Scientology’s expert Frank K. Flinn testifies as to the religiosity of Scientology. Under cross-examination by defense attorney Michael Flynn, witness Flinn states that Scientology’s Fair Game doctrine is part of Scientology scripture.1
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
DEPARTMENT NO. 57 HON. PAUL G. BRECKENRIDGE, JR., JUDGE
| CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff, vs. GERALD ARMSTRONG, Defendant. MARY SUE HUBBARD, |
) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) |
No. C 420153 |
REPORTERS’ DAILY TRANSCRIPT
Friday, June 1, 1984
Volume 23
Pages 3990 to 4060, incl.
| APPEARANCES: (See Appearances Page) |
NANCY L. HARRIS, CSR #644 HERB CANNON, CSR #1923 Official Reporters |
APPEARANCES:
| For the Plaintiff: | PETERSON & BRYNAN BY: JOHN G. PETERSON8530 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 407 Beverly Hills, California 90211 (213) 659-9965 -and- ROBERT N. HARRIS The Oviatt Building 617 South Olive Street Suite 915 Los Angeles, California 90014 (213) 623-7511 |
| For the Intervenor: | LITT & STORMER BY: BARRETT S. LITT Paramount Plaza 3550 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 1200 Los Angeles, California 90010 (213) 386-4303 -and- BARRETT S. LITT BY: MICHAEL S. MAGNUSON The Oviatt Building 617 South Olive Street Suite 1000 Los Angeles, California 90014 (213) 623-7511 |
| For the Defendant: | CONTOS & BUNCH BY: MICHAEL J. FLYNN – and – JULIA DRAGOJEVIC 5855 Topanga Canyon Boulevard| Suite 400 Woodland Hills, California 91367 (213) 716-9400 |
| INDEX FOR VOLUME 23 |
Pages 3990 — 4160, incl. |
||
| DAY | DATE | PAGE | |
| Friday | June 1, 1984 | A.M. | 3990 |
| P.M. | 4070 | ||
WITNESSES
| PLAINTIFF’S | DIRECT | CROSS | REDIRECT | RECROSS |
| TINCH, Gene F. (Resumed) |
3991-P | 3996 | ||
| Burgess, Walter Charles | 3998-H | 4015 | 4029-H | 4030 |
| FLINN, Frank K. | 4032-L | |||
| (Resumed) | 4070-L | 4097 | 4158-L |
EXHIBITS
| PLAINTIFF’S: | FOR IDENTIFICATION |
IN EVIDENCE |
|
| 90- (Previously marked for identification) | 998 | ||
| 92- Copy of a diagram | 3993 | 3997 | |
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THE COURT: We are back in session. Counsel are all here.
Are we ready to go on with the next witness?
MR. LITT: Our next witness will be Frank Flinn, Your Honor.
FRANK K. FLINN, called as a witness by the Plaintiff on rebuttal, having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
THE CLERK: Raise your right hand to be sworn, please.
THE WITNESS: I do so swear.
THE CLERK: Be seated. Please, state your name and spell your last name.
THE WITNESS: My name is Dr. Frank K. Flinn, F-l-i-n-n.
I live –
THE CLERK: Frank A.?
THE WITNESS: K.
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MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, I an going to move to strike any testimony from this witness. I have read affidavits of Dr. Flinn, I believe his title is, and I assume that the purpose of this testimony is to say Scientology is a religion, which the court has already recognized, so I think it is totally irrelevant testimony.
THE COURT: I don’t know. What is your witness going to testify to, Mr. Litt?
MR. LITT: He is going to testify to several matters, Your Honor, and not really — I mean the court has already found that Scientology is a religion.
What he will do is talk about his familiarity with Scientology, various practices that have been placed in issue in this case in the context of practices of a variety of religions, including the distinction between eclesiastical power and corporate ozganization and various religious movements.
THE COURT: Well I will go ahead and let the witness testify and we will see what happens. You may proceed.
I will overrule the objection.
MR. LITT: Thank you.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Flinn, would you tell us what your present occupation is.
A Okay. I am presently senior religion editor with the Edwyn Mellen Press of Toronto and New York, and I
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do consultant work in ecumenical activities in regard to dialogue between various religions.
Q Do you have any background or training in the field of religion?
A Yes, I do.
Q And can you tell us what that is, please?
A Okay. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, particularly in Medieval philosophy and partial studies in psychology at Quincy College in Quincy, Illinois.
At that time I joined the Order of the Friars Minor, known popularly as the Franciscans, and I studied with the Franciscans until 1964.
I then attended Harvard Divinity School where I took a Bachelor of Divinity degree in religion, and subsequent to that time I studied at the Univeristy of Heidelburg in Religious Studies and in philosophy, and then I returned to the United States where I did a year’s further graduate work at Harvard Divinity, specializing in ancient and Near Easter religion and also studied ancient and Near Eastern religion at the University of Pennsylvania.
Subsequent to that time I taught for five years and then I returned to the University of Toronto at the University of St. Michael’s College where I took a doctorate in special religious studies, including Biblical studies and I did a special division on new religious movements.
Q And at Harvard Divinity, what place did you rank in your class on graduation?
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A I graduated at the top of my class, magna cum laude.
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Q Now, have you taught at all any courses in the field of religion?
A Yes. I have taught many courses in the field of religion.
I taught Biblical Studies at Newton College of the Sacred Heart in Newton, Massachusettes.
I also taught Biblical Studies at Boston College.
I taught courses in the Anthropology of Religion, Religious Symbolism at LaSalle College in Philadelphia in the summers from 1969 to 1973.
I was tutoring in Comparative Religion at the University of Toronto in 1975.
I taught courses in American Religious Phenomenon, plus many other types of courses, at St. Louis University from ‘77 to ‘79.
MR. FLYNN: I have no objection to the witness’ qualifications, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Let’s go forward, we don’t need to spend a lot of time on qualifications, counsel.
BY MR. LITT: You yourself, Dr. Flinn — well, let me ask one other background question.
In the context of your religious studies have you mastered various languages to enable you to study religious movements in history?
A Many ancient languages, yes; Greek, Hebrew, Samarian, Arcadian, Latin.
I have also acquired the basics of one American
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Indian language when I was studying American Indian Religions plus many modern languages.
Q And you yourself are a Roman Catholic?
A I am a practicing Roman Catholic.
Q At some time in the course of your study of various religions did you do any investigation into the subject of Scientology?
A Yes; as part of my — I first got acquainted with new religious movements in general when I taught the course on the anthropology of religion at LaSalle, a graduate study of religion, from 1969 on where I had students do field reports and types of religious activities going on in Philadelphia.
Subsequent to that time I did formal study of a variety of newer religious phenomenon in doing my doctoral studies among which was Scientology.
Q Can you tell the Court at this point what opportunity have you had to study the subject of Scientology?
A I first became acquainted — I knew about Scientology already in 1970, but I had no particular direct interest.
About 1976, I met — interviewing a variety of things that were going on in Toronto itself — I met some Scientologists. In the course of my doctoral study I started getting interested in Scientology, whether or not it was even a religion. I didn’t know what kind of real phenomenon it was.
I began reading the basic writings of Scientology,
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Dianetics, the fundamentals of thought. And subsequent to that time I have read most of the basic Scientology writings and done research into it.
I have also done — at one point in 1979 I became very formally interested in Scientology, And I conducted a type of interview that I call a spiritual autobiography where I tried to trace the life course of someone’s faith development which is a type of interview, I did 20 of those interviews which were about three hours long with different Scientologists.
I have subsequently interviewed many, many Scientologists on a more informal basis about how they joined the religion; how they joined; what motivated them to join; what they saw in the religion; what the religion did for them; how they described their meanings of their lives in terms of their commitment to this movement. I have done this type of interview with other groups too.
Q Approximately how many — you indicated that you did 20 formal interviews?
A Yes.
Q Approximately how many additional less formal interviews have you been able to do?
A I have not kept close tabs on that, but it is over 100 more informal ones.
I try to interview anyone I can meet.
Q Have you also visited any Scientology facilities in order to observe the activities there?
A I have observed closely the Scientology Center
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in Toronto when I was doing my doctoral work. I observed the Scientology facility, training procedures in St. Louis and in Portland when I was there once and here in Los Angeles and in Clearwater, Florida.
Q And have you recently published anything on the subject of Scientology?
A Yes. I have a recent article which appeared in a volume edited by Joseph Fichter, F-i-c-h-t-e-r, called “Alternatives to Mainline Churches” which just recently appeared last fall.
The title of the article is “Scientology is Technological Buddhism.”
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Q And is this the only article you have written on the subject of Scientology?
A This is the only article directly on Scientology itself.
Q And how many articles, without going into what they all are, approximately how many articles in the field of religion have you published?
A At least 25. I have not counted my list recently. I have many more to add. My vitae is always behind me.
Q Now, very briefly what are the characteristics in your judgment that define a religion?
A In general, I use a general definition of religion which I have arrived at from empirical study of a variety of religions, both ancient and modern, and my definition of religion is that religion has to contain a system of beliefs, and these beliefs must be carried out in what would traditionally be called practices of a spiritual or religious nature.
I divide those practices into two different kinds of practices. There are more ethical types of practices which entail negative commands and positive commands, taboos and positive urges.
This belief system and these practices, in turn, serve to shape and form the spiritual life of an identifiable community that has a commitment to some ultimate reality.
Q And you have observed that Scientology meets
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these characteristics?
A Yes. I think Scientology definitely has a belief system. That belief system is expressed in what Scientology calls the creed of Scientology. I see the essence of that creed residing in the conception that human beings are what Scientologists call Thetans and which is in traditional religious language means that they have immortal souls, undying spirits.
Scientologists have both positive and negative ethical types of commands and also ceremonial types of activities. Their principal ceremonial life is expressed through what they call auditing, which is a practice of, they describe as a process of moving up the bridge through the auditing process which has various grades of spiritual perfection, very much like the types of spiritual contemplation that one sees in the religious treatises of St. Ignatius’ “spiritual exerciser” and also of St. Bonaventure’s “Journey of the mind onto God.”
The Church of Scientology seems to have — definitely has what would be described as a heirarchical as opposed to congregational religious organization.
Q Now can you describe for us the difference between heirarchical and congregational form of religion as that operates in various religious movements?
A The prevalent form of religious organization historically in the United States has been what is known as the congregational, and in congregational church policy, such as you find generally among Presbyterians and Methodists
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and Baptists, is a polity where the congregation makes decisions as a group.
Generally they have either boards of elders or elected types of officials where the congregation or parish itself makes decisions of what shall be the faith and practices and organizations of a local congregation.
In heirarchical relision you have religious figures — in congregational, one way of describing is authority is exercised on a horizontal way, out from the parish in a more horizontal type of fashion.
In heirarchical religion authority is exercised from the top down, and in heirarchical religion, you have religious figures like popes or bishops or central religious leaders who generally have under than various officers, various divisions or compartments for the exercising of authority from the top down.
The classic example of a heirarchical religion has always been, according to scholars, the Roman Catholic Church.
Q Just by way of reference, can you give some other examples of heirarchical religions, not describe them, but just name them as opposed to congregational religions?
A The Greek Orthodox Church which has a patriarch and bishops under the patriarch would be described as a hierarchical religion.
The Anglican Church of England would be, and I suppose Episcopal churches in a different kind of way, but they are still heirarchical. They have bishops in authority
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and the preservation of faith and doctrine is carried on through offices of religious leaders like bishops, and the Bhuddist –
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Buddhism itself has bishops. And it varies from country to country.
In the Far East Buddhists also have Bishops who exercise authority over the Sanghas or the monasteries below them.
Q Now, have you had the opportunity to understand what the word “scriptures” means within the context of Scientology?
A Scientology has many, many writings.But Scientologists seem to hold all of the writings of L. Ron Hubbard or anything identifiable as the tech to be the equivalent of their sacred scripture. That includes also all of the policy statements that are collected in this long series of volumes that are known as the “Green Books.”
So it is in terms of tech and management manuals plus the writings such as Dianetics, which is prelude to Scientology, Scientology, Fundamentals of Thought; all of these volumes are held to contain the scriptures for Scientologists.
Q And in your understanding you have had the opportunity to read and review these materials in large part?
A It would take a lifetime to read all of the Scientology literature.
I have read most of the basic books. And I have sampled and surveyed most of the Red and Green Volumes at various times.
Q And from what you have been able to observe from
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your study, can the Scientology scriptures be understood in isolation from each other, or what approach is needed in order to get an understanding of what the meaning of the scriptures of Scientology is?
A It is very difficult to understand Scientology because I myself found difficulty in the beginning because they seem to use ordinary language in a very specialized type of sense. And I found out that I had to reserve making judgment about whether or not it was even, indeed, a religion itself when I first began to study it until I had surveyed a rather vast amount of material.
It is very easy to take some very controversial points and focus on them. But one has to see how all the parts fit together. And this is true with any other type of religious scripture.
The Bible, one can take little passages out of the Bible and sometimes even be upset by that unless you see it in its context. It is very important to find out what the contexts are in Scientology.
Q In the course of your study of religions have you had the opportunity to take note of the role of a charismatic leader in the formation and development of a religion?
A Well, when I first did my interviews with Scientologists, I found out that Mr. Hubbard seems to have the function of a religious founder.
They call him “The Researcher,” a friend that has all of the characteristics of a charismatic leader.
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And traditionally, scholarship has identified various religions, some as being bureaucratic-type religions, organizational-type religions, and some as being religions that had their beginnings in a charismatic-type movement.
Many people would say that Christianity today is a kind of organizational religion. But in the early days Christianity had what was called a charismatic leader.
