The Armstrong Op

Scientology's fair game on Gerry Armstrong

Dennis Erlich

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church, enemies wage war on Internet battlefield (March 4, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/4/981

His online name was Rogue Agent2 and his scathing attacks against the Church of Scientology ripped through the Internet. Shielded behind an anonymous account at Northeastern University, he continued to anger and embarrass the church with messages that millions could read online.

“There was no Christ!” Rogue Agent said in an Internet message, quoting Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. “Christianity succeeded in making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people,” Rogue Agent wrote in another message, again quoting Hubbard’s words.

Other Internet critics of Scientology had their homes in Virginia, Colorado and California searched and their computer disks seized by the church’s lawyers – including prominent Boston attorney Earle C. Cooley. The lawyers sought to stop what a judge ruled was copyright infringement.

“This is mortal combat between two alien cultures a flame war with real guns. A fight that has burst the banks of the Net and into the real world of police, lawyers, and armed search and seizure,” Wired magazine said in a 1995 article about the conflict between Scientology and its Internet critics. It “is the bitterest battle fought across the Internet to date,” Wired said.

In Boston, local Scientologists started investigating Rogue Agent, trying to learn his real name and silence him, the church’s critics said.

“He is really spooked about all the cult agents trying to find him,” said Jim Byrd, another local Internet critic.

“He is afraid for the safety of his family,” Byrd said. “Besides tons of lawyers, the cult hires lots of PIs and assorted goons.” Other U.S. critics have alleged Scientology hired private investigators to search their garbage, illicitly obtain their telephone records and credit reports, and engage in “noisy investigations” designed to smear them.

And overseas, Scientologists got search warrants in Finland and Holland to silence critics.

“Copyrights were getting ripped off right and left, and that’s all this really is,” said Church of Scientology International President Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch. “We’ve been elected the Texas Rangers of this new frontier,” Jentzsch said.

But Ron Newman of Somerville, one of the country’s best-known anti-Scientology Net critics, said the church’s main target is freedom of speech.

“I think it’s important to stand up against a private organization that tries to harass and sue people into submission,” Newman said.

Net notes

Here are descriptions of some of the documents – many of them posted on Web sites or the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology – that have gotten Scientology’s Internet critics in trouble with the church:

The cost of Scientology training. A December 1994 Internet document said it costs $376,000 to complete church training.

Hubbard’s motivation for creating Scientology. Many online documents contain statements from Hubbard’s friends, who remember him saying, “I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.”

First-person stories by ex-Scientologists, who say they were manipulated, abused or held captive when they tried to leave the church.

Objective biographies of Hubbard. Online documents – including a document by his son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. – say Hubbard experimented with black magic, drugs and sexual Satanic rituals in the 1940s in Southern California. Other Web sites have copies of school and Navy records detailing failures that contradict Hubbard’s glowing official biographies.

The Xenu incident. Scientology teaches all human misery can be traced to “Body Thetans” created 75 million years ago by the evil Galactic Federation ruler, Xenu. Only “auditing” – akin to exorcism – can rid the body of these disturbing, invisible creatures.

Harassment of journalists. Online stories describe how book authors, and reporters for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and other publications were investigated, threatened and framed for crimes to deter them from writing stories critical of Scientology.

Hubbard’s view of Christianity and Judaism. A critic’s Web site has a sound file – an actual recording of Hubbard’s voice – describing how evil extraterrestrials hypnotized humans into a belief in Jesus Christ.

Upper-level Scientology teachings that tell trainees to give and receive communication with plants and zoo animals.

The raids

Like most of the local critics, Ron Newman knew little about Scientology until he was angered by the punitive actions of Scientologists.

“A lot of people see it as Scientology’s Vietnam. It’s a morass,” said Sam Gorton, another local Internet critic of the church. “It’s ridiculously difficult to suppress information on the Net.”

Every time Scientology raids one critic, dozens of others post the same material online, Gorton said.

On Aug. 12, 1995, Earle Cooley accompanied federal marshals and Scientology employees into the home of Internet critic Arnaldo Lerma in Arlington, Va. They seized Lerma’s computer equipment, looking for copies of documents that Scientology wants kept secret.

But Cooley, a Boston lawyer who is chairman of the Boston University Board of Trustees, said Scientology only takes legal action as a last resort.

And its legal battle is bringing great benefit to society, by helping preserve the rights of authors and others whose work could be illicitly published online, he said.

Scientology eventually won court decisions preserving its right to prevent others from freely publishing church teachings on the Internet. “I think that the church litigation is on the cutting edge of a major issue confronting America,” Cooley said. While the Internet is a great innovation, he said, “like all wonderful things it has the potential for abuse.”

Rogue Agent

The Herald met with a group of local Internet critics – including Bob Minton, a retired banker from Boston who has donated $ 1.25 million to Scientology critics – at the Liberty Cafe, a cybercafe near MIT. The critics – who describe themselves as computer nerds – believe Scientology’s home searches and suppression of negative information are part of the church’s openly admitted plans to convert the entire planet.

The church’s harassment of Rogue Agent proves Scientology’s legal blitzes are not just meant to preserve its copyrights, said Dennis Erlich, a church defector who once oversaw high-level instruction at the church’s elite Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Fla.

Rogue Agent was a threat because he was a tough Internet fighter, Erlich said.

“Scientology is basically a kind of mental ju jitsu, and Rogue just used that back on them,” Erlich said in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles.

“He was a very effective critic,” the defector said. “I taught him. I worked with him until he got the mindset.”

The Boston Church of Scientology tracked Rogue Agent to Northeastern’s computer science department, and the church’s legal officer, Annette Ross, sent a Dec. 1, 1995, letter of complaint to the university.

“That was enough to force the university to cave in and say he can’t be anonymous,” Erlich said. Rogue Agent, fearing harassment if he revealed his name, lost his Northeastern account a week later.

“Others are getting involved and drawn in, I don’t want them hurt,” Rogue Agent said in a farewell Internet message to the newsgroup.

Cooley said Scientology investigated Rogue Agent because he was posting “hate messages” on the Internet. Cooley was not able to provide any examples of the hate messages.

“In his case, it’s a question of trying to find out why an important university in Boston has somebody who’s posting hate material,” Cooley said. “Is he authorized to be spreading hate on the Internet using the facilities of Northeastern University?”

Meanwhile the church unveiled a new30,000-screen World Wide Web site, aimed mainly at attracting new members and selling its costly programs. And Scientology recruiters troll the Internet’s newsgroups and chat rooms.

Cooley defended the efforts of church members who are glutting the critics’ newsgroup, with thousands of pro-Scientology documents.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that. I don’t consider that ‘spamming”‘ – sending huge amounts of unwanted e-mail – the lawyer said.

Erlich, the defector, said he believes revealing Scientology’s teachings on the Internet will tear apart the church’s reclusive leadership.

“There’s no secret about this stuff anymore. It’s out. It’s never going to go away. Which means the fraud they engage in can’t persist,” Erlich said.

“Who’s going to win? We already won,” he said. “We have let the genie out of the bottle.”

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212113127/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci3498.html ↩︎
  2. Also see: The Church of Scientology vs. “Rogue Agent” ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Milton school shades ties to Scientology (March 2, 1998)

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 Milton school shades ties to Scientology

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/2/981

A Church of Scientology school in Milton is enrolling large numbers of children from middle-class and professional black families in what critics say is part of the church’s nationwide plan to recruit minorities.

Officials at Delphi Academy do not tell parents that the school is part of the Church of Scientology, and that they are trying to recruit blacks for Scientology’s costly programs.

Yet they do admit that all staff members are Scientologists and they use Scientology materials.

A Herald review of the school has found that Delphi Academy:

Used precisely the same “Study Tech” as the Boston Church of Scientology on Beacon Street, where the methods are considered religious scriptures.

Sent up to 10 percent of each child’s tuition money to the Association for Better Living and Education, a Scientology organization in Los Angeles, according to its federal tax returns.

Got “referral” income of 10 percent to 15 percent of any Scientology course or book bought by a Delphi Academy parent, according to the school’s federal tax returns and ex-members of the church.

Has used an “E-Meter” – a device like a lie detector that measures emotional reactions – on Delphi children, according to a former student, Sabriya Dublin of Jamaica Plain. The E-Meter – the same device used by the church in counseling- sends a mild electric current through the child’s body, with fluctuations in a gauge showing emotional reactions, as a child answers questions while holding a shiny metal tube in each hand. A former Delphi student from Oregon, however, said the E-Meter was not used at his school.

Created a Delphi Parents Association so parents could pay for playground repairs and two new computers through fund-raising events – while Delphi made royalty payments to Scientology’s ABLE organization.

Promoted Scientology outside the school. Delphi’s headmistress, Ellen Garrison, helped establish a Scientology tutoring program for ninth-grade teachers at the Randolph Public Schools, said former Scientology church spokeswoman Kit Finn.

And a “Homework Club” sent older Delphi students to teach Scientology methods at the Tucker Elementary School, a Milton public school, a Delphi official said.

