Anti-Scientology Site Shut Down

Mirele writes "The owner of www.xenu.net, the most comprehensive anti-Scientology website on the Net, reported on alt.religion.scientology that the site was shut down after the ISP received a letter from Scientology's Religious Technology Center alleging trademark infringement. The heart of RTC's complaint is that xenu.net uses their trademarks, the words 'Scientology,' 'Dianetics,' and 'Hubbard,' in the metatags." A look at the legal history shows that all the cases that were won involved trademarked terms in meta tags that did not appear on the webpage; that does not appear to be the case here. When Playboy unsuccessfully sued a Playmate for metatagging the term "Playmate," she countersued; does anyone know what the result was? Update: 11/19 03:00: The site's back up.

History doesn't matter

There could be thousands of cases thrown out of court in the past, and that wouldn't stop the scientologists. They're greedy, amoral people whose only hope for maintaining their hold on their victims is through lawsuits; they's sue anyone, anywhere, anyhow. If they lose, they take it to a higher court.
I realise that in America this is nothing unusual, but the scientologists have it down to a fine art.

As a matter of interest: if I have a page on nursery rhymes and I have the word 'Hubbard' in my metatags (as well as 'Humpty' and 'Nantucket'), will I be sued?

The usenet article referred to...

Is here. [deja.com]

Censorship & Scientology

The Scientologists have a length history of literally destoying those who publicly try to discredit them and their ideas. They have a lot of money and alot of members in high places.

I used to be involved with the "Church" of Scientology, and my opinion that it is all bull shit and all they want is your money.

Some people might say the same is true of Christian churches, but you can goto a Christian church for 20 years and not give 1 cent. Not so with Scientology. They are far more predatory than other group I have been involved with, or heard about.

I am not familiar with the Trademark laws that the Sceintologists are using in this case, but as long as you do not claim them as your own, whats illegal about it? Sounds like censorship to me for sure.

For those who are thinking about getting involved with Scientology (or Dianetics, which is Phase I - brainwashing) please do not. Once they get their claws in you, leaving will be difficult.

Not Surprising - Scientology Has Done this Before

Remember the anon.petit.fi (or whatever it was) the anonymous remailer was shut down by scientology. The scientologist have been harrasing and trying to shut down websites left and right so that the only time someone can mention scientology at all is when they are part of the church. Xenu.com had a tremendous amount of information on this cult. And that's what threatened them. Xenu and those that ran it are considered the scientologist equivalent of heretic, and just like the old days of christianity, the doctrine is to do anything to harrass the heretics. This is just one form they have chosen to use.

This cult is just another force that wants to take away your rights. Learn more about it online by reading the scientology newsgroups. But remember that those groups are being harrassed as well.

Re:History doesn't matter

Why is this marked as "Funny"? (And where are those moderator points when you need them?) If you do even the smallest bit of research into scientology you will find that these accusations are true, and only scratch the surface of criticism one can give against the Scientologists.

Some of their beliefs would in fact be funny if they were not destroying people's lives and abusing our (US) public institutions.

-OT

"Hubbard" is trademarked?

Beware all nursary rhyme web sites! Thou art prohibited to mention any old mothers going to cupboards, to get their poor dog a bone, for doing so will bring down the righteous wrath of the *deleted to avoid trademark infringement*'s!

Seriously, neither trademark law, nor copyright law, permits the respective holder absolute right. Fair use (such as for reviews, commentary, satire, etc) are ALWAYS lawful. Copyright and trademarks also automatically expire when something becomes common usage.

IMHO, a person's name is about as "common usage" as you can get! The other words might be pushing it a bit, but probably fall into that category as well. It's not like anyone owns the suffix "-ology". (If they did, it would piss off the biologists a bit. Generally, irking the guys who play around with gene splicing and deadly viruses is not considered the healthiest sport in the world.)

Frankly, I'd tell the guys to counter with a slander & defamation of character suit (though I'd find a lawyer who worked on a no win/no fee basis). It is arguable that their good names and characters have been besmirched by the arguably false accusation that they willingly violated trademark laws.