L. Ron Hubbard seems to fit into the category of a charismatic inaugurating figure, very much like the Buddha or Buddhism or Moses for Judaism or Jesus for the varieties of Christianity.
Also, he shares many kinds of characteristics within Christianity of founders of religious orders.
Examples would be St. Francis of Assisi; St. Ignatius of Loyola; St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictines.
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Q And where a charismatic leader of the type that you talked about plays a role within a religious movement, what are the main functions that that person plays?
A This person is generally seen as someone who has an extraordinary perception of the ultimate reality, someone who has a vision of ultimate truth, someone who has achieved, for example, you could use St. Francis as an example, a perfect immitation of Jesus Christ, someone who has extraordinary powers of perception and vision of the future. Those kinds of things that will generate a following.
Q And do such leaders play a role in the development of cohesiveness for the religion?
A Yes, specially during the lifetimes. They become the center of focus of the faith of the community, and they retain what one would call a status of reference for those who adhere to this movement.
Q I want to ask you some questions with respect to some historical examples that parallel certain issues in this case.
Let me ask you about St. Francis of Assisi who was one of the persons that you mentioned. What role did he originally play within the Franciscan Order?
A St. Francis –
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, I have tried not to object, but we are now — Assisi is what, 12th or 11th Century, and we are now in the 20th.
THE COURT: I think we can abridge this a little bit.
MR. LITT: This will be very brief, but it does have
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a very important purpose as the court will see.
THE COURT: All right, go ahead. We will see what happens.
THE WITNESS: There are certain analogies between the life course of Francis of Assisi and L. Ron Hubbard. Francis of Assisi was the founder of what is now known as the Franciscan Order.
THE COURT: Is he the gentleman that eschewed poverty?
THE WITNESS: That is right; that followed poverty, Your Honor.
I am not talking about their teaching; about their life course. St. Francis founded the Order of the Friars Minor and he stressed poverty intensely, but the parallel between his life and the life of L. Ron Hubbard is that he was originally the founder of the religious order, and he received the title when the Order was approved by the papacy. He received the title of Minister of the Order or Servant General of the Order, and toward the end of his life in — toward the end of his life, he resigned from being Minister of the Order and retained the role in the status in the function of being the founder of the Order, and all the friars called him Father, and he was the only one that had the title of Father for the Order. In terms of his life course doctrine, it was very much the opposite of the doctrines of other religions.
Q BY MR. LITT: Now, after St. Francis resigned from the title of Minister in his position as Father, did he play any role in affecting the Francisca Order?
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A Immediately after he resigned which was around, in terms — it is hard to date it exactly, but around 1220, the Franciscans by that time had spread all over Europe. Somewhere around 30 to 40,000 Friars existed at that time already, had a major chapter called the Chapter of Mats, and a controversy arose within the Order whether or not the Friars could own property collectively as a group because up to that time they had taken vows of absolute poverty individually and as a corporate group, and there were various factions within the Order that were saying, “Well, individually we, can’t own property, but maybe collectively we could own property.”
And St. Francis was vehemently opposed to the Friars owning property, either individually or collectively, and he sent many messages to the Chapter of Mats and, in fact, intervened as founder and said this would be contrary to the essence of the religious vision of the way of life that is in total immitation of Christ as he saw it, and so he intervened directly in the decision, and the Order subsequently decided the Chapter — it was really a convention of all Friars — decided against collective ownership through his intervention.
Q And was the fact of his intervention anything unusual?
A No, not at all, particularly with someone who is a religious founder. Many founders of religious orders, particularly within the Roman Catholic tradition intervene after they resign from executive positions because they were
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the ones who originally formulated the vision of faith and doctrine.
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Q Now, after St. Francis resigned, was he provided any material provisions by the Franciscan Order?
A The minister general following St. Francis provided that he have Friars to go with him who were secretaries; he was provided a place of residence.
The Friars collectively owned nothing. They had lay people who owned their property for them and gave the use of it to the Friars.
And he had the Poor Praying Sisters assigned to cook his meals. It wasn’t a very glorious existence, but he did have people assigned to take care of him out of reverence for the fact that he had been the founder.
Q Was he also provided a Church?
A He had the Church of San Damiano assigned for his particular use.
Q Now, there has been discussion in this case concerning the subject of corporate integrity; can you tell me how is the typical Archdiocese of a Catholic Archdiocese incorporated in the United States?
A If one examines, for example, the record of incorporation of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles one would find that the Archbishop of Los Angeles functions as a corporation soul for the diocese. As the chief executive officer of the Roman Catholic Church, by the corporate soul is meant the sole possessor and administrator of all diocesan properties, goods, and services in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
That is a kind of direct immediate function of
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an Archbishop.
Q Within the corporation soul is there anybody else who in a corporate sense as far as you are aware has any status corporately?
A Bishops have committees of advisors, but who do not have the power. The power resides in the bishop. All the power resides in the bishop except the bishop serves at the permission of the Pope in Rome. All bishops are appointed by Rome.
Q Let me ask you about that.
Describe whether or not the Pope has any power to affect the separate corporation that is incorporated such as the Archdiocese of Los Angeles?
A This has happened historically.
If a bishop were found to be controvening faith and doctrine and morals and bringing scandal to the Church and his diocese or if he became entangled in an enormous financial difficulty or some other kind of scandalous activity, that bishop could be removed by the Pope in Rome and someone put in his place to assume the function of administrator for the diocese.
And this would be so even if the bishop objected?
A That would be even if the bishop objected.
Q And even though the bishop is the sole administrator and incorporator –
A In Roman Catholicism a bishop is the administrator of his immediate diocese, but the Pope is like the pastor
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of all diocese; the real ultimate pastor of all diocese is the papacy, the Pope.
Q And is this pursuant to ecclesiastical law that this relationship –
A These provisions are contained in what is known as the Corpus Juris Conic, C-o-r-p-u-s J-u-r-i-s C-o-n-i-c, which means the body of the Canon Law.
And there are various sections of the body of Canon Law that detail how bishops and archbishops are assigned their powers at the behest of the papacy.
Q And if there is a vacancy in an archdiocese, who is it that has the power to appoint a person to be the new archbishop?
A Solely that perogative belongs solely to the Pope.
Q So that is passed down ecclesiastically?
A Yes. That is what we call an ecclesiastical line of authority as opposed to a corporate or incorporated exercise of authority.
Q Is this relationship replicated in any way at lower levels within the Catholic Church?
A Well, the pastor of a local parish is assigned by his bishop; so it is exactly parallel here. But the immediate pastor of all parishes is not really pastor serving in that function. The immediate pastor is assumed to be the bishop. And the local pastor is in the place of the bishop himself.
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Q So under Roman Catholic eclesiastical law the bishop has the power to appoint or remove pastors of local churches?
A That is right.
Q Is that irrespective of any corporate arrangements?
A That would be irrespective of any corporate arrangements.
Q Now, does the Pope have the power to require payment of moneys to the Vatican?
A Yes. Every diocese throughout the world, but most especially the diocese in the United States since they are the wealthiest diocese in the world, are assigned what is know as a cathedraticum, and these are eclesiastical taxes for the support of the Vatican itself and for the mission of the church at large throughout the world, particularly in the mission lands. There are various types of taxes collected.
Once a year there is s collection that is called Peter’s Pence. Throughout the United States and throughout the world that is assessed to all parishes and all members of the faith, and that money is forwarded directly to the Vatican for the support of the offices of the Vatican and for various functions of the papacy.
There are also other types of taxes that are assessed, particularly for the propagation of the faith which is also administered through the Vatican.
Q And does the Vatican place weight on the need
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to raise money?
A Yes. I mean, people are in the Code of Canon Law there are provisions assigning — the way to state that in common language would be to say if a bishop refused to pay the universal church taxes, he would be in severe trouble.
Q And this power of the Pope is also pursuant to canon law, eclesiastical law?
A That is right. That is eclesiastical law.
Q And can the Pope require special collections of moneys?
A Yes. There are many various types of special collections that periodically become urgent like collections for relief of various churches in poor countries. Those can be assigned by the Pope.
Q And the Pope has this authority throughout the world regardless of the corporate setup of the particular Catholic church or arch diocese in the various countries?
A That is right.
Q Can the Pope pursuant to eclesiastical law affect organization or administration of Catholic arch-diocese or churches?
A The various organizational structures of the church, they vary somewhat from country to country and they also vary according to the relationship between church and state in each country, but generally there are standardized forms and those standardized forms are pursuant to the body of Canon law, also known as the Code of Canon Law which
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is the code directly formulated and approved by the papacy itself, and so that directly affects administration of the church throughout the world.
Q And can the Pope affect the individuals who are appointed to administrative posts within archdiocese?
A There are many complex ways that is effected. The papacy, for example, must approve of certain types of appointments to officers in an archdiocese such as the appointment of a chancellor, the appointment of the chaplain to nuns, the appointment of rectors of seminaries are all types of appointments which nominations are made by bishops but approval must also come from Rome.
Q And this is also pursuant to ecclesiastical law?
A That is right.
Q Now, let me ask the question this way: Is there such a thing called an Apostolic Delegate that can be found in various countries?
A in the United States the Pope’s personal representative to the church in the United States, now assuming a different function, he will become an official diplomat recognized by the United States political arrangement, it is called the Apostolic Delegate and in other countries that person is called the Papal Nuncio. The word “Nuncio” means messenger or announcer, and would be called ambassador in secular language of the pope to a country and to the church in that country.
Q And among the functions of the Apostolic Delegate
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Papal Nuncio, are their responsibilities to make determinations for submission to the Pope as to whether the Pope should intervene?
A That is right. Each year every diocese is required to submit a report on the diocese and the Apostolic Delegate also collects his own information about the running of the church in the various diocese throughout the United States and reports are made to Rome, and if problems would exist, both fiscal and spiritual problems; that is problems in terms of faith and morals and problems in terms of financial arrangements, reports are made to Rome, and if a case became severe, the papacy could and has intervened with the appointment of Apostolic administrators.
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Q And if that does occur, does that person have the authority under ecclesiastical law to assume all functions within –
A If the Vatican saw fit, if the case were urgent enough and the Vatican saw fit, that person could be appointed total administrator of a diocese.
Q Does the Pope also have the power to send missions into various archdiocese?
A Yes. In the United States now there is a special
papal commission that is examining all the educational facilities of all seminaries for the training of priests throughout the United States. This commission is going from diocese to diocese throughout the United States compiling a report which will be filed with the Vatican when they are finished.
And the local churches are required under Canon Law to cooperate in any way required?
A That is right.
Q By the way, does the Catholic Church have any form of collecting information that it feels is important for its own survival or benefit?
A Yes. Each diocese is part of a metropolitan diocese; that is, ordinary bishops are under a metropolitan, generally called an archbishopric; for example, Los Angeles is the Metropolitan Diocese of the Bishopric in San Diego.
Q And the metropolitan — each individual bishop makes reports and each metropolitan makes reports on the bishoprics within its domain and these reports are all sent
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in to Rome?
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, are we going to study the Catholic Church? Is all of this before or after the Pope resigned?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, this is all in the context of putting in perspective the question of the relationship within Scientology, which we’ll get to, within ecclesiastical lines and corporate integrity. Because there has been an issue made of corporate integrity with respect to Scientology which operates as a hierarchical religion just as does the Catholic Church. And accordingly, this information, I think, is clearly relevant to put in perspective the traditional practices within religious movements of the relationship between ecclesiastical law and corporate individuality.
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, there is a simple answer to that. And it is that civil authority with regard to issues of inurement and maintenance of corporate integrity has nothing to do with ecclesiastical law. And if we were to spend the next week studying the potential analogs between one religion and the Church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, it would be an exercise in frivolity.
The simple issue is whether or not Mr. Hubbard under the civil laws of the United States violated those civil laws with regard to his activities and conduct, particularly with regard to financial arrangements of these organizations. And he has already, in several tax years, been found to have done that. And I have the decision here with me. And the tax years from 1970 to 1980 are all now
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under review.
THE COURT: It seems to me that we are — it may be that the Catholic Church is a hierarchical organization. And it way be that Hubbard’s conception of Scientology is also a hierarchical organization. But we have gone along with this for quite some time now.
You’ll have 10 minutes to wind up this business on the Catholic Church and how it night relate to Scientology organizationally.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor. I only have a bit more on that.
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Q BY MR. LITT: Now, within various religions, again let’s use the Catholic church for starters, are religious leaders provided various services for their own use?
A Yes, as I said earlier, the paradigm of all hierarchical religions is the Roman Catholic Church. Each
bishopric has personal property; mansion, limousines, servants, housekeepers and other kinds of emollients for their personal care.
The papacy itself has upwards thousands of people that are directly attached to the papacy, including the Swiss Guards who conduct both over and covert protection of the Pope. Has grounds keepers for the Vatican, housekeepers for the pope and for the papal apartments. There is a whole religious order of nuns dedicted to that.
There is caretakers of the Vatican’s portfolio for investments which are made throughout the world. There is grounds keepers for the summer residence of the Pope which is at Grotto Ferrato.
Q Now, these residents that you are talking about, are these solely for the use of the Pope?
A The Vatican — there are papal apartments within the Vatican. The Vatican is, in secular language, the Vatican would be called the kingdom of the pope in secular language. It is under his personal dominion and also the official offices of the church are contained within the Vatican.
Q And the Pope has provided a personal staff to
4062
take care of his personal living quarters?
A That is right.
Q And is he provided a personal staff to take care of personal — let me rephrase that. Is he provided secretaries for personal use as opposed to general church use?
A For both. He is provided secretaries for both.
Q Is he provided personnel who handle his personal banking and financial matters?
