Title: Zegel Tape #1 [3/3]
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 03:54:18 GMT
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What we're going to do now is, we are going to return to looking at
what the RTC, the Religious Technology Center, has been doing, or had
been doing since that time. To clarify something, the RTC was
incorporated in California in Jan of 1982. It was clear that the IRS
was not going to simply roll over on its back and say, well, hey, if you
guys say that these trademarks that have been donated to the RTC are
worth 42 and a half million dollars, or whatever the appropriate dollar
figure would be to have offset the taxes, if you guys say that they are
worth that much, that's good enough for us. The RTC, was going to have
to demonstrate in some sort of a real way that it really was in control
of the trademarks, that it was more than just a paper transaction and
two, that those trademarks really did have some significant value.
So, the first step that was done in early 1982 was to put together
all new paper work for the Class 4 Churches and above. What was done
there was to make the RTC, essentially the senior management
organization, responsible for the activities for all of these class 4
orgs, and that paper work gave the RTC sweeping powers over the
Churches.
They could send groups of individuals into a church, the books
could be examined, the Pre Clear folders could be examined, the personal
space could be inspected, personnel could be pulled in and sec checked
and otherwise handled. Nothing essentially could be done to stop those
activities from going on. None-the-less, it was well understood that
the RTC was to benefit the Church so, the resistance to this was not
terribly great. An additional portion of the gross income of each
church was also to be paid to the RTC in exchange for that organizations
being allowed to use the trademarks. My information is that, there was
an additional 5 percent of the gross income.
Once that was complete, apparently in the spring of 1982, work
began to relicense all the Missions on a worldwide basis. That is a bit
more difficult a task because missions exist in many more locations than
class 4 orgs and above. And the paper work had to be constructed in
such a way, that it would be legally usable in every locale.
That was a considerable task and they worked during the bulk of the
summer to get that paper work together. In the early fall, around the
beginning of Sept, the new mission charters were mailed out to all the
missions on a worldwide basis. This consisted of a new charter that
made the mission subservient to the RTC and new papers that had to be
filed with the state or federal government, depending on where each
particular mission was located. A time machine was also sent along with
these papers, that they were to be signed by the mission holders and
filed with the state, Let us say, certified copies were to be received
back and forwarded to the RTC. All this was to be done by Oct 1, 1982.
Compliance was pretty good. It wasn't really clear what this RTC
was all about during the period of time but, the changing of mission
incorporation paper work was fairly routine. It had happened any number
of times over the past years and nobody gave a whole lot of credence to
it. There were a few missions holders who had apparently read these
materials carefully and had some objections, but, some fairly heavy
handed tactics from the RTC got those papers filed and forwarded it in.
The stragglers were gathered up and, for the most part, all of the
papers that could be expected to be gotten were indeed gathered all
together by 14 Oct 1982.
Within 72 hours the infamous San Francisco mission holders meeting
was held.
It is worthwhile to know that a complete transcript was made of
that meeting and was published and I invite you to try and get a hold of
a copy of that because it makes good reading. I would also, however, be
cautious because there are two versions of it. There is a very severely
pared down edited version and there is quite a long version that's
perhaps 40, or even 50, pages long. That's the one you want to see
because the content of that meeting is pretty scary.
Mission holders are told that if they don't comply with what the
RTC says, and what the RTC says is source, that their right to use the
Tech, the rights to call themselves Scientologists or be Scientology
missions, will be simply canceled. If they don't comply with those
cancellation orders, individual mission holders will be either civilly
or criminally prosecuted, or both, and there were a variety of threats,
to throw them into jail and other activities of that kind.
In addition to all of this activity, groups of individuals are
going to be sent around to investigate the missions. They are going to
look into their books, review their tech and so forth, and each mission
holder is going to have to pay for the privilege for having this done.
The tariff for doing this is going to be exactly 15,000.00 dollars per
day, payable in advance, in cash.
The mission holders meeting then ended and the individual mission
holders went back to their missions and these teams of investigators
came to the missions as promised. They arrived, they charged the fees
that they said they were going to charge, and within 10 days after that
meeting was completed the RTC and the people doing those investigations
had collected in excess of 2 million dollars in cash.
