Just How Absurd and Dangerous is 'Amway?'

...by QCI contributing author, David Brear:

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‘A lie can be half-way round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’


James Callaghan (1912-2005)

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Readers who are unfortunate enough to have come into contact with ‘Amway’s’ handful of fanatical Internet apologists know that their devious motto is:


Always attack, never defend!


At the same time, these financially-illiterate sophists (led by David Steadson a.k.a. ‘ibofightback’ a.k.a.‘Insider’ etc.) invert reality by excluding all quantifiable evidence to the contrary whilst steadfastly pretending that the ‘Amway Business’ is an innocent victim under attack from outrageous lies spread by a jealous minority of violently anti-capitalist lunatics who know nothing whatsoever about commerce. In support of this typically-paranoid totalitarian fantasy, the apologists (who pose as independent) sneer arrogantly and wield reams of ‘statistics’ the origin of which can only be ‘Amway’s’ own bleating flock of reality-inverting apparatchiks. However, on closer inspection, this mystifying material turns out to be so absurd, that it almost beggars belief that anyone (outside the most-deluded of ‘Amway’s’unquestioning adherents) can fall for it.


For decades, the ‘Amway’ Ministry of Truth has proudly proclaimed millions of ‘Independent Business Owners’ conducting billions of dollars of ‘Sales’ in dozens of countries. Yet, given the accepted, average annual drop-out rate (approximately 50%), it is possible to extrapolate that, in the adult world of quantifiable reality, tens of millions of aspiring ‘Amway Distributors’ have vanished down the years, to be replaced by an endless chain of wide-eyed would-be millionaires. Only a 1-2% core-group of claimed adherents have remained bedazzled for periods exceeding 5 years and, in the end, even they have abandoned all (false) hope of achieving future redemption in the (non-existent) ‘Amway’ Utopia. Informed readers will notice the remarkable similarity between this ridiculous, self-inflating ‘Amway’ propaganda and that of ‘Scientology.’ Tellingly, the parent ‘Amway Corp.’(including its ever-expanding labyrinth of subsidiaries) has never voluntarily released any accurate, verifiable information as to what percentage of the organization’s (apparently impressive) global market has comprised authentic retail transactions (i.e. sales to persons who are not transient players of the ‘Amway’ game of make-believe). Sadly, it’s not just the ‘Amway’ faithful who have swallowed these sugar-coated lies. Despite having once paid a total of C$70 millions to avoid extradition and imprisonment for perpetrating the largest tax-fraud in Canadian legal history, the co-authors of the ‘Amway’ myth, Richard (‘Rich’) Marvin De Vos (b. March 4th. 1926) and Jay Van Andel (b. June 3rd. 1924. d. December 7th. 2004), and latterly their heirs, have been fêted as philanthropic billionaire-industrialists and exemplary Christian conservatives by an alarming number of casual observers in the international media and political, legal and religious establishment.


Back in the 1970s, when subjected to long-winded investigation by agents of the Federal Trade Commission (who had apparently twigged that the ‘Amway’ myth is a far too good to be true), it was discovered that ‘Amway’s’so-called ‘Multilevel Marketing Scheme’ was, in fact, strangely familiar. Exactly like its Soviet namesake,‘Amway’s’ own ‘Policy Board’/ Politburo (comprising members of the De Vos and Van Andel clans) held absolute control over the means of production, distribution and exchange. FTC agents also discovered that the price and quality of the ‘exclusive’ products being exchanged within ‘Amway’s’ Soviet-style command economy, were maintained in such a way as to render them (effectively) unsaleable on the open market. Contrary to what‘Amway’s’ own reality-inverting apparatchiks and propaganda constantly repeated, the organization’s grinning proselytisers were about as far removed from being ‘Independent Business Owners’ as it was possible to get. They were de facto slave-recruiters indoctrinated unconsciously to accept the following fiction as fact and to exclude all free-thinking individuals and quantifiable evidence challenging its authenticity:


You can buy ‘Amway’ products at a ‘wholesale price’ and then ‘retail’ them to your social contacts at ‘30% profit.’ This ‘short-term strategy’ is fine for some, but, in the end, it’s a ‘waste of time.’ If you are really serious about making big money, there’s ‘no need to sell anything.’ You can ‘Follow a Proven, 2-5 year Business-Building Plan’ and consume a regular quantity of ‘Money-Saving Products’ yourself whilst offering your friends and relations a ‘Helping Hand’ by bringing them onboard. In turn, your recruits can ‘Duplicate Exactly the same Plan’ and consume a regular quantity of ‘Money-Saving Products’ themselves whilst ‘Helping’ their own social contacts to do the same, etc… as ‘Amway’ undertakes to pay its ‘Distributors’ a escalating percentage commission on the totality of their monthly ‘Business Volume’ and on that of their recruits, and on that of the recruits of their recruits, etc… if the ‘Business Building Plan’ is ‘Followed’ correctly, payments automatically multiply in an infinitely-expanding geometric progression. The more people you ‘Help:’ the more money you earn!


