Scientology - Dan Koon And The Six Month Check Line

By Mike McClaughry

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“You can always judge a man not by his friends, but by the quality of his enemies. A good man will never have enemies who are anything but petty and childish. A bad man will have enemies that are legion. Who it is that dislikes a man reveals much about the man himself.” ~ Wicasta Lovelace

The word legion in the above quote may not be familiar to you – it can mean extremely powerful, and beyond “normal”, supernatural in intelligence, power, speed and anything else you care to name. Sometimes I look at us from these men’s perspective, they must wonder just who the hell we are anyway. Virginia who hates Scientology – what it really stands for – infiltrates it, and then turns around and has a better understanding of their materials than they do. And she doesn’t even like their convoluted ideas! I can just imagine them trying to wrap their heads around that one. Legion, indeed.

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The following was prepared as reference material for other posts currently under editorial review. It is primarily for people familiar with Scientology, but I think even a non-Scientologist can still get the general idea. David Miscavige (the head of the Church of Scientology) and his Executives were and still are a snake-pit of liars – there is no change.

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Memoirs of a Scientologist contains the beginnings of an expanded version of my wife Virginia’s original report that was made and sent to Church executives concerning the six month check (aka the “refresher”).

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This was the single largest income line of the Church of Scientology.

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It was generating over a million dollars a month at one point prior to Virginia’s expose using the Scientologists own technology against those that ran the day-today operations of the Church. It was (and still is) mandatory for all persons auditing on the high Church level called OT VII.

In the report, Virginia gets shown the references called BFO’s (Base Flag Orders) that implemented the six month check line. This was a very rare thing, and I don’t think anyone else that was a public scientologist (versus staff) had ever been shown these. A big thank you still goes out to Cristina Tidu, Virginia’s auditor at the time, for doing that. The following excerpt discusses this event.

September 1998

The D of P calls Virginia in for a D of P interview, at 10PM that night. When she goes in she is body routed to the MAA office. The MAA Cosima, D of P Karen Hill, and her auditor, Christina Tidu are all there. Virginia was shown various references on sec checking, none of which were in disagreement with HCOB C/S Series 73RB, when duplicated as written, instead of trying to make an off-source line agree with LRH.

Cosima, Chief MAA Sandcastle, made justifications as to how out ethics everybody is on SOLO NOTS. She said they lie on their worksheets, and they do stuff which she couldn’t even dream up at night. Virginia said, well why are they on the level then? Why don’t you take their eligibility and give them a program? Virginia said why are you inspecting-before-the-fact the rest of us based on what someone else is doing? That’s off policy.

The auditor produced a pack of BFO’s, an inch or so thick, covering the SOLO NOTS administration line. She showed Virginia the page that covers the history of the six-month check line. Virginia immediately turned to the back of the reference to see if LRH wrote it. It was written by RTRC I/C Int. (This post is part of Senior C/S Ints office.) So, Virginia said, this is not LRH so I do not have to follow it.

Christina said read this part. This part said that:
“….in 1982 LRH was consulted regarding a situation with SOLO NOTS auditors at the time, to which LRH responded “ get them in, get them cleaned up, and keep them cleaned up”. Thus, the six month check line was born……..”.

Virginia then told Cosima the following: that’s an LRH advice to a specific situation at that time and that there are two HCOP/Ls that apply to this.

1. HCOP/L Orders Vs Arbitraries says that taking an LRH advice and applying it across the boards is exactly what LRH does not want done.
2. HCOP/L Seniority Of Orders, an advice does not take priority over an HCOB, and a BFO does not take priority over an HCOB, such as C/S Series 73RB.

Virginia additional note:

A BFO is a Base Flag Order. LRH’s ADVICE (key term here), was for THOSE SOLO NOTS AUDITORS AT THAT TIME “Get them in, get them cleaned up, and keep them cleaned up”.

Notice that this advice DOES NOT violate either HCOB Confessionals and the Non-Interference Zone, or HCOB C/S Series 73 RA or RB. WHY? Because obviously the above mentioned solo NOTs auditors were not progressing, moving well, were stalled, etc. etc. He applied his own HCOB’s perfectly in the proposed problem to him.

The entire current 6-month check line is formed off of this onetime “advice” by LRH.
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At this point, the terminals stopped trying to prove to Virginia, with non-LRH references and incorrectly interpreted HCOP/Ls, that the six months check line was a standard line.

