Australian Critics of Scientology
This page maintained by David Gerard.
Xenu the Magazine
Xenu was the name given to the 1995 Victorian
Inter-Campus Edition, a cross-campus student paper put out by
five Victorian student papers: NoName at VUT,
Catalyst at RMIT, Tabula Rasa at Swinburne,
Pandora's Box at Deakin Burwood and The Load
at the Victorian College of Arts.
The name was chosen by a vote of the editors working on the paper. I
wrote up a page-long list of all the possible names I could think of,
we narrowed this down to a shortlist (Xenu, Red
Dye No. 1, Besmirched and Student Economic
Rationalist Journal) and then chose from those four. I preferred
Red Dye No. 1 myself, but once I'd told them all the
story of the Galactic Emperor, well, they just couldn't resist.
Needless to say, the Church of Scientology took a sudden interest
when the chosen name was mentioned in the preceding edition of
NoName. I guess they're just fans of mine.
Read about the
Galactic Emperor
Having to explain the name, I bashed together an article on the subject
one day before deadline. It's titled Revolt In The Stars (No News
Is Xenu's) and is somewhat uncomplimentary to Scientology.
There is a more
detailed explanation available elsewhere.
Later, Ron decided to turn the Xenu
story into a screenplay. Grady Ward got a copy of the screenplay and wrote a
summary of it.
Get the picture of him!
The Galactic Emperor himself, expertly Photoshopped by Marc Morel of
Catalyst. (Netscape users: This is a large JPEG of the thumbnail
at top left.)
Xenu postings
Here are some a.r.s postings
I made about events surrounding the preparation and publication of the
magazine. Hope all this makes sense. Just read in order. (If you have
copies of the first few with the Date: header intact, I'd be very
grateful for copies.)
Church gets wind of paper being called Xenu - Likelihood of
legal action - Publicity that will result
Church phoning everyone in sight at VUT SRC - Outline of publicity that
will follow legal action
The outing of Rob "henry" Clark - Church calling SRC office all
day - If our words can hurt the Church so much, then they are
fucked, utterly - CoS pisses off alt.angst as well
URL for Xenu - How to obtain paper copies (sorry, none
left this late on!) - Church now wants to speak to me
Church calling any editor of every magazine involved - Phone conversation
between me and Sydney CoS guy
The article itself in text format - Defects of the article
Pat Wilson (local CoS) phones, upset about mentions in 9th Sept demo
report
"We are instructed to comment in relation to this article as
follows ..."
Point-by-point analysis of above letter
URL of picture - Legal research on Netscape - Tape of The Road To
Freedom
Halfway through night of legal research - Two other papers printing Church
reply - Church calling and hassling SRC staff
"I love you guys" - Xenu's truly
remarkable popularity - Negotiations with Church's lawyer: we're
printing their reply - Visit from Mark Hanna (OSA) - Odd late-night phone
call - Upgrade to SP 4.04
No, no, it's normal for churches to sue people! Here's examples!
Secret teachings? Hey, the early gnostic Christians did that too,
y'know! And here's a World Famous Internationally Renowned Rock Bassist you've
never heard of to provide a testimonial! And here's a picture of him [which
David spent some time processing with Photoshop to make the bags under the
eyes bigger and the stare more glazed, heh]! See, Scientology(R)(TM)(C) Really
Works! And if you don't agree, we'll sue you! No, really! Eesh ...
Ashraf's mailbox disappears - what the police in Australia think of
$cientology and cults in general - I discover the name 'Hanna' for the first
time
Two Church agents come stealing copies, thwarted by Security -
Descriptions of agents - Catalyst's response to Church
Further on above agents - Why they could be prosecuted for theft if
caught
[Me and Scientology] [Personal
encounters with Scientology]