Testimony by the World’s First Real Clear, part two: ‘Scientology is designed to entrap people’

Today we’re continuing to bring you highlights from a stunning new document found by historian Chris Owen, a 30-page affidavit by the “World’s first real Clear” — John McMaster. After our highlights, we’re posting the entire document in text and pdf forms.

 
The Sea Org was billed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard as a fraternal order of the most dedicated Scientologists, equipped with the most advanced training and ready to bring Scientology to a needy planet. What John McMaster and others found, however, was an oppressive environment in which arbitrary, sometimes sadistic punishments were routine.

McMaster had risen to prominence as one of Scientology’s most effective spokesmen. When he joined the Sea Org in 1969, he was confronted with Hubbard’s unrestrained authoritarianism and the harsh system of “Ethics” created to enforce Hubbard’s will. He became one of the many Sea Org members who found the contradictions between Hubbard’s humanitarian promises and the reality of life aboard Hubbard’s motley fleet too much to bear. McMaster fled from the Sea Org and continued to believe in Scientology for a while, but rejected Hubbard’s leadership and his Ethics system. He was expelled from Scientology in 1971.

In today’s installment of McMaster’s previously unpublished testimony, he tells the story of his experiences with the Sea Org and his disillusionment with Hubbard. He also highlights what happened after he left the Sea Org, including Scientology’s unsuccessful attempts to get him to return and apparent subsequent efforts to discredit him. McMaster was not deterred and continued to speak out against Scientology until his untimely death in 1992.

— Chris Owen

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THE MCMASTER STATEMENT, PART TWO

Yesterday, we posted highlights from the first half of John McMaster’s 30-page 1977 affidavit about his Scientology experience. When we left off, he had just joined L. Ron Hubbard’s new experiment with the “Sea Org,” taking the running of Scientology to a former cattle ferry ultimately renamed the “Apollo.”

For some weeks the vessel was in Southampton Harbour whilst Hubbard was attempting to get permission to sail. During that time Mary Sue and the rest of the family arrived. Full permission was never granted to sail but one night the vessel put to sea. The permission, so far as it went, was for the vessel to proceed to Brest on the French coast. However, Hubbard decided to get to Gibraltar where we were turned away. We were turned away from Valencia, Monte Carlo and, some weeks later, we were allowed to dock at Cagliari in Sardinia. We were virtually pirates at sea…. I should perhaps add that prior to the vessel sailing from Southampton I was required to do all manner of menial work in addition to cleaning out the cattle-holds which I have previously described. I was required to clean out cabins, bathrooms, toilets and the like. I was also required to scrub floors, decks and stairs and generally to act as the lowest form of steward. The other members of the staff were also required to do chores but not of the menial nature which I was required to undertake. It seemed to be a psychological process. Other members of the staff were being elevated whilst I was required to do the lowliest form of work. It was about this time that Hubbard said to me, in the presence of other members of the staff, that J.J. Delance was in charge of technology at Saint Hill and if anything went wrong there he held me as a hostage aboard the ship. I would explain that J.J. Delance was a great friend of mine who had assisted me and acted as my deputy when I was in charge of technology. We had been close friends and had shared the same flat. Accusations had constantly been made by Mary Sue Hubbard that J.J. Delance and I were lovers but this was not so. For practical purposes I acted as chambermaid to the new students who had joined the vessel and who had paid high fees for the Courses which they were to receive. The position changed radically however when the vessel left Southampton. The students themselves were then required to work and do menial tasks the same as I. They were in fact prisoners on board the vessel. In fact when it ultimately docked at Cagliari many of the people who had enlisted as students left the vessel on some pretext or other and never returned.

