Bent Corydon talks about "L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman"

Discussion in 'Scientology-related Videos' started by pineapple, Jul 4, 2018.

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  1. TheOriginalBigBlue

    TheOriginalBigBlue Gold Meritorious Patron

    I was surprised to see how FOLO could fire missions directly into missions. This was the Flag Operations Liaison Office or a satellite of the Flag Bureaux. Missions were franchises under SMI.

    A Sea Org mission is a special project and because it is empowered by a higher echelon of the organization it asserts authority over the org or mission that it goes into. Missionaires are often just Sea Org staff who are taken from anyplace in the organization where they are not indispensable from their post or have some skill set suitable to the mission. Consequently they can be either completely inexperienced in the central subject or have a lot of experience or an experienced I/C (In-Charge) with inexperienced juniors. Often the most important quality is being intimidating enough to get compliance. Missions by their nature bypass the normal hierarchy. Bypassing is supposed to be a bad thing in Scientology because it puts the existing people in non-existence by virtue of needing to be bypassed. These missions can conduct SP witch hunts, poach staff and public for higher orgs, virtually anything and if the lower org staff object they risk punishment or being declared SPs.

    It became obvious after a while that despite all the policy against bypassing the organization runs on a perpetual operating basis of bypassing - the CMO being the most salient example. If you wanted anything to get done in an organization that was paralyzed with fear and conflicting policy interpretation dysfunctionality you looked to the CMO to bypass the insanity but there were never enough of them to really effectively manage anything and by now there are probably even less.

    Scientology is essentially an organization based on predation. Every org or unit predates on the one below it right down to the public. Learning to survive in this environment is very Machiavellian. It teaches people to be ruthless and to use mental rationalizations that are based on Hubbard's world view which was only limited by his warped imagination.

    The farther you are from the upper echelons of Scientology the more rational things are and people still exercise enough free will to bend the rules to protect each other but by Scientology's standards and per policy that is suppressive. Anything that prevents the predation of a higher level upon a lower one is suppressive. LRH envisioned Big Blue as a physical manifestation of the Bridge to Total Freedom but I'm convinced to his thinking putting LOA, ASHO and AO closer together facilitated predation. It would have been better if they were left apart where their respective fields were a little more difficult to poach.

    It is fascinating to have been deep enough into it to understand this and then leave and dissect it in retrospect. We were all part of an insane predatory system and what is important is what we do afterwards.
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  2. CaliMule

    CaliMule Work Hard and Bray

    Perhaps, yes. We face a logical conundrum, though, as to name such people is to bird dog them, and I would want to know precisely whose benefit bird dogging them would wind up being before doing that.

    I also refer to them as role models, what I could see of them, rather than as a ratifier of their character based on exhaustive investigation.

    That's an extremely important point in this dialogue: what people PUBLICALLY seem to be and what PRIVATE facts would show about them. For instance, as pointed out by Veda
    And is THAT the public face your friendly, best-of-pals mission holder or mission staffer presents to you when asking for you time, money, commitment to believe, and putting your own personal reputation on the line in disseminating to others?
    "Welcome to Scientology! You will learn, like us, to fanatically follow someone it is literally evil to speak the truth about."
    Where was that ever stated to each little oyster the carpenter and walrus lured into being a meal? I got one impression from reading green vols and apparently if people had a private deal they knew of, in a contract for a "franchise" as it openly was called in such documents, I just had to be lucky enough to ever read one by some happenstance to know what they had privately and secretly agreed to. Can't rely on the actual franchisee to be up front about the real deal when they ask for you time, your money, your committed belief, and you staking your reputation on them when "disseminating" to others. It is just crazy talk to ask franchisees to be THAT upfront. At the end of the day, they wish it known they are merely the Carpenter, who eats fewer little oysters, not bad like the Walrus who ate more.

