Making offers you can't refuse - The 'Scientology' racket explained.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act (enacted by section 901 [a.] of the Organised Crime Control Act) is a United States federal law which (in theory) provides extended criminal penalties for, and powerful civil remedies against, the leaders and agents of ongoing criminal organisations and their de facto associate enterprises.


In the early 1960s, after Robert Kennedy was appointed Attorney General, the US Dept. of Justice was given a significant role with a co-ordinated national ‘Strike Force,’ established under the direction of the Inspector General of the US Dept. of Labor. This new initiative was the product of an overt, joint congressional policy to hold the leaders of major organized crime groups to account, as well as dismantle their webs of corrupt political figures, judges, attorneys, trade union officials, senior law enforcement agents, etc.

Even though he never faced criminal prosecution, the long-time Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, is now known to have been under the influence of racketeers. He was certainly being bribed and probably blackmailed. Despite a growing mountain of conclusive evidence, for decades, Hoover steadfastly denied even the existence of  the 'Mafia,' let alone a syndicate of major organized crime groups, in the USA. Yet, the average American knew full-well that, during these same decades, a pernicious criminal underworld had been gnawing its way into the heart of the republic. However, although the Democratic administration’s will to protect US citizens was apparently hardened by the assassinations of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, existing legislation was deemed inadequate. Paradoxically, the US Justice Dept. had an ‘Organized Crime and Racketeering Section,’ but technically these offences were not fully defined in law. Thus, RICO was signed into law in 1970 by the new Republican President, Richard Nixon, but only as a result of ground-breaking recommendations made in the late 1960s by President’s Johnson’s 'Commission to Examine Crime in America.' 

The Bill was drafted by Prof. G. Robert Blakey  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Robert_Blakey

(former Special Attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Justice Dept.) under the close supervision of the veteran Democratic Senator for Arkansas, John Little McClellan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Little_McClellan 

Subsequently (guided by Prof. Blakey), a number of individual States (notably, California) enacted similar legislation.

The RICO Act appeared for all the world to be directed against the Italian American ‘Mafia,’ although its authors refuted this. Whether intentional or not, the Italian-sounding acronym, 'RICO,' is the name of the fictional anti-hero of the classic 1931 Hollywood gangster movie, ‘Little Caesar’ (starring Edward G. Robinson, directed by Mervyn LeRoy and based on the 1929 Novel by William R. Burnett). The RICO Act was drafted by lawyers for lawyers, and is, therefore, legalistic, but, at first glance, it can appear to be written in plain language, because it also contains some popular terms. Even when deconstructed, the Act  (like the enduring phenomenon it addresses) cannot be fully-understood in isolation. In reality, in respect of the ‘Mafia,’ by 1970, the RICO legislators were trying to shut the stable door long after the horses had bolted and begun to breed. 

Tellingly, another full decade was to elapse before an elderly and insignificant ‘Mafia’ decoy 'boss', Frank Tieri (who had previously pretended to be an employee of a sportswear manufacturer), was actually convicted under RICO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Tieri_(mobster). However, RICO legislators had access to a lot of key-information, some of which had been supplied by 'Mafia' apostates like Joe Valachi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Valachi:
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This article is in response to a recent enquiry regarding ongoing events in Clearwater Florida concerning calls for 'Scientology' to be investigated by the FBI for suspected breaches of the RICO Act, 1970.

In Summary:

• A prime plot of vacant building land adjoining 'Scientology's' Fort Harrison Hotel HQ in down-town Clearwater, has been bought by the city council and 'Scientology's' boss, David Miscavige, is furious because he wants his organisation to have control of this entire area.

• On behalf of 'Scientology,' David Miscavige had made the previous owner an offer of a cash price several times the land's current market value, but he preferred to sell to the city at the lower price.

• On behalf of 'Scientology,' David Miscavige then made a similarly-inflated multi-million $ cash offer to the city to finance a proposed down-town re-development project, but only if the city withdrew and 'Scientology' was allowed to buy the land adjoining its HQ. However, the council refused.

