A lovely warm, sunny autumn day for six suppressives to go down to Saint
Hill to picket the IAS Birthday celebrations.
But first a suprise! We turned up at the Ship Inn in East Grinstead,
opposite the rather obscure Scientology site (which had replaced the
previous Saint Hill Bookshop and Information Centre on the main shopping
street) to find that Scientology had closed down its last overt outpost in
East Grinstead. Just a 'We have Moved' sign on the door (not saying where
to - neighbours later told us it was back to Saint Hill Manor), and a 'To Let'
sign.
So we celebrated this victory in the pub, all the time being observed by
someone who pretended to be there for the football on television, slowly
sipping at a half of lager, but was recognised as a Scientologist , and who
spent most of his time on a mobile phone, and a lot of time watching us.
Then we headed out for Saint Hill, where we stood with boom-box and
placards on the other side of the road from the gate, but not directly
opposite. A lot of car traffic because of the event taking place inside.
Negotiations took place with the police, and resulted in a compromise
rather different to the events at our previous( Birmingham) picket.
Again the Xenu leaflet was out because it contained the c-word, but this
time 'cult' was perfectly acceptable, but 'clam' was not.
However, Roland Rashleigh-Berry's original Xenu leaflet passed muster.
Placards saying ' You are now entering a cult recruitment zone' were also
no problem.
Perhaps the East Sussex police have more experience with cults than
their Birmingham colleagues.
After about an hour, we returned to East Grinstead, had a few more drinks,
posed for photographs in front of the abandoned Scientology outpost,
looked through the door at all the bills piling up, and went home, passing
the two covert Scientology installations on the way: a tiny 'health food'
shop offering nothing but rows of plastic pill-canisters, plus posters for
Dianetics and astrology (methinks some mixing of practices going on
there) and the Greenfields education centre, offering children the joys of
clay-modelling and rote learning.
[Back to John's Homepage]
[Back to British BodyThetan Shows page] [no BodyThetans were harmed in the making of this page]
[Back to British BodyThetan Society Homepage]