    In my book, anyone who refrains from conducting his income gathering while relying on the support of fellow fanatics who have policies of dispute resolution that are beyond any conception of decency is probably safe to call "better calibre" by reason of such restraint. None of the people I looked to as role models conducted themselves with:
    1: implied menace of having friends who will fair game you, without respect to laws or customs of decency, all the while holding the adversary to the letter of perfection in laws and principles of decency,​
    2: the ability as a senior to not merely disagree with you on fair compensation for your time and energy "invested" in the same activity, on the basis of self-sacrifice for the "cause", but further demonize you as the senior pleases for daring to raise the topic,​
    3: actual evidence gathered by police of systemic criminal fraud.​

    Instead, I chose as role models people who understood the importance of the rule of law and lived within it, understood you don't demonize people for disagreeing with you on terms of cooperation, and have clean police records, beyond the possible traffic citation of course. There were such people, "true believers", to be seen by me at the time I was growing up and Mr. Corydon had yet to reach his epiphany on the road to Damascus.

    Staff may have disdained such people ("MAY have" snort!!!), but public perhaps didn't disdain other public who lived according to what they professed belief in. In contrast to staff, others existed who were true believers in the idea that you don't support yourself dishonestly and don't carry on association with devious fanatics who resolve disputes in a reprehensible manner to make their way through the world. Those I preferred as role models.

    Pity that alleged $800,000 in reserves that was useful to handle the criminal fraud situation was not part of feasibility. Can a below $20 per week paycheck perhaps be boosted by such wealth?


    Look, I used words like "bravely" and "redeeming" when talking about the Carpenter of Riverside who defied and battled the Walrus of Gilman Hot Springs in acknowledgement that the guy did try to right his wrongs in some way and didn't cause as much harm in doing his smaller scale Hubbard imitator thing. He soft-pedal spoke of that era in a way that was partially candid and showed better character as time passed, but he never did really walk the full road to truth, letting it all hang out.

    It is a pity to pay such a steep price and never reap the full benefit of it - but that is indeed the fate of a vast number of Scientologists who never fully confront the extent of harm they caused - whether it was very actively pursued harm or the harm of mere silence (such as my practice of "BIs and dissaffecton" but no real campaign for justice launched). In another thread to a newcomer here I pointed out that I felt I had overcome being raised in Scientology when I accepted the co-participant role rather than the victim role: not the dominant party in the dance but still dancing. You never get full recovery, in my opinion, while you still seek the "victim" or "vastly lesser evil" identity to avoid some hurt.

    In the end, Leah "Fraternizer" Remini can benefit by always letting it all hang out. Heber understood how much news reporters prefer the "give and take" approach to debating something and how much they disdain the "I'm an angel, my rival the devil" approach of the fanatic. When Heber was no longer allowed to be Heber, the church lost an important asset it had previously benefited from.
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  3. JustSheila

    JustSheila Crusader

    You seem to be in a very dark place, CaliMule. I hope you find your way out some day because you sure write a lot of bullshit crap.
  4. CaliMule

    CaliMule Work Hard and Bray

    Okay, I should admit that the "better class of mission holder" I spoke of earlier never gained big prestige for stats, as they really acted like they were public just filing in by being a mission holder because someone had to - not real tigers. Not true "staff", even if they were the boss. They were "public" who happened to have a deal with whichever scoundrel, eventually to become a martyr, signed their franchise agreement. A few were successful in ordinary terms, but never lionized as big stat makers in the Scientology world.

    And God did those mission granters every had some stories to tell - at least in the US -at the expense of themselves and others. Some actually did.
  5. JustSheila

    JustSheila Crusader

    No names, no dates, no incidents, but boy, you sure have stories out of the blue that absolutely nobody can confirm or deny because they are so general and negative yet so specifically name and discredit all reliable sources and the hundreds and hundreds of people that have confirmed those events with names, dates and their own personal accounts and eyewitness testimonies from all parts of the world, all different posts, all different times and from both public, staff, mission and Sea Org perspectives over a period of nearly 70 years.

    Yes, what a shame your stories just don't have any facts behind them or any names or witnesses or anything else to substantiate them in any way. Such a shame when you were trying so hard to discredit those brave people who came forward with their own names, dates and specific details of stories and were not afraid or ashamed to show the con and abuse of the cult of Scientology.