25 missions of the 98 missions in the U.S. network either defected,
that is, left the Church, or were bankrupt and closed their doors. The
Westwood mission, here in the Los Angeles area, was severely hit.
Literally every dollar from every bank account they have was taken out
and given to the RTC, and/or these teams of investigators, either in
fees or in fines. In addition, an agreement had been made previously
that those missions that had been chartered prior to SMI (Scientology
Missions International) would be allowed to keep their charters and they
would not have to buy a new charter from SMI. That agreement was
canceled and all of those missions previously chartered now have to buy
new charters at 35,000.00 dollars each. The Westwood mission ended up
with fines of approximately 30,000.00 dollars, plus having to buy the
new charter at 35,000.00 dollars, bringing its total fees to 65,000.00
dollars. That was a financial burden that that group has yet to recover
from.
They lost their ability to advertise, the staff went on half or no
pay and it's been financially rollercoastering, or very rocky ever
since. Other missions found themselves in similar positions of either
financially exhausted or administratively shocked as a result of what
had occurred. But, the mission network was now thoroughly under the
control of the RTC and its enforcement arms, the financial police, was
run by the financial dictator, a young man whose name is Wendell
Reynolds.
The next target of these individuals was the field auditors. These
were groups of people that were using scientology trademarks without
paying their fair share. A meeting was called in Dec. in Los Angeles to
gather all the field auditors together to announce the fact that a major
campaign was being launched to license all the field auditors into an
organization called I HELP.
I HELP stands for the International Hubbard Ecclesiastical League
of Pastors. This was to be the licensing body for field auditors and
the requirements for membership in I HELP were: a 100 dollar per year
membership fee, plus 10 per cent of one's gross income as an auditor,
again, payable to I HELP. That would make you a member in good
standing. Additionally, you had weekly stat sheets that you were to
fill out and you had to sign a contract to I HELP, canceling all of your
previous agreements with the Church and with L Ron Hubbard, and stating
that you acknowledge the RTC, essentially as the holder of the
trademarks and as the senior organizing body over the I HELP network of
auditors.
The meeting in Los Angeles was held in Levinen (sic) Hall, and it
was very well attended. Estimates range from 300 to 600 people
attending and, when the meeting began, a question was asked, "How many
people in the hall were field auditors?" Virtually every hand in the
hall was raised. During the course of the meeting, field auditors were
told that I HELP was going to stamp out squirreling and if you knew of
somebody who was squirreling and couldn't get fast enough action from
the Church you were empowered at this point to take that person out into
an alley and, if you will, explain it to them by hand. This kind of
vigilante ethics did not sit well with the field auditors and you could
tell, I could tell, sitting in that meeting that discontent growing
amongst the group.
They were additionally told that if they failed to comply with I
HELP, if they failed to make folders available when they were demanded,
to pay their fees and so forth, that they would be civilly and
ultimately criminally prosecuted. Once again, this did not exactly
bring in everyones good indicators. About two thirds through the
meeting another question was raised, "How many people here are field
auditors?", and looking around the room, it appeared that less than a
dozen people raised their hands. So, there was a considerable change in
the number of field auditors present just during the course of the
meeting. None-the-less, the I HELP plans went forward, that meeting
ended, and various people who had indicated they were field auditors
were given copies of the contract and told to sign them on the spot.
Subsequently, people have smuggled copies of the contracts out and
they are available to read. They make very interesting reading indeed.
What they demonstrate is that the RTC is indeed in charge of the Church
and via their various enforcement arms, can indeed fine, and otherwise
prosecute, or go against field auditors. As a matter of fact, I'm
acquainted with a field auditor who was handled in this fashion. He was
called into a local org. He was told he had been investigated and found
to be the center of a certain amount of discontent in the community, and
that he was going to be looked into. He was taken to his office with
five members of the finance police and others. He was what I call 'gang
sec' checked, that is, he was taken into a room and sec checked by more
than one person at a time.
