The Church of Scientology have a well documented history of harassing and intimidating former members and critics through its policy they call ‘Fair Game’. Although Scientology claims the policy was revoked years ago, it dictates how to handle those who it perceives as enemies – ‘Suppressive People’ – and remains unchanged to this day.
In these excerpts of Scientology’s policies, you can read for yourself how Scientology handles investigations, what it thinks of government officials and how it justifies its attacks on those who challenge their status quo.
The Office of Special Affairs (OSA) is the department responsible for attacking critics and their activities are governed by ‘OSA Network Orders’, which are based on L. Ron Hubbard’s writings. You can find the PDF of all the OSA Network Orders at the bottom of the article.
Scientology’s harassment tactics are also covered extensively in books such as ‘Fair Game‘ by Australian journalist Steve Cannane, ‘Scientology: The Church of Fear‘ by BBC Panorama journalist John Sweeney, ‘A Billion Years‘ by former OSA boss Mike Rinder, and in numerous documentaries and TV shows including ‘Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath‘ (A&E) and ‘Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief‘ (Alex Gibney/Lawrence Wright).
But the words of L. Ron Hubbard speak for themselves. And here they are:
“You can defend to a certain degree and you have to defend to a certain degree. But use 75 percent of your energies to attack and you will always win. Find a weak spot and attack it. Attack expertly and attack perfectly and don’t flub with the attack. Always put your concentration on the attack and you win every time.
L. Ron Hubbard
OSA Network Order 7 ‘The Mechanism of Attack and Defense’ (21 October 1963)
“The purpose of the Legal Officer is to help LRH handle every legal, government, suit, accounting and tax contact or action for the organization and by himself or employed representative, to protect the organization and its people from harm and to bring the greatest possible confusion and loss to its enemies.”
L. Ron Hubbard
HCO Policy Letter ‘Legal, Tax, Accountant and Solicitor, Mail and Legal Officer’ (3 February 1966)
“This is correct procedure:
L. Ron Hubbard
(1) Spot who is attacking us.
(2) Start Investigating them promptly for FELONIES or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies.
(3) Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.
(4) Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press.”
Attacks on Scientology (25 February 1966)
“There are no good reporters. There are no good government or SP [Suppressive Person] group agents. The longer you try to be nice the worse off you will be. And the sooner one learns this the happier he will be.
Some staff member in such contact points in the org should be the only one who handles and all other staff should be given chits for talking to such a person.
Staff members of a unit that could go PTS [Potential Trouble Source] must be ordered to walk off without a word whenever such an agent shows up.
The staff personnel who handles should point at the agent if other staff is about and say some key word like “This is a government man” at which all other staff in the unit turns its back or pointedly walks off.
When such agents act or sound very suppressive, get them investigated, find the scandal and attack. It is a fortunate truth that such people also have crimes in their background that can be found. Find and expose them.
In all the history of Scientology no interviewing reporter ever helped. They all meant the worst when they acted their best and we are always sorry ever to have spoken. Even if the reporter is all right, his newspaper isn’t and will twist his story. We have done best when we have blocked off reporters and worst when we’ve been nice, so the moral is, a person from an SP group will eventually make an org or some part of it PTS regardless of the agent’s conduct.
L. Ron Hubbard
HCO Policy Letter ‘Admin Know-How: PTS Sections, Personnel and Execs’ (26 December 1966)
“You can throw the enemy off base by getting them so that they do not believe their own intelligence agents. They will not believe their own intelligence agents because they are sending them in too many conflicting reports so they don’t know what to believe.”
L. Ron Hubbard
Creating Confusion with the Enemy (3 September 1967)
“Those who attack Scientology commonly have the most unsavory backgrounds you ever heard of. So, our usual one-two is to find out who is giving the orders and then find out what his criminal past is. And then we do it rather noisily so that it becomes known that we know and he shuts up. That is usually the modus operandi.
If we could be effective enough to stop parliaments in their tracks we should also be effective enough to point parliaments in another direction. If we can stop them attacking us we can certainly turn them around and point them some other way. So it’s less ambitious than it looks. Much less ambitious.”
L. Ron Hubbard
Those Who Attack Scientology (28 May 1968)
“We have two main cycles as far as investigations go. The first is:
L. Ron Hubbard
1. Some SP near an outer org starts attacking Scientology.
2. The Investigations Officer in that area cables or telexes his senior at International level and starts investigating the person behind the attack.
3. The Int level senior acks [acknowledges] the report and expects to see regular reports on the SP being investigated.
4. A file is opened in both the outer org and Int level and the case goes on the CIC [Combat Information Centre] board as a project.
5. The investigation is carried on until the crimes are found and it is handed over to Prosecutions to get the SP put in a government accommodation.
OR
5. The SP gets scared and shuts up and the Int level senior directs the case to be dropped.”
Confidential: Rundown on Intelligence (20 September 1968)
“In the matter of reporters, etc., it is not worth while to give them any time contrary to popular belief. They are given their story before they leave their editorial rooms and you only strengthen what they have to say by saying anything.
L. Ron Hubbard
HCO Policy Letter ‘Policies on Sources of Trouble’ (7 May 1969)
“No government bum ever acts on his own initiative: Governments today are simply like prostitutes—they are used”
L. Ron Hubbard
Highly Confidential – Intelligence Filing (21 July 1973)
“If there will be a long-term threat, you are to immediately evaluate and originate a black PR campaign to destroy the person’s repute and to discredit them so thoroughly that they will be ostracized.”
L. Ron Hubbard
Confidential – PR Series 24 – Handling Hostile Contacts/Dead Agenting (30 May 1974)
“Put them on trial, not us”
L. Ron Hubbard
OSA Network Order 110 (14 October 1988)
“The why of all this is that lawyers delay and prolong in order to make money. Therefore, if it can be made too expensive for them to continue a case against us, they will drop it. Not only that, they won’t start one in the first place.
The strategy could be called, “punitive defense.”
The word would get around mighty quick. “Don’t tangle with or sue Scientology. It just buys so much trouble and expense, we can’t face it.”
L. Ron Hubbard
OSA Network Order 106 ‘Legal Strategy’ (22 September 1988)
“The main object is to nullify such suits. A second object is to make every person in the enemy camp an enemy of every other person in that camp. And a third object is to pave the way for a multi-million dollar barrage of future suits to clean up the name of Scientology.”
L. Ron Hubbard
OSA Network Order 113 ‘Handling Duped Litigants’ (22 September 1988)
“Somebody some day will say “this is illegal”. By then be sure the orgs say what is legal or not”
L. Ron Hubbard
HCO Policy Letter ‘LRH Relationships to Orgs’ (4 January 1966)
You can download the OSA Network Orders below:
