Meet the Andrus family — minus their patriarch, Brian.
You might remember Brian Andrus, he is the unindicted co-conspirator who was recently involved in scientology’s latest land grab scheme in Clearwater.
But before that, he is one of the most notorious ex-GO criminals, as I laid out in that previous blog post. He was directly involved in the kidnapping of Michael Meisner to keep him away from the Grand Jury and FBI. He epitomizes what scientology proclaimed were the “rogue elements” and “criminals” who were purged from scientology after they were “discovered.” In fact, many of them continued, including Andrus himself who became a recruiter for Religious Technology Center! There are plenty of other former GO people who are still around in scientology today. Scientology spokesperson Ben Shaw in Clearwater. The President of RTC, Warren McShane. Head honcho of OSA Linda Hamel. To name just three.
Of course, to keep you in good standing in the Scientology world, cash is always acceptable. This is a route pioneered by Craig Jensen who had been the Deputy Guardian for Legal US and was seen as one of the major “who’s” for the legal mess that resulted in Hubbard having to go on the lam. Over the years, he bought his way back into favor.
Andrus is now too toxic to be seen in promotional material. But nobody is EVER too toxic in scientology to take their money.
I must admit that if you sincerel want to engage in some conversations with the Angry Gay Pope Conversation, you are using the entirely wrong approach.
IMHO, it will be very difficult to meet them and have a conversation withthem if you begin with an angry standpoint.
I can understand that you believe you have been wronged many times and would like to get some apologies and would like to see them apologize to you.
But it is very unlikely that these people will come out and just apologize to you.
IMHO you will need to apologize for all of your bad language and bad deeds and tell these people you recognize your fault in all the disputes you have had and you need to apologize to them.
I believe you wil be waiting for a very long time if you are expecting them to apologize to you before they ever apologize to you.
Seems to me you both have very different starting points. It seems to me that you both hold on to the opinion that you both are correct and it is the other person who is at fault for the quarrels and name calling in which you have indulged. After that, I would think you might very well have a good chance to make up and to engage in some real friendship building.
I have read the words that both of you have posted and it seems to me that you both have some very valid points of view from with you could mend fences.
I could be wrong. But I think that would be a good first step. In any case, i wish you both some real reconciliation.
perhaps your first two or three exchanges could well be some apology emails.
Regardless, I wish you both good luck. Seems to me that both of you seem to be stuck in a small boat and that you will be stuck in those boats and you will have a hard time reconciling.
In any event, I believe there is much room for both of you to hug and make up. The Anti-Scientology movement can surely use both of your help.
No way! It is impossible that they bought their way back into good graces. That would be a gross violation of
HCO POLICY LETTER OF 1 MAY 1965 STAFF MEMBER REPORTS
“… A donation or fine would not be acceptable amends.”
Of course it could also be that this sentence was since edited out by Miskiewicz because he found that it had been added in by a since declared SP.
Quoting a policy letter?
That can’t be right on this site.
Mike,
I truly wish Jon Horwich be visited by some of his old colleagues and Jon be prompted to review his thoughts and give his take on the history of Scientology.
I was always way too many notches lower than Jon in all ways, and I have tried to ask Jon to please allow some interviewing of him.
I wish someone would spur Jon on to tell his insights and hindsights.
God, I’m so glad I’m out of the “slime pit”. That IS what it is. How is it possible that so many good people…oh, never mind.
Axiom 1: The severity of the overt is proportional to the lack of funds contributed.
What a slime pit harboring criminality Scientology truly is below all that fake, corny tinsel and glitter.
When L. Ron Hubbard died, so did dianetics and scientology. Like Humpty Dumpty, Hubbard fell. And we’ve been trying to pick up the pieces ever since.
Hubbard’s demise, along with the end of his reign, resembles an air disaster. Some of the dianeticists and scientologists didn’t make it: many were declared Suppressive while others were banished from the Kingdom. Some managed to get away and leave quietly. Many survived the crash, and have somehow carried on.