In simple terms, vulnerable Americans (who, for whatever personal reasons, needed to believe in the self-perpetuating and self-gratifying ‘Amway’ myth of ‘total financial freedom in 2-5 years’), were actually being peddled infinite shares in what could only be their own finite dollars. Since the centrally-controlled ‘Amway’ market was deliberately designed to produce no real external revenue, no matter how the cash in that hermetic system was divided by its all-powerful treasurers, it was a mathematical impossibility for the overwhelming majority of its powerless participants to receive a profit. The whole of ‘Amway’s’ fiercely complex ‘Compensation Plan’ was, therefore, nothing more than thought-stopping hocus-pocus, but the po-faced agents at the FTC apparently never fully-grasped how the trick was pulled.


Consequently, after 10 years of less-than-intellectually-rigorous FTC enquiries and hearings, ‘Amway’ was merely fined a derisory sum for ‘price-fixing,’ and its greedy rulers were not only allowed to keep their counterfeit company registered in the USA, but also to expand their counterfeit commercial activities overseas. This was because their attorneys steadfastly pretended affinity with the federal regulators and drafted a ‘rule’ which appeared to oblige ‘Amway’ agents to sell-on at least 70% of their own purchases to non-agents before they could qualify to receive commission payments. Interestingly, the US regulators can’t have been completely duped by this devious tactic, because they also compelled ‘Amway’s’ corporate officers to publish accurate and verifiable information about the actual derisory average levels of commission payments. Obviously, this part-regulation only applied in the USA (where ‘Amway’ recruitment took such a dramatic nose-dive that it eventually had to become ‘Quixtar’), whilst all the subsequent evidence proves that the ‘70% rule’ might as well not exist, because, unbelievably, the FTC omitted to introduce any independent instrument to enforce it, or to warn the regulatory authorities internationally of what had really been occurring in the USA. Thus, when ‘Amway’s’ counterfeit commercial activities were recently investigated in the UK, it was discovered that (just as in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s) the organization’s so-called ‘Multilevel Marketing Scheme’ was, in fact, still a ‘Soviet’-style command economy (centrally-controlled by the ‘Amway’ Politburo in the USA), and that the price and quality of the products being exchanged within it, were maintained in such a way as to render them (effectively) unsaleable on the open market. Approximately 96% (and possibly even more) of all ‘Amway UK’s’ claimed ‘Sales,’ were a puerile fiction. Over a period of 35 years, the secret, rolling failure-rate for powerless participants in the premeditated ‘Amway’ closed-market in the UK was (effectively) 100%. Yet again, contrary to what‘Amway’s’ reality-inverting apparatchiks and propaganda constantly repeated, vulnerable British citizens were being peddled the same old Utopian fiction as fact. They were also being indoctrinated to exclude all free-thinking individuals and quantifiable evidence challenging its authenticity.


Mysteriously, senior civil servants in Britain’s Ministry for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (who, off the record, freely-accept that it is impossible to make money in ‘Amway’ and that its core-adherents are brainwashed pawns) chose only to challenge ‘Amway UK’ in the civil courts, rather than try to trigger a diplomatically-embarrassing, international criminal enquiry. However, Lawyers acting for the UK government, like their American counterparts, again failed to explain to both the UK High Court and the UK Appeal Court that, without external revenue (due to the deliberately banal quality and exorbitant pricing of products) ‘Amway’s’ so called ‘Business Model’ is fundamentally fraudulent and that the so-called ‘Compensation Plan’ is utter nonsense. This time, ‘Amway UK’ escaped closure by announcing the expulsion a couple of over-zealous ‘Diamond Distributors’ (including Jerry Scriven) as well as steadfastly pretending innocence and by promising to reform its future activities. However, the counterfeit company is now obliged to publish accurate and verifiable information about the actual, derisory, average levels of commission payments, and its current claimed ‘Distributor’ numbers have dropped to an almost insignificant level.


