Month: October 2014

Gay Ribisi

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Mark Ebner posted a photo of a Patron plaque presented to producer and manager Gay Ribisi. She is the mother of Marissa Ribisi, Gina Ribisi and Giovanni Ribisi, all Scientology celebrities. He says the plaque was found in the trash on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Update: Mark Ebner posted a photo of a second award plaque, for Patron With Honors.

Hand-written Letters

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Scientology has long been known as a dedicated correspondent, sending letters to those who have had casual contact through a book sale for years. This recent letter is typical of those written by the “Letter Registrar.” Heider never got this letter, but the next step if he went to the London Org would be to “find his ruin,” or identify some part of life to which Scientology is the only answer.


Photo credit: Catherine Tyley

22nd October, 2014

Dear Heider,

It’s been a while since you bought the Dianetics book from us. How has life been since then? Have you been happy? Have you been satisfied with life? You can come along and do a free personality test with us to see what areas of your life you would like to improve. We then have many life improvement courses on offer that can improve those parts of life.

Let me know your thoughts on this. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
[illegible]

Open House

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Here’s a photo of L. Ron Hubbard Way yesterday in preparation for the IAS video showing. Nothing says “open house” quite as much as putting up tarps to prevent contact with any protesters hanging around outside.

 


Photo credit: Richard

Is the Freewinds Safe?

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An article in Noticias 360 reports that the Freewinds is celebrating 400,000 safe miles. I am unable to translate the text, but I assume that they mean the ship hasn’t run into any other ships for over 400,000 miles. The ship is far from safe, however.

Lawrence Woodcraft helped renovate the ship. In his affidavit, he describes a problem with asbestos, and how Scientology refused to deal with the problem.

No one on the ship knew anything about asbestos, nor did they care. I thought to myself, the Church has been tricked into buying a cruise ship for $11 million that is a total liability, that is so full of lethal asbestos, the only option is to sink it in deep water. If asbestos remains permanently wet it is not dangerous, it is dangerous when dried out and flaking, releasing fibers in the air that are then breathed in. To me this seemed a daunting, enormous problem. How could the church possibly bring their public parishioners to this ship and expose them to such a hazardous substance. I thought that the legal liability alone would terrify them (As a new Sea Org. member I didn’t know at this time the scientologists cannot sue the Church). Around this time Bitty Miscaviage visited the ship. She was the Church executive with overall responsibility for the ship project. I went to her and took copies of the ships blueprints and showed her the full extent of asbestos on the ship. At first she was calm, but as I further explained the dangers, she begun to realize that it was a problem. We had a meeting to discuss the problem of asbestos. Steve Kisacky stated that L. Ron Hubbard doesn’t state in policy that asbestos is dangerous; he only states that fiberglass is dangerous and therefore we are only removing the fiberglass. In fact, the dock next to the Freewinds was piled high with fiberglass that had been removed by Sea Org members. It was explained to me that the ship was being remodeled only according to the written policies and “advices” of L. Ron Hubbard. Since Hubbard had been in the US Navy and had then founded the Sea Org and had run a fleet of ships, he knew everything about ships. If asbestos was dangerous, he would have written this somewhere. Also Hubbard knew everything about cancer. He had written that cancer was caused by the mind and specifically second dynamic aberration (problems with relationships). I was told that people only get sick if they go into “agreement” with being sick. As the ship was going to be filled with “operating thetans” doing the highest level in Scientology (OT 8) nothing was going to make them sick. I was being a “wog” (non-scientologist) worrying about a little thing like asbestos.

Scott Campbell was held prisoner on the Freewinds.

Valeska Paris was held against her will for 12 years on the Freewinds.

I was put in this small room by myself with a camera monitoring my movements. A security guard escorted me anywhere I went, I had to eat in the engine room and was not allowed to eat in the control room because it was air conditioned. I was not allowed to work with anyone so I was alone at all times…I was in the engine room for almost 3 months full time. I hated it and just wanted to get off the Ship, I was of course not allowed to call my family at all or talk to anyone.

Don Jason describes how he was imprisoned on the ship.

It’s also unsafe for your financial stability to visit the Freewinds.

After dinner, I decided to work on the “routing form”, which still needed about 5 more people to sign-off on it, which included–the bookstore officer, IAS reg, Examiner, Course Supe all of which included more pressurized selling of memberships, books, recruiting–even when I went to the Examiner I thought–this will be a quick signature, but NO, the bitch tried to sell me the “OT Debug Service”. I’m still shaking my head wondering why I would ever spend my money to be treated like this–maybe I was doing it so I could warn others–who knows–but, god dammit, man, the service up to this point sucked–I’m even embarrassed to admit I got all the signatures on the “routing form” because it’s such a shitty thing to have a guest do.

So if the Freewinds hasn’t crashed into another ship recently, don’t assume that means it’s a safe place. It’s not, it’s a place where people can be held against their will, with no recourse to police or government officials. It’s also a place that is designed to extract donations and purchase of services.