• Fundraising, Indoctrination and Loyalty
  • Why Scientologists cannot talk about their cases
  • Have you lived before this life? - Summary
  • How Hubbard confirmed past lives
  • The Outcome of using Scientology to discover Past Lives
  • Where are the graduates of Hubbard's reincarnation class today?

Why Scientologists cannot talk about their cases

Scientologists are forbidden to talk about their cases so as to conceal the multi-level marketing scheme Scientology has for raising funds. Scientology corporations usually make the initial demands for money in the form of payment for training and seminars. These demands range from mild, when the target audience is the skeptical individual, to severe, when the target audience is guaranteed through an arrangement for some type of business or management seminar.

When training fails, which is bound to be the case sooner or later, the Scientology system recommends a person proceed on to the next higher level of income-producing activity -- auditing. Auditing is a series of question-and-answer sessions wherein the auditor supposedly helps a person find the source of whatever problem that made training fail. Auditing is supposed to be a quick, economical and permanent fix. Due to a placebo effect, sometimes auditing solves the training problem, or at least causes a diversion great enough to sidestep it. In either case the result is additional income for Scientology.

Auditing only gradually leads up to regression into past lives. First a suggestion is made to the person with the training or other problem that this problem can be alleviated through use of a special electronic device, the E-Meter. The more interested the person is in solving the problem with Scientology's devices, the less critical or skeptical that person becomes of Scientology. The result is that when a person obeys the imperative to "Take the cans!" connected to the E-Meter, the less critical or skeptical the person is of Scientology and the more susceptible that person becomes to further indoctrination. In auditing a person is, in effect, paying Scientology to take over the parts of the personality that the individual is no longer willing to personally control.

The way auditing sidesteps the present-time problem is to go to an earlier point in time. If this doesn't work, as is regularly the case, the person is routinely told to go back to an earlier similar incident. This is done over and over until the person is willing to concede that the seriousness of the original problem does not merit the cost of auditing, which can go into hundreds of dollars per hour.

If not willing to make this concession, the person is eventually told to go back earlier than 3 years old, earlier than 2 years old, earlier than 1 year old, and eventually to birth itself and even pre-natal, i.e., in the womb. At this point the person has to weigh the seriousness of the original problem not only against the cost of auditing, but also against the prospect of making a fool of oneself by recalling supposedly real experiences at the suggestion of others, as opposed to one's own good judgment.

In this situation, the person is at the marketing level Hubbard described in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and Scientology will make money from the sale of one more edition of that book. After having read Hubbard's suggestions of what should be vividly recalled in one's own unconscious, the self-admitted problem-child, with aid of auditors, probes an area of memory and fantasy formed with the aid of Hubbard's Dianetics book for hints of pre-natal experience, such as feelings of closeness, blackness, warmness and stickiness. As suggested in Hubbard's book, these experiences often include being attacked by one's own mother with a coat hanger or a knitting needle in an attempted abortion.

Once a person, with the help of an auditor and a E-Meter, has vividly relived a birth and/or being attacked in the womb, that person has crossed the threshold of ridiculousness, and so becomes willing to pay more money to go back and relive more past lives.

As mentioned, some may actually benefit, through the placebo effect, from talking about past concocted lives. One disadvantage is that this benefit can occur only as often as it is paid for and for as long as one does not openly speak out against Scientology. Another disadvantage is that this person suffers the same problem that everyone does who obsessively substitutes imagined experiences for reality.

Hubbard, who helped create this sticky problem to begin with, sought to whitewash it by categorically prohibiting adherents from talking about cases or problems in general to outsiders, or even to other Scientologists.

At the next step of complexity, the target market is Scientologists who have made some gain through the placebo effect, have definitely testified to this repeatedly and have many thousands of dollars tied up in trying to solve their problems. In preparation for the "advanced levels," Hubbard lets Scientologists know that all this rummaging about in the fantasies, memories and desires of the unconscious Hubbard helped fabricate was bound to fail all along. The advanced levels themselves consist of purging Hubbard's recollections of past life implants from one's own Scientology "unconscious," i.e., perfectly anonymized source, which by now the person is firmly in communication with.

