The extraordinary document presented below is part of a much larger transcript presented as evidence in the July 1984 child custody case, heard before Mr. Justice Latey in the Family Division of the High Court, London. It dates from 1982, two years after L. Ron Hubbard went into seclusion, and marks the brutally ruthless takeover of the Church of Scientology by the youthful "fanatics" of the Commodore's Messenger Org, led by David Miscavige. The malevolent tone of Miscavige and his fellow Messengers was, to Justice Latey's mind, "grimly reminiscent of the ranting and bullying of Hitler and his henchmen" - a conclusion with which it is hard not to agree.

This is the background to the conference, compiled from a number of sources (the transcript follows thereafter):

It was October 17, 1982. Mission holders - owners of local Scientology franchises - from around the United States and a number of other senior leaders of the Church were herded into a lecture hall on the fourth floor of the San Francisco Hilton. The door was locked and guarded by International Finance Police while the young, uniformed Commodore's Messengers lectured their captive audience. Putting aside the mask of friendliness, they would show their true faces. The iron fist was on public display with no pretence of a kid glove. For seven hours, the captive audience was lectured, cajoled and denounced. Verbal abuse, flash-bulbing (intimidation by photographing a person repeatedly with flash), threats, and humiliation were all used against the mission holders.

"We weren't allowed to move, go to the bathroom, or speak unless spoken to," recalled Bent Corydon. "There were only 15 of them and there were 100 of us. If we had gone for them, there was no way they could have controlled us. But we were terrorised. Right at the beginning, three mission holders were randomly picked out and expelled right there and then, their lives finished." Before the meeting even began, Mission Holder Gary Smith, who was sitting at the back with his wife and four-year-old daughter, was ordered to move to the unoccupied front row. He refused and was declared Suppressive on the spot.

Corydon commented: "We were told that those being expelled would be put in jail. We were told to applaud and we did. It's a sad commentary on all of us. But when you've been in the Church for 20 years and believe in it, you don't want to be told that you can't do it any more, that your friends can't speak to you because you've been excommunicated."

The aisles were lined with unsmiling Sea Org Ethics Officers watching the audience closely, and carrying clipboards to take note of the least sign of dissent. The Master of Ceremonies was twenty-two-year old David Miscavige, a Sea Org "Commander," and, unbeknownst to the attendees, Chairman of the Board of Author Services Incorporated. At the beginning of the harangue, the Mission Holders were told that the trademarks were now in the hands of the Religious Technology Center (RTC). Larry Heller, who was introduced as the Church's Attorney, had this to say:

"RTC has a right to send a mission directly to the individual Mission Holders to determine whether the trademarks are being properly used by you. This mission may review your books, your records, and interview your personnel ....RTC... has the right to immediately suspend any utilization by the individual Missions of those trademarks. The word "immediate" is the key word here. There need not be a hearing in order for there to be a suspension. RTC will order that you no longer use the trademarks and you must stop or be subject to civil penalties and ultimately criminal prosecution."

"From now on all Missions will be corporations. There's [sic] very good reasons for this. A lot of you may know that you just recently received new corporate papers, let's see some nods, okay. These new corporate papers are designed to make the whole structure impregnable, especially as regards the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] .... RTC is a very formidable group of Sea Org members who have the toughness to see that the Tech is standardly applied."

"The [new] corporate structure assures Scientology being around for eternity."

"Earlier this evening both Kingsley Wimbush and Dean Stokes were here. They have both now been declared and we are pursuing criminal charges against them. They have been delivering their own squirrel tech while calling it Scientology. Kingsley Wimbush's 'dinging process' is complete squirrel. You won't find it in any tech, yet he has been calling it Scientology. That's a violation of trademark laws and he now faces some serious charges for this crime. This sort of activity is NOT going to go on any more."

For most of the mission holders, it was their first glimpse of David Miscavige. Security guards never left his side during the evening. Apart from introducing each speaker, he had little to say to the audience. He merely warned them what would happen to anyone who turned against Scientology.

"That person's future is black. It is so black I can't even describe it right now. I can't even even find the words to describe how black that person's future is . . . I mean it is really black."

