Free Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology by Jon Atack Page B

the “highest authority”
had denied my request. The next day I wrote to my Declared friend, who had been
a senior Church executive and expressed my lack of confidence in the new
management. I asked him what was really going on.
    A few days later I received a copy of a Church “Executive
Directive” called “The Story of a Squirrel: David Mayo.” 9 “Squirrel”
is one of the most disparaging terms in the Scientology vocabulary. It means
someone who alters Scientology in some way, the most heinous of crimes.
Squirrels are profiteers who pervert Scientology because of their inability to
correctly apply it.
    “The Story of a Squirrel” was written by Mayo’s replacement,
the new Senior Case Supervisor International, Ray Mithoff. It is full of fatuous
statements, many of which were attributed to Hubbard:
    Mayo was simply a bird-dog. The definition of a bird-dog is:
“Somebody sent in by an enemy to mess things up.” (LRH) [sic] ... The actual situation
is that you had a bird dog right in the middle of the control room: David Mayo.
He was sabotaging execs [executives] by wrecking their cases [destroying their
psychological well-being] None of this was by accident or incompetence. Of all
the crazy, cock-eyed sabotage I’ve ever seen, man, he was at it. He was not
doing Dianetics and Scientology. He was just calling it that and using the
patter. His obvious intention was to wreck all cases of persons who could help
others.
    What shocked me most was the carping tone of the issue. It
seemed to be the product of a deranged mind. It gave me the distinct idea that
the faceless “Watchdog Committee” was a self-interested power group, intent
upon destroying the Church, and all that I thought the Church stood for.
    I was suffering from a severe bout of influenza and went to
Saint Hill for a counseling “assist.” Instead, I was interrogated about my - at
that time - non-existent, connections with people who had resigned from the
Church of Scientology, most especially John Mace.
    The following afternoon I was summoned to Saint Hill. Having
denied all of the supposed connections, and bearing in mind my physical
condition, I expected to receive counseling. To my surprise, I was subjected to
an Ethics interview. I sat there for over an hour, with a raging temperature,
trying to keep my distance so that no-one would catch the virus, and besieged
by a series of half-smiling, half-menacing justifications of the excesses of
Scientology management. All the Ethics Officer unwittingly persuaded me to do
was to ignore the taboo, and ask questions of those who might know: the
“Suppressives.”
    The next day I phoned John Mace. The Church was clearly
frightened of him and its insistent criticism determined me to hear his story.
Mace said I would probably be “Declared” for seeing him. I did not care, I
wanted to know the truth and to assert my right to communicate with whomsoever
I chose. Mace probably thought I was a Church agent. He said later that several
copies of tapes had disappeared during visits from people ostensibly upset with
the Church. The tapes were by various Declared Scientologists and described
events leading up to an alleged take-over by Miscavige and his cronies.
    I listened to tapes and read newsletters and resignations
that had been passing from hand to hand in the Scientology world. The message
was clear. The Church had been taken over. Hubbard was dead or incapacitated.
The new rulers were fanatics intent on completely taking over all power within
the Church. To do this they had “Declared” about 1,000 people.
    When John Mace left for Australia a few weeks later, I found
myself at the center of the burgeoning English Independent Scientology
movement. I helped to establish the first Independent group to deliver
auditing, but mostly concentrated on finding out what had caused the schism and
on persuading people either to make their complaints against the Church
thoroughly known, or to leave and help to