|
CITY OF CLEARWATER COMMISSION HEARINGS RE: THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY |
|
EXHIBIT IX: AFFIDAVIT OF ROBERT KAUFMAN I first learned of Scientology in the mid-sixties. Scientology and its followers claimed Scientology to be a cure-all for virtually everything. Through a series of techniques, Scientology represented to me that it would free one from neuroses, psychoses, and hangups, thereby enabling one to communicate freely with others, solve problems immediately, cure various diseases, improve I.Q. and general abilities, heighten creativity, achieve physical health and bestow a variety of somewhat vaguer attributes. The Scientology ideas and techniques were couched in a strange terminology, which made me bewildered and amused. L. Ron Hubbard, a Science Fiction writer, created the scheme and made the above promises in his policy letters and books. Under the influence of these Scientologists, I agreed to allow them to use introductory techniques on me. This consisted of "auditing sessions". The auditor, asked me questions from a prepared list and my answers were "read" on a rudimentary feedback device, a galvanic skin response machine used as a lie-detector, to which I was attached during the sessions. I now know "auditing sessions" to be hypnotic and coercive, designed to lead the subject to more and more "auditing" and his or her loss of self-determinism or autonomy. Sessions are ritualized and totally controlled by the auditor, who constantly stares into the subject's eyes and encourages the subject to believe that his strangest imaginings are truth and reality. However, the "auditing sessions" are augmented by the full force of the Scientology organization and Hubbard's abundant propaganda. All the rules and ranks of a bureaucratic organization, the constant "auditing" and the heavy effect of being around dozens of "brainwashed" members totally separate an individual from self-determinism. Initially, however, since I was still only dabbling at "auditing", I wasn't seriously involved with Scientology. The Scientologists slowly convinced me that I would benefit fully from certain "auditing" techniques of Hubbard which could only be obtained at that time in England. On that basis, in May, 1968, I went to Sussex, England to the Scientology training headquarters. It is now, of course, obvious to me that my decision came out of a year of influence and urging, together with constant exposure to Hubbard's writings and Scientology jargon. In Sussex, I rented a room at a house tenanted exclusively by Scientologists. Shortly after I arrived there, I lost my freedom of choice. I found myself in another world, another "reality". Living was conducted along the lines of Scientology terminology and the new world that Hubbard had created. One's success or failure, one's worth as a person, one's very soul hinged on one's relationship to Scientology techniques and organization. The actions of the needle on the dial of the bio-feedback device used in the auditing sessions could mean the difference between one's salvation or degradation. At the headquarters there were strict rules and various categories of "friends" and "enemies" of Scientology, including a list of punishments, some quite severe. An in-group called the "Sea Org", trained on Hubbard's boat, dressed in white uniforms in science fiction style, enforced the rules and meted out punishments. Students were required to read Hubbard's bulletins and listen to his taped messages all day and often into the night. Much of what I read was savage and paranoid, disclosing a hatred for humanity and a contempt for anything outside of Scientology. Some of the bulletins were science fiction, depicting mankind's problem as caused by evil committed on other planets billions of years ago. Hubbard had literally created a universe of unreality into which the students were methodically drawn or coerced through a multi- pronged assault on the senses and reasoning processes. I soon saw enough that should have convinced me that Scientology, rather than elevating its members, was making them sick, unhappy, and cringing. I observed many there who, though programmed into Hubbard's system, couldn't afford the expensive auditing, and allowed themselves to be placed on staff and made to work excessively long hours at sub-living wages, in hopes of earning enough credits for the next level of auditing. Those on staff, including the training instructors, were treated especially harshly for infractions of the strict codes and made to work on occasion 72 hours straight without sleep or bathing privileges. No dissent was tolerated, only lavish praise would be allowed about Hubbard and Scientology. I also observed several individuals who appeared to be deeply sick. These people were labeled "P.T.S. 3" (Potential Trouble Source) and kept under 24 hour surveillance until they could be deposited away from Scientology premises. By the third week there, I was thoroughly sick. I began to have symptoms that persist periodically to the present time. I awoke early one morning with bolts of terror shooting through my body. Thereafter, I could sleep only four to five hours a night. My bowels stopped functioning normally, I felt weak, nervous, in a constant state of apprehension and terror. Because of the powerful influence I was under and the suggestions I received before coming to England, I ascribed these symptoms to the fact