If at any time calling up memories of birth or of suggested incidents do not give one the ability to make Scientology training work, the Scientologist is given a choice. One is to write off as a loss all the money spent on Scientology and demand a refund. Scientology will eventually refund the money after a rather lengthy check-out procedure, which includes signing official looking papers. One of these papers affirms that the refund signifies the Scientologist's firm desire to shut the door on Scientology forever as a source of help. A few Scientologists actually take that route, which automatically turns them into ex-Scientologists. Most, however, do not want to shut out the possibility of help, and thus are willing to go even earlier back in the dim mists of the unconscious mind to discover a heretofore unexpected existence of past lives, both of their own and of Hubbard's making.

Rather than sign a piece of paper agreeing to Scientology's exit conditions, many just leave and earnestly try to purge themselves of the false memories they've accumulated from their experiences with Scientology. By exit time, critical ability will have markedly decreased, so that not only will the ex-Scientologist end up poorer, but initially none the wiser. Wisdom comes from going back over previous experience in the cult with a critical eye. In reviewing Have You Lived Before This Life?, try to imagine what your own accounts of past lives would look like now.

This is an example of a case supervisor (C/S), who is the auditor's handler, following the technical instructions of L. Ron Hubbard

"A C/S can be plagued by off line case actions of which he is not informed. The existence of these can wreck his carefully laid out programs and make a case appear incomprehensible. ...

PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THEIR CASES.

Past life reality is often badly hurt by people who talk about being Napoleon, Caesar and God. This makes 'past lives' an unreal subject by bad comparison."

HCO Bulletin of 8 March 1971,
"Case Actions, Off Line"
by L. Ron Hubbard

When Hubbard was developing Scientology in the 1950s, hypnosis and past lives were a popular fad. The fad eventually died out in the mainstream after it was found certain people could be hypnotized into manufacturing a "memory" from fragments of their own memory. Working his own angle, Hubbard used questionable journalistic devices in an attempt to induce people to accept the idea of past lives. In one case he cited Sigmund Freud as an authority on the existence of past lives in terms so general that Freud's rejection of past lives could have been interpreted as an endorsement.

"Freud, with no method of direct observation, spoke of pre-natals, birth trauma, and verbally, if not in writing, of past existences and of the continuing immortality of the individual."

"The Creation of Human Ability", 1968
by L. Ron Hubbard

Have You Lived Before This Life?

In the bibliography of his book "Have You Lived Before This Life?" Hubbard included the "The New Catholic Encyclopedia" and "The Catholic Catechism: A Contemporary Catechism on the Teachings of the Catholic Church" as though these references supported his endorsement of reincarnation. Exactly the opposite is true. From the Bible:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment

The Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews 9:27

From the catechism of the Catholic Church:

1013 Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny. When "the single course of our earthly life" is completed,586 we shall not return to other earthly lives: "It is appointed for men to die once."587 There is no "reincarnation" after death.

Despite this glaring contradiction of fact, Hubbard stated in the introduction to his book that Christians believed in reincarnation, and that Catholics held it as a "fundamental belief."

"The Egyptians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, Sikhists, Brahmans, Neo Platonists, Christians, Romans, Jews and Gnostics all believed in reincarnation and the rebirth cycle. It was a fundamental belief in the Roman Catholic Church until 553 AD when a company of four monks held the Synod of Constantinople, (without the Pope present) and decided [emphasis in the original] the belief could not exist. They condemned the teachings of reincarnation as heresy and it was at this time that references to it were expunged from the Bible."

It is completely out of character for L. Ron Hubbard to so brazenly falsify provable fact. He must have known that his false claims could and would be checked out. To help his audience avoid verification and cross this threshold of reality, Hubbard created and provided esoteric factors to bolster his lie. The Synod of Constantinople he mentioned was indeed held in 553 A.D. but

The closest the Second Council of Constantinople came to addressing reincarnation was, in one sentence, to condemn Origen, an early Church writer who believed souls exist in heaven before coming to earth to be born.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Reincarnation.asp

The reincarnation doctrine is of use in Scientology for at least two things: aiding further indoctrination and as a gauge of loyalty. As a loyalty gauge, to what extent would people reject their own education, knowledge, belief and reality to accept Hubbard's statements and doctrines?

This is an edited excerpt from a repost by Rod Keller (alt.religion.scientology message ID 7fsogn$kjv@netaxs.com) dated April 24, 1999, with comments or corrections from Lermanet inserted. It contains a summary of the 1968 edition of "Have You Lived Before This Life?" by L. Ron Hubbard (c) 1958. The stories are either Preclear Reports written by the person remembering the past life, or Scientologist Reports, written by the auditor(s). Lermanet used a 1977 issue of "Have You Lived Before This Life" for comparison. The 1968 list has 42 cases, some with names. The 1977 version has 41 cases, none with names. By comparing the two lists, it was determined that James Pembry's account was the one removed.

