Frankfurter Rundschau 18 November 1996

The secret scriptures of the scientologists in public documents

Defector hands in to Swedish authorities documents of the organization, whereby these become public

By Hannes Camillscheg (Stockholm)

    The most secret scriptures of the Scientology movement are now widely available in Sweden as public documents. The papers, that are strictly guarded by the organization, and which Scientology members have to pay dearly to study, can be read in the libraries by anyone who is interested, or can be ordered from the parliament in Stockholm. The cost of having them sent is limited to a copy fee of about 100 marks.

    The unusual insight into the holy books is possible thanks to the Swedish principle of publicity. All correspondence with an authority is public, and anyone can demand to see it. This was used by a defector of the controversial sect, who wanted to inform the public of the teachings, which are surrounded by extreme secrecy, about the colonialization of Earth by spacecrafts 75 million years ago and the education programme for becoming "Operating Thetans", which can leave their bodies.

    Thereafter he tried to distribute the texts through the Internet, but retreated when Scientology threatened to sue him for copyright infringement and the police seized his diskettes at a raid.

    Therefore he sent two copies of the scriptures to the parliament and to the government's office. By this the books were turned into public files and were made freely available. "Anyone can read them freely, without giving any reason or even having to state his name", comments chief of records Berndt Frederiksson, "one can copy them too for personal use. A reprint on the other hand would be an offence against copyright and would be forbidden".

    On the contrary, when it is only a matter of personal interest, the principle of publicity supercedes copyright, says Frederiksson. And the right to scrutinize the administration is not limited to Swedish citizens. Insight into the correspondence of Swedish authorities can be requested from abroad too, and it is refused only in cases of clearly defined exceptions. The secrets of Scientology are not among these.

    The first copy of the Scientologists' "bible" was stolen at the first burglary ever in the Swedish parliament. It is still unknown who was behind this act. After that, the parliament's archive has made so many copies, that it can meet a normal demand. But the libraries where the secret texts lie are besieged during opening hours by Sientologists who request to read the scriptures and in that way obstruct others that are interested from having a chance to get at the explosive material. The movement's members will continue to read the scriptures in shifts as long as it is necessary, assures their information secretary Tarja Vulto.

    The police is investigating yet another matter: the Chancellor of Justice Hans Regner has reported "forgery of public documents" after that pages were removed from the copy that he had in his custody and were replaced with new texts, which describe how the Scientologists are misunderstood. Also in the document on file at the ministry of justice were pages torn out and text was covered with White Out.

© Copyright 1996 Frankfurter Rundschau.
Translated by Zenon Panoussis


Last modified 3 Dec 1996 by Daniel Deimert (d1dd@dtek.chalmers.se)