Hello.

A former "friend" (who I no longer speak to) encouraged me to take a course at the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles. From the start, I knew it wasn't for me. I was seeing red flags everywhere and stopped going after the second class.

For the next 9-10 months, I was hounded by phone calls and letters, at first rather cordial in tone but growing more and more menacing. Obviously, I knew at that point I'd made the right decision.

Now, I don't get calls or letters but all of this junk mail. Magazines, newspapers, newsletters---and when I moved---Scientology found me and forwarded the stuff though I did not (obviously) send a "Change of Address" form.

Any way to make this stop? I'm fearful that if I contact them, the calls will start again.

Thanks.

There's a form at the post office that you can fill out, and I've heard it's really effective at stopping unwanted mail of any kind.

Anon, how could they have found you without a forwarding address? Do you know someone on staff or something?

Here's what you do. Cut out the mailing labels from the major Orgs you get mail from. (Flag, CC, ASHO, etc.) Write on the label, 'please remove me from the mailing list' and send each back to the address provided on the mailing, Attn: Address Officer. That will handle it. But it could take a while to get through the system.

Or, if you like, just call the Org and ask for the Address Officer and, in ARC, just ask to be taken off the list (or just give them a bogus address if you'd rather, if you can't confront the whole thing).

Despite what the critics will tell you around here, I've done it and it works.

E.J.: It doesn't work for everyone. Well, of course not. These are the same people who routinely intercept and sometimes destroy Sea Org members' mail. I know a former SO member, and that's where I got that information.

I agree with Freeborn. After two marriages and moving about five times, I still get junk mail from the COS, despite the calls and written requests.

Nowadays, though, I'm getting a mild kick out of what they send me: offers for a drastically overpriced entire set of Dianetcs books, brochures selling Elron's Game of Life taped lecture series (made some 40 or more years ago, I think?), peronalized letters from Bridge asking me how I enjoyed MISSION EARTH (answer: I didn't, and I'm embarrassed at actually having read four volumes of that interminable swill of words) and, every six months, my oversized slick copy of the ASI magazine, good for catching cat hairballs (before they're hwarfed onto the carpet) and just the perfect size for lining the cage of my fiancee's parakeet. Seriously.

I once complained on this board about getting junk mail from the COS, and someone (I've forgotten who - Don Carlo, maybe?) said that the Church's practice of shoveling out junk mail is like a stalker after a woman: "Maybe she hates me now, but if I keep it up she's bound to take a good long look and love me sooner or later."

I am starting to take a different look - and I'm having a good laugh.

Put another way: "I used to be disgusted, now I'm just amused."

X9

HCOPL 20 MARCH 1970 RE:PERSONS WHO ASK OFF MAILING LIST.

"A person who says or writes in 'to stop sending me information or letters' and who is threatening
legal actions if our mailings continue, should be
treated as follows. The addresso plate is put into a seperate drawer which is never activated until the person writes to 'put me back on'."


HCOPL 8 MAY 1969
"It is an ACT OF TREASON to contract the address list of an organisation.
It is forbidden to order or allow an org`s CF or adress list to be shifted, dispersed, lost, destroyed or disrupted in any way."

Freeborn, you are correct about Sea Org member's mail being intercepted. My personal letters were intercepted and opened (most likely read). My mother sent me some clothes for my children and some goodies. The box was opened, the clothes were still there but the goodies were gone. After that I got a private P.O. box to prevent any further invasion of privacy.

I don't get any mail. But I've changed my name twice (divorce and remarraige) and moved so much that they probably lost track of me.

EJ----I _don't_ know how they got my address without a forwarding address. I don't know anyone on the staff. This is what is particularly troubling, that they would take the time to find me despite my not requesting anything. Surely they must know that this is off-putting at best, sinister at worst. Don't they?

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. So is the consensus then to just ignore it? I can't seem to find this form at postal websites.

"The mail opener opens all mail, whether personal or otherwise and no matter how marked on the cover, which is addressed to the organization or its personnel excepting only mail for students and/or preclears, and packages. Example: Any letter addressed personally to a staff member and received at the HASI, even though marked personal, would be opened."
HCO PL 7 October 1970, MAIL LINE

While this could be a possible invasion of privacy at a local org, all the more so at a Sea Org facility where staff live on the base and don't have any private home address at all.

Anonymous wrote: "This is what is particularly troubling, that they would take the time to find me despite my not requesting anything."

I can't say exactly how things are done at the Celebrity Centre LA, but I do know that back in the days I worked at a Scientology church in Sweden, staff would go through any mail that was returned with "no longer at this address" and call the registry office to get hold of the new address. If they just let addresses expire when people move, their data base of addresses would shrink, and since they are nuts about keeping statistics for everything, and those statistics must not go down or someone is in trouble, they do not want their number of addresses on the mailing list to be reduced. Thus, they could really go to the trouble of actively looking up your new address, even if you haven't been interested in their services for years.

I think EJ (who is an active Scientologist) is the only one here who says all you need to do is write a nice note saying "no thanks". A number of us seem to have other experiences, that it may at worst require a threat to sue before they act.

If you're sure you don't want anything more to do with them, a possible alternative could be to print out a copy of the Xenu leaflet and mail it back to them, that ought to put you in the "Dead File" where they relocate names of not nice people who should not get any more mail (they should not do anything else to you, they are way too busy chasing their active enemies)

Or you can do like AgentX9, and just let the mail keep coming for its curiosity value.

Anonymous: Maybe actually visiting your local post office would be more effective. Ask for the form that prohibits people from mailing you pornography!

This may be a little more simple than it seems.

If, when you moved last time, you placed a forward on your mail with the post office, this information is available to them.

If you look at some of the mail you get from them, you will see somewhere on the face of it "Return Service Requested." This is a request to the postmaster to give them the address to which you forwarded your mail. You have told the post office you want them to do this by forwarding your mail with the little forward card.

The way that I know it has been successfully done is this: Next time you move, send out cards to all of your family and friends, businesses you need to keep in contact with, such as your bank, and your magazine subscriptions with your new address in advance.

DO NOT fill out the forward card with the post office. They should not be able to get the info at this point. Now if they know someone you sent one of those cards to, maybe. But the legal, easy way to update an address is to send mail with that return service request on it. The post office does not then forward that piece of mail (did you ever get a Scn mailer with one of those yellow forward stickers on it? No) they put your info on the yellow sticker and send it back to the sender who then updates his books.

I would not recommend asking off from a small org. That may give them the idea that you need "handling" and they might send someone or start calling you. But then, remember that I'm one of those who walked away quietly.

Blondie

Anon, CC LA is a *VERY* busy Org. It's hard to imagine someone took the time to investigate where you were just to put you back on the mailing list - but not try to recover you from your blow off course. Are you sure Blondie's explanation is not the real answer?

I gather from your earlier post that you were just doing some little intro course. Why would they bother trying so hard to track you down?

EJ, Then why would those very busy people keep calling and writing him for 9-10 months after not even having completed one single intro course at their place?

If he did leave a forwarding address at the post office, that's the logical explanation.

I have learned a lot here. I am beginning to lose my appetite for $cios. I feel better since I am losing my appetite for being raped and robbed. Why would that be?