1. Jesse Gray, Time: 651 years ago
   The brother of the king didn't like him very much. He was tricked into challenging the king to a duel, but another man was switched at the last minute. The duel ended when the brother was stabbed with a sword in the elbow. He was sentenced to exile, but was kidnapped and tortured to death with thumb screws, whippings and the rack.
   One death. Betrayal and torture.
2. C. Sweetland, Time: 1874 A.D.
   A Chinese boy steals silk scarves, and his secret girlfriend is executed for the crime. Years later he is a beggar, and is rounded up with dozens of others in a search for some bandits. They are all beheaded.
   Thirty five to forty deaths.
3. Peter A. Davies, Time: 56 B.C.
   A roman soldier in Greece is poisoned by his mistress. He hallucinates that his wife and friends have all been murdered, and in his delirium, commits suicide.
   One death. Suicide, betrayal and drugs.
4. Ray Kemp, Time: Nine Galaxy Periods ago
   A man has three mothers who are killed. Later he kills his father. He finds his wife in bed with another officer on his space ship, and kills both of them, then kills their baby. He attempts a mutiny, and is killed by his gay space ship crew.
   Eight deaths. Patricide, murder.
5. Anonymous, Time: [78] trillion years ago
   A robot works in a factory in space, which has gold animals hanging around it. It grinds up discs to make small animals for shipment to other planets. A planet blows up, and the robot is to blame. He is drugged and forced to work the grinder.
   One dead planet, population unknown. Drugs.
6. A.J. Cromie, Time: 1,600 years ago
   An engineer works in a power plant which beams energy to food machines. The machine breaks, the engineer is blamed, and he is sent to a space station which breaks apart because it doesn't get enough energy.
   One dead space station, population unknown.
7. Anonymous
   A statesman in England is being pressured to kill a humane law. His daughter is killed and her body thrown into his house as a warning. He hangs himself in the woods out of grief.
   Two deaths. Suicide.
8. Don Hardy and Eileen Hibberson, Time: 3,225 years ago
   The commander of a large portion of the Roman Empire is in North Africa was on a trip to see why one of a series of message relaying baskets had gone down. A cave was nearby, and three men who went in the cave never came out. A nearby village was deserted. He inhaled some white powder that was near the cave, and his body burned to a crisp.
   Four deaths, plus one village. Drugs.
9. Cornelia Alford
   A cat-person was given to a woman to take away on her spaceship, as a pet. She died from a drug overdose and the cat-person was thrown off the ship. Later, on a dome on a planet without an atmosphere, a meteorite crashed into the dome and everybody was sucked away into space.
   Two deaths, plus one space station. Drugs.
10. Anonymous, Time: 55,000,000,000,000,000,000 years ago
    A man had to do outside repairs on a space ship. He got radiation burns and fell off, plunging into an ocean on the planet below. A manta ray kills him and he in turn inhabits the manta ray.
    One death.
11. Eve Harrison, Time: 6,254 years ago
    A Babylonian carpenter has a wife and three children. He takes a mistress, who then threatens to expose him to his wife if he doesn't pay her some money. The carpenter agrees to steal some documents to raise money, and kills a courier. The people who wanted the documents refuse to pay. His mistress informs on him, and he is captured for the murder. His wife and children are killed before he is put on a rack, his eyes are burned out, and he is killed.
    Five deaths. Infidelity, betrayal, murder and torture.
12. James Momsen, Time: 1804 A.D.
    The French aristocrat parents of a boy die, and his uncle sends him off to the navy as a cabin boy. His chest is crushed and he is killed when he trips and falls behind a cannon just as it is firing.
    One death.
13. Anonymous, Time: 469,476,600 years ago.
    A free thetan on Mars was causing trouble, destroying buildings and a bridge. He tries to inhabit a doll, but he is captured and beaten up. The doll is zapped with a ray guy, and run over by a car and a steamroller. He is frozen in an ice cube and dropped on Planet ZX 432, where he takes another robot body, where he zaps and kills another robot. He takes off in a flying saucer, and dies when it explodes.
    Two dead robots. Murder.
14. Leon Bosworth
    A web footed woman is shot with a ray gun by a green humanoid with an elephant's trunk.
    One death.
15. Jenny Parkhouse, Time: 1,015,550 years ago
    A man killed a girl, and tried to forget it happened by landing in a theta trap, which jumbled his memory. Then he went into a robot body, which burned out.
    One death and one burned robot. Murder.
16. Pamela Kemp, Time: 500 B.C.
    The son of a ruler goes to visit his secret mistress and their son. When he returned he killed the brother of his mistress, a volcano erupted and the son was killed by a big boulder. Then the volcano killed everything in the town.
    Two deaths, plus one dead town. Murder.
17. Anonymous, Time: 17th or 18th century A.D.
    A doctor lives in Somalia, West Africa. His brother and mother murder somebody. The doctor goes to the hospital to deliver his own child. His baby is stillborn. He accidentally sniffs some ether, falls over and stabs his wife, killing her. He is framed for the murder his brother and mother committed. Later, he marries again, but goes mad, raping and killing her. Then he kills a pet lion kept nearby, and the owner of the lion. He gets sick and is killed by a larger lion.
    Six dead people, one lion. Murder, betrayal, drugs.
18. Anonymous, Time: 1672 A.D.
    A spirit without a body was tormenting a man and his pregnant wife. It forced them to have sex so many times that the woman and baby were injured. When the baby girl was born, it inhabited the baby body. When she grew up, she became afraid of having children of her own, and intentionally killed herself by recklessly riding a horse. Riding side-saddle during a fox hunt, she jumped a rocky gully, fell off, and was killed.
    One death.
19. Adrian Potts, Time: 1500 A.D.
    The son of a Tibetan politician is sent on an important mission to Nepal. Opponents of the mission send three riders out with spears to stop him. Trying to evade them, his horse trips and breaks a leg. He pushes the horse off a cliff, hides in the rocks, and dies from the extreme cold.
    One death. Treachery.
20. Madge Stevens, Time: 1603 A.D.
    The daughter of a wealthy merchant is taken to a house where she is held captive. She is asked questions about a document in her father's writing, and is beaten when she says she doesn't know anything about it. Her clothes are ripped off, and a knife is used to cut her genitalia. She dies from the wound.
    One death. Torture.
21. George Edwards, Time: 750 B.C.
    The son of a middle-eastern general has a knife fight, and is wounded in the neck. He recovers, but a growth forms over the wound. A foreign visitor offers his surgeon to remove the growth. The surgeon hypnotizes the son, and implants the suggestion that he should steal and deliver military secrets. The growth is then removed. When he returns home, he realizes that he's been hypnotized, and the arrest of the foreign visitor and his surgeon are planned. The son kills the visitor in a knife fight, gets some soldiers, arrest and executes the surgeon.
