As you know, I have been rambling on alt.religion.scientology
about the anti-cult fallacious theory of mind-control, and how
its natural consequence is the justification of coercive
restrain, the reaping apart of families, overreaction from
authorities, etc.

I have been told by anti-cult proponents that the cases I
presented are old, that although kidnapping happened in the past
"we don't do it anymore", and is not true that the mind-control
theory means that the person is not responsible for his/her
action and therefore does not mean that he/she has to be saved
against his/her will.

So lets have a look at a case that was judged in 1995 and
happened end of 1992. What follows is my analysis of the case of
Kathleen Wilson. The source of it is to be found at
http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/media95.html

Kathleen Wilson, originally from Boosbeck, Clevelant, UK, was
the only child of elderly parents, Raymond and Margaret Wilson.
She left the family early to live with a friend, Lorna Bowden,
and with Lorna's boyfriend, Stephen Cooper. The three of them
lived in a small flat in Bognor Regis and Kathleen worked in a
garden center until she found a job as sales assistant in a shoe
shop in Chichester and moved there.

Kathleen, apparently of a quiet, rather shy, nature, didn't seem
in such good terms with her apparently dominant mother. "I tried
to get along with her - but everything I did she would
criticize. We had this big piano. I tried to learn. All she said
was: 'You're doing it all wrong.' ' Her father, a bricklayer,
had left home when she was 11. 'She used to control everything -
the clothes, everything. Even my money. But everybody has to
have something. 'I didn't want to argue I told her I would move.
I went when I was 19. I went with my friend, Lorna. I packed a
suitcase and went to Bognor Regis."

Obviously, her work in the shoe shop didn't enthrall her, and as
many young, she was looking for a meaningful and useful life:
"In the shoe shop, I was doing the same thing - day in, day out.
I wasn't happy with the job. I wanted to do more in life."

One day, she is handed down a Scn fliers, which said that we
"only use 10 per cent of our mental potential". She sent it off,
got the Dianetic book, and started to get involved. A year
later, she moved in the nearby Saint Hill Castle in East
Grinstead and started to study, live, and work there.

Obviously, the relationship with her mother didn't improve with
her involvement with the COS. It is rather obvious that her
mother was also fed with the anti-cult "information",
information that demonizes all cults and present their members
as brainwashed zombies. She believed that Kathleen "will be
brainwashed and live as a slave for the rest of her life." She
even wrote her daughter out of her will when she became involved
with the Church of Scientology. A clause in the will said that
Kathleen must have given up the sect within five years or the
money goes elsewhere (she will now leave her money to animal
charities).

Her mother claims that when she phoned Kathleen they just put
the receiver down on her. This is atypical, and is probably just
the demonized version of the fact that Kathleen tried to
politely say to her mother that she shouldn't try to
frenetically convince her that she isn't there of her own free
choice and to tell her that she should leave.

We can clearly see the deepening of the gap created by the
demonized information and the mistrust generated by the
mind-control theory, worsening an already bad situation and
being used as a cover up for the mother to impose her own will
to her adult child for a choice with which she didn't agree
with.

14 months after she joined, Kathleen, now 21, rang her mother to
tell that she was going off to Los Angeles. Her mother
interpreted this move in an extremely unlikely scenario, most
certainly through the distorted pictures gotten from the
demonizing mind-control theory. She rang to Kathleen's friends
(Lorna and Stephen) to say she was worried. "Kathleen had rung
her," writes The Observer of 19 March 1995, "to say she was
going to America but did not really want to. They were forcing
her."  When Kathleen rang her friends to meet and say goodbye,
they in turn interpreted this through the filter her mother had
just provided them, and through the previous anti-cult type of
information they must have received as well.

Follows a paranoiac description of the meeting that took place
in the evening of the 6th of November 1992, in which
undoubtedly, Lorna and Stephen tried to convince Kathleen that
she was brainwashed and that she should leave with them.

