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DON MATZAT: Are there battles worth fighting? Are there issues that are worth going to the mat over? I’m sure that all of you would say, "Yes, certainly such battles and such issues do exist." The question is, is taking on the Church of Scientology one of those battles and one of those issues? The fact is, who cares about the Church of Scientology? What is the Church of Scientology and what does it really matter? Well, for one man, it matters a great deal. The man’s name is Bob Minton, and he has invested a great deal of his time and resources into waging a one-man battle against the Church of Scientology. Why is he doing it? What’s in it for him, what is he seeking to gain? I’m Don Matzat, this is "Issues, Etc.", and I thank you so very much for tuning us in. As we go along in the program, if you have any questions or comments, my phone number is 1-800-730-2727, that’s 1-800-730-2727. What do you know about the Church of Scientology? Do you know anything at all about the Church of Scientology? Perhaps you know that John Travolta’s a member, perhaps you know that Tom Cruise is a member, but so what? What does the Church of Scientology matter? I mean, how do they affect my day-to-day living, if any--if anything at all? And should I be concerned about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it? Well, Bob Minton is board member for the counter-cult organization called FACTNet, which stands for Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network. And Bob Minton has been taking on the Church of Scientology, and his entire battle with that church was featured last June on a "Dateline NBC" program. And it’s a pleasure to have Bob Minton with us to ask the question, "Bob, why are you doing it?". Bob, welcome to the program, thank you for joining us.
BOB MINTON: Thank you, Don, it’s a pleasure to be back with you.
DON MATZAT: Why are you doing it?
BOB MINTON: Well, I’m—I’m trying to expose the fraud that is Scientology. I mean, churches are supposed to help people, not impoverish them. They’re supposed to comfort people and not drive them to the brink of insanity by, you know, promising paradise and yet delivering a hell on earth. And this is really what the Church of Scientology does for a significant part of its membership.
DON MATZAT: Have they been doing it to you? Are any of your family members? Children, wife, wife’s--parents, so forth? Is this a personal battle? Or, generally speaking, are you concerned about the American public?
BOB MINTON: Well, I have not personally—none of my family members have ever been a member of the Church of Scientology, and, you know, my concern is principally one for other people who have been involved in it. But, you know, I clearly have been feeling the wrath of the Church of Scientology because of my attempt to expose the, the fraud that this organization is perpetrating on a vast number of people here in the United States and the world.
DON MATZAT: Is this something that, that we should be concerned about in the Christian church and also as American citizens?
BOB MINTON: Well, you know, from the Christian perspective, one of the incredible things about Scientology is that they portray themselves as being a religion--quote, unquote--that is compatible with any other religion. Well, this is in fact one of Scientology’s biggest lies. You know, they—they have teachings about Jesus Christ, for example, that, you know, none of us who are Christians would care to even listen to. Yet, these—these teachings about Christ don’t get exposed to people within Scientology until after they have paid almost $200,000 worth of funds to the church for their religious training. And then they find out that there really was no Christ, that Christ was an implant who was put in people’s minds by an evil intergalactic overlord 75 million years ago. And, you know, yes, this is a big danger. The real danger in Scientology is that their ultimate goal is, is domination. And, you know, this is a—you know, in terms of where they are on this plane of getting to this world domination that they have in mind, you know, they’re not very far along. If you would look on a scale of 1 to 100, I would say they might, might be at 3 or 4 percent. But they’re looking at the long run, they’re looking for opportunities to become mainstream. They have tried to appear to be a church here in the United States. They’ve got these celebrities who are out front, you know, touting for them to try to bring young people into their fold. But in fact, you know, what they’re doing is basically bringing people into an organization that teaches people to be criminals, really, and, and to be non-thinking robots.
DON MATZAT: Before we get into the content of the Church of Scientology--what it is that they believe, teach, confess and practice--are you saying, Bob Minton, basically, that the Church of Scientology is a scam and a rip-off?
BOB MINTON: Without any doubt, in my opinion. It is a total scam. The objective of the Church of Scientology is to extract the maximum amount of money from its members.
DON MATZAT: What are they about? Do they have doctrines, teachings? Scientology—what is it?
BOB MINTON: Well, Scientology is, is—the core of Scientology is based on "Dianetics", which is this book that Hubbard wrote in the ‘50s—
DON MATZAT: You mean L. Ron Hubbard?
BOB MINTON: L. Ron Hubbard—
DON MATZAT: He’s the founder, I take it, huh?
BOB MINTON: Excuse me?