Even if they lost (quite likely, given America's fondness for lawsuits & free speech, regardless of consequence), it might make trigger-happy power-players stop and think, for a moment. Being seen as going after the "Bad Guys" is Good Publicity. Being seen as a rival for the "Sherrif of Nottingham" is not.

The sooner the worm turns, the better. Because it will, sooner or later, if it keeps getting trodden on. It's just better for everyone if it's sooner.

For the record, the playmate won.

The NY Times story on the Playboy suit [nytimes.com] explains it nicely, but the summary is: She really had been a Playboy playmate, so it was legal for her to say so on her web site. (Imagine if she lost. People could get sued for posting résumés that contained copyrighted words.)

I've never looked at xenu.net, but I suspect the Playboy v. Terri Welles case is at least partially relevant: If Playboy can't prevent ex-playmates from saying they were Playboy, Scientology shouldn't be able to prevent ex-Scientologists from saying they were in the Church of Scientology, and so forth.

The real problem here is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA encourages the yanking of web sites based on accusations, not legal findings of fact. The Act's authors put far too much faith in corporations' ability to act responsibly.

Cult^H^H^H^HChurch of Scientology

I've happened on this site before, it may have been posted to memepool [memepool.com] or something similar. There was a lot of information on Scientology that Scientologists wouldn't find too flattering. A lot of it seemed so paranoid to me that I hoped it wasn't true, such as a list of ex-scientologists who later turned detractors and also later met an untimely demise. Given the rabid nature of a lot of the scientologists defending their cult I wouldn't be so sure however.

I don't see this as anything different than a review or expose however. This is no different than if George Lucas went after any bad Star Wars: The Phantom Menace reviews and had them yanked because they referred to LucasFilms or ILM's trademarks. For that matter its no different than if restraunts threatened legal action over poor restraunt reviews (or poor health department ratings).

What's so amazing to me is how incredibly stupid the scientologists and their lawyers are. There's a page that says all kinds of unfavourable things about them, the least of which is that they bully people who don't agree with scientology, and they bully them into being shut down. Nothing like providing proof of peoples opinions of you.

For a 20/20 expose on Scientology go here [holysmoke.org], here [xenutv.com], here [demon.nl] or just click this for a Google search [google.com]

The dangerous thing about this as far as rights go is that while many think of the internet as the last bastion of freedom its really not even close. ISP's routinely take the easy way out when faced with any legal action or even public pressure.

Scientology Is A Corporation

It has long ago been found in court here in Germany that scientology is NOT a religion, but a commercial enterprise aimed to make a profit. In addition, Scientology is under observation by a branch of the German secret service, as there is evidence that Scientology is determined to undermine, erode, and abolish the democratic principles upon which modern Germany was founded.

The majority of European countries has since passed similar court rulings... Scientology is not a religion in Europe, and if they start to act up too much, we'll smash them.

One of the most idiotic things I've ever seen was a bunch of Scientologists in downtown Hamburg demonstrating for religious freedom. They dressed up in white robes, kinda made them look like KKK wannabees.

I also take great offense at the US Scientology's campaign of propaganda against Germany. Maybe some of you remember it. Basically what they did was say that Germans are Nazis. Over HERE, we have laws against such kinds of insult, I guess America doesn't. In fact, US politicans have even urged our German government to be nicer to Scientology.

It's always nice to see how our friends and allies, the moral and great leader of the free world is trying to mess with us.

Anyway, back to my first point (I seem to have wandered a bit), scientology is just a bunch of psychopatic fools trying to make a buck. Just say no.

Why this case needs to fail

First, let's get over the facts: Scientology is overactively pursuing any anti-Sci site, and in most cases they won because copyrighted materials were used on the anti-Sci site. I don't know if the site here in question was the same (given that they have been around for this long suggests that is it not the case).