While that was going on, his personal files and all the materials
in his office were searched and at the time that the sec check was
completed, it was announced to him that he owed the Church fines in
excess of $30,000.00. One of the fines that was levied against him was
for committing the following heinous act: He had two pre clears on his
lines, one of whom was in the business of arranging tax shelters, and
the other was in the business of drilling for oil. These two
individuals were introduced to one another on a social basis. In
discussing what they did for a living and so forth came to an agreement,
where by they would make a tax sheltered oil drilling program together.
Some money was invested in putting this program together and this field
auditor was told this was illegal, that these individuals should have
been putting that money on the bridge. His having introduced them
consequently was a crime and he was expected to pay a fine as a result
for doing so.
So, I HELP did not become a terribly popular group in Los Angeles.
I don't know specifically of other instances of this type but, I have
heard stories that such things have occurred. The one I just related to
you, I know about very specifically.
During this period of time, as you might imagine, mission
statistics crashed. Now the LRH Birthday Game, which was due to expire
on Mar 9, 1983, based on LRH ED ((Executive Directive)) 339-1, dictated
that the orgs were to expand by 5.4 times prior to that date. This was
the Birthday Game target, and the crash of the mission stats didn't do
that any good. A telex was sent to Los Angeles, to the finance police
and others, saying that 250 people were to be gotten to Flag before
March 9, 1982. Someone came up with a bright idea: let's get a hold of
people in the field, the idea went, who have large followings of
individuals, and we will use those people to help reg these followings
and get them off to Flag.
The first person that was approached in this regard was a man named
Richard Stewart. He had quite a large number of people that were part
of, or had participated in, seminars and courses that he had given on
financial management in one guise or another. He had given a course on
How to Manage Real Estate, or How To Invest in Real Estate, a course on
How to Be a Millionaire and things of that nature. Richard Stewart was
asked to cooperate in this venture, to essentially pull his entire staff
off their daily work and put them to work on this regging program.
When he declined, although not unpleasantly declined, he was
nonetheless accused of being a squirrel. He was ganged sec checked in
his offices and his entire staff was called together and told that
Richard Stewart had duped them, that he was a squirrel and a bad guy and
that each and everyone of these staff members had the responsibility to
get busy and gather together every single person who had ever taken a
Richard Stewart course and each and everyone of those individuals would
have to go to Flag and do the Keeping Scientology Working course. Now a
number of individuals asked why it was necessary to go to Flag to do the
Keeping Scientology working course, when there were at least 4 major
orgs right here in the Los Angeles area.
The reasons that they were told was that the Los Angeles area was
significantly out tech, in that Richard Stewart had been allowed to
operate in this environment and no one had written up reports to stamp
out his squirreling. Additionally, they were told that, because the
tech was so far out, they would have to go to Flag to be in the
appropriate environment to receive this tech upgrade, if you will.
Several individuals raised the question as to whether or not it wouldn't
be more cost effective to bring supervisors from Flag here to Los
Angeles, since there were 200 or 300 people in need of this course and
wouldn't it be more cost effective to do it that way, given that a
Scientologist ordinarily gets more case gain from auditing and training
than from air fare. It seemed worth while to put the airline ticket
money on the bridge as opposed to giving it to, let's say, National
Airlines.
That idea was refused as well. Of course, it's very clear why.
The idea was to get these people to Flag, to have them buying services
at Flag, buying accommodations at Flag. And many of them, if they
complained even in the least bit, were immediately put onto sec checks.
That money that they had set aside for auditing was used to check out to
see if they had overts and that's why perhaps they were complaining.
Many, many thousands of dollars were consumed in doing unnecessary sec
checks on people at Flag; although, you may be able to get some argument
as to whether they were necessary, speaking to a number of people that
went and actually had them, they were quite sure that they were
unnecessary.
The target apparently for this program was to collect 3.8 million
dollars at Flag. According to an interview that an individual I spoke
to had with a registrar at Flag, this program fell short by about a
million dollars but, was none the less successful to the degree of
collecting over 2 and a half million dollars.
The mood in the Los Angeles area became very frightened. Other
individuals in the area were similarly approached by the finance police.
