Coming from one person, I might have dismissed it as vengeful gossip by a jealous former employee trying to get back at Palmer for some imagined slight. But Margie Hoffman sounded cool, collected and totally genuine. She had no financial claims against Palmer herself, she said, but plenty of other people did. In fact, she had testified against him in court only a couple of months before. There were plenty of other people to back up her story. The "few former employees'' who had sided against Palmer turned out to comprise the entire staff of the Elmira center, with the exceptions of Sue Sweetland and Miken Chappel. A number of staff members who had worked there for a decade or more verified what Margie said, and many offered to provide factual evidence. These were six of the nine volunteers who initially received the Avatar procedures when Palmer did his pilot run, as described in the article "The first Avatar Materials'' in the latest edition of Creativism. Interestingly, none of them had anything bad to say about the Avatar Course. Some felt the results promised had been overstated, but they all thought Avatar had been a more or less valuable experience. Their problems were with Harry Palmer. I started checking out the stories of some other people who had dealt with Palmer over the past few years.
THE FRENCH LETTER TORTURE
The phone calls continued, and photocopies of letters and articles arrived from Elmira. Of particular interest to Michel was a series of letters that had been sent to various people around the U.S. by Kathleen Raines, who was a student at the mission from 1983 to 1987 after his development of Avatar. While studying there she fell in love with and married Tom Wright, who supervised some of the courses. The tone of the letters was resentful, but the details were specific and plentiful. Her accounts of events at the Center for Creative Learning chronicle episodes of intimidation, coercion and extortion that far exceed the notorious excesses of the Church of Scientology. Michel wrote a letter to Palmer, enclosing a copy of one of the letters from Kathleen Raines. Palmer's response, which arrived a few days later, was that she was "addled.'' If she published it, she could certainly be sued. Michel's next letter called Palmer's attention to the fact that the information had already been published. "Are you going to sue the newspaper?'' he asked. The tone of Michel's letters was polite, but he asked very direct questions and became increasingly insistent on getting some answers. Why were there dozens of people in Elmira still claiming to have been victimized after so many years? What had put them in that state? Their numbers included the same people Palmer had claimed were initially transformed by Avatar, yet they now felt betrayed. Wasn't this harmful to the progress of the work? Why didn't Palmer clean this up and settle it? Palmer did not answer the questions. His response was basically, "Don't trouble yourself with this.'' After receiving a few evasive replies, Michel quoted a section of the Masters Course materials where Palmer had said "You embark upon lands that are known for treachery and deceit. . . where the charlatans outnumber the master by ten thousand. . . .'' "Now it seems to be ten thousand and one,'' said Michel. "All he sees is treachery; no wonder he said that. Does he think we can be manipulated like those people in Elmira? Who does he think he's dealing with?'' After a few more exchanges, Michel sent copies of Raines' letters to a few of his friends who were Avatar Masters asking what they thought about all this. When someone called Star's Edge and mentioned having seen the material, Palmer responded by sending an overnight letter to which officially terminated his license to deliver the Avatar Course. People were speculating, said Palmer, that Michel and I must have something to hide. He advised Michel to "safely distance yourself from further criticism of Harry Palmer and Avatar,'' and carbon copied his attorneys. Michel, feeling by this time that Palmer was the one with something to hide, began sending out more copies of letters and newspaper articles he had received from the group in Elmira to Avatar Masters throughout the U.S. and Europe. He made numerous trips to the post office. I don't know exactly how many packets of information he sent, but it must have numbered in the hundreds. During the next week, the copying machine at the corner store broke down twice. The same day Michel got his notice, I received a computerized form letter by registered mail informing me that my license to deliver Avatar had been suspended until such time as I successfully reviewed the Masters Course. By this time, I didn't expect to be successful if I did attempt to review the course. Passing the Masters Course is entirely dependent on Avra's judgment, and she has been known to flunk people who don't see the light, meaning seeing things her way. Instead of calling to book a plane ticket, I made a few more calls to Elmira, sent a few letters, then began piecing together the missing elements of "Avatar's Time Track.'' It goes something like this.