    Two deaths. Treachery and hypnosis.
22. Edward Fuller, Time: 1666 A.D.
    A boy and his brother live in London, and are raised by their grandmother, who beats them. He returns from a trip to find his lover has fallen in love with his brother, whom she marries. He kills his brother with a sword, and that night is killed while sleeping by his former lover.
    Two deaths. Treachery, murder and infidelity.
23. Anonymous, Time: 1746 A.D.
    An aristocratic man is in love with a woman of an opposite political group. He goes on a secret mission to get a document. On the way back his is thrown from his horse and borrows another horse. An uncle of his lover realizes his political beliefs, and the man kills the uncle in a duel. He rides away, and is pursued by two brothers of the family. His horse fails to clear a fence, and he is injured badly in the fall. The two brothers torture him to death with hit irons.
    Two deaths. Torture and murder.
24. James Dimmock, Time: 54 A.D.
    A boy is sent on a long journey to Greece. He is attacked by thieves and almost dies. When he recovers he goes to a castle and tries to find a secret entrance. He is captured by some monks, who either torture him or kill him in surgery.
    One death. Torture.
25. Anonymous
    A person is tortured to death in a medieval iron maiden, which can deliver electric shocks.
    One death. Torture and electric shock.
26. Nadine Moeran, Time: 1903 A.D.
    A housekeeper wants a young girl out of the way. She is drugged with a liquid that is supposed to be medicine. Then the girl is stabbed in the heart with a kitchen knife.
    One death. Drugs.
27. Chris Mostart, Time: 11th Century A.D.
    A Norwegian mother tries to abort her baby. The boy lives, but is blinded in the right eye. After seven years have passed, he has a fight with his father, who pushes him off a cliff while his mother watches. He lives, and goes to sea. He gets drunk and goes crazy. The crew blind him in the other eye with a hot instrument, and dump him overboard. He is swallowed by a whale, where he dies.
    One death.
28. Lance Harrison, Time: 5,100 years ago
    An Egyptian member of the royal household joins the priesthood. The initiation ceremony involves drugs, hypnosis, and inserting a gem in his forehead. The gem gives him mental powers over others. Later, he is mauled by a lion he is hunting and his spirit is taken out of his body and placed in a bottle. He stays there for 4,800 years until the bottle explodes and he is released.
    One death. Drugs, hypnosis.
29. Clarence Killip, Time: 856 A.D.
    A person was taken to a stone post, and a blacksmith put his eyes out with a hot iron. He left his body, then the body ran down to a lake and washed the eye sockets.
    One death. Torture.
30. Jessie Gray, Time: 3 A.D.
    A Roman soldier returns from a border patrol to find that his wife is living with another man. He spears the man, strangles his wife, and stabs a servant with a sword. He is caught by some passing soldiers, and is tried for the murders. He is sentenced to die, and is fed to a lion, who tears his head off.
    Four deaths. Infidelity.
31. Herbert Parkhouse, Time: 1800 A.D.
    A stagecoach driver is having an affair with the landlady of an inn. He tries to steal money from her, and when discovered in the act, he kills her with a candlestick. Later, somebody is holding money from a bank robbery he performed. The man refuses to give the money. Angrily, he takes his horse and carriage to the barn, where he finds a young boy having sex with his daughter. He accidentally kills the girl by throwing a pitchfork at her. He then blames the boy, who is hanged with a chain. His wife then kills him by shooting him in the back.
    Four deaths. Murder.
32. Mike Furse, Time: 1703 A.D.
    The son of a military leader in England was carrying an important message. He is grabbed from behind by a group of men who want the message he was trying to take to his father. He is put on a rack and tortured. He refuses to give up the message.
    One death. Torture.
33. not included in 1977 version James Pembry, Time: Long time ago
    A boy is hit with a belt buckle for using some purple hair dye that is reserved for court functions. Later, he stabs his step-father to death. Later, when his mother dresses up for an event at which she hopes to meet a new rich man, he beats his mother to death in a crazed haze. He is sentenced to electroshock therapy, and eventually joins the space corps. His wife sleeps with another man, and he kills her. He remarries a woman who likes to tease him, and he kills her. He marries again, and has three children. He gets drunk and finds her kissing another man, so he strangles her and stabs her in the genitals. Then he kills the children. As punishment he is implanted with electronic circuits by psychiatrists and sent to blow up a building. He is caught and electoshocked, then turned into a human bomb and sent back to his implanters.
    Nine deaths, plus one building. Electroshock, murder, implanting, infidelity, patricide, matricide.
34. William Dicks, Time: 1824
    The son of a squire is brought to his grandmother's deathbed. Later he injures himself and gets his good clothes dirty falling from a tree. He joins the army, and sees a cannon crew killed by an explosion. He is later killed by riding an ill-tempered horse who runs him into a tree branch. On his death bed he realizes the doctor tending him is really his father.
    About six deaths.
35. Marianne Christie, Time: 23,064,000,000 years ago
    A being landed on a planet with a lot of other beings. Their identity discs were stolen by robots. They were forced to work on new robot bodies so they could get the discs back. 64,000,000 years later, the beings were still working for the robots, but they were now robots too. They were enslaved and hypnotized. The being was taken to another planet. On the way, they used a lamp to radiate her and motivate her to become pregnant. But the motivation was stronger than intended, and she woke somewhat from the hypnosis. When they got to the planet she took over a walrus body for a while. The robots were getting suspicious of her, and she was tricked into revealing her awareness when a gas was used to make all the robots start coughing. She was shot with a ray gun, and the robot body was dumped into space.
    One death. Hypnosis.
36. Jack Campbell, Time: Seventy-six trillion years ago
    A being mocked up a pyramid, then decided to show the pyramid to other beings. They didn't appreciate the pyramid, so he made another one with a distortion sphere. When he looked inside the sphere, he saw himself in the pyramid. The other beings didn't like this one either. After two trillion years, he went back to the original pyramid, ejected it and tried to explode it.
37. John Fudge, Time: 2,000,000,000 years ago
    A being goes to a planet where the forces of good are fighting the evil, black magic forces. After 74,000 years of battle, implants and hallucinations, he loses the fight, and joins the black magic side. He goes to another planet on a space ship, where he marries a beautiful girl. After 50 years, he discovers the girl was really a robot, and she completes the implants.
    One death. Treachery, implants.

