going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

materials. They kept it up until the judge issued a restraining order at noon, pending a
hearing later in the week. Despite these eorts, the Los Angeles Times managed to get a
copy of the OT III materials and published a summary of them.
“A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago,” the Times account
begins. In a studiously neutral tone, the lengthy article reveals Scientology’s occult
cosmology. The planet Earth, formerly called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of
planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu. Although the details were
sketchy, the secrets that had stunned Paul Haggis were suddenly public knowledge. The
jury awarded Wollersheim $30 million. 3 Worse than the nancial loss was the derision
that greeted the church all over the world and the loss of control of its secret doctrines.
The church has never recovered from the blow.
The other court challenge that year involved Julie Christofferson Titchbourne, a young
defector who had spent her college savings on Scientology counseling. She argued that
the church had falsely claimed that Scientology would improve her intelligence,
creativity, communication skills, and even her eyesight. For the rst time, much of
Hubbard’s biography came under attack. The litigant said that Hubbard had been
portrayed as a nuclear physicist and civil engineer. The evidence showed that he
attended George Washington University but never graduated. In response to Hubbard’s
claim that he had cured himself of his injuries in the Second World War, the evidence
showed he had never been wounded. Other embarrassing revelations came to light. The
church stated that Hubbard was paid less than the average Scientology sta member—at
the time, about fteen dollars a week—but witnesses for the plainti testied that in
one six-month period in 1982, about $34 million had been transferred from the church
into Hubbard’s personal bank from a Liberian corporation. 4 One former Scientologist
described training sessions in which members were hectored and teased over sensitive
issues until they were desensitized and would no longer react. In two such instances of
“bull-baiting,” Christoerson Titchbourne saw the eight-year-old son of the registrar
repeatedly put his hands down the front of a woman student’s dress and a female coach
unzipping the pants of a male student and fondling his genitals. The jury seemed most
disturbed by testimony that members of the Guardian’s Oce had culled the auditing
les of members, looking for salacious material that could be used to blackmail
potential defectors. Christoerson Titchbourne had originally sought a $30,000 refund
from the church. The jury awarded her $39 million. At the time, that sum could have
bankrupted Scientology.
That evening, Miscavige and other members of the church hierarchy had a gloomy
meeting in a condo in Portland, Oregon. One of the executives vowed that
Christoerson Titchbourne would never collect because he was going to kill her. “I don’t
care if I get the chair,” he said. “It’s only one lifetime.” There was a lengthy silence, and
then Miscavige said, “No, here’s what we’re going to do.” And on the spot, he came up
with the Portland crusade.
As many as 12,000 Scientologists came from all over the world in May and June 1985
to protest the judgment in what they called the Battle of Portland. Day after day they
marched around the Multnomah County courthouse, shouting “Religious freedom now!”