THE TIME TRACK, EXPANDED
Harry Palmer opened a Scientology mission called the Center for Creative Learning in Elmira, New York in 1971. At the time, he was reportedly a Class IV case supervisor, a fairly low level of training. Before that, he claims to have held a tenured teaching position. He has told one person that he had a Master's degree in psychology, and another that he was trained in engineering. Former staff members say he was a high school counselor before he opened the center. They also say he was asked to resign his position after complaints that he began to incorporate Scientology techniques into his work. The center delivered lower level Scientology courses and auditing, a form of counseling performed with a device called an E-Meter, a device similar to a lie detector. It measures galvanic skin response through a couple of tin cans held loosely in the hands. A sensitive ohmmeter needle on the front jerks and dips in response to mental activity as a person is being "audited,'' or counseled, so the counselor can note subliminal responses. Palmer and Avra Honey Smith ran the center, assisted by staff members like Gale Lyon, who worked there for 13 years as an auditor (counselor); Margie Hoffman, who worked there for 12 years; and Linda Rosin, promotion manager, who worked there seven years. In typical Scientology fashion, staff members were expected to work long hours for little pay. But Palmer had big plans for the future. Someday, he said, his entire family of loyal followers would be rich. They were the gauntlet that would propel him, the sword, to greatness. He told them he was doing research on religions. Once he got it figured out, he would start a new one that would be wildly successful. He paraphrased a well-known statement L. Ron Hubbard had once made at a science fiction convention: "If you want to get rich, the best way is to start a religion.'' At some point along the way, Palmer also started a sideline business selling and installing TV satellite dishes. Linda Rosin's husband Dick, who was taking courses at the mission, worked for that company. In 1982, the Church of Scientology began to lash out at its independent mission holders, demanding large sums of money it claimed they had "withheld.'' Missions were charged as much as $15,000 per day [not a misprint] just to have their books inspected by "Finance Police'' in order to determine whether they had been up to any financial hanky-panky. From the sounds of things, they could have made an honest case against Palmer.
Gale Lyons says she delivered auditing at least 40 hours each week, but that records were falsified. Palmer reported only about 12 hours per week, she says, and paid the church its 10% commissions based on that figure. Just before the Finance Police came through town, she says, he called her into his office and told her to memorize what was on the schedule board; it was about to be erased. The Church of Scientology is well known for playing dirty tricks on its perceived enemies, and for using various manipulative techniques to intimidate its staff members and clientele. According to former staff members, Palmer could have showed them a few new tricks. Not only did he consistently under-report the amount of auditing that was delivered, they say, he spied on the church's activities. Gale Lyons recalls seeing stacks of documents he had collected that detailed top secret "Black Scientology'' techniques for harming the church's enemies. On his home computer, he managed to hack his way into the church's computer network, printing out stacks of legal documents and other information. Linda Rosin remembers making hundreds of photocopies of this material. One day, Gale Lyon recalls, he came in looking forlorn. "I've lost it,'' he said. ``I've tried everything and I can't get in.'' Apparently the church had improved its computer security. He also appears to have perfected the intimidation and manipulation of staff members and students to levels unheard of in the Church of Scientology. The idea that Palmer's staffers would submit to some of the treatment they say he dealt out may sound incredible, but not to anyone who has spent time around a Scientology organization or any similar cult that uses manipulative techniques to keep its members in line. The methods are simple, methodical and insidious. Once they taste some relief from their worries, people within the organization, are convinced they belong to a select group. They know something the rest of the world doesn't. A psychological wall is built up between the group and the rest of society (known in Scientology as "wogs,'' the racist British colonial acronym for ``Worthy Oriental Gentleman''). Organization members are convinced that they have a special mission--to improve themselves and to proselytize to the rest of the world. Scientology portrays itself as the sole effective purveyor of spiritual freedom, contesting formidable forces of darkness on a global (or in the case of Scientology, multi-galactic) scale. Group members are told they must sacrifice for the cause now, and promised rich rewards in the future when the group's goals are accomplished. They are indoctrinated with esprit de corps to the point of militaristic obedience. If they question the motives of their leadership, they are threatened with disgrace and expulsion. Liberal use is made of a psychological technique known as "the Stockholm effect.''