38. Ann Fox, Time: 3,750 years ago
    A man leaves his family to join the space corps in battle. He is assigned to destroy an enemy ship. His one man ship is damaged, and he fails in his mission. When he returns home, the city where his family lived has been destroyed by the very space ship he was assigned. Later, he finds his girlfriend in bed with another man. He kills the man, and his girlfriend hits him from behind with a vase. He scars her face with the broken glass. He goes to the temple of an old religion, where they insert needles in his brain through the eyes. He is trapped in a glass jar, but free of his body, which goes off without him. He is dumped on earth and becomes a Hittite in Anatolia.
    Six deaths, plus one city. Implants, murder, infidelity.
39. Anonymous, Time: 17,543 years ago
    A man in the Space Command went to Mars on a secret mission. He was found out by the robots who lived there, and was taken away. They bombarded him with particles that cause confusion. Then they put him in a robot body, and sent him off to an outpost station in space. It was boring, so he started making his reports into jokes. So they came to take him away, ripped out his circuits and threw him on the scrap heap.
    One death. Implants.
40. Jean Gill, Time: 25,016 years ago
    A soldier breaks up with his girlfriend. Then he goes to a briefing room where beams are shot at his solar plexus and genitals, which implant his orders. Needles are pushed behind his eyes and into his ears. He is sent down to kill everybody in a town. He deliberately crashes his space ship to get rid of his highly implanted body.
    One death, plus one town. Implants, suicide.
41. Alix Stansfield
    The commander of a sector of space destroys everything in the sector. He goes in a flying saucer where he is trapped, then to anther place where there are lots of television screens. He goes to another saucer which is a storage place for bodies and parts.
    One dead space sector.
42. Carl Jensen, Time: 549 B.C.
    The son of a leader of the Pythagorean Order lives in Krotona in southern Italy. A mob seizes his father and ties him to a tree to be burned alive. He gathers members of the order to save him. A battle takes place, but the son is unable to save his father. He is stabbed with a spear and dies.
    Two deaths.

