17

THE SECT: SCIENTOLOGY

Scientology personnel. Many recruits first attend a free public
lecture or nominally priced Personal Efficiency Foundation Course.
These courses are devised to interest the public in Scientology and
draw them into further commitment.

A P13 Foundation is a programmed drill calculated to introduce
people to Scientology and to bring their cases up to a high level
of reality both on Scientology and on life....PE Foundation in its
attitude goes for broke on the newcomers, builds up their interest
with lectures and knocks their cases apart with comm course and
upper indoc,...Never let anyone simply walk out. Convince him he's
loony if he doesn't gain on it becawe that's the truth...

Under the broad heading of attachment the factors which led to the
emergence of some initial firm commitment on the part of those
recruited to the movement will be examined. From the material
available, three bases of affiliation can be discerned: cognitive,
experienhal and affechve. By vog1litive grounds are meant bases for
further commitment of a primarily intellectual kind. For example, a
doctor cited earlier attended an introductory Scientology lecture
and found it stimulating, the lectuTer was talking ahout practical
life and relationships in simplified terms about three concepts
involved. I was tired of reading academic books containing r7
theories of learning which had no bearing on the way one actually
lives. I was also tired of hospital psychiatry. r'd done psychiatnc
clinics myself in which one saw people for 30 minutes and
pre)cribed a pill and never rcally had much contact with them. Thu
at least seemed to be direct and immediate.' Others indicated that
they found the talks 'logical', that they were impressed by the
explanations Oiven for human behaviour, or that they found it made
particular sense.

Many became committed to Scientology on expot intial gTounds. Some
particular experience convrtced them that Scientology was the key
to something important. One questionnaire respondent indicated that
he lost his doubts when his wife was cured of migraine by a 'touch
assist'. An mterview respondent indicated that he became convinced
during his first auditing session when they did an assessment and
the charged item was 'a child'. So then they ran me on a process -
what have you done to a child, what have you withheld from a child.
And the moment they assed those questions, something happened.
Suddenly I was looking at the body of a little boy and I was
recalling and suddenly I knew it was what I had done to this hody
when it was a child whieh had established the patterns for whatever
bappered later...3 Less dramatically, a number of individuals found
that as a result of Scientology drills and techniques they were
better able to communicate with others, or experienced other iL
provements, psychological or interpersonal.

I L. Ron Hubbard, 'The organisation of a PE Foundation', ICO
Bulletin, 29 September sg59, cited in Kevin Vietor Andenon, eport
of ths soard of nqur mto Sc)ntoloy (Government Printer,
Melbourne, Awtralia, s965), pwo3.

3 Interview. 3 Inteniew. I found that [co-auditing with other
beginning students] helped mo tremendouSIY. and it seemed to help
the people I was auditing too.l When I began having Scientology
auditing I was impressed by the fact that it did work just as the
books had said it would.S

The other major theme emerging from the interviews was that in
which the motivatiOn for amliation developed on primarily lfltctivr
grounds. The indi vidual became emotionally committed to Hubbard,
to other Scientologists in narticular or to the warm expressive
atmosphere displayed in many Scientology .ganizationS One interview
respondent cited earlier became emotionally .nvolved with a
committed Scientologist who discussed past lives with her and told
her she was one of a group of thetans

who through all the centuries had been influencing people for
good...I was... one of this fantastic group...At first I thought he
was insane, and then I was slightly flattered of course.t

Others were attracted by Hubbard's 'magnetic personality'. Many
were impressed by the immediate acceptance that they found among
Scientologists. They were warmly welcomed into the group, greeted,
and applauded. Every success was broadcast and congratulated. They
were 'validated' in what they did .

Mine was the time of 'Quickie Release Grades' a fairly short
period - and people went around saying 'This is fantastic. This is
a record'. Flinging their arms around me. 'Never been done before.
What a fantastic thetan you must be'. Of course this puffed me up
tremendowly. With everybody eongratulatmg me so much of course I
had to write the most fantastic Success Story. I mean I owed it to
these people who eongratulated me.

Many found themselves with a group of friends for the first time in
years.