A Yes he is.
Q And this is not church moneys but his own moneys?
A His own moneys.
Q Are there people responsible for his personal public relations?
A Yes there are.
Q And these are assigned to promote the public image of the Pope?
A That is right. Generally the Office of the Papal Chamberlains they are called.
Q And all of these posts that you have described that serve the Pope personally, who employs and pays them?
A The Church Universal. They are employed — they are paid by the church. Their salaries come out of the many taxes and donations that go to the Vatican.
Q And is it considered an honor to be able to serve in such capacity?
4063
A Yes, it is. One would not turn down an office to serve the Pope personally.
Q You have described the Catholic church and how it operates. Aside from the strictly heirarchical form, are there other religions that have analagous types of heirarchies?
A The Anglican Church of England or the Church of England. It has an archbishop with many bishoprics under him throughout the world, and that also is a heirarch-ical religion. It is different than Roman Catholicism in the sense that the Crown of England is considered to be head of the church in England. You did not have the separation of church and state in England.
4064
The various orthodox varieties of orthodoxy throughout the world also have hierarchical formations.
In the Far East, depending on the country, in the Far East various Buddhist, Llamas in Tibet, originally in Tibet organized under a Llama who is kind of like a Pope for the Tibetan Buddhists and has many abbots and bishops underneath him. And there are many varieties of Buddhist organizations throughout the Far East. But they have in some instances hierarchical definitions.
Q And does the Synod work in a somewhat similar way?
A In the United States various Protestant denominations are kind of in between the congregational and the hierarchical; in some ways closer to the hierarchical type of religions, particularly Lutheran Synods are organized and run by what is known as a Senate which is kind of like a collective corporate leadership, having a president who functions in a more hierarchical than congregational way, but not with the same types of powers that a Pope or, say, a Llama has.
Q Within some of these Protestant denominations that you are referring to does the Synod have the power to decide appointments even though a local congregation may be a separate legal entity?
A Generally there is a lot of variety in Protestant denominations. But there are types where the congregation has the sole responsibility and authority to appoint its Pastor.
4065
There are other kinds where a local congregation cannot appoint a Pastor without the concurrence of the Senate leadership.
So where it is kind of a joint appointment –
Q There has been testimony in this case concerning the question or the claim that certain persons while members of Scientology were put under forms of restraint or detention.
Are there examples in religions that you have studied where there exists facilities where people are required to go and to be in essence, I guess, detained?
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church was burning people at the stake. And it was done pursuant to Canonical or Canon Law to burn people, including as recently as probably the 1600’s in this country in New England; however, there is civil authority. And when people do not want to be locked up and they get locked up, then I would submit the difference between that and having a person voluntarily go off and do penance is a significant thing.
And rather than wander into the various religious practices of monks doing penance as opposed to people believing they have to gone to work for a nuclear physicist when they find in fact he was a con man and then getting locked up when they try to leave is significantly a different thing.
THE COURT: Obviously everything is relative. I assume that any organization has certain powers of discipline.
Be that as it may. They still have to conform
4066
to the civil codes of the territory in which they are functioning.
MR. LITT: We are simply trying to provide a context for practices which have been placed in a certain perspective which are quite traditional practices. We are simply trying to establish that. It can be argued as to what weight to give it.
THE COURT: Well, you can tell us about — okay. Go ahead.
MR. FLYNN: You can put a context on what Charles Manson did as a religious practice.
THE COURT: Let’s not get carried away, Mr. Flynn.
The lawyer, not the witness.
THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honor.
MR. FLYNN: We both may have the same tendency, Your Honor.
THE WITNESS: Could you repeat that question?
Q BY MR. LITT: Yes.
Are there instances of which you are aware as part of people remaining within a religion that they are required to put themselves under forms of restraint?
A There is a common practice that has developed in this century fn the United States, particularly the initiator of this type of process or form of discipline was Cardinal George Mundalein of Chicago who was Cardinal of Chicago from 1916 to 1939.
When he came into the Bishopric of Chicago he found out there were many quite undisciplined priests of what
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was known at the time as wandering priests throughout the diocese. And he found many pastors who were engaged in sexual liaisons which does not sit too well in Roman Catholic circles.
He found priests who were suffering from alcohol problems and he found priests who were not conforming to what the Catholic Church sees as the exemplary model that a priest should follow.
4068
And he was one of the first bishops in the United States to establish houses for the rehabilitation of priests, and subsequent to that time the bishops throughout the United States have established houses, the most famous of which the House of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, which was founded initially to handle errant priests for a variety of reasons, mostly for alcoholism throughout the United States, and that was supported by the bishops of the United States.
A priest, if he wanted to remain a priest, would be sent to this house in which the discipline was rather rigid and where the life was more penitential to serve for a period of time in hopes that the person would reform.
Q And so long as people remained a member of the group or of the religion, were they free to leave without permission?
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, I am going to object again.
All the evidence in this case relates to people when they wanted to leave and tried to leave and were locked up.
MR. LITT: There is no evidence, but Mr. Armstrong testified that he was imprisoned in the RPF, Your Honor.
MR. FLYNN: The state of the record at this point, the witness has just testified if they wanted to remain a priest. Nancy Dincalci testified as soon as she wanted to leave, they had a guard put on her. Laurel Sullivan testified as soon –
THE COURT: I don’t know that we have had any discussion
4069
about priests. Of course, maybe the auditor, anybody that is an auditor is a priest or minister within Scientology.
Maybe that analogy fits.
Let’s just take a recess and come back at 1:30 and we will think about.
Why don’t we try –
MR. LITT: I really don’t have much more.
I am done with this subject and I have two or three more areas. I expect another 15 minutes.
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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1984; 1:30 P.M.
DEPARTMENT N0. 57 HON. PAUL G. BRECKENRIDGE, JR., JUDGE
—0—
THE COURT: We are back in session. Counsel are present. The witness has retaken the stand.
State your name again for the record, sir. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: My name is Frank K. Flinn.
FRANK K. FLINN, the witness on the stand at the time of the recess, having been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand and testified further as follows:
THE COURT: You may continue, Mr. Litt.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Resumed) BY MR. LITT:
Q Now, Mr. Flinn, you were describing this facility maintained by the Paracletes; are there other religions that have similar type facilities?
A Various religious groups maintain special types of treatment centers for errant pastors for the rehabilitation of these people. There would be places where people, if they do want to remain in religious service of any kind, they’ll have to undergo the treatment or they may make the choice of leaving completely. But if they do go to it, they have
4071
to undergo the discipline.
Q And in connection with matters like these and other matters, are there various religions that maintain their own files with respect to the activities of their staff members?
A Most religious denominations in the United States maintain annual reports on the status of the parishes and the patterns and religious order members, annual typed reports, that are kept in special archives.
The archdiocese or diocese of every bishopric in the United States has a very special archives where files are kept on both religious, on religious members of the archdiocese, priests of the archdiocese and even in some cases lay people of the archdiocese that contain very confidential information. And those are kept under strict supervision. They are kept in what was traditionally known as the Cursor a locked portion of the archives.
Q And does this confidential information include personal information?
A Yes, it does.
Q Now, you also were describing earlier concerning the personal staff provided to the Pope; aside from the Pope are other religious figures within Catholicism also given personal staffs?
A Yes. The heads of most religious orders have staff, both ecclesiastical work and, in some cases, for their personal work.
Each bishop has a personal staff that takes care
4072
of his chancellery office. He may also be provided with staff to take care of — in some cases, bishops have personal homes other than the official home provided by the archdiocese. And they have secretaries and people to handle their personal affairs.
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Q Now, you described the difference between heirarchical and congregational religions in general. Based upon your study of Scientology, how would you characterize Scientology in relationship to that?
A Okay. My observation of Scientology — the time I spent most studying Scientology was between about 1976 — I began studying it in 1976-1977 and concentrated it up to about 1981. So, I understand Scientology, I have seen some information that it has changed structure since that time, so my information dates from about 1979 principally, and I would characterize the religion as a very heirarchical based religion with lines of eclesiastical authority and lines of organizational or administrative authority coming down from above with various divisions and departments which were answerable to higher divisions and departments, very much in the same order of Ronan Catholicism.
Q You were describing some of your observations of Scientology earlier. There is a term commonly used in Scientology called standard tech. In your opinion, is that a religious concept?
A When I first did interviews, the spiritual biographical type interviews with meubers of Scientology, my attempt to understand it, I kept running across, the ordinary believers kept referring to the standardness of the tech or standard tech, and as I investigated more about that and inquired more about that, I came to realize that standard tech to a Scientologist is the functional equivalent of what infallibility is to a Roman Catholic. Infallibility
4074
is the Roman Catholic belief that the church and in particular the magisterum of the church, the bishops in conjunction with the Pope, cannot err in faith and doctrine and morals in the long run.
It was also functionally equivalent to what, particularly in fundamantalist protestant denominations is called the inerrancy of acripwure or the belief that what the scripture contains is the word of God and sill not lead you astray.
Q And you had the opportunity to investigate the role of auditing in Scientology; is that correct?
A Yes, I have. There are many, many grades and divisions, and it is hard to retain all those grades and divisions, but I have observed people undergoing auditing, not in the room, but I have watched them through windows and I have interviewed people about what they got out of the auditing process what types of experiences they were able to relate about that process and what it meant to them.
Q And from a religious point of view, how would you characterize the role of auditing in Scientology?
A The closest analogy — well there is two types of analogies to the auditing process.
Within your traditional religions such as Roman Catholicism or Greek Orthodoxy or even Anglican, you have a type of spiritual practice known as spiritual counseling and particularly in the Roman Catholic example. There were examples as with St. Bonaventure that there were various levels and stages of spiritual enlightenment, and the auditing
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process shares many features in common with this gradated level of enlightenment.
It also shares certain aspects end features with what is traditionally known as confessional, and that is that the revelation of one’s spiritual state of soul, including confession of sins and doubts and anxieties in what is known as a sacramental confession, and the auditing process had an aspect of that, too.
4076
Q And would you characterize from a religious point of view auditing as a sacramental practice within Scientology?
A I would say that auditing is the principal chief sacramental practice within Scientology.
In traditional Catholicism the Eucharist would be called central sacrament.
I would say that auditing for the Scientologist is the equivalent of what Eucharist would be for a Catholic Christian.
Q Now, let one turn to another topic.
As a preliminary, the interviews that you conducted that you talked about earlier this morning when you were testifying, how did those interviews come about and how were they arranged?
A At one time I started interviewing various types of new religious movements, including traditional ones, charismatics. This was mostly the kind of research that revolved in relationship to the kinds of courses I was teaching. And I interviewed some Hare Krisnas. I interviewed some charismatic Catholics. I interviewed Scientologists along with other types of people.
The question I was interested in was why young adults in general were joining new religious movements. And I inquired from various Churches of Scientology whether they would mind if I just came in and interviewed people.
I also set a condition that I would pick the person and kind of at random. And I would wander around and
4077
see someone and say, “Would you mind doing an interview?”
And I would sit down with them to do this alone, what I would call spiritual biography-type interview.
Q Are you familiar with the doctrine and writings in the course of Scientology relating to the notion of Fair Game?
A I have heard about Fair Game mostly in terms of controversy surrounding Scientology.
When I did my interviews with people who were obviously inside the religious movement, at the time I interviewed them, the question of Fair Game was not a particularly important — it did not spontaneously come up in the interviews. It only came up in terms of controversy surrounding the Church of Scientology.
Q In the course of your interviews, did you inquire of the people that you interviewed as to if they had heard of the term and, if so, what they thought it meant?
A I did. Not for all of the interviews, but later on when the question of Fair Game or the terminology of Fair Game became a rather controversial issue, I began to ask people. And this I did a lot in terms of the informal inquiries when I had a chance upon meeting a Scientologist to ask him, “What does Fair Game mean to you?”
And generally, the response –
MR. FLYNN: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Well, only as it may relate to some opinion he has. He has sampled a few people, I assume it is for the purpose of some opinion that he has; otherwise, it is
4078
just hearsay.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
Q Go on.
A — and the response I got — and I subsequently have investigated or investigated the kinds of policy statements given with Fair Game — was pretty much in line with what those policy statements were.
Q Did you form any opinion as to what the general understanding of this doctrine or this notion to the extent people were aware of it meant among the Scientologists you interviewed?
A Well, functionally, I think Fair Game was something quite similar to — you must understand that the notion of Fair Game evolved within the Church of Scientology.
I think the first policy statement on it dates from about 1956. And then there was a subsequent statement to the effect that one would lose the protection of the disciplines and codes of Scientology and the rights of Scientology. That is a fairly close quote as far as I can recall.
And later on the Fair Game was canceled. I think it was in 1968. And subsequent to that the notion of Fair Game — it also included some rather stringent terminology, like one could lie to a suppressive person or one could trick one.
But when I interviewed Scientologists, their understanding of Fair Game was someone who had turned against
4079
Scientology or was trying to damage Scientology and was simply not allowed the protections and services of Scientology.
It was quite functionally equivalent to other types of religious exclusions such as, for example, abomination of idolators in the Old Testament; excommunication of Christians in the New Testament; Interdict which is a particular form of Catholic penalty and in which people are removed from all possibility of seeing the sacrament or benefits of the Church services.
4080
And it was most similar to the type of eclesiastical exclusion that you found among the three groups such as the Mennonites and the Amish, and that is known as banning or shunning where the party who was put under the ban who is shunned, and this still goes on today, was refused all social intercourse with members of the faith, including members of one’s own family. In some cases that included the necessity of a spouse not having intercourse with the other spouse.
Q Is the notion of fair game something that is, as you have discussed it, something that has appeared in various forms throughout the history of religion?