Virginia was then sent to cramming and checked out on all the relevant issues concerning sec checking, etc. The Flag cramming officer found that Virginia understood all the materials perfectly. The cramming officer told Virginia that she was right about the six-month check line being out-tech but that Flag could not do anything about it, because Miscavige would pull their license to deliver Scientology if they did not do what Miscavige ordered them to do.

So, you see, all of these tech terminals at Flag knew Virginia was right, but they all pretended that she was wrong because they did not want to go up against Miscavige. They even allowed her to be wrongfully expelled from the Church for this, because they feared reprisal from Miscavige.

You will note the term RTRC I/C bolded above, this is a unit beneath the Senior C/S International office. The acronym RTRC stands for LRH Technical Research and Compilations I/C.

RTRC I/C was one of the terminals that Virginia originally routed her Report to, when she was still inside the Church.

Dan Koon was one of the first “gang of five” (2 of which were former high executives of the Church) involved with the Save Scientology internet operation started in 2009.

Per Dan, he was in RTRC “for a long time”. He was still on post in the Sea Org and had knowledge of these events with my wife during 1998, 1999, and 2000. He says elsewhere that he left the Sea Organization (of the Church of Scientology) at the end of 2003. Dan Koon was LRH Technical Research and Compilations Unit Director, RTRC I/C Int  – starting in 1987.

I have put together a little video presentation concerning Dan Koon – my first attempt at video making.

The video clips that are included are from February 2010, Svetka812 youtube account.
The web page cached version mentioned is here.
The scientology-cult.com article mentioned is here.

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In an even earlier in 2009 article, Dan Koon is writing with a pseudonym of Joe Howard and accordingly refers to himself in the 3rd person. He discusses the history of the RTRC unit. This article was published at Steve Halls scientology-cult website.

The very first line of this, tells me that all the way up to 2009, what Virginia had found and exposed on alterations and out-tech (the PDC 20 alteration and the six-month check especially) was still a huge problem for these executives of David Miscavige.

Occasionally you’ll see people writing about people altering LRH tech and changing things that were LRH and thus perverting the subject. – Dan Koon, January 2009

Strange, don’t you think, that one of the first things that is done is to try and soft-pedal this? I’m being mildly facetious here. I know that this is a full-out David Miscavige Church handling. No two ways about it.

I want to also add, that you see where the above says the generic term “people”? Dan knows exactly who he means. He means Virginia, especially, since most of the really damaging alteration exposes came from her . In so generalizing, he is applying perfectly the David Miscavige maxim that he doesn’t name his real enemies because he doesn’t want to “flow power” to them.

Perhaps Dan may want to offer the excuse that because Virginia is obviously not a follow-the-yellow-brick-road scientologist and attacks it, is why he doesn’t name her. The principle is the same, is it not? You don’t name an “SP” of the Church…because why? You don’t want to flow power to them. What that is really all about, is that they don’t want people pointed to us and reading what we write, and perhaps finding out just what kind of opponent they have here with Virginia and I, not to mention our friends.

Legion.

This “I refuse to name you or acknowledge you in any meaningful way” is petty and totally childish behavior.

It has been said though, that is one way to judge whether someone is a good man or an evil one. I don’t know who Wicasta is but I like this quote.

“You can always judge a man not by his friends, but by the quality of his enemies. A good man will never have enemies who are anything but petty and childish. A bad man will have enemies that are legion. Who it is that dislikes a man reveals much about the man himself.” ~ Wicasta Lovelace

The word legion in the above quote may not be familiar to you – it can mean extremely powerful, and beyond “normal”, supernatural in intelligence, power, speed and anything else you care to name. Sometimes I look at us from these men’s perspective, they must wonder just who the hell we are anyway. Virginia who hates Scientology – what it really stands for – infiltrates it, and then turns around and has a better understanding of their materials than they do. And she doesn’t even like their convoluted ideas! I can just imagine them trying to wrap their heads around that one. Legion, indeed – ha ha.

Even though the first thing in the next set of excerpts below is a line that’s not really about RTRC’s history, I included it because it is a stand-out. Public Scientologists and non-Sea Organization staff, have it pounded into them what “standard tech” is. There are many issues and lectures by L. Ron Hubbard which make it clear he didn’t want to take “advice” on technical matters from others. I believe Joe wrote this line I excerpt, to try and make himself, Marty Rathbun, and Mike Rinder not look as much the complete hypocrites as they are – for trying to complain about David Miscavige “altering” the technology of Hubbard. This is somewhat on the order of if Goering had tried to make himself look better by complaining about Hitler’s character. When Goering and others were held accountable for what they did, it’s all Hitler’s fault. Which is primarily what you see these former high executives of the Church do.