that I was nearer to the heart of my problems and the superhuman states of personal freedom that Scientology used to lure its followers on. I accepted that only further auditing could cure me. Thus, I was induced to have more auditing than I intended when leaving the United States. I got sicker. The questions of "mistakes" on the auditing I'd already had arose, which could only be corrected by further auditing. At one point I wired home and cleaned out most of my savings to pay for it. The total came about to $8,000.00. Eventually, I worked up to the secret Scientology "upper levels". On one of these, I was called upon to imagine electrical shocks passing through my body, on another, to exorcize "unwanted souls" affixed to me billions of years ago during a space opera scenario. By that time I was so sick I was pulled off the auditing and put on the auditor's training course. I was afraid that I would be classified "P.T.S. 3" and dumped. During the training, I was at Scientology Headquarters from 9 A.M. to 10. P.M. and there my feelings of horror and inner conflict deepened. I was told that 1 was at the nub of paranoia and sickness. There was a steady stream of threats which to the indoctrinated member had a powerful subliminal post-hypnotic effect. Hubbard's bulletins expounded the tortures and madness that befell those who failed at Scientology. I saw a penalty order on a bulletin board, meting out a three-day workforce shift, to a man who apparently had an epileptic attack in public. Shortly after that, I saw his death notice on a bulletin board. I felt that he either jumped or was pushed out of his hotel window, although I suppressed these thoughts at the time. It was also stated that the organization locked dissenters and "trouble sources" in the basement of their establishment. Three months after my arrival in Great Britain, I began to have suicidal thoughts in the early morning hours. These had never occurred before. I realized that I would have to leave Scientology to stay alive. I was not only afraid, I felt ashamed and debased. I had failed at Scientology and had proven myself disloyal and unworthy, undeserving of health and peace of mind. However, my last vestiges of self-preservation impelled me to apply to the organization to leave. It was necessary to go to them since they had my passport and return ticket and kept them as security. Back in New York I did not find the relief I had hoped for. I continued to wake up early each morning sick with fear. I felt inhabited by an "alien presence" such as Hubbard had described in his exorcism process, the one I had failed at and I was much like a believer in voodoo under a curse. My greatest fear was to find a letter from the Scientology organization in the mail putting me in a lower "condition" than I was already in, possibly the "Fair Game" condition, in which the victim may be "sued", "tricked", "lied to" or "destroyed". I sought help from my Scientology friends in New York. The medical doctors I consulted could not help. Such was the shortage of knowledge of cults and brainwashing at that time. In October, 1968, about two months after my return from England, terrified, depressed, and almost overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts, I committed myself to a psychiatric ward in upstate New York, where I spent five weeks. Around May, 1969, after several months more of the symptoms I've described, I started a narrative account of my Scientology experience, though I was to undergo another two years of fear that Scientology would find out about my manuscript and steal it. No publisher would consider my book until late 1971. Here I began to learn about Scientology in a more objective framework. I had undertaken to write a book to cleanse my system of the experience, a catharsis, or in more timely terms, a deprogramming. In this my project was a success. In the course of several rewrites I had occasion to analyze the auditing techniques and review Hubbard's writings (not a pleasant task), and I saw clearly how the whole system had been constructed to deceive. I also read non Scientology books on brainwashing and manipulation which gave me a further frame of reference. However, it wasn't until shortly before publication of the book that I met or corresponded with others who had written on Scientology. Their experience indicated that Scientology conducted a two-phased attack on writers, newspapers, magazines and publishers involved with any criticism of Hubbard and Scientology. One phase was through the court system. As of 1971 or 1972, Scientology had instigated over one hundred lawsuits against its detractors. Certain writers or publishers were sued several times, the actions coming from various Scientology Headquarters around the world. These lawsuits were clearly in the nature of harassment since they rarely if ever reached trial. They had the effect of thwarting the publication of books and articles on Scientology because few publishers had the funds or the inclination to take the role of defendant in even the most obviously tenuous case. I also received convincing reports that Scientology operated along illegal, or criminal lines. I heard one story after another from writers or would-be writers on Scientology who had been harassed, threatened, and spied upon and who had their handwriting forged. Some of them were nearly victims of frame-ups. I learned that Scientology had a department