McMaster was still in close proximity to Hubbard during the Apollo‘s voyage…

During the course of the voyage Hubbard and I had various conversations and on three occasions he screamed at me “You stand for total love across this planet and I stand for total evil. If I could just make you totally vicious.” This sort of statement indicates the temperament of the person in question whom I regard as a paranoic. On the second occasion he said it I replied “What are you worried about? I’ll take your love to the world.” Finally there was peace between us again and in January 1968 he sent me travelling again to do a world tour of all the Scientology Organisations and to give his love to the world. This I was happy to do and I made sure that I gave only his love and the product of it. In other words I did not broadcast the horrible things or the bad side of his nature. I completed the tour by late July 1968. The tour was a great success and as a result many, many more students enrolled at Saint Hill Manor. To recognize my [ ] I was given a set of expensive golf-clubs by the Saint Hill Organisation. This was an unusual gesture indeed. By this time the premises at Saint Hill Manor had been purchased by the Saint Hill Organisation from L. Ron Hubbard. The price paid to Hubbard for the premises was in the region of £100,000. Initially the premises had been acquired by Hubbard for the sum of £14,000 but I have, on good authority, information to the effect that the sum of £14,000 was provided not by Hubbard but by an adherent of the Movement.

That £100,000 for Saint Hill Manor in 1968 would equal £1.63 million today (or about $2.2 million), not bad if the original investment was only £14,000 in 1959 (about £306,000 today) but especially if it was paid by someone else!

After his tour, McMaster returned to the Apollo and was very concerned by what he found.

I returned to the flag-ship via another vessel, the “Avon River,” and when I arrived on the flag-ship, which was then still called the “Royal Scotsman.” I was appalled at what I saw. Members of staff and students alike all appeared to have the jitters. The atmosphere of the ship seemed to be positively electric. One could sense the tension in the atmosphere. On my arrival on board people whom I knew came up to me and said “Thank goodness you are back, John, we feel safe now.” These observations filtered back to Hubbard, and I know this from remarks he subsequently made, and he demeaned me in as many ways as he could. I was subjected to extensive security checks, carried out on the E-Meter and I subsequently learned that he said to others “What on earth am I going to do with that fagot priest?” The word “fagot” in America has some special homosexual connotation.

Hubbard, however, continued to send McMaster where he needed to put out fires, sending him to Saint Hill, where sales figures were collapsing, and then back to the ship for the start of the infamous Class 8 course while it was docked in Greece. At that point, McMaster learned something about the sheer amount of cash that was going to Hubbard.

This Course was to be run on the flag-ship in Corfu and was ostensibly to give a new standard of technology. Hubbard ordered two people from every Organisation in the world to attend the Course and the different Organisations had to send some thousands of dollars in advance by way of fees for the privilege of carrying out his orders. This again meant that huge sums of money were paid direct to Hubbard. I was at that time particularly friendly with a Joan Bristow who acted as Hubbard’s personal steward. Joan Bristow also acted as Hubbard’s personal nurse because she was by profession a nursing sister. It was Joan’s practice to visit my cabin about 2 o’clock each morning for coffee. Our relationship developed from the fact that we were both from Durban, South Africa. In the course of these chats Joan Bristow told me of an incident concerning the money brought to the vessel in connection with the Class 8 Course. Apparently the steward had been cleaning Hubbard’s cabin and when he entered his face went ashen and he said “My god, the money, the money.” Joan Bristow was immediately summoned only to discover that the steward, in the course of cleaning the cabin, had pushed bags containing money further under the bunk than they were usually placed. By reason of this they had escaped Hubbard’s notice. Joan Bristow told me that the bags were full of currency which had been brought to the vessel in payment for the Class 8 Courses. Not only did the money represent payment for the Class 8 Courses but money for other Courses and apparently the cash had been accumulating or some time.

McMaster didn’t think much about the vaunted Class 8 course, during which Hubbard revealed the secrets of OT 3, the story of “Xenu” the galactic overlord…

It soon became apparent to me that the stated purpose of running the Class 8 Course was a gimmick. Hubbard’s real intentions were to install, by means of his savage ethics, subliminal circuitry. This is to say his object was to achieve a state of mind in each of the students whereby they thought of nothing other than the Hubbard policies. The students on the Class 8 Course would ultimately be despatched to different parts of the world where they in turn would instil the same thought processes in their students. It was therefore like an ever-spreading cancer.