Unbeknown to the UK High Court and Appeal Court, the identical closed-market swindle was uncovered in France in the mid-1980s; when a minority of confused former ‘Amway’ core-adherents approached consumer, and cult, advice associations complaining of massive financial losses and dissociation from their friends and families. At that time, ‘Amway’ dodged official investigation in France by announcing the expulsion of an over-zealous ‘Diamond Distributor,’ Jean Godzich, and around 80 other over-zealous ‘Distributors,’ for breaking the ‘Amway Code of Ethics.’ The company then steadfastly pretended innocence and promised to reform its future activities, but its claimed numbers of ‘Distributors’ fell from ‘90 000’ to less than ‘5000.’ Godzich went on to operate the identical close-market swindle, complete with (effectively) unsaleable products and a ‘Code of Ethics,’ using a mystifying labyrinth of corporate structures labelled, ‘le Groupement,’ before his re-branded, counterfeit commercial activities were challenged.


In the early 1990s, a complaint was filed against ‘le Groupement’ by a government-funded, French, cult advice group, ‘UNADFI’ (National Union of Associations for the Defence of the Family and the Individual), in conjunction with a consumer advice association, the Women’s Social and Civic Union, on behalf of around 300 destitute former core-adherents. This led to a police enquiry. A French parliamentary report soon revealed that more telephone enquiries (almost 1000 per year) were being made to UNADFI about ‘le Groupement,’ than about ‘Scientology.’ Godzich and 12 associates steadfastly protested their innocence, but they were eventually charged with operating a pyramid scam. In the mean time, the counterfeit company was successfully sued in the civil courts by its victims, but its declared assets were insufficient to pay its debts. ‘Groupement’ was bankrupted and compulsorily wound-up in 1995. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Jean Godzich, but he had already escaped to the USA with a large amount of cash. At this time, approximately 1500 deeply-deluded core-adherents picketed the offices of UNADFI in Paris. The building was occupied, files stolen and a senior UNADFI volunteer, Mathieu Cossu, was held prisoner for several hours and obliged to make a video statement that ‘le Groupement was not a cult.’ Prior to this Jean Godzich had tried to give UNADFI a donation one million French francs (approximately 160 000 Euros). When this blatant bribe was refused, Jean Godzich financed the creation of an (apparently independent) ‘anti-mental manipulation association.’ It was generally believed by paranoid core-adherents that Groupement was the victim of an anti-capitalist conspiracy and that UNADFI was a form of extreme-socialist cult itself.


Some of the other tactics used by Godzich to try to maintain his absolute monopoly of information in France were classics of a cultic movement. A code of silence was introduced along with an internal system of dispute resolution to discourage more dissidents from coming forward. Malicious lawsuits were filed against all external critics in which Godzich posed as victim. Traditional culture was infiltrated via gifts to charity, sponsorship of sport, etc.


The criminal case against Jean Godzich (in absentia) and his associates, didn’t come to trial until the Summer of 2000. At this time, no evidence was presented by the prosecution relating to the much larger ‘advanced fee fraud’ hiding behind ‘le Groupement,’ and the pyramid fraud charge was dropped on technicalities. Amazingly, French law recognizes counterfeit ‘investment schemes’ (or Ponzi schemes) without external revenue or profits to divide, but it does not yet accept that counterfeit ‘marketing schemes’ without external revenue or profits to divide are just a more-sustainable variation of essentially the same crime. However, in January 2007, Jean Godzich received a custodial prison sentence (by default) of 3 years from the Correctional Tribunal of Evreux (Dept. of Eure, Normandy), for illegally transferring around 6 millions Euros of his French-registered company’s social funds to the USA (prior to its compulsory closure in 1995). An international arrest warrant was issued for Godzich (a citizen of both France and the USA) and he was given an additional fine of 500 000 Euros for failing to turn up for his trial in October 2006. Three of his former associates were given suspended prison sentences ranging from 8 months to 2 years along with fines ranging from 10 000 to 80 000 Euros.


