Allen Stanfield is a former member of the Church of Scientology. Readers know him as Alanzo.
According to Andy Notch on Bitchute, “Stanfield left Scientology and became a Scientology hater, then he realised these people were silly and became a hater of Scientology haters.”
“Hate” might be too strong a word, but Stanfield does criticize both Scientology and its critics on his AlanzosBlog, which promises readers “critical thinking on cults and anti-cults.”
Stanfield also comments on Frank Report under his moniker, Alanzo, sometimes on the topic of NXIVM, taking the comparatively rare stance of alternately condemning or supporting ideas associated with NXIVM and doing the same with the ideas of those who criticize NXIVM.
In fact while criticizing DOS and challenging the women of the Dossier Project on questions of consent of the slave women, he commented, “The Dossier Project, and their friends, are made up of intelligent, thinking and feeling human beings. Some of them are way more educated than me, possibly you, and clearly more than most on the Frank Report.”
These kinds of comments have garnered for him criticism from what he calls “anti-cultists,” people who are unable to distinguish that there might be some good coming from what some people call a cult and some bad from those who criticize the cult.
His 16-year history with Church of Scientology may be of interest to readers.
Alanzo joined the Church after reading Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard, in 1984, at a time when he was “a lonely, depressed college student fighting a dysfunctional family.”
“Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health” by L. Ron Hubbard is about a system of psychotherapy developed from personal experience, principles of Eastern philosophy, and the work of Sigmund Freud.
Scientology offered hope.
He became Executive Director of a Scientology Mission in Peoria, Illinois, but ran afoul of his supervisor in the Church, it appears, because of insufficient recruitment of new parishioners. His superior would “scream” at him and require him to go to Scientology Churches in New York City and Los Angeles to learn how to recruit better, or, as Alanzo put it, “to get my stats up.”
Alanzo began to have doubts about Scientology which he dismissed as being his own fault and looked to find what is called in Scientology “overts,” something undisclosed to his conscious mind which he had done or failed to do which was contrary to the moral code he agreed to on behalf of the Church.
He strove to improve. For years, he was engaged in a Scientology process called auditing, the goal of which is to become “clear.”
According to Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard, a person who becomes “clear,” sometimes referred to as “a Clear,” has “an awareness which can create energy at will, and can handle and control, erase or re-create an analytical or reactive mind”.
The process of auditing involves an e-meter, a battery powered ohmmeter believed to work like a lie detector.
A Scientology member, John Travolta, demonstrates the use of the e-meter. John holds two metal cylinders which are connected to the meter. As the auditor asks questions and observes the reaction of the meter. From the movement of the meter, the auditor then formulates additional questions.
When the meter movement shows a reaction, an auditor then leads the person to reveal issues that disturb or upset him which can help that person find his “overts (undisclosed acts), body thetans (evil spirits), and engrams (moments of pain and unconsciousness).”
The e-meter employed in Scientology helps the person being audited reveal much of their past in order to be able to combat various forms of wrong thinking or wrongdoing that prevent them from being “clear”.
Alanzo was paying for a specific auditing process called the False Purpose Rundown Basic – for about eight years, which was longer than necessary to complete the course. Finances seemed to be holding him back. He needed another $15,000 to finish the course, which is designed to help the individual, with the help of the e-meter and auditor, detect evil purposes or evil intentions.
“During that time, I had convinced myself that any thoughts I had about leaving [Scientology] were ‘bank’ and that I shouldn’t make any big decisions until I finished my False Purpose Rundown Basic. And so I trudged along,” Alanzo said.
He convinced himself he was “keyed-in,” all the time, meaning that he was plagued by memories of past incidents of pain and unconsciousness and behaved based on the irrational association of these with his present activity or goals.
He wanted to be “clear,” of “bank,” a reactive mind filled with undisclosed bad acts [overts] and memories of moments of pain and unconsciousness [engrams].
Finally, Alanzo, with the help of the e-meter and his auditor, came to believe that in a previous life he had actually “gone clear.”
“I was actually a Scientologist in a past life!,” he said he believed at the time. Consequently, he said, “My whole sense of self-identity became more and more wrapped up in being a Scientologist.”
