OT VIII

"No doubt you are familiar with the Revelations section of the Bible where various events are predicted. Also mentioned Is a brief period of time in which an arch-enemy of Christ, referred to as the anti-Christ, will reign and his opinions will have sway. All this makes for very fantastic, entertaining reading but there is truth in it. This anti-Christ represents the forces of Lucifer (literally, the "light bearers" or "light bringer"), Lucifer being a mythical representation of the forces of enlightenment, the Galactic Confederacy. My mission could be said to fulfill the Biblical promise represented by this brief anti-Christ period. During this period there is a fleeting opportunity for the whole scenario to be effectively derailed, which would make it impossible for the mass Marcabian landing (Second Coming) to take place."

"We have calculated that on average, each person on planet earth has 2,209 of these Body Thetans (BT's for short), Hubbard's term for the alien spirits, attached to you causing you to be constrained by Xenu's false reality. The average cost for Scientology to OT 8 is a mere USD 360,000, meaning that each BT only costs USD 163 to clear. Now that is a bargain if there ever was one."

"How could this be? The church's OT VIIIs, Katz said, are purported to be "completely able to make whatever they want to have happen in life." She acknowledged the seeming inconsistency of feeling so lost after having attained the highest spiritual level in Scientology. She said that away from the church, she felt in control, she felt like an OT VIII. But with anything that had to do with the "church agenda, she felt a loss of control. "It was like having two different lives.""

"Reaching the highest level — OT VIII — usually requires a Scientologist to spend years and tens of thousands of dollars on courses, counseling, books, lectures and other materials. … Reaching levels seven and eight can cost tens of thousands of dollars more, depending on the pace of a person's counseling progress."

"He says he spent about $200,000 progressing up the church's Bridge to Total Freedom and reached OT VIII in 2006 aboard the church's cruise ship, the Freewinds."

"She said it took her 13 years to complete the OT VII level, traveling to Clearwater every six months, often spending $7,865 for intensive auditing sessions. As an OT VIII, she said she spent $16,385 for one 12½ hour, intensive auditing program. "And it didn't resolve the issue, which I was promised it was going to," she said."

"There are up to 28 processing steps that require a mix of intense training, auditing and a surrender of reason before a Scientologist can reach Operating Thetan Level VIII, the highest level attainable. What this actually means remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that the total discounted rate for Scientologists to achieve this perceived goal is $277,000, the ASHO Official Scientology Price List reports. For this and other reasons, such as paying members 10 percent commissions for new recruits, Scientology has been denied non profit status in other countries."

"On March 24, the swashbuckling truth-seekers at Wikileaks.org published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later, church-friendly lawyers threatened the site with legal action if the documents weren't taken down. Calling them "Advanced Technology of the Scientology religion," the lawyers pointed out that the documents are copyrighted works registered to the Religious Technology Center (RTC), a church-related holding company. Wikileaks did not remove the documents. But it did tell the world their veracity has been verified."

"A Scientologist who spends $280,000 on the cult's “intensives” and courses to achieve “Operating Thetan Level VIII” status may consider himself spiritually superior …"

"Even more controversial is a passage in the disputed Level VIII documents that debunks major religions as instruments of "enslavement" and depicts Jesus as "a lover of young boys and men...given to uncontrollable bursts of temper and hatred.""

"Mike and Donna Henderson, onetime Scientologists from Clearwater, were victims of this culture. OT 7 and OT 8 respectively, they were nearly bankrupted by their involvement with the church. Today they are two of a growing number of ex-Scientologists who predict that in these dark economic times, Scientology's "unvarnished demand for money", as Mike puts it, may lead to its demise."

"It is in our interests, to broadly disseminate the truth of these levels rather than allow suppressives to distort and misuse this information for their own purposes."

"As it happens, the RTC initially claimed copyright of all the OT materials in the affidavit — including this OT VIII text — but later amended its claim to exclude the OT VIII materials, now arguing that they are a forgery."

"Despite all of the church's extreme measures, however, the Fishman affidavit, along with all of the confidential OT materials, reappeared on alt.religion.scientology on July 31, 1995. Since then, they have been reproduced on site after site, server after server, in innumerable languages, rendering any concept of confidentiality or secrecy fairly moot in the cyber domain."

"In this case, elsewhere, the church's war on the Internet appears to have backfired, and its attempts to staunch the flow of confidential material online have only accelerated their global dissemination."