"Commander" Steve Marlowe, the Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center, was next in line to browbeat the Mission Holders:

"We are a religion and this religion is what is going to save mankind. Get the idea? Thirty years from now, someone squirrels Scientology and starts calling it Scientology because there's a lot of money to be made . . . Suddenly you have factions, schisms, all kinds of very horrible things - they will never occur to this Church, never . . . you have a new breed of management in the Church. They're tough, they're ruthless . . . They don't get muscled around by the IRS or by crazy loonies . . . you're playing with the winning team."

The Inspector General next accused the Mission Holders of "ripping-off" public from the Orgs, the major theme of the meeting:

This management means business. There are ecclesiastical concerns, there are secular concerns. Violations will be prosecuted without a doubt [emphasis in transcript]. And we're just not here to threaten you or whatever. This is your salvation too. You just take a look at the viewpoint that someone would have behind bars looking out at the rest of Scientology. Not too sweet.

We're not going to get stepped on ....The Inspector General Network exists within RTC. They have tremendous information lines. They have resources that enable them to get down to the very lowest echelon of the field. And quite frankly, things will get found out about.

He will never, ever, ever and I promise you, for any lifetime, ever again get on any E-meter [changed to "auditing" in transcript] or ever have a chance to get out of his trap. And those who are on OT3 knows [sic] what that means! That means dying and dying and dying and dying again. Forever, for eternity.

Then Lesevre issued a quota to each Mission. The U.S. Missions were to send a total of 348 people to Orgs during the following week. There was a real threat that if they failed to meet these quotas, which were very high, something unpleasant would happen to them. Furthermore, the quotas would be increased each week.

It is difficult to convey the force with which these tirades were delivered. A tape does exist, and, gloating over their achievement, the young rulers even published a carefully censored and reworded transcript. They wanted Scientologists to make no mistake about how "tough and ruthless" their new masters were.

Jon Atack, who appears to have brought the transcript to Justice Latey's notice in the first place, adds:

This transcript was crucial in my decision to leave the Church. Further, I used it very successfully to persuade others to leave.

"Well, I finally quit and told them what they could do with their Church. But at the time, we were all cowed."

(With thanks to Jon Atack [A Piece of Blue Sky], Stewart Lamont [Religion, Inc.] and The Sunday Times ["Sinking the master mariner", Sunday Times Magazine, 28 Oct 1984] )

Next person that's going to be speaking is Commander Wendell Reynolds. He is the International Finance Dictator. And he's also going to be talking about the promotion for this Book One Campaign and the upcoming Book One promotion.

Mr Reynolds.

Audience: (Applause.)

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds, International Finance Dictator: All right now, collectively you guys are in some weird lower condition. By association if no other reason you have allowed the missions to go squirrel and I mean squirrel! Now, I don't know if you're aware of this but the Finance Network has recently been beefed up and we have an FBO and Deputy FBO on post in just about every org on the planet. The Deputy FBO's job is to drive public in on the orgs and the FBO's job is to get those public serviced. Now, right now you guys are CI on my lines, maybe one exception in this room, but I doubt it, because you guys are sitting on public, you are ripping off the orgs, you're doing all manner of crazy things.

Now. we are going in on the orgs and we're finding this stuff. The $250,000 that Stevens Creek has regged from people who had already gone Clear over the last few months - somebody's already paid for it and there are some more dues to be paid on that one. I'm not going to have this stuff.

Now some of these guys you see standing around here are International Finance Police and their job is to go out and find this stuff and if you guys are guilty of it, you've just had it! So. are we talking the same language here, now?

Anybody have any doubts about this one? (Pause.) Okay.

The old routine here was you got Scientology justice procedures applied to you when you did something wrong. Well you guys are a separate corporation from the Church and when you rip-off or steal from the org, or bribe people it's a corporate crime and you can be real sure that you're going to all end up in the slammer.