• David Miscavige had even told the council that Tom Cruise would come and open its down-town re-development project, if 'Scientology' got its way.

• In revenge, over a 2 year peiod, David Miscavige then secretly organised the purchase of around 100 buildings in down-town Clearwater using 'Scientology' de facto agents, and private companies, as fronts to hide what was really happening.

• These purchases were achieved by making offers to the buildings' owners which they couldn't refuse. i.e. They were given prices several times their current market value and in cash - leading to not-unreasonable suspicions that money-laundering might be going on here.

• These newly-acquired buildings are now all empty and they are currently being used by David Miscavige to block the council's proposed re-development project.

• Mark Bunker (a long-time observer, and rational critic, of 'Scientology' who has recently been elected to the Clearwater council on a popular mandate opposing 'Scientology's' sinister influence in the town), has publicly called on his fellow councillors to file a complaint with the FBI, requesting an urgent investigation of these worrying matters.

• To date, a majority of Clearwater councillors have refused to support Mark Bunker's call, but this has not stopped him and his supporters from approaching the authorities as concerned individuals.

• Aaron Smith-Levin (an escaped 'Scientology' adherent who was previously contracted by Bill Ackman and Pershing Square Capital to investigate the real activities of 'Herbalife' in China), has been explaining these ongoing matters in Clearwater on his youtube channel. He has also been trying to explain the content and purpose of the RICO Act.

• Aaron Smith-Levin, who is himself a resident of Clearwater, acknowledges that a courageous reporter on a local Florida newspaper has been instrumental in the rigorous investigation, and public exposure, of these ongoing matters. 

• Aaron Smith-Levin is one of a growing number of escaped 'Scientologists' who now understand that despite its 'religious/celebrity' exterior, internally the organisation has been a de facto totalitarian state in microcosm, the deluded inhabitants of which have been ultimately-controlled by a paranoid fiction peddled (by David Miscavige and his associates) as reality, and used as the false-justification for committing all manner of crimes.

https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/how-reporter-uncovered-scientology-s-clearwater-land-grab

• For obvious Reasons, various rational critics of 'Scientology' are concerned that, due to their spineless refusal to support Mark Bunker's call for investigation (despite numerous red flags), certain Clearwater councillors might have become implicated themselves (due to threats, and/or bribery, and/or blackmail). However, Aaron-Smith-Levin has so far preferred to suggest that these councillors are merely ill-informed or naive, but nonetheless giving the appearance that they could have been corrupted.

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The following (brief) deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons (particulary journalists, legislators and law enforcement agents) who have continued to approach the so-called 'Church of Scientology' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be treated as a lawful 'religious' movement (protected by national, and international, human rights charters guaranteeing freedom of worship), rather than from the safe common-sense point of view that they don't really know what it is.

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A growing-mountain of quantifiable evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:

• the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Scientology' (a.k.a. 'Dianetics' ) has been nothing more than an absurd, non-rational,  cultic  pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their time and money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons into the same trap. 

• the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'Scientology,' has therefore, been the deliberately-misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as reality, by the instigator, and subsequent bosses, of an ongoing major organised crime group (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a blame-the-victim 'Long Con*'  - comprising various related advance-fee frauds (initially dressed up as: 'legitimate self-betterment/education programs,' etc.).

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*A 'Long Con' is a form of fraud maliciously designed to exploit victims' existing beliefs and instinctual desires and make them falsely-believe that they are exercising a completely free-choice. 'Long Cons' comprise an enticing structured-scenario of control acted out as reality over an extended period. Like theatrical plays, 'Long Cons' are written, directed and produced. They involve leading players and supporting players as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, script, etc. The hidden objective of 'Long Cons' is to convince unwary persons that fiction is fact and fact is fiction, progressively cutting them off from external reality. In this way, victims begin unconsciously to play along with the controlling-scenario and (in the false-expectation of future reward) large sums of money or valuables can be stolen from them. Classically, the victims of 'Long Cons' can become deluded to such an extent that they will abandon their education, jobs, careers, etc., empty their bank accounts, and/or beg, steal, borrow from friends, family members, etc.