“Not Guilty – I was just following orders.”

Let’s get into the excerpts now.

Inside Scientology Compilations
Thursday, 15 January 2009 13:17  -

 ”…LRH never seemed to have any problem with people contributing to the subject despite what some people may think to the contrary.”

In 1978, LRH was now living in La Quinta and shooting the tech films. There was a book compilations unit, which was mainly supposed to be transcribing all LRH lectures so they could be put out in written form as the Research and Discovery Series. They were also handling reissues of LRH’s books. But he had no unit around to help him with new compilations. So he formed a unit called LRH Technical Compilations, which became known as RTC. This was later changed to RTRC (LRH Technical Research and Compilations) in 1982 when the corporate sort of the church occurred and the current Religious Technology Center preempted those initials.

Anyway, this was the first official compilations unit LRH had had since probably the early days of Dianetics. The head of the unit was Phoebe Maurer who was a long time SO member from the earliest days of the Sea Project.

…In February 1980, LRH went off the lines and tech issues were authorized by the Messenger for Tech and/or David Mayo. LRH came back on the lines at the end of 1981/beginning of 1982.

I believe Dan is lying about this. Particularly because this also happens to be the period that the obviously back-dated story in the BFO’s (that weren’t done until the 1990′s) allege as the beginning of the six-month check line. Whether Dan is lying deliberately on his own, or whether he is simply parroting a lie given to him, remains to be seen. Either way, he obviously didn’t care much for technical purity because there was a nice, big HCOB – a senior reference – saying no sec-checking of OT VII’s. And that was even after RTRC chopped seven pages out of it…

One minor detail, sarcastically speaking. THERE WAS NO SIX MONTH CHECK when Virginia first started the level in 1990. So, how could it have been approved by Hubbard in 1982? That makes it obvious that these BFO’s were not written up or issued until after 1990. And sure enough? The date on those BFO’s was a 1990′s date and the issue itself does a declamatio  – and backdates a story “when the six month check started”.

Memoirs of a Scientologist – Virginia McClaughry

A BFO written by RTRC I/C Int in 1996, says: “….in 1982 LRH was consulted regarding a situation with SOLO NOTS auditors at the time, to which LRH responded ” get them in, get them cleaned up, and keep them cleaned up”. Thus, the six month check line was born……..”.

Dance around that one, kids.

Dan Koon on RTRC continues:

Phoebe remained the one constant in the unit.

…In 1984, …he saw and reviewed every issue, as far as I know…”

…In 1986, LRH died and there ensued a power struggle between DM and Pat Broeker. RTRC went through a bad dry spell where nothing could be authorized and nothing came out of the unit for about a year. It was a freaking mess. Lots of personnel changes. Phoebe lost her interest in the game after LRH left and she died later in 1986.

In 1987, DM ousted Broeker and the compilations lines opened up again. [This must be when Dan starts heading up the unit.]

Since the formation of RTRC back in 1978, LRH had sent down streams of orders, ideas, advices and so on of compilations he wanted done as well as advices on how to do technical writing and how to compile. These latter advices were put into hats that were studied by people working in the unit.

…[excerpt from the end of the article, bolding mine] Nothing has ever been issued that LRH didn’t expressly order.

He just said that in 1984 as far as I know…Hubbard approved these things.

To say “as far as I know” means he didn’t KNOW it for sure. It means he just had some piece of paper saying it was from Hubbard, at best.

So why would that be any different concerning these so-called advices? It wouldn’t.

I think this is more lying going on here. Hubbard wasn’t doing or issuing a damn thing, but Miscavige and others sure as hell were.

…The submission would then go to RTC for authorization. For tech submissions this meant it would go to whoever was Snr C/S Int, then to Inspector General for Tech (Ray Mithoff) and then Chairman of the Board (DM.) Submissions for policy letters went to IG Admin (Marc Yager) and the OSA submissions to IG Ethics (Marty Rathbun).

…The people who worked in the unit truly did give a shit about getting it right and if they didn’t it wasn’t for lack of effort or sincerity. Those who weren’t willing to invest themselves fully in their work ended up somewhere else.