"They arranged to see her at Saint Hill Castle, where Ms Wilson
was ushered in by a security guard. 'I was shocked and
frightened. Kathleen was dressed in a blue uniform like an army
officer and showed no emotion towards me at all. There was
another woman there who started making small talk. Every time I
asked Kathleen a question, she would answer for her."

"After a few minutes, the guard tapped his watch and Ms Wilson
got up to leave, but whispered to Ms Bowden that she would be
catching a bus to the station at 10.30pm. Convinced this was a
cry for help, the couple decided Mr Cooper should return to try
to 'get her into a position where she could make up her own mind
what she wanted to do'"

Three hours later as Kathleen went for a walk through the castle
grounds, Cooper and another man jumped out at her shouting 'Get
her' and 'Grab her'. Fellow Scientologist Austin Lenniston,
despite being threatened with a knife and a rottweiler dog, came
to her aid, grabbing her around to stop her from being dragged
away and bundled her on to a staff bus. Lenniston suffered a
minor knife wound in the struggle.

When he was arrested, Cooper told police that Kathleen had been
subjected to hypnosis by the sect and no longer had a mind of
her own. He was indicted of  attempted kidnap and affray.

The case was pleaded in front of a jury at the Lewes Crown Court
in March 1995.

"To prove attempted kidnap," writes the Daily Telegraph of 15
March 1995, "[Prosecutor Richard Cherrill] had to establish four
elements - an attempt to remove her, that it was by force, that
it was without lawful excuse and that she did not consent."

"The first two elements were not challenged - Mr Cooper admitted
to police he went to snatch her, 'probably against her will',
after being contacted by her mother - and the judge [Mr Justice
Hidden] ruled he could not offer a defense of lawful excuse
because that would require a belief that she faced physical
danger. But the judge ruled that there could be a possible
defense on the grounds of consent, even though Miss Wilson
testified that she did not consent."

"This enabled Mr [John] Tanzer [Cooper's counsel] to tell the
jury some of the evidence suggested a regime in which she was
effectively enslaved and robbed of her free will."

Thereby started what we often witnessed in these type of suits
in the US: the victim, not those who resorted to unlawful acts,
is put on trial, and the whole battery of anti-cult arguments is
used against the member and the group. This battery has been
used in the early times of anti-cult heyday too, quite
successfully. The judges and jury did not usually have all the
information on the whole cult/anti-cultl issue, and felt for the
sensationalism and superstition of the mind-control theory.

An other reason why juries have had a reluctance do convict
family members who abducted their adult child is that kidnapping
is a serious offence, that often incurs serious penalties.
Juries have a problem agreeing to such harsh penalties to be
applied on parents. Anti-cult proponents know of this situation
and play on the emotion of the jury, probably parents
themselves.

For example, Cooper said he was not a "malign kidnapper using
unwarranted force to take away a damsel manifestly not in
distress." Rather, he wanted to "put her in a position" to make
her own free choice. "I was only interested in the welfare of
Kathleen."

Cooper's counsel, John Tanzer, added "Our case is simply
Kathleen Wilson was a victim. That she was deprived of her own
free will and that Mr Cooper sought to rescue her."

Tanzer argued that, even though she claimed in court she did not
consent to removal, it was possible her free will had been
removed by the processes she had undergone in the cult and she
did not have "sufficient intelligence and understanding" to
decide if she consented. "Kathleen Wilson was a victim. She was
deprived of her own free will and Stephen Cooper sought to
rescue her. She never said she wanted to be rescued but we say,
simply, that is because she couldn't. If a member of our society
is turned into a robot, turned into a slave, is that person
consenting? A robot is programmed as to what to say. The person
underneath has been suppressed and enslaved."

At the end of the week-long trial, Cooper was cleared of the
charge by a jury which retired at 12.53pm, began their lunch at
1pm and returned with unanimous verdicts at 2pm.

Cooper achieved the status of a near hero. As Wayne Sage would
say, the media, always interested in a kidnapping or a
brainwashing story and ecstatic over one with both, spread the
word of Cooper exploit. We know that Cooper only went there with
another guy and with a rottweiler dog, and that a single
Scientologist defeated them. Yet, Cooper is now supposed of
having taken on "an army of uniformed guards" (The Observer 19
March 1995).

