vault backup: 2026-10-09 23:15:23

20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Scientology.md

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 ---
 created: 2025-07-22
-updated: 2026-10-05
+updated: 2026-10-09
 title: Scientology
 tags:
   - Organization
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ relations:
 
 ### Practices, structure and vessels
 
-The Associated Press described "auditing" as a process "in which a device that the church claims can read mental states is used in a process of purging negative thoughts."[^6] The [[Board of Inquiry into Scientology|Anderson Board]] and the [[Foster Enquiry|Foster enquiry]] each examined the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Hubbard's position as governing director, and the fees charged for processing.[^7][^4] The Foster report describes a "[[Sea Organization|Sea Org]]" cruising under the Panamanian flag, and a 1978 [[Los Angeles Times]] article in the CIA's clipping file calls the [[Apollo (Scientology ship)|Apollo]], a 3,280-ton vessel, the Church's flagship and "for nearly a decade the personal yacht" of Hubbard; it reports a June 25, 1971 death aboard the ship and [[United States Department of State|State Department]] correspondence about the inquiry of the woman's father at the Moroccan port of Safi.[^4][^8] The [[Los Angeles Superior Court]] wrote in 1984 that Hubbard "runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore's Messengers."[^9] The [[Religious Technology Center]], whose director [[Mark Rathbun]] commented on the 1993 settlement, and a [[Flag Operations Liaison Office]], Eastern United States, described in its own letterhead as "a branch of the [[Church of Scientology of New York]]," appear as Church bodies in the AP report and in a 1974 letter to the Navy's records center.[^6][^10]
+The Associated Press described "auditing" as a process "in which a device that the church claims can read mental states is used in a process of purging negative thoughts."[^6] The [[Board of Inquiry into Scientology|Anderson Board]] and the [[Foster Enquiry|Foster enquiry]] each examined the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Hubbard's position as governing director, and the fees charged for processing.[^4][^7] The Foster report describes a "[[Sea Organization|Sea Org]]" cruising under the Panamanian flag, and a 1978 [[Los Angeles Times]] article in the CIA's clipping file calls the [[Apollo (Scientology ship)|Apollo]], a 3,280-ton vessel, the Church's flagship and "for nearly a decade the personal yacht" of Hubbard; it reports a June 25, 1971 death aboard the ship and [[United States Department of State|State Department]] correspondence about the inquiry of the woman's father at the Moroccan port of Safi.[^4][^8] The [[Los Angeles Superior Court]] wrote in 1984 that Hubbard "runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore's Messengers."[^9] The [[Religious Technology Center]], whose director [[Mark Rathbun]] commented on the 1993 settlement, and a [[Flag Operations Liaison Office]], Eastern United States, described in its own letterhead as "a branch of the [[Church of Scientology of New York]]," appear as Church bodies in the AP report and in a 1974 letter to the Navy's records center.[^6][^10]
 
 ### Guardian's Office
 
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ Several people at [[Stanford Research Institute]] in the early remote viewing wo
 
 John L. Wilhelm wrote in the Washington Post in 1977, under the heading "The Scientology Link," that "one item that continues to trouble those in government who follow the SRI work is the unusually large number of Scientologists involved with the psychic tests there"; that Puthoff "is a high-ranking Scientologist and has written defenses of his organization's methods and beliefs"; that [[Pat Price]], who "died two years ago, also was a high-level 'Operating Thetan'"; that the laboratory assistant to Puthoff and [[Russell Targ]] during many of the [[Uri Geller]] experiments "was a Scientologist married to a 'minister' of Scientology"; that some of the initial funding came from a ranking Scientologist; that Swann "helped to establish Scientology's 'Celebrity Center' in Los Angeles, the headquarters recently raided by the FBI"; and that Swann at his original testing "revealed that there are 'fourteen Clears [a medium-high level of Scientology achievement], more than I would suspect,' working at SRI."[^18] Wilhelm wrote that the involvement of Scientologists "partially accounts for at least two government agencies pulling back from funding further work there."[^18]
 
-On November 16, 1977 officers of the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service]] briefed staff of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on OTS involvement in ESP research, after a Washington Post Parade article of August 7, 1977 titled "Psychic Spying," and left a written outline, an [[IEEE]] article on the SRI work and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." The article on Price describes him as the new president of a [[West Virginia]] coal company and quotes him: "He credits Scientology for 'opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact.'"[^18] An SRI session transcript of October 4, 1973 has Price tracking Targ, [[Hugh Crane]] and Ann Price and Puthoff through [[Menlo Park]] and saying: "Just took a look at the Scientology Center. They're not there."[^19]
+On November 16, 1977 officers of the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service]] briefed staff of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on OTS involvement in ESP research, after the Washington Post article "Psychic Spying?" by John L. Wilhelm of August 7, 1977 (Outlook section), and left a written outline, an [[IEEE]] article on the SRI work and "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." The article on Price describes him as the new president of a [[West Virginia]] coal company and quotes him: "He credits Scientology for 'opening new vistas and abilities of self to me and which I now use as a matter of fact.'"[^18] An SRI session transcript of October 4, 1973 has Price tracking Targ, [[Hugh Crane]] and Ann Price and Puthoff through [[Menlo Park]] and saying: "Just took a look at the Scientology Center. They're not there."[^19]
 
 [[Jon Atack]] wrote that Puthoff posted a reply saying his involvement with Scientology was trivial, and that he answered by stating Puthoff was OT III; [[Tony Ortega]]'s introduction to Atack's comments adds an editorial note, citing [[Hugh Urban]]'s history of Scientology, that Puthoff "was OT VII by 1971, the highest level then attainable." Ortega also published a paper by Swann, "Scientological Techniques: A Model Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integration," which he said Swann gave in 1973 at the First Conference on Psychotronic Research in [[Czechoslovakia]].[^20] [[Jim Schnabel]]'s Remote Viewers (1997) writes that Puthoff and Swann had both joined Scientology in the 1960s; that Puthoff resigned his membership in the mid-1970s and afterward supported a group of anti-Scientologists, and that Swann later resigned as well; that Price "up to his death, had been deeply involved in Scientology" and had been known to Puthoff through a Scientology course in Los Angeles; that one of Puthoff's laboratory assistants was a Scientologist; that the astronaut [[Edgar Mitchell]], whose private foundation had funded some of SRI's work with Uri Geller, "had briefly taken an interest in Scientology"; and that a senior official of Price's West Virginia coal company "had heard about Price on the Scientology grapevine." Schnabel dates the conversion of Hubbard's Dianetics organization into the Church of Scientology to 1953.[^21]