Scientology Mailbag: We Hear it from Church Members

by Tony Ortega

October 17, 2011

I can feel the Niacin working -- I can fly! I can fly!

We have several really interesting stories working this week, but we thought we’d start things off with something a little different.

Since we started moving to nearly daily coverage of Scientology back in April, the tips coming in here to the underground bunker have been voluminous and oh, so helpful. To all of you in Australia, Germany, the UK, France, Canada, and across the United States sending me alerts to breaking news — I am humbled and grateful.

We also have a rich, robust free-for-all going on in our comments section between Scientology church members, Scientology critics, and independent Scientologists. I even get in there myself and spar with folks from time to time. It keeps me on my toes!

However, despite the presence of that forum, some church members still prefer to e-mail me directly. Knowing that some of our readers would like to see how these folks react to our coverage, I thought I’d share with you a few of their letters!

We want to thank Gary Tanno for this recent message of helpful advice:

I dearly wish you knew what you were talking about when it comes to Scientology. I suggest you read a book about it. Millions of people have been helped by it. You can’t say that for Psychiatrist.

Read a book about it! Well, we did read and review (and make extensive use of) both Janet Reitman’s excellent Inside Scientology and Hugh Urban’s The Church of Scientology. Oh, I think you mean I should read a book by L. Ron Hubbard! Well, I have, but you aren’t the first church member to urge me to go back to the basics. An upcoming announcement, then, should maybe thrill you. But for now, let’s move on to the person who e-mails us the most, Runnin’ Scared favorite Mark Miglio.

After we initially produced an entire Miglio letter on the blog back in August, he’s sent us several more messages. I thought I’d share two of them with you.

On October 8, Miglio sent this message after we had mentioned Scientology’s anti-drug front group, Narconon, after we featured a comment about Narconon by Damian Dewitt in our “Commenters of the Week” post that day.

Dear Tony,
I feel I should I say something about the Purification Program and its use of sauna and niacin, and its inclusion in the Narconon program as the basic self-improvement action in a similar way that the Church uses it as one of the first things a new Scientologist will do.
I did the purif in 1981, I was one of the first members to do it — one of many thousands that have since followed. First, you should have the data that the purif saunas are not as hot as the saunas in the health clubs. I was in and out of the sauna for four hours a day — for 18 days. It was neat to be sweating out the garbage we all get — even if we don’t use street drugs. It was easy to do and a breeze. I sat in a brightly-lighted sauna and read mags and paperback books, and conversed with the other people in the sauna. I also left the sauna and took long walks, cool-down showers, and did periods of exercises outside of the sauna during this 4-hour period. So the actual time in the sauna was like, two hours. I looked forward to doing this regimen each day and this was the healthiest I have ever felt; I am 57 years old currently. Niacin is the only vitamin that is never toxic when properly used. Niacin that has added ingredients, and formulated to be a “time-release” version, is toxic in large dosages. I spent three years working at Narconon. Never once did I see anyone given altered niacin, or have any physical difficulties with the heat of the the lower-regulated heat saunas. All of the participants had to have signed okay from the on-site doctor to be approved for the program. The thing is that environmental chemicals and the chemicals in our food does affect the way we think, feel, and will even cause feelings of depression for some. The mind and body work together. You can do one thing to one of them and not affect the other. This is also explains why psych drugs backfire. A psych drug can make you feel happier by pushing all of your “happy chemicals” in to your system, but it will be a a short-term effect because the body will eventually suffer from the effects of the drugs, and the brain-mind-emotional connection will suffer too…

ARC
Mark

Four days later, Miglio sent another message, this one in response to our short piece about Lori Hodgson, who went through the nightmare of having her teenaged children “disconnect” from her when she left Scientology:

Tony, I don’t know Lori but I can say she was declared an SP because of her antagonism to the church. It is one thing to say, “Scientology is not for me” but quite another thing to be come a combatant antagonistic to the rest of us Scientologist. There are plenty of former Scientologists not declared. After all, you, yourself, that we have so many people leaving the church, but I say then where are all these untold numbers of suppressive person declares? I have quoted more about this issue from one of our websites: “A person declared a Suppressive Person is extremely rare and results in expulsion from the Scientology religion. This occurs in instances of serious offenses against the Scientology faith and can also occur when an individual is found to be actively working to suppress the well-being of others. This can be done through criminal acts already recognized by society as unlawful or through the commitment of acts deemed Suppressive Acts in the Scientology Justice Codes — which includes the Suppressive Act of publicly renouncing the faith, an act which in Scientology, as well as almost every religion, is grounds for automatic expulsion.” “When someone has been expelled from the religion, that person loses both his or her fellowship with the Church as well as with other Scientologists. The condition lasts until they have been restored to good standing. Once the person has been restored to good standing, the prohibition against fellowship with other Scientologists is lifted. Similar practices have been part of religious communities for thousands of years and have been recognized by courts of law as a fundamental right.”
I hope Lori will come to her senses, knock off her suppressive denial, make amends, and rejoin her family.
Any questions?
Comments?

Questions? Comments? No doubt our commenters will have plenty, Mark. And keep those letters coming!

The Top 25 People Crippling Scientology
#1: L. Ron Hubbard
#2: David Miscavige
#3: Marty Rathbun
#4: Tom Cruise
#5: Joe Childs and Tom Tobin
#6: Anonymous
#7: Mark Bunker
#8: Mike Rinder
#9: Jason Beghe
#10: Lisa McPherson
#11: Nick Xenophon (and other public servants)
#12: Tommy Davis (and other hapless church executives)
#13: Janet Reitman (and other journalists)
#14: Tory Christman (and other noisy ex-Scientologists)
#15: Andreas Heldal-Lund (and other old time church critics)
#16: Marc and Claire Headley, escapees of the church’s HQ
#17: Jefferson Hawkins, the man behind the TV volcano
#18: Amy Scobee, former Sea Org executive
#19: The Squirrel Busters (and the church’s other thugs and goons)
#20: Trey Parker and Matt Stone (and other media figures)
#21: Kendrick Moxon, attorney for the church
#22: Jamie DeWolf (and other L. Ron Hubbard family members)
#23: Ken Dandar (and other attorneys who litigate against the church)
#24: David Touretzky (and other academics)
#25: Xenu, galactic overlord