“$camtology” by Doc Wainwright

Exotic Magazine in Oregon issue 6, 1997.

portions of full article below

1978
Lila Leighton Brown, a prominent Scientologist, jumps to her death in San Francisco.
The head of Oregon Op-Z (internal CoS subset) leaps to his death from the Fremont bridge in Portland, Oregon. Specific details have been suppressed or removed from archives.
1980
Reader’s Digest publishes its first article on CoS, titling it “Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult”, by Eugene H. Methvin.
A quote from that article, concerning an earlier event: “Julie Christofferson was among the lucky, however. After nine months, her parents removed her from the cult and snapped her out of her zombie-like trance. Last August, a Portland, Oregon jury found the church’s conduct so fraudulent and outrageous that it awarded her $2,067,000.20 in damages.” [A little home-town action, folks. I can’t help but wonder if the CoS actually paid those damages. I’m guessing they at least dragged their heels as much as possible.]
1981
One day in early 1981 another staff member, Terry Findley, “went nuts.” Richard Fischer arranges a brigade of various staff members to take turns “baby watching” her around the clock in the hotel they have on Hollywood Blvd. Richard takes his turn, too. Terry is completely nuts and out of control. She strips off all her clothes, allows her beautiful long hair to get matted, filthy and tangled, and is very destructive – throwing things out of the sixth floor window, screaming obscenities to people on the sidewalk below, like “Is this Scientology? Yeah, fuck! Take a good look at Scientology! Fuck!” Richard sees to it that she is discharged and discredited within the month.
Reader’s Digest opens its second article on the CoS with an unsurprising opening paragraph: “Eighteen months ago, the U.S.-based Church of Scientology launched a global – and unsuccessful – campaign to prevent publication of a Reader’s Digest report called “Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult.” The church engaged a detective agency to investigate the author, Digest Senior Editor Eugene H. Methvin. Digest offices in a half-dozen nations were picketed or bombarded with nuisance phone calls. In Denmark, South Africa and Australia, the church sued unsuccessfully to prevent publication.” (The article goes on to follow a format remarkably similar to this one; a nervous bit of commentary from Eugene Methvin, and then the lists of atrocities. Interestingly enough, I arrived at this format before I read Methvin’s article! ?Fortunately?, there are so many horrifying anecdotes available that there was no chance that Eugene and I would pick the same ones.)
1982
Ed Brewer is involved in a car accident. Several other Sea Organization or Scientology staff members are in the car with him. He is left in the car, bleeding, while the others go back to the Scientology building to talk to the people in the intelligence division, because they don’t know what to do. They “didn’t want to create a public relations flap for Scientology”. They fail to call for medical help. Brewer literally bled to death pinned in his car.
1983
Terry McCann’s retinas detach while on the purification rundown from all the “sweat-outs” and whatever else they are putting him through. He goes blind. He becomes depressed and commits suicide. Part of Scientology centers around `purification’ – through use of drugs, long interviews with lie detectors, deprivation of food or water, work camps, overuse of saunas, and so on. Physical abuse in a can.]
1984
Ryan Kugler (age 10) tries to commit suicide at Oregon Delphi by hanging himself. He is kicked out of the school but then admitted to Los Angeles Delphi about 1986 and re-admitted to Oregon Delphi about 1988-1990. He is still in Scientology now and works for a CoS company. [The Delphis are CoS ?commune / training centers?.]
1985
Jean Marc commits suicide near the New York Celebrity Center [translation: CoS and its show poodles]. Prior to his death he had been involved with two women in the Sea Org [Co$ subsets again]. His body is found with its pockets stuffed full of CoS promo literature. [This could be significant – or not. I have found far, far, far more of these sorts of tales than I expected. It’s ominous, but I won’t even pretend it’s ironclad evidence of wrongdoing. It’s merely...disquieting.]
Lee Johnstone, CoS follower, is baby-watched. [i.e., he began to flip out and was placed under some sort of house arrest by CoS members. See also `Terry Findley’.] He was a member of The Guardian’s (a UK newspaper) office staff before flipping out and committing suicide at East Grinstead.
A Florida boat broker named Bud Fields’ home is infiltrated by Bonnie Mott, whose real name is Yvonne Shirley Mott. Her post was the Authorization and Verification officer for the Commodore Messenger Organization [yes, another acronymized CoS group]. Mott infiltrates the Field’s home as a governess. She is allegedly ordered by Marty Rathburn, one of the heads of the Scientology Intelligence Agency [no, I am not making this up], to murder Bud Fields because he wouldn’t sell the boat, Free Winds, that Scientology bigwig David Miscavige has the hots for. After Fields is murdered, the boat is bought by Scientology within one week.
[Interesting side note: Hubbard loved boats, and frequently claimed all sorts of entirely fraudulent naval honors – and he particularly enjoyed being called “The Commodore”. In many of the depositions from Scientology investigators and ex-members, part of being in the upper echelon involves spending a fair bit of time on a boat. Since a boat’s such a handy border-crosser and since the CoS does the things it does, it’s not surprising.]
Rodney Rimondo, CoS member, jumps out of the window at the Los Angeles CoS headquarters. His mother, Irene, reportedly gets no legal settlement from the CoS.
Alan Merdith, CoS member, commits suicide. One among countless thousands.
{Excerpt from a suicide note, name withheld:} “...whilst I was discussing with two Scientology registrars...the possibility of my getting a refund of monies which I had paid to the Church of Scientology, they told me that 90% of people applying for a refund from the Church of Scientology eventually committed suicide. This (together with the fact that people who apply for refunds are ostracized and demonized as “Suppressive Persons” and “Enemies of the Church” by the Church of Scientology) had a very intimidatory effect on me, and caused me to be too frightened to attempt to get a refund from the Church of Scientology until more than two years after I had left Scientology, by which time my fear of the Church had started to decrease slightly from its former fever pitch. (At first, on leaving Scientology, I felt so badly affected psychologically that I was taking Ativan tranquilizers and my brain felt like it was split into two opposing halves...)”
“An article in the London newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, had this to say: “GERMANY is at war with `the giant octopus of Scientology’, according to Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s close friend and colleague, the employment minister Norbert Blum. In a hard-hitting attack, Mr Blum says that the fringe religious sect is conspiring to take over Germany by infiltrating its economy and converting managers in key sectors such as property, publishing and computer software...Members of the organization should not be trusted with money or trade secrets, Mr Blum adds, because their loyalty is to Scientology rather than to their employers. According to him, the sect is `an organization which will stop at nothing in its desire to spread its purblind ideology world-wide under the guise of religion.”