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• the pernicious cultic racket known as 'Scientology' is neither original nor unique and, consequently, it has been a fundamental error to imagine that it should be investigated, and can be fully-understood, in isolation.

• historically, pernicious cults have been presented externally as traditional associations. These can be arbitrarily defined by their instigators as almost any banal group (‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’, ‘commercial’, etc.). However, internally, they have always been totalitarian (i.e. they were centrally-controlled and required of their core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal, and/ or matriarchal, leadership above all other persons). By their very nature, pernicious cults never present themselves in their true colours. Consequently, no adherent has ever become involved with one as a result of his/her fully-informed consent.

• historically, pernicious cults have been instigated and ruled by psychologically dominant individuals, and/or bodies of psychologically dominant individuals (often with impressive, made-up names, and/or ranks, and/or titles), who have sought to hold themselves accountable to no one. These individuals had severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personalities (i.e. they suffered from a chronic psychological disorder, especially when resulting in a grandiose sense of self-importance/ righteousness and the compulsion to take advantage of others and to control others’ views of, and behaviour towards, them).* They steadfastly pretended moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing various, hidden, criminal objectives (fraudulent, and/or sexual, and/or violent, etc.). The unquestioning admiration of their adherents only served to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ strong sense of self-entitlement and fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.

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* ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder,’ is a psychological term first used in 1971 by Dr. Heinz Kohut (1913-1981). It was recognised as the name for a form of pathological narcissism in ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1980.’ Narcissistic traits (where a person talks highly of himself/herself to eliminate feelings of worthlessness) are common in, and considered ‘normal’ to, human psychological development. When these traits become accentuated by a failure of the social environment and persist into adulthood, they can intensify to the level of a severe mental disorder. Severe and inflexible NPD is thought to effect less than 1% of the general adult population. It occurs more frequently in men than women. In simple terms, NPD is reality-denying, total self-worship born of its sufferers’ unconscious belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. In order to shield themselves from the intolerable rejection and isolation which they unconsciously believe would follow if others recognised their defective nature, NPD sufferers go to almost any lengths to control others’ view of, and behaviour towards, them. NPD sufferers often choose partners, and raise children, who exhibit ‘co-narcissism’ (a co-dependent personality disorder like co-alcoholism). Co-narcissists organise themselves around the needs of others (to whom they feel responsible), they accept blame easily, are eager to please, defer to others’ opinions and fear being seen as selfish if they act assertively. NPD was observed, and apparently well-understood, in ancient times. Self-evidently, the term, ‘narcissism,’ comes from the allegorical myth of Narcissus, the beautiful Greek youth who falls in love with his own reflection.

Currently, NPD has nine recognised diagnostic criteria (five of which are required for a diagnosis):

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal  love, etc.
3. believes that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special people.
4. requires excessive admiration.
5. strong sense of self-entitlement.
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.
7. lacks empathy.
8. is often envious or believes that others are envious of him/her.
9. arrogant disposition.

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• historically, pernicious cults have employed co-ordinated, devious techniques of social and psychological persuasion (variously described as: ‘covert hypnosis’, ‘mental manipulation’, ‘coercive behaviour modification’, ‘group pressure’, ‘thought reform’, ‘ego destruction’, ‘mind control’, ‘brainwashing’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘love bombing’, etc.). These techniques are designed to fulfil the hidden criminal objectives of the leaders by provoking in the adherents an infantile total dependence on the group to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/or other, relationships. Pernicious cults have manipulated their adherents’ existing beliefs and instinctual desires, creating the illusion that they are exercising free will. In this way, adherents have also be surreptitiously coerced into following potentially harmful, physical procedures (sleep deprivation, protein restriction, repetitive chanting/ moving, etc.) which were similarly designed to facilitate the shutting down of an individual’s critical and evaluative faculties without his/ her fully-informed consent.
  