People eome in and immediately they're enclosed in this atmosphere,
which, when it first hits you seems a tremendously good and healthy
atmosphere becawe everybody seems to be friends with everybody
else. An awful lot of lonely people go into it I think becawe they
find this tremendous welcome...for the loner coming in...People
need company. They want to be accepted and one thing the
Scitntologists did was accept people. They would tolerate an awful
lot, beeause they had this thing, you must never invalidate any-
body. For someone who's been pushed down, suddenly to find people
coming up and saying, 'Well, look you're a beautiful person in your
own right. There are qualities in you which are likeable and
lovable...; it's bound to do them good, to give them a lift, and
then they eome back and buy the courses.-

Sveivliztttion Individuals enter Scientology with a multiplicity of
goals of a personal kind which they wish to pursue. Socia]ization
within the movement is oriented to the Interview. 5 Questionnaire
respondent. ' Interview. ' Interview. 5 Interview. 17.

 THE SECT: SCIENTOLOOY

progressive transmutation of such personal goals into Scientology
goals, that is to ends permitted or preferred by the movement's
leaders. Individuals also enter Scientology on a largely unselected
basis. There is of course a differential appeal to certain
categories of potential recruit, and no doubt considerable
self-selection, but the movement does not require the display of
any particular mark of merit nor the negotiation of any test of
merit before an individual may join. [oreover, unlike other
movements which proselytize widely, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, no
extensive probationary penod is required before full acceptance
into the movement. Thus recruits are a potential source of
disruphon and must be socialized as quicklv as possible into the
movement's norms and values to neutraiize this disruptive
potential.

A major step is taken in the socialization of recruits once the
individual comes to see the current level of training or auditing
on which he is worhng as but the beginning of a journey through the
increasing number of such levels that are available up to O.T.8 and
Class XIII auditor (or whatever happens to be the number at any
particular time). The recruit often appears to experience a
considerable increase in self-confidence after the lower levels of
training. After several hours of 'confronting' and 'bull-baiting'
the individual may feel freer and more confident in interpersonal
relations. After auditing in which he may have come to speak of or
even think of things which he has reprcssed and hidden for many
years and v hich he has probably never confided to anyone, he may
experier.ce a profound sense of relief He has been released from
some sccret experience a profound sense of relief. He has been
released from some secret guilt or fear of many years standing,
which will, he is assured, never trouble him again. The lectures
which he attends provide him with a simple model of human behaviour
which in the tight of his confusions, uncertainties, and lack of
comprehension of iife's complexities, may appear as a sudden
revelation In a few simple but scientific-sounding terms he is
offered an account of his own actions and those of others which is
presented with absolute conviction. These insights and 'wins'
provide the motivation to continue to the next course of training
and auditing. If so much can be achieved at the lower levels, it is
reasoned, what can not be achieved at those beyond?

CurTent doubts and dmssatisfactions can be held in abeyance. Since
one is only a beginner one cannot expect everything to be revealed
at once. What one does not understand may be explained later. What
one does not accept may merely be the consequence of some aspect of
one's reactive mind, which will be resolved through future
auditing.

The enthusiasm of others on the course, or of Scientology friends,
is infectious. Group expectations lead the recruit to search for
some gain, to achieve a success, to believe that it has worked.

Ever -body believed so firmiy Lhat it could work for me, so l
couldn't not believe it

because I so much wanted to believe that it wruld work. verybody
wants to

believe that its working...or the whole thing is meaningless. So
there is this

tremendous what they call ·group agreement' that it does work.
Instantly I was caught up in this. I wasn't examining the thing,
and it did work, or I felt that it worked. Now, I think to myself:
I say it did work, but wh2t worked? I can't think of anything that
worked, but at the same time, yes, I thought, well thrist, I feel
marvellous, this works.l

Having experienced that some aspect of the belief system 'works',
having come to recognize his 'gains' as a consequence of
Scientology, perhaps even having committed himself to this in
writing in a 'Success Story', and having been applauded and
congratulated and handed a certificate, the member would often
willingly sign up for, and even pay a deposit or sign a cheque for,
a further course of audihng and training.

