America has been the spawning grounds to many religious movements, some of which profess beliefs that the average person would consider laughable if they were presented with the facts. People are certainly entitled to choose their own beliefs, but most people would be a bit skeptical of a person trying to convince them to join the "Church of Elvis." Most of these churches are generally benign, but there is one glaring exception. This is the so-called Church of Scientology (COS).

The COS, while putting up the facade of being an innocent religious organization, is in fact a complicated, totalitarian money-making machine which "makes Jim and Tammy [Bakker] look like kindergarten," according to Vicki Aznaran, who was one of scientology's six key leaders until she fled the organization in 1987 (qtd. in Behar).

Most people do not know very much about Scientology. Because of the somewhat discreet methods the church uses to recruit new members, even the basic tenets of belief have evaded the public eye for the most part. The religion is based primarily upon the book "Dianetics," written by founder Lafayette Ronald Hubbard in 1950. Prior to authoring this book, Hubbard was a mildly successful pulp science fiction writer. Many of the ideas he developed in his science fiction stories later became major tenets of belief within the COS. One such idea, and the concept which most of the practices involved in Scientology are based on, is a fictionalized cosmology which sounds more like a B-rated movie than an origin for life on Earth. It describes how all human minds are actually clusters of "Thetans,"

immortal beings who were imprisoned 75 million years ago by an evil prince known as "Xenu." The thetans were supposedly implanted with hypnotic impulses called "engrams," which have inspired the growth of all human society to date. Dianetics described a technique he dubbed "auditing" by which a person could clear themselves of these engrams, which were supposed to be harmful (Atack).

The process by which a person becomes indoctrinated into the COS is both complicated and manipulative. The church employs several techniques, the majority of which are less than straightforward. They distribute pamphlets containing a personality test, which people are supposed to fill out and mail back to the COS. The test-taker then receives a response, telling them that they are in desperate need of the services of the COS. The test is designed so that no matter what responses are given, the results can be slanted to this end. An internal COS document describes the role of the test evaluator as "to point out to the person by means of a personality test evaluation what is ruining his life, and to show him how Scientology can save him from that ruin ... when you point out a low score ... say `Scientology can handle that'." (Atack).

The church has also used several hard-sell seminar scams, in which they sent out mass- mailings to members of professional groups such as dentists inviting them to seminars which promised to reveal secrets to success in their particular field. These seminars, which typically cost $10,000, eventually lead into attempts to draw those attending into the church. By these and other methods, approximately 50,000 people have become members of the COS (Behar).

Once a person has joined the church, they are convinced to undergo several intense training sessions, each requiring a "minimum donation," which increases as the process goes on. At first, people can expect to pay under a hundred dollars for each of various services, but before long they are being asked to pay in excess of a thousand dollars an hour for auditing sessions, supposedly to clear them of the engrams they have been convinced afflict them. As people progress through the ranks of the church, they are subjected to increasingly arduous audits, involving menial, repetitive tasks which can induce a hypnotic state. One such task, known as "Bullbaiting," requires the person to sit still in a chair while the auditor does everything they can think of to get a reaction out of them, provoking them in every way imaginable (Atack). My own mother, during her college years, convinced by her Scientologist sister to try it, was subjected to this ordeal. Fortunately, she recognized the worthlessness of the entire affair and had nothing more to do with the COS. I shudder to think what my life might be like had she been drawn into the church (Meyers).

Once a person has become "clear," They are given the dubious opportunity to advance through the ranks of the "Operating Thetans," or OT's. At each level, (there are eight levels) the person must pay a larger fee and is subjected to more intense trainings. It is worth mentioning that it is only at this time that the basis for the religion actually revealed. At the lower levels, Scientology is presented as a sort of self-help program. Inductees are promised a variety of wonderful things, ranging from the ability to easily quit smoking to solving complex personal problems or even diseases. Once an individual begins climbing the ranks of the OT's, they learn about the story of the Thetans. At this point, they are supposedly endowed with various supernatural powers, including the abilities to cure any disease at will, control the thoughts of others, and exist without a body. Needless to say, there is absolutely no verifiable scientific evidence whatsoever to support any of these claims. It is likely that this is the very reason why the leaders of the COS have gone to such great lengths to keep their tenets of belief shielded from the critical public eye (Atack).