Punishment for not keeping up during the Class 8 course was shockingly severe…

One of the punishments which Hubbard meted out under the guise of ethics was to throw students overboard for any errors they made on the Course. Every morning the students on the Course were paraded on the deck and those unfortunates who had allegedly made errors were thrown overboard. This amounted to 30 or 40 people being thrown overboard every day for several weeks. It caused such a commotion that Greek officials complained. The ages of the unfortunate students who were thrown overboard varied considerably from young up to late middle-age. I recall the case of one middle-aged lady who was thrown overboard and in the course of her falling her leg struck the side of the vessel and was lacerated by barnacles. As a result she had to have medical attention. The name of this lady was Julia Salmen. She came from Los Angeles. There was another lady in her late 30s or early 40s who became completely psychotic as a result of being thrown overboard. This practice induced a state of terror in the students. I personally was thrown overboard four times with my legs tied together and my hands tied together, and I am convinced it was just for the purpose of degradation because I had not made any error on the Course.

McMaster came to believe that overboarding was basically a form of gaslighting, intended to mess people up mentally and make them even more suggestible…

After each of the occasions on which I was thrown overboard I was summoned to Hubbard’s office for a talk with him privately and every time he apologised profusely saying that he had been the victim of false reports and pleaded for my forgiveness. It is significant however that there were never any witnesses present. It was rather like psychological warfare. One would think that they had done well on the Course the previous day, but the next morning would be pitched into the water. This practice quite clearly induced a state of shock in the persons who had been subjected to the penalty and they then became more amenable for indoctrination. By and large all the Class 8 students were treated in this way together also with members of the crew and children on board. One of the children, namely John Payer, suffered meningitis after having been thrown in the water but fortunately recovered therefrom. The lad was only five or six years old. The overall effect upon everyone on board was that they wandered around in a state of electronic jitter which condition seemed to pass from one to another like contagious spiritual disease.

In other orgs, where they didn’t have a ship to throw people from, ethics officers got creative about how to “overboard” wayward students. In New York, students were being forced into baths filled with dirty water. In Miami, ethics thugs were dunking people headfirst into toilets and flushing.

The combination of harsh punishments, long hours, and constant fear were all part of the same purposeful program, he says.

By this time it had become perfectly obvious that Ron L. Hubbard had made his savage Ethics System and Scientology more important than the function of auditing. To this extent he had killed the only thing of any lasting value associated with Scientology. I have already earlier in this statement expressed my views as to the beneficial effects of auditing. One thing is quite clear – it cannot be properly conducted under the presence of coercion or fear which was precisely the situation Hubbard was inducing by this savage Ethics System. It seemed to me that he was merely using the valuable Science of Auditing as an entry point to bring about, through brain-washing, an Organisation of highly circuitrised spiritual robots.

So why didn’t people leave? Part of the game was to keep people not only without sleep, but also to make sure they had little money — or possession of their passports.

We were all trapped on board ship in a foreign country by the simple expedient of having had our passports taken away. Moreoever, we were paid very low wages and literally were always without money. In such circumstances any attempt to leave the ship would have been futile. Nevertheless, certain brave souls did make the attempt. More often than not they did not get beyond Customs by reason of the fact that they did not have a passport. If they succeeded in overcoming this hurdle and got as far as their particular Embassy, Hubbard would deal with the position by sending well-dressed representatives who would merely report to the Embassy that the people in question had been guilty of theft on board ship or some such thing.