Of course, as usual, the only result this attempted kidnap and
violence achieved was a broken family. More tears, more
despairs, more misunderstandings.

Kathleen now claims she is afraid to visit her mother in
Boosbeck in case she was the victim of a second kidnap attempt.
Her mother has pleaded with her to come home - even for a brief
visit - but holds out little hope. "The cult has altered her
mind. It is heartbreaking to think I may never see her again."

OTOH, Kathleen is now left on her own as ...

read more »

[...]

Hey, Bernie?  I know you said this was your analysis and all, but aren't
you making a lot of assumptions in these references?  What makes you think
that Kathleen's mother and Kathleen's friends got their information and
formed their attitudes about her involvement with the CoS from "anti-cult
forces"?  Scientology doesn't have a very good reputation, you know.
There's a lot of perfectly valid information about the shabby side of the
organization that's freely available without any conspiracies being
involved.  Maybe somebody read the "Time" article.

Sad story.

--Barbara

indu...@aol.com (Inducto) wrote in article
<19970719051800.BAA20...@ladder01.news.aol.com>:

I agree with you 100%. I too am also thinking that there is some
value in the less extreme theories of mind control, just like I
think there is some value in less extreme theories advanced by
some cults. However, just like for cults, people use whatever
truth that may lay there to bundles unrelated things together
and unwittingly or not encourage highly reprehensible practices.
That's the problem I have with the concept of mind-control. If
its proponents were able to use it in a context that clearly
dissociate themselves with these consequences, I would have an
entirely different approach to it. That's not what they do,
though. They may say "we are against coercion of any kind" but
then they advance the very same theory used to justify it.
That's like Neo-Nazi advancing the rhetoric Nazi used to justify
their crimes, all the while saying "of course we are against any
coercion to be used against inferior races". It's either
hypocrisy or unawareness.

Yes, I think so too. Some exit-counselors do an excellent job at
it. Like with anything, a job well done is an art and a science.
However, others keep using the same theory that has brought
about gross abuses without making any amendment or
self-criticism other than a loose opposition to forcible
deprogramming, and they are the ones I question. That's what
Hassan, Monica, or Dennis do, for example. They may be sincere
individuals and their position may be a step in the right
direction, but it's far from enough in my eyes. They are still
responsible for effectively supporting the Nazi-like theory of
mind-control, no matter what they proclaim their intentions to
be.

Since I am certainly not a pro-deprogrammer apologist, I think
it would give a certain amount of credibility if I myself say
that, to my knowledge, forcible deprogramming isn't, nowadays,
typical or common. However, my contention is that this situation
is because it had suffered serious set back in recent past, and
not because of any revision of their proponents' theoretical
background, not speaking of any apology for the crimes they have
been guilty of. I still haven't seen posted, BTW, the so-called
disclaimer from the ex-CAN, in its own context. Their demise was
entirely justified.

I am quite confident that many who presently claim to support
the mind-control theory but not forcible deprogramming, would
support forcible deprogramming accomplished as part of a State
approved sanction, just like they currently support abuses of
civil rights perpetrate in Germany against individual
Scientologists. That makes them considerable more dangerous than
cults. The cults own brand of totalitarianism is still remote
from actuality. The mind-control proponents one is one that sits
right there at the door, that already have been successful in
the past at passing some stages of the legislative process, and
that is still successful in justifying current abuses of civil
and human rights.

Yes, but as I said, I don't think it has been eliminated by the
people who work in the field. I think that they have been forced
to restrain themselves from what is an obvious consequence
stepping out from their theory, just like Neo-Nazi or
Scientologists are being restrained to implement their own brand
of an "healthy" society.

Agreed. Of course, this is not what happened in the case I
presented. The would-be deprogrammer has been cleared of all
charge on the ground that his action was justified by the
victim's state of "mind-control". This didn't happen 20 years
ago, just 2 years ago. It is wrong and dangerous.