Simply put, it works like this: if you apply consistent duress to people, they will be grateful to you whenever you stop. While working on a smaller scale than L. Ron Hubbard, Harry Palmer managed to use these techniques very effectively within his sphere of influence, which included about 40 people in the Elmira area. Staff members say they worked twelve or more hours a day, six days a week, receiving anywhere from $50 to a maximum of $150 per week in wages. They idolized Palmer, and even volunteered to go paint his house one Sunday, their only day off. Their wages were supposed to be paid in "units'' which were parceled out as percentages of the value of services delivered by the center. Gale Lyons recalls mentioning after a particularly busy and lucrative week that the paychecks should be pretty fat this week. No, Avra explained, they had to make up for the weeks when there was no income. "What weeks when there was no income?'' Lyons asks herself in retrospect. She was busy every week. When she went back over her records and tallied up the total amount paid for the auditing she delivered, she came up with $1,867,000. Lyons' daughter, Maryann Dolschenko, began taking Scientology courses at the center when she was eleven. In 1975, shortly before her thirteenth birthday, a drive was started to sell copies of Dianetics, Hubbard's introductory treatise on the mind. Avra Honey Smith talked Dolschenko into using $50 she would be getting soon as a present from her grandparents to buy books for resale. She was promised that the money would be refunded if she were unable to sell the books. "Avra wanted the money to be counted in the week's statistics,'' says Dolschenko, "so my mother advanced a check, and Avra agreed to hold it until I received my birthday money. She cashed the check that afternoon and went shopping.'' Over the next three months, Dolschenko managed to sell three of the 25 books--two to relatives and one to a neighbor. When she asked for a refund, Avra denied having made the agreement and told her to hold onto the books for a few years until maturity made her a better salesperson. The next year, Dolschenko became a Dianetic auditor and worked at the center briefly for $2 per hour. After working for 25 hours, she was told that her attitude wasn't grown up enough. On her way out the door, Avra Honey Smith cornered her and instructed her to sign her paycheck over to the center. She owed it for the "Minister's Course,'' which was necessary because of legal technicalities. After the course, she was unable to be ordained at the Buffalo church because by that time, Palmer was having a row with them.
Linda Rosin says part of her job was to chauffeur Honey Smith to and from work each day, pick up her dry cleaning and do her laundry. Avra and Palmer lived in a ramshackle farm house 20 minutes out of town. Avra had learned to drive for the first time when she was 35, but rarely got behind the wheel. The house, says Rosin, was "disgusting, an absolute slum. Harry's German Shepherds had the run of the place, and they had chewed up all the furniture, so there was stuffing falling out of it. I honestly think Avra was so intimidated by Harry that she didn't feel she could make her home her own.'' Avra Honey Smith's hobby was collecting jewelry. Palmer collected hunting knives and guns, but his most prized collection was the store of gold ingots and coins he kept buried in a strongbox in the back yard. Rosin says it was so heavy a strong man could hardly lift it, indicating his stash must have been worth well over a quarter of a million dollars. When Christmas rolled around, and again three months later as Palmer's birthday approached, Avra Honey Smith made the rounds demanding mandatory contributions from staff members and students, who were expected to contribute $100 each to buy Palmer more gold. If anyone protested that they couldn't afford it, she ordered them to come up with $300 instead. She once called the business where Maryann Dolschenko was working and asked them to garnish $300 from her wages because she had balked at contributing. The contribution for Honey Smith's own birthday present was a bargain: only $50 each. "Avra,'' says Kathleen Raines, "could get blood out of a stone.'' Rosin and Hoffman both describe Avra Honey Smith as intimidated and verbally abused. "When the pressure was on from Avra, you could be sure she was getting the heat from Harry,'' says Raines. When things weren't going right, the solution was always to bring in more money.