A doctor, a chiropractor, a health specialist, were all approached.
Their people were pulled in, they were told that these individuals had
been squirreling, or were otherwise altering the tech and individuals
from those groups were ordered to go off to Flag and do the Keeping
Scientology Working course as well.
Some were intimidated, many were told they would not be permitted
to return to the bridge at all if they failed to comply with these
orders. So there was a considerable atmosphere of fear generated and to
this day the atmosphere has not diminished.
Now, there were still of group of Scientologists that were not
paying their fair share to the RTC and/or Church organizations of one
kind or another. That was those people who owned businesses. So, the
World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE, as it's commonly
called, was beefed up. A new ED International was appointed to WISE,
and WISE was put on a program to sign up Scientology businessmen to pay
their appropriate tithe. The tithe was to be a yearly membership fee of
$250.00 and 6 percent of the gross income of the business, plus 7
percent of the net income of the business.
As you might imagine several of the businessmen that were
approached in this regard were not delighted. This particular policy of
putting these people under contract to do that is currently under
review. We're not sure whether they're going to continue to pursue that
or not. The amount of anger that that generated was immeasurable. An
additional program was under consideration and was actually begun
apparently in one location, where simply Scientologists who worked for a
living were told that they were to pay 7 percent of their gross income
as a tithe, because, it went on to say, they were using Scientology in
their lives on an everyday basis and would not be doing as well as they
were doing were it not for that.
Well, that pretty much summarizes the down side of what has
happened. I think it brings together a number of the pieces of this
story, to let you know in part what has happened to bring this new
management into power. The new management bases its power on its
ability to manage the comm lines to and from Ron. The people managing
those comm lines are three: Annie and Pat Broeker and David Miscavige.
Those communication lines are their power base. Those three individuals
have been appointed the trustees of LRH's estate. Each one of them is
to receive a fee of 5 percent of the total amount of the trust as a
trustee's payment, if you will, for being responsible for that
particular task. Obviously there's a considerable financial incentive
for them to stay in that position. The finance police, and its man
manhandling of the Scientology public, has been principally, to the best
of our ability to understand it, a grab to increase the sizes of those
trusts and to increase the Church's monetary power on a worldwide basis.
Recently, on June 12, 1983, to be precise, the existence of the
Religious Research Foundation was exposed in the St Petersburg Times at
St. Petersburg, Florida. In that article, it was revealed that certain
monies from the Religious Research Foundation were being paid to LRH
personally. That would be what is called in tax parlance, inurement.
Inurement is the passing of money from a non-profit corporation into the
benefit of a private person beyond simply that person being on staff and
receiving a salary. Inurement is adequate evidence to lose tax exempt
status and the Church is apparently in considerable danger as a result.
If the IRS finds against the Church, and that finding could be based on
the fact that Ron himself received substantial amounts of money, that
could cause the Church literally tens of millions of dollars in back
taxes.
Now, there was a tax case filed against the Church in 1973, or
based upon the 1973/74 tax year. That case was lost and in 1980, in the
early part of the year, a lien was placed on the complex of buildings in
Los Angeles, commonly known as the blue buildings. A lien was placed
for 6 million dollars as a tax lien against those buildings pending the
outcome of the appeals on that case. It would not be unlikely to expect
that the IRS would take the Church into court and try to enforce further
tax liens for other tax years based on the fact that this personal
inurement has allegedly occurred.
The Church's response to this potential tax liability has been to
mortgage the various properties it owns, the buildings in Florida, the
Flag Land Base, the Miami Org, the Clearwater buildings and other
buildings there, our investigations have revealed, have been quite
heavily mortgaged recently. We have learned that other Church buildings
around the country have also been mortgaged. The purpose in doing that
of course is if a tax lien is filed and the property is mortgaged,
there's no value in the property that can be seized, the worth of the
property has been taken out. What the IRS in this instance essentially
is liening is the mortgage as opposed to value of the real property.