DON MATZAT: He is the founder?
BOB MINTON: He is the founder of it. And he believes that, you know, all sort of mental aberrations of individuals are caused by engrams, which relate to events that occurred going back as far as 75 million years ago. And Hubbard’s—the main tenet of Scientology is that there was this evil galactic overlord named Xenu who, 75 million years ago, in order to control overpopulation problems in his section of the galaxy which he controlled, called people in for tax inspections. And instead of tax inspections, they got an injection of glycol and alcohol and were transported to earth in DC-8-like airplanes. And they were put in volcanoes in Hawaii and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and blown up with hydrogen bombs. And after these, these souls floated out on the nuclear winds, they were—they were trapped by this evil galactic overlord on a sticky flypaper-like substance and put in movie theaters and implanted with all of the problems that, that harm mankind today. And according to Scientology, those problems include religion of any sort, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedism, Buddhism—you name it, all of this stuff was an implant, according to Scientology, to control the population.
DON MATZAT: Now you’re not—you’re not telling me, Bob, that John Travolta believes that?
BOB MINTON: Well—
DON MATZAT: That this, this guy Xenu, 75 million or whatever years ago, blew up people with hydrogen bombs and now their spirits remain and—
BOB MINTON: Not only do I believe—not only do I know that John Travolta believes this, John Travolta is an apologist for this cult that, that basically sucks in a lot of young people throughout this country into believing into this--in believing this same nonsense after they’ve been indoctrinated in the philosophy of Scientology.
DON MATZAT: (laughing)
BOB MINTON: It’s absurd. And if people knew about this before they got in, you know, they would really question, you know, is this an organization that I even want to be remotely connected with? But,--
DON MATZAT: From what I understand, I heard a rumor—and tell me if this is right or wrong, now—you know, I understand that in Germany, of course, because of their fear of these take-over organizations, that they have restricted the Scientologists; they have not given them religious status. Now, John Travolta starred in a movie, "Primary Colors". And I understand—now, I don’t know if this is true, it might just be a rumor—that him and President Clinton entered into a deal that if Travolta makes Clinton look good in that movie, that Clinton would go to bat for the Scientologists with the Germans. Is that true?
BOB MINTON: Well, this is certainly a rumor which, uh, a lot of people have confirmed, and the meeting that supposedly took place to seal this deal was held in Philadelphia. And, you know, Travolta was—Clinton was looking for Travolta to paint him in a fairly favoring light in the movie "Primary Colors", and I think Travolta did a good job of doing that. Obviously, Travolta might have had a different thought about that had he seen where President Clinton was moving.
DON MATZAT: But then did Clinton, through Madalyn Albright, did he take a step toward the Germans? Is that true?
BOB MINTON: They, they certainly took a fairly fierce step towards the Germans to condemn some of the treatment that Germany had meted out to the Scientologists, and by our standards, some of the treatment that the Germans had meted out is fairly severe. But one thing that that we must--must not forget is that the Germans have seen how a totalitarian organization can rise to power. And they saw this with Hitler. They have been very, very leery of this type of organization before—I mean since then. Scientology falls right into the lap of the type of organization that the Germans never want to see gain any sort of political power at all in their country.
DON MATZAT: You know, if the President did that with Travolta--and I’ve heard that, and you’ve probably heard that from good, reliable sources--I mean, forget about Monica. I mean, that’s terrible! That’s terrible that the man would make a deal like that—"You make me look good and I’ll go to bat for the Scientologists".
BOB MINTON: Well, not only that, you’ve got—you’ve got Sandy Berger, the national security advisor, being instructed by President Clinton to sit down and give a briefing to John Travolta on the state of relations between Germany and the United States after this. This is back in February of this year and, you know, sometimes you just have to stop and say, you know, a reality check is needed here; what the heck does John Travolta have to do with national policy in regards to Germany?