Scientology organizations are well known for high pressure sales tactics, but the atmosphere at the Elmira Mission soon became outright rabid. Kathleen Raines says she has heard of other Scientology missions where brain-washing techniques and control techniques were the norm, but "not with the thorough viciousness Harry displayed.'' Gale Lyons says that when Palmer called her into his office to criticize her about something, he would often pull his hunting knife out of its sheath and stroke the blade as he talked. "Sometimes he would signal his German Shepherd Grey Wolf to snarl at me,'' she recalls. "Once he bit me.'' In 1985, the Church of Scientology came down on the center legally. No one knows exactly what the legal proceedings between Scientology and the mission entailed, or how extensive they were. The usual reason given when the church attacked an independent mission was "not sending people up lines'' for higher level training and services. In the case of the Creative Learning Center, they had ample reason to think so. At missions, students were supposed to receive only Dianetics, a form of regression therapy, and "the lower levels,'' processes which address various abilities and attitudes. Many people complete those levels in a hundred hours or less. By that time, they have either already "gone Clear'' (cut loose from their subliminal programming), or are close enough to proceed on to processing levels offered only at higher levels of the organization. During the thirteen years she worked there, Gale Lyons recalls only two people who "went Clear'' under Palmer's case supervision and were declared ready to advance to a higher level organization, despite the fact that she alone put in 18,000 hours auditing the mission's students. One of the two "Clears,'' Marianne Helsing, had been known as one of the mission's toughest registrars, meaning that she was good at hammering people to take out loans for services. After "going Clear,'' she became more mellow. Palmer fired her, telling Tom Wright the reason was "down stats'' (low statistics). Then he told other staffers she had been fired for the opposite reason; she had been "regging too hard'' -- putting undue pressure on prospective students.
Soon after the lawsuit with the Church of Scientology began, Avra instituted a new fund-raising drive. The 30 to 40 people who were mission regulars were told they could buy the "entire bridge, including NOTS ("New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans,'' the secret upper level procedures dealing with possessive entities mentioned at the beginning of this article). The students were told to come up with money for the complete panoply of Scientology auditing levels -- now renamed -- in order to help save the center, and asked to contribute to a legal defense fund as well. People were hammered constantly. They were always expected to pay in cash. If they didn't have the money, they were told to get bank loans. Students were ordered to cosign loans for each other. The price tag for full counseling averaged $60,000, but one student paid a total of $161,000 to purchase courses and counseling for his wife and himself. Somewhere along the line, she was sold a body clean-out program called the Purification Rundown twice. She never received it, even once. The man still has claims against Palmer for around $26,000 after having received a refund of half the money he had on account. Kathleen Raines, who invested a total of $60,000 in advance payments for auditing, says she took out so many bank loans that at one point, her payments were more than $500 a week. Not only was she taking courses several hours a day, but working two jobs to try and keep her head above water. At the time her husband was being paid $75 for working a 47-1/2 hour week at the center, and also worked at part-time jobs to try and make ends meet. Raines says, "It is astonishing for me to look back and see that I actually got $50,000 from about 15 different banks. We students would lie to the bankers, telling them the money was for a honeymoon, appliances, personal education, consolidation loans, credit cards, ad infinitum. We knew every bank within a hundred mile radius and which credit reporting agencies they used, and which of our loans appeared on which credit reports, and which didn't. We would also lie about our incomes. I remember seeing one person forge a tax return. Another trick was to bombard many banks at once, and then again within a short period of time. That way, the loans wouldn't appear on your credit report yet. Staff knew that we did this. I was called a financial wizard.'' Other staff members say Avra Honey Smith habitually instructed people to forge tax returns with inflated income figures to obtain loans, and told them their services were tax deductible long after the IRS had ruled that Scientology "donations'' couldn't be deducted. Subsequently several of them were audited and penalized by the IRS. Raines says she got a break of sorts when she was seriously injured in a car accident. Palmer told her to see an attorney who settled with the insurance company for $26,000. Before the deal was closed, she recalls, "the mission staff was hounding me day and night. They actually had me drive up to Buffalo to pick up the money, then go straight to the bank to cash the check. Harry and Avra never took money in checks--always in cash. The mission got $12,000 of the money. I don't know how I ever got to keep the remaining $14,000, but I used all of it to pay off some of my outstanding debt with the banks.'' Gale Lyons recalls that some people used a good third of their auditing time attempting to resolve "present time problems'' caused by the debt they had incurred to buy the auditing. Palmer was, of course, the case supervisor who prescribed the auditing actions. Lyons and other people who worked at the center say a syndrome evolved; if people expressed money worries, the answer was a special "repair action'' designed to "clean them up.'' The registrars would hound them to take out another loan to pay for the extra auditing, leading to more money worries. . . .