If the above accounts could be considered "success stories" for Scientology, James Pembry's exclusion and the anonymization of cases after the initial 1958 issue of the book is likely connected with the "Legal Aspects of Success Material Publications" (July 12, 1966 HCO Policy Letter). In this policy Hubbard required that people who write success stories for Scientology also sign a release statement permitting publication. Circumstances indicate that Mr. Pembry did not sign such a release statement in 1958 and that he may have demanded retraction of his account, which was being published as proof that Hubbard's lucrative auditing processes served a worthwhile cause.

Possible dissonance between Pembry and Scientology is also indicated in an excerpt from an article by A. A. Phillips posted to the news group alt.religion.scientology on August 1, 1999 by "Safe" (message ID 7o2d45$1gd6@enews2.newsguy.com), who reported that in 1960 Jim Pembry was a freelance E-Meter maker before "the church established a monopoly."

How Hubbard confirmed past lives

The book Have You Lived Before This Life? was first written in 1958. Dianetics had been in existence since 1950, and Scientology since 1954. This means after eight years of Dianetics and Scientology, after having auditing tens or hundreds of thousands of people, Hubbard was able to find a few dozen who said they had experienced past lives. Apparently after one of those complained, the names of the people were deleted, and their stories were identified only by a case number. Without names, none of the other cases could demand Scientology retract their accounts.

The Outcome of using Scientology to discover Past Lives

The outcome of using Scientology to discover past lives in Have You Lived Before This Life? was uniform. All participants testified from their own personal first-hand observation not only that past lives existed and that that they were the source of present-day problems, but that Scientology was most effective in solving problems which originated during these previously unsuspected existences. Some problems with this as a scientific result is that failures were not included in the testimonies, data was not uniformly gathered, and participants were apparently told what to expect before being induced into the dream state from which their own personal first-hand observations arose.

Observations

The above list is excerpted from the 1977 edition of Hubbard's book Have You Lived Before This Life?. From the "preclear reports" of the cases in the book the above "before" column is excerpted from the book's category of "former condition;" the "after" column from "mental outlook" and "physical improvement;" and the "reason given" from "What you attribute improvement to."