A Well I think that one can refer to the Book of Leviticus in Chapter 26, if I recall correctly. I know it is in 26 or 27, and the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 13; one can look at First Corinthians, St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians; First Corinthians, 1:5, to all kinds of other religious texts where people — in the Leviticus example, idolators and those who had lost faith in the community were to be excluded from the camp of the Israelites and stoned to death. That ranged up to St. Paul’s exclusion of a religious member from all the services and benefits of the community.
So, this kind of phenomenon is not peculiar to Scientology. It seems to be a typical religious phenomenon for the purpose of protecting the faith and doctrine and practices of the religious group.
Q Now, showing you exhibit RR, is this the
4081
particular policy letter that you were referring to that uses some of this language that you were talking about?
A Yes. Do you want me to read this?
Q No, that’s okay.
A Yes, the fair game, that is pretty standard type of language.
Q Now, in your experience is dramatic or strong language frequently used for symbolic purposes or in order to emphasize a point in religious texts.
A Religious language, particularly language dealing with penalties and religious language in general tends to be what an outside observer would say is either metaphoric or hyperbolic or highly exaggerated, intensive, loaded type language. It requires interpretation.
For example, in Matthew Chapter 5 following the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses language like, “If thy eye offends thee, pluck it out.”
Now, one does not normally go down the street seeing Christians plucking eyes out of their heads, and so it is obvious that that type of language is within the faith community understood in a much more metaphoric or symbolic way than any kind of literal physical kind of action. It is really intended to emphasize or motivate the faith community toward having purity of intention, total personal integrity, conformity of the outward actions with the inward spirit.
So, it is to be interpreted and understood in that kind of way.
4082
Q Do you have any other examples of particular textual reference similar to the ones yon have just given us? So one can point to all kinds of religious language. I gave you some kind of negative examples with regard to taboos and prohibitions or the handling of ex-members or apostates or idolators or those who have lost the faith.
There is language like the type of language you find in the Prophet Isiah in Chapter 8 who speaks about, talking about the Kingdom of God as if it were like a lion lying down with a lamb or where the whole nature of the universe were entirely in peace. This is highly metaphoric, symbolic type language.
Q Now, let me go back for a moment. From your study of the subject, is it characteristic of religious movements that in the early phase, they will use harsh or stringent language to define certain things that evolve over time?
A Almost all religious movements in their very early phase tend to be harsh, stringent, strict and later on to evolve a kind of case law to handle problematic cases, and they tend to go from being stringent to more lenient.
A very good example of that would be the development within the early Christian community in Acts like if I recall correctly, it is chapter 5, where St. Peter — Ananias and Sapphis are brought to St. Peter, and they fail to give all their goods to the community. They seem to have a very communal way of life.
4083
“St. Peter called down” — they get in highly metaphoric language — “called down the fire of the Holy Spirit upon them. And Ananias and Sapphia wound up dead.”
When you compare that with St. Paul’s way and St. Paul later on in Second Corinthians handling — just simply excluding someone from the communications, you see that within Judaism too itself where it went from stoning people to sitting Shiva on the faithless member of the faithless member of the community.
Q Sitting Shiva is a procedure in Judaism which applies generally to people when they die?
A Its primary meaning deals with someone who passes into the beyond, But when — in Orthodox Judaism when an offspring or relative or spouse or any member of the community loses his faith or joins another faith or joins an opposing faith, the members of the family sit Shiva on this person as if they were dead. And they’ll so act toward that person as if they were no longer alive.
In strict Orthodox sects that means not recognizing them if they walk down the street.
Q Now, you mentioned that religious language tends to be very image oriented; can you elaborate on that and also explain what function that plays within a religious movement?
A Well, scholars in general noticed that religion tries to talk about an extraordinary type of person, namely, the experience of the supernatural or divine or the ultimate
4084
by using ordinary human language. But it uses ordinary human language in a very kind of highly charged symbolic way. And it is very difficult in religion to separate what an outsider would call — make a distinction, an outside distinction called fact from fiction.
One can give the example of Jesus.
We know from some early writing in Josephus that Jesus was, indeed, a historical figure.
We know that Jesus, from a strictly factual point of view, that he seemed to have preached in Galilee at a certain time, more or less around 30 A.D.
We also know that from a factual point of view that Jesus died or was crucified under Roman auspices.
The faith community, obviously, was interested not simply in those bare facts, but in the meaning of Jesus’ life.
So when you look at the expression of what Jesus meant to the early Church, then you look at the gospels.
And in those gospels they seem to go beyond fact. Facts are colored in particular ways and the meaning of his life and all kinds of narratives.
Q Before we get into that, let me go back for a moment.
This colorful language, without talking for a moment on the subject of hagiography, are there other examples that you can point to sort of — the use of this sort of imagery which is not really factual, but plays a certain role?
4085
A Well, the religious experience is an experience of otherness about one’s kind of life. And in the Bible you have many, many examples of this type.
I gave the example of Isaih talking about the Kingdom of God as a lion lying down with the lamb. And that is not only beyond the facts, I guess a naturalist would say that is against the facts or counter the facts.
4086
You find if you look at Exodus Chapter 15, for example, which is a very Israelite poem generally known as “The Song of Moses” dating from around 1,000 to 1200 B.C. In this poem —- it is a very poetic poem, but it is a description of the destruction — it is describing the Israelites’ exodus out of Egypt, and in that description Pharoah and his chariots get destroyed, and even though the language is poetic and metaphoric in the poem, really it is a description of a storm coming down, kind of an ordinary storm it looks like coming and capturing the Pharoah and his armies and his chariots, kind of a flashflood-like scene.
There is another version to the same event,and this seams to be common to religious phenomenon. There are many versions to the same event, like there are four gospels. There are two stories of the Exodus, and that is in Exodus Chapter l4, and this is the Exodus of the movie version, I’d like to point out, where you don’t have a description of the storm, but you have a description of Moses walking out, dividing the waters in two walls and the Israelites with the cloud, the pillar of fire and the cloud before and after them walking through, and then the chariots of the Pharoah following after then. The Israelites escaping through, and then the water coning together and swallowing up the Pharoah and the chariots, a very magical — not magical, but miraculous type of description.
Religious language seems to thrive on this highly descriptive, beyond the ordinary type.
4087
Q And what role does this highly descriptive type of language that you have been talking about play within a religious movement for the believers?
A I think it serves the function of building up the faith of the commusaity and of intensifying that faith, of sustaining that faith and of giving it cohesiveness. Seems when one compares religions around the world –
THE COURT: Is this all based upon — are we talking about the fair game doctrine? Is that what you are getting to?
MR. LITT: No, I was laying a foundation for a discussion of hagiography.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: This language serves the community more then it serves quote an objective description of the facts. Faith is obviously based on real experiences, among which are included facts, but faith cannot be reduced to simply a mere series of set of facts and events, dates. Occurrences tend to be colored with this very highly poetic language.
Q How, can you give me a general description of the types of characteristics which are traditionally portrayed for religious founders within religious movements?
A The types of characteristics –
4088
THE WITNESS: In general, charismatic-type leaders, I would, say, are generally described as having extraordinary powers beyond the normal powers.
The mere fact that they seem to be able to gather large and committed followings seems to be related to these kinds of attributions of extraordinary power.
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, is the witness now talking about the claims of the charismatic leader, him or herself, Your Honor, or what the Los Angeles Times said about it?
THE COURT: You can cross-examine about this.
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE WITNESS: These types of leaders tend to get attributed with powers of clairvoyance, of being able to see into the souls of people.
They tend to get attributed with having a vision into the ultimate meaning of life, what the meaning of existence is all about. They get attributed with the quality or ability to, in some cases, perform miracles and healings; in some cases, like the Buddha to ascend to various levels of transmigrate; assume various levels of heavens and transmigrate into other animals or other beings.
In some cases the saints of the Catholic Church have been attributed to have the ability to have bilocations; that is, to appear in two geographically different places at the same time.
In some cases these leaders tend to get attributed to have seen God, whether face to face or the other way.
4089
In some cases they are attributed to have visons of angels or other devine kinds of beings.
This is common throughout all religions, that the founder is always given more powers than the ordinary believer, more ability in extraordinary fashion.
Q And does the term “hagiography” relate to this phenomenon that you have been describing?
A The term “hagioqraphy” means simply the holy writing. It is a Greek-based word. And it is a term generally used to describe the stories of the lives or the biographies of saints and holy men in general. And all religious writings contain some elements of hagiography.
Q Now, you were talking a little bit ago about some of the known historical facts concerning Jesus; did there develop at various times biographical elaborations on these facts?
A Well, I think that the bare historical facts about Jesus is that historically, factually, we know Jesus lived from the various stories even outside the New Testament; that he preached; that he was some kind of religious leader in Israel and that he got crucified.
Those are the bare facts.
It is obvious that the early Christian community was interested in a lot more than that because in the New Testament we find –
THE COURT: Haven’t we been through this before?
MR. LITT: Not this part, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Yes, we have.
4090
Let’s try to get questions and short answers, Mr. Litt.
Q BY MR. LTTT: Were there descriptions of Jesus’ life later that was added to known facts and that also contradicted each other?
A For example, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is described as going up to Jerusalem on three different occasions. And the other three qospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is described as going up to Jerusalem only once. And here we have got facts that don’t agree with one another or various versions of the facts.
The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus doinq his preaching in Galilee.
The Gospel of Matthew and Luke take Jesus back to his infancy. Both Matthew and Luke have infancy narratives.
The gospels expand, reaching for the infancy narratives and for what the Christians call resurrection kinds of stories. They are vastly amplified. And they, obviously, go beyond the facts.
To a nonbeliever this type of elaboration would be fiction, including such notions as the virgin birth of Jesus; in other words, the Christian belief that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, conceived of Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit and not by the means or ways known to most of us.
Those would be hiqhly amplified colorations or elaborations of the original facts of Jesus’ life.
4091
Q And has this phenomenon that you have described referred with respect to other religious movements or religious figures?
A One can say very similar things about the recounting of the events surrounding the life of Moses; for example, his bringing mana for the people of Israel; his striking a stone and having water flowing out of it.
One can point to stories about Buddha.
One can point to stories about many of the lives of the saints where you have this very highly colorful metaphoric elaboration of events.
Q Now, have you been able to determine whether or not this process of hagiography plays any role within a religious movement for the people who are followers of the religious movement?
A I think that hagiography serves as a type of — it bolsters the faith of the community; it gives expression to this faith of the community and it serves as symbols of hope, motivation for the life of the community.
4092
Q Now, in the course of your investigation into Scientology and the interviews that you conducted, did you have discussions with people concerning their view of L. Ron Hubbard?
A When I did my interviews with members of Scientology, I always asked them how people saw L. Ron Hubbard, and everyone called L. Ron Hubbard “My friend,” and I would put that “friend” capital F. It was more than just — more than just a casual acquaintance type of thing.
Other people used the language as if he was like the ultimate researcher. They said, they talked about his research into ultimate things. There was this kind of reverence toward the religious founder that I saw that would lead to this kind of hagiographizing of his life.
Q And were you able to reach a conclusion about the general conception about Mr. Hubbard’s background that people within Scientology had?
THE COURT: I don’t know whether he is qualified to give an answer on that. At some time there may have been up to five million members. He talked to a handful, I suppose, and we don’t know what their motivations were or what their purposes were.
You can express an opinion upon the people that he questioned and his reaction to it, but I think that is about where it ends.
Q BY MR. LITT: Were you able to reach a generalized conclusion based upon the interviews that you were able to do as to how those individuals viewed Mr. Hubbard’s
4093
background?
A The type of information that came across in those spiritual autobiographical interviews was that I would ask people about well, how do you see L. Ron Hubbard and what do you know about L. Ron Hubbard, and the awareness of the real historical data of his past life didn’t seem to be that great nor that much interest to them.
In general, it was a vision that he had had some contact with the Blackfoot Indians when he was young and that he had talked to spiritual leaders in the Far East at one time. That he had in some way studied nuclear physics. That he had been an explorer in various parts of the earth. That he had a particular deep insight into reality kind of in general.
My opinion about what they believed is that I thought this was simply typical hagiographizing of the life of the founder going on.
Q Did the phenomenon of the existence of hagiography indicate to you about whether or not Scientology was a religious movement?
A Well as I said before, I did these interviews,I didn’t know exactly what Scientology was, but this phenomenon of hagiographizing or hagiography was one of the indicators to me that we have something going on here that is more than simply some kind of therapy or mind cure type group, but really something that was very typical of religions.
Q Based upon your study of religions, are there phenomena that occur when people lose their faith from
4094
religion? Are there certain characteristics how that unfolds?
A Well, just as within the religious community, you have what I would call the phenomenon hagiographizing or hagiography; when someone loses their faith, you have the counter phenomena which may be described, I guess, as anti-hagiography. As the former kind of amplified or colored the powers, qualities, attributes of the religious founder, so the anti-hagiography would tend to denigrate or put down to the same but opposite degree the qualities of the religious group or the founder.
There are many examples of this, particularly among Roman Catholics. There is a very famous example of the late 19th Century called “The Awful Revelation of Maria Monk” about a woman who was en alleged member of the nunnery in Quebec who escaped from it and it is from that that developed all true details about the goings on between priests and nuns that became the source of intensive anti-Catholicism in the early part of this century. More recently you had writings like “I left over the wall” which tended to put down one’s former existence in a way, as I would interpret it, as to justify what one is presently doing.
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Q Now, in the interviews that you conducted, were you able to reach any conclusions — referring now to the interviews with Scientologists — about the factors that motivated — could you generalize on the factors that motivated those people to come into Scientology?