By the time a person has advanced this far in the ranks of the church, they are likely to have "donated" figures in the ballpark of $300,000 (Atack). In my research for this paper, I encountered several sad tales of people who had devoted their entire lives to Scientology, only to be driven to complete ruin, and even suicide. A particularly sad example is Albert Jaquier. Jaquier devoted the last fourteen years of his life to Scientology. Prior to his association with the COS, he had turned himself from a junkyard laborer into a millionaire by working sixteen and eighteen hour days, seven days a week.

During his association with the COS, he donated almost his entire multi-million dollar fortune to the church, attaining the level of an OT7, which was supposed to make him "Cause over life." This did not help him when he suffered a stroke at the end of 1992. He was unable to work, and running out of money.

He would have had plenty of money to support himself and pay his medical bills, but he had loaned over a million dollars to various other Scientologists, without collateral, on the recommendation of the church. He spent the last year of his life, depressed and in pain, trying in vain to get his debtors to repay him. He died on December 11, 1994 (Jackson).

Once they have been indoctrinated, it becomes very difficult for people to leave the church. In order to progress through the ranks of the organization, one must divulge startling amounts of deeply personal information. All of this information is carefully kept on file as a threat of blackmail to anyone who would consider leaving the church. Many people, having seen through the facade of Scientology, have been cowed into staying with the church out of fear that their deepest secrets will be exposed to everybody they know (Atack).

The actual members of the church are not the only ones affected by it. Family members, friends, and associates of Scientologists often suffer damaging intrusions on their lives and violations of their rights. Scientology has a doctrine known as "disconnection," by which members of the church are taught to disassociate themselves from people who are suspected to be "Suppressive Persons," or people who may act against Scientology. This practice has broken apart entire families and groups of friends (Atack).

Outside of members themselves, those most affected by the church are those who publicly criticize it. The COS has become infamous in the legal system for frivolous litigation. It is openly stated in the documents which make up their core of belief that anyone who acts against the church is "fair game."

According to the "Fair Game Law" of these texts, these people "May be deprived of property or injured by any means ... may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." In fairness, I must acknowledge that the COS has ceased using the term "fair game,"

mostly for public relations reasons. Nonetheless, their practice remains the same as ever. This attitude clearly demonstrates the church's attitude that it is somehow "above the law" (Atack).

The most recent incident to catch the public eye, and perhaps the largest incident so far, has been the invasion of the internet by the COS. In order to provide a public forum for discussion of issues surrounding Scientology, net user Scott Goehring created the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology on July 17, 1991. From the beginning, there was conflict within the group, as it attracted both critics and believers. The two factions struck an uneasy truce, until an internal letter from the COS was leaked, in which a church staffer named Elaine Siegel, working for the internal affairs branch of the church known as the Office of Special Affairs International, instructed Scientologists on the net to flood the newsgroup with positive messages about scientology, effectively destroying any legitimate debate that might otherwise go on in that group. The natives became restless (Grossman).

The heated debate was stepped up a notch when the letter came to the attention of one Dennis Erlich, who had been a member of the church for fifteen years before he left it in 1982 after he failed in an attempt to reform it from within. He was vehemently in opposition to the church and its actions. When he appeared in alt.religion.scientology, the debate became a war (Grossman).

The action came to a head in late December of 1994, when messages began mysteriously disappearing from the newsgroup.

Investigation by users of the newsgroup revealed that the messages had been illegally intercepted and that cancellation messages had been forged by a third party. William Barwell, a regular poster who had two of his own posts canceled, reported the illegal activities to the FBI. In the end, several Scientologists had their accounts canceled by their internet providers. The church made no comment (Grossman).

On January 3, 1995, Helena Kobrin, the church's lawyer, sent letters to several providers of services which provide anonymity for people who post to newsgroups, requesting that some of the critics from alt.religion.scientology have their access blocked from that newsgroup. On January 11, she also requested that the system administrators in charge of the newsgroup delete it, claiming that it had not been introduced through the usual channels, that the use of the name "Scientology" violated a trademark, and that the newsgroup was routinely used to violate copyright and trade-secret laws. The system administrators refused her request (Grossman).

The citizens of the newsgroup kept up their barrage of criticism, posting affidavits by ex-church members alleging corruption. The Scientologists in the group responded by claiming that those who had made the affidavits were known criminals. One such claim was that Dennis Erlich has abused his daughter. The message was signed by his wife, Rosa. Erlich, determined, denied the allegations and continued posting church documents and his critiques of them (Grossman).