Now, I figure that you guys owe these orgs, I don't know how many millions of dollars how many hundreds of thousands of pcs from the rip-offs, collectively speaking. And I say collectively because you guys by association are taking on the condition that you failed to assign. And if you read the policy 'How to Assign Conditions' you will see that the condition that you fail to assign you will take on. And there are people in this audience, right now, who are wholesale ripping off orgs. Anyone want to volunteer that they're doing it? Nobody here will volunteer? COSMOD [Church of Scientology Mission of Davies] San Francisco here? Are you COSMOD San Francisco? Is COSMOD San Francisco here? Is that you? Do you agree? I'm going to put you on the meter later on if you say no.

Someone in the audience: Me?

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: No, him. Okay?

I want some dues paid on this and I don't want these public coming into these orgs on these quotas to be the guys you're giving back having ripped them off. These are new people. Anybody ripping off comes back just as they went off the lines. No ifs, ands or buts. No walking into the org, take the pc folders and take them up to the missions, none of that stuff. You guys are a flow up, not a flow down and not a holding action.

Now, this convention is costing the Church money. You're all paying 75 bucks a head for the joy of listening to this whole thing so you get put into proper reality. You're all going to sign your 5% minimum CGI donation to this DMSMH Campaign. Do you realize if the missions paid for the campaign as a whole it would take you guys some 200 weeks of your current payment level? Four years. You could never afford to do it and yet just having in the phone book "Dianetics" and "Scientology" is going to get you a bundle of public in. You're not getting more information cards from the orgs, nothing!

You're gonna get Dianetics and Scientology as a household word. And even the top PR experts available to us, who've been planning this whole thing our with targets and so forth so this thing is going to fly. And if you look at it Battlefield Earth has been released on the same pattern as the early 1950s when LRH was a popular writer with DMSMH released right. right on the heels of it and that put it right on the best-seller list. And right now Battlefield Earth is selling out and selling out and selling out again. So we got a tremendous popularity thing going and you guys are getting a gift at 5% of CGI - it's a total gift. So if I hear one person in this room who is not coughing up 5% as a minimum you've got an investigation coming your way because you got other crimes in your mission. Questions on that?

Do you guys have an unreality on the rip-offs that are going from orgs? Do you have some unreality about Academics being delivered in missions? Academy levels?

Any unreality about people who have gone Clear being kept or re-regged in the mission? There's one example of a person being regged for 52 intensives after going Clear in a mission.

Do you have any idea about the penalties for taking public off the orgs' lines - it's $10,000 a head per policy. If you rip-off a start member or have a staff member working in your mission at the same time he's employed by an org you pay for the entirety of his training processing plus a $2,000 fine. And that will all be enforced in addition on the mission in addition to any individual penalties levelled in a criminal nature. Is that all real clear? Okay.

We're talking PT now. Whatever you had going in the past is whatever you had going in the past. Lines drawn right here and right now. You guys are going to all write up your O/Ws [sins] tonight. Before you leave and you'll get meter checked. And I want everybody straight - on yourselves and anybody else that you know. And if you don't come clean and I find out something later on that P/L [policy letter] is enforced. You are guilty of anything that you didn't report on. Right per that P/L. We talk the same language?

Audience: Uh-huh.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Any questions? Anyone want to leave? Okay.

If we will pull this thing together and get all these nuts off the line and actually do Dianetics and Scientology you can go anyplace you want to go. Right now there is so much criminality floating through this mission network I don't want to hear about it. IF you come clean we'll work out some reparations for all the rip-offs that you've done in the past and straighten the record. If you don't want to come clean, forget it. If you've done stuff in the past and you come clean now we'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We'll assume that you weren't hatted or you were misdirected or something else. You don't come clean tonight and I find out something after this, man, you've had it. That's all I have to say.

Audience: (Applause.)

Cmdr. David Miscavige: Just a recap on everybody, because that was actually the last speaker. As you basically see we have a new corporate structure, have a new organization. There's flowlines. There's new management. The infiltration days are over, the bribe days are over, the anything-goes days are over. What goes is standard policy. What goes is people flowing through the bottom of the bridge up the bridge. What goes is no rip-offs. I was in San Francisco Org today and a Mission Holder from Seattle came in to get an org pc. Well that person's paying $10,000 and her mission status is being reviewed. Now I don't want to close down a bunch of missions.