A One of the questions I put to the — my original interviewees plus the 100 or so people I have been able to inquire more informally later on, was that they — one of the things that came up in the autobiographies, I asked then always about what types of religious movements had you belonged to before you became a Scientoloqist. There was a great variety of backgrounds from which one came to Scientology or Unification or Hard Krisna or any other type of religious groups. And so much so that one could call that a generation of seekers. There has been quite a bit written about this generation of seekers today.
I was amazed by the number of serious religious paths people have tried.
They had tried traditional religions; some had been in UFO-type cults: some had been in transcendental meditation; some had been in as much as seven different religious-type paths, seeking for what they wanted until they found and settled on Scientology.
I’m sure that among those, people will go on to other things too.
Q Are you able to generalize about what it was about Scientoloqy that made people feel like this was the
4096
path for them?
A I think Scientologists always talked about the tech, the tech which allowed them, in this language, to get out of a state of being unclear or preciear and to gain what they called clear or being, quote, unquote, operating thetans over matter, energy, time and space and what they conceived to be ultimate reality. And that seemed to satisfy them.
Q And based upon your general study of the subject of religion and on the subject of Scientology do you have an opinion as to whether or not L. Ron Hubbard is a genuine religious leader?
A Well, obviously, L. Ron Hubbard has been able to attract a considerable following. He has also — also seems to have some kind of teaching that implies perception about what the ultimate meaning of life is and the place of one’s role on this earth.
He seems to have all the characteristics and qualities that have been generally attributed to what other people — what myself and other scholars call charismatic religious figures or religious geniuses. To the members, I am sure he is a genius.
MR. LITT: Thank you.
I have no further questions.
THE COURT: You may cross-examine, Mr. Flynn.
MR. FLYNN: Thank you, Your Honor.
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CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FLYNN:
Q Mr. Flinn, did I understand you correctly that you have reached an opinion or a conclusion that the Fair Game Doctrine is just metaphorical language?
A I think that the way –
Q Can you answer that yes or no, sir?
A Do I understand that I said it was just metaphorical language?
Q Right.
A No.
Q Which means it is more than metaphorical language?
A Yes.
Q Now, scripture of a religious type is something that people who follow or adhere to that religion follow or obey; is that correct?
A It depends on the religion.
Different kinds of religions have different attitudes and relationships to their scriptures.
Q Let’s take Scientology scripture, the Fair Game Doctrine; did you conclude that that was scripture?
A I wouldn’t call this the totality of Scientology of scripture.
Q Can you answer my question yes or no? Can you conclude that that was scripture?
MR. LITT: If the witness wants to explain, he should be entitled to explain, Your Honor.
4098
THE COURT: I recall Mr. Harris using that same technique when he was questioning quite a few times.
If one can use it, the other can use it.
If you can answer yes or no, answer it. If you can’t, you may so state.
THE WITNESS: Could you repeat your question, please?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Is the Fair Game Doctrine Scientology scripture?
A It is part of the scripture.
Q And as scripture is it a religious writing, in your opinion, that is intended to be obeyed?
A Yes, but I would qualify that in saying you would have to — I would have to ask you what part of the Fair Game.
There was, obviously, an evolution in Fair Game Doctrine.
Q Let’s take the word “sue.”
A What time are you talking about?
Q Let’s take the year 1982 to the year 1984 and the word “sue,” s-u-e; do you know what that word means?
A Does that mean — are you referring to a proper name, or a common noun?
Q Have you read the Fair Game Doctrine?
A Yes.
Q Do you have it in front of you there?
A This is not — I have referred to several documents dating from 1965.
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I have read documents dating from 1965 to 1980, the ones where I saw Fair Game mentioned.
Q We can’t bring all the scripture in, Mr. Flinn; let’s deal with the one in front of you.
We agree it is scripture; don’t we?
A It is part of the scripture for Scientology. It is not all of the scripture for Scientology.
Q Part of the scripture; as I understand, that is language of a metaphorical type?
A Oh, I think that this is language that is really to attempt to exclude a member from the religious community and, hence, can be highly charged. It is that kind of language that we find both Moses using in the Old Testament and Jesus using in the New Testament.
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Q Well, is it the type of language which is built up to intensify the faith of the community? I think that is how you put it.
A There is also a question in my mind –
Q Can you answer that, Mr. Flinn?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, could Mr. Flinn –
THE COURT: No he just makes a speech every time he gets a chance and doesn’t answer the question. I don’t have any quarrel with the individual. I find this with many experts that come into court.
Counsel has a right to ask a question if he can get an answer. Let’s try to confine ourselves, sir, to the question and try to answer it.
THE WITNESS: There is an ambiguity in this as far as I am concerned.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Did you testify on direct examination that it is the type of metaphorical language that is set forth in that scripture that is designed to build up and intensify the faith of the community?
A This kind of language is very normal and very commonly used by religious groups in their early phases in order to tensify the unity, integrity, the purity of doctrine of the group; where all outsiders or threats to the religion are perceived as inimical, diabolical, satanic, threatening, and very highly charged, intensive language is used about the outside in general with these types of movements when they begin. It is a very common historical phenomena.
4101
Q I take it the answer is yes?
A Yes.
Q Now, when it is intensifying the faith of the community with regard to that scripture, is it intensifying the community to sue people?
A I mould need some clarification here. Is it your understanding that this use of the language of “injured or sued or tricked or lied to or destroyed”; does this refer to in your understanding, does this language refer to what a Scientoligist is to do to an ex-member on the outside or to do about a member on the inside?
Q Well, you are the expert, Mr. Flinn. What is your understanding?
A I think historically that there seems to have been misapplications there. There were misapplications always in the history of religion of this type of language, and hence this leads to a modification of the language.
Q What does “misapplication” mean?
A It would be things like defaming the character of somebody on the outside.
Q Do you mean when you said mispplication that it was intended to be metaphorical but someone actually went out and did it?
A There is many instances throughout history –
Q Can you answer that yes or no?
A Yes, somebody may have gone out and done it.
Historically in various religious groups that does happen.
Q But in your opinion in this religious
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group it was intended to be metaphorical; is that your testimony?
A I think that it is intended to be within the group literally in the sense of excluding the members from the privileges of church benefits. It is very much like the language used in interdict in Roman Catholicism.
Q Does it mean you can sue them in the church but you can’t sue them in a civil court; is that your opinion?
A I have not determined whether this kind of text in the one example you gave me here refers to people using it on the outside or the inside.
Q Didn’t you testify that you have studied the fair game doctrine as the metaphorical language of a religious type?
A It wasn’t simply only metaphorical. What I am saying is one cannot separate the factual or literal from the metaphorical.
THE COURT: Well, how do you know what Mr. Hubbard meant when he wrote that, whether he meant it to be literal or meant it to be metaphorical? Have you asked him?
THE WITNESS: Looking at the terms of the evolution of the teaching in the writings of Scientology is that it is obvious that the fair game doctrine was officially discontinued in 1968 because it probably did lead to abuses. Now, I have heard about abuses, but I have no first-hand knowledge of abuses.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: so you didn’t go out and do any studying of any first-hand knowledge victims of the fair
4103
game doctrine; did you, Mr. Flinn?
A I have talked to some ex-members of Scientology, and I have tried to interview people who have left Scientology and are hostile to Scientology, and they very frequently will not give interviews. In fact, all of my responses have been that they will not do interviews.
Q Well, have you tried to meet people who were alleged victims of that policy who were never Scientologists?
A I have not interviewed people like that at all.
Q You don’t know anything about any of those people?
A I haven’t met any of those people.
Q So when you were doing your study to find out whether it was metaphorical, you didn’t try to find out whether there were victims out there in the real world who had been sued, for example?
A I knew there had been suits against people for defaming Scientology.
Q What about operations to get them put in mental institutions or jail; did you ever interview an author who was indicted by a New York Grand Jury on a frameup by the Guardian’s office?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection to the form of the question.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Well, Mr. Flinn, when you were
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doing all of your research into Scientology scripture, did you make an effort to find a person named Paulette Cooper?
A I knew about Paulette Cooper. No I did not make an effort to find Paulette Cooper.
Q Now, do you know whether or not there are any victims in the real world who have been lied to, sued, cheated, or destroyed on the instructions of Mr. Hubbard?
A I have met, interviewed two people who were affected with Scientolocy that I have been able to have informal interviews with but not on the instructions of Mr. Hubbard.
Q And these two people, what are their names?
A I won’t give out personal names. They are two people in St. Louis that I have interviewed.
Q One of them wasn’t Ann Rosenbloom who had drugs put in one of her drinks; was it?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes facts not in evidence,
Your Honor. It is improper.
THE COURT: Well it is a compound question; assumes a fact not in evidence.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know an Ann Rosenbloom who used to live in St. Louis?
A No, I do not know an Ann Rosenbloom.
Q So you have interviewed two disaffected Scientologists whose names you won’t give out; is that correct?
A I try not to give out personal names.
Q Let me ask you this: Was the fair game doctrine metaphorical to them?
4105
A I interviewed one of these parties who was particularly — it was a male, age 26 at the time I interviewed them — he felt that information had been used against them and that he was being harassed and pursued by Scientology. When I further inquired of him how was he being harassed, he said he received a number of phone calls trying to get him to come back and get quote, unquote on lines as a Scientologist.
Q Did you find out whether or not his preclear folder had been culled, Mr. Flinn?
A I asked him specifically, “Did you find any misuse of your data?” And he said, “No.” This person said no.
Q He had no knowledge; is that correct?
A He had no knowledge.
Q Have you looked at any of the documents that were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
A No I haven’t seen those. I don’t know. Are these documents seized by the Federal — I don’t know what they are.
Q Now, the word “sue” you have reached the conclusion in the fair game doctrine that that was religious scripture of a metaphorical types is that correct?
A I think that the context –
4106
Q Can you answer my question yes or no, Mr. Flinn?
A In my state — in the type of material where I have seen Fair Game Doctrine described in their ecclesiastiaal language, Fair Game is designed as being deprived of the codes, the protection of the codes.
Q Can you answer my question yes or no, Mr. Flinn?
A Not according to this definition of Fair Game because you would have to define for me exactly what you mean by Fair Game.
Q You can’t answer whether or not the word “sue” standing by itself is a metaphorical term which does not really mean what it says; is that correct? You can’t answer that yes or no?
A It could mean sue in the church. It could mean sue in the civil courts. I don’t know what it means in this context.
Q You don’t know what it means; is that your testimony?
A This is one document taken out of context. I can’t answer questions about little bits of information taken out of context.
I can discuss about the evolution of the teaching of Fair Game.
Q Let me show you lists of 100 or so suits that have been brought against people by the Church of Scientology, a computer printout; have you ever seen that before?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, objection. This is irrelevant.
4107
THE COURT: It is cross-examination.
Overruled.
Whether this is metaphorical or something that happens in part –
MR. LITT: My point is a list of suits does not have any rational relationship to that question one way or the other without knowing the merits of the lawsuits.
THE COURT: It is like saying somebody engages in hagiography, ergo, it is a religion. It is probably no different from that type of syllogism.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you seen any of the lists of suits that the church has brought against people?
A This is a list of suits that the Church of Scientology has brought against other people, or other people against Scientology?
Q Have you seen any lists of suits, Mr. Flinn, that the organization has brought against people?
A No. I have not seen lists of suits.
Q Have you interviewed any people who have been sued by this organisation?
A No, not yet. No, I have not.
Q So to those people you don’t know whether it is metaphorical or real?
A There can be a suit for civil reasons if there is civil damages.
Q Have you ever been sued?
A No, I have not.
Q Would it be metaphorical to you if a process
4108
server came up and served with a suit and you had to hire a lawyer and pay him $100,000 to defend you? Would that be metaphorical to you?
A No, it would not.
Q Did you read the book “Napping” by Conway and Siegleman?
A I have read parts of the book Napping and also the article Napping that appeared in a journal.
Q In that book, they wrote something about the metaphorical scriptures of the Church of Scientology; didn’t they?
A They didn’t use the term “metaphorical” throughout their article.
Q Do you know what happened to them?
A No, I don’t know.
Q Do you know whether they got sued?
A No, I do not know that they got sued.
Q Do you know how much they paid for lawyers to defend themselves?
MR. LITT: Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: He obviously wouldn’t know if he didn’t know they were sued.
I’ll sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: You have looked at no Washington documents, is that correct, documents seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
MR. LITT: Objection. Asked and answered.
THE COURT: To your knowledge have you ever seen any?
4109
THE WITNESS: I don’t have access to the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
THE COURT: Apparently a lot of other people have some of them.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: When you have been learning about Scientology, Mr. Flinn, Scientology gave you some of their scriptures?
A No. I inquired — I requested the things that I wanted.
Q What did you want?
A I wanted to look at all their major writings.
I was interested primarily in their doctrine and their teaching. I have not done any thorough investigation of the ongoing day-to-day affair practices over a long period of time of the Church of Scientology.
Q You just did a generalized review of some of their doctrine?
A My principal interest in Scientology arose out of my interest of why young adults were becoming adherents to, members of what looked like a new face in our time.
4110
Q Did your interest also relate as you have testified here in the courtroom whether or not this strong, intensifying type language was actually being followed by Scientology agents?
A No, it didn’t.
Q Well, when you requested the types of documents, did you request any Guardian’s office documents?
A Did I request Guardian’s –
Q — office documents?
A I think I saw — for example, when the question about fair game came up, I was given those types of documents. I said, “Can I get access to questions dealing with fair game?” And I got a series of documents that dealt with the tradition of fair game.
Q What did you get.
A A series of policy statements, HCO policy statements which are pretty standardly available, as I understand. They are fairly public.
