Picket Report, John Ritson

Scientology Lies > Pickets > East Grinstead >Picket Report, John Ritson



From: John Ritson 
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Picket Report - East Grinstead (UK)
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 20:14:48 +0100
Organization: British BodyThetan Society
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A good result for a day that started out as a bit of a disaster.  
Illness, train problems, and all kind of other stuff meant that originally
only myself, Jens and the Big Fella had turned up at the meeting point. We
sat in the sun, had a few drinks and tried to decide whether we should go
out to Saint Hill or wait for reinforcements. Eventually it turned out
that other people had been at Saint Hill looking for us. Bonnie Woods
dropped by and Roland turned up and at about 3:00 we started picketing
outside the Scientologists' bookshop and 'Information Centre' in the town.
We were at least doing better than the bookshop, where we had only seen
one person go in all afternoon.

The reaction of the one member of staff there was to lock the door and
make the first of a long series of phone calls. So much for 'Think For
Yourself'. No attempt at confrontation, though she looked as if it would
have done her good to get out in the sunshine occasionally.

We had the boom box playing Hubbard's 'man on the cross, there was no man
on the cross' and similar rantings. We were waiting for a horde of
enthusiastic Operating Thetans to appear from Saint Hill itself and try to
combat our 'entheta' but it was not to be. Two women were let into the
shop, then another two, who had walked past us earlier, and finally a man
appeared. They tried the "Death Stare" but the only effect was laughter.
Perhaps the stare does not work through glass?

Maybes the lack of response (apart from the "Death Stare") was because of
the presence of Bonnie. After her court victory, the Scientologists do not
want to be seen as doing anything that could be construed as harassing
her. And Scientology standard counter-demonstration tactics seem to have
only two states - 'Hide and hope they go away tech' and what anybody (and
the police CCTV conveniently covering the street outside the bookshop)
would construe as harassment. So this time they went into victim mode.

The police turned up in response to a complaint from the Scientologists,
and made it clear to the Scientologists that we had a perfect right to
picket. They had objected to us standing in front of their window, to
which the police response was "If people can't stand in front of shop
windows, how are the shops ever going to sell anything?". The shopkeeper
had also complained about our boom box giving out a 'distorted noise'.
Hardly a career-friendly way of describing 'Source'.

We handed out leaflets and had interesting chats with local people. The
nervous 'we don't want to annoy Scientology' reaction that we had seen on
our first visit seems to have gone.

So it all turned out pretty well in the end.

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John *** "There is no answer to it and all is lost. Inevitable, you see. He's
had to change his wavelength. Actually the system is, on most preclears that are
having a rough time with their cases, running somewhat on that level; they keep
shifting wavelength to avoid looking at something they just made and then they
happily say, "Pffft - it's destroyed." Well, they're going to - if they keep on
using this type of energy at that type of target, they will eventually run out
of wavelengths. They can't avoid looking forever." L. Ron Hubbard 30 Oct 1953
***



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