Mike Gormez

Why this page?

One death is sad, two deaths is bad, many deaths is terrible

That, in short, is my answer. One of my reasons is to show a pattern of deceit. To put an end to the lie that Scientology isn't engaged in the healing field, mentally as well as physically. This despite their public statements such as that "a Scientologist with a physical condition is always advised to seek and obtain needed examination and treatment by a qualified medical professional." [ 1 ].

After reading many Scientology "scriptures" I can't judge differently than that such statements are merely a way to avoid legal accountability. Scientology's texts are crammed with claims of mental and physical cures of which I shall cite a few examples below and the devastating results therof.

Why now?

The Deaths at Flag page obviously covers a topic that can be emotional

It would be shallow of me not to acknowledge that. Fact is that I want the page to have an impact. So much so, that no one in his/her right mind after reading it has a possible desire left to join the Scientology organization ever.

If I didn't want the page to have an impact it would have been silly to have spent the time and effort of making it. What I don't want is that the page be used to unfairly attack scientologists. That is something I don't condone. My beef is with the organization and not with the rank and file members who are often just normal people like you and me, although miss-guided by an organization of which they're dependent. Having said that, I must admit that I'm no angel myself.

Scientology: we don't treat the sick

That official attitude is only a camouflage

Kevin Anderson noted in his report [ 2 ], published in 1965 for the state of Victoria, Australia

The official attitude advanced at the Inquiry that scientology did not claim to heal was, and is, only a camouflage. [...] The belief that scientology is a cure for many illnesses, both mental and physical, is propagated by Hubbard consistently and deliberately. No opportunity is missed of claiming for scientology the credit of a cure, and in his books and other writings repeated claims are made and cases quoted of alleged cures, many of them said to be miraculous.

Hubbard: People are supposed to be sick

Scientology isn't sure how it is that people become ill

In his confidential "Assists" lecture which only very high-up scientologists have heard, Hubbard said: "People are supposed to be sick. Also a body was only supposed to live 70 years which is a bunch of balderdash. Before R6 and so forth, they lived on and on and on and on and on! There was no such thing as this. They taught people death, they taught them amnesia."

That however, whould contradict with a Scientology book. In the Handbook for Preclears [ 6 ] it is written: "Nobody ever became ill without wanting to be ill at some earlier moment in his life."

Hubbard's own cynical words to help us out

Maybe you're not sick. Maybe you're just suppressed?

Anderson [ 2 ] once again.

That Hubbard and scientology specifically claim to heal, and attract people in the belief that they do heal, is obvious from HCO Pol. Lr. of the 1st September, AD 12 (1962), entitled "Healing Promotion". That letter reads:

"By healing you can graduate a pc up to clearing interest and thus we have a lower level feeder line, capable of successful accomplishment with normal HCA/HPA training. That programme has the following thought major: Maybe you're not sick. Maybe you're just suppressed. See us and find out. . . . Legally, this permits us to heal without engaging in healing as, in actual fact, we address no illnesses and indeed, deny people are ill - they are only suppressed. . . . The legal argument is simple, we don't believe in sickness, we do not address illness, we do not diagnose, we believe that freeing the human spirit also incidentally prevents sickness. We are doing prevention. We also find people do not have to be crazy to be suppressed, that nearly everybody is suppressed. We do send acutely ill people to doctors. We advertise to cure no diseases! That last is important legally. We only infer that people who think they are sick are really not, but only suppressed."

The devestating Scientology results

A heart attack was purely psychosomatic

Anderson [ 2 ]: "In various places Hubbard has written to the effect that arthritis, eye conditions, heart conditions, cancer, all psychosomatic illnesses, morning sickness, ulcers, tuberculosis, the common cold, the common cough, illness from bacterial or virus infections, alcoholism and a multitude of other complaints and conditions are engramic and respond to processing."

Noah Lottick insisted before his suicide [ 7 ] that his father's heart attack was purely psychosomatic.

According to Hana Whitfield [ 8 ] who was a scientologist for twenty years, Hubbard even claimed that "clears" had freedom of death.

103. He learns from Hubbard's 1958 "The Freedoms of Clear," attached hereto as Exhibit 59, that "In clearing people we achieve four freedoms, and I'll enumerate them for you ... The first one is illness ... Next we have freedom from pain ... The next ... is freedom from ignorance ... a thetan knows everything ... The last part of these freedoms is the most controversial of them all: death (emphasis added)."

Perhaps Scientology can explain me why Roxanne Friend [ 10 ] hadn't audited "out conception and mitosis," because she died of cancer and might still me alive today if she had sought competent medical treatment earlier. She did not because she felt that Scientology auditing could cure illnesses.

Exposing the fraud can be costly

Practicing medicine without a license

Keith Henson [ 11 ] posted under his own name two Scientology pages of NED for OTs Series 34 [ 12 ] in the newsgroup alt.religion.scienology [ 13 ] because it is his believe (and mine) that they contain instructions how to practice medicine without a license. Scientology did sue Keith and he lost in May 1998 (Judge Ronald M. Whyte, Northern District Court of California) and has to pay $75,000 in statutory damages. Scientology was awarded $75,000 for attorney's fees in his copyright infringement case. Mr. Henson has appealed.

A fair-use excerpt of the document he posted:

                        NED for OTs Series 34
                       C O N F I D E N T I A L
        THE SEQUENCE FOR HANDLING A PHYSICAL CONDITION

        [...]

     Step Four - Cures for Illness

     You will now find BTs and clusters being cures for
     illnesses of the body part. Handle all such BTs
     and clusters by blowing them off. "Cures for
Illness" will then cease to read.

This is in my opinion a violation of Judge Gesell's ruling [ 14 ]. on 4 January 1963 the Food and Drug Administration raided Scientology in Washington [ 15 ] and seized a huge quantity of E-meters [ 16 ] and books. The FDA charged that the E-Meter -- a crude lie detector used by Scientology auditors (counselors) and essentially a simple galvanometer using two tin cans as electrodes -- was mislabled and forced the Scientologists to label it ineffective in the diagnosis or treatment of disease. However as can be read in the above cite, the E-Meter is still used to treat the sick. The give away in the quote is "cease to read."

After eight years of legal proceedings, US Judge Gesell of the District Court of Columbia, commented in a July 30, 1971 Memorandum Opinion [ 14 ]:

Hubbard and his fellow Scientologists developed the notion of using an E-meter to aid auditing. Substantial fees were charged for the meter. They repeatedly and explicitly represented that such auditing effectuated cures of many physical and mental illnesses. An individual processed with the aid of the E-meter was said to read the intended goal of "clear" and was led to believe there was reliable scientific proof that once cleared many, indeed most illnesses would automatically be cured. Auditing was guaranteed to be successful. All this was and is false -- in short, a fraud. Contrary to representations made, there is absolutely no scientific or medical basis in fact for the claimed cures attributed to E-meter auditing. [...}

Any and all literature which refers to the E-meter or to auditing, including advertisements, distributed directly or indirectly by the seller or distributor of the E-meter or by anyone utilizing or pomoting the use of the E-meter, should bear a prominent notice printed in or permanently affixed to each item or such literature, stating that the device known as a Hubbard Electrometer, or E-meter, used in auding, has been condemned by a United States District Court on the grounds that the literature of Dianetics and Scientology contains false and misleading claims of a medical or scientific nature and that the E-meter has no proven usefulness in the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease, nor is it medically or scientifically capable of improving any bodily function. Where the notice is printed in or affixed to literature, it should appear either on the outside front cover or on the title page in letters no smaller than 11-point type.

That's why I do this and why www.whyaretheydead.net