McMaster himself was used in one of these ploys, which he was still livid about years later…

I remember in particular the case of Mrs. Pat Lipsitz which occurred in October/November 1968, just before I went to America. She was an English lady and, I believe, had lived somewhere near Saint Hill Manor. She had undergone punishment by being put into the chain-locker and separated from her 18 month old baby. The baby may even have been younger. When Mrs. Lipsitz emerged from the chain-locker she was in a state of terror and immediately grabbed her child and left the ship and ran through the Port Authorities. At that time I had been given the post of Chaplain of the ship. I was requested, in that capacity, to go and track down Mrs. Lipsitz and bring her back to the ship. I said I would do so only on condition that no further punishment would be inflicted against this lady and that she would not be parted from her baby. This assurance was given to me. I accordingly then left the ship and ultimately traced Mrs. Lipsitz to the English Consulate. After speaking with me she agreed to return to the vessel. To my horror when she did so she was immediately separated from her baby and once more put into the chain-locker.

In November 1968, Hubbard sent McMaster on a new mission, to try and influence the United Nations. Although Hubbard’s plan — to get a member nation to denounce the World Federation of Mental Health — didn’t succeed, McMaster did make progress lobbying individual staff members at the UN.

The Mission became more and more successful and was then dubbed by Ron L. Hubbard “Permanent Mission U.N.” The purpose of the Permanent Mission was to create a safe space politically for Scientology and an unsafe space for psychiatry.

But as McMaster began to look back on his career in Scientology, he realized that it contained more abuse than any of the organizations he was trying to influence.

I recognise now that I was just a means of recruiting vast numbers to the Organisation which inevitably meant vast income to the Organisation by reason of the fees paid by the new-comers. Substantial sums of money were paid by recruits and the standard of auditing was debased. That is to say, it was not used for its true purpose but merely to ensure enslavement of the adherents to Ron L. Hubbard.

McMaster was then asked by Hubbard to help with a project to influence an African nation. He doesn’t name it, but it sounds like the secret project involving Malawi that Chris reported on earlier for us. When that project stalled, Hubbard called McMaster back to the Apollo.

But this time, however, I had decided that I no longer wanted to be involved with L. Ron Hubbard’s political and international aspirations. Moreover, as I had no desire to return to the flag-ship, which had come to be no more than a floating insane asylum, I resigned from the Sea Org on 21st November 1969 by letter, but unfortunately I no longer have a copy thereof. I recall mentioning in my letter of resignation that one of my reasons for resigning was the hostility and violence which Scientology was generating. I mentioned, in particular, the murder of two young people, a boy and a girl both in their teens who met their deaths when returning home from a Scientology meeting in Los Angeles, California. Following my resignation members of the Sea Org infiltrated their way into my flat in New York. They entreated me to return to the flag-ship and made it clear that if I did not do so they would be the ones to suffer. Their representations varied from pleading with me to threatening me. I had been told that in the past the Organisation had resorted to drugging people to get them on to planes and ships and I was determined that this would not happen to me. Ultimately everyone fell asleep and I left the flat. I was taken in by friends who themselves received threatening calls from the Organisation. Ultimately, however, I managed to book a passage on the “Hellenic Pioneer,” a tramp ship, to South Africa. It was on this passage that I received a radio-telegram which I produce. The telegram was signed “Ann,” who was the Deputy Guardian in the United States. This radio-telegram was to the effect that one Bernard Green had published a distorted version of my letter of resignation. I did not believe this telegram because Bernard Green, the person alleged to have interfered with the letter, was in fact the person who had befriended me and given me shelter in his flat until my departure on the vessel. On arrival in South Africa I had every intention of building up auditing technology there. However, I learned from my step-mother that Durban was rife with wild and untrue rumours concerning me. They were to the effect that I had fallen into the hands of Communists in America, had been thoroughly brain-washed and was consorting with “junkies” and the like. I therefore kept clear of the Organisation in South Africa.

After his return home, McMaster continually received inquiries from people about returning to Scientology. One of them led to Scientology sending two auditors to his home in an attempt to get him to come back.

