Richard Behar
Thriving Cult of Greed and Power
TIME, May 6, 1991

Dr. Stephen A. Kent
Scientology - Is This a Religion?
June 30, 1997

Affidavit of Tonja Burden
Jan. 25, 1980

Scientology is a multi-national cult and a predatory business enterprise, encompassing numerous corporations and front groups for which deceptive and illegal practices are not just a matter of routine - they are a matter of policy. These policies were established by L. Ron Hubbard, the con man who created the "Church" of Scientology out of his pop psychotherapy, Dianetics.

The concept and definition of "cults" and "sects" in modern society is the subject of much debate, as sociologists consider what distinguishes a group like the Unification Church (the "Moonies") from the Amish, for example. Further confusing the situation is the fact that the term "cult" has come to have a variety of meanings in popular culture (i.e. "cult classic").

In discussions of destructive organizations like Scientology, People's Temple, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, and such, the term "cult" is commonly applied to groups which exhibit certain characteristic behaviors. Here's a list compiled from those provided by exit counselors Carol Giambalvo and Steve Hassan, the American Family Foundation, and the London-based Cult Information Centre:

• forms an elitist totalitarian society
• isolates members from society in a physical and/or psychological manner, forcing them to cut ties with family and friends who are not part of the group
• uses deception in recruiting and/or fundraising
• controlled by a charismatic or messianic self-appointed leader who is not accountable to the membership
• instills a fear of leaving the group
• controls the information that members are allowed to receive
• uses thought reform techniques (denunciation sessions, hypnotic routines, debilitating labor regimens, etc.) to stop normal critical thinking
• promotes exclusive dependence on other members of the group
• punishes questioning, doubt, and dissent
• induces members to commit unethical acts because "the end justifies the means"
• demands inordinate and escalating amounts of time and money from its members
• forces members to undergo self-criticism and humiliation as part of indoctrination

Some of these behaviors can be observed in a wide variety of groups, cultic and otherwise, and not all cults exhibit every characteristic. But combine too many of them in any one organization, and the results can be as extreme as the Jonestown massacre, the Hale-Bopp mass suicide, or the sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway. While Scientology has not been defined by a single incident of similar violent magnitude, it does exhibit all of the above behaviors, and has generated such sinister results as the Snow White campaign, the death of Lisa McPherson, and a trail of innumerable other broken (sometimes terminated) lives, drained bank accounts, devastated families, and terrorized opponents.

This website is focused on the unethical and illegal activity of the Scientology cult, rather than the philosophy and mythology which constitutes their belief system. However, some understanding of the Scientologist weltanschauung is necessary to provide the context in which the criminal acts and human rights abuses occur, as they are often explicitly directed by the internal policies and "scriptures".

The short answer to the question is: whatever L. Ron Hubbard wrote. Hubbard's writings encompass a rather wide range, from the Dianetics/Scientology practice of auditing to instructions on how to execute a burglary. Central to the Scientology mindset is that Hubbard was/is infallible, and current members contradict this notion at their peril.

The long answer is... too long for this FAQ. But here are some links to get started:

• Understanding Scientology by Margery Wakefield
• Road to Xenu by Margery Wakefield
• The Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper
• A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack

The most visible sign of the cult's presence is downtown Clearwater has typically been the throngs of Scientologists moving amongst the various buildings in faux-naval uniforms. Those are the members of the Sea Organization, which includes the most dedicated adherents of Scientology. When they are recruited, they sign a billion-year contract, which, even if you hold their belief in reincarnation, is a bit extreme, to say the least.

The Sea Org has its origins on the Apollo, a converted cattle ferry that Hubbard and his disciples used to surreptitiously hop from port to port when most respectable governments in the Western world had tried to arrest him or had simply kicked him out. The "fraternal organization" has maintained its paramilitary structure and "naval" traditions, despite the fact that the vast majority of them couldn't navigate across the Ft. Harrison Hotel's swimming pool.