Now, why must this case fail? Look at want it boils down to: Party A does not want Party B to provide negative information to the public. Thus, Party A gets Party's B site shut down. In full violation of free speech.

If the Sci's win their case, this means that I can put any appropriate pairings in the above statement. How many of those would have Microsoft as Party A?

I find it hard to believe that there is legal precidence that a site that talks about the negative aspects of something cannot use trademark words for that purpose (especially if they are not trying to claim that trademark as their own).

Scietology is bullshit.

The guys from Xenu have a distributed.net team that is doing fairly well.

Does anyone remember the movie Primary Colors?
John Travolta is a Scientlogist and apparantly he and some others in the production staff went to president clinton and asked him to pressure Germany to recognize Scientology as a valid religion. The carrot was this, if he did get them to they'd portray him in a more positive light in the movie.

Read the book, watch the movie, you'll see that there are BIG differences between the way that the main character is portrayed.

LK

Re:History doesn't matter

Heck, in this case, you don't have to worry about the "our == U.S." bit - the Scientologists abuse public institutions all over the world. Weren't they the ones that got that Finnish anonymous e-mailer/news poster shut down a few years ago?

I'd advise anyone criticizing them to post AC, like me.

The US Constitution is just a sick, ironic joke

While we were all distracted, arguing over whether or not Bill Clinton should be impeached and admiring the off-color stain on Monica's dress, congress quietly, and with no opportunity for public debate or comment, passed the Digital Millenium Copyright act into Law. They did this on a voice vote, so that no individual congress person had to go on record as having supported this legislation.

The result? Broad, sweeping, and hitherto unprecedented powers and rights were granted to so-called intellectual property holders, at the expense of individual rights of expression.

In this context, the first amendment to the US Constition (the right of Free Speach) has been effectively made null and void on the internet. This serves both the interests of government and large corporations, as it effectively silences undesirable speach in the one mass medium which they, prior to enacting this law, could not control.

Now, if anyone speaks out against any entity (government, corporate, or private) with money, the mere threat of litigation against them and their ISP is enough to silence them. With the new, broad rights this law grants, the litigation has much greater potential to succeed (though one would hope juries and judges would be smart enough to overturn the law were it to ever go so far). No individual, with house payments to make, children to feed, and a job to attend to, can afford this kind of risk, either monetarilly or in terms of time lost and possible effects on their career. The result: any entity with money now has an easy, well-defined, institutionalized method for denying the "average" (read: not wealthy) person of their constitutional right to freedom of speach, with any recourse and appeal denied to that individual through financial leverage.

Mirroring is a nice, feel-good short term solution to this (and it does do good, don't stop!), but realize this: there is similar, pending legislation in many countries we currently think of as "friendly". What will the net be like when there is no longer any place to run and mirror?

Our top priortiy should be the repeal of the Digital Millenium act in the US, the even more draconian legislation in the UK, and the prevention of such bills becoming law elsewhere in the world. This attack of speach is more subtle, more dangerous, and much more effective than the CDA ever was, and has effectively made the right to free speach on-line a farce of the worst kind.

Re:Why this case needs to fail

Actually, in most cases they loose, cause they're making totally groundless complaints. For an example, try this site [priment.com]. Same subject. Same law. Scientology lost.

Most ISP's have caught onto the complaints being groundless, and for many years now they've been ignoring RTC's letters, however with the new law, the ISP has to shut it down regardless.

The answer to censorship is ....

Xenu.net has been THE best resource of documentation about Scientology on the net period. And that's including the Scientology site.

A large part of this site is a collection of court and govermental enquiry transcripts combined with personal accounts of their experience

Behaviour like this by Scientology is par for the course their lawyers have atacked free speech at every turn in their war against the net - remember this started with one of their lawyers forging an rmgroup to remove a newsgroup - and was quickly followed with a police raid on one of the poster's houses where they hauled away all his computers - then searched them for evidence for a subsequent civil court case against him.