At this point, I should like to mention former White House Adviser (on the ‘Religious Right’ to the Bush administration), Doug Wead, who has recently found it necessary to post reality-inverting material on one of his own propaganda Blogs, in which he begins to refer to the Godzich/‘Groupement’ affair, but, tellingly, not by name. In fact, Wead’s propaganda (like that of ‘Amway’s’ instigators) is far more interesting from the point of view of what is excluded rather than what is included. That said, Wead casually acknowledges that he was once an ‘Amway Diamond Distributor’ and that he remains a ‘friend’ of Dexter Yager. However, he steadfastly pretends to be an innocent victim under attack from lies posted by ‘Amway critics’ on the Net. Apparently, it has been suggested (by certain ‘critics’) that Wead helped set up ‘Amway’ and then ‘le Groupement’ in France, and that a warrant was issued for his arrest in France. I should like to set the record straight. Although it is true to say that Wead’s name never appeared on any of the incorporation documents of the counterfeit companies that comprised the French chapter of the ‘Amway/Groupement’ myth, his name did feature on countless books, magazines and recordings sold to hundreds of thousands of ‘Amway’ and ‘Groupement’ victims in France (first during the 1980s and then during the 1990s). He even co-authored books with Dexter Yager and Jean Godzich. Wead was also a regular paid-speaker at ‘Groupement’ mass-rallies. Wead was undoubtedly a major beneficiary of a conspiracy to commit, and occult, an ‘advanced fee fraud’ using a mystifying labyrinth of ever-expanding and changing (apparently independent) corporate structures designed to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate beneficiaries like himself from liability. Just as in the UK, it was Wead’s acknowledged ‘friend,’ Dexter Yager, who received the lion’s share of the illicit cash. Whether, he was the final beneficiary, is still a matter of conjecture. Yager led the ‘Amway Network’ of which Godzich and Wead were members. Yager continued to supply the identical books and recordings to Godzich, even after he’d been publicly expelled from ‘Amway France.’ These fraudulent materials were French translations produced by Canadian companies controlled by Yager. In the mid-1990s, French network television journalists traced Jean Godzich to Phoenix Arizona, where they discovered that he and Wead shared an office and that they were both regular ‘Prosperity Gospel Preachers’ at the ‘First Assembly of God.’ During a 10 year period, thousands of deluded core-‘Groupement’ adherents had been peddled grossly-over-priced tickets to visit Phoenix via a Belgian-registered travel agency owned (on paper) by Godzich and his (then) wife. These individuals had received full-immersion baptism into the ‘First Assembly of God’ from Jean Godzich’s brother, Pastor Leo Mark Godzich. The sinister ceremonies were caught on film by hidden cameras, but (when interviewed by a French television journalist) Godzich steadfastly denied their existence.


Given their track records, one would have to be pretty naïve, and/or dim, to believe anything that Messrs. Yager, Godzich or Wead has to say on any subject, let alone ‘Multilevel Marketing.’ Interestingly, Wead now claims to have long-since retired from ‘Amway’ to become a ‘best-selling author and American historian; However, if by ‘historian,’ Wead means someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then, in respect of ‘Amway,’ he is not a historian. However, Wead is not just another pathetic little narcissist (like David Steadson), steadfastly denying the ‘Amway’ financial holocaust - he’s one of the shameless racketeers responsible for it.


As stated in a previous article, two High Court Judges in the world’s largest democracy have already deduced that what purports to be the ‘World’s Largest Direct Selling Company,’ is actually a global fraud. Exactly the same alarming evidence has been uncovered in India as was found in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s, in France in the 1980s and 1990s and in the UK at the beginning of the 21st. century. Confused Indian victims have come forward to complain of massive financial losses coupled with dissociation from friends and family. However, on this occasion, although all the usual devious tactics are being pursued by the corporate officers of ‘Amway India Enterprises’, and their aggressive echelon of attorneys, in a desperate attempt to maintain their paymasters’ absolute monopoly of information (including the issuing of two malicious, High Court writs to block a police investigation), Chief Justice C.S. Singhvi, and Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy, of the High Court of Judicature, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, have concluded that ‘Amway’s’ so-called ‘Multilevel Marketing Scheme’ is in breach of well-conceived, Indian legislation (dating from the 1970s) which bans all ‘money circulation schemes,’ no matter how ingeniously they are disguised. The High Court has ordered that the Hyderabad Criminal Investigation Dept. should be allowed to continue to follow whatever procedures are permitted by Indian law to hold the corporate officers of ‘Amway India Enterprises’ to account.


Currently (just as in Britain and France in the recent past), the sanctimonious little gang of Bible-thumping, US-based charlatans behind the ‘Amway’ myth remain out of reach of the Indian authorities. It is to be hoped that the new Obama administration will not permit this pernicious international racket to continue for much longer.



