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Revision as of 13:59, 12 July 2003
This section examines the controversial issues involving Scientology. For a further examination of Scientology, see the main Misplaced Pages article on Scientology.
Brainwashing
Critics say that the organization called the Church of Scientology uses brainwashing and intimidation tactics to influence members to donate large amounts of money in standard cult practices and to submit completely to the organization. One alleged example is the Rehabilitation Project Force, to which members are assigned to work off alleged wrongdoings. Another is the Sea Organization (Sea Org), a high-intensity Scientology org partly operated aboard a ship.
Scholars have written works both forwarding and rebutting allegations of brainwashing in the RPF and Sea Org. One critical work is Stephen Kent's Brainwashing in Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF). Responses to allegations include Juha Pentikäinen's The Church of Scientology?s Rehabilitation Project Force and J. Gordon Melton's A Contemporary Ordered Religious Community: The Sea Organization.
Discussions of "brainwashing" or inappropriate domination of members have pervaded many other works critical of Scientology, as well as court cases against the church.
Disconnection
The Church of Scientology practices disconnection, the severing of ties between members and friends or family who criticize the faith. This has torn apart many families. Open letter: A family torn apart by Scientology
L. Ron Hubbard and starting a religion for money
While the often-seen rumor that Hubbard made a bar bet with Robert Heinlein that he could start a cult is almost certainly false, others have claimed direct knowledge that during 1949 Hubbard did make statements to other people that starting a religion would be a good way to make money.
Writer and publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, for example, reported Hubbard saying "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is."
Writer Theodore Sturgeon reported that Hubbard made a similar statement at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.
The Church of Scientology denies these claims, and has in fact sued publishers for making them. Members hold that the truth or falsity of such claims is irrelevant in judging whether the church meets their spiritual needs.
Scientology-related Deaths
The Church of Scientology has been linked to a number of deaths, the most known of which is the death of Lisa McPherson. A woman of 36, Lisa entered the Fort Harrison Hotel, Clearwater, a Scientology stronghold, in 1995, physically healthy. She was dead seventeen days later of a blood clot brought on by severe dehydration and bed rest. Medical examiners said she had gone without fluids for seven to ten days, probably longer, and had been comatose for as long as a day before she died. But Medical Examiner Dr. Joan Wood has amended her autopsy report after years in a highly unusual move. In her original report she listed Lisa's death as "Undetermined" - her amended report of 16 February 2000, as "Accident". Wood also removed one cause of death ("bed rest and severe dehydration") and added a new significant condition ("psychosis and history of auto accident").
The Church did not see fit to take her to the hospital, even as she began to urinate and defecate on herself after the first week of solitary confinement and held conversations with imaginary people. The Clearwater police files on Lisa McPherson
The Church of Scientology, in typical fashion, fought tooth and nail the various legal actions brought against them as regards the death. Their harassment forced Bob Minton to drop civil charges. The various trials are still ongoing (2003)
Scientology dealing with critics and perceived enemies
The Church of Scientology has a history of dealing forcefully with critics (which the organization calls "suppressive persons").
Unlike most other religious organizations, the Church of Scientology maintains strict control over the use of its symbols, icons, texts, and names. It claims copyright and trademark over its "Scientology cross," and its lawyers have threatened and conducted lawsuits against individuals and organizations who have published the image in books and on Web sites or quoted short paragraphs of Scientology texts in an article or Web site.
Because of this, it is very difficult for individual groups to attempt to publicly practice Scientology on their own, without any affiliation or connection to the "official" Church of Scientology. Scientology has sued a number of individuals who attempted to set up their own auditing practices, using copyright and trademark law to shut these groups down.
The Church of Scientology has made a name for itself as being one of the most litigious entities in existence. It has made extensive use of copyright and trademark issues, the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the legal system to silence its critics. It has spent huge sums on lawsuits (and threats of lawsuits) filed against individuals, newspapers, magazines, television studios, internet service providers, internet search engines, internet archives, government agencies and others.
In the last decade, it has particularly concentrated on dealing with various critics using the Internet as a forum. Publicly available court records, for example, document a "fair game" policy established in 1967 (though subsequently officially revoked), which stated that critics "May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains an archive of documents related to the church's efforts to interfere with online critics.
The organization replies that this is the only way the church has been able to survive in a sometimes-hostile environment. In an earlier era, for example, Mormons took up arms and organized militia to defend themselves from those hostile to their faith. Scientology, it would seem, has taken up the civil lawsuit in place of weaponry.
The church of Scientology has been known to conduct covert black bag operations against opponents.
Certainly, it would seem the church did not help its own cause in this regard when, in the mid-1970s, an agent of the church was caught covertly pilfering documents on Scientology from IRS intelligence files.
Following this episode, offices of the church in Los Angeles, California and Washington, D.C. were searched by FBI agents and documents confiscated. Eleven church staff, including Mary Sue Hubbard (Ron Hubbard's wife and second in command in the organization) and other highly placed officials, pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court based on evidence seized in the raids, and received sentences from two to six years (some suspended).
There is disagreement over how much official church approval the illegal activities had: The Church of Scientology claims that a "rogue" branch of the church was closed on the heels of the event, gutted of its staff, and dozens of personnel expelled or subjected to lesser sanctions and that it has since been reorganized so that no branch enjoys similar autonomy to the former "rogues". Others believe that the reorganization was simply an internal coup by one church faction to eliminate the power of a rival faction. Former members allege that illegal operations were conducted after the arrests and are ongoing, a charge that is vigorously denied by the church.
Scientology long considered the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) as one of its most important "enemies," and many Scientology publications during the 1980s and 1990s cast CAN (and its spokesperson at the time, Cynthia Kisser) in an unfriendly light, accusing the cult-watchdog organization of various criminal activities. After CAN was forced into bankruptcy and taken over by Scientologists in the late 1990s, Scientology proudly proclaimed this as one of its greatest victories. (Source: Scientology press release issued upon winning the CAN court battle and another view from the American Lawyer. June 1997.