Anyway - the answer to censorship (or speech you don't like) is more speech - so tell your friends the things about Scientology that were (are) on xenu.net that Scientology doesn't want you to know:

• It's a mind-control cult that attenpts to squeeze as much money out of its members as possible
• It costs at least $360,000 to 'receive salvation'
• The basic tenent of their faith which they wont tell you untill you have paid at least $100k is that 7 million years ago intergallactic tyrant Xenu shipped billions of people to earth, tied them to the top of volcanos and nuked them. All the worlds troubles are caused by us being haunted by the tourtured souls of these murdered space aliens - for large amounts of money Scientology will teach you how to exorcise yourself
• abuse and occasional deaths of members have been reported - they run their own prison labor camps called 'RPF' at several places within the US (xenu.net contains a number accounts by people forced into RPF who had to do things like run around a pole in the desert each day)
• They have their own paramilitary wing called the 'sea-org'

Xenu.net will be back - it's censored, not gone - in the mean time help do the work it was doing - tell all your friends and family about Scientology - make sure they know what it's about so they won't get sucked in

Re:in France, scientology --> jail :-)

And there is a pending request to ban the scientology organisation ... Let's hope scientology will be banned here.

Is this really what we want? The people who joing this cults tend to be 1) more intelligent than average, 2) very idealistic, 3) want to help solve the world's problems. [I'm going to have to a blanket reference here to The Margaret Singer Foundation [singer.org] hopefully still there, this has been found in several studies of former cult members.]

The individuals in a cult are not nescessarily evil or bad. Some of the things they do are evil because they are in essense brainwashed. In other words, the members aren't evil individually, collectively they can do a great deal of harm to other individuals and to communities, governments and so on.

But do we want to ban them? Do we want to cross the line that Hitler crossed?

If so, how do we prevent non-Cult religions from being banned because they practice "strange and bizarre rituals"? (mediation, chanting, ritualistic canabalism...{ahem}...and so on, an important question to myself, a Buddhist).
We need to reach a balance between preventing harm and religious tolerance.

Disclaimer: My brother started trancenet.org [trancenet.org], a cult tracking website. He is the one who first raised these concerns to me.
Also, according to discussions I had with an anon scientologist in '95 I was declared an SP (suppressive person) sometime in '94-'95 due to my participation in alt.religion.scientology... but I have no confirming evidence...

(So if you are a scientologist, you are currently out-tech just by reading this post that is trying to be tolerant!)

It's not surprising.

I've been a critic of Scientology for about two years now. I'm lucky that I'm in Perth, Western Australia. The scientology popluation here is small enough that I can say what I want on my web site and not be subjected to the abuses that critics in other parts of the world are. And that is my main complaint about the organisation. You could stand in front of Billy Grahem or the Pope and critise them to their face, but speak out against Scientology, and they'll try their damnest to crusify you. Check out the story of Paulette Cooper [uni-wuerzburg.de]. She wrote a book about them, and according to the web page, the Church of Scientology tried to forge a bomb threat against Henry Kissinger in Cooper's name. This plan has become known as "Operation Freakout". It's real, and it's happening to people all around the world right now. Andea is a very public example of what's happening to a lot of people all around the world.

Re:The usenet article referred to...

Try and keep in mind that this is an organisation that brought the IRS down. The mighty government department caved in, and made all sorts of secret deals, just to keep them away. Judges have asked to be removed from cases, rather than suffer the harrasement that comes from being involved with them. Their war chest is in the millions, and they have around a 100 lawyers on their staff. No normal organisation can compete with that, and the individual is completly destroyed by them. Has the drug taking Hubbard said, "Never defend - always attack." And they do.

Case won! Thanks folks!

My ISP just sent me an e-mail telling me that Operation Clambake will be opened again asap. My thanks goes to all the people all over the 'Net that have been working hard the last two days to make this happen. You truly are showing the cult and others where the power lies! There is no way to stop free speech on the 'Net!

PS: No, I do not have to change my metatags, seems like they bought the argument. :)))

Best wishes,
Andreas Heldal-Lund
[e-mail]
http://www.xenu.net/ [xenu.net]

OT VIII: put down that cup of coffee NOW.

