PLANK JANUARY 18, 2013
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Most new religions, like most new businesses, die a quick crib death. Scientology, however, is not about to disappear. Scholars put the number of adherents in this country at about 25,000—a far cry from the millions of members its leaders claim, but hardly insignificant for a group that was founded about 50 years ago. Despite all its bad press, the allegations that it terrorizes its critics, its cult-like secrecy and hounding of apostates, and its very weird science-fiction cosmogony, it has become a part of the fabric of communities across the country. Not all of its adherents are deranged, confused or lonely. So why do they spend time with, and money on, Scientology?
Three recent books about Scientology—Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology, Hugh Urban’s The Church of Scientology, and now New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief—have attempted to study the faith. I reviewed the first two books, with admiration, for The Nation. Reitman’s remains the most thorough overview of Scientology; Urban shows how both the Cold War and Scientology’s fights with the IRS have affected the religion’s practice. Wright builds on Reitman’s achievement, getting yet more ex-Scientologists on the record, and tracking down even more documents, proving for good what a total fabulist and fraud founder L. Ron Hubbard was. Above all, with the cooperation of ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director, Wright has written what is so far the best book about Scientology’s prominence in Hollywood.
Yet it’s a curiously empty achievement, for what is actually a pretty obvious reason. Yes, the organization has attracted a small but high-proof trickle of celebrities, like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. But just ask yourself: What do celebrities have to tell us about any aspect of American life, except perhaps our worship of celebrity? Celebrity dads are not like me. Celebrities do not dress like you. They are, by definition, atypical. So knowing a lot more about Tom Cruise’s relationship to Scientology ends up telling us startlingly little about Scientology.
There’s an obvious reply, which is that no religion besides Scientology has placed “Celebrity Centres” all over the world. Recruiting celebrities was one of Hubbard’s prime goals. But as Wright knows—for he is the author of some of the great journalism about religion and duplicity, like the classic Remembering Satan and the collection Saints & Sinners—it never makes much sense to take religious people at their word. Just because Scientologists want us to think of theirs as the religion of celebrities, that doesn’t mean it is. Whatever their numbers, 25,000 or many millions, celebrities are just a tiny portion. There may be some justification for Wright’s thesis that there are “three tiers of Scientologists” —the anonymous members of the public, the clergy, and “a small number of Hollywood actors and other celebrities”—but by focusing on the tiniest of the three groups, Wright is, in a perverse way, doing the Scientologists’ propaganda.
Not that the Scientologists will see it that way. Where Reitman’s book, building on reports from the St. Petersburg Times and elsewhere, documented the horrific abuses that take place in at the Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Fla., Wright shows that similar atrocities take place in Southern California. Scientologists who want to leave are held against their will, possibly enslaved, he implies. If they leave, they may lose contact with their families forever. One young Scientologist was recruited to be a girlfriend—a sex toy, it seems—for Tom Cruise, who it seems dumped her when he got bored. Wright’s book is a strong indictment, and I found it exciting, and prurient, to read.
But Wright’s passion for the Hollywood story accounts, I think, for two major flaws in the book. First, it is obvious that he loves his L.A. material best—especially his Paul Haggis scoop, which originally appeared in The New Yorker: revelations about the church’s inner workings from a high-profile, celebrity apostate. But much of the book is curiously slack, and filled with errors of emphasis and judgment. Wright writes phrases that may sound right but, on closer inspection, are all Swiss-cheesey. For example, was Southern California after World War II really “swarming with Theosophists, Rosicrucians, Zoroastrians, and Vedantists”? How do we know it was swarming thus? The footnotes are spotty. Wright seems to be relying here on Hugh Urban’s work, but his précis of it does not inspire confidence. Why include Zoroastrians, who are not members of some faddish cult but in fact of a Persian religion older than Christianity? Wright says that Cruise “was a natural actor, but also persistent and choosy”—why “but”? I’d think that the best actors are, of course, persistent and choosy. Cruise’s hair is not “spiky,” as several hundred million people can tell you. I want to believe in the existence of “a charismatic Belgian obstetrician named Luc Journet,” but is Wright sure he was charismatic? Or is that just a bit of automatic, feel-good writing? Throughout, Wright tries to keep his paragraphs lively by substituting unearned conclusions and gap-ridden inferences for real writerly vigor. The original New Yorker article about Haggis was taut, lean, and muscular—like the coiffed Cruise, a perfect specimen.
But my real concern with this In-N-Out burger of a book, hastily cooked but scrumptious, is that its focus occludes the story we really need: what life is like for “the public” Scientologist, the average, everyday Scientologist. Wright can only write the book he is called to write, of course. But now that Reitman has turned her Rolling Stone articles into a book, and Wright his New Yorker article, now that Urban and others have taken a scholarly view, we still lack a journalistic or ethnographic account of what life is like for, say, a middle-class Scientologist in New Haven, Conn.