The Church of Scientology is known for its voracious financial appetite, but the therapeutic actions sold there are doled out in a methodical, sequential fashion, according to set guidelines. Palmer routinely delivered actions out of sequence, ordered high-priced corrective actions for people he felt could afford it, and took people off counseling midway during actions they had paid for, ordering them to buy courses that would cure their "resistance to auditing.'' Raines says the various courses and auditing actions sold by the center had different prices at different times, for different people. Prices were never published. After Raines married Tom Wright, she was discouraged from getting pregnant, which she feels was because motherhood would have made her a less lucrative source of income. One day she received a stern lecture from Avra when it was found out she wasn't using birth control pills. Her husband was also told that she wasn't ready to have a child -- she needed more auditing first. Margie Hoffman, who had married a man who stayed aloof from the center after checking out a lower level course or two, was advised by Palmer to divorce him because he was a bad influence and a hindrance to her spiritual progress. There was one letup in the incessant drive for money. Tom Wright says rumors of a loan fraud investigation spread when a number of people fell behind on their loan payments and then made numerous applications for more loans. They were encouraged to make payments on time, and the pressure let up for a few months. The legal problems with Scientology were settled in May, 1987. Staff members were not told much, and were instructed not to talk to each other about the internal affairs of the mission. It is known that as part of the settlement, Palmer signed sworn statements that he was not in possession of any of the confidential upper level materials (which he had not been authorized to deliver as a mission holder anyway), and agreed to stop using the Scientology trademarks. He was treading on a legal mine field. He had obviously obtained bootlegged copies of the upper level Scientology materials, since they were already being sold and delivered at the center. If the Church of Scientology found out, they would certainly embroil him in further expensive lawsuits. Staff members were instructed to be on the lookout for spies. They were told to visualize a cloud of white light around the building and arrange mirrors facing outward in order to fend off the bad energies being thrown at them by the church. When a staff member left without notice, Palmer called the police and told them he suspected the man had been kidnapped, probably by Scientologists. They interviewed Gale Lyons, who had a simpler explanation. The man was tired of the pressure at the center, and had talked about moving to Las Vegas.
When they checked, they discovered that was what had happened. Palmer knew it was time to come up with something new, so he set about researching what it might be. He studied the channeled book Ramtha and acquired a complete set of audio and video tapes of channeling sessions with the entity called Bashar. The Bashar tapes provided a handy source of extra income. He had staff members make hundreds of copies of the tapes (which were protected by copyright), sold them and pocketed the money himself, according to Gale Lyons. The center was still engaged in this cottage enterprise even after the advent of the Avatar Course, when the tape duplicating machine was in hot demand for both Palmer's introductory Avatar lecture and the bootlegged Bashar tapes. Just a few days before his announcement of the Avatar Course, Palmer mentioned to Tom Wright that he had been studying some Eastern techniques for increasing and decreasing the intensity of a reality.
