Mark C. "Marty" Rathbun's name comes up as an executive of various arms of the Church of Scientology over the past 25 years or more. At least, it used to.

Starting in September, 2005, Marty's erasure from Scientology began. His name and image, indeed any reference to him, has begun to be systematically removed from Scientology websites all over the world.

It's as if he never existed: Never served as David Miscavige's legal executive in ASI; was never Deputy Director of Intelligence for Scientology's secret policing arm, the Office of Special Affairs (previously known as the Guardian's Office), or OSA. Was never a Church of Scientology International (CSI) executive.

It's like he never moved from ASI to Scientology's Religioius Technology Center (RTC) as Inspector General for Ethics in 1987, at the time David Miscavige became head of RTC, the organizational arm in charge of protecting the copyrights and trademarks associated with Dianetics and Scientology.

It's as if he never attended the infamous meeting with the IRS in 1991 that led to Scn's unprecedented tax exemption; never responded angrily to the outing of the secret meetings by Tax Analysts in their Tax Notes newsletter in 1993; never pimped John Travolta in the NY Times in 1998.

It's as if he was never on Elaine Seigel's Snow White International Dissemination List. Never cut the ribbon on the new Scientology building at AOLA.

But could Marty have seen it coming? In December of 2004, Marty's wife Anne filed for divorce.

According to a 1998 post to a.r.s. by Jesse Prince, it is common practice for Scientology, Inc. to attempt to turn Scientology wives against so-called "criminal" husbands. (Interestingly, Jesse Prince was himself 'erased', as well as David Mayo. Both were formerly high-ranking Scientology administrators. This speaks to the possibility that such revisionism is policy within the many-tentacled organization)

Marty's vanishing is not unprecedented. In February of 1994, Marty and fellow exec Greg Wilhere were removed from their posts, and we didn't hear about Marty again until 1996.

Speculation arose as to Marty's whereabouts, and it was suggested that he was being held outside the US, perhaps on the Freewinds, or in the RPF, or doing some other kind of Ethics or Amends program to get back into good graces in his church.

Currently, it has been suggested by a former Int Base staffer (reported by Chuck Beatty on the USEnet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology) that Marty was "busted", at least briefly demoted to Flag Crew Org, and may be working in the Carpenter's Shop in the mill building down the street from the Fort Harrison in Clearwater.

It only adds to the strangeness that Marty's fellow RTC executive, Director of Legal Affairs Warren McShane, has also evidently vanished, and is being scrubbed from Scientology websites.

Warren's wife Marcella (Marcy) also filed for divorce from Warren in April, 2005.

Warren McShane had also been a Scientology administrator for around three decades. His scrubbed bio used to indicate that he joined Scientology in 1973, and was an officer in RTC when it was created in 1982.

The virtual vanishing of two high-level RTC executives -- among the very few who had intimate, inside knowledge of David Miscavige and his family's finances and projects -- is cause for concern, especially since there have been no replacements announced, or job openings posted, and it appears Mr. Miscavige now has nearly sole control of Scientology's enforcement arm.

Mark C."Marty" Rathbun and Warren McShane's names cannot be erased from the plethora of affadavits in which they are mentioned that have been presented at various times and courts, such as those affadavits of Joseph Yanny (July, 1998), Vicky Aznaran, Jesse Prince, and Steven Fishman, or Warren's own deposition on May 22, 1997, when he was deposed by Grady Ward.

Their names cannot be purged from numerous newspaper and magazine articles (at least, those published outside of Scientology-owned publishing houses, such as the St. Petersburg Times).

What did Marty and Warren do to earn the wrath of David Miscavige? Are they okay? Are they alive? Why are they being erased? Is this really a good PR strategy in the age of the Internet?

Update, September 29, 2005:
Uh-oh! Warren's still listed as the official contact in the government's trademark paperwork for the e-meter! (This is an interesting page containing exactly what it is about an e-meter that is trademarked.)

    

• On Sunday, September 25, 2005, Hartley Patterson posted to a.r.s. a list of sites that used to mention Marty Rathbun, as indicated by Google. Google's cached pages clearly indicate the scrub job

• Mark Bunker has a brief video of Marty meeting Bob Minton at a Clearwater courthouse:

  Dial-up: http://www.xenutv.com/marty-56k.wmv
  Cable/DSL: http://www.xenutv.com/marty.wmv

• Kady put together a wonderful reference page on Marty's history within Scientology, Inc. at: Who is "Marty" Mark Rathbun? The Man, The Myth, The Legend

• Warren's mug and bio are still on some official Scientology organization web pages.

  Google's cache of August 8th showed Warren still here, although he has since been removed. As of August 16, 2005, McShane was listed as Deputy Inspector General for External Affairs for RTC here although that reference has since been removed. As of September 6, 2005, Google's cache still reflects Warren's name here although that reference has since been removed. As late as September 12, 2005, Warren still had a bio and photo on an official Scientology website in Portuguese: http://portuguese.rtc.org/warren-mcshane.htm

• And who could forget Warren's heading up the 1995 raid on the apartment of Zenon Panoussis in September of 1996, his 1997 declaration from RTC vs. Panoussis, or his appearance as Earl Cooley's first witness in RTC vs. F.A.C.T.Net in 1995, where McShane relates exactly which parts of OT III are trade secret, and which are "widely known".

• Social network diagram. Links Marty to some interesting folks.

• Not the first time this cult has had to remove people from history.