I don’t pick that example idly. At the end of my block lies the Scientology center of New Haven. During the Halloween children’s parade through the neighborhood, as my daughters and others did a quarter-mile loop through the business district in their costumes, the Scientologists were handing out candy, just like the other tenants in the small village of shops. My children consumed Scientologists’ Tootsie Rolls (if I recall correctly). But the local church seems to have fallen on hard times. In 2003, it purchased the old Hallock’s appliance-store building, which before that had been a Masonic temple. But perhaps because the Scientologists never raised enough money for a renovation, the Scientologists stayed in their office storefront on Whalley Avenue. Then, a few months ago, they vacated their street-level space for what is likely a cheaper upstairs office.
I know several local Scientologists, and I have spoken with their local leader. None of them, as far as I know, is enslaved. They hold real-people jobs. One of them babysat my daughters, once. Yet they obviously are willing to send their dollars up the hierarchy to people who, if all this scrupulous reporting can be believed, are pretty well evil, and do evil things to those who have the misfortune to displease the bosses.
Why did they join the church, and what keeps them in the church, never meeting Tom Cruise or Kirstie Alley or Jenna Elfman, just working normal jobs and paying steep fees for classes and “auditing” sessions? Does their choice make them analogous to the Catholic who disagrees with the pope but still supports her local parish? Perhaps, in a sense. There is an analogy there, but there are, by necessity, disanalogies. All religions are different. The interior quality of being a faithful Muslim in a village in Indonesia is different from the interior quality of being an Israeli Jew in Tzfat, or a Zoroastrian in the American diaspora. All three may have faith, but the faith probably feels different, works on them differently. And they are embedded in different communities of faith.
What is it like to be embedded in the minority culture of small-town Scientology? Almost nobody has studied that. Instead, we just keep reading about Tom Cruise.
And not just because we all are drawn to Tom Cruise. It would be very hard to write a book about a Scientology community from the inside. No academic is likely to get the story. To get his research proposal past an institutional review board, a social scientist or other scholar would have to promise to identify himself to his subjects, to the Scientologists—who would of course then refuse to cooperate. And many newspapers, like my own, The New York Times, forbid reporters to gather news under false pretenses (restaurant critics are exempt). I would not be allowed to join the Scientology center down the street under the pretense that I was just a curious soul, then write a series of articles about it.
So who could? Perhaps a reporter from a scrappy alt-weekly newspaper, or from a college paper, or from a web ’zine. I hope that someone reads these words and heeds the call. Because until someone does, we are going to get more stories about Scientology in Hollywood and in Florida. And while I love a juicy story about the pope in Rome, I also realize that the church, the real church, is not just there, but everywhere.
Mark Oppenheimer writes the Beliefs column for The New York Times. He is the author of the memoir Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate, and he tweets here.
9 comments
The ID Channel had a Program called Dangerous Persuasions Wednesday that featured a woman who joined the Scientology church in the Seventies. She told a very detailed story of how she ALLOWED herself to be enslaved by the brainwashing techniques of the Church. I don't know if the Church has changed since then, or if they've fallen on hard times, but back then Red China and the Soviet Union could have learned police state tactics from them. Church spies were infiltrating mental health clinics and organizations, the Better Business Bureau, and every organization they saw as the enemy. Some of the "regular" jobs mentioned in this article may be held by Church infiltrators. The woman on the program worked as a spy at a community mental health clinic and stole patient files. The woman on the ID program rose quickly in the Church, and, as a high member (Sea Organization), she was told one day to read a document stating that L. Ron Hubbard was the Messiah. When she betrayed with her face muscles that she didn't quite believe it, she was stripped of her rank and put into a re-education program, where she was humiliated and forced to work at manual labor. She was eventually housed in a garage while pregnant. Eventually, she suffered a breakdown and escaped, never to return to the Church. A woman who wrote an expose of the Church in those days was accused in public by Hubbard of every crime but mass murder. She sued and eventually won a settlement from the Church. I don't know if the Church still smears its critics. I doubt it. They like money more than dignity. If we ever have a police state in America, the Church of Scientology is going to be a top government consultant, maybe even a participant in the oppression.
- magboy47.