Anderson suggests that more intensive 'hard-sell' tacbcs have
sometimes been employed in some Orgs to ensure maximum financial
commitment by pre-clears. After convincing and signing up a recruit
for an amount of auditing, generally twenty-five hours, the
Registrar vould take the applicant and hls form to the Director of
Processing. The latter would talk to the applicant and endorse the
form to the effect that he could not accept the applicant, since it
was his considered opinion that only after some 250 to 300 hours of
auditing could the indivldual achieve a 'stable result' He would
then return the matter to the Registrar. The applicant, aghast at
his plight, would then often readily sign up for the greater number
of hours of audihng recommended.2 (The Church of Scientology assert
that the Anderson Report contained many inaccuracies, and point out
that the legislation which followed it has since [and in my view
rightly] been repealed in some states of Australia, or effectively
nullified by registration of the national Scientology church as a
recognized denomination for purposes of the Federal Marriage Act.)s

A parttcularly important means of both enhancing commitment and
socializing the individual is that of convincing him to take an
active part in Scientology by training as an auditor. When he has
achieved some success with Scientology, the member may become
convinced that this is something which he should not only benefit
from, but the benefits of which he should carry to others.
Scientology literature is studded with statements to the effect
that nuclear war, communist revolution, and sundry other ills can
be prevented only by the spread of Scientology. Thus appeal is made
to the altruism of the pre-clear. However, he shortly learns that
such altruism has concrete rewards. Taking the path to 'clear' by
the Training or Professional Route rather than by the Pre-clear
Route, that is taking courses to train as an auditor, while taking
auditing to become a 'clear', will save him nearly one-third in
total cost. In 197Z, the Training Route to clear cost in total
ul33 while the Pre-clear Route cost in the region of ul980.4
Helping Ron to 'clear the planet' by becoming

' Interview. Anderson, op. cit., pp. m4-5. Pensonal communication
Guardian's Office, November 1974.

Auditor, 77 (1972), p. 4 The prices are higher today. trained as a
professional auditor also promises a further return since the indi
vidual will then be qua ified to practise for a fee.

Those w ho are recruited to the movement without sufficient funds
to pay for training and auditing are encouraged to join the Org
staffwhere in return for long hours and low pay the member will
receive auditung free, or at a reduced rate. The individual thereby
commits himself as an employee as well as a follower.

By these means the recruit comes to identify his own goals with
those of the movement.l Only within Scientology is he fully
recogruzed and accepted as he is. Only Scientology has any real
answer to his particu]ar problem. As ht becomes increasingly
committed to the movement, he is increasingly alienated from
features of the world beyond. The literature which he reads heaps
invective on the medical profession, psychiatrists, politicians,
and newspapers He comes to learn that all of these, as well as a
number of Scientology defectors, are involved in a conspiracy to
silence Scientology through propaganda and legal attack, out of
fear of its innovatory message. He comes to learn that inside
Scientology individuals are sane and releasing all their abilities,
while outside fi a world full of people subject to their 'Banks'2
and liable to engage in irresponsible and destructive behaviour
at any time.

In the light of what he learns to see as the hostility of the
outside world and the attempts by communists and squirrels'S to
obtain Hubbard's 'data', he comes to recognize the need for strict
internal control. The more closely he comes to see his own goals as
linked to the avowed aims of the movement, the greater is the
legitimacy with which he endows the movement's norms as embodied in
the Ethics codes. The rigorous discipline of the movement, and the
regimentation to which recruits are subjected in the central
organizations, is accepted as necessary to achieving the goals the
individual has set, or those which he is beginning to acquire:

there was much that pleased me about the life at Samt Hill. I was
being taught tr crack down. It was one more burden lifted not to
have to be rebellious anymore rather, to be obedient. They were
gdving me the discipline I had lacked all my life, discipljne whieh
was going to be - in the long run - as beneficial as clearing...Ar.
almost impercephble change was occurring in me: I no longer
supposed that I was using Scientology for my own purposes. I liked
the feeling; it was a clean one. My old ways had been grandiose -
impure. Perhaps I was being afiected by the lines, the strict
regimen...If so, I appreeiated the value of what I was getting, and
was
gladtoseemyselfbecominglessawilfulintruderandmoreoneofthegroupattheH
ill.'

