Jesse Prince interview

Danish TV, DR2/June 2, 1999
By Tom Heinemann

JESSE PRINCE (caption--Jesse Prince, Ex-Scientologist): I found that I was living my life in fear--fear of something that was almost intangible. And because I was living in fear, I really couldn't operate. I really couldn't be a member of this society. I couldn't realize my potential because I was always afraid. And I realized that, um, that if I broke my silence, I would break my fear.

TOM HEINEMANN (interviewer): You left Scientology in 1992, but not until six years later you started to criticize the organization. What took you so long?

JESSE PRINCE: Well I was under threat--at the time, I was married and both myself and my wife were under the threat of Scientology that should we ever speak out or say anything about our experiences in Scientology, that my wife would never speak to her father or her sister again. And they were both in Scientology and she very much loved her father. And because of that we agreed not to speak.

TOM HEINEMANN: You signed a document saying that you promised not to speak bad about Scientology.

JESSE PRINCE: You do.

TOM HEINEMANN: How come?

JESSE PRINCE: Well, at the time that I signed that document, I was being held prisoner by Scientology at Gilman Hot Springs in California. Under guard, armed guard, video surveillance, security sensor equipment. And I was held there for so long, and then one day, they come and they say, "You can leave. All you have to do is sign this." I didn't even read it, I just signed it. My wife didn't read it either, she signed it and we left.

TOM HEINEMANN: You told us that you received numerous threats against your life. Where do you think these threats come from?

JESSE PRINCE: Um, I received at least five, five or six death threats. I know exactly where they come from. They come from the senior authorities of Scientology paying private investigators to do psychological warfare on its critics.

TOM HEINEMANN: It's a hard allegation.

JESSE PRINCE: But it's true.

ARON MASON (caption--"Aron Mason, Scientology"): No, no threats have been made against Jesse Prince on his life, and on the contrary, Jesse Prince has made threats on the lives of Scientologists and that's one reason why we feel we have to take him seriously, because other people who have made threats sometimes carried them out and actually came into our churches with guns. And it's that kind of extremism that can be, uh, can be fostered by, by sensationalism.

TOM HEINEMANN: Why do you think, then, that the FBI is keeping a surveillance on Jesse Prince?

ARON MASON: I've never heard that before and frankly I don't believe that. I think that's another piece of Jesse Prince fantasy. I think it's unfortunate that that's the direction he feels he has to go.

TOM HEINEMANN: When you look at the Internet, you can see a lot of ex-Scientologists that use, are using words like "Scientology Kills", "brainwash" and so on. Are you not doing exactly the same thing as you accuse Scientology for?

JESSE PRINCE: Well, I can hardly see how I could be doing that by just speaking out and saying what my experiences are. And then also I would somewhat object to the ex-Scientologists saying "Scientology Kills" because, quite frankly, it is people who have never been into Scientology or heard of it ever before that are saying these things. And this is the way they feel based on what they've read and what they now understand Scientology is really all about. That didn't really come from ex-Scientologists to my understanding; it came from just regular people finding out about Scientology and the people they killed.

TOM HEINEMANN: Why should they do that?

JESSE PRINCE: Because it's a cancer within the society. It's a disease whereby, you know, young, idealistic people are brought into Scientology; they're separated from their families. Everything that they could possibly own or have endowed to them such as credit, um, trust funds or whatever, are taken by Scientology. They take huge amounts of money from people.

ARON MASON: We did not start this conflict with Jesse Prince. for years he was--he had gone his way, we had gone ours. He considered himself a Scientologist; we were happy to have him, whether he was on staff or not. Um, but we do not desire a conflict with Mr. Prince, and we frankly only said anything about him to the degree we had to defend ourselves. And that is, that is the reality.

TOM HEINEMANN: To an outsider like me, for instance, it seems like it's a world full of hatred.

JESSE PRINCE: Well, it depends on what world you're talking about again--the world of Scientology itself is a world of hatred. Um, from my very beginning experience in Scientology, I--we learned to refer to people that were not Scientologists as being "raw meat", "wogs", which is a term that means "Worthy Oriental Gentleman" who doesn't have a clue about himself, spirituality or anything like that. So from the very inception, through association with Scientology, you start to learn to put other people down.

TOM HEINEMANN: Yes, but I mean also the hate from ex-Scientologists or, as you say, people who haven't even been members of Scientology. This is a very hateful war going on against these two groups.

JESSE PRINCE: Yeah, well, you know, people are enraged that within a free society, you could have something that is sanctioned by a government as a religion that acts as a Mafia intelligence-type organization that terrorizes.

TOM HEINEMANN: When you were in Scientology, you visited Denmark several times. What was the purpose of these visits?

JESSE PRINCE: In one of the very first out-of-the-country jobs that I had to do was to come here and extort mission holders--mission holders being people that have a small franchise and license to use Scientology--that had accumulated money. I was sent here along with a group of senior people that are still within Scientology to extort them out of their money so that the money could be taken and sent to either Liechtenstein banks or Cyprus banks that were set up because there was a real threat in America that the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, was gonna raid Scientology and seize its bank accounts.

TOM HEINEMANN: So you collected money in Denmark which wasn't put into the official accounts in Denmark?

JESSE PRINCE: No. Um--

TOM HEINEMANN: So you actually broke the Danes' law also?

JESSE PRINCE: Sure.

TOM HEINEMANN: Is this, to your knowledge, still going on?

JESSE PRINCE: Absolutely. Nothing ever changes in Scientology. By its very nature and policy, it is unable to change.

ARON MASON: To make allegations about the church's finances now, Mr. Prince, who has not been a position of responsibility in the church for nearly 15 years, and who hasn't even worked for the church for more than 7 years, is, uh, very specious. He's not in any position to know.