DON MATZAT: I don’t even like the way the guy acts! But anyway, you’re listening to "Issues, Etc." I’m Don Matzat, my guest is Bob Minton. Now, you say, "Who cares about the Church of Scientology?". Well, right now, we’re looking at a thing that is in, what you might say, an infant stage. They have issues, they have dreams, they have goals for the future. The tactics that they use are not much short of criminal if you could even say that. And we’ll talk more about this and also plan to take some of your phone calls about this issue, if you want to give me a call—1-800-730-2727, that’s 1-800-730-2727. I’ll be coming back with Bob Minton and we’re going to talk a little bit more about the Church of Scientology—if you would go to that church, what would they do with you? How would they find out where your problems are? We’ll talk about that when we get back, you stay right with us.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Then Don Matzat does a promo about an upcoming show
DON MATZAT: For this hour, we’re talking with Bob Minton. We’re discussing the Church of Scientology. Bob is board member for the counter-cult organization called FACTNet, and that stands for Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network. Bob Minton’s battle with the Church of Scientology was featured last June on the "Dateline: NBC" program. If you have any questions or comments for Bob, 1-800-730-2727 is our phone number. Or perhaps you have a story or two to tell regarding any involvement you may have had or even, let’s say, a loved one may have had with the Church of Scientology. If you’re willing to tell the story, we’re certainly willing to listen—1-800-730-2727. Now, Bob, if I go to the Scientologists, and they’re gonna help me overcome some of my problems, how will they deal with me? How will they treat me? What techniques and methods will they use?
BOB MINTON: Well, they will be so kind and loving to you at the beginning, you—you just can’t imagine. They’ll bomb you with love, in fact. And what they will eventually have you do is sit down and confess all of your past crimes, as they call it, or any past—it’s like a confessional, really. And the difference between a Scientology confessional and, say, a confessional in a Catholic church is that the Scientologists sit down and write down every thing you tell them about, every thought, every dream, every aberration, every thing you’ve done that in any way seems to be wrong in your own mind. And Scientology will write this down, and later they will try to use this against you if you in any way turn on the church. And while you’re paying them, you know, hundreds of dollars an hour for this so-called auditing or confessional help, you know, they’re just accumulating a dossier on you, or building a dossier which will be used to attack you or destroy you if you ever decide to speak out against the practices of the Church of Scientology.
DON MATZAT: Don’t they have some kind of a methodology that involves a little machine they call an e-meter?
BOB MINTON: Yes; an e-meter is a very crude form of a lie detector and, as they call it in Scientology, they—you get hooked up to the cans. I mean, they’re literally like two tin cans that you’re holding on to—this, this primitive lie detector. And, you know, they’re asking you questions about, you know, activities in your past life. And the lie—the e-meter is supposed to sort of detect whether you’re telling the truth or not.
DON MATZAT: Oh!
(laughter)
BOB MINTON: About what Scientology wants to know about you.
DON MATZAT: Okay, so now they find out I’ve got a veritable plethora of problems. How are they going to deal with them? Now, what—the end result is—I remember hearing a word called "Clear"—
BOB MINTON: That’s correct—
DON MATZAT: That’s when I’m "clear" of all my engrams, right?
BOB MINTON: Yes, that’s correct, yes. When you’re clear of all your engrams you will also be fairly clear of most of the money you had to your name before you got involved with Scientology.
DON MATZAT: I see.
BOB MINTON: That is the real object of this exercise. And all of the procedures in Scientology cost money. Now Scientology will be the first to tell you that, well, you know, there are people who we don’t charge anything. Well, that’s true. There are people who sign billion-year contracts to work in the paramilitary wing of the Church of Scientology, and that’s roughly 10 percent of their total membership. These people don’t—they don’t have to pay anything during the course of their involvement in Scientology, but they become total slaves to the organization. They’ll work for an incredible number of hours per week for something like $50 a week. And they, in turn, are the ones who dispense this religious training to the paying public who will part with, you know, as much of their money as they can, as Scientology can possibly extract from them.
DON MATZAT: Now, that story you told us about—his name was ZEN-you?
BOB MINTON: ZEE-nu, right.
DON MATZAT: ZEE-nu. Now isn’t it true that that was a higher-level teaching which only when you got to the top level of teaching and maybe after you dropped a quarter of a million dollars, you finally found out this wonderful secret about this galactic ruler—and wasn’t that put up on the Internet and didn’t that cause a lot of difficulties?
BOB MINTON: Yes; all of the things you’ve said are correct. In fact, what happened is—there was a gentleman named Steve Fishman who got involved in a lawsuit with the Church of Scientology. And included within the filings with the court in California, all of the upper-level, so-called upper-level teachings of the Church of Scientology which included, this—this whole Xenu intergalactic space opera. And these were actually open court records for a period of two years and the—after the case was over, in fact. And the Church of Scientology used to send members of the church to the court house every day who would check out these documents and sit there with them for the entire day for over two years. They had a team of people who just rotated in order to try to protect these materials. But nevertheless people were able to get copies of these things from the court—county clerk there, and they were distributed on the Internet. And this, of course, created a lot of problems for the Church of Scientology because the whole concept of their fraud became so much more clear to any potential members. And since this happened in early 1995, the, the membership, or the new people coming in the door of the Church of Scientology has been drastically curtailed, because people are actually seeing the, the level of fraud that is involved in this organization with this incredible intergalactic space opera.