    But nobody knows who you are or your background either, they don't need to, because this is what a troll does, right, and you don't need any facts or anything to substantiate or support your complete discrediting of all the exes because this is what you do.

    You're too obvious. Trolls used to be better at this. To believe anything you say, we have to believe you are SOURCE. Lol. :laugh: You make it up as you go and then think if you can sound convincing, we have to believe you. Sorry. You stink at this. Bye troll.
  6. pineapple

    pineapple Silver Meritorious Patron

    (Quoted post snipped for brevity.)

    I made a brave attempt to read through this twisted screed, but man, it was tough. It's as though you're deliberately trying to confuse. Perhaps you are?

    You definitely have it in for Bent. I worked for him. Even as a gung-ho scngst he was a good guy. I'm not saying he was blameless by any means, but still a good guy, not the monster you're trying to paint him as. I think most people who were there would tell you the same.

    In my opinion he paid for his sins by writing the book and hanging onto the building, which he had purchased, not CoS. Yeah, the money was raised through public paying for services and cheap labor from staff, but that was in the nature of being a mission holder. Did these "better calibre" mission holders you speak of not charge for services and not pay staff significantly less than they would have made in the "wog" world?

    To me, Bent keeping the building which he had paid for represents a victory over scn and a final rejection of it. It is a massive middle finger in the face of CoS. As far as I'm concerned, Bent is a hero.
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  7. Veda

    Veda Sponsor

    Some background​

    Russell Miller's Barefaced Messiah and Bent Corydon's Messiah or Madman? are very different books. Each complements the other.

    Messiah or Madman? was published first and, having been under attack, was rushed to print with an emergency cover. The intended cover, which had featured Hubbard's head flying out of an erupting volcano, had been stopped, by Scientology, by court order.

    Messiah or Madman? was not really a biography as much as an examination - using an unorthodox format - of both Hubbard and Scientology, including, in detail, its ideas and methods, and their background.


    Messiah or Madman?

    The book L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? has been published in three English language editions, each further updated and expanded (1987, 1992, and 1996.) There is also a hardbound Russian language edition that became available in 2005.

    Unlike most other books on Scientology, 'Messiah or Madman?' examines both the "positives" and "negatives" of the subject.

    An excerpt from the book flap for the 464 page 1996 edition:

    "I have high hopes of smashing my name
    into history so violently that it will take a
    legendary form even if all the books are
    destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as
    I am concerned. Things which stand too
    consistently in my way make me nervous.
    It's a pretty big job. In a hundred years
    Roosevelt will have been forgotten - which
    gives some idea of the magnitude of my
    attempt. And all this boils and froths inside
    my head...
    "Psychiatrists, reaching the high of the
    dusty desk, tell us that Alexander, Genghis
    Khan and Napoleon were madmen. I know
    they're maligning some very intelligent

    L. Ron Hubbard wrote these words in a letter to
    his first wife in 1938.

    In 1950 he wrote the bestseller 'Dianetics, the
    Modern Science of Mental Health. This inspired a
    layman oriented mental health movement which,
    ultimately, developed into Scientology, the most
    profitable of the money-making new religions.

    Hubbard's early Dianetic and Scientology writings
    borrow freely from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and
    the founder of General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski.

    And P.T. Barnum appears to have been an inspiration.

    Hubbard also took much from the writings of Aleister
    Crowley - self-proclaimed "Beast 666." This is a source
    of embarrassment for the Scientology Church, which
    is determined to achieve broad public acceptance.

    In the 1960s Hubbard incorporated Brainwashing
    methodologies into the subject. He established the
    "Fair Game Policy" which states that an "enemy" of
    Scientology "may be deprived of property or injured
    by any means by any Scientologist, without
    discipline of that Scientologist. May be tricked,
    sued, lied to or destroyed."

    He also became the Commodore of his own private
    navy, and began to refer to himself as "Source."