Kobrin asked Tom Klemesrud, the sysop (system operator) of Erlich's internet provider, to cancel his account. Klemesrud refused because the church could not supply proof of Erlich's acts of copyright infringement. In mid-January, Klemesrud reported to the newsgroup that his apartment had been smeared with blood by a woman he had met in a bar. He believed that the incident was intended as a warning to persuade him to delete Erlich's account. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous message was posted to the group, claiming to be from the woman involved, claiming that it was she who had been the target of the alleged attack. Johan Helsingius, the administrator of the anonymous service this mysterious poster had used, was contacted by the a church representative, asking him to divulge the identity of the poster. When he refused, the police were called in. The church claimed that the poster was suspected of robbery, and that she was under investigation by the church. Helsingius was forced to divulge the identity. It is unclear why the church was so intent on acquiring the identity of a person who seemed to be speaking in the church's defense (Grossman).

Erlich's troubles with the COS were far from over. On the same day that the police forced Helsingus to divulge the identity of the mysterious poster, the church filed a complaint in San Jose, California against Erlich and his internet providers, Tom Klemesrud and Netcom. They claimed that Erlich had been posting copyrighted church materials, including unpublished documents the church calls "Advanced Technology," which contained trade secrets. Erlich insisted that his postings were protected by laws allowing fair use of documents for the sake of criticism, and that his constitutional rights would be violated by his being prevented from posting them. In spite of this free-speech argument, US District Court Judge Ronald Whyte issued a temporary restraining order against Erlich, Klemesrud, and Netcom, preventing them from posting the materials in question.

Three days later, on February 13, Erlich's home was raided by the police, who seized floppy disks, books, and papers, as well as inspecting and deleting many files from his computers.

Erlich later said that the raid, in addition to causing damage and loss to his computer systems, had violated his constitutional rights. According to the most recent information I was able to locate, the results of these events and resulting litigations from the COS are still pending (Grossman).

Critics of the church who post messages about it on the internet are not the only victims of the church's repressive and intrusive tactics. Richard Behar, the author of a special investigation of Scientology in Time magazine, was also the subject of harassment by the church in the five months while he was working on the article. He states in his article that "...at least 10 attorneys and six private detectives were unleashed by Scientology and its followers in an effort to threaten, harass and discredit me." He learned that a copy of his personal credit report had been illegally obtained by a private detective working for the church. In addition, the COS contacted various acquaintances of his, trying to dig up information to discredit him. He was subpoenaed, and it was suggested that he might own shares in a company that had been taken over by the Scientologists. This was quite untrue. He was even contacted by two private detectives claiming to be relations of a fictional cult member, attempting to elicit negative statements about scientology in order to establish that he was biased against the church.

Fortunately, these efforts were unable to prevent the article from seeing print. Naturally, the article came under a great degree of attack from a legion of Scientologists (Behar).

In addition to the suppressive tactics it employs in controlling its members and critics, the COS has extended its tendrils into various other shady activities. Several of its members have been involved in highly unethical manipulation of the stock exchange in Vancouver, B.C. The IRS and the FBI have been gathering evidence to build a major racketeering case against the church for some time. Literally dozens of the church's higher-ups have served time in prison. David Miscavige, the acting head of the church, lives in secrecy.

Foreign governments have been even more aggressive in their investigations of the church. Canada has put the church and nine members on trial for theft of government documents, many of which were found in a raid on a Toronto center (Behar).

According to Behar's article:

"Since 1986 authorities in France, Spain and Italy have raided more than 50 Scientology centers. Pending charges against more than 100 of its overseas church members include fraud, extortion, capital flight, coercion, illegally practicing medicine and taking advantage of mentally incapacitated people. In Germany last month, leading politicians accused the cult of trying to infiltrate a major party as well as launching an immense recruitment drive in the east."

The facts speak for themselves. Scientology is a corrupt and evil organization. To call it a cult would be too charitable; I can only call it organized crime. After reading several accounts of people who have literally had their minds ripped to shreds by the psychological torture inflicted upon them by the COS, I find it hard not to be skeptical of anyone professing the redeeming qualities of the church. Certainly, most of the claims I have reported here have been officially disputed and denied by the church. This is to be expected, given what is known about them. The COS is notorious for falsehood. Hubbard himself was a "pathological liar," according to a California judge who had Hubbard in his courtroom in a 1984 case in which the church sued a biographical researcher (Behar).