TOM HEINEMANN: Before this interview, Scientology gave us a very personal and what I would call very intimidating file on you. Why would they do that?

JESSE PRINCE: Again, this is done based on advice from Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in order to silence a critic or anyone that is disagreeing with Scientology. You get intimate information on the person, or you manufacture information that will create fear in the person and silence them into submission.

ARON MASON: Jesse Prince has tried to elevate himself to a position where he can comment on the moral character, the nature of Scientology. And, and for that, we felt it was relevant to talk about his moral character, because he called it into question by saying, "I'm an authority on Scientology", which he isn't. Um, these statements that we have provided, or that were provided, um, were from him, by and large, and unfortunately reflect the nature of where Jesse Prince is today. Because he essentially relapsed to his old ways, the ways he was before Scientology.

TOM HEINEMANN: To me, as a Dane, it seems very American, many of the things that you've spoken about. Is this also going on in Denmark?

JESSE PRINCE: Yes, it very much is, but on a different level. It happens in Denmark. People here are terrorized. I've come here as a Scientologist myself and terrorized the mission holders which I spoke about earlier. I'll just elaborate a little bit on exactly what happened. These people were called in on a false premise that they were gonna be given a new and wonderful briefing about the new direction of Scientology's expansion. And when they were all brought in the room, the door was locked, and they were screamed at for hours and they were told to write down every bad thing that they did. And then they were photographed exactly as criminals were--mug shots, where they had to do a front profile, a side profile. They were put on the Scientology e-meter and all the senior executives of Scientology crowded around and screamed at the person at once--they call that gang-bang sec checking. And then they were told to relinquish, relinquish their bank accounts and pull out their check books and empty their bank accounts, and then this money was taken--whoosh--very quickly, and taken to Liechtenstein or Cyprus. And, um, that still goes on.

TOM HEINEMANN: Also in Denmark?

JESSE PRINCE: Yeah. And--that's what I'm talking about; it happened in Denmark. That happened here in Denmark. The first time I came here, that's what I came here to do.

TOM HEINEMANN: Where exactly? Do you remember?

JESSE PRINCE: Yes, it was at the Northern Hotel.

TOM HEINEMANN: At Vesterbrogade in Copenhagen?

JESSE PRINCE: Yes, and it went on for days; those people were kept for days--not allowed to go home, not allowed to shower. The door was locked. And a lot of them--you know, when--they came in happy and smiling, thinking they were about to find out something; and when they left, they looked like death.

TOM HEINEMANN: Scientology says that you will violate some contractual obligations if you criticize Scientology, and they have no wish to meet you because, as they say, as more than 10 years ago, you left the organization and you were removed from all your duties.

JESSE PRINCE: Well, you know, that's the standard party line. Scientology manufactures excuses for any shortcoming they could possibly have or any kind of excuse that will seem plausible. But we know, at least I've come to know and understand since being out of Scientology, I realize and recognize once again that people are human, that people make mistakes. But Scientology would be very hard pressed to admit to mistakes.

ARON MASON: It seems like one of these things that he would come up with, seeing as he has now said that he will keep saying stories about us until we pay him off a large amount of money. He had nothing bad to say about Scientology for years and voluntarily made good statements about Scientology after he left; um, and then he came on hard times financially and said he would start saying things and he did.

TOM HEINEMANN: Scientology says, and I quote, "You will say anything for money."

JESSE PRINCE: That is outrageous, but Scientology is able to access my bank records at any time that they want to, and see how I'm spending my money and where my money is coming from. And they just assume, this is coming from this one, this is coming from this one. But prior to starting or speaking against Scientology, I had earlier filed bankruptcy on some businesses and some situations that I was in, and I created a new business; I was actually an art dealer selling art. And I was actually doing quite well with these businesses. I started speaking out against Scientology, and they went around to every one of my associates and businesses and persons and tried to get them to speak disparagingly about me, or to find some sensitive information or something to get me with.

ARON MASON: We don't want to be in a position where we're talking about this matter, but we need to defend ourselves, and that is what we are forced to do, in part because of the allegations he raised. We did not start this conflict with Mr. Prince. We did not--we don't want to be in a conflict with Mr. Prince. We did not make allegations against him; he made allegations against us and we were forced to respond.

JESSE PRINCE: You don't sue for actual offenses, you sue to utterly ruin and destroy a person financially. And even a person of middle class stature or even slightly upper middle class cannot afford to fight with an organization that has a billion dollars plus to play with. And unfortunately in a lot of countries, justice can be bought.

ARON MASON: Mr. Prince can say whatever critical things he wants to say. Our concern is with him divulging confidential information. But we also do not like to be in the business of suing people. We don't sue people whenever we can avoid doing so.

TOM HEINEMANN: Can't you see the reason, the reasonable understanding that Scientology--they claim it's a religion, and they are fighting for keeping it a religion; they are fighting for their right to think what they think of.

JESSE PRINCE: Well, you know, I'm sure that there's a bit of that going on and everyone has the liberty and freedom to think and believe what they want to. But when it crosses the line of people actually dying or being intimidated or, you know, private investigators put on them or, you know, passing out to the neighbors information like you got on me, through the neighborhood just solely to intimidate--that crosses the line. You can believe whatever you want to but your actions must be in accordance with the laws, rules and regulations of the land. And Scientology doesn't quite agree with that.

TOM HEINEMANN: You've been there for 16 years. Is Scientology a religion?

JESSE PRINCE: No, by no stretch of the imagination is Scientology a religion. It's actually--the bulk of Scientology--in my opinion, I would say 70% of Scientology is built on intelligence--intelligence practices as they were being practiced in the 1950s Cold War era, which is the mentality of L. Ron Hubbard.