    L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? exposes
    as never before the dark side of Scientology, yet
    contains an in-depth examination of the potential
    positives of the subject and their actual origins.


    Miller's Bare-Faced Messiah is a traditional biography, and really the only traditional biography on Hubbard.


    After over thirty years of trying, the CofS has failed to produce a serious, traditional, biography on its founder, settling for a "Ron Encyclopedia," which is a series of puffed-up coffee table books, consisting of some Hubbard essays and lots and lots of full page pictures of Hubbard.



    This is the cover of the Miller's paperback Bare-Faced Messiah from the late 1980s:



    And for those who haven't seen it, here's the statement by Bent Corydon at the end of the 'Preface' of the 2nd and 3rd editions of his book:

    As of the Spring of 1991, I have been a regular target for Scientology harassment - both 'legal' and otherwise - for over a decade. I have been sued six times. I have counter sued twice.

    I have had to struggle within a court system which does not recognize as meaningful the long-standing Scientology policy of using frivolous lawsuits for purposes of harassment

    It's been very hard work. Yet I've been amazingly successful - or lucky. There are good judges, and even some honest lawyers. Unfortunately, over-all, the 'legal system' works in favor of the rich: competent lawyers are expensive. And the system of near endless 'appeals' often can bring the average person to his knees financially - and sometimes emotionally

    I've watched many fall by the wayside. Silenced in various ways: by threats, harassment of family members, litigation induced financial problems, stress related illnesses, and - perhaps most insidiously - so called legal settlements arrived at under these and other conditions of duress

    In light of all this, it occurred to me that there is no absolute guarantee that I will always be able to withstand the Machiavellian machinations of this big sticky trap called the Church of Scientology. I have a family to support. It is feasible that I may collapse financially before the legal process is complete, and also feasible that I may have to settle on less than ideal terms.

    With this in mind, I wish to state that no matter what my fate may be, that one thing is absolutely true: I wholeheartedly support all of those who are working to make known the many hidden facts about this amoral and exploitative organization, and expose the truth about its founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

    I unequivocally stand by the contents of 'L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?'. This book has helped many to think through, and sort out, their disturbing experiences with Scientology. It has also helped to 'inoculate' those who might otherwise be vulnerable to the 'dark side' of Scientology

    I look forward to seeing a second edition.

    - Bent Corydon, 1991

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  8. strativarius

    strativarius Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband

    Don't shilly-shally around Sheila, tell him what you really think of his writing. :biggrin:
  9. JustSheila

    JustSheila Crusader

    Oh I'm just getting started. :coolwink:

    I was there at USGO's Income office for a year in 1980, Strati, and personally saw the wicked harassment Riverside and COSMOD missions were subjected to that began in the late 70s and only got worse, and the zealous cruelty of B1 USGO to destroy those missions in every way. It was terrifying to see. USGO fired mission after mission there and Val Lisa bragged about squeezing and harassing them. I had to personally call those mission holders at least once a week to try to collect the monies for those missions, so I knew exactly how much they were billed and how much they were making. :eek: I hated that. I was disciplined and Val Lisa falsely wrote I was "PTS" for not harassing them enough and thankfully sent back to AOLA :happydance: (Thanks and RIP Al Crivello) where I met many, many Riverside public from there afterward.

    There was a Riverside org at the time as well, btw, but it was barely surviving. COS was mad and jealous as hell. The Mission was another story. All the local public liked going there and it was booming.

    As Dir I&R AOLA (Inspections and Reports, over staff and public ethics officers), then as D of P Interviewer, I saw the ethics and pc folders and personally interviewed and dealt with public, C/Ses and tech personnel in the early 80s, which meant asking them in detail about any connections to anything squirrely. I worked in AOLA's income office and with the reges at AOLA, even covering as a reg for Michael Silverman when he was sent to the RPF for a month, so I knew about the COSMOD and Riverside commissions, too, and who was getting them. With what I'd seen at USGO, I was already alert to see for myself if any of USGO's accusations were true.