This is Operating Thetan VIII, the highest "scripture" in the $cieno canon. This is what $300,000.00 buys you. Bad science fiction.

OT VIII: THE CONFIDENTIAL STUDENT BRIEFING DOCUMENT

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 5 MAY 1980

ISSUE I

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION
OT VIII Course Students
OT VIII Auditors
OT VIII C/Sea AO
Review Auditors AO C/Sea

OT VIII Series 1

C O N F I D E N T I A L
STUDENT BRIEFING


By the time you read this I will no longer be occupying the body
and identity that you have known as Ron. That identity continues
to live in the hearts and minds of many as well as in on-Source
tech and admin centers around the planet, and will inspire for
years to come Scientologists and lovers of truth everywhere.

What follows is a story that has been withheld, for reasons which
will soon be obvious, until such time as there were enough OTs that
something could be done about it. That time is now. It is not a
nice or a pretty story, but I trust that having arrived on the OT
VIII Course you are ready to hear it. You have undoubtedly heard
pieces of data over the years that hinted at the greater untold
reality of my mission here on Earth, but the story was never
written, nor spoken, in its entirety due to security problems that
have unfortunately always plagued the organization. It is only now
that I feel it safe to release the information, although the time
is rapidly approaching when I will have no choice in the matter,
the hour draws that near.

I am not going to delve too deeply into specifics as people have
a tendency to bog themselves down in significance, which would
only serve to delay the immediacy of the task at hand. Therefore
I will be brief. Some eighty-odd million years ago Earth time (it
actually dates at 78,395,042 but dates are a bit superfluous with
this material) plans were drawn by a group outside the MEST
universe for the eventual takeover of a good portion of this
universe. Not a particularly large nor imaginative crew, their
exterior perspective, however, gives them considerable advantage
over the time-bound beings of the MEST universe. Borrowing from
earlier operations such as Helatrobus, they conceived an ongoing
implant, some portions of which have been fairly faithfully ren-
dered in parts of the Bible. This implant, laid in by carefully
controlled genetic mutation at Incident Two of OT III and period-
ically reinforced by controlled historic events since then, makes
it effectively impossible for beings on the more heavily affected
planets such as Earth to become free. It causes progressive genetic
"evolution" that gives the subject population greater and greater
susceptibility to the telepathic impingement and direction of the
controllers. In its final stage the progression becomes almost
geometric, and it is this final stage that we are rapidly
approaching.

Another aspect of this GE-line implant is that the body becomes in
effect a sort of theta trap that kicks in heavily on the being
should he attempt to expand his horizons beyond that of pure
physical universe reality. There can be temporary key-outs which
we have all experienced in varying degrees, but until this area is
handled it can honestly be said that there is no hope for continued
expansion. The good news is that once this is run out, expansion
becomes rather effortless and almost automatic.

No doubt you are familiar with the Revelations section of the Bible
where various events are predicted. Also mentioned is a brief period
of time in which an archenemy of Christ, referred to as the Anti-
christ, will reign and his opinions will have sway. All this makes
for very fantastic, entertaining reading but there is truth in it.
This Antichrist represents the forces of Lucifer (literally, the
"light bearer" or "light bring"), Lucifer being a mythical repre-
sentation of the forces of enlightenment, the Galactic Confederacy.
My mission could be said to fulfill the Biblical promise represented
by this brief Antichrist period. During this period there is a
fleeting opportunity for the whole scenario to be effectively
derailed, which would make it impossible for the mass Markabian
landing (Second Coming) to take place. The Second Coming is
designed, among other things, to trigger a rapid series of
destructive events.

With the exception of the original Buddhism, virtually all
religions of any consequence on this planet, monotheistic and
pantheistic alike, have been instruments to speed the progress of
this "evolution of consciousness" and bring about the eventual
enslavement of mankind. As you know, Siddhartha Gautama never
claimed to be anything more than a man. Having caught on to this
operation, he postulated his own return as Meteyya, part of which
prophecy will have been fulfilled upon the passing of L. Ron
Hubbard.