Copyright David Brear April 2009

Scientology Challenged in France and Australia: But Apologist Pose as Innocent Victims

(First posted on Quixtar Cult Intervention on November 30, 2009)

By David Brear, guide to the Amway Labyrinth:





‘Truth exists: only lies are invented.’
Georges Braque (1882-1963)

On Monday Sept. 8th 2008 (almost a decade after a series of frightengly familiar complaints were filed), Judge Jean-Christophe Hullin finally signed a document which ordered that two (apparently independent) French-registered, corporate structures, should jointly-face a criminal charge of ‘escroquerie en bande organisée’ (literally, ‘fraud in an organized gang’). Judge Hullin also ordered that six corporate officers of the aforementioned structures should face the same criminal charge and other charges relating to the ‘illegal operation of a pharmacy.’ Although an echelon of humourless defence attorneys steadfastly pretended their clients to be completely innocent, on Tuesday October 27th 2009, the two corporate structures and their respective officers were duly found guilty as charged in a Paris court. The structures were ordered to pay fines totalling 600 000 Euros (approximately $1.1 million). The most-senior officer, Alain Rosenberg,

was given a two year suspended prison sentence and personally fined 30 000 Euros, whilst three others were given suspended prison sentences and the remaining two personally fined lesser amounts. However, the same echelon of defence attorneys immediately filed an appeal and (completely ignoring the suffering of the plaintiffs) continued to invert established-reality by indignantly portraying their clients as victims. The judge, Sophie-Helene Chateau, was unable to grant the State Prosecutor’s original request for the corporate structures to be closed down without further delay, following a mysterious modification to the relevant French law just before the case came to trial. However, it was feared that such a move might very well have been counterproductive: in that it could drive the same criminal activity underground. Consequently, the judgement has been widely-described (by well-informed observers) as ‘intelligent.’

It was in 1997, when a 33 year old Frenchwoman was approached outside the Opera metro station in Paris by a group of relentlessly enthusiastic individuals who invited her to ‘agree to participate’ in (what they insisted was) a ‘Free Personality/Stress Test.’ She found herself unable to refuse, but her subsequent ‘failure’ in the ‘Test’ led to her becoming totally convinced that she had significant problems which could only be resolved through the purchase of an exclusive ‘Self-Betterment Course.’ The woman had, in fact, allowed herself to be subjected to devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion (designed to identify vulnerable individuals, destabilize their self-esteem and provoke an infantile total dependence to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/or other, relationships). In this way, the woman was given the illusion that she was making a free-choice, but she was (effectively) coerced into buying a collection of progressively more expensive, books, recordings, medicines, esoteric accessories, etc. Before she came to her senses, the woman had parted with more than 20 000 Euros. The most-outrageously over-priced single item (approximately 4000 Euros) was a cheaply-made, handheld gadget, labelled ‘E-meter’

(capable of detecting tiny fluctuations in natural, corporal electrical resistance), which she’d been assured was part of a ‘proven technology’ for measuring and improving the clarity and functioning of a person’s mind and body.
The gang of hypnotic charlatans whom this unwary Frenchwoman had met, were from the Paris branch of ‘The Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre,’ ostensibly led by Alain Rosenberg. The (effectively) valueless pseudo-scientific paraphernalia she’d bought, was the just the start of a typically absurd, but nonetheless dangerous, advanced fee fraud. The materials were mostly supplied via a privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial company, ‘The Church of Scientology Book Shop.’