    Veda, Pineapple and many of the other members were there as well. CaliMule has some strange, dark, impossible version that has nothing to do with what actually took place. It's some distorted version out of his nightmarish imagination that clashes with all records.

    It might be a great way for him to get attention and stir people up, but it's just a fabrication from someone who wouldn't personally know anything about it, nothing more.

    All that aside, I'm disgusted with CaliMule's twisted, sexually explicit and suggestive comments he likes to post on here about little 10-12 year old CMO girls. He's a child pervert and a deranged person trolling exscn who needs to keep his sicko thoughts to himself or better, leave. I'm not the least bit open-minded about child sexual perverts and I don't care if my comments are politically correct. SO kids were already abused and denied their opportunity of a normal childhood and CaliMule's comments are over the top nasty to them in every way. It's clear to me which person is the monster here, and it's not Bent Corydon. :no:
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2019
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  10. CaliMule

    CaliMule Work Hard and Bray

    Alright, this will be my final on this thread and I'll leave it to you and *cough cough* "Veda" to have the actual final say after me.

    I consider that simply spouting off an opinion without presenting steps of reasoning is not how to proceed. Sorry that it actually takes time to read and digest another point of view, but there's no getting around that. I don't see chirping in with "hooray for our side", for all its splendid brevity, to constitute valuable dialogue.

    How am I not to supposed to consider that the real "twisted" is better summed up by:

    - Gay Anne Marie Doucette being coached to commit fraud by Mr. Kovack through lying to a bank to get a loan, which Riverside Mission staff would support by lying to the bank also.
    - Ms. Doucette "repents" as some choose to say*, and seeks to reverse this deal.
    - Ms. Doucette is forcibly detained (a felony) and kidnapped (a felony) to be held at the home of Thomas Steiner, a high ranking heavy of Mr. Corydon, in an attempt to prevent her from complaining of or undoing the criminal fraud she participated in.
    - This is all part of an ONGOING criminal conspiracy that Mr. Corydon can't pretend to not only have known of but desired.

    Nowhere in his great book does Mr. Corydon admit that this is how he made his money - by committing felonies in the course of conducting what presented itself to the world as a "church". He does a little bit of minor "gosh I goofed" and points fingers at others for being worse than him, and thus it was an oopsy-goof to follow them fanactically.

    In what way is any lack of evidence, any clear course of laying out steps of reasoning, or any other lack present in anything I've written in this post or others justifying calling anything a "screed".

    I knew better Scientologists when growing up, including better mission holders who didn't rely on felonies to make a living. They deserve acknowledgement as to their existence. That's my point, right after making a point about the relative merits of PR spokespeople and their tendency for honesty or dishonesty - what I actually joined this thread to discuss until you made it a taunting sqaure off along with *cough cough* Veda.

    *If I understand correctly, Leah Remini is a fan of "repentence" these days.
  11. Veda

    Veda Sponsor


    Ho hum.

    In CaliMule's excitement he's spreading his slime around too sloppily.

    Thomas Steiner was the head of the Mission at the time.

    Various cult inspired behaviors are described in the book 'Messiah or Madman?' by the author, but there's no description of this time period at the Riverside Mission because the author wasn't there, having ceased being the head of the Mission in the spring of 1978.

    All of this was preceded by the July 1977 FBI raids on three Scientology locations, one in Washington DC and two in Los Angeles, and by Hubbard having moved into Riverside county.

    Hubbard had moved into Riverside county and had taken the Mission building. What's remarkable is that this is one instance when, ultimately, years later, it was taken back.

    And that really bugs poor CaliMule.
  12. pineapple

    pineapple Silver Meritorious Patron

    Cortico-thalamic pause.
  13. pineapple

    pineapple Silver Meritorious Patron

    Okay, @CaliMule, you maintain that while Bent may be given some credit for writing his book and speaking out against the cult, he was a person of poor character who didn't fully 'fess up and do sufficient amends for his crimes. He should have let CoS take the Riverside Mission building, which he himself had paid for and spent considerable time and money fixing up.

