Home > Work > Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia
1 " However, Scientology was expert at manipulating its image to accommodate just about anyone. ‘We were assured by almost everyone we met,’ Daroesman says, ‘including ministers of the church such as Peter Sparshott, Martin Bentley and David Graham – that it wasn’t really a religion but that it had to adopt the practices and appearance of a religion so that the government would not harass it.’56 Lionel "
― Steve Cannane , Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia
2 " Hubbard was not just gunning for contemporary mental health practitioners; he claimed that 75 million years ago, psychiatrists helped carry out genocide in the Galactic Confederacy. "
3 " They antagonised Julian Assange over six lines from OT VII and he ended up releasing 612 pages’ worth of all the OT levels. In "
4 " So how did it come to this? Why did the Australian government have to provide a protection visa for José on the grounds that a religious organisation it deems a tax-exempt charity had trafficked him? How could a church that claims to believe in freedom and human rights enslave and traffic its members? How could a church that in its own religious creed says ‘that all men have inalienable rights to their own lives’ separate a loving couple who wanted to get married and have a child, and force the woman to have an abortion? How could a church use Australia as a penal colony in the 21st century? To understand the madness of modern-day Scientology, you need to go back to the source, and the thinking that marked its very beginning. "
5 " Hubbard’s stint in Queensland is better characterised as overbearing, overzealous and over too soon. Hubbard would end up portraying himself as a war hero who helped save Australia from the Japanese. His arrival, his stay and his departure would all become subject of Scientology mythmaking. But the truth is that Hubbard was sent home from Brisbane in disgrace. When "
6 " Hubbard had issued a 12-point policy governing Scientology Finances. Points A and J were both ‘MAKE MONEY’, point K was ‘MAKE MORE MONEY’, the final point was ‘MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY’.46 "
7 " less than two months in Australia Hubbard had racked up debts, lost a machine gun, upset the top brass and been sent home. Yet two decades later, Hubbard would portray his time in Brisbane as something Australians should be grateful for. In a statement to the press he said, ‘In 1942, as the senior US naval officer in Northern Australia, by a fluke of fate, I helped save them from the Japanese.’15 The "
8 " But if Hubbard really did cure himself of his mythical injuries by 1947, why was he still claiming a part disability pension? Why did he write to Veterans Administration in October of the same year saying he’d been ‘trying and failing for two years to regain my equilibrium in civil life’ and asking for help paying for psychiatric treatment? Why did he continue to lobby for an increase to his pension over this period of time? And why was it the case that he claimed a disability pension for decades afterwards?46 Some "
9 " common technique used by cults to brainwash their followers is gradual immersion in cult mythology and philosophy. To put it bluntly, it is often advisable to keep the more wacko beliefs and practices out of your new recruit’s faces until they are sufficiently wacko themselves. Now, the problem for the Church of Scientology is that on the wacko scale the higher level works of Ron hover somewhere near the figure 10. To an outsider it is an immediate farse [sic]. But to a follower who has become psychologically dependent on the Church’s philosophy & society and invested thousands and thousands of dollars in doing so, it is just another step on the road to mental subservience. What "