THE FIRST AVATARS
In October 17, 1986, he announced that he had come up with something new and took some staff members "into session'' where he ran a version of what was to become the Ultimate Process of Avatar on them using an E-meter. The sessions lasted anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour at the most per person. Many staff members emerged in a state of ecstatic bliss. After several people had received the process, Palmer emerged from the room and said, "Anybody else wants this, see the reg[istrar].'' In other words, pay up. After the initial Avatar sessions, Palmer mentioned to staff members that he would have to "complicate this up'' and "mystify it'' so he could charge more for it. He developed some preliminary exercises and variations on the process, and announced it would be available for $1,000.. There was one large, embarrassing problem. The center still owed its students hundreds of hours of auditing which had already been paid for in advance at prices ranging from $100 to $200 per hour. As word went out that the Avatar Course was a "one shot clear'' process which made Scientology processes obsolete, some of them began to question why they couldn't just take the course and get the remainder of their money back. At first, Palmer refused to let those who had paid in advance use the money on account for the Avatar Course, period. They would have to come up with another $1,000, which was soon increased to $1,500. Others were told they needed to be audited through Grade IV before taking the Avatar Course. Still others were told they needed the "Dynamic Enhancements'' first. These were renamed versions of Scientology processes known as Lists 10, 11 and 12. They entail, among other things, spotting and releasing entities that might be causing compulsive behavior or undesirable emotions--the same Scientological affliction Palmer said was automatically eliminated by taking the Avatar Course. One student, Drandy Campbell, had purchased part of a set of "technical volumes,'' the encyclopedia of lower level Scientology auditing techniques. He was told he had to buy the rest of the set of books before he would be allowed to take Avatar, despite the fact that the books were now considered obsolete. Kathleen Raines, who still had over $20,000 due her in undelivered auditing, offered to let a couple of her friends use her credit to take the course and pay her back when they got their financial affairs in order. No, said Avra Honey Smith, a transfer couldn't be allowed. That would amount to a "covert refund.'' If Raines' friends wanted to do the Avatar Course, they would have to cough up the money themselves--in cash, as usual. When Avatar students started to show up from around the U.S., the course room at the center was remodeled and air conditioned. As they studied the Avatar materials, Gale Lyons was busy auditing upstairs. Other staffers were told to get on the phone and round up students who still had money on account. The word from Palmer was, use up those advance payments as quickly as possible.
WESTWARD HO
When Palmer, Honey Smith, Sweetland and Hoffman went to the West Coast in early 1987 for the first out-of-state Avatar delivery in Los Angeles, things had begun to change around the center. The staff members, many still feeling the afterglow of the Avatar Course, were talking to each other more openly than ever before. Without Palmer around, things felt more relaxed. The staff and some students began comparing notes about what had been going on. Previously they had been instructed not to discuss the center's business even amongst themselves, but now the pressure was off. Many things they had been told -- particularly about their fellow staff members -- didn't add up. The amounts of money Margie Hoffman had collected in cash, the bank deposits made by Linda Rosin and the hours of auditing delivered by Gale Lyons were wildly disparate. This indicated to them that Palmer had simply pocketed a large share of the center's income without including it in the portion that was supposed to pay their wages. Another thing that didn't add up was that they were still receiving the same meager paychecks as before. More than 400 people had taken the Avatar Course by this time, and most had paid the center $1,500 each, for a total of more than $500,000 in income. Over and over, Palmer had promised the staffers a fair share of the wealth when it finally rolled in. Their paychecks were supposed to represent a given percentage of the center's income from the services it delivered. Simple mathematics told them it wasn't happening, except in the case of the trainers, who were paid $100 per day while they were on the road delivering courses. At the time, Linda Rosin recalls, she was having to fend off an increasing number of people who wanted refunds of the remaining money they had paid in advance for the illicit Scientology levels they had been sold and had not received. Between visits to the West Coast, Palmer started talking about out-of-body visits he was having with extraterrestrials. One day, staff members recall, he walked in and said he had been on a spaceship where he had been given a promotion. He also informed some of the staff members that they, regretfully, had been demoted. He took to dressing entirely in white when speaking to groups.