Sea Org members form the bulk of Scientology's labor pool - handling administrative duties, delivering auditing and other services to the wealthy "publics" (non-staff adherents of the cult), and carrying out menial tasks, all for a token compensation that doesn't begin to approach minimum wage. Ironically, the Sea Organization is also the current seat of power for the inner circle - all of Scientology's top officials are in the Sea Org, and hold sway over all other Scientology corporations.

If you see anyone walking (or more likely running) in a black boiler suit or wearing a black arm-band in Occupied Clearwater, the person is probably serving out a sentence in the "Rehabilitation Project Force" (RPF), Scientology's thought-reform and forced-labor camp. This is the punishment for naughty Sea Org members who commit offenses like... questioning Scientology.

Dead. Scientologists say that Ron "dropped the body" in 1986 because he had finished his research on this planet and no longer needed a corporeal form to advance the cause. Vaughn Young, a former high-level Scientologist who was called to the house on the night of Hubbard's death, tells a different story. The fairy tale was necessary for the Scientology faithful, who might have had some awkward questions if they started to think that their cult leader was anything but immortal. They certainly don't want to hear that their psychiatry-hating guru died in seclusion, hiding out from the IRS, and pumped full of the psychiatric drug Vistaril, so they swallow the fantasy.

Actually, most of them are normal, well-meaning individuals who honestly want to improve the lot of the human race. They've been deceived, though, into believing that the Scientology organization shares their ideals and values. In reality, the cult and its leadership are focused on one goal: grabbing as much money, power, and influence for Scientology as they can.

In October 1975, Clearwater's most prominent landmarks, the Ft. Harrison Hotel and the Bank of Clearwater building, were purchased by the "Southern Land Sales and Development Corporation" for $2.3 million and $550,000, respectively, in cash. The new occupants called themselves "United Churches of Florida". Neither organization really existed anywhere except on Guardian's Office documents outlining the cult's plans to secure a new U.S. base of operations.

Hubbard had been on the run, hiding out from the authorities of various countries where Scientology had worn out its welcome. The Sea Org and its cult leader surreptitiously slithered back into the States, setting up camp first at a hotel in Daytona Beach, and later relocating to the newly acquired properties in Clearwater.

For several years after the Sea Org came ashore, Clearwater was the headquarters of Scientology. The power base shifted to Southern California when the cult established its worldwide headquarters in Los Angeles and its security compound in Hemet, CA, but Clearwater remains Scientology's "spiritual headquarters", because this is where adherents can find the very best mind-fuck that money can buy.

There has been a great deal of speculation regarding the choice of Clearwater, but the most significant factor is probably that, like many cities in 1975, the downtown area was in a slump, and there were suitable properties for sale. The appeal of the name - CLEARwater - was undoubtedly noted by the Scientologists, but its significance in the choice has not been established.

Currently, the property owned by Scientology organizations in Clearwater totals around $40 million. A detailed list is included on the Captured Territory page. The new "Super Power" construction project is estimated at $50 million.

In a 1998 post to alt.religion.scientology, former Sea Org member Martin Ottman reported the weekly gross income of the Flag Service Organization:

1977: 400,000 US $
1985: 1,000,000 US $
1989: 1,700,000 US $
1992: 1,500,000 US $

Just so there's no misunderstanding - that's $1.5 million per week.

As described on the Captured Territory page, approximately 2/3 of the $40 million of Scientology real estate in the Tampa Bay area are held tax-free. In 1998, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the cult's 1997 property tax bill was $225,000.

The cult has made claims ranging from 4,000 to 10,000 members in the area... but this is the same group which makes unsubstantiated claims of 8 million members worldwide.

In a recent post to alt.religion.scientology, The Exile discussed a Flag fund-raising letter which he had received and which indicated approximately 2,500 non-staff adherents in Clearwater. Scientology officials have claimed that the local staff numbers around 1,000. Additionally, at any given time there are a number of cult members from around the world who come to Flag for "standard tech". So the estimate of 4,000 probably isn't too far off, but a portion of those are essentially tourists, not residents.

