Yesterday, we brought you the news of the latest bizarre Scientology ambush — in this case, by a group of “Sea Org” workers swarming former church member Marc Headley, who was at Scientology’s International Base in Southern California with a Danish television crew.
We had a feeling the story might have legs because just a few weeks earlier, a similar ambush — of Marty Rathbun at an LAX terminal — had produced a video that was widely picked up by the media.
The three short videos Marc gave us that we published on our YouTube channel featured wild-eyed Scientologists making bizarre arguments in an aggressive style — just like in the Rathbun video. Marc also sent us a lengthy narrative about what had happened leading up to the videos and who was in them. Most prominently featured was a woman named Catherine Fraser, who had been married to Jefferson Hawkins, and who had appeared on behalf of the church in a 2010 Anderson Cooper special on CNN.
Sure enough, our story was picked up by one of the publications that tends to keep an eye on the Underground Bunker — the International Business Times, a website that’s been around since 2005 (and has some interesting ownership). We were happy to see the IBTimes pick up the story — it posted our videos and mentioned the Bunker in a link, which we always appreciate.
Later in the day, the IBTimes also received a response from Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw. And that’s when things got ugly.
“According to the church, Headley did not voluntarily leave the church but was expelled ‘following the discovery of his involvement in theft of Church equipment and selling it on eBay,’ Church of Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw told IBTimes in an email.”
There are a couple of problems with this statement by Pouw. First, if you’ve read Headley’s 2009 book, Blown For Good, you know that he goes into some detail about the eBay accusation. While he was a Sea Org member at Int Base, Headley was a skilled technical worker who was responsible for complex audiovisual projects that required occasional equipment upgrades. He writes that he was encouraged to raise funds for these projects by putting outdated base equipment on eBay, using his personal account. And that practice only became controversial after Headley defected by escaping from the base.
But more importantly, it’s rich for Pouw to say that Headley was “expelled.” If the IBTimes had asked Headley, he could have told the website that he has a copy of his “declare order” from the church, a document which formally announces his excommunication because he left the base without authorization when he escaped from the compound in January 2005.
Instead of asking for Headley’s response, Marc was quoted from the account he had already given us about his experience Monday at the base.
But here’s what Headley tells us he would have said to the IBTimes if he’d been asked…
Catherine Fraser clearly said in the videos from the other night that I escaped. Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw and Cathy need to get their stories straight. In their own document, called a “Suppressive Person Declare,” it states that I “deserted.” It was clear to one and all that I escaped. These are the actual documents that Scientology gave me after we escaped and refused to come back.
They continue to claim mysterious “equipment” was stolen, and yet none was ever documented as stolen and no police reports were filed nor were any charges ever filed. The only police reports that exist regarding me and Scientology are the ones filed by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department when it helped me escape from the Scientology headquarters in January 2005.
In 2006, when I first started exposing the abuse being committed at Int Base, Scientology claimed that these were all lies. I wrote about the violent “Musical Chairs” incident, the practice of people being thrown into dirty lakes, people being thrown into pools in the middle of the night and many other examples of David Miscavige’s violent temper and abuse towards staff. Scientology categorically denied these incidents ever occurred. As the years went on and more former employees came forward, more of these incidents were not only confirmed, but many of the staff who defected were present for many of these incidents that I wrote about.
In 2009, after an exhaustive investigative multi-part story by the Tampa Bay Times, Scientology finally admitted that many of these incidents did in fact occur and that David Miscavige was in fact involved and directed many of these “ecclesiastical justice procedures.” He was too busy to answer interview requests or show up to legal depositions, but he had enough time to throw people into cold pools at three in the morning.
Scientology has a very long history of struggling with the truth. This has been documented time and time again since the 1950s. In fact this is the same organization that perpetrated the largest single infiltration into the US government in its history. What was the the purpose of that infiltration? To remove all of the evidence of criminal activity as documented by the US government in order to rewrite Scientology’s criminal history.
It is not news that Scientology is attempting to rewrite history in regards to their activities. This has been its standard operating procedure for over 60 years.
In light of the multiple ongoing exposes concerning Scientology, you will undoubtedly see more and more squirming from Scientology’s mouthpieces, along with attempts to twist and turn things.
One of the reasons that these videos are so popular is that they show behavior that is hard to reconcile. Why would these Scientologists act so bizarrely when they were being watched by a Danish TV crew, and it was just weeks after the LAX debacle had resulted in so much bad press?
Former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder says the things we see in these videos make perfect sense if you keep in mind who these officials are really playing to: Scientology leader David Miscavige, known as “COB” for “Chairman of the Board”…
It’s so funny to watch Catherine Fraser and company carrying out the latest Miscavige “strategy.” Cathy knows this is going to look like shit, but the only audience any of these people care about is “COB.” They couldn’t care less what is said about them on the Internet. Or that it gets picked up in media around the world.
Miscavige probably told them all that he is tired of being the “only one” having to defend against the squirrels [Scientology jargon for heretics], and nobody ever does anything about them and they just keep attacking him. And then he pulls out one of his favorite L. Ron Hubbard references that says you tell an SP “No” and he “shatters.” And he hammers them on this and how they are all “too scared and PTS to confront anyone.”
So, they go out and do this sort of thing to try and impress him. Until it turns into a media shitstorm and then he will blame them, and come up with a reason they fucked it up. This is likely why you heard Cathy saying “this is our personal message to you” because Miscavige in his infinite wisdom told Jenny and Yager [Jenny Linson Devocht and Marc Yager, who ambushed Rathbun at LAX] what fuckups they were because they didn’t make it “personal to them” but came across like they were acting for the church. Or something equally as idiotic.
Anyway, as usual, video and comedy gold.
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Israel TV covers the Lembergers’ lawsuit
The Back in Comm blog in South Africa posted a really fine Israeli TV treatment of the Dani and Tami Lemberger story. We first wrote at length about the Lembergers in 2012, when they rebelled against Scientology, declaring their entire Haifa mission an “independent Scientology” breakaway. Last month, they filed a lawsuit against the church, and alleged that they have been harassed for leaving the church, including being targeted with private information they had divulged during Scientology confessionals. Those allegations and much more comes up in this very good television mini-documentary by journalist Yinon Milles…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 10, 2014 at 07:00
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