January 18, 2013 at 2:52am
It took hundreds of years to develop the canons that define the Christianity we know today, and many different Christologies were cast aside along the way. Jesus left no texts, and scholars disagree about the authenticity of the earliest texts, the letters of Paul, most scholars believing that only seven of the thirteen in the canon were actually written by Paul. The canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are pseudonymous; and the story of Jesus told in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) differ in the details. It is often said that Christianity started as a religion of Jesus but eventually became a religion about Jesus. And so it did. Any religion, Christianity included, is the product of the imagination and persistence of the believers, the apostles in the case of Christianity, who differed even among themselves as to the meaning of the faith. A new religion, such as Scientology, suffers from its immediacy and accessibility, the body of Mr. Hubbard being barely cold and many of his contempoIraries around to tell their stories. Mr. Oppenheimer's criticism, that those who attempt to tell the story of Scientology fail to do so from the perspective of the typical believer, is misplaced; there is no story to tell, just as there was no story to tell about "Christianity" immediately following the death of Jesus, His story taking hundreds of years to develop by His faithful.
- rayward
January 18, 2013 at 7:32am
What is it like to be embedded in the minority culture of small-town Scientology? Why didn't the author just ask one of them, if he had one babysit in his home and entrust them with the safety and care of his own children certainly he should feel emboldened enough to talk to one of them.
- blackton
January 18, 2013 at 9:05am
Long ago and in another country, I worked briefly for Scientology. While living in Copenhagen in the 1970's, I met an American drummer who was involved with Scientology. I was working at a youth hostel for a pittance and a free room, so when he suggested that I get a part-time job at Scientology, it seemed like a good idea. I soon learned otherwise. My job was writing letters to people who had once evinced interest in Scientology and spent $$$, but who hadn't been heard from in some time. The pay was pathetic, and you had to beg for a new pencil (no pens; too expensive). Even when the people asked not to receive more mail, we were told we had to keep on harassing them. Even worse was the pressure to start paying for lessons in how to "become clear." Every now and then someone who worked there would advance a step in the becoming clear ladder, and we all had gather in a circle for a little ceremony. What I remember most is the glassy look in their eyes (no, they weren't stoned; this was something more disturbing). All workers had to affirm that they had abstained from alcohol and drugs. We were told that if we lied they would know, but in fact I did successfully lie. I was afraid to quit because I feared they would pressure me not to, so I just stopped coming to work, and indeed Scientology officials visited my home twice trying to convince me to return and become clear.
- ccarpenter
January 18, 2013 at 12:23pm
I find @ccarpenter's brief story more revealing about the workings of Scientology than an avalanche of verbiage regarding Tom Cruise. Thank you for sharing your experience in Copenhagen. Writers should interview small town Scientologists and those non-celebrities who have had close encounters with Scientology. I'm sure it would make for a fascinating article or book.
- AB
January 18, 2013 at 7:33pm
I was a Scientologist for 13 years. I still hesitate to talk about the experience to others for a couple of reasons. First, I am embarrassed about it. Many people look at me askance when I mention it. I feel I must apologize for my "fall" from normalcy. As well, I like to be thought of as intelligent, and quite frankly, I don't feel most people consider joining Scientology as too smart (including me). Second, for some odd reason, I am still somewhat afraid of reprisal from the church. I was part of the inner-sanctum, called the Sea Organization. I worked at Celebrity Center in Los Angeles and was involved with a campaign to bring back those celebrities who had left the church. I found out too much, and I wanted out. However, I knew you didn't just "leave." So, in the middle of the night, I called my brother and told him to come get me. I literally had to escape--sneak out. Anyway, there are quite a few of us out here--ex-Scientologists--living happily and successfully without being part of this group. And that was something we were warned about inexhaustibly. You weren't supposed to do well disconnecting from the church. Life would simply crash down around you, we were warned. You were condemning yourself to the dark side, was the essence of the message. You were betraying the universe, and no evil could be worse, we were told. Well, should I email this out into the universe then? Why not? If this is evil, being free to think for myself, then I embrace it
- dbarnett
January 18, 2013 at 8:28pm
Why is this article even here? What next and article about snake handlers in Pentecostal culture? Give me a break.