I do not object to any therapy at all, as long as they do not
use coercive restrain. The "reality inducing therapy" I am
referring to, is the one anti-cultist tried to pass in the 80s
as law in the States of Kansas and New York, amongst other. This
involved coercive restrain, aided by State law enforcement
forces, for reasons of "mind-control".

It is not clear to me whether you object or not to coercion
(even if State approved) being used as part of the therapy.

Bernie

Bernie <b...@arcadis.be> wrote in article
<33ddcc0b.5485...@news.ping.be>...

Well, lets take another look at this.  Someone who believes in something
that is patently false - eg. the Xenu story - clearly is suffering from a
psychopathology - much like someone believing himself to be Napoleon
(unless of course that individual is in fact Napoleon) is suffering from a
psychopathology.   The next question should be if they are a hazard to
themselves or others.   While this particular delusion does not inherently
make an individual a hazard to himself or others, there are elements in
Scientology belief system that can potentially make an invididual a hazard
to himself or others.  For example, it may be argued that someone
submitting to the Purification Rundown is a hazard to himself.

Scientologists have a history of (among other things) stealing government
documents in the USA and in Canada.  It is hardly unreasonable for the
German government to take proactive action, rather then to wait for their
own documents to be stolen.

Cheers

dr...@yourown.risk.com (bc) wrote in article
<33d70653.173890...@news.concentric.net>:

So what's your take on the German issue? Do you agree with
prospective candidate to civil service job to fill up a
questionnaire requesting disclosure as to whether they are
Scientologist or not?

And what do you make of the verdict in the case of Kathleen
Wilson I presented? Do you agree with it?

Bernie

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b...@arcadis.be (Bernie) brewed up the following, and served it to
the group:

<snip>

My take on the German issue is that it is not relevant to the
subject of forcible deprogramming.  The German government will fill
their civil service positions in their own fashion, with or without
any guidance from me.  I can certainly understand why they wouldn't
want $cientologist$ in the jobs--given what I've seen of the
"efficacy" of Elrong's management tech (bs).

The "case" of Kathleen Wilson as you presented it is one of the most
obviously slanted, pro-Co$-biased pieces of writing I've seen in a
long time.  Any family breakup is tragic, IMHO.  Please see my
quoted comment above for my opinion of forcible deprogramming.  
Again.

I'd like to see the court records of this case, and more information
directly from the people actually involved, such as the unanimous
jury.  Your retelling of it is rife with "anti-cult" rhetoric, and
so heavily dripping with "emotions" which don't quite ring true to
me that I find it rather hard to swallow.  But then that's purely a
personal reaction on my part.  I have checked the URL you supplied,
and read the sources--which were all newspaper stories.  Given the
standard media propensity for hyperbole, it would seem to me that
you are analyzing an analysis of (possibly exaggerated) second-hand
information, Bernie.  I'd like something a little more direct.  The
stories on Martin's page do give what is probably a better view of
the situation than your "analysis" did, though.

The "anti-cult mind control theory" does not break up families,
Bernie.  It is, in fact, an observation of what the "church" of
$cientology does to break up families.  Something that the "church"
is pretty damned good at.  It is an observation of what $cientology
does to its members.  Like I was, Bernie.  Like you were.  Remember?
 Try this one on for size:  Why do you think Kathleen Wilson's
mother is so concerned?  (Bernie's probable answer:  "The evil anti-
cult!!!  They did it!!!"  No?  Give me another answer then, Bernie.  
Quit spouting Hubbardspew (bs) and start thinking for yourself.)

Once again, in case you missed it the first dozen times I said it--
the fact that I believe the Co$ practices mind control *ABSOLUTELY*
DOES*NOT* mean that I condone kidnapping and forcibly deprogramming
a person.  The presumption that belief in mind control leads
inexorably to performing forcible deprogramming is *NOT* a logical
progression; at least, I have not seen any logic yet presented which
makes an even remote case supporting the presumption.  If you'd
spend a little less time putting up straw men to demonize, and a
little more time understanding the issues at hand, maybe you'd get a
clue of what's going on, Bernie.  I (and others) are OPPOSED to
mindfucks.  Whoever's doing them.  Dig?