DON MATZAT: Now of course, L. Ron Hubbard, from what I understand, was a science fiction writer, is that right?
BOB MINTON: L. Ron Hubbard was a fairly poor science fiction writer by most everyone’s account who was basically getting paid a penny a word for his science fiction product. And he once said to a friend of his that the only way to make money in this country was to found a religion, and that’s what he tried to do.
DON MATZAT: And he succeeded.
BOB MINTON: Well, he succeeded at least in his--insofar as he could convince the United States government; or his successors have convinced the United States government that they are worthy of tax, tax-exempt status which, to my way of thinking, is an incredible fraud on, on the U.S. population in its entirety—
DON MATZAT: How did they--how did they convince the IRS of that, that this is a religion? It doesn’t sound like a religion; a science fiction club is what it sounds like.
BOB MINTON: Well, I think you’re right. I mean, in fact, last week on ABC’s "20/20", you had Kirstie Alley and John Travolta speaking on behalf of the Church of Scientology, and Kirstie Alley referred to members of the Church of Scientology as "customers". Now I’ve heard very, very, very few religions refer to their membership as "customers", but here you have a top-ranking spokesperson for Scientology, Kirstie Alley, who is referring to everybody as "customers", and that’s what they are. This is a for-profit business that extracts the maximum amount of money out of its membership and, you know, they have absolutely no religious beliefs whatsoever.
DON MATZAT: Wasn’t there an attempt also to, uh, use tactics on the IRS to get them to approve their status?
BOB MINTON: Well, when they eventually entered into a settlement agreement with the IRS, up until that time the Scientologists had over 2,500 lawsuits going against the Internal Revenue Service. They were investigating agents of the Internal Revenue Service who were involved—who had been involved previously in some critical work vis-a-vis the Church of Scientology and, you know, tried to paint these people as being evil and against religious freedom in the United States, paint them as religious bigots. And of course the IRS, really, at the end of the day capitulated to a campaign of harassment and intimidation in a Mafia-like manner which the Church of Scientology is so notorious for.
DON MATZAT: All right, we’re talking with Bob Minton about the Church of Scientology, and Bob is waging a one-man battle against the Scientologists. He’s a board member for the counter-cult organization which is called FACTNet, and that stands for Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network. Bob Minton’s battle with the Church of Scientology was featured last June on the "Dateline: NBC" program. Our phone number is 1-800-730-2727, that’s 1-800-730-2727. If you have any questions, comments or any stories to tell regarding any personal involvement you may have had with the Church of Scientology, I would love to hear from you—1-800-730-2727. We’ll be coming right back with our guest Bob Minton in just a few minutes so stay with us.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
DON MATZAT: Welcome back to "Issues, Etc." By the way, Bob Minton, our guest, is a board member for a counter-cult organization; that organization is called FACTNet—Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network. If you want to contact them, you can just go to our "Issues, Etc." website, rather than giving you a whole bunch of addresses. Our website is www.issuesetc.org, that’s w-w-w, dot, i-s-s-u-e-s-e-t-c, dot, o-r-g, and under the section "What’s New?", you’ll find a direct link to FACTNet. Go to them and find out what they’ve got involved in this whole counter-cult organization. It’s a massive kind of program today because there are so many, many strange groups that are out there. All right, Bob Minton, one final question before we get to the phones—it’s not a final question but an additional question before we bring callers into the, into the issue—what are you doing here? What, what is your involvement in this whole battle against the Scientologists?
BOB MINTON: Well, basically what I’ve been doing is acting as a spokesperson for a large group of people who originally came together on the Internet who have been speaking out against the evil —evil and corrupt practices of the Church of Scientology. Also, I have been providing fund--money to a number of people who have been involved in litigation against the church, including the, the very well-known case of the family of Lisa McPherson down in Florida. Lisa McPherson was a, a woman who was 36 years old and who died after having been held against her will for 17 days in the, in the Church of Scientology’s, quote, spiritual headquarters, unquote, in Clearwater, Florida. Scientology was recently in, on November 30, indicted by the Florida authorities on criminal charges for, for involvement in her death. And, you know, I have been in the forefront of leading this battle against Scientology’s incarceration of this young lady against her will.
DON MATZAT: And how have the Scientologists been responding to you?