For those of you whose Christian toes I may have stepped on, let
me take the opportunity to disabuse you of some lovely myths. For
instance, the historic Jesus was not nearly the sainted figure has
been made out to be. In addition to being a lover of young boys
and men, he was given to uncontrollable bursts of temper and hatred
that belied the general message of love, understanding and other
typical Marcab PR. You have only to look at the history his teach-
ings inspired to see where it all inevitably leads. It is historic
fact and yet man still clings to the ideal, so deep and insidious
is the biologic implanting.

It is a good joke that the Galactic Confederacy is associated with
the Serpent in the Garden, the Beast and other emissaries of the
"Prince of Darkness". Yet in certain passages and esoteric
interpretations of the Bible (much of which has been taken out and
effectively suppressed for centuries) as well as the Kabbalah, the
truth reveals itself quite nicely for the clever and the ungullible.

So it really is a race against time and one that we happen to be
losing at the moment, as the Implant drama inexorably plays itself
out in spite of the breakneck pace I've managed to keep up these
last thirty-five years.

I had an inkling, but only that, of the insidiousness of this
material as far back as 1945. Later, in characteristic over
optimism, I thought that R6 would be the end of it. But that was
followed by NOTs and the Purification Rundown and still the string
continued to unwind with the ball at the end of it just out of
sight. It makes one wonder about such things as fate and destiny,
such was the resolve with which I managed to cling to that string,
not often knowing how close I was to falling into the abyss myself.
But destiny is merely the rationalization of feeble minds. Things
don't just happen, they are caused. And causative beings can undo
the plans of madmen and would-be enslavers, no matter how long
those plans may have been in the making.

I will soon leave this world only to return and complete my mission
with another identity. Although I long to stretch my arms back in
repose on some distant star in some distant galaxy, it appears that,
that is one dream that will have to wait. But my return depends on
people like you doing these materials thoroughly and completely so
that there will be a genetically uncontaminated body for me to pick
up and resume where I left off. A body free of religious mania,
right/wrong dichotomy and synthetic karma. The job ahead is far
too tough to even contemplate doing with your standard -- courtesy
of certain other-dimensional players and their Marcab pieces, many
of whom are right here in the general populace -- genetically
altered body.

Without the biogeneric meddling of those who stand outside time
(who cannot yet directly influence our world and must work through
others) the dwindling spiral is not nearly as automatic and self-
perpetuating as it appears. There are regions even in isolated
parts of the Milky Way where poets are free to poet and magicians
can paint reality with their magic wands and exteriorize without
body kickback. But these areas unfortunately are fewer and fewer.
I will return not as a religious leader but a political one. That
happens to be the requisite beingness for the task at hand. I will
not be known to most of you, my activities misunderstood by many,
yet along with your constant effort in the theta band I will
effectively postpone and then halt a series of events designed to
make happy slaves of us all.

So there you have it ... The secret that I have kept close to my
chest all these years. Now you too are part of this secret and I
no longer have to shoulder the burden alone or live with the
possibility of body death before all the data could be released.
And with this briefing I entrust to each of you the responsibility
for this material until such time as I am able to return. For we
have no help from any other quarter in this matter. The handful of
secret societies throughout history that have caught on to this
game have long since fallen by the wayside or been taken over and
become instruments of the very menace they were set up to combat.

The rundown is long and can be arduous, but it must be done
thoroughly if there is to be any effect not only on the body of
the pre-OT but the body of his or her progeny as well. There is
some danger, but with OT VII thoroughly complete it is not nearly
so great as the danger witnessed by assorted unfortunates who
happened to stumble into this area in their sleep or in moments of
reverie or snatch, experiencing an hitherto mysterious phenomenon
known as "spontaneous combustion".