The horrors and atrocities that Brian Andrus, Ben Shaw, Warren McShane and Linda Hamel have committed–all in the name of “L. Ron Hubbard,” “the Sea Org” and “scientology”–may never completely come to light. But it’s up to people like us to continue to pick apart the “black box” from the crash site.
Mike’s blog seriously pieces together as much as possible of what has happened so that the world will know what Hubbard did and what his die-hard followers have done.
Fred,
It’s been an odd transition.
But look at “it.”
To me the “it” of Scientology is the “tech” which just means the processes of doing the pseudo-therapy and the processes commands of the exorcism. And “doing” the processes so as to alleviate a person’s supposedly negative soul memories off of one’s own core soul that one is.
That “it” of Scientology, that urge to alleviate one’s soul’s suffering, will go on.
The “it” of Scientology if you think of Scientology as management’s (David Miscavige being the top decider of which of Hubbard’s own management strategies and tactics to emphasis) is what I think has generally been given the lion’s share of attention.
But Scientology, downer deeper, is the “tech” the processes and the commands of the pseudo-therapy and exorcism.
People might still be interested in trying that. I don’t recommend it, but the processes and commands of the exorcism, reviewed as a thought experiment, will interest some people.
The people, and the subject.
The people who end up the “baddies” contribute some of their own genes to the “bad” they do, but then they have the Hubbard “management” script to do bad with.
———————-
The 20 page despatch to David Mayo from LRH, gave an inkling to the idea that the “tech” was separate from the whole admin Scientology framework which in 1982 when Hubbard wrote that despatch to Mayo, the framework (with the bad script) could come crashing down. Hubbard was genuinely worried the framework of the movement was really going to collapse, “for real” (as in Aaron’s teacher’s “I’m for real!”).
Hubbard did at least think of the “tech” as something that needed to be preserved, even if his grand framework for delivering the “tech” was going to come crashing down.
———————–
Fred,
Did you ever have any worry that it all was going to come crashing down in the early 1980s?
I did, when I read LRH’s private fears that it was about to collapse. The whole context of LRH’s fears of it all collapsing I wish had been shared with the movement followers, so they could “think” with the whole predicament.
Even if it all came crashing down, and staffs had to go out from the collapsed Sea Org, and do in a way like Mayo did, which was set up the Santa Barbara setup, all on it’s own, the fact that Mayo did that is proof it could be done.
So many deeper bigger predicaments, and solutions, that people will pull out of their own heads to deal with the problems Hubbard laced all through the framework.
The interview of the Mayo setup, some of the answers of some of those people are revealing of what parts of the nasty full Hubbard setup were dispenced with at the Mayo setup.
LRH had a hand in the history that unfolded in Santa Barbara, when Mayo and quite a large number of top vets joined Mayo there.
The history hasn’t been ever told in context of LRH’s major fears, and I don’t think it’s been grokked just how things went at Santa Barbara.
The deeper details of the turmoil of the 1980s is truly a book, I doubt anyone will write.
But it’s “logical” that splinter Scientology units will self form, of people, similar to how Mayo’s group congealed, if you ask me.
Chuck Beatty
ex 1975 to 2003
PS: the point, really, the bottom “it” of Scientology, is the “tech” (the processes and commands of the pseudo=therapy and exorcism) and how it will be learned and done, in whichever frameworks. (Subject Vol 3 is still out and kicking around, it has all the commands for everything up to “Clear.” and the “OT Volume” has most of the “upper” stuff and the exorcism commands.)
Hi, Chuck
I’m not privy to the behind-the-scenes goings on of scientology of the early 1980s, although I held a Sea Org post at ASHO Day in 1980, worked in orgs as an Independent Contractor while handling my freeloader debt, followed by a few years training at ASHO Day.
I do remember the event at the Hollywood Palladium in which Miscavige made known Hubbard’s death. I also recall, thinking to myself, that (1) scientology will never be the same again, and (2) I’ll never ever attend another scientology event.
And I didn’t. I wouldn’t even subject myself to viewing an event on DVD while sitting in a reception in an org. I liked Miscavige–at first, that is, and he’s pretty much the reason I wouldn’t go near any event.
Thanks Fred.