Q Did you ask for something that was not pretty standardly available such as operations and targets and programs to destroy people?
A No, I didn’t ask for that kind of information.
Q Would that have assisted you in determining whether or not the fair game doctrine was metaphorical or real?
A Well I didn’t say that the fair game — I can’t make the assumption that the fair game doctrine was metaphorical or real.
4111
Q Oh, you can’t.
You didn’t testify on direct examination that it was metaphorical?
A That this type of language used about tricking people, even injuring people, even bringing harm to people is very characteristic of religious movements, particularly sectarian movements their early phases out of which abuses do arise and over time that type of language tends to get mitigated and moderated because of the abuses which do occur.
That is a very common phenomenon with sectarian religions.
Q What does the word “metaphor” mean to you?
A Metaphor, I defined it earlier, is a way of using language in a highly charged way to intensify the loyalty and commitment of a religious community.
Q What does the word hagiography mean to you?
A It means writings, biographies of holy people, saints, religious founders.
Q Did I understand you to mean when you were talking about hagiography that it was an embellishment, an exaggeration, data that was false, that was not actually true?
A I didn’t say it was exactly false. I said — my intention was to show that in metaphoric religious type of language, one cannot simply try to slice up the pie and say, “This is literal.” But the facts are imbedded within the context of a whole expression of the religious commitment.
Q I see. So we don’t know what hagiography means false or not false. It is just kind of a hodge-podge
4112
of something? Is that basically what you are telling us?
A I said that the facts were imbedded in terms of this highly colorful language.
Q Do you know what “data” means to a Scientologist, the word “data”?
A I have heard Scientologists use the term “data.”
Q What does it mean to a Scientologist? In Scientology scripture, what is data?
A I would not be able to give you a definition of what data means exactly.
Q Have you ever heard the phrase, “Truth is the exact place, time, form and event”?
A I have not heard that phrase exactly the way you said it.
Q Well, have you heard of any phrase like that in Scientology scripture?
A No I haven’t.
Q Now, let me just ask you if you have seen among the GO documents you requested, have you seen anything like that?
MR. LITT: Objection, Your Honor. He’s already stated he didn’t request any.
THE COURT: I will sustain the objection. I don’t recall specifically that he asked for GO documents or there is any evidence of that. You can ask him whether that is something that he was shown.
4113
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Let me ask you, sir, whether or not you got a document that said, “. . . to restrain, remove Mr. Jones’ employee in local government agency attacking the organization”; did you see any document like that?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, this document has not been introduced before. It is improper. He should simply ask of the witness whether he is familiar with the document. And also, it has not been authenticated in some other form.
THE COURT: He can ask the witness whether he has seen it or observed it. If he has, he can say so. If he hasn’t, that is that.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you seen that language in a document?
A I have not seen — I haven’t heard about this document. I don’t recognize what you are putting before me.
Q Have you seen a document that says something like, “Call up Jones’ boss and accuse Jones of being a homosexual”?
A No. I haven’t seen that.
Q Or “Send Jones’ boss evidence of Jones accepting bribes on his job with copies to the police”?
MR. LITT: This is improper, Your Honor. I object.
THE COURT: I’ll overrule the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: You haven’t seen anything like that?
4114
A No.
Q Did you know there were about 80,000 of these that were seized from the church that you are testifying about?
MR. LITT: I object. That assures facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.
We’ll take a 15-minute recess.
(Recess.)
THE COURT: All right. In the case on trial, let the record reflect that counsel are present; the witness has retaken the stand.
Please, state your name again for the record, sir. You are still under oath.
THE WITNESS: My name is Frank K. Flinn.
THE COURT: You may continue, Mr. Flynn.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Mr. Flinn, who retained you to testify in this case?
A Mr. Litt did.
Q And you are being paid for your testimony; is that correct?
A Yes. I am.
Q How often have you been retained by the Church of Scientology?
A Twice.
Q To testify?
A Yes.
Q How often have you been consulted?
4115
A By whom?
Q By the Church of Scientology.
A I have talked with many Scientologists on various issues, but consulted for what?
Q For any purpose.
A Well, I tried to interview a lot of Scientologists whenever I can.
Q How often have you been paid in connection with any type of consultation?
A I have been paid — I would say I haven’t added up the number of times, about four or five.
Q Are you on an on-going retainer?
A No, I am not.
Q What were those four or five times in connection with?
A Depositions, the testimony, and for those two kinds of reasons.
Q Well, have you ever been retained to testify, for example — strike that.
Have you been consulted in connection with potential testimony on occasions other than the four or five that you mentioned?
A About potential testimony?
Q Where you didn’t actually testify, but you were consulted about the possibility of testifying.
A I don’t recall that occurring.
I have been asked whether I would testify in certain instances, in which cases I did.
4116
Q What about in connection with any type of legislative proceedings?
A I have appeared before legislators, but not at the instigation of the Church of Scientology.
Q On behalf of the Moon Organization?
A No, I have not done it on behalf of the Moon Organization either.
Q The Hare Krishnas?
A No.
Q Now these four or five times, what is the total amount you have been paid?
A I have not added it up, but it is not — the total is not over $10,000 to the best of my recollection.
Q Close to $10,000?
A Somewhere around there.
Q As a religious expert?
A Yes.
Q Now did you testify in the Christofferson case?
A No, I did not.
Q What cases have you testified in?
A So far I have testified in the case, the IRS case against the Church of Scientology.
Q Now, is the Church of Scientology paying you in connection with your testimony here today or is Mary Sue Hubbard?
A All checks I have received from the Church of Scientology, and in some instances they have come from the
4117
legal firm.
Q Now, are you familiar with any Scientology scripture relating to the interpretation of policy?
MR. LITT: Objection; vague.
THE COURT: Sustained.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you read in connection with his study of Scientology scripture a policy that states that there is no interpretation of policy. It is to be literally followed?
A I have not read the statement that policy, to quote your phrase, “Have I read something saying that policy is to be literally followed?” No. I have not read that phrase.
Q Have you read something similar thereto?
A Scientologists refer to applying tech standardly or using the standard, referring to the tech.
THE COURT: T-e-c-h?
THE WITNESS: Applying the tech, t-e-c h.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you read a policy that says that all policies cannot be interpreted but must be adhered to in the language that in them?
MR. LITT: Objection. Your Honor, if there is a document that Mr. Flynn is referring to, perhaps it could be placed in front of the witness and he could be asked whether he’s read it.
MR. FLYNN: We know such a policy exists. We are trying to find it. We are not sure we have it here in the courtroom, but we are looking for it.
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Q Have you read a policy similar to that, Mr. Flynn?
A In my interview and in my reading, all Scientologists refer to applying, using the standard tech, and that is always referring back to the original writings.
THE COURT: Well that really wasn’t what he said, getting away from the use of the language of the tech.
You want to read that question back?
(Record read.)
4119
MR. FLYNN: Maybe I can rephrase it and save time.
THE REPORTER: I have it.
(The question was read.)
THE WITNESS: Yes. I have read statements to that effect.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, you testified that you were familiar with the cancellation of Fair Game Doctrine?
A I have read a policy letter that referred to the cancellation of the Fair Game Doctrine.
Q What did that say?
A It simply canceled Fair Game.
Q Did it say that this does not cancel any policy letter or PL with regard to the treatment of a SP?
A Yes. That language was included.
Q Did you interpret that?
A Did I interpret that?
Q Right.
A I saw that as part of the evolution of the Fair Game Doctrine.
Q Evolution? Is that your word?
A I saw that — yes. I saw that in the context of the evolution of the Fair Game teaching which had undergone modification and cancellation; in this case, modification.
Q Do you know what word clearing” is in Scientology?
A Yes.
Q What is it?
4120
A It means trying to check the standard dictionary definition of what words mean.
Q So that you can arrive at the exact definition of words; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q Now, when you were talking about an autobiography, did I understand your testimony as being embellishments that increase over a period of time about someone who is a founder of a religion?
A There are embellishments that occur in the very beginning.
Religious leaders are always perceived by different groups within the religious movement from different perspectives.
The four gospels in the New Testament represent four different reactions to Jesus, to the experience of Jesus by different groups within Christianity.
Q Can you tell me, does hagiography have characteristics toward increasing or decreasing the truth about a founder?
A In terms of what is the experience as faith by the community of believers, yes; they would say that; an outsider might say this is amplification, coloration, of fact.
Q That it increases; is that your answer?
A In terms of the faith of the believer.
MR. LITT: Objection. what is the “it”?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Let’s see if we can get a
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definition of hagiography. I’m still unclear.
Is hagiography something that is false?
A To the believer, no, not at all.
Q Do you distinguish between something that can be scientifically validated and something that is a matter of faith or belief?
A If you mean by scientific validation, the application of empirical analytical analysis through experiments, yes. I believe you can make those kinds of distinctions.
Q So with regard to empirical analytical analysis of a particular fact, you can arrive at a conclusion of whether a fact is a fact; is that true?
A In terms of historical analysis, all historians recognize it is pretty hard to get to the original cores of fact.
Q Can you answer my question yes or no?
Can we find out whether or not the courtroom is brown?
A By common sense, yes, the courtroom is brown.
Q Now, let’s suppose — you have various degrees; do you not?
A Yes.
Q And you have studied a great deal?
A Hopefully, yes.
Q And you are appearing here as an expert; is that correct?
A Hopefully, yes.
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Q And your expertise is predicated upon your study and your experience over the last number of years; is that basically true?
A Yes.
Q And you are in effect holding yourself out as an expert because of your accumulated study and experiences; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q And you went through a list of your qualifications in which you listed at length your academic credentials; is that correct?
A Yes.
Q And your academic credentials are a very important part of your ability to hold yourself out as an expert; is that correct?
A Yes, it is.
Q And I am sure you pride yourself in having graduated, for example, magna cum laude; is that correct?
A Yes.
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Q And you were first in your class?
A Yes I was.
Q And you have used your educational experience and background as a basis to, for example, be made an expert in this courtroom; is that basically correct?
A Yes.
Q And you have used that academic experience and background as the basis, for example, to command almost $10,000 in expert fees in the Church of Scientology?
A Yes, I guess so.
Q Now, how do we know whether or not you were lying to us about having graduated from Harvard?
MR. LITT: Objection; calls for speculation.
THE COURT: Well I suppose it does call for speculation.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Well, Mr. Flinn did you bring your degree with you?
A No, I don’t have my diploma with me.
THE COURT: Where is your place of business?
THE WITNESS: I reside in St. Louis.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, for all we know, you could have just got off the train from being a surfer for the last 20 years; correct?
MR. LITT: Objection.
THE COURT: Well, it is metaphorical.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Isn’t that basically true?
Have you ever met Judge Breckenridge?
A No, I have not before.
Q And you have never met me; right?
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A No, I haven’t met you before.
Q And you have told us about your qualifications; correct?
A Yes.
Q Have you told Mr. Litt about your qualifications?
A Yes.
Q Did you show him your degrees?
A I sent him my curriculum vitae.
Q But did you send him a certified copy of one of your degrees?
A No, I did not.
Q So, Mr. Litt relied on what you told him in your curriculum vitae?
A Yes.
Q And we have relied on what you have told us about your qualifications without even seeing your curriculum vitae; correct?
A I don’t know whether you have seen my curriculum vitae.
Q Have you used any hagiography in connection with giving us your credentials?
A No, I have not. To the best of my knowledge, I have not. I got my degrees when I got my degrees, and they are the kind of degrees I got.
Q So that type of a thing is something that we can precisely determine as to whether you did it or you didn’t do it?
A Yes, it could be determined that I was at
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Harvard University at one time and I was at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto at one time. That can be determined.
Q And you are expecting us to rely on these academic credientials in connection with your expertise as an expert witneses correct?
A Yes.
Q In this subject of hagiography about religious leaders, do academic credentials in your experience play any role?
A In general in the past whether a religious leader had academic credentials?
Q Right.
A Not in general in the past, although certain religious leaders in our times tried to seek things like Doctors of Divinity in rather unknown schools.
Q Well, a Doctor of Divinity is a very prestigious title; is it not?
A Not necessarily.
Q Well, it does connote a certain degree of educational achievement in theological study?
A In theological studies. In academic circles a Ph.D. holds greater weight than a Doctor of Divinity.
THE COURT: Are some of these — I am not suggesting yours — are some honorary degrees? There is such a thing as honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity?
THE WITNESS: There are honorary degrees of all kinds.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Well, with regard to, for example
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in your business, earning income, getting money, your academic credentials play a very significant roles don’t they, Mr. Flinn?
A Yes.
Q Now, have you studied the life of L. Ron Hubbard?
A I have studied — I have seen various data in folders about the life of Ron Hubbard – – L. Ron Hubbard. I have not gone intensively and tried to verify everything, all the facts about his life at all.
Q What does the word “science” mean to you?
A The word science to me means the application of empirical analytical analysis under conditions of experiment.
Q Something that can be observed, seen, touched, tasted?
A Observed, tested, retested, validated, verified, checked.
Q Now, do you know –
A But it is – – one has to be careful here because this is a modern definition of science which arose after the time of Francis Bacon.
THE COURT: We are not going back before Bacon’s time.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Let’s deal with right here now and common sense definitions.
A The word science, one must be very careful about the application of the word science because natural sciences do not see theology as a science. Theologians
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will call theology as a form of science known as a divine science or religious science, and natural scientists may object to the use of the word science.
It really depends on what context you are using the word in.
Q Obviously a man of your education and credentials knows a lot more about the broad parameters of science than an 18 or 19-year-old person walking down the street?
A I would assume so.