Hubbard's written works included many outright lies about his background, presenting a completely false image of the man. In effect, he invented his own past. First, he claimed that he could ride a horse before he could walk, and that by the time he was three-and-a-half, he was riding broncos. He also claimed to have been a bloodbrother of the Blackfoot Indians by the age of four. In reality, the Blackfoots dismiss the concept of "bloodbrothers" as an invention of Hollywood, and Hubbard was actually afraid of horses, according to one childhood friend.

Hubbard claimed to have spent five of his teenage years traveling alone in Tibet, China, India and Mongolia. He claimed to have been one of the world's first nuclear physicists. He claimed to have been a war hero. Neither of these claims are true. Similarly, many of the claims of the church are also false (Atack).

It is difficult to locate specific refutations of many allegations made against the church, because in most cases the church simply ignores the allegations whatsoever, at least on the public front. For this reason, I am unable to provide refutations of my own for any such objections. However, I do not view this as a significant problem. If I were in the COS's position, given the facts presented here, the only recourse I would be able to think of would be to cover things up as much as possible, which is of course what they have chosen to do. On their website, the church has a section devoted to "answering the most commonly asked questions about Scientology." This document avoids discussing many of the larger problems that critics of the church have brought up, such as their repressive tactics on the internet. Many of the answers they do provide are outright lies. In response to the question, "Hasn't there been a long battle between the Church of Scientology and the IRS?" the author (Heber Jentzsch) claims that the trials have come to a conclusion in favor of the church, and that the COS has been recognized as a religious organization with a tax-free status. This is not true, unless all of my other sources, including Richard Behar's article in Time magazine, are somehow mistaken. The document also conveniently neglects to mention the numerous cases that have been brought against the church and its members by the governments of various countries, for reasons including fraud, theft of government documents, and similar crimes (Behar).

The Church of Scientology has no credibility when it comes to the truth about itself. We cannot tolerate Scientology as a part of our culture. It takes advantage of the weak and victimizes the helpless. It exploits innocence and extorts money from its followers. It considers itself to be above the law. It would be unfair to and stone-hearted to let people continue to be taken advantage of by the COS.

What can be done? Well, several steps may be taken. The first, of course, is to avoid being taken in ourselves. Those of us who are aware of the true nature of Scientology have a responsibility to protect ourselves and those close to us from its influence. Several protests have been organized, and more of these will aid in further raising public awareness. In addition, it is invaluable for people concerned with this to make any personal experiences they have with the COS available to the public. Posting these experiences on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology would be a good idea, because there are people who read that newsgroup who are very active in the struggle against the COS. For people who do not have access to the internet, or who wish to do more, there are other options as well. People who know of actual illegal or dangerous activities of the church should, of course, report them to the appropriate law enforcement agencies whenever possible. It is often a good idea to take steps to ensure one's anonymity, to protect oneself from retribution by the church's agents. As I have described in my examples, the COS is a formidable foe, and it is unwise to expose oneself to attack by it without giving the subject serious deliberation. More information on what can be done is available from various sources, including local libraries and the internet. Remember that knowledge is power, and the more a person know about dangerous forces such as the COS, the more they can do about it (Poulter).

To the individual reader of this essay, I have this to say:

protect yourself and those you know. If someone you know is being or has been taken in by the COS, reach out to them and help them understand the mistake they are making. And last of all, if you see one of those ridiculous personality tests lying on the sidewalk, put it in the trash bin where it belongs!

Works Cited:

Atack, John. The Total Freedom Trap.

http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/j/tftrap.html> 7 June 1997.

Behar, Richard. "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power." Time 6 May 1991.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/dst/Fishman/time-behar.html> 7 June 1997.

Grossman, Wendy M. "alt.scientology.war." Wired 3.12.

http://wwww.wired.com/wired/3.12/features/alt.scientology.war.html> 7 June 1997.

Jackson, Ariane. "Diary of a Dying Scientologist OT7." 1994.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeta/SCN/sm30_jaq.html> 7 June 1997.

Jentzsch, Heber. "Scientology: The President of the Church of Scientology International Answers Your Questions."

http://www.scientology.org/p_jpg/question/index.html> 7 June 1997.

Meyers, Linda Curtis. Telephone interview. 7 June 1997.

Poulter, Martin. "Scientology Critics' Information." 1 June 1997.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum.html> 7 June 1997.

Tabayoyon, Andre. Affidavit in Church of Scientology International vs.

Steven Fish and Uwe Geertz. 4 Apr. 1994.

http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/tabayoyon2> 7 June 1997.

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