    You contrast Bent unfavorably with some unknown "better calibre" mission holders, none of whom ever wrote a book or spoke out against the cult. These superior mission holders aren't guilty of crimes like Bent.

    Where are these "better calibre" mission holders now, CaliMule? Are they still in scn? How about you?

    You should get that cough taken care of. You sound really sick.
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  14. Veda

    Veda Sponsor

    Obviously an unhappy man.

  15. programmer_guy

    programmer_guy True Ex-Scientologist


    Most of the Riverside Mission staff were not well paid compared to wog jobs.
    We worked long hours for very small pay.

    The top Div 2 regges made some good pay but worked long hours also.

    Financially, I couldn't put up with it anymore and went back to college (Spring 1976).
    At that time, I still believed in "the tech" but had to leave staff to get a better life.
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  16. pineapple

    pineapple Silver Meritorious Patron

    'Tis true. During my second stay in Riverside I was posted as a WC'er in the academy and got paid $55/wk, which worked out to well under $1/hr. However, the mission was providing 3 good meals a day to the staff, so I was well fed. I was sharing a decent apt with one other staffer, for which I contributed $45/month. Since I was paying so little for rent and food, I was doing okay. I was poor but happy.

    This contrasted with the situation in Hawaii, where I was lucky to get $20 in a week, and was often paid nothing. In Hawaii a wog job was a necessity to survive on staff. In Riverside I didn't need one. (Some staff had PT wog jobs anyway.) Relatively speaking, my situation there was affluence.
  17. JustSheila

    JustSheila Crusader

    Thanks for the correction.

    I only saw those Riverside staff afterward who could apparently afford auditing and OT levels and that was a skewed view. It seems a number of staff, like yourselves, were not paid well. I'm glad to hear the mission at least fed their staff though, and you had a decent place to live, but sorry to hear the pay was so poor. You deserved and should have been paid much more.

    I wonder how much of Bent paying staff poorly had to do with the constant financial squeezing of the Riverside mission by the USGO. For years he didn't know from one week to the next if his funds would be taken or not. I'm sure part of it was greed on his part, part of it emulating Hubbard and being a cult leader (see Veda's terrific quote of Bent's statement about this) but having that hammer over his head where he and the mission could never earn more money than the USGO would bill them probably had a lot to do with it, too.
  18. programmer_guy

    programmer_guy True Ex-Scientologist

    If that were entirely true then how did Bent have the money to buy the huge old former YMCA building in downtown Riverside?

    We moved from an old house in downtown area to that huge former YMCA building.
    So, IMO, Bent had plenty of money during those old days.

    I am guessing what you are referring to is what happened much later (long after I left).

    (BTW, @pineapple, word clearer, would have been in the HQS/HSDC basement area.)

    Do I forgive Bent? Yes, that's easy for me to say, but I don't know about others.
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2019
  19. Veda

    Veda Sponsor

    Probably with a mortgage.

    Bobby Mongiello was there at its earliest beginnings and is now an Independent Scientologist.

    This was the early to mid 1970s during time of those Advance! magazine covers featuring Hubbard as Buddha.

    This was regarded as inspirational at the time.

    The cult of Scientology was a hierarchical structure.
    Below is from the early 1980s, but gives a sense of it.


    It was a cult.​
  20. This is NOT OK !!!!

    This is NOT OK !!!! Gold Meritorious Patron

    I don't have a horse in this "race", but I just want to say that I don't find fault with Calimule dredging up despicable abuses of the public by Riverside staff and perhaps Bent himself.

    Marty and Mike were railed against for years here for not revealing "all". Why should Bent get a pass?

    I also think Cali's main point that not all missions were as "successful" as Riverside, because they lacked some of the "hard sell" (bank loan fraud?), has a kernel of truth.

    Speaking of loan frauds, I'm reminded of the crazy credit card scam in Sweden (where Scientologists were co-signing each other's credit card applications).

    When Scientology finds a weakness, it crashes right through the door and consumes all.