Hubbard’s practices and ideas, bottom line, is what interested me, and I knew the people on staffs were just the relayers. The variety of staff member’s personal skills and their “cases” hindering them as individuals, were always in my mind secondary to the subject.
I’d say for my interest, a Scientology staff word clearer or cramming officer, were the most helpful on what interested me about Scientology. Those who knew LRH’s writings and lecture transcripts, who could point to the exact LRH quoted relevant material, in the end, were the most helpful in what interested me about Scientology.
Bosses who were incapable of knowing the subject, were useless paper pushers and enforcers, but useless for learning the Hubbard ideas.
Course Sups, Course Admins, Word Clearers, Cramming Officers, possibly others like there was one guy pre the INCOMM computer system, called “WDC Files” who had a pretty good eidetic memory for the paper copies of all of LRH’s final years of advices traffic, who had a filing cabinet room at the end of the lower floor of “Del Sol” at the Int Base, Bill Funnel was his name, he was a pretty help to me when I went searching for the non public LRH despatch traffic on the sub issues I had to research.
Some jobs in Scientology’s staff frameworks if those staff did study boatloads of LRH’s writings and lectures, were helpful digging up LRH’s exact quotes, old quotes and newer quotes.
I keep wishing, from my interest in it, that the INCOMM computer system which had all of LRH’s writings (I worked in the upkeep of the data bases at Int Base and at LA and at ASI, so I know the details of all the raw LRH material), I just wish it were all available to the pubic, plus have LRH’s case folders, and some other key research “case” folders all transcribed and made public also.
Just put out the LRH ideas in full, put out all of LRH’s case folders in full, and let them be discussed minus out unhelpful rules and even minus LRH’s rules for not letting this info out into the pubic.
The durned subject would be what LRH wrote and lectured, so minimally put that out. Someday at least. And in a huge Kindle searchable file or files.
Hello, Chuck,
Some of the best time I had on course as a public person at ASHO Day occurred with Rick, the staff word clearer. Rick had been the Chaplain when we had held Sea Org posts a few years before. Likable as always (we would eventually become neighbors a couple of decades later), I think I preferred “Rick the Word Clearer” because no one else could so effectively pry me away from Hubbardisms as he could. He turned study into an educational adventure.
I recently order a hard copy of Russell Miller’s biography of LRH, “Bare-Faced Messiah.” There isn’t an Index, yet I’ve been able to get a searchable PDF version of the book. That, coupled with Internet searches of so many of the subjects in the book, has made reading it a welcoming experience.
We may never have access to all that Hubbard ever wrote, but we’re heading in that direction. This, coupled with an increase of book, periodical and newspaper in searchable, digital form, enables the reader to better understand Hubbard’s mindset (that is, if a madman–a raving lunatic–can have such a thing).
dianatics and scamology were stillborn. Scams from day one. The cult was rapidly shrinking before the con artists died in ’86
OMG,
I had that exact idea (“stillborn”) in my head when I posted those earlier comments.
That’s a good description for dianetics and scientology, Hubbard’s babies. Dead from the get-go.
And I’m not just saying that. For anyone who doubts what I’m saying, I suggest that you search “Dianetics 1950” as “text” at the Internet Archive. Look for all the newspapers, magazines and other types of periodicals in the search results. Focus on any periodical a month or so after the initial release of dianetics and you’ll find out just how awful the reviews were.
Yes, dianetics sat on the bestseller list for a good while, but Hubbard ruined it. He violently kidnapped Sarah, his second wife, then kidnapped Alexis, his daughter, and took her to Cuba. He also tried to commit Sarah to an asylum even as Sarah tried to get him committed to one. Meanwhile, Hubbard Dianetic “Research” Foundations were crumbling nationwide.
And scientologists refer to Hubbard as “Source”?
Source of what? All enturbulation.
“This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m gonna give it to them.” The Joker
I remember when Craig Jensen was trying to get onto OT 1. He couldn’t get his eligibility until he rolled in wheelbarrows full of cash as “amends”.
I could likely get a better bowling trophy at an actual bowling alley.