BOB MINTON: Well, the Scientologists now for over a year have been trying to intimidate me, to intimidate all my family members, to go after my business partners, my former business partners, former business associates and as they go after, they have essentially threatened to not only destroy my life--which they’ve been doing a good job of trying to do—but they have attempted to destroy the lives of my former business partners who continue to have anything to do with me, simply because of my role in trying to expose the criminal acts of Scientology.
DON MATZAT: How do they go about doing that?
BOB MINTON: Well, I’ll give you a recent example. They, uh—I have a large investment in a company in the state of New Hampshire here, and Scientology basically sent their private detectives into this company on several occasions and told the company that unless they got rid of me as an investor, that the Church of Scientology would picket every retail location this company had in the state of New Hampshire and do everything they could to destroy their business. And essentially, essentially they were trying to get this company to effectively pay hush money to the Mafia for not bothering them. Well, at first the company was a bit concerned about this and they really did want me to get out of my involvement with the company, but eventually they came to their senses to see that there was no way that a cult like Scientology was going to push anyone around for any length of time and get away with it. But this—this was fortunately because the company is--decided to stand up to them, but many people decided to just walk away from their involvement with me rather than risk the harassment of, of themselves, their business and their families by the Church of Scientology.
DON MATZAT: Let’s go to the phones. We have David with us in Seattle who is listening to us on K-LIFE, K-L-F-E. David, you’re on the air; what’s on your mind, my friend?
DAVID: Well, I wanted to specifically say that Bob is speaking very truthfully about Scientology as an organization; having been a former member, I am well aware of some of the issues that he is addressing which are on your program tonight. Specifically, I wanted to mention that the e-meter, as was brought up very briefly earlier, is—although considered a crude form of lie detector—it is I think one of the things that it’s, represents a lot of perniciousness about Scientology in that it creates in the mind of the adherent a situation where their innermost thoughts are detectable even when they’re not aware that the thought exists. So think about that for a moment and consider the amount of emotional—
DON MATZAT: Explain that, David, what do you mean?
DAVID: For example, as Hubbard teaches—and I’m, I’m speaking from experience in that I trained to be an auditor, as it’s called, for Scientology for almost two years—the adherent is taught that a thought can impinge upon the e-meter, read upon the e-meter, with below-the-awareness level of the individual. So when the auditor asks the person receiving counseling a question, the auditor watches the needle and when a specific type of reaction occurs on that needle, the auditor is convinced that there is an answer to that question, even if the person receiving counseling says, "Well, I don’t know" or "I don’t think, I think the answer is ‘no’, I think the answer is ‘yes’". In other words, the auditor has an all-knowing device in front of him that guides his actions in a counseling session. Um—
DON MATZAT: In other words, you can strip away the person.
DAVID: Yes.
DON MATZAT: All right, David, thank you. What about that, Bob?
BOB MINTON: Yeah, that—that’s pretty scary stuff. But this is what Scientology tries to teach their auditors--David was explaining—it tries to teach them to do this, to basically strip away the soul of a person.
DON MATZAT: Now in that way, can you create a connection to the organization?
BOB MINTON: Well—
DON MATZAT: In other words, if I—if I submit to you and I tell you everything I’ve ever done that is questionable, and if I—if I get audited by you and pretty soon, you know, I bare my soul to you, we’ve got a pretty good—a pretty strong link here, don’t we?
BOB MINTON: You know, we as an organization start to know exactly how to extract the most money we can from you, because we know every button you’ve got in your whole psyche.
DON MATZAT: Yeah, you think—money is the bottom line, isn’t it?
BOB MINTON: Well, it’s certainly not any sort of spiritual salvation, that’s for sure; it’s got to be money.
DON MATZAT: Let’s go back to the phones; we have Diane with us in Chicago, listening to WYLL. Hi, Diane, you’re on the air.
DIANE: Hi. Um, I saw the recent television show on the Church of Scientology and noticed that there was a cross on top of their main headquarters. Does the Church of Scientology have any religious belief in Christ?
DON MATZAT: Thank you, Diane. What about that, Bob? Is there a belief in Jesus Christ?
BOB MINTON: Absolutely not. I mean, not only do they not believe in Jesus Christ, they believe that, that Christ was an implant put in by this evil galactic overlord Xenu 75 million years ago in order to control the population. They have no central tenets of Christianity and they use the cross as a symbol and they have their ministers wear clerical collars. All of this are—all of these things are designed to be trappings of a religious look in order to make people think that they are a church, but they are so far from a church that it is unbelievable.
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