Sadly, this recent French prosecution is just one piece of a vast and confusing puzzle, because there are stacks more corporate structures around the globe engaging in lawful, and/or unlawful enterprises, which comprise the pernicious cultic organization most-commonly referred to as ‘Scientology.’ Each one of these autonomous sub-groups has its own paramilitary hierarchy of leaders who answer to the organization’s supreme leader. When the wider picture is examined, ‘Scientology’ sub-groups are revealed as the spokes of a rimless wheel, all feeding cash (and intelligence) back to the central hub. This vast corporate labyrinth is neither original nor unique. Exactly like ‘Amway,’ the shifty ‘Scientology’ edifice has been maliciously constructed to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate the organization’s fabulously wealthy bosses (in the USA) from liability. By its very nature, ‘Scientology’ never presents itself in its true colours. Consequently, no one ever becomes involved with the movement as a result of his/her fully-informed consent. However, the setting up (and sustaining) of such a criminogenic system has been defined in US federal law as a ‘pattern of racketeering activity’ by the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (drafted by Prof. G. Robert Blakey), and clarified by subsequent US Supreme Court rulings. Why the French authorities (who have access to a veritable mountain of evidence stretching back decades) did not take the obvious course of action and file suit against the real leaders of ‘Scientology’ in the USA under RICO, is a mystery. Indeed, the bosses of ‘Scientology’ are demonstrably committing fraud and obstructing justice, and are, thus, in violation of RICO, each time they steadfastly pretend to run the ‘World’s Fastest Growing Religion and Self-Betterment Movement, with 8 millions followers.’ In the adult world of quantifiable reality, the best available estimates (from democratically-accountable European government agencies) reveal that there are currently less than 50 000 core-‘Scientologists’ and that recruitment has been in steep decline for some time. Again, exactly like ‘Amway,’ most people who are initially seduced by ‘Scientology,’ abandon the movement within a short period and without complaint. A significant minority (usually with access to independent funds) remain enslaved for extended periods. It is this core-group of fanatical proselytizers who perpetuate the organization, and who are (unconsciously) both victims and perpetrators of abuse. Down the years, a growing number of courageous whistle-blowers have managed to face this ego-destroying reality, and they have been subjected to all manner of intimidation for their pains. Indeed, many have been coerced into retracting their complaints. Most core-‘Scientology’ survivors simply prefer to remain silent. Yet, interfering with witnesses to racketeering who wish to cooperate with law enforcement agencies (including the filing of malicious criminal complaints and civil lawsuits), is also a violation of RICO.

The latest batch of traumatized and destitute former core-‘Scientologists’ to come forward, are in Australia; where an Independent Senator,
Nick Xenophon,

has taken-up their frighteningly-familiar complaints. Following the recent French trial, the Senator tabled a motion in the Australian Parliament, requesting that a public enquiry be held into alleged ‘Scientology’ crimes Down-Under. These include: fraud, embezzlement, covert intelligence-gathering and blackmail, intimidation, forced abortion, sexual abuse, obstruction of justice, imprisonment, assault and assassination. One Australian couple (who were unquestioning ‘Scientology’ core-adherents for over 20 years) now accept that they were (effectively) coerced into parting with more than 1 million Aus. dollars (around US$ 900 000). The ‘Scientology’ Ministry of Truth has falsely portrayed Senator Xenophon as a ‘Fascist’ and the Australian witnesses as ‘paid liars.’ However, this is hardly surprising, since from its outset, ‘Scientology,’ exactly like ‘Amway,’ was maliciously designed as a self-perpetuating, totalitarian cult in which all free-thinking individuals, and any quantifiable evidence, challenging the authenticity of its imaginary scenario of control, were to be mercilessly repressed by first systematically categorizing and condemning them as negative, impure and absolutely evil.

According to various persons who knew him well, as early as 1947, the author of the ‘Scientology’ myth, L. Ron Hubbard,

had privately talked of starting a cult. In 1949, he spoke to a science-fiction group in Newark, New Jersey, and openly boasted:
‘Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous; if a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start his own religion.’

However, it would have been far more accurate for Hubbard to have said:
… if a man wanted to make millions of dollars, then the best way to do it would be to start an advanced fee fraud and call it a ‘religion.’

At this time, Hubbard was living in Bayhead, New Jersey. He’d recently quit California, where he’d been convicted (and fined $25) after pleading guilty to forging a cheque. Although he generally behaved like an irresponsible a teenager, Hubbard was approaching the age of 40. He liked to present himself as an amateur hypnotist and professional adventurer/scientist - a famous writer of books, articles and movie scenarios. In reality, Hubbard (who, prior to WWII, had scraped a living knocking-out formulaic pulp-fiction stories) was deeply in debt and struggling to keep himself and his (bigamous) second wife. After acquiring a disgraceful wartime record in the US Naval Reserve, he was drawing a veteran’s disability pension ($55.20 per month) on the specious grounds that, as a result of various illnesses and injuries contracted during his military service, he could no longer work to keep his wife and children (Hubbard had actually abandoned his lawful family, in 1945). Tellingly, by the time of his death in 1986, Hubbard had secretly acquired control of a vast fortune, estimated (by the US Internal Revenue Service) to be in excess of $500 millions. Sure enough, Hubbard had instigated a swindle which he arbitrarily defined as a ‘religion.’ His fortune (much of which was hidden in overseas bank-accounts) derived from his peddling an unoriginal, dualistic fiction as fact. Fundamental to Hubbard’s racket was a never-ending series of books and recordings recounting his life and achievements. However, the authorized biography of Hubbard (which all core-adherents of the ‘Scientology’ myth must accept without question) reads as though it was patched together from yarns selected at random from a catalogue of comic-books and B-movies. There is a very good reason for this - it was:

The founder of the ‘Church of Scientology’ was born in the ‘Wild West’. He was a descendant of the ‘Count de Loupe’ (‘a companion of William the Conqueror’). His maternal great-grandfather and grandfather were ‘Captains: I.C. DeWolfe and Lafayette Waterbury’ (two of ‘America’s greatest naval heroes’). The infant L. Ron Hubbard lived on a 35 000 square mile ranch with his paternal grandfather (‘a multi-millionaire, Montana Cattle-Baron’)… As an adolescent (when he wasn’t with his Blackfoot Indian, Medicine-Man mentor, ‘Old Tom,’ becoming an expert ‘rider, hunter and explorer, blood-brother of the Blackfoot tribe’ and the ‘youngest ever American Eagle Scout’), Hubbard was an intellectual prodigy studying most of the world’s greatest authors and developing an interest in ‘religion and philosophy.’ Aged 12, Hubbard was sent to Washington where he was schooled by ‘Commander Snake Thompson’ (a ‘friend of his wealthy grandfather’ and ‘close associate of Sigmund Freud’). From 1925 to 1929, Hubbard was a ‘lone teen-age wanderer in China, India, Tibet and the Pacific’… absorbing the ‘culture and wisdom of the Orient’ (financed by his wealthy grandfather). In the early 1930s, Hubbard established himself at George Washington University as a ‘brilliant academic and sportsman’… a ‘dare-devil pilot and parachutist, renowned explorer, navigator and adventurer’… a ‘pioneering geologist, nuclear physicist, rocket scientist, philosopher, engineer and mathematician.’ When his wealthy grandfather died, he was cruelly disinherited and forced to ‘turn to writing science-fiction to finance his scientific research.’ In the late 1930s, Hubbard was a ‘renowned essayist,’ ‘best-selling novelist’ and ‘major Hollywood scriptwriter’… an ‘influential member of American artistic, and scientific, associations.’ During WW II, he was a fearless warrior (the ‘most-decorated officer in the US Navy with 28 medals collected in every theatre of operations’)… a national hero (the ‘first American serviceman wounded in the Pacific, before Pearl Harbour’), who was ‘blinded and crippled saving the crews of his various ships’… a miraculous survivor, who ‘used the power of his mind to restore his own sight, and who twice defied the medical profession to return from the dead.’ After WW II, Hubbard became an ‘agent of US Naval Intelligence’ sent to ‘infiltrate and destroy a satanic Cult in California.’ He then became the ‘world's leading nuclear physicist’… a genius in all fields of literary, philosophical, artistic and scientific, endeavour… a man who (working alone) advanced the work of ‘Aristotle, Socrates, Voltaire, Decartes, Freud, Darwin and Einstein’… he’d acquired his ‘secret wisdom in heaven during his two near-death experiences.’ In 1950, Hubbard published ‘Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health’ and became a medical-Messiah and revolutionary ‘psychiatric therapist.’ This was the first in a series of important ‘scientific/spiritual’ publications, in which Hubbard explained a ‘universal method to improve people’s looks, increase their intelligence and cure all known human illnesses (including ageing, and the common cold).’ These books led to Hubbard founding the ‘Church of Scientology’ in 1954. During the McCarthy era, Hubbard was a ‘fearless anti-Communist’ and ‘American patriot.’ In the 1960s, he was forced to take to the high-seas to save his ‘secret research material’ from an army of ‘Soviet spies and double agents’ (including his wife, and numerous former associates)… an innocent victim of the ‘Communist plot to take over the world’… a man pursued all over the globe by the FBI, the CIA, British intelligence services, French intelligence services, etc., all as a result of a conspiracy lies orchestrated by the medical profession and particularly psychiatrists, who were, in fact, the secret agents of an ‘evil extraterrestrial ruler, Xenu, who wants to destroy planet Earth’). Finally, Hubbard revealed that he’d ‘discovered the truth about the nature of existence,’ his human body was only a temporary container for his ‘immortal soul,’ he was really a ‘time-travelling extraterrestrial’ (the ‘saviour of galaxies’), who came to Earth to save humanity from destruction.