So, the pressures that have been brought to bear on the Church
financially, tax wise, politically and so forth, have changed the
atmosphere in the Church. Certainly it is no surprise to anybody that's
been active on Church lines recently, particularly in the Los Angeles
area, that ethics is very very heavy; that security is very very heavy;
that the Church seems to be in an attitude, over all, very worried about
it's survival. I think there's good reasons for it to be worried about
it's survival and it's time now to begin to look at what alternatives
are present for those individuals that want to progress up the bridge,
who do not want to have to take Scientology services under the kinds of
oppressions that we've been talking about and to pay the kinds of prices
for services that the Church has apparently been forced to charge.
So, there's good news and there's bad news. Well, you've heard the
bad news. Now let's take a few moments and talk about the good news.
First of all there are any number of places where one can do the
Scientology bridge. All around the country there are field auditors and
small groups that have sprung up, that can offer the lower parts of the
bridge, the Clearing Course and the OT levels. Such groups are not, to
the group, absolutely standard. There are some that are good and some
that are bad. Scientologists now have a new responsibility, those that
want to continue in what we call, alternative Scientology settings, and
that is they have to look into them in much the way as they would have
to look into a doctor or a dentist. They have to check the individual
or group out that they may want to become associated with, to examine
the tech for themselves, to be sure that the auditing and training that
is going on in that location is standard and to make rational choices in
that regard.
It has been certainly convenient over the years to be able to
assign that responsibility to the Church. I certainly have seen
evidence of the failure of the execution of that responsibility and I
think it may be a boon to all of us to reassume that responsibility,
each one of us for ourselves.
There are new Churches springing up around the country all the
time. David Mayo and his associates have founded a new church in the
Riverside area; Bent Corydon and his associates have founded the Church
of Scio Logos and they are delivering services, in the Sacramento area
Marvin Price and his Personal Ability Center, or Advanced Awareness
Center, I've forgotten the name precisely, are busy and actively moving
Scientologists up the bridge at reasonable prices. These kinds of
alternatives are available all around the country. It is felt among
these groups that the reason these abuses, that we've talked about here,
have been able to occur is because the Church has had a monopoly, and it
has been their intention generally to help to break down that monopoly.
It has been my experience that these groups are not in a games
condition with the Church. They are not trying to get out there and do
the Church in. Parenthetically, I don't think that any body could do a
better job at that than the Church itself is doing at the moment. But,
the point is, is that we all want to get people up the bridge. We all
want to clear the planet, we all want to achieve the goals that we set
out to achieve when we got into Scientology. And it is not necessary to
fight with the Church, to unmock the Church if you will, in order to do
that.
There are only certain pressures that really affect the Church in
any way meaningful. Of course Ron himself is a pressure, the market
place, how much money is available in the market place, is the other
pressure. And since it has been impossible to get meaningful
communications back and forth to Ron, and since the internal struggles
of the Church as a whole have been controlled by this new group of
managers, the only pressure that really is effective against the Church,
at this point, is the market place pressure.
And frankly, the ideal scene as far as everybody in the field is
concerned over all, would be for the Church to examine the popularity
and the strength of what's going on in the field, to realize that the
tech can be delivered by any number of people, to come it its senses
economically, and to begin to bring the Church back together again,
rather than simply attacking and throwing away everyone that has an
alternate idea. And you will find that in these alternate groups,
freedom is the watch word and it's very difficult to advocate total
freedom in an environment of enormous suppression and oppression. And
the alternative groups we have found, for the most part, offer
Scientology in a much less oppressive environment. And we invite you to
have a look around and see what's going on in your area, to take some
time to investigate the things that have been said on these tapes.
There is an enormous amount of documentation to go along with the
things that have been said and that documentation is widely available.
So, I would invite you to do so. Certainly, be as skeptical as you
would be if you were buying a used car. Perhaps, many of us have made
the mistake early on of becoming involved in Scientology, in adopting
attitudes and viewpoints, without taking the time to seriously consider
the ramifications of that. And this is not a time to repeat that
mistake.
Jon Zegel
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Homer Wilson Smith This file may be found at
homer@rahul.net ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/act/ZEGEL1.MEMO
Posted to usenet newsgroup: alt.clearing.technology
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