The Purpose of a Lawsuit is to Harass

Ever wonder where the famous Scientology ``purpose of a lawsuit is to harass'' quote comes from? It's in the red volumes. Or used to be...

I have a set of red volumes published in 1991. Volume III covers the years 1955-56. On pp. 40-66 is reprinted a lengthy article called "The Scientologist, a Manual on the Dissemination of Material." This article first appeared in "Ability, the Magazine of DIANETICS and SCIENTOLOGY from Phoenix, Arizona", Major Issue 1, published "circa mid-March 1955". The version of the article that appears in the 1991 red volumes contains this famous quote:

The DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that then you will lose every battle you are ever in engaged in...

However, the 1991 version does not contain this even more famous quote from the same article:

The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than win.

The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.


What Hubbard was discussing in this passage was the measures that can be taken to prevent people from using Scientology materials outside the church, e.g., to deliver unapproved auditing services. Hubbard claims the public needs to be protected from incompetent practitioners, but his real concern was loss of income, and loss of control over the Dianetics and Scientology movement, as had previously occurred in New Jersey.

Why was the ``purpose of the suit'' quote deleted? The passage has caused much bad publicity for Scientology in the past. The unexpurgated version of that section of the article was filed as Exhibit G in the Fishman Declaration (reproduced below). The nastiest bits were bracketed in the filed version, so the court could see the evidence that Scientology's aggressively litigious nature was part of its official doctrine.

Altering Hubbard's writing is one of the highest crimes in Scientology. But the cult routinely edits his work by discovering that an offending passage was actually written by some nameless "suppressive person" and inserted somehow into Hubbard's text prior to publication, usually as part of a "plot to destroy Scientology." There must have been an awful of lot of these suppressive persons working in the Hubbard Communications Office, because there have been a lot of changes over the years, but it seems these persons only get discovered when there is inconvenient text that needs to be disposed of.

This article, still odious despite the minor deletion, has been cited in various legal filings over the years, including the Fishman Declaration, as "Magazine articles on level 0 checksheet." Here's an explanation of where this mis-identification comes from. Each Scientology course begins with a checksheet that lists the materials to be read and the exercises to be done on that course, in the order in which they are to be undertaken. "Level 0" is the first level of the academy course, i.e., the first level of auditor training. In 1968, the Hubbard College of Scientology, a branch of the Church of Scientology of California, published a 100 page booklet called "Magazine Articles on Level 0 Checksheet" that contained eight articles from Ability magazine and the Journal of Scientology. This booklet was apparently part of the auditor curriculum at one time, but it does not appear at all in more recent (circa 1990) versions of the academy levels, at least in the checksheets I've examined. According to Professor Steven Kent of the University of Alberta, who has studied the Scientology cult since 1986, "This item is required reading in the 1991 'Department of Special Affairs, Investigations Officer, Full Hat' course.

Elsewhere in this same magazine article, Hubbard discusses what to do if a Scientologist encounters legal troubles. Again, an aggressive, even vicious response is urged. Is he crazy to be concerned about ``arrest for the practice of Scientology''? I think his concerns about legal trouble were well-founded, but he's distorting the situation in which an arrest would be likely. The practice of the Scientology religion is not illegal. But practicing medicine without a license is. And so is making unjustifiable medical claims in advertising material -- which is precisely what Scientology got into trouble for a decade later, when the FDA seized hundreds of E-meters. Even in this article, despite his worries about legal trouble, Hubbard boldly states that physicians and psychologists cannot cure mental or psychosomatic ills; only Scientologists can do that. He wants to practice medicine and psychotherapy, but he knows it's dangerous to do so openly.

Hubbard's prohibition here against prescribing vitamins is curious, because one of the fundamentals of his Purification Rundown is dangerously high doses of Niacin. Obviously he did not take his own advice. Yet he's so concerned about being charged with illegally practicing medicine that he warns against even recommending diets. Inconsistency is one of his hallmarks, and the alternation within this one document between sweeping claims and paranoid defensiveness is definitely in character.