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-----------
"Only an object can be objective."
                 --bc

the above e-mail address remains fictional...
the real one is bc9...@concentric.net
                   *SP2*
                  ...bc...

In article <344824e7.110771...@news.ping.be>, b...@arcadis.be (Bernie)
wrote:

Bernie, you're able to read Dutch, aren't you? Please read this De
Standaard article of 21.12.1996  http://www.vum.be/dsifsct1.html

In short (not verbatim translations), it's the story of  Luc Hens. For 16
years he tries to get his daughter out of the cult. "The name 'Church" is
a cover-up for commercial business. Scientology is a Church without God"
he says. Hens is father of 6 children by the way. His daughter traveled to
Amsterdam, Copenhagen, LA and Clearwater. She also stayed for a short
while on cult-ship the Freewinds. Hens tries to stay in contact and
traveled to those places. Then he tells: "In Clearwater in 1990 I did
confronted her. Until she was kidnapped by members of the sect on public
road."

The article continues, "In Clearwater Hens found out how powerful
Scientology is. During his stay of 3 weeks he got permission to see
his daughter for some days/evenings after persistent requests."

"2 years later, in 1992, he did again travel to Clearwater, this time in
the companion of a camera crew of the RTBF [France part of the Belgian
broadcasting corp, I think]...  He met ex-mayor of Clearwater Gabe
Casares,"

He also met Margery Wakefield, she gave him the advice of staying in touch
with his girl.

Hens: ,,She is and will for ever by my beloved daughter. Lots of people
have said: give it up, she is an adult, she will do what she likes. But
that's not the way it works. No parent could accept that."

"Above that, I don't concede with that reasoning. It's a cheap excuse to
escape your responsibility. Look what happened to members of the Solar
Temple, and with victims of other sects. Is it just because they are
adults, you should leave them to themselves?"

Hens further makes the comparison between sexual abuse of children and
cult membership. He says that the first is rape of a body, the second rape
of the mind. While the first you can visibly prove, the last one not. In
both cases it's injustice. Why would we close our eyes for one, and not
for the other injustice, he asks.

[btw] I think that he is the same Hens who was heard by the Belgian
"sect-commission".  Reference:

-313 /7 -95 /96 - pg 16 - http://www.dekamer.be/documents/313/7.pdf
-313 /8 -95 /96 - pg 99 - http://www.dekamer.be/documents/313/8.pdf

Which - for a person who's so concerned with this topic - you've surely
read, or at least skimmed trough I assume.

Mike

http://huizen.dds.nl/~hubbard/

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b...@arcadis.be (Bernie) brewed up the following, and served it to
the group:

<snip>

Bernie, go back to square one and read what's been posted.  Quit
putting words in people's mouths (or on their keyboards).

What part of "I don't condone forcible deprogramming" is unclear to
you?  I don't support it, regardless of WHOSE idea it is.  I *
certainly* don't like the idea of giving a government that much
power.

Whose civil rights are being violated?  Are not the people whose
homes and belongings are ransacked by tainted court order
experiencing egregious civil rights violations?  Are not the people
being harassed by lawsuit experiencing egregious civil rights
violations?

Does the person whose mind is manipulated, controlled, and warped
not experience the most basic civil rights violation?  The cults you
so vociferously defend are committing the crimes you lay at the feet
of the non-existent "anti-cult cult", Bernie.

You paint with much too broad a stroke, Bernie.  Stop preaching for
a moment and try to listen and understand.

Ah, what's the use?  I'm talking to a brick wall.

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-----------
"Only an object can be objective."
                 --bc

the above e-mail address remains fictional...
the real one is bc9...@concentric.net
                   *SP2*
                  ...bc...

In article <01bc96e3$11128420$8bf0cfcd@michael>,

People who believe in it don't agree that it's "patently false."  People
who believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead don't believe the story
is "patently" false.  People who believe that God spoke to Moses through
the medium of a burning bush don't believe that this story is "patently"
false.

clearly is suffering from a