In fact the auditing transpired to be nothing more than a security check whereby an attempt was made to force me into confessing some crime by which I could be blackmailed. At about this time the Enquiry into Scientology in South Africa was underway and it is my firm belief that the Scientologists wanted to get some information by which they could blackmail me and prevent me from giving evidence. When I confronted the auditor with my suspicions and tried to leave, the auditor, who was a particularly large man, began to use physical strength to try to keep me in the auditing chair. I only managed to leave by telling the auditor that the Police were waiting outside and that if he did not let me go I would summon their assistance. That night a Mrs. Ela Mellet, who was the Assistant Guardian for the Church of Scientology in Durban, came around to my home in Durban to apologize for what happened. She appeared to be genuinely upset. I was subsequently asked by David Gaiman to return to Scientology but I refused to do so. This must have been in about June or July 1970. In April 1971, when I was back in the United States, I received a copy of my Expulsion Order from Scientology. This I now produce. It is dated 29th December 1969. As appears from the document, I am expelled for placing myself in a position of blackmail with homosexual relations. As I have previously said in this my Statement, I had volunteered information regarding my homosexual tendencies in the very early stages of my association with the Organisation. It is my firm belief that this document was only promulgated in 1971 by reason of the failure of the Scientology Organisation to persuade me to return to their fold.

McMaster then was subject to a campaign of what appeared to be a classic example of Scientology “Fair Game.” One incident happened in September 1971 in Los Angeles…

In the dead of night several people, dressed up in weird costumes similar to the Ku Klux Klan, came down the drive-way towards the house in which I was staying. Their faces were masked and they were carrying lighted candles. They were chanting “We want John McMaster dead.” They must have thought that I was alone, as they appeared quite startled when Phyllis McKee, a nurse whom I was auditing at the time, threw open the door to see what all the commotion was about. This, coupled with a seemingly vicious and growling attack by a dog which we kept, and who was normally quite friendly, caused the visitors to leave abruptly. The following morning I found a note to the effect that my night visitors were part of the Charles Manson “family.” At that time Charles Manson and company were in prison for various crimes they had committed. Although I had no proof I am convinced that my visitors were from the Scientology Organisation and that they sought to place the responsibility for what they might have done on the Charles Manson “family.” This conviction is supported to the extent that prior to the visit I had received a telephone call from a member of the Scientology Organisation who told me that he had overheard members of the Sea Org plotting to take some action against me. He did not tell me what action was planned, but he had heard conversation to the effect that now they had my telephone number they could “fix” me.

McMaster reported the incident to the local Sheriff’s department, but nothing came of it. He now realized that the Guardian’s Office (replaced later by the Office of Special Affairs) had unlimited resources for carrying out programs of retaliation against the church’s “enemies.”

The Guardian’s Office is in fact an elevated branch of the Ethics Organisation to which I have alluded earlier and which may be regarded as the secret Police or the law enforcement agency of the Scientology Organisation. Over the years, however, it has become apparent to me that the reasons given for the creation of the Guardian’s Office were just a gimmick, because the secret function of that Office is to attack the enemies of Scientology. Indeed if there were no enemies they must be created by the simple expedient of attack, attack, attack. The bigger the opposition the Ethics Organisation takes on the bigger the status they enjoy themselves. The Guardian’s Office has unlimited power within the Organisation and uses such power for the compilation of dossiers on students. Matters volunteered by students in the process of auditing are carefully scrutinised by the Guardian’s Office with a view to selecting items which could be used to the detriment of the student, if need be.

McMaster repeats that he’s seen the organization place spies in government agencies, and that although Hubbard and his wife Mary Sue claimed to no longer be in charge of the church, they certainly were.

At this point in the affidavit, having completed his own history, McMaster goes through some specific observations about how the organization works.

Scientology is designed to entrap people. A person comes for an auditing session. After the session he goes to the Examiner to attest that he feels better and has attained something. He is then routed to the Department of Success to write a success story. If he writes one then he goes on to the Registrar to be signed up for more Courses and the success story he has written commits him, as does his attestation. He is not allowed not to want to write a success story. If he does not he is sent to Review to see what is wrong and he has to pay for this. If he still does not want to write a success story he is sent to the Ethics Officer who, if he does not write a success story, degrades him by declaring him in Ethics Condition of Doubt. This is all learned very quickly by the people, so to save themselves trouble they write a success story and of course commit themselves. As and when they commit themselves they inevitably enter an obligation to pay for further and what are relatively expensive Courses. If they tell the Registrar that they are without funds then the Money Process is recommended. The Money Process is “mock-ups on ways to waste money.” This is run over and over until the person feels he has no stops on his money flow and probably goes laughing to the Registrar, after the Examiner and another success story, and signs up for everything and thus is committed to the Organisation. I have been present in the Organisation when this Money Process has been applied to people.