Q Who could be proselytized into a particular science; isn’t that correct?
A I would assume so.
Q Now, is faith and belief necessary to have religion?
A It is a necessary part of religion, yes.
Q And without faith or belief, can you have religion?
A No, I don’t think so.
Q Are you aware that for the last 20 years Scientology has been uniformly sold on the street on the premise that it has nothing to do with faith or belief?
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A I am not aware of that, about Scientology being sold that way.
MR. LITT: I move to strike. That assumes a fact not in evidence. There has been no testimony concerning that fact.
MR. FLYNN: I believe Mr. Armstrong testified to that.
MR. LITT: I don’t think that is right, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I’ll let the answer stand. He is not aware of it.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, when you were doing your research and interviewing these people –
A Yes.
Q — did any of these people tell you anything about the fact that when they were introduced to Scientology they were told that it was only used a religion as a cover for tax purposes?
A No. That didn’t — that didn’t come up in the interview.
My interviews, when I asked people how did they get involved in Scientology –
Q The answer is no, Mr. Flinn; no one told you that, is that correct?
A No one told me that this was being used as a cover, no.
Q Did they tell you it was used for tax purposes?
A No, they did not.
Q Have you heard of a policy called “The Minister’s Mock-up”; was that one shown to you?
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A I haven’t seen that particular policy letter.
Q How about the “Religious Image Check Sheet”; have you seen that one?
A No, I haven’t seen that one.
Q Do you know of any Scientologists who have been on the Minister’s mock-up and the religious image check sheet?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: Well, if he didn’t know of the document, I don’t know how he could know. It is argumentative in that sense.
The objection is sustained.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Just assume for the purposes of this question that Scientology has been sold on the street to at least one person on the premise that it had nothing to do with faith or belief, but was a composite of scientific axioms: would you then conclude to that person that it was not a religion if he believed that he was told –
MR. LITT: Objection. Calls for speculation. If he is to interpret the mind of that person –
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: Would I assume that that person that — should I assume that this is not a faith to them?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: The facts are this simple: the person is told that Scientology has nothing to do with faith or belief; it is a science. And it is not a religion. And he believes that and he relies on it; to that person isn’t it true to say that Scientology is not a religion?
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MR. LITT: I’ll still object. It calls for a conclusion.
THE COURT: The witness is an expert. He has given opinions about what constitutes a religion and what doesn’t. If he can answer, he should answer; if he can’t, he can so state.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know. A person in that kind –
I don’t know if I can answer a yes or no to that question.
If I could assume that this person did know a distinction between faith and knowledge, then I could begin to assume that then I could begin to answer that question.
But I can’t begin to answer the question.
You have to hypothesize that this person does know some kind of distinction between faith and knowledge.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Let’s assume a little further; let’s assume that he knows that science is something that he can concretely see; common sense; he doesn’t have to believe anything abstract. He does not have to have faith in a religious sense. A regular 18 or 19 year old person in our society and he thinks he is joining a science, not a religion.
My question is very simple: To that person isn’t it fair to say that he would not think he was joining a religion?
A That person may be deceived about the distinction between faith and science or faith and knowledge.
Q Who would be deceiving him?
A He himself would not know the distinction; so
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he wouldn’t be able to make that judgment.
Q And you wouldn’t be able to assume that he could make the judgment?
A That person for that one individual, that may be science — I, as a scholar looking from the outside, that I regard certain people who have faith in science, there are scientifically colored religions of which Scientology is not alone. You have got Christian Science –
THE COURT: We’ll never get you out of here this afternoon if you go on. Just try to answer the question and maybe we’ll get through.
THE WITNESS: To the Christian Scientist, the word science is a question of faith and not of, quote, empirical analytical analysis with experimental –
Q BY MR. FLYNN: We’re not trying to get your five years of study on faith and science. What we are trying to get from you is an assumption about an 18 or 19 year old person who sees the simple distinction between religion and science of the type you asked me about where I asked you to make that assumption.
A It just isn’t fair to say to that person that that is not a religion. It may not begin to be perceived as a religion by that person.
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Q Have you read “Scientology 8-8008??
A Yes, I have.
Q “Scientology is the science of knowing how to know”; do you recall that?
A Yes, I do.
Q “Scientology is the science of knowing science”; do you recall that?
A Yes.
Q “It seeks to embrace the science in humanity as a clarification of knowledge itself”; do you recall that?
A Yes.
Q “One studies to know a science”; do you recall that?
A Yes.
Q Now this book is kind of the Bible of many Scientologists; isn’t it?
A Well, no. That is not necessarily the Bible to many Scientologists.
Q Now –
A The whole tech, included tech is what Scientologists consider their scripture.
Q How many Ph.D’s have you encountered in the Church of Scientology?
A I have encountered four or five.
Q And how many people have you encountered who only have a high school education, for example?
A Not very many of those.
Q How many have you encountered who dropped out
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of college in their first year?
A I encountered quite a few people who had up to the junior level in colleges some who did drop out.
Q Do you know between the years 1970 and 1980 what the average of a Commodore’s staff messenger Org member was?
A Do I know?
Q Right.
A No, I do not know.
Q The people who were working immediately around L. Ron Hubbard during that period, you do not know?
A No, I don’t know the average age.
Q Who is the present pope, as you put it, of the Church of Scientology?
A There has been a recent reorganization of the church, and I have seen some information on it, but I don’t know who is functioning in an executive position. I know this that L. Ron Hubbard, so long as he lives, will retain the role of founder.
Q So you don’t know who the current pope is?
A I don’t know.
MR. LITT: Objections there is no post of “pope” within Scientology.
THE COURT: Well, again it is metaphorical, but he’s testified there is a heirarchical position.
Who is the number one, top dog?
MR. LITT: Are we talking ecliasticaily?
THE COURT: Who runs the church?
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MR. LITT: Well, that question is vague and ambiguous.
THE COURT: All right. If it is still ambiguous that you don’t understand it, Mr. Litt, then I certainly
don’t know what it is.
MR. LITT: I understand it, Your Honor, but I meant that there must be a distinction made between corporate and eclesiastical. If the question is who is the highest eclasiastical authority, perhaps Mr. Flinn could answer that.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Mr. Flinn, do you recall your testimony about the heirarchical structure of the Church of Scientology?
A Yes.
Q And you studied the heirarchical structure?
A Yes, quite thoroughly.
Q And you have given the court opinions about the heirarchical structure; correct?
A Yes.
Q And you have concluded it is heirarchical just like the Catholic church?
A It is very similar to the Catholic church.
Q Well isn’t that quote the paradigm example?
A Yes, it is, the paradigm example of heir-archical religions.
Q Of which Scientology is very similar?
A It is in many ways very similar but not in all ways.
Q Now, under canon law if the Pope resigns of
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the Catholic church, can he take all the church funds and put them into his personal bank account, if you know?
A No he cannot.
Q Now, are you familiar with the Society of Jesus?
A Yes, I am.
Q Jesuits?
A The Society of Jesus and Jesuits are the same thing, yes.
Q A structure directly similar in its own structure to the Catholic church?
A It is part of the Catholic church, correct.
It is part of the Catholic church, but it is a society, a religious society, and it is not totally identical with the heirarchical structure.
Q It is a heirarchical structure?
A There are lines of authority but you have no bishops within the order, the society of Jesus.
Q Well, you have a leader, however, who is viewed almost like the Pope is viewed within the Society; isn’t that basically fair to say?
A Within the society he is metaphorically referred to as the black Pope.
Q Have you ever studied the Navy?
A The U.S. Navy?
Q The U.S. Navy.
A No, I haven’t thoroughly studied the U.S. Navy.
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Q Do you know whether that is heirarchical?
A Most military, secular military things to my common — to my common observations tend to be very hierarchical.
Q Just like the Catholic church and the Church of Scientology?
A Yes, kind of.
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Q And how about the Communist Party; have you studied them at all?
A The Communist Party tends to be — I would not use the word “hierarchical” in regard to them. I would use the word “authoritarian.”
Q Well, is the Pope authoritarian?
A The Pope exercises authority.
To exercise authority is not the same thing as being authoritarian.
THE COURT: Under your definition of religion is Communism a religion?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: How would you distinguish?
THE WITNESS: Communism does not believe in any ultimate reality beyond this material existence.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: The exact place, time, form, and event?
A Is that a question?
Q Now, Mr. — do you know what the Schutstaffel is?
THE COURT: What was that?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Schutstaffel,
S-c-h-u-t-s-t-a-f-f-e-1, Schutstaffel.
A I am unfamiliar with that.
Q Have you ever heard of the SS?
A I have heard of the SS, yes.
Q Have you ever studied the SS?
A No, I have not studied the SS.
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Q When you studied the origins of Scientology did you read a book “The Nazis and the Occult”?
A No. I haven’t read that book.
Q Do you know where Scientology has its origins?
A I think the origins of Scientology are contained generally in what Scientologists call their scriptures.
Q Do you know where Mr. Hubbard got his scriptures?
A He claims to have gotten them from his own research.
Q He claims that. Is that hard data that you rely on?
A I observe that this is the claim by him. And it is the claim of the members of Scientology.
Q Have you done any research, for example, into a paper written called “Scientologie,” spelled with a g-i-e on the end of it in Germany in 1936 or so?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes a fact not in evidence.
THE COURT: Overruled.
THE WITNESS: I have not seen this document in Germany.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Are you familiar with a Germanic cult from the turn of the century called “The Germanen Orden”?
A I have read about them, but I have done no in depth study of that kind of cult.
Q Do you know whether Rudolph Hess was the head of the Germanen Orden between 1922 and 1926?
MR. LITT: This seems rather far afield, Your Honor.
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THE COURT: Any time you put an expert on the stand, there is almost no limit.
Overruled.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know that Rudolph Hess was in prison with Adolf Hitler?
MR. LITT: Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
MR. FLYNN: I’m trying to get a little of his background, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I’ll overrule the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know that, Mr. Flinn?
A No, I do not. This — you are talking about –
I am an expert in religious studies, not in Nazi regimes.
Q That is where we are going to get to very quickly.
So you don’t know that the basis of “Mein Kampf,” the book written by Adolf Hitler came from Germanen Orden origins?
A No.
Q You must have studied “The Black Knights of the Middle Ages”?
A I have read things about the so-called Black Knights of the Middle Ages.
There is much legend with regard to the Black Knights.
Q Then there came in 1902 the Germanen Orden?
A I don’t know that that is a fact.
Q Then the Germanen Orden became the SS?
MR. LITT: Objection, Your Honor.
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THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Have you studied the Society of Jesus?
A I have a fair familiarity with the Society of Jesus.
Q Are you aware of the fact that the SS was built on the same structure as the Society of Jesus?
A I have heard that. I have heard this by hearsay.
Q You have done no studying about the fact, that –
A I have not pursued that kind of study.
Q — that Hitler built the Nazi Party based on the Catholic Church, structurally?
MR. LITT: Your Honor –
Q BY MR. FLYNN: — structurally you haven’t heard anything about the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church vis-a-vis the Nazi Party?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, this is a little much.
THE COURT: I don’t know. I am not assuming anything Mr. Flynn says is a fact.
He is permitted to ask a question. If it is denied or if he doesn’t know anything about it, that is the end of it.
THE WITNESS: I don’t know anything about these kinds of comparisons.
BY MR. FLYNN: But you had heard about the SS being built on the same structure as the Society of Jesus;
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you had heard that, Mr. Flinn?
A Well, I have heard member of the Jesuit Order who have talked about this farfetched theory.
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Q Far-fetched?
A to the Jesuits it is perceived as a way of denigrating the Jesuit Order.
Q Have you studied anything about the parallel structures of the two, the SS and the Jesuits?
A No I have not.
I said that earlier.
Q Have you ever heard of this book?
A I have seen that book advertised. I have not read it.
Q Have you ever heard of an operation connected by the Guardian’s office called Operation Hydra?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: Well, overruled.
THE WITNESS: No, I have not.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: When you were doing your research about the structure of the Church of Scientology and the fair game doctrine, did you make any effort to find out whether or not Scientologists had gone throughout the world and stolen copies of the book “Gods and Beasts”?
MR. LITT: Objection; assumes facts not in evidence.
THE COURT: Well I will sustain the objection to the form of the question.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Well, do you know anything about operations of the Church of Scientology to steal en theta material?
A No I do not.
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Q Do you know what “en theta” means?
A En theta means — my perception is that means material that is unfavorable to Scientology.
Q Now, the word “cheat” that is in the fair game doctrine, can that mean steal in a common sense way?
A In the fair game — are you referring to this piece of paper you put in front of me?
Q Right.
Q I don’t see the statement. In my mind, and I tried to say this earlier, that this statement simply says that if things are done against people who are still members of the church that nothing will be done against him in terms of Scientology. It means the person is not protected by the rules of Scientology nor will this be processed within Scientology.
That can be taken to mean that this will be turned over to the civil courts to handle, that kind of activity.
Q I undestand your view of it, but when it says, “may be deprived of property,” does that mean if Dustry Sklar, for example, the author of this hook is an enemy of the church, she could be deprived of property?
A This could be — you would have to tell me whether your understanding of this statement refers to Scientology — their property within the Church of Scientology or not.
Q Assume that Dusky Sklar is not a Scientologist and her property she was deprived of by having it stolen
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all over the United States.
A No, I don’t assume it would be applied in this way at all.
Q Let’s just assume that that did take place; do you think the civil courts should have sanctions against the people who followed that policy in doing it?
MR. LITT: Objection; calls for speculation.