The above represents only a fraction of the overwhelming tangle of lies (containing a few feeble strands of truth) which Hubbard piled around himself. Even without access to all the evidence, it’s not that difficult to deduce that the man’s own version of his life and achievements is childish drivel. It is now generally accepted by qualified observers that, as a young man, Hubbard suffered from severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There have been many attempts to diagnose Hubbard’s exact mental disorder during the later part of his life. One of the best-informed, was made by a senior psychiatrist, cult expert, charter member of the ‘American Family Foundation’ and mental-health advisor to the US Government, the late Dr. Louis Jolyon West (UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute). He first encountered Hubbard in the 1950s, and then monitored his criminal activities with increasing alarm. Finally, in the 1980s, Dr. West (who kept his sense of humour) described Hubbard as:
‘a paranoid Commander-in-Chief leading his forces in a war against the rest of the world, because, like Adolf Hitler, he is an atheist who suffers from psychopathic personality.’

(Dr. West was in rather a good position to be the judge of someone who could act the roles of a prophet and military commander, one of his closest friends was the Hollywood actor, Charlton Heston).

Despite Hubbard’s extraordinary efforts to maintain an absolute monopoly of information (including organizing the infiltration and burglary of US federal government agencies), there is probably more evidence available about the ugly truth lurking behind the Utopian ‘Scientology’ myth, than any other latter-day cultic group. In 1987, Russell Miller, published ‘Bare-Faced Messiah’, ‘The True Story of L. Ron. Hubbard’ (Henry Holt & Co. New York). In the face of malicious threats from ‘Scientology’s’ attorneys, Miller (an experienced and independent journalist from London) spent many months tracking down hard facts about Hubbard, before producing a definitive account of his existence from the cradle to the crematorium. Miller discovered that, in January 1980, an unquestioning core-adherent of ‘Scientology,’ Gerald Armstrong, had already been given permission by Hubbard himself to research and write exactly the same book. By this stage Hubbard (aged 69) was so deluded and stuffed full of nicotine, alcohol and prescription drugs, that he actually believed his own private archive of manuscripts, photographs, diaries, etc. would corroborate the authorized version of his visit to planet Earth. What Armstrong uncovered, led to him beginning to recover his critical faculties. When he foolishly approached the new ‘Leadership of Scientology’ and informed them that he had been forced to conclude that Hubbard was a liar, Armstrong was arbitrarily arrested and charged with ‘18 Crimes and High Crimes against the Church of Scientology.’ He was systematically condemned and categorized as a ‘Suppressive Person’ who was ‘Fair Game’ to be ‘Tricked, Cheated, Lied to, Sued or Destroyed by any Scientologist.’ However, Armstrong now knew that, during the 1960s, Hubbard had sustained major organized criminal activities by imposing his so-called ‘Fair Game Policy’ in order to silence his many victims and critics.

Gerald Armstrong fled ‘Scientology,’ in fear of his life. Russell Miller quotes him as stating:

‘By then, the whole thing for me had crumbled. I realized that I’d been drawn into Scientology by a web of lies, by Machiavellian mental control techniques and by fear. The betrayal of trust began with Hubbard’s lies about himself. His life was a continuing pattern of fraudulent business practices, tax evasion, flight from creditors and hiding from the law. … He was a mixture of Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin and Baron Münchhausen . In short, he was a con man.’

In 1983, the bosses of ‘Scientology’ launched a malicious prosecution (in which they posed as innocent victims under attack) against Gerald Armstrong to recover 250 000 pages of incriminating documentation about L. Ron. Hubbard. A number of courageous, recovering, former core-adherents were located by Armstrong’s attorney to act as defence witnesses. One by one, they explained how they had been abused by ‘Scientology.’ In May 1984, Judge Paul G. Breckenridge (Los Angeles Superior Court) decided in favour of Armstrong and delivered the following verdict on ‘Scientology’:
‘The organization is clearly schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievement. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile.’

Unbelievably, the US authorities who, in 1984, were presented with an open-goal, failed to launch a full-scale criminal investigation, and prosecution, of the ‘Scientology’ organization for violation of the RICO Act. However, it is not too late to rectify this costly over-sight. Perhaps, the US authorities can take a hard look at ‘Amway’ whilst they're at it.

Copyright David Brear
November 2009

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