Attracted so many students in recent years that the school, in a converted gatehouse off a quiet stretch of Blue Hill Avenue, had to build two new classrooms. School spokeswoman Joanne List said most of the new students were black.

Critics of Scientology say the real motive of Delphi is to increase church membership, and make money by selling high-priced Scientology courses to parents, according to Priscilla Coates, an anti-cult activist in Los Angeles.

One parent, Harvard Dental School instructor Dr. E. Leo Whitworth, had just such an experience with Delphi Academy.

Whitworth said his son, L.V., was taught basic Church of Scientology methods like Study Technology during the four years he was enrolled at Delphi Academy.

The dentist said he did not learn that Delphi was linked to Scientology until after his son was enrolled, and then they recruited him for a variety of programs at the Church of Scientology on Beacon Street in Boston.

“I took two courses at the church,” Whitworth said. “It cost in the hundreds. They wanted me as a member. And they did try to get my wife. She started a course but she didn’t finish,” the dentist said.

During a vacation in California, Whitworth visited the offices of Sterling Management, a for-profit business linked to the Church of Scientology. There, Scientologists tried to sell him a dental office management program, Whitworth said.

“They were trying to get me to use their business techniques,” he said, but he didn’t like the program and it was too expensive. “It was too much like car salesman techniques. It cost a lot – around $ 10,000.”

Whitworth, who is also a Northeastern University trustee, said he knew of “several” non-Scientologist parents who enrolled their children in Delphi Academy and later became members of the church.

In retrospect, he said, Delphi Academy appears to be deceptive.

“I would rather they did say, up front, that they are part of Scientology. There are certain ways they could be more open,” he said. He also warned parents who enroll their children at Delphi to “be aware there are other aspects to it – the Scientology.”

Whitworth’s son, now 15, asked to be taken out of Delphi, the father said. “He didn’t want to stay there anymore. He was just uncomfortable.”

Several other black parents, however, said they were pleased with how well their children were learning at the school. And Delphi officials say students got high marks on the annual California Acheivement Tests.

New students to the $ 6,200-a-year school are recruited for Delphi and its summer camp by word of mouth, and through bulk mailings that do not mention Scientology. The school first opened in Belmont in 1980 under the name Apple School.

The 1,000-student network of Delphi academies in Oregon, Florida, California – and Milton – has recruited unsuspecting families for many years, Coates said.

But the interest in black citizens is new, because Scientology has few non-white members, she said. “They are looking for new niches for people and money,” Coates said.

A Herald reporter visited the 104-student Milton school twice, and found that the majority of its younger students are black. It enrolls children ages 3-13.

Parents who have enrolled their children at the school include professionals like Brockton obstetrician Dr. Dawna Jones and government workers like Barbara Hamilton, youth activities aide to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Dr. Jones did not return calls seeking comment, but Hamilton said her son is doing well at Delphi.

“I would say he’s just generally improved,” including better reading skills, Hamilton said.

Other black, non-Scientologist parents include a top manager at Lexington-based Stride Rite Corp., an investment analyst, a nurse, a Massachusetts state trooper, Boston police officers, computer executives at Digital Equipment Corp. and Lotus Development, and an MBTA welder, according to Delphi officials.

Several other black parents are medical doctors, one owns a Roxbury air-conditioning company, one is a Christian minister, while another is a Catholic religious education director, Delphi officials said.

“The Scientology thing, that was one thing I had to clear up. At first I didn’t know it was a religious school, and I wasn’t looking for a religious school,” said Lee Jensen, a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority official, who enrolled her daughter, Nicole, at Delphi. “I told them, ‘I need to know exactly what you’re teaching my child, because you have her for nine hours a day.’ “

Not every parent is middle-class, and Delphi gives no financial aid or scholarships, so some parents just scrape by, said List. “We have a lot of single mothers who eat peanut butter sandwiches, and don’t drive fancy cars,” she said.

The school does not require its students to convert to Scientology, said former student Sabriya Dublin, who said she attended the school for eight years.

The founder of the Delphi Academy schools, Alan Larson, said in an interview from Oregon that they succeed because they require every child to learn everything – without exception – before moving on to the next task.

And the Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said Delphi students’ Scholastic Aptitude Tests are “400 points above the national average.”

But Dennis Erlich, a former Scientology trainer in California, said his two daughters had to spend two years in remedial math and English courses after he transferred them to public school from a Scientology-run school, where he said instruction was poor.

Another church defector, Robert Vaughn Young, said Scientology’s leaders do not care about traditional education. They only care about getting people to buy Scientology courses, he said.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212112310/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci32a98.html ↩︎