THE COURT: Well I think it is outside the scope. It is a legal matter. Whether he thinks or doesn’t think is immaterial.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Flynn: As a religious expert, if someone literally adhered to that metaphorical language in the fair game doctrine and stole someone else’s property, pursuant to that policy, as a religious expert, do you think the civil courts should have a sanction against that person?
MR. LITT: Same objection, Your Honor. It is the same question.
THE COURT: Well, I will overrule the objection.
THE WITNESS: If someone commits a civil crime, in my mind one is always subject to being prosecuted for a civil crime, period.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Incidentally, who copyrighted that policy?
MR. LITT: Objection. The document speaks for itself. The question has already been asked in the course of this proceeding about 10 or 15 times.
THE COURT: Yes, I think so. That is exhibit RR.
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MR. LITT: Yes, Your Honor.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, did you tesitfy that you arrived at the opinion that the life and background of the founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to adherents to Scientology was really not all that important?
A To my interviewees certain aspects of his life were important and other aspects were not important.
Q Well, what about his image; do you think his image is important?
A I think it is very important to the members of the church.
Q Do you think his image is in part predicated, for example, his academic credentials, if he made them a factor?
A No, that did not show up in my interviews.
Q The question is a hypothetical question. If L. Ron Hubbard made his academic credentials an issue and people relied upon them, do you think that relates to L. Ron Hubbard’s image?
MR. LITT: Objection; calls for speculation, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Well, it is a question of definition and he has given a lot of testimony concerning definition.
Overruled.
THE WITNESS: That might a factor, but not the total factor.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, when you were studying the background of L. Ron Hubbard, did you find that his research
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was important, L. Ron Hubbard’s research?
A To L. Ron Hubbard the word “research” and his own research is very important, yes.
Q Now, when you were studying the issue of hagiography, did the issue arise as to whether the hagiographical material came from the person himself?
A Did all of this hagiographical material come — did I determine that?
Q Was that an important factor in your studies?
A I determined various sources of hagiographical material.
Q Well, to your knowledge did Jesus of Narazeth copyright his publication?
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MR. LITT: Objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT: It is a little bit too metaphorical, counsel. I don’t think the Romans had a trademark.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you know whether L. Ron Hubbard has copyrighted structurally everything that he has written that has been published?
A Yes. I am aware of that.
Q Including his biographical sketches?
A Yes. I am aware of that. The ones that I have seen that are by L. Ron Hubbard, yes.
Q You are basically talked about Hagiography in terms of what people ascribe to the person; correct?
What about what the person says about himself; Mr. Flinn, is that Hagiography, or lies?
A What a person says about himself? I assume if it is untrue.
Q If it is untrue.
A If it is untrue, it is untrue by self-definition.
Q Then it is not Hagiography; it is just a falsehood?
A There are many quasi-falsehoods in Hagiographies.
To outside believers the fact that Jesus rose from the dead would be a lie. But to someone who is not a believer –
Q Let’s take your PhD from Harvard; if you said you had one when you didn’t, would that be Hagiography, or
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would that be a lie?
A That would be falsification of my credentials.
Q If L. Ron Hubbard said he was a Bachelor of Science in engineering when he wasn’t, would be that Hagiography, or a lie?
A If L. Ron Hubbard said that, that would be a lie.
Q And if L. Ron Hubbard said he was a war hero when in fact he was not, would that be Hagiography, or a lie?
A That one is harder to determine.
Q If L. Ron Hubbard said that he was flown home in the Secretary of the Navy’s plane when he fact he wasn’t, would that be Hagiography, or a lie?
A If he flew home in the Secretary’s plane, he told the truth; if he did not and claimed he did, he would be telling a lie.
Q Suppose he said he was hit with Japanese machine gun fire in his kidneys when he in fact wasn’t; would that be Hagiography, or a lie?
MR. LITT: This is all rhetorical questioning. It is self-evident.
MR. FLYNN: Your Honor, Mr. Litt tried to build a record.
THE COURT: Well, we can have a little more of it.
But I think we ought to try to get the gentleman back to St. Louis before the weekend; otherwise, he is going to be stuck here over the weekend.
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Q BY MR. FLYNN: That would be a lie rather than Hagiography, Mr. Flinn?
A What would be a lie rather than Hagiography, going back to St. Louis?
Q The bullet in the kidneys.
A If he was hit in the kidneys and said he was, that would be the truth. If he wasn’t hit in the kidneys and said he was, that would be a lie.
Q Suppose he suffered from some urinary difficulties which he said related to machine gun bullets, but in fact related to a disease that he contracted; would that be Hagiography, or a lie?
A The same type of application to this answer would apply in this case. If it happened and he claimed — if it happened and he claimed it happened, it would be the truth. If it happened and he didn’t claim it happened, it would be false.
Q Did Mr. Litt show you any documents in this case that listed three pages of misrepresentations that L. Ron Hubbard has made?
A No.
MR. LITT: Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence, that those are misrepresentations, which is far from being established.
MR. FLYNN: I don’t want to go through them all. We have to get Mr. Flinn back to St. Louis.
MR. LITT: He said he didn’t see the list.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you think religion has something
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to do with intention?
A You would have to define “intention” for me, please.
Q Well, if you told someone you were a Catholic when in fact you weren’t, would you be a member of the Catholic Church or not?
A Oh, I have known many members of the Catholic Church who have lied and remained members of the Catholic Church.
Q Let’s get a little more subtle about intention.
A Telling a falsehood does not disqualify one from membership in anything.
Q Let’s get –
A It is a test of a person’s failure to live up to the religion, but it doesn’t mean he is excluded thereby.
Q Let me ask you this: If you don’t intend to be the founder of a religion and you don’t perceive of yourself as the founder of a religion does that have anything to do, in your mind, with whether or not a religion has been founded?
A In order to answer your question –
Q As opposed to a science?
A I would simply say that I don’t think that Moses intended to found a religion of Israel; in fact, Moses fled, had an experience, and this led to the founding of the Israelite — the later Israelite kind of religion.
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Q So your answer is no?
A To a certain extent, a religious leader very often –
Q Your answer is no, Mr. Flynn?
A It is not. They can fall into a religion.
Q It means you can have a religion when you don’t intend?
A You can have a religion — you can have a later experience where it becomes a religion. Religions don’t necessarily have to start from the very beginning.
They can develop.
MR. LITT: For the court’s reference, there are constitutional decisions saying that whether people intend something to be a religion, if it is a religion, those criteria apply regardless of what was intended. The case is Malnak v. Yogi.
THE COURT: I don’t think we need to get off or take up the time of the witness on legal discussions now.
MR. FLYNN: And I’d cite the Ballard case.
THE COURT: Let’s go on and ask some questions and get some answer so the witness can go home.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, Mr. Flinn, belief has something to do with intention; right?
A Belief? I would say — all intentions are belief, and belief and intention are included in one another.
They overlap.
Q And sincerity of belief had something to do with faith?
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A I think so.
Q And faith and belief are the essential components of religion?
THE COURT: I think he said faith or belief.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Faith or belief are essential components of religion; is that true?
A Yes, they are important.
Q Suppose a person wrote that, “Selling courses in some type of a mental healing was a problem in practical business”; does that affect whether or not that person is thinking he is starting a religion or not?
A No, it doesn’t affect it whatsover.
Q And suppose he says, “I await your reaction on the religion angle”; does that suggest to you any question about whether the person was really believing he was starting a religion as opposed to just using it for other purposes?
A I don’t know what you are quoting and I don’t know when it days from, and I don’t know what the context is.
Could you bring that information? We scholars are very, very careful about these things.
Q It is a letter to Helen O’Brien dated April 10th from L. Ron Hubbard.
A April 10th when?
Q I believe it is ‘52 –’53, 1953.
So, if we can just narrow this, if a person said, “I wait your reaction on the religion angle”; does this just connote to you as a religious expert that he is
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kind of using relegion as opposed to sincerely believing in it?
A No it doesn’t whatsoever. In fact, my article –
Q Thank you.
A My article –
Q The answer was no?
MR. LITT: Your Honor, may he finish his answer?
THE COURT: All he has to say is yes or no.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Now, you have talked about charismatic leaders and you put L. Ron Hubbard in that vein, and you put Jesus and Mohammed.
Did you put Shankara in that domain?
A I don’t know who Shankara is.
Q Well, didn’t you say that Scientology was technical Bhuddism?
A Technological Bhuddism. Are you referring to a person or a method?
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Q Well, let me ask you this: Was Hitler, in your view as a religious expert, a charismatic leader?
A He had certain charismatic qualities applied in the political realm, but not a charismatic leader.
Q Was Jim Jones a charismatic leader?
A He had certain charismatic leadership qualities. I don’t know whether at the end of his life he was a religious leader or not because he assumed certain political doctrines.
Q Is Khadafi a charismatic leader?
A He has certain charismatic qualities,
Q Khomeni, is he a charismatic leader?
A Khomeni is charismatic.
THE COURT: How about Bogwon?
THE WITNESS: I would say he is a charismatic leader?
Q BY MR. FLYNN: Do you believe education disspells mysticism?
A Not necessarily. No, I don’t.
Q Do you believe that between the time of Jesus and the present time, man has evolved more toward technoloical studies rather than mystical belief?
A I have a much more sickening view of religious phenomena; that at a time religion goes downhill and things like technological study goes uphill and at times they become — they get, disillusioned and religion goes back uphill.
Q To your knowledge did Jesus of Nazareth maintain Swiss bank accounts?
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A I have no knowledge of that whatsoever.
Q But you do agree that if the Pope had resigned, he wouldn’t have control over the monies of the Catholic Church?
A In fact, there were Popes who did resign in the Middle Ages during the Avion Papacies.
Q We are dealing with now.
A I –
MR. LITT: Can he finish, Your Honor?
THE COURT: I would like to get through with it. Can he answer yes or no?
THE WITNESS: In present day, no, that would not happen. In the past, that, in fact, did happen.
Q BY MR. FLYNN: In the past the Catholic Church burned witches; correct?
A Yes.
Q This House of Paracletes down in New Mexico, did you say it was primarily for medical treatment of alcoholism?
A It was for all kinds of treatment dealing with priests who have problems.
Q Including psychiatric treatment?
A There are some that I am aware of that had mental problems, things like that, emotional problems, all kinds of problems; principally dealing with priests who had alcohol problems.
Q There were doctors down there treating them?
A No. It was a religious order that treated them.
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And doctors were employed in circumstances. But there was no direct, to my knowledge — well, there were doctors who were brought in, but not members of the group who were doing the care of these priests.
Q The intent was to treat the person’s, for example, alcoholism and if medical treatment was needed, it was brought in?
A There would be medical treatment if necessary, yes.
Q Now, have you ever been to a psychiatricinstitution where a person is in a locked ward?
A Yes, I have. Yes.
Q So for purposes of treatment they put them in a locked ward to protect themselves; is that correct?
A With doors locked and bars. Yes, I have seen that.
Q Have you ever been to a prison where a person is locked up by society so society protects itself?
A Yes.
Q Do you place a distinction between those three items, the psychiatric institution, the prison, and the House of Paracletes?
A Do I make a distinction?
Q Yes.
A I think there are distinctions between those, yes.
Q Suppose a person is actually kidnapped and locked against their will; do you make another distinction there?
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A I think that that — I can’t answer that question without circumstances. If it is against their will and they were kidnapped and force was used, that is false imprisonment unless it is by a court order.
MR. FLYNN: That is all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Litt.
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THE COURT: Mr. Litt?
MR. LITT: Thank you, Your Honor.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LITT:
Q Mr. Flinn, is the word “science” frequently used within certain religious movements?
A The most famous theological treatise in the world is called the “Summa Theologicum” by St. Thomas Aquinas and he begins this treatise discussing schienta divina, divine science, and so that the word, you cannot simply say that natural scientists have exclusive use of the word science nor people who hold to a theory of knowledge called common sensisn have a hold over the word science. One must define the context in which the word science is being used.
The Christian Scientists which is well recognized by everyone to be a religious phenomenon discusses its methodology as spiritual science within the context of that safe community.
Q Now, Mr. Flynn asked you some questions about the origins of Scientology.
Without elaborating, because we are short of time, based on your study of the belief system of Scientology, does it from what you can determine have roots in older religions in many respects?
A I have actually written on this topic to the effect that there are many parallels between the Scientological
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salvation process; that is, going from being a preclear through auditing and become a clear and achieving a status of being an operating Thetan is very, very closely allied to and parallel in some aspects derived from the Bhuddist notion of being entangled in the threads of existence, and through a process of meditation of spiritual discipline achieving what the Bhuddists called enlightenment or nirvana.
Q Now, based upon your studies in a situation where there is a living founder who holds no organizational post, would you consider it characteristic that person’s views would continue to be followed irrespective of any post that they held?
A This has occurred with the founders of many of the religious orders within the Catholic tradition where religious founders became older, kind of retire. This happened with any of the founders of
the religious movement in the United States that are kind of indigenous, including Mary Baker Eddy herself is a very good example of this.
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Many other types of religious movements where the founder, in their old age, is well taken care of by the membership in their retirement.
Q And would you consider the characteristic that where there is a living founder who holds no formal organizational post other than that title would nonetheless be able to intervene at various times and affect the direction or activities of the religion?
A In the history of religion, this type of intervention into preserving the purity and integrity of doctrine has occurred time after time after time by retired founders.
MR. LITT: No further questions, Your Honor.
MR. FLYNN: Nothing further, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Very well. We’ll take a recess until 9 o’clock.
You can go back to St. Louis, sir. 9 o’clock Monday morning.
(At 4:02 a.m., an adjournment was taken until Monday, June 4th, l984; at 9:00 a.m.)
Notes
- Trial testimony in Scientology v. Armstrong 01 June 1984 ↩