Alanzo explained, “your Scientology ‘self’ is the identity that will get you to [high] states of beingness where nothing can strike you down… The more you identify with your new Scientology self, and the more you invalidate your old ‘wog’ self, the less your thoughts, goals and beliefs are your own. That’s why I chose, and why most people choose, to stay in Scientology – even with all the crap they have to endure. It’s an self-identity shift.”
L. Ron Hubbard defined “wog” as “a common ordinary run-of-the-mill garden-variety humanoid.” or “somebody who isn’t even trying.” It is essentially someone who is not a Scientologist
Alanzo explained, “My first ten years in Scientology were spent knowing that if I just did the next course, or got the next auditing action, then it would all make sense. And all this stupid, frenetic crap I kept witnessing all around me would be what it always was supposed to be – a sane group of ethical beings who were creating a new civilization out of broken straws.”
Fortunately, he had been working with some exalted Scientologists in Los Angeles, beings who were higher than Clears, who, if Scientology were true, were the very ones who would led the creation of a more noble civilization.These high-ranking Scientologists were deemed “Operating Thetans”, [OT] people who, according to Scientology, are capable of “knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time.”
These OTs are believed to be not only free of unconscious impulses like a Clear, but free to operate, and be causative over the physical universe and whose minds are so powerful that they can, if they wish, read minds, kill people with a thought, view things remotely with their minds, change their own body weight at will, and bring wealth or health or success to themselves by sheer will power.
These OTs were only one step below the “Cleared Theta Clear,” a supreme state which Hubbard describes as “A thetan [spirit or soul] who is completely rehabilitated and can do everything a thetan should do, such as move [matter, energy, space and time] MEST and control others from a distance, or create his own universe; a person who is able to create his own universe or, living in the MEST universe, is able to create illusions perceivable by others at will, to handle MEST universe objects without mechanical means and to have and feel no need of bodies or even the MEST universe to keep himself and his friends interested in existence.”
The Church of Scientology maintains that a state of complete and permanent spiritual freedom is attainable through the processes and technology available at the Church.
Alanzo closely observed these exalted OTs. They had paid for and taken the requisite courses in order to be declared OTs by the Church. He noted however that they were not quite the same as what he would expect from someone who can achieve “knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time.”
He began to ponder why “they themselves haven’t turned out to be the person they wanted to be by doing Scientology.” In fact, Alanzo knew eight of these OT’s who had declared bankruptcy.
His registrar at the Advanced Organization wanted him to become an OT himself and in order to advance in that direction to spend $25,000 for a course called the “OT 3 package.”Alanzo told his registrar that he was already deeply in debt largely from previous Scientology courses he took and that he could not afford to repay additional debt.
The registrar had a suggestion — that Alanzo should borrow the money for the course then declare bankruptcy and escape having to pay this or any other remaining debt incurred by previous courses he took.
Alanzo believed that this borrowing money with the intent not to pay it back, suggested to him by the registrar and apparently adopted by numerous exalted OTs, was subverting or “squirreling” Scientology finance policy.
Scientology encourages members to work at “Keeping Scientology Working [KSW]” which requires members to in various circumstances to produce a series of Hubbard Communication Office Policy Letters, [HCOPL].
Based on what Alanzo saw and his belief that it was anti-Scientology to advise people to borrow money to take courses they could not afford with the prior intent of filing bankruptcy, Alanzo was now required to submit a “Knowledge Report,” a write-up of another member’s alleged violations and submit it to the Ethics department.
In Alanzo’s case his report went all the way to International Management where members have security clearance.
His reports, however, were ignored and he was told he was, in the parlance of Scientology, “dramatizing ‘case'” – “case” being the sum of his problems, bad memories, engrams (moments of pain and unconsciousness), BTs (Body Thetans or evil spirits infesting the body), and overts (undisclosed harmful acts) and that, until he took the $25,000 OT 3 course, he actually had no self-determinism.
“Here I was,” Alanzo said, “having conquered the reactive mind and made it all the way up the Bridge to ‘Clear’, and I was being told that I had no self-determinism. I was finally beginning to get the picture… By this time, I had put enough together, and had experienced it so much before, that I quit looking away from it. I quit justifying for others. Now I know that the whole thing was set up to be just how it is. There is no huge ‘squirrel problem’ that you need to take responsibility for by ‘applying KSW’. That’s just one more little hamster wheel L. Ron Hubbard has set up for you to keep you huffing and puffing as a Scientologist. After a while, I guess you just begin to wise up. You quit justifying for others. You quit looking away.”