But I will tell you something - somebody who's going to rip-off orgs and not apply policy then obviously they're not about to apply Scientology tech either. So therefore I don't trust them and we're better off without them.

Just so you know where we stand. Now we can ad get along easily if policy is applied. We're not talking about anything else. We're not giving any whimsical rules. Because of all out-ethics that's gone on in the last two years specific things like the Mission Holders "Mutiny".

That's just not going to go on anymore. That hurts everybody and it's at an end. So we had to get real tough and we've gotten tough. Our organization will not be violated. Neither legally or ecclesiastically.

Standard Tech., Standard Policy, that's the name of the game. And because we mean business we're going to go legal. We will prosecute. If you take a look at it any person who starts to take rip-offs, should've been getting people into the missions or into the orgs and by actually getting a lot of missions and orgs functioning and everybody would be prosperous. The rip-off artist makes everyone suffer and work harder. It's an everybody loses situation. So what we've done is set up everything so it's an everybody wins situation. The rules of the game are laid out. There's nothing else, there are no arbitraries. But as I stated, there will be no rip-offs or out-tech tolerated. Those are the rules. And they will be stuck to.

There's no more "do whatever you want", "we don't care as long as your stats are up". That's nuts. And in every case we investigated where these upstats were going on in the face of out-tech and off-policy, we find that they were false stats. So apply policy, apply tech, apply the flowlines of the bridge and there's policy on that for missions, and we all win. Okay?

Next thing is we have some MAAs [Masters-At-Arms] over here; they're going to pass out some paper - as Mr Reynolds pointed out, we're going to have O/W write-ups and the $75 collection to pay for this convention and Knowledge Reports. Standard Knowledge Reports. So right now is the time to come clean and get a fresh start. Everybody in agreement?

Audience: Yup. (agrees).

Cmdr. David Miscavige: Okay. Pass them out.

(Sounds of paper shuffling and talking in the audience. Break for O/W write-ups and Knowledge Reports.)

[At this point, says Bent Corydon, they were lined up and "mug-shot" like criminals. Then they had to write up their crimes. "They wanted to know how much money we had been holding back from the Church. That's the biggest crime of all. We had to write down our 'out-2Ds' - that's sex crimes, had we been unfaithful to our wives? That's to give them better control. I wrote down whatever I had. Why? I had been witholding stuff. We all had. They kept jacking up the finances, ordering us to charge $300 an hour for courses, outrageous prices No one can afford it unless they're totally hooked. So I just wrote down things they already knew."]

(Recommencement of conference.)

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Now the procedure which we have worked out for how to square the books on this whole thing is that we are going to record every point of inflow from organizations into missions. And you will do that by returning to your missions and require O/W write ups and knowledge reports from all your staff to fully document all the points of inflow into the mission from orgs. And that will be pcs, students, staff, mailing lists, people regged for mission services beyond the point they should have gone to a higher org. Academy Levels, anything else which has been delivered in violation of the intention of missions and that is intended to represent accurately the entire overt on orgs of the mission since the day it started. And we are going to start with the COSMOD Mission and the Stevens Creek and we are going to send teams in who will be doing meter checks at the end of all the write-ups and verifying the estimation.

Do you have a question on this, do you get what I am saying?

(Person raises hand.)

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Yeah?

Person: I don't quite understand what you mean about, I understand but I'm not quite getting the outflow, inflow into the missions from the org.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Inflow to the missions from the orgs.

Person: From the orgs.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Yeah. The flow, the flow from missions is up the Bridge to orgs. OK.

Everything which flows from the org down to the mission is an overt on the flow on the Bridge.

Person: I got it.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: And that is essentially what we are addressing here. What we are trying to do is erase an engram which has been in place for some time and that is going to take more than just cleaning up your own universe. It is going to take some physical universe action.

Person: Right.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: There's factually a liability condition that exists. And in some cases, some of the missions it is going to appear perhaps insurmountable and yet you will find that by actually handling the overt you will then unleash the potential of the mission to start to flow up the Bridge.

If we don't handle that, as an overt and as an engram we are going to be stuck with the wrong condition on the Bridge and it will not flow.