In September, 1987, the trainers made their first major foray into non-Scientology circles when they went to Portland to deliver the course and a subsequent Masters Course to a group of psychologists and psychiatrists. For good measure, a couple of the therapists brought along a couple of patients who suffered from mild personality disorders. One was a woman described as a "walking schizophrenic,'' barely functional enough to hold down a job. Many of the therapists who took the courses liked the techniques, but Palmer himself did not fare too well with them. When questioned about his background by one, he said, "You wouldn't understand.'' "Try me,'' said the therapist, who was no metaphysical virgin himself. Palmer simply turned and walked away. From then on, he spent much of his time alone in his hotel room as the three trainers delivered the course. By the time the Masters Course started, some of the therapists enrolled on it became wary. The trainers were still using the aggressive mode of instruction known as "tearing off their faces.'' The prospective Avatar Masters were ridiculed and called "dummies'' when they asked questions. It was suggested that the trainers themselves might profit from some instruction in the techniques of conducting workshops. Some of the therapists were also displeased by the fact that the schizophrenic woman, after having spent three weeks on the course with few beneficial results, was passed and advanced onto the Masters Course after the trainers persuaded her to come up with the $3,000 course fee. A few of the therapists asked for refunds because, they said, they wouldn't feel right about delivering the course as associates of Palmer's organization. One who was particularly insistent was given a refund.
As the trainers prepared to leave Portland, Margie Hoffman had the feeling that Palmer was behaving, as she put it, "stranger and stranger.'' He mentioned to her that he had been given the Avatar Materials by extraterrestrials in his back yard, when she was pretty certain he had developed the course mainly by applying Scientology methodology to the theories he had heard in the Bashar tapes. He had told the therapists in Portland that more than 1,500 people had done the Avatar Course when she knew the true figure was less than a third that many. Hoffman also had misgivings about the rudeness the trainers were expected to display when delivering the Masters Course, and the heavy emphasis on the telepathic "serious drill'' as a cure-all at the expense of practical application. The last straw came when Palmer announced that the people in Elmira were no good. As soon as they got back, he was going to fire everybody. It was going to be just the four of them from now on. Hoffman knew better than that. The staff members in Elmira were her friends, and in fact her extended family. They had all worked at the center for years for long hours at low wages, bolstered by the idea that they were making the world a better place and the promise of riches to come. Palmer had promised them time and time again that they would be richly rewarded the minute the organization's ship came in. Now the ship had come in, and they were about to be dumped unceremoniously off the dock. Hoffman announced that she would be leaving when they got back to Elmira. The result of her resignation, she says, was a "brainwashing'' session that lasted until 3:30 in the morning, with Palmer, Honey Smith and Sweetland all haranguing her and arguing that everything was all right. Palmer grilled her for "withholds,'' the Scientology term for guilty secrets. Finally, exhausted, she decided that she must have made a mistake and agreed to stay on. When they returned to Elmira, Palmer discovered that his favorite dog, a German Shepherd named Grey Wolf, had disappeared. Only a few months before, the other Shepherd had been killed by a car. The dogs had always been allowed the run of the farm. During the trip to Portland, Miken Chappel had been house-sitting for Palmer, feeding the dog and taking care of a few farm animals Palmer raised. Palmer was coming under increasing pressure from people who had money "on account'' and had not received the services. In a communique issued to his growing nationwide network of Avatar Masters on September 26, he said, "The members of the original research team, as well as several dozen others who completed Avatar in the early spring of this year, concur with the following observation: each has experienced a progressive increase in awareness over the months since doing Avatar!'' In one sense, he was right. Most of them had become so aware that they were after his hide. Some were talking to attorneys about filing lawsuits.  page 1 2345
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