See the Lisa McPherson page

Lots of locals are unaware or unconcerned about Scientology, but those who have heard about the situation have usually heard something sinister.

The Scientology crime syndicate has connections all over Clearwater

Maybe, maybe not! Lots of Scientology security guards roam amongst the cult's downtown properties, and from a distance they look very much like police, shoulder-clipped radio microphones and all.

If you are accosted by a uniformed patrol in Occupied Clearwater, you should demand to know if they are with the Clearwater Police while paying close attention to the insignia on the uniform. If they DO claim to be with CPD, but you notice "Security", "Flag", "FSO", or "Scientology" on the uniform, go immediately to police headquarters on Pierce Street and report the offender for impersonating a police officer. Note that Scientology security guards do NOT have the authority to detain citizens.

Yes. The "Admin Tech" is Scientology's vehicle for infiltrating and profiting from secular businesses through the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE).

John Atack
A Piece of Blue Sky

When the Scientology invasion was first exposed, city officials were vocal in their opposition to the criminal cult, particularly the covert manner of its arrival and the paramilitary appearance of its operation. The tension escalated when documents seized by the FBI revealed that the cult had detailed written plans for covert and illegal activities with the main goal being the control of Clearwater.

In 1982, the Clearwater City Commission held public hearings on Scientology, which included testimony from a number of former members such as Ronald DeWolf, a.k.a. L. Ron Hubbard Jr. The result of those hearings was a solicitation ordinance which imposed certain requirements on Clearwater groups which solicited money and other donations. Unfortunately, the ordinance was struck down by an appeals court as unconstitutional, because the cult successfully used the religion spin once again.

When the Internal Revenue Service was finally beaten into submission by Scientology's attorneys, private investigators, and other assorted thugs, the tax exemption was used to force the Pinellas Tax Collector to give up the local fight.

Margery Wakefield wrote of Clearwater in 1991: "The position of the community has slowly changed from that of angry defiance to a position of powerlessness and grudging acceptance."

Since then, the situation has gotten even worse.

The administration of City Manager Mike Roberto is the first in the history of the city to actually collaborate with the Scientology crime syndicate. Roberto has met with Scientology officials on numerous occasions, including cult leader David Miscavige. He has also demonstrated repeatedly that placating Scientology is part of his downtown redevelopment plan, particularly in his openly hostile stance to the arrival of the Lisa McPherson Trust in Clearwater.

As one resident put it in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times :

"Clearwater is their town. We might as well admit it.
City Manager Mike Roberto is their lap dog."

Since March, '96, the major Clearwater pickets have been organized on the Internet by a number of activists from around the country. Jeff Jacobsen, the netizen who first alerted the Internet and the media of the Lisa McPherson case, has been primarily responsible for coordinating the efforts.

With the arrival of the Lisa McPherson Trust in Clearwater, it is likely that the LMT will start to play a major role in handling the activities, which typically include announcements, a press conference, media interviews, pickets, and the candlelight vigil.

As Bob Minton posted to alt.religion.scientology, the LMT's mission statement is as follows:

To carry out the final wishes of Lisa McPherson's mother, Fannie, which were to expose the abusive and deceptive practices of Scientology and to help those who have been victimized by it.

For more information on the Trust, you can contact them directly through the information presented on their website at www.lisatrust.net.

There are quite a few ways that readers can help to expose the Scientology syndicate, with varying levels of visibility and risk. Here are some ideas:

• Get educated! Read through the information presented on this site - the more you understand the history and issues, the more effective you can be in alerting others to the situation.

• Send the address of this and related websites to your friends and family, particularly anyone who lives or works in the Tampa Bay area. The more people who know about the situation, the better.

• Write to officials, legislators, and law enforcement officers of the City of Clearwater, Pinellas County, the State of Florida, and the U.S. government, expressing your concern about the organized crime of Scientology and its effect on Clearwater.