This same magazine article is incorrectly cited as just "Level 0 Checklist" in the Emmons Report, an extensive multi-volume report on Scientology produced by Lt. Ray Emmons of the Clearwater Police Department in the mid 1980s. Below is an excerpt from that report:

The SCIENTOLOGY organization exploits every opportunity to hide behind their so called religious status. This posture is epitomized by a SCIENTOLOGY document entitled, Level O Checklist. In the Level O Checklist, instructions are given to SCIENTOLOGY members who are approached by medical doctors while these members are attempting to employ SCIENTOLOGY methods and practices to patients in hospitals and nursing homes. The Instructional Guide states the SCIENTOLOGY member is to claim religious status when approached by a medical doctor if the doctor is disturbed or displeased with the SCIENTOLOGISTS administering medical treatment to the patient. If the SCIENTOLOGY Member is arrested, a lawyer will be provided immediately and a suit is to be instituted in excess of $100,000 against the doctor and anyone else that it might be advantageous to sue for violating the SCIENTOLOGIST'S first amendment rights in practicing religion on the patient.


Fishman Exhibit G

Below is a reproduction of parts of Exhibit G of the Fishman declaration. Court-stamped page numbers appear in parentheses at the bottom. The full exhibit occupies pages 56-58 of the declaration (with 55 being a cover page) and reproduces approximately 4 pages of an article that occupies 27 pages in the red volumes. The version of Exhibit G given here is further abbreviated somewhat, in order to avoid quoting more extensively than necessary from a copyrighted work. Numbers appearing in dashes are the page numbers from the original magazine article.

US District Court, Central District of California
Fishman Case # 91-6426 HLH (Tx) Continued
           (Title page no number)




MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON
               LEVEL

                   0
    CHECKSHEET
BY L RON HUBBARD


      (0055)



( Hand bracketed passages in original >> shown in red here.)

          [[[[ big snip ]]]] 

  As a subdivision of general public to general public we have the 
problem of the professionals which might consider Scientology to be
antipathetic to them, amongst these would be psychologists and
medical doctors as well as psychiatrists.  These persons are entirely
in error when they express the opinion that Scientologists are against
          -51-
        (0056)

Missing (illegible) text reads: ``them. Scientology does not consider them sufficiently important to be against. Flour pills or any incantation ...''

Fishman Case No. 91-6426 HLH (tx)
continued...



(5 or  6 words illegible) .....            -or system will produce in
22 percent, of the public, benefit.  Therefore, any practice or art
can always achieve 22 per cent recovery in their patients. It is when
we better this 22 percent, that we are being efficient.  We have no
more quarrel with a psychologist that we would have with an Austra-
lian witch-doctor.  We have no quarrel with a pychiatrist any more
that we would quarrel with a barbarian because he has never heard
of nuclear physics.  As to the medical doctor, we know very
well that modern medical practice, having lately outgrown
phlebotomy, has come of age to  point where is can regulate structure
in a most remarkable and admirable way. In Scientology we believe
a medical doctore definitely has his role in a society just as an engineer
has his role in civil government.  We believe that a medical doctor
should perform emergency operations such as those made necessary
by accidents; that he should perform orthopeadics; that he should
deliver babies; that he should have charge of the administration of
drugs; that his use of antibiotics is beneficial; and that wherever
he immediately and curatively addresses structure his is of use in a
community.  The only place we would limit a medical doctor is in
the field of treatment of psychosomatic medicine, where he has ad-
mittedly and continously failed, and the only thing we would ask a
medical doctor to change about his practice is to stop taking money
for things he knows he cannot cure, i.e., spiritual, mental, psycho-
somatic, and social ills.

          [[[[ snip ]]]] 

  Should you ever be arrested for practicing Scientology, treating
people, make very sure, long before the time somes, that you have
never used drugs or surgery, and that you have never prescibed a
diet, or vitamins, and when that time might come, make very sure
that you immediately and instantly, within two or three hours after
your receipt of the warrant, have served upon the signer of the
warrant, a personal civil suit for $100,000.00 damages for having
caused the arrest of a Man of God going about his business in his
proper profession, and for having brought about embarrasing  pub-
licity and molestation.  place the suit and WIRE THE HASI
IMMEDIATELY.  Make the whole interest during the entire time
of such an unfortunate occurance the fact that the signer of such a
warrant, who would ordinarily be a medical doctor in charge of the
medical department of some city, had dared fly in the teth of
religion.  And we use what is necessary of the earlier passage above to
drive the point home. DO NOT simply fall back out of comm-
munication if you are attacked, but attack, much more forcefully and
artfully and arduosly. And if you are foolish enough to have an
attorney who tells you not to sue, immediately dismiss him and get
an attorney who will sue.  Or, if no attorney will sue, simply have
an HASI suit form filled out and present it yourself to the county
clerk in the court of the area in which your case has come up.