CAUTION: DO NOT BE PTS WHILE TRAVERSING THIS THIRD AND FINAL WALL
OF FIRE. But the area is well charted, the rundown many years
in secret development, and by the time you read this undoubtedly
completed on myself. The wins waiting you are like none that you
have ever experienced, not just for you, but for your children,
your children's children and the whole of mankind, if we succeed.
And we will. If we had time we would pity the many poor souls,
from 1950 to PT, who chose such an exactly inopportune moment to
drop off the road to truth and disconnect from reality, the full
burst and glory of OT practically within their grasp. But we
haven't the time to "wax philosophic" or ponder might-have-beens.
The rundown follows. Again I say, do it thoroughly add completely,
for it is your ticket to the stars. And beyond!

1980 by L. RON HUBBARD, FOUNDER

Re:The answer to censorship is ....

The basic tenent of their faith which they wont tell you untill you have paid at least $100k is that 7 million years ago intergallactic tyrant Xenu shipped billions of people to earth, tied them to the top of volcanos and nuked them.

Sorry, but I was really in a bad mood back then.

Many scientologists can't read slashdot ...

They can't read this slashdot page, or the main one at the moment ..... really .... when they try and access this page their TCP stack shuts down because their 'church' has had them install (mostly without their knowledge) software that blanks out certain words [like my nick 'taniwha' for example] or when they see words like 'xenu' shuts down a socket connection altogether

This software, described in http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/c ensorship/ [xenu.net] (www.xenu.net is back on the air BTW), has been variously dubbed 'clamnanny' or 'scienositter'. It only works on Windows systems and is believed to be a purloined copy of CyberSitter (who's owners denied any knowledge of it). Co$ members had it slipped into their systems under the guise of a tool to help them create personalised web pages - as part of a larger attempt to create so many 'scientology' web sites that the critical sites like xenu.net would be drowned out in the search engines.

I was one of the scientology critics that cracked the encryption on the work lists (with help from some of the other anti-censorware people) and produced the list of words and names [xenu.net] that are banned. Who knows maybe slashdot will be on the next list :-)

Re:History doesn't matter

>> If they lose, they take it to a higher court.
>
>Actually, they do not. The entire cult of scientology could be destroyed by a single hostile ruling from a high court.

Were that possible.

Several high-ranking members of the CoS (including Hubbard's own wife) were arrested, tried & convicted of staging their own espionage against US government agencies in the late seventies. (The CoS has been investigated time & again by the FDA & the IRS.) It was an activity worthy of the KGB, & is why one spokesperson has stated that the CoS has an intelligence agency that is second only to the FBI.

And if you ask a devoted Scientologist about this, if you get any sort of answer, he or she will mutter that they don't do that sort of thing anymore, you shouldn't hold them responsible for prior acts, & that all they did was misuse a few photocopiers.

And what about the IRS? For about 20 years the IRS & the CoS were engaged in a life-or-death battle over the CoS' tax status, which was settled with much secrecy in 1992. Six years later, the Wall Street Journal finally uncovered the terms of this settlement which can be summarized in four words: the IRS caved in. I guess filing over 2000 suits aginst the IRS & every known employee will do that.

Imagine organizing several thousand people to dig a hole from Kansas to China -- & actually having dug several miles into the ground, despite cave-ins, privation, exposure to open weather & being unable to solve the problem of where to put the soil & rock moved. That is the kind of fanaticism & stupidity that the CoS demonstrates on a daily basis -- & with similar results. Except a hole to China would have some value as a tourist attraction: only the most twisted would visit Clearwater, Florida to see what the CoS have done to that once sleepy town.

I have had trouble writing this post because I find I keep writing things about the Cos that can be summarized by ``They are **weird**, man. They are so weird that you have to see what they do to believe it. And they get away with all of this weird stuff because no one believes they do it!" And I have seen what they have done, read the accounts, & it leaves me speechless.

>I know the cult reads slashdot. You're going down.

Eventually they will go down. This group grinds thru people at an appalling rate, & the pool of people they can recruit from is growing smaller. However, they will destroy countless families, lives, & companies before then.