• Write letters to the editor when stories about Scientology are printed in the newspapers.

• Call in to radio talk shows when the subject is related to Scientology or a general free-for-all, and start a discussion about the cult.

• Attend public meetings like the regular Clearwater City Commission meetings, and use the public forum part of the meeting to express your concerns about the cult takeover.

• Show up at the pickets organized by netizens and the Lisa McPherson Trust, or better yet, organize a picket of your own. (Please note, however, that this form of protest must be undertaken with thought, care, and a commitment to peaceful demonstration. Picket organizers are advised to seek the counsel of experienced activists.)

• Make t-shirts, bumper stickers, or other items with messages which will raise awareness, such as website addresses (Xenu-City.Net!).

• Send in articles, documents, artwork and ideas to Xenu-City.Net! You can help make this site more comprehensive and effective. For example, there are lots of old articles in the archives of the Clearwater Sun and St. Petersburg Times in the Clearwater Public Library that have never been seen by the denizens of cyberspace. If you come across something that isn't available on the 'Net, email it to me and I'll make it available.

The Lisa McPherson Trust is as good a place to start as any, and you're welcome to send email to me, as well.

The more I researched Scientology, the more I found out about their past and present operations at "Flag Land Base". While there were quite a few websites about Scientology, none of them focused heavily on Clearwater. So I decided to think globally, and act locally. My proximity to the local libraries, courthouses, and law enforcement agencies provided opportunities to acquire lots of interesting public documents and news articles, many of which had never before been posted to the Internet.

The other motivation, equally as important, was to provide a directly relevant resource for the citizens of Clearwater and the Tampa Bay metropolitan area. Most people who live around here don't know very much about the Scientology cult, unless they're long-time residents or diligent news hounds. As pervasive as the cult's influence is downtown, one can easily live just minutes away and be totally oblivious to the situation. This is largely due to the rapid growth of the region and influx of new residents who are unfamiliar with the history.

I'm not positive about the originator of the phrase, but my guess is that former Clearwater mayor Gabe Cazares probably coined it. If he's said it once, he's said it a hundred times: "Clearwater is the only American city under occupation by a criminal paramilitary terrorist organization." Gabe oughtta know - he was mayor when Scientology first slithered into town.

No, it doesn't fit the normal definition of a military "occupation", and yes, it smacks of hyperbole... until you start to research the history and the current situation. There aren't any tanks rolling down Ft. Harrison Ave., but Scientology does have its own security force patrolling their "Flag Land Base", and the takeover of the city is definitely still underway.

In the Internet community, "Xenu City" is one of the nicknames for Clearwater. "Xenu" is the central character in one of L. Ron Hubbard's secret writings, Operating Thetan Level 3. OT III, as it is commonly known, is the best-known of all the Scientology documents which have been posted to the 'Net. The cult actually sued the Washington Post in 1995 for publishing an excerpt of OT III in an article. (The suit was thrown out.)

One amusing side note: Scientologists who know about OT III won't utter the name of "Xenu" in public, and especially not around non-members. Whenever they file a court paper which contains the name, they black it out or otherwise redact it. It brings to mind the scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which the temple elders are trying to have an old man stoned to death for speaking the name of Jehovah... "That piece of halibut was good enough for Xenu!"

That's not just any alien - that's Xenu! Scientology is, among other things, a UFO cult, although most of its own members probably aren't aware of it or refuse to believe it since they haven't reached OT III yet.

It's parody, which is quite legal. If the city officials don't see the humor in it, they haven't said as much yet.

Most of the items which appeared on Xenu-City.Net first were obtained through public information requests to government agencies, or from the Clearwater public library.

Simple - request your own copy from the courthouse, law enforcement agency, or library, as applicable.

Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail in '72

Wendy M. Grossman
alt.scientology.war
Wired, Dec. 1995

Judge Stephen W. Russell
The X-On Congress: Indecent Comment on an Indecent Subject
American Reporter, Feb. 1996

Free speech, baby! In 1995, censorship on the Internet was a hot issue. Senator James Exon (D-NE) was pimping his "Communications Decency Act", which would have criminalized "indecency" on the 'Net for American users. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other advocacy groups were mobilizing the online community to oppose Exon's patently unconstitutional legislation. I had long felt a strong affinity for First Amendment issues, but it wasn't until the CDA conflict that I began to really discover my political voice.

At about the same time, I stumbled across the USENET group alt.religion.scientology. On most of the newsgroups that I had been following, there were a few dozen to a few hundred messages at any given moment, but a.r.s listed over 2,000 messages! Clearly, something interesting was happening.

I hadn't read anything about Scientology since the 1991 TIME cover story, and hadn't given them much thought. As I began to follow the online dicussion, though, I realized that a war of information was being waged. Former members and other critics of the cult were talking about all aspects of L. Ron Hubbard's "church", from the psychological damage, to the financial predation, to the human rights abuses, to the "upper level" documents such as "Operating Thetan Level III" (OT III), and "New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans" (NOTS). The latter issue tended to generate the most virulent response from Scientology's agents and attorneys. The exposure and dissemination of the expensive secret levels sparked legal threats, harassment campaigns, and an attempt by Scientology attorney Helena Kobrin to remove the a.r.s newsgroup from the Internet completely. In the free-wheeling, libertarian environment of USENET, it was tantamount to a declaration of war. It was clear to me, and to many other free speech proponents who became aware of the Scientologists attempts to use "religion" as an excuse to forcibly gag dissention online:

The Bastards Shouldn't Get Away With It.™

No. Fortunately, my scientific skepticism had time to develop before I ever came into contact with Scientology or any other psycho-sect. The fact that I have never undergone Hubbard's "processing" has been used as a point of argument by Scientology agents, who claim that it's not possible to criticize Scientology if you haven't been part of it. (This helps explain their especially vindictive attacks on critics who have been members of the cult, since their first-hand experience supposedly makes their arguments more compelling.) But I don't need to drink the Jonestown Kool-Aid to know that it's bad for me - there are more than enough news reports, court cases, academic studies, and accounts of former members to support the assertion that Scientology is a criminal organization that manifests all the characteristic behaviors of a destructive cult.

I live across the bay from Clearwater, in Tampa. The metropolitan region is commonly referred to as "Tampa Bay" or "Tampa / St. Petersburg / Clearwater" (listed in decreasing order of size, economic impact, and innate resistance to takeover by a cult).

They've certainly tried. Their favorite approach with me seems to be mailing out "Dead Agent" packs to try and smear me by telling people what a foul mouth I have. (No fucking kidding!) Sometimes these are sent anonymously, sometimes not, but the source of the attacks is always immediately apparent. A Clearwater resident by the name of George Bruce mailed out a few of these DA packs in 1998 to Clearwater city officials, the St. Petersburg Times, and probably others. Coincidentally (perhaps) there's a Scientologist by the same name who has a Scieno-spam page.

Other critics have suffered much more vicious attacks. Journalist Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology was framed with a phony bomb threat in 1976. Her name was not cleared until the orders for "Operation Freakout" were discovered by the FBI following the 1977 raids on Scientology's Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles bases. In a postscript to his 1991 article for TIME, Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, Richard Behar described the harassment campaign that was waged against him by at least ten attorneys and six private detectives during his research and after the publication of the story. Numerous other stories can be found on the web which illustrate the cult's "Fair Game" tactics.

No, just defiant. Why should I be silenced by these thugs?

Besides, the Internet has leveled the battlefield in the information war. Scientology's agents, private investigators, and attorneys can't get away with the same nonsense as easily as they used to. The criminal and unethical activity is documented on a day-to-day basis, often in living color. Victims of the cult's harassment now have a massive global resource at their fingertips.

This website is part of that resource, and will continue to provide a public service to the citizens of the Tampa Bay area and the global online community.