Alanzo concluded that “Scientology is not a religion. It is a psychological con created by a conman to con as many people for as long as possible. That is actually all it is. Hubbard read and regurgitated every psychological and religious idea he could get his hands on, packaged it with hypnotic trance, coercive and classic reconditioning techniques, and then sprinkled it on a Bridge and told you to reach for Total Freedom.”
Was L. Ron Hubbard a great prophet or a conman?
Alanzo determined that the Church imposed “slave-like conditions” and “totalitarian techniques,” that prompted a lack of critical thinking and promoted cognitive dissonance — all devised by Hubbard on purpose.
***
A commenter on Frank Report, PeaceMaker, criticized Alanzo, charging that Alanzo’s former role as Executive Director of a local Scientology operation, is “In the ‘big league sales’ world of Scientology akin to being the pit boss of a boiler room sales operation, though reportedly Peoria [Alanzo’s mission center] was run on a bit of a kinder and gentler basis than the most ruthless and rapacious franchises. Still, it would be unusual for an ED not to have overseen heavy-handed sales including encouragement of going into debt and plundering assets, not to mention repressive ‘ethics’ punishments for perceived infractions.
“[Alanzo] also admittedly worked for the Office of Special Affairs [OSA], Scientology’s version of the East German Stasi. Specifically, he was involved in an effort to infiltrate, undermine and take over the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), a group that while having some ties to then-controversial deprogramming techniques, provided resources and help – and the demise of which not only completely destroyed an important resource but also resulted in its files full of personal information falling into the hands of Scientology.
“I’ve never seen Alanzo (Allen) try to make any apologies or amends to the people he has deceived, lied to, exploited, and harmed in the service of the CofS [Church of Scientology]. Yet he is very vocal in attacking some prominent former Scientology executives who are working to expose abuses, for not having done enough of that themselves, in his view. It seems to be a typical mechanism ingrained in Scientologists (and the whole Scientology organization), to accuse others of just the sort of things they are guilty of themselves but unable to come to terms with?”
Taking umbrage with this comment, Alanzo replied:
“I love it when one of these guys packs 36 years of my life into a few paragraphs in order to revise my history for their propaganda purposes. This person does not know me, nor what I’ve done in the 21 years since leaving Scientology. Nor what I did when I was a Scientologist. But here they are, trying to make me look like one of David Miscavige’s minions. Again.”
Alanzo offers a link to his story concerning the time he did surveillance for a weekend at a hotel monitoring attendees of a Cult Awareness Network conference in suburban Chicago which he did for Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs.
He did not seem to have done anything of significant other than report back to Scientology’s OSA who and what he saw there.
Alanzo explains he did “one project… for Mike Rinder’s OSA, and … stay[ed] the hell away from them forever after as a Scientologist, never to do a second project for them. It also let me know what kind of people would do a 2nd job for OSA. And a third. And what type of person would run OSA internationally for David Miscavige for 22 years – complete sociopaths.”
Michael John Rinder is an Australian-American former senior executive of the Church of Scientology International (CSI) and the Sea Organization based in the United States. From 1982 to 2007 Rinder served on the board of directors of CSI and also held the post of executive director of its Office of Special Affairs, overseeing the corporate, legal and public relations matters of Scientology at the international level. Rinder left Scientology in 2007. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the A&E documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. In 2020 he and Remini reunited to launch the podcast Scientology: Fair Game
Alanzo does not think too much of Mike Rinder and he concluded his Frank Report comment with: “Mike Rinder is not trying to make peace with the people he harmed when he was CO OSA. If that were the case, he would have helped Gerry Armstrong. He would have aired Victoria Britton’s interview about the murder of her son on Scientology the Aftermath. He’s doing the exact opposite of that. With regard to just these two people who were destroyed by Scientology, Rinder is still doing exactly what he did when he was CO OSA. He is still protecting the church and its leaders from criminal prosecution.”