Geoff

Nary a kind word for CoS?

Let's get this out of the way: I am a Scientologist.

OK, the interesting thing here is that not a SINGLE ONE of these posts has had a kind thing to say about the Church. I understand that people have problems with the way the CoS has their equivalent of thithing set up. But has no one ever had a positive experience when it comes to the CoS?

I'm a college student, and I have always considered myself a Scientologist. (My parents became involved with the Church before I was born.) And while I have not paid for any services in many years, I still find that there are basic Scientology principles that help me out on a daily basis. Things like the ARC triangle [scientology.org]. The definition of an engram [scientology.org]. The book Dianetics clearly spells out how the mind works in a practical way. And it makes sense! I can't hope to explain everything contained in the entire body of LRH's work in this post, but I can point you to the Church's website [scientology.org], and specifically the What is Scientology [scientology.org] portion of it.

There are portions of LRH's writings that are not accessible to someone who walks in off the street. And, as people have pointed out, there is a fee required for those services. However, I have it on good authority (my parents', as well as many Scientologists I know who have taken these courses) that you do get a tremendous amount out of the training or auditing for the money that is invested. I myself have had many hours of auditing [scientology.org], all of which have been beneficial to me at a very personal level. It's difficult to explain how good it feels to examine experiences in one's life that are non-optimal to say the least and figure out exactly what's wrong with the situation and what needs to be done to handle it.

I alluded to this earlier, but I didn't explicitly state it: there are plenty of books that you can get which will allow you to learn about and apply Scientology principles. There are even some (such as the Way to Happiness [lronhubbard.org] pamphlet) that are routinely handed out for free. Scientology is NOT "all about the dollar signs". At least I have not experienced it to be so.

All this is completely off-topic with regards to the closing down of the website. I am personally of the belief that information posted on the Internet should not be censored in ANY way. I believe that the Church of Scientology has been and, in this case, continues to be guilty of free speech violations. In short, I have a problem with the Church's actions in this regard. This story should never have happened.

This is not to say that I agree with anything posted on Xandu.com. The resposibilty of the reader is implied by the very libertarian stance I articulated above: people need to be responsible for the accuracy of anything they read online.

My advice to you is this: check it out. Pick up a copy of Dianetics at a library and read it. There are many more books to read from there, including

Science of Survival [lronhubbard.org], Scientology: A New Slant on Life [lronhubbard.org] and more than a hundred others. Read what LRH has to say. Then make a judgement call FOR YOURSELF.

LRH has said that only what is true for you is true. While this logic may be cyclic, it makes sense: if something doesn't make sense to you, or if you don't believe it, you will operate under the assumption that it is not, in fact, true. Once you have emperical proof that it is true -- *then* it will become true for you. As with anything else, Scientology is this way. Scientology's underlying doctrines [scientology.org] (also see here [scientology.org]) make sense. Period.

This post is not being placed here as flamebait, although I may be attacked by someone. I am merely trying to balance the extremely one-sided view of the Church that the readers of the comments would have received without this note.

---Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?---

YUP - happened to me ....

Or rather my kids - they picketted my kids (7 and 5) as they arrived home from school - because I'd had the temerity to stand up pubicly and protest their actions.

Before the whole scientology vs. the Net thing blew up in their faces co$ could force their critics (mostly ex-members) into silence by harrassing and sueing. But once they tried to rmgroup alt.religion.scientology and raided Dennis Erlich and took away his computer it roused the ire of a lot of net free-speech people (like me - I was never a member of co$) - there's safety in numbers, and semi-anononymity - you CAN speak out - and if you feel the heat's got a little too high just step back and let someone else take it for a while.

But the most important thing is that whole "the internet routes around censorship like a fault" thing - the best thing to do when you are being censored is to tell as many people as you can about it - not just on line - but everywhere, friends, family, at work, neighbors, a bumper sticker on your car, etc

I think that healthy democracies work the same way - secrets find a way out eventually - the net's just helping it happen faster!