- arnon1
January 18, 2013 at 9:34pm
Wright's book is the most readable summary of L. Ron Hubbard to date. His book I'm certain would be given far greater praise by the deceased Martin Gardner, the only writer who has written somewhat on Scientology sporadically over the years for the New York Review of Books. As an expert on Scientology church administrative policy, fads of the movement's top management, as a career (former) staff executive training officer, as a former compilations official of Hubbard's staff duties writings, and a pretty much as close to an expert on the Hubbard Scientology corpus writings (the INCOMM advices, the ASI advices, of which I'm sure you have no clue what those are), I'd say Wright gets the whole Hubbard phenomena in far greater understanding and summary, than any writer to date. Sure, Wright's not quoting the Command Channels booklet (which explains the top councils of the movement), nor does Wright discuss things like how staff have been trained over the decades, to man the churches, nor the multi echelons of the Scientology bureaucracy, all details that Village Voice editor says makes his brain (rightfully) creak, when I comment on all the behind the scenes details of the Hubbard corpus. But Wright gets Hubbard, admittedly built on the great sporadic writing of years of reporters and writers and ex members and TV interviews, that all came in these first 60 years of the Scientology movement. The new religion scholars, Bromely, Cowan, Melton, and the serious critical writings of Professors Kent and Urban which are far more critical and satisfying, naturally to those of us who were abused and beaten up in the Hubbard harebrained setups; but the academics, meaning you Professor Oppenheimer, I'd dare say that you need a few years to get "up to speed" in terms of the Hubbard corpus, and fads, and the behind the scenes history of these staff lives you compare as the missing elements in the Wright book! I'd be very happy to drive to New Haven, and bring the bulk of the Hubbard corpus in my truck, and give you an afternoon's briefing, for an ex member's "scribe" viewpoint, if you wish! I hope the New York Review of Books finds a good reviewer for these trio of books, the Reitman, Urban and now Wright's books. It'll be year, we'll have to live past this Miscavige era of dominance, to see how the movement unsticks itself from the laid in Hubbard behind the scenes layers of staff rules and regulations, that keep them generating the Hubbard personality disorders on the world, which I think some Oxford don scholar would admit is the pattern for all other world relgions, now isn't that the case. In that context, the Wright book does absolutely the best to date summary of the Hubbard character, and thus the future of the movement's meanderings, are thus best predicted. Chuck Beatty ex Sea Org 1975-2003 chuckbeatty77@aol.com 866-XSEAORG
- beatty
January 19, 2013 at 12:32pm
Dear Magbog47, In answer to your comment question if the church still smears it's members, I've commented for years, hoping, as you, that they would cease this practice. But they cannot, at present, for a series of reasons that deserve an academic paper, by someone with the time to read the Hubbard "Office of Special Affairs" church policies, and interview former Office of Special Affairs staffers, and current ex members and to simply look at the internet sites that Scientologists put up smearing the ex members who've gone public in just these last 8 years, about the violence and abuses. There are web sites with the church smearing, still up, as we speak. Look at "Religious Freedom Watch", for the most comprehensive starting point. Then keep looking around, the smear sites on the ex leaders are all still up! There are also copies of the Office of Special Affairs "eyes only" programs, one on me, I even give any magazine full carte blanche authorization to reprint, and I was hoping Harper's magazine might quote from the example "Handling Program" on me. The smearing is all based on Hubbard's policy for the Office of Special Affairs, which is again, a paper by some academic or small chapter by some bold reporter, to be written. Or just go read the internet smear sites, and read the Wikileaks "Frank Oliver Investigations Officer Hat Pack" which contains the Hubbard writings, still extant church policy, and connect the dots. Smearing lives, because the Scientology movement top management is so shell shocked and in their unique Stockholm and Abused "cult" member mindset, they cannot shake the tyrant who hopscotched himself to the head of the Lord of the Flies Hubbard mess (against any of the Hubbard final orders, I know, I read the final administrative top management orders, it was part of my reading when I did the "routing forms" project in 1983). There is so much detail, yet that needs be spat out, into the public domain, to connect all the dots in the background, but the books by reporters and writers, to date have gotten the most important points right. I applaud and thank all those media and writers, in the UK, and US and Australia, who've done phenomenal work since the late 1960s, to present. As an ex member, who took, and who vicariously can absolutely still take the Scientology movement member mindset totally from their viewpoint seriously, Scientology's Hubbard's unique setup allows for continued interesting study. I'll help anyone wishing to still find ground in the Scientology that's interesting to delve into more expertly, and Hugh Urban humbly admitted so much more needs to be written about. I do really like Oppenheimer, and hope some other smart cookie academics take some interest over the coming decades in the continued behind the scenes politics and internal staff histories, up and down the "command channnels" (must read for all who consider themselves experts of Scientollogy, is to read, on Wikileaks and elsewhere, the "Command Channels" booklet of Scientology, and get a briefing by some expert ex staff training personnel, like me on it and the significance and backgorund history to that booklet, who wrote it, and who are the thinkers at the top of heap, even as beaten down as those top thinkers that cult compound in Hemet,, CA "the Int Base", Gilman Hot Springs, CA). Chuck Beatty chuckbeatty77@aol.com Wright's book is so far from an In and Out Burger label, that was cheap, and superficial, from an academic who I had hopes in the decades to come, would aspire beyond American religion history to world history, and emeritus religion expertise, oh well, sign of the times, but one would think academics would be thoughtful to think more like Toynbee and less like however is Professor Oppenheimer's role model.
- beatty
January 19, 2013 at 1:04pm