So the intention is, all the backlog off the line. Clean the slate and once we've got the full estimation we will work out with the individual Mission Holder how that's going to be repaid to the orgs. Because in some cases it is going to be in the millions of dollars like COSMOD, it is going to be in the millions margin.

Stevens Creek, we already know: it is quarter of a million over the last couple of months of people who were regged after they went Dianetic Clear. That is all overt. That's all going to get cleaned up.

On the teams that will be going in; will be to verify by meter check the accuracy of what's going on and to do physical universe inspections of the actual records, the past files, the pc folders and so forth of the org. I mean I'm sorry for the mission. And we will get all that as straight as it can be gotten. And we will reorient these flows up the line.

So that is the basic orientation. We will start with those two, which are the biggest chains and then we are going to go around the rest of the US and then we are going to go to the NON US.

We are just going to end this whole game once and for good and even the score. And then from there, it is all up line.

My postulate is that everybody comes fully clean, if you have mission staff. Like some of the Mission Holders said that they don't know what went on in the mission. Well that is inexcusable. You are still responsible for what went on there and it will be treated in that vein.

So, you are to go back and find out from your staff what actually has been going on and the entirety of what has been going on all the way back to day one of the mission. I want to just clean that up.

So we will send in some teams who are outside and won't have mutual rudiments with the mission to assist on the meter checks on that. And if you have staff that won't come clear they will be ordered to Flag for sec check either at the mission expense or at their own expense at preferential rates. And they will get a full sec check until the actual scene is broughten out. Brought out into the open.

You will probably find that you have attracted certain staff who are there for the wrong reasons, who will have to be sorted out and that is just the way it goes. But that is the basic game plan and that is the basic way that we can win on this thing. So, do I have your agreement on that?

Audience: Yes.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Okay. All your knowledge reports and so forth are to be sent to Int. Finance Ethics Officer at Flag and you should keep a copy of everything in the mission so that when the mission comes in to do the verifications and meter checks and so forth they will have the raw data as well as having a full data bank at Flag.

And I am sure we will get various and sundry things to be cleaned up and the intention here is to clean it up.

We don't necessarily like to declare people or handle ethics except where it is necessary for the "greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics", in which case we do it wholeheartedly.

And you can just tell your mission staff and I am sure that you have got the message by now yourselves, that we are not goofing around. That this planet is a mud bowl and it is going to stay that way unless we fix it. And the determination I believe is appearing in this room to make that actually happen on the organizational pattern as laid out by LRH.

So having your full support on that will be of assistance. If we don't have it it is going to be too bad for you. So go back and give that message to your Mission staff and let's get this thing straightened out and moving!

What you say?

Audience: Yes!

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: Okay. Thank you.

Audience: (Applause.)

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre, Executive Director International: All right. So you've got your quotas. You guys all written down your quotas?

Audience: Yeah.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: The pcs and students to orgs. Very good.

Now. Now you've got to double those quotas of new people you are going to start on services. Just take those quotas, double them for this week on people you are going to start in the mission for the first time on services.

Because I tell you something. I've told it to you before, you are going to have to start to reaching out for the new public. All right.

Now on those quotas, the public, the people you are going to send back to the orgs that belong there. You know. People are gotten there this year starting in the orgs that you are going to have to, this week, re-send back to the orgs. They don't count on those quotas. Is that clear?'

Audience: Yes.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: The pcs and students that you are going to send those orgs have never seen them. All right.

Now, reading some of these O/Ws, we see that we've got a whole bunch of cycles. You know. You've got a lot of cycles to handle now. To clean up that stuff. You know, Academy Levels sold, ah, people over-regged after Dianetic Clear and things like that. You are going to have to start to handle that tomorrow. Right away.

You should, when you go back, you should make a list, you know, and write down all those cycles to start cleaning them up and ending them.

I mean, those teams that are going to come to the Missions you know, your missions are going to be paying for it. Now if you start to handle your own scene, you know, fast, this week, you will be saving some money as well.

