On Mon, 05 Mar 2001 22:02:33 GMT, Dobe R Mann <dobe_r_mann@nospamsorclamshotmail.com> wrote:

>I'm sure Enzo will be back here soon .... maybe he'll do it for us.
No way, but I'm quite sure he'll be ready to find faults with my translation (no babelfish).

Martini
Italia
Allarme Scientology
http://xenu.com-it.net Gardini's story is webbed at:

http://xenu.com-it.net/txt/mariapia02.htm ===================
La Repubblica, march 5th, 2001 http://www.repubblica.it/quotidiano/repubblica/20010305/cronaca/18busta18.html
Scientology defrauded me: Pia Gardini wants 2 billion [liras] back The cousin of the tycoon got to the top of the cult. Now she's seeking the help of FBI and Jeb Bush by Marina Garbesi Rome - Now her "mission impossible" is to expose Scientology, the church (or cult) of Tom Cruise and John Travolta, to which she's asking a compensation of 2 billions. For this reason she just turned to her friend Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida and the brother of President George. Maria Pia Gardini, 64, the cousin of Raul, is now living in Grosseto after a ten years in the States where she got to the top of the organization. In her affidavits, fowarded to the FBI as well, she tells of the "hell" she's been enduring for the past 16 yrs.

She decided to made them public at a planetary level, via the Internet. "They did extort me over 1,5 million US$ using psychological violence, also physical one at the end. I could get back just 500.000 US$. But now I want everything back". She says she asked the help of the "Lisa McPherson Trust", an association that defends who claims to be a victim of Scientology. The Trust was named after Lisa McPherson, a girl who died after a 17 days segregation operated by the followers of the founder-god Ron Hubbard, according to her relatives.

Maria Pia, a hoarse voice, starts from the beginning: "I knew Scientology through my daughter, in 1985. She was following a Narconon program to stop her drug addiction. I was weak, alone, two broken marriages behind. I was convinced by my daughter to read "Dianetics", the Hubbard's textbook-doctrine. Some followers came to my house in Rome, they were very kind and supportive. They talked me about a therapy curing all the problems of the mind, something leading to purification. I started their first course (half a million [lira]) consisting of 5 hours a day saunas and vitaminic bombs. They suggested me a pack of 12 hours "auditing" where you pour out your heart aches.

It was comforting, so I bought another 120 hours pack. Then I started e-meter sessions. The e-meter is a sort of rough lie detector supposed to spot the anguish points. I was feeling somehow idiot, but they kept telling me I could become "clear", I could get rid of "engrams", the traumas, through a state of unconsciousness... that my body could expand, and that we are nothing more than the materialization of reincarnated eternal souls, the Thetans, and that the Man is 75 milion years old... As a sci-fi reader I could understand that they seemed cheap copies of fiction, but I went on, and I payed, I payed astronomical figures. I myself became an "auditor", I brought into session John Travolta, who is blackmailed with threats of disclosing his sexual secrets. It was brainwashing". The "hell" ges on, while she's dissipating the family fortune, selling her villa in Castiglione della Pescaia. After the deaths of her daughter and her mother she'll find herself down and out, but "always chased by the adepts, who went so far as to ask me one billion just to give me my passport back, and to suggest to manage my inheritance against a life annuity. I refused, but I was locked up into a room, slapped, and at the end I signed the umpteenth cheque..."

After a few months since she joined Scientology, Maria Pia Gardini goes to Copenhagen for a 6 months stay. She begins the "bridge" to purification, from "raw meet", as newcomers are labelled, to OT, the level where thetans become operating again. The top is OT 8, a very confidential level. Maria Pia, like the other "officers", reaches it aboard of the Freewinds, a ship always moving and headquarters of the church-cult. The standard price to reach OT 8, through repeated "auditing" sessions, is 500 millions. "In Copenhagen they house me in a dump hotel, and I pay something like 160.000 US$. I leave for the States. I'm feeling a wreck but they promise me I can reach OT 8. Los Angeles, Florida, tens of thousands of US$ for rooms without a bed to sleep on. They forced us to wash dishes and mop floors. I knew I was taken in, and I say that's enough when my daughter dies, in 1990. But it isn't over. They extort me one million US$ for the Italian Class VIII project. Debbie Cook, heading the organization, now says she doesn't even know me. And I do not know one single Italian who got to the top purification".

So Maria Pia trys to stop her "trip", "but I was scared, I didn't know how to get rid of them, they went so far as to sleep into a car in my garden, they called me tens of times a day ans I was weaker and weaker. I sell my house in Rome. When I get into the ship, the Freewinds where I should have had a big revelation, they make me pay 32.000 US$ more for a fortnight stay, and I find out thay the ultimate secrets are nothing more than the old Dianetics book. The leg-pull is flashy and cruel. I'm a nerve wreck and my relatives think I'm crazy, so I really say enough is enough". Scientology gives her 500.000 US$ back, she signs an agreement according to which she can not ask more, and can not "spread false rumors" about the church-cult. When Maria Pia turns to the "McPherson Trust" Kendrick Moxon, one of Scientology leaders, sends a letter (dated feb. 2nd) in which he threatens to act legally if that agreement should be violated. And Maria Pia, now, has choosen to voice her story at least to have her money back, since nobody will give her back her deluded life. She also knocks at the door of Jeb Bush. George, unlike Clinton, doesn't seem to appreciate Scientology very much.

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