It is apparent that all aspects of these reports were filled out after successful completion of a Scientology service. If this is the case, the "before" column may not so much reflect the client's actual perception of his or her former condition as it does a desire to properly arrange one's own past to fit with the present. This means that a paying customer, flushed with success at course completion, would not as accurately describe the "former condition" after the fact.

In order for the "before" column to be scientifically accurate, the description of the "former condition" should have been obtained from the customer prior to the first session or class. Obviously this would have been difficult for people who were not yet indoctrinated. For instance, how could a person who had never taken a Scientology course view "occlusion of past lives" as a problem? How would an unindoctrinated person know that he had previously always been looking for and listening to an unknown something? It is apparent from context that paying customers were told to relive their present pain or present embarrassment in imaginary pictures [waking dreams] for the purpose of ridding themselves of these discomforts. They were to conjure up these pictures only to have them disappear again with the advance understanding that when the "right" picture was created and made to disappear, the person could at last be satisfied in some way.

Consequently the "improvements" listed include the new-found ability to "confront" life inside waking dream pictures for a few real-life seconds. The more this is ingrained into a person's psyche, the more likely a related side-effect of this would be an apprehension that, without (more and more) Scientology processes, people might one day unintentionally slip off into the imaginary picture world. This fear could be alleviated by the new-found knowledge that one's own present-time life is relatively insignificant, when compared to a series of hundreds or thousands of such struggles for existence.

Given this circumstance, it is difficult to see how Scientology processing could increase a person's grip on reality. The "ability to confront" one's own dream pictures appears to be a transient substitute for reality on the path to the authoritarian womb-like states of Scientology clear and beyond.

Where are the graduates of Hubbard's reincarnation class today?

• Case #3, Peter Davies
  Melbourne CCHR: Peter Davies, Date: 1998/11/28: The fellow at the December 1997 demo with the video camera and the stare, as featured on your web site, is called Peter Davies - currently the head of CCHR in Victoria.
  Peter James Davies posted Jan. 13, 1997 to alt.religion.scientology Re: Narconon & Sweden "Given that there was no Heroin trafficking and no deaths from Heroin in Australia before prohibition in 1953, how would you explain the appearance of these events since?"
• Case #16 and #4, Pamela and Ray Kemp
  The Kemps were successful Mission Holders in wealthy Orange County, California until Hubbard declared them SP and their Mission was stripped from them. They sued and amazingly enough were welcomed back into Scientology and allowed to hold another Mission...until that one was stripped from them again in 1981 when they were declared for a second time and left the cult. They were close to Hubbard...and they shared stories about their friendship at David Mayo's Advanced Ability Center in 1985.
• Case #30, Jessie Gray
  Source Magazine Issue # 28 [circa August? 1980] completions for Jessie Gray: Grade 0 Expanded, Solo, OT1, OT2, OT3, L12
• Case #31, Herbie Parkhouse,
  head of the Guardians Office Finance Bureau in the 1970's,
  When the CMO took over the Guardian Office, Herbie was declared (excommunicated from Scientology).
  Hubbard had been lavish in his praise of Parkhouse and said that Parkhouse was the one missionaire that he could always count on to get the job done. Parkhouse used a rough and abusive management style; belittling, fear inducing and sometimes physically demanding. Parkhouse at times would have people run from place to place in probationary periods when their continued holding of their posts was put into doubt in order to psychologically condition them.
  I heard in the 80's that Herbie was running a taxi stand at Heathrow.
  Herbie not only knew Hubbard's finance policies better than anyone else, he even authored numerous BPLs on finance himself.
• Case #36, John Fudge
  Freewinds Issue # 52 March 2004 completions for John Fudge: Whole Track, Time Track of Theta
  From the files of the FBI #191 dated February 28, 1968: "The Bureau is requested to advise whether or not captioned organization, its founder - L. RON HUBBARD, officers JOHN FUDGE, NATALIE FISHER, and BONNIE TURNER or [BLACKED OUT] and PEM. WALL are known to the Bureau as potential threats to the internal security of the country."
  From the files of the FBI #72 undated "probably circa January 1963": "Rev. John Fudge, D.D., Assistant Pastor of the Founding Church of Scientology" sent the FBI "evidence of a serious attack on religious freedom."
  Commendation for active Volunteer Ministers week ending 16 June 2005: Fudge, John

If this is a representative sample, then it indicates these people remained convinced of the realness of the dreams induced while under the influence of Scientology, regardless of whether they are still members in good standing with the cult or not.

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