McMaster also goes through some of L. Ron Hubbard’s history and how it is covered up by the church.

L. Ron Hubbard has defined Scientology as “The Search for Truth,” but his own past is clouded in mystery and he has, to my knowledge, lied about his domestic life, his educational attainments, the sources of his income and his current relationship with the Scientology Organisations. Dealing first with his domestic life. Ron L. Hubbard, as the overlord of the Scientology Organisation, only acknowledges two marriages. The wife of his first marriage is dead and his present wife is Mary Sue Hubbard who is totally involved with the Organisation. In fact he has had at least three marriages to my own knowledge. He suppresses any information regarding his marriage to Mrs. Miles Hollister. There are two children of this marriage, a boy and a girl. The boy, Geoffrey, recently featured in a press report following his mysterious death. Because of Hubbard’s reluctance to acknowledge this marriage when appearing on a Television programme in 1968 many of his followers in California left the Organisation. I know this as a fact because numerous people came and told me that they had done precisely that. I remember clearly that their comment was “he lied so badly.” Turning to his educational qualifications, I have already dealt, in my Supplemental Statement, with the assertions made by Hubbard regarding his academic degree. Before proceeding to the source of his income, it is perhaps relevant to mention that I understand L. Ron Hubbard is not the name under which he was born. To the best of my knowledge he was born Williams or Wilson. This information was given to me by one of the older members of the Church of Scientology.

In fact, the marriage of L. Ron Hubbard and Sara Northrup (subsequently Mrs. Miles Hollister) produced only one child, their daughter Alexis. “Geoffrey” may be a reference to Geoffrey Quentin McCaully Hubbard, who was the son not of Sara Northrup but of Hubbard’s third wife, Mary Sue. Quentin killed himself in 1976, a year before this affidavit was written. Also, Hubbard was definitely born “Lafayette Ronald Hubbard” in Tilden, Nebraska on March 13, 1911. But as Russell Miller tells us in Bare-Faced Messiah, Ron’s father, Harry Ross Hubbard, was born Henry August Wilson in 1886, but was adopted after his mother died, and his name was changed by his adoptive parents.

McMaster then provides a real shocker about whether or not Hubbard himself was “clear”…

It is my firm belief that L. Ron Hubbard is basically dishonest. In July 1966 in Salisbury, Rhodesia, he stated to me and a number of South African Clearing Course students that he was not clear. He explained that I had to be the first clear because he had to wait and see how the clear managed and that if he had erased all his reactive mind he would have no reference left to derive information to help clear who faltered. He also stated to the same company, which included Jane Kember, the current Guardian World-Wide, that he wanted to make a movie of himself auditing himself on the E-Meter and it would have to be authentic so that he would have to be unclear to make it. Nevertheless, some eighteen months after I had been declared the World’s First Real Clear, that is in July 1967, Hubbard had certificates made out for himself stating his dates of being clear and the so-called more advanced states of OT1, OT2, OT3, OT4, and OT5. The certificates were hung on the walls of the Qualifications Division of Saint Hill Manor. The date given for his being clear was August 1965, some six months prior to the time I was announced as being in that condition. So either Hubbard was not telling the truth in Rhodesia, and later in England in July and August 1966, when he said he was not clear and made the movie or else he did not know he was clear when he was and had to be examined two years later by his wife, Mary Sue Hubbard. Moreoever, he did not have the necessary technology for the so-called higher levels that he was supposed to have attained, according to the certificates which were hung up, and which, incidentally, were signed by his wife.