of "dirty tricks" that took elaborate measures to punish vocal dissenters. In the Spring of 1972, when word spread about the impending publication of my book, I received a threatening phone call from a Scientologist; he later accosted me in a public place with further threats and a resume of my hospitalization that could only have been obtained through intensive and illegal surveillance. The following week, a man claiming to be an "editor" gained admittance to the printing plant of my publisher and stole parts of my manuscript, copies of which were subsequently sent to my publisher from Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles with proposed "corrections". My publisher had even graver problems than that. A dirty tricks campaign sent him into bankruptcy in Great Britain. Through the thievery of thousands of Olympia Press letterheads and an inundation of forged letters, British authorities confiscated 200,000 Olympia Press books. Those affected by the incident, including myself, believe without reservation that this was a Scientology attack. Note: documents seized by the F.B.I. from the Scientologists contain reference to an attack on Maurice Girodias and Olympia Press. These are now in Federal Court in Washington, D.C. In April, 1972, the Scientologists played perhaps their nastiest trick on me. I had booked Carnegie Hall Recital to give a piano recital. On arriving there to play, I found the audience on the sidewalk, and the hall locked. I managed to get the place opened and did my recital. As it developed, someone had called Carnegie Hall office the previous day claiming to be me and cancelling the concert because of a "death in the family". A recital such as that is considered a prestige affair, enhancing a performer's reputation and commercial value and sometimes, though not often, signaling the beginning of a new career. I had planned the recital for both reasons and had accordingly spent months preparing for it. I consider this attack especially destructive because, although I did succeed in giving the concert, I was quite distracted by the events preceding it, and could not live up to the potential I had worked towards. As it turned out, my state of mind reflected in the next day's review in the New York Times, and anyone reading the lines could see that it was indeed a very shaken and angry musician who had performed. Note: The cartons of Scientology documents in Washington, D.C. contain an empty folder entitled :Carnegie Hall Incident", a copy of its contents presently held by the Justice Department and perhaps obtainable by subpoena. I consider that one of the most harmful effects of the Scientology attack on the victim is that he or she has no way of knowing the extent of it. It is possible that scurrilous representations have been or are being made to one's family, friends, neighbors, employers or potential employers. Representations that may effect one's livelihood and relationships. But whenever one suffers a setback in life, one can only wonder if it is the work of Scientology or simply normal vicissitude. One tells oneself not to be paranoid and makes a determination to exclude Scientology as a possible source of trouble, only to receive new data indicating that it is not paranoia but rational reaction. I have been given friendly warning, for example, that I should be more alert to the possibility of physical reprisals from Scientologists. I remind myself that, with the exception of having a book published in 1972 which disclosed the secret Scientology processes, and appearing on a few talk shows, I have not been an active campaigner against Scientology; further, that with each year Scientology finds itself with greater problems than a writer can give. To round out the dirty tricks department, in the summer of 1973, a Scientology, specially trained and briefed, was sent on what Scientology calls a "mission" to my building. He rented a room there, and by meeting music-loving friends of mine, succeeded in befriending me. During a three month period, he arranged for other Scientologists to gain access to my room and photocopy documents, articles, letters, etc. I was, of course, under surveillance, as I had been since early 1972. Note: I have the log book of this agent, a handwritten account of his activities, including the elaborate method of getting into my room. Other documents in Washington contain references to this "mission", and photocopies of my personal documents. On a radio talk show my host began taking phone calls from the listening audience. A man called in, claimed he was a "male nurse" from the hospital to which I'd committed myself, and read "portions of my hospital record" over the air. Note: The Washington documents contain a photocopy of my hospital record, and incidentally, more of the surveillance file on me: names of employers, names of female acquaintances, etc. In sum, I was abused and damaged as an ex-member and as a writer during two different periods by Scientology. As an ex-member, I was lied to, swindled and brainwashed. As a writer, I was attacked pursuant to the "Fair Game" doctrine. I underwent several years of mental, physical and emotional suffering, harassment, and disruption of my life and that this suffering has been out of all proportion to my mistake in initially believing the representations of Scientology. Signed under the pains and penalties of perjury. [Signed] Robert Kaufman 1/26/80
|