  IN ALL SUCH CASES OR ARREST FOR THE PRACTICE
OF SCIENTOLOGY, THE HASI WILL SEND A REPRESENTA-
TIVE AT ONCE, BUT DO NOT WAIT FOR HIS ARRIVAL TO
PLACE THIS SUIT. THE SUIT MUST ALREADY HAVE
BEEN FILED WHEN THE HASI ATTORNEY ARRIVES.
                -53-
             (0057)

  In other words, do not, at any moment leave this act unpunished,
for, if you do you are harming all other Scientologists in the area.
When you are attacked it is your responsiblity then to secure from
further attack not only yourself but all those who work with you.
Cause blue flame to dance over the court house roof until everybody
has apologized profusely for having dared to become so adventurous
as to arrest a Scientologist who, as a minsietr of the church, was
going about his regular duties.  As far as the advances of attorneys
go that you should not sue, that you should not attack, be aware of
the fact that I, myself, in Whichita, Kansas, had the rather interesting
experience of discovering that my attorney employed by me and paid
by me, had been for some three months in the employ of the
people who were attacking me, and that this attorney has collected
some insignificant sum of money after I hired him, by going over
to the enemy and acting upon their advices.  This actually occurred,
so beware of attorneys that tell you not to sue. And I call to you
attention the situation of any besieged fortress. If that fortress does
not make allies, does not send forth patrols to attack and harrass,
and does not utilize itself to make the beseiging of it a highly danger-
ous occupation, that fortress may, and most often does, fall.
>> The DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE.  The only way to
>> defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that, then you
>> will lose every battle you are ever engaged in, whether it is in terms
>> of personal conversation, public debate or court of law. NEVER
>> BE INTERESTED IN CHARGES.   DO, yourself, much MORE
>> CHARGING, and you will  WIN.  And the public, seeing that you
>> won, will then have a communication line to the effect that Scientolo-
>> gists WIN.  Don't ever let them have any other thought than that
>> Scientology takes all its objectives.

  Another point directly in the interest of keeping the general public
to the general public communication line is good odor:  it is vitally
important that a Scientologist put into action and overtly keep in
action Article 4 of the Code: "I pledge myself to punish to the fullest
extent of my power anyone misusing or degrading Scientology to
harmful ends."  The only way you can guarantee that Scientology
will not be degraded or misused is to make sure that only those who
are trained in it practice it.  If you find somebody practicing
Scientology who is not qualified, you should give them the oppor-
tunity to be formally trained, at their expense, so that they will not
abuse and degrade the subject. And you would not take as any
substutute for formal training any amount of study.

  You would therefore delegate to members of the HASI who are
not otherwise certified only those processes mentioned below, and
would discourage them from using any other processes. More par-
ticularly, if you discovered that some group calling itself "precept
processing" had set up and established a series of meetings in your
area, that you would do all you could to make things interesting for
them.  In view of the fact that the HASI holds copyrights for
all such material, and that a scientific organization of materials
      -54-


can be copyrighted and therefore  owned. The least that could be
done to to such an area is the placement of a suit against them for using
materials of Scientology without authority. Only a member of the
HASI or a member of one of the churches affiliated with the HASI
has the authority to use this information. The purpose of the suit
>> is to harass and discourage rather than win.
>>
>> The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment
>> on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing
>> that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his pro-
>> fessional decease.  If posible, of course, ruin him utterly.

          [[[[ big snip ]]]] 

    (0058)



Dave Touretzky
Last modified: Tue Jan 18 13:10:30 EST 2011