breckenridge decision. I am not, however, as you describe me. Your description is filled with lies and is disgusting typical Scientology black propaganda. Your description demonstrates just how pathetic, albeit dangerous, your cult or religion is, and how pitiable its practitioners are, especially its personnel like you who black PR people like me. Judge Breckenridge describes the man who inspired his decision much more accurately and understandingly. ¹¹

In two of the declarations I wrote in 1994 concerning your covert and unlawful videotaping in your Armstrong Op, I explained you Scientologists’ lies about what I said regarding “allegations” rather than “proof” being in legal complaints.

The organization has continued to claim that I originated the “plot to overthrow “church” management” and that I initiated the contact with the organization members, who merely played along with my plan while remaining “loyal” to the organization. It also has continued to claim that the videotapes show me plotting to forge documents and seed them in organization files to be found in a raid, show me creating “sham lawsuits,” show me urging the Loyalists to not prove anything but “just allege it,” and show me seeking to take control of the organization. The videotapes show none of those things. The tapes show that in the fall of 1984, during the reign of the organization’s present supreme leader David Miscavige (DM), the fair game doctrine was alive and as unfair as ever. The tapes show a mean-spirited, mendacious and malevolent organization using well-drilled operatives and electronic gadgetry to attempt, unsuccessfully, to set up an unwitting, funny, sometimes silly, clearly helpful, at times foul-mouthed, but otherwise ordinary human male.

The organization’s refusal to stop telling these lies is not surprising, however, because its leaders have put so many of their eggs in their dirty tricks basket. These leaders are unbalanced and in a very precarious situation. Having lied about the Armstrong Operation in so many courts and publications and to so many people, including their own followers, these leaders risk their positions of power, and in their minds their very lives, if they ever admit the breadth of those lies. Yet it is in the acknowledgement of the truth behind those lies where ultimately their safety will be found. ¹²

Mr. Miscavige states that I advise one of his covert operatives to accuse the organization of various criminal acts and when I am told that no evidence exists to support those charges I respond to “just allege it.” (Miscavige Dec. p. 32, l. 5 – l. 8) “Better Basket” describes something of the context in which I make a statement differentiating between “allegations” and “proof.” The operative I’m talking to is Mike Rinder. Before this meeting I had already, on request of the “Loyalists,” provided them with a “bare bones” draft of a complaint. Complaints contain allegations. Complaints do not contain proof. Rinder, who had been represented to me as the Loyalists’ “best legal mind” couldn’t seem to get the distinction between allegations and proof in the complaint, and I was frustrated in our conversation because he seemed so dense. Now, of course, his denseness is fully understandable. He had to appear stupid and had to deny that there was any “proof” of the sort of allegations that would be made in a complaint because he knew he was being recorded on a videotape which was going to be used to attack, and if possible destroy me. Even what the organization has done to me alone (see, e.g., crimes listed by Judge Breckenridge and the list in paragraph 7 above) is enough for actual true-hearted reformers to bring a lawsuit to take control of the organization from the criminals now in charge. ¹³

Although I cannot be in contempt of court for violating your contractual conditions, I do acknowledge that I have been found in contempt of court multiple times for violating your court order. Your injunction, however, is unlawful, and no one has any legal obligation to comply with an unlawful order. You Scientologists’ desiring, obtaining and attempting to enforce this unlawful court order actually evidences your abysmal character and antisocial intentions. Despite how threatening and deleterious it has been in my life, I am glad that I have violated your unlawful court order, as I am doing here in responding to your black PR. I will continue to violate your unlawful order because it is unlawful and because it is wrong for everyone for me to obey it.

It is no more lawful to silence a person by court order about the Scientology religion or his religious beliefs about Scientology, his experiences with Scientology, or his knowledge of the Scientology religion, even though Scientology is an antisocial religion with a murderous philosophy, than it is to silence a person about traditional religions such Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Buddhism. US court orders that silence a person about his religious beliefs, experiences or knowledge, and punish him for communicating these, show that your country’s claims of religious freedom are massively hypocritical. Since what has happened to me obviously can happen to Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, etc. everyone everywhere in the world is justified in opposing the US for its great hypocrisy and its threat to everyone’s religious freedom.

Why the US has taken this cowardly, duplicitous route regarding religious freedom is not completely known. Certainly the US has done so for antisocial purposes that align with you Scientologists’ antisocial purposes. Your claims of promoting and defending religious freedom, when you are silencing good people about their religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge and jailing and ruining them for their free exercise of religion, are shocking in their hypocrisy. Everyone everywhere in the world is justified in opposing all of you and fighting you to the death. That is your contribution to religion, to religious freedom and to world peace.

Yes, you have a jail sentence against me. But that simply shows how antisocial Scientologists make each other with Scientology. Your gloating shows how depraved your religion has made you. I will never serve your jail sentences, because they are unlawful. And I will fight you Scientologists’ unlawful orders and jail sentences, and your antisocial writings and criminal fair game actions until the end of my life.

So yes, you need to say more on this matter, Dan. You can do it. You are not too old, and it is not too late. You have within you the guts to stand up and tell the truth. Yes, Scientologists will hate, revile and fair game you. But that is far better than staying with the haters, revilers and fair gamers and wasting your life destroying the good people who have found the guts and have told the truth. Believe it or not, you can still be a hero. Come out and communicate.

Gerry Armstrong

Notes