• historically, pernicious cults can be of any size, duration and level of criminality. They have comprised groups, and/or sub-groups, of previously diverse individuals bonded by their unconscious acceptance of the self-gratifying, but wholly imaginary, scenario that they alone represented a positive or protective force of purity and absolute righteousness derived from their leadership’s exclusive access to a superior or superhuman knowledge, and that they alone opposed a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil. Whilst this two-dimensional, or dualistic, narrative remained the adherents’ model of reality, they were, in effect, constrained to modify their individual personalities and behaviour accordingly.
  

• historically, the bosses of pernicious cults have sought to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption, ill-informed cult adherents have been drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. they can become convinced that failure to achieve redemption was solely their own individual fault for not believing totally). Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, ‘cosmological,’‘extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, ‘New-Age’, 'magical', etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in a non-rational, cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanising terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytisers can be highly-infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others.
  

• historically, the bosses of  pernicious cults have sought to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This has been achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders have systematically categorised, condemned and excluded as unenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negative persons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.
  
  

• historically, in pernicious cults, a core-group of adherents have been gradually dissociated from external reality and reformed into deployable agents, and/or de facto slaves, and/or expendable combatants, etc., furthering the hidden criminal objectives of their leaders, completely dependent on a collective paranoid delusion of absolute moral and intellectual supremacy fundamental to the maintenance of their individual self-esteem/identity and related psychological function. It has become impossible for such fanatics to see humour in their situation or to feel pity for, or to empathise with, non-adherents. Their minds were programmed to interpret the manipulation, and/or cheating, and/or dispossession, and/or destruction, of inferior outsiders (particularly, those who challenge their group’s controlling scenario) as perfectly justifiable.

• historically, the bosses of pernicious cults have continued to organise the creation, and/or dissolution, and/or subversion, of further (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, some cults have survived all low-level challenges and spread like cancers enslaving the minds, and destroying the lives, of countless individuals in the process. At the same time, their leaders acquired absolute control over capital sums which place them alongside the most-notorious racketeers in history. They have operated behind ever-expanding, and changing, fronts of ‘limited-liability, commercial companies,’ and/or ‘non-profit-making associations,’ etc. Other than ‘religious /philosophical’ and ‘political’ movements and ‘secret societies,’  typical reality-inverting disguises for cultic crime have been:
  ‘charity/ philanthropy’; ‘fund-raising’; ‘lobbying’ on topical issues (‘freedom’, ‘ethics’, ‘environment’, ‘human rights’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘child protection’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘social justice’, 'peace,' etc.); ‘publishing and media’; ‘education’; ‘academia’; ‘celebrity’; ‘patriotism’; ‘information technology’; ‘public relations’; ‘advertising’; ‘medicine’; ‘alternative medicine’; ‘nutrition’; ‘rehabilitation’; ‘manufacturing’; ‘retailing’; ‘direct selling/ marketing’; ‘multilevel marketing’; ‘network marketing’; ‘regulation’; ‘personal development’; ‘self-betterment’; ‘positive thinking’; ‘self-motivation’; ‘leadership training’; ‘life coaching’; ‘research and development’; ‘investment’; ‘real estate’; ‘sponsorship’; ‘bereavement/trauma counselling’; ‘addiction counselling’; ‘legal counselling’; ‘cult exit-counselling’; ‘financial consulting’; ‘management consulting’; ‘clubs’; etc. 
  

• historically, the long-term core-adherents of pernicious cults have been psychotic (i.e. suffering from psychosis, a severe mental derangement, especially when resulting in delusions and loss of contact with external reality). Core-adherents who have managed to break with their group and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, have invariably been destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For many years afterwards, recovering former core-adherents can suffer from one, or more, of the following psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse): depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness ( asthma, skin disorders, headaches, fatigue, etc.); sexual problems/ fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

• the bosses of the most-destructive cults have been megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only served to confirm, and magnify, the bosses' own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader has maintained an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustained their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecy, denunciation, confession, justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.

 

Observers should particularly note that chronic victims of cultic rackets can be identified by their general incapacity to describe what they have been subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they can often unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using their group's jargon-laced script 

David Brear (copyright 2020)