Storm Raven said:
Scientologists seem to have a blind spot about Hubbard's crappy science fiction. One of the clumsier conspiracy theories attributed to them is an effort at "marketing" Hubbard by organizing purchases of reprints of his books, so they stay in print and make best seller lists.
They've actually got a long list of attempted, and failed, giant conspiracies, and their own grandiose names for them.
Operation Snow White. The one that got Mary Sue Hubbard (L. Ron's wife) and 10 other high-ranking Scientologists sent to Federal prison. They engaged in a huge conspiracy to break in to IRS, Interpol, US Coast Guard and FBI offices and steal all files on them that were critical or hostile to them, as well as engage in wiretapping to monitor the state of investigations against them. It was shut down in 1977 when the FBI caught on to what was happening, raided CoS offices and not only revealed that they had been engaging in this conspiracy, but another conspiracy as well. . .
Operation Freakout. This one was revealed in the 1977 in papers that were siezed after FBI raids on Scientology facilities in the aftermath of "Snow White". It was a plan, already in progress, to frame critics of Scientology for crimes, and Paulette Cooper (the primary target) was cleared of charges of making bomb and death threats by mail when the evidence turned up that she was framed because she wrote anti-Scientology books.
Project Bulgravia. This one got Scientology banned in Greece in 1999. Greek police raids found that they had been engaging in a huge, almost comic-book-supervillain, plan throughout the 1990's to try and carve out their own "homeland" from parts of Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and former Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and had engaged in illegal wiretaps and surveilance against the Greek government as part of it. The plan failed when all the details were published and it was made clear to all the governments involved.
There is no fancy name for it, but they were also thrown out of Morocco in 1972 after it was uncovered that they had been backing an attempted coup of the government.
They have a very long history of huge, elaborate conspiracies to accomplish their goals. Fortunately, their giant conspiracies tend to end in dismal failure.
As for smaller things, like buying loads of copies of L. Ron's books to inflate sales. That's a little more practical. They have very large financial resources, and members who are willing to devote all their time and money to them, so buying bulk copies of their own books to make their founder look better is a lot more plausible than some of the conspiracies the have actually been convicted of.
I guess I'm all into mind control afterall, even though I don't support the drugs.