Cmdr. Wendell Reynolds: The price for the missions coming in to do the verifications will be $15,000 a day. You can save yourselves a lot of time and expense if you just get your whole act together. You can either meter-check your staff in advance if you want to, whatever you want to do. So the missions can come in and just verily the whole thing and as much preps as you do the faster it is going to happen. If they are there for a long time, it will be expensive. If they not it won't be as expensive. They'll be paid at the start of each day that they are there.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: Good.

If I were you. I'd start getting going on that right tomorrow, okay?

Audience: Yes.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: The other thing I want to say is, I want to stress again - this is the moment when we're going to find out who is with us and who is not with us.

I can tell something. I had so much trouble with missions in the past that in one country in Europe I forbad that there were any missions. It was forbidden in that country. That was Italy. Now that country is a country that is expanding the most. where Scientology exploded the fastest on the whole planet. No missions, not one.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be missions. That is just to show we don't owe anything to the world. We don't have to have anybody. Is that clear?

Audience: Yes.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: Okay. Now you have double quotas on the pcs and students that you are going to send to orgs of new people you are going to start on basic services, right?

Now when you come back, I suggest definitely that you get rid of all those Ruth Minshull and Peter Gillham and other publications and you just get on LRH books. Just go down in your reception in your bookstore and just get those other books out of there.

Because what do you want to do? You want to get on to source and you want to have a stand out intro line. Really stand out intro line. Now in order to do that, you got to get the projector..

You got to show the LRH Film, like the Freedom Film and then you got to deliver your Book One auditing and train Book One auditors.

That is what is needed and wanted. And that is how you are going to do it.

All right. Now before you leave, outside they have this table with two persons from the Golden Era Studios and each one of you is going to get a projector. It is $2,000. Each one of you is going to get a projector. How many of you guys have got a projector in his mission now?

Okay. Those that don't have a projector, get a projector before you leave from here. Then you are going to get the Freedom Film and you are going to start showing that.

Okay. We are going to get that whole scene completely stand (stamped) out and on policy and on Source. Every single last bit of it. Okay?

Audience: Right. Great.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: Very good.

Anyone of you been using such a thing called the Counsellor Ad?

Audience: Yes.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: Who has been using that?

Audience: (Raising of hands.)

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: All right. That ad shouldn't be used. Okay? It has been misused. And it is misleading. Okay?

People come in. They come for a certain reason, and then they find out that is not what is being offered to them. Don't use that ad.

Getting standard new public procurement actions. You can Body routing. You distribute fliers, FSMs. Show them films, Intro Lectures, Book One auditing. Cancel that ad now. Cancel it. It's no good.

SMI [Scientology Missions International] will be giving you a new ad to put up. But in the meanwhile don't wait for it. Cancel that ad right now and get on all the other procurement actions. Okay?

Audience: Okay. Yeah.

Capt. Guillaume Lesevre: All right.

Audience: (Applause.)

Cmdr. David Miscavige: Okay. The last two things.

One is, I don't know, I guess you guys will be talking to other Mission holders once you leave. Correct?

Audience: Right.

Cmdr. David Miscavige: I believe all the Mission Holders in the US were called to come to this meeting and several didn't. You might want to just tell them one thing. Just a message. They will be getting the message anyway, but you will probably be quicker, I know how fast the rumor lines or the phone lines are.

We have run across something recently whereby there's a little technique of make wrong when someone tries to put in ethics. It's actually a suppressive make wrong. It goes 'If you put in ethics, we're going to crash our stats to show you that you can't put our ethics in and that is a wrong indication'.

Tell them we don't buy it. If it happens they will get a mission. A Sea Org mission to their mission. Okay. Just a little message.

Last thing I wanted to mention is, now is the chance to straighten out everything. It really is a chance to start on a new road up, fresh. It is only going to happen with all those cycles which Mr Reynolds and the ED Int. [Executive Director International - Guillaume Lesevre] spoke about and if you do that, you are on the winning team. We are winning legally. We are winning statistically. And Scientology is going up.

I just want to let you know that because that is the plus point of it all. And we will win in the end. Okay?

Audience: Right.

Last updated 2 February 1997
by Chris Owen (co@nvg.unit.no)