Despite that flim-flammery, Hubbard was intent on taking over the world, McMaster says…

The aims, creeds and codes etc. of the Church of Scientology all sound very noble, but I now fear these are a smoke-screen used to attract people who have similar aims or ideals for mankind, behind which L. Ron Hubbard carries out his real and very devious purpose for having founded the Church of Scientology. He attracts people with high aims and studies them in order to establish a way of manipulating them. In the aims it states that Scientology people should support the Government in power. L. Ron Hubbard is in fact trying to undermine any Government where he has a Church of Scientology as it is his avowed intention to take over the Earth. Both Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue, have made it plain to me in the course of conversation that this was their intention and at one time I recall that Hubbard’s personal aides on the flag-ship were all encouraging them to indulge themselves in this way. I simply said the whole idea was so laughable that it didn’t deserve serious contemplation. I am convinced however that Hubbard takes himself seriously.

As a close confidant of Hubbard, McMaster saw what was truly going on…

I remember well in the days when I trusted L. Ron Hubbard how he used to jeer at people who joined Scientology. He would say that people were status mongers and that they only wanted high-class certificates. He knew that he was good for a few million dollars every time he put out a new level of training with a certificate at the end. He used to say “All they want is the certificate.” At that particular time however I was so absorbed in the technology that I was not conscious of how money oriented Ron Hubbard was. When I wanted to release information on Courses he would tell me that I must release it little by little to secure that payment was received for the information disseminated. At the time this occurred to me as nothing more than a prudent business measure but in retrospect I can now appreciate that it was one of the many tactics of a money-making concern.

And in pursuit of money, the organization was capable of serious harm…

“Never be afraid to hurt another in a just cause” is one of Hubbard’s “codes” and that has become an entrenched attitude in the behaviour of Scientologists. Accordingly, once Hubbard had had them indoctrinated into hurting one another and destroying other groups it wasn’t long before he had them attacking the Governments of countries. Moreover, Hubbard was not only concerned with rival Organisations if I may put it that way. Indeed people undergoing processing were not permitted by the Ethics Officers to follow their religion or pursuit of other activities such as Yoga. I know this because I was at Saint Hill when instructions to that effect by Ethics Officers were given. I saw the written instructions and Hubbard often told me himself that he “couldn’t have mixed practices.” From the foregoing it appears to me that Hubbard is establishing a system whereby he is forcing a process of eliminating all other forms of philosophy, logic, ethics or whatever until Scientology will become the only road to total freedom and in fact the only way to do anything. The effect of true auditing, or whatever you may call it, for it is in fact a form of psycho-therapy, produces evolution and harmony and not revolution and anarchy.

McMaster describes other ways in which the Scientology organisation has tried to bring him back or destroy him utterly.

He then provides some basic information about how the E-Meter works, and the document runs out. Chris is looking for any additional pages that might be missing.

 
Here’s the full text of the statement…

John McMaster 1977 Affidavit (text) by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
And here’s the original document as it appears in British files. (The first page is out of order)…

John McMaster 1977 Affidavit by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
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HOWDYCON IS UPON US!

Hey, we’re only 14 days away from this year’s HowdyCon in Chicago, June 21-23. As in past years, we’re looking forward to meeting readers of the Bunker, culminating in Saturday night’s main event.

The biggest difference this year is that our Saturday night event is separate from that evening’s dinner. Chee Chalker is setting up an inexpensive pizza dinner that you don’t need to pay for ahead of time, after which we’ll walk over to the theater where our event, hosted by Chicago Fire star Christian Stolte, will take place. Because it’s a separate event, we’re asking that you pay $10 each to get into the Saturday night event, which will help us recoup what the Bunker paid for the venue. (We have never made a penny on our HowdyCon meetups, we only try to break even.)

Please email your proprietor (tonyo94 AT gmail) in order to reserve your spot for Saturday night’s main event. Seating is limited, and we’re going to have some really interesting people on stage and they may make a few announcements that you don’t want to miss.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 7, 2018 at 07:00

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Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
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