Oh really…Doesn’t sound very “right” to issue a BFO that is over-riding a top seniority reference like an HCOB that says no sec-checking if the person is moving along well.

And now here it comes:

From 1987 onwards the two central people in the unit were Dan Koon and Sue Koon. The emphasis shifted from … to complying with the backlog of orders issued during his lifetime that hadn’t been handled.  This included handling any HCOBs that needed updating or fixing in some way that were meant for inclusion on the checksheets.

So it was Dan who chopped the SEVEN PAGES out of C/S Series 73RA – it was revised in 1990.

Virginia, one day in 1998 when she was just starting this whole thing, brazenly walked right into Flag’s confidential mimeo location. She had known exactly where it was from when she was in the Sea Org from 1978-1983.  Simply from the command presence she can adopt when necessary, whoever it was that worked there thought she was RTC and they simply handed her the original C/S Series 73RA when she requested it. That’s how it got out.

I have a pdf here at my blog of this issue, if anyone wants to look at it to compare to the later version that’s missing seven pages courtesy of Dan Koon.

Cs Series 73RA

This man (and/or his wife) chopped 7 pages out of an LRH HCOB, then a few years later he issues BFO’s implementing the infamous six-month check line!!!!!

Then, as part of the whole Save Scientology internet campaign, this man has the gall to capitalize on Virginia’s work on this to try and recruit Scientologists underneath their “cause”.

And then brought back every six months for “refreshers” and sec checking. Never mind that LRH wrote C/S Series 73 which warned against interfering with a Solo Auditor’s progress on Advanced Courses or that LRH in an advice to David Mayo explicitly pointed out that too much sec checking can mess up a case. No, every Solo Auditor is dragged to Flag twice a year for sec checking, which can run up a lot of auditing hours. – Dan Koon as Joe Howard Behind the Golden Age of Tech, 29 October 2009.

After all that, he blames what he did on David Miscavige.

With that in mind, check out this conversation from 2010, between Dan Koon (Joe Howard), Marty Rathbun, and Jim Logan who tries to pretend like “his researcher” discovered the references that Virginia documented as proving the six-month checks were out tech.

And look – Virginia not only attacked the main income line for the Church – she threatened RTC’s main stat!

Joe Howard // March 20, 2010

… RTC’s main stat is the amount of Advanced Tech VSD, meaning if Flag can squeeze lots of 6 month checks out of Solo NOTs auditors then the RTC stat will be up and they will get their bonuses.

Jim Logan // March 20, 2010

Joe Howard,
Yes, RTC’s stats and the ‘Six Month Checks’. Interestingly enough I’ve been checking this out with another guy who’s pretty good about chasing these things down, that is wearing his Qual Librarian hat.

It turns out that there are two issues related to these Six Month Checks: HCOB 8 Mar 82R, Confessionals and the Non-Interference Zone and HCOB 23 Dec 71RB, C/S Series 73RB, The No-Interference Area, Clarified and Re-Enforced.

The first one says: “One would not embark on a series of Confessionals during another Grade or OT Section, but it is imperative that Pre-OTs on these sections that have missed withholds get them off and a specific Confessional can and should be done to accomplish this.

“CAUTION- A Pre-OT who is running well making case gain should not be interrupted.”

The second HCOB states: “Pre-OTs progressing well on the No Interference Area should not be interfered with by Sec Checking or anything else. However, when a Pre-OT is stalled or moving slowly, any of the actions listed below, as appropriated, can be ordered by a qualified C/S.”

It lists:
1) Non-audited PTS handlings.
2) Confessionals and O/Ws.
3) FPRD
4)Service Facsimile handling (no Dianetics, only recalls).
5) Disagreement Checks.

So, nowhere in any of these references are ‘Six Month Checks’, mandatory or otherwise. That’s quite interesting don’t you think?

martyrathbun09 // March 20, 2010

Jim, Quite.

Ref: Idle Orgs update – comments section, Marty Rathbun blog

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One person tried to subtly point out the obvious here, and mention Virginia:

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Fellow Traveller // March 20, 2010

This area is very interesting with respect to Source and how to defeat verbal tech.

From the Virginia McClaughry story, posted at http://www.freezone.org/reports/virginia_refund.htm
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“The auditor produced a pack of BFO’s, an inch or so thick, covering the SOLO NOTS administration line. ….”

There was no answer to that.

Well, I’d say that about wraps that up for me on these people. How ’bout you?