I This proeess is eentral to Kanter's concept of eommitment:
'Commitment thus refers to the willingness of people to do what
will help maintain the group because it provides what they need.'
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Gmmlement and Community (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge Massaehussetts, 197Z), p. 66.

S Reactive memory banks. ' Non-approved practihonens. ' Kaufman,
op. cit., pmor.

TL sclLNToLoGIaAL cARrrR

 177

The gToup itself brings pressure to bear to secure conformity, in
part because being associated with someone whose Ethics are suspect
may lead to suspicion about their own.

It is a truly illuminating experience to be aisigned a Condition of
Liability... Colleagues whom you regarded as friends, seem suddenly
distant. They won't talk to you. They don't offer you cigarettes or
suggest you take a swig out of their Coke bottle. In some really
Eager Beaver cases, they even refuse your cigarettes when you offer
them !l

The recruit begins applying the Ethics codes to himself rather than
waihng to have them applied to him by the Ethics Officer.
Henceforth should he suffer any nagging scepticism he will realize
that it is not a rahonal response but simply the consequence of his
being in a 'Condition of Doubt'. Having assigned himself to this
condition, he can then proceed to apply the Ethics formula and
begin to work his way out. The individual begins to conceive of the
system of social control as central to the survival of the
movement, hence Ethics sanctions are not merely something to submit
to and suffer, they are to be wclcomed as a source of
EnlightenLr.ent.

I have just completed three days of fabulous wins with Ethics. I
really know what Ethics is all about now. Previously I'd had it
confused with punisbment, which its not at all. Clarice has helped
me to make my environment safer so that now I can be audited
succejsfully. I really know what it means to be 'jalvaged with
Ethics' and it's great !

Gloria Nickel, Clear No 700.'

Gloria Nickel, Clear No. 702.J So this is Ethics ! Its beautiful.
It's safe and helpful. I can really see for once how it makes
things right so tech can go in.

Janet Wiggins, Clear No. 1986.4 As the member begins to organize
his daily life in terms of the Ethics Condition and formulae, he
comes to embrace and mternalize the norms of the movement. After
receiving Integrity Processing and applying ethicj to her situatdon
as a writer, Ros Baws sat down and completed the script for her
comedy screen play...'I had been sitting there with thousands of
blocks, kmowing something was wrong', says Eos. 'After some
auditing and looking at the formulas for the Conditions...I just
did it. I had statistics on how many pages I had to do each day to
be in a Normal Condition. It was amazing. When I set my mind to it
I completed the entire script' .5 ProgTessively, the recruit comes
to acquire a vocabulary peculiar to the movement through which he
can articulate his thoughts and experiences, and in terms of which
he can locate and define the behaviour of others. He is feeling
'banky' that day (under the reshmulated influence of his reactive
mind); an acquaintance is '1 l on the Tone Scale', or 'covertly
hostile'; while another Cyril Vosper, rhe Mnd Bendtrs (Neville
Spearman, London, 1971), pp. 138 9.

aufman, op. cit., p. 155.

' Cltar Ner s, number and date unknown, p 5.

Clear Ntus, number unknown ( 1969, p. 5. · 'Integrity Processing: a
writers win-, Celthity Maeazint, Major Issue 6 (1972). t78

THr srcT: sclrNToLoGY

shows a high degree of ARC (Amnity, realitv and Communication).
Locahng his own situation and that of others in terms of this
vocabulary carTics with it as an almost automatic concomitant the
identification of the movement as the means of improving or
managing this situacion. Only Scientology beliefs and practices
prescribe means of coping vith problems identified in Scientology
language, or achieving a situation or state of mind that only
Scientology reveals, and to which it alone offers access. The added
lectures had their effect, however. I'd never paid much attention
to the specific meaning of the individual grades, except for IV.
fter hearing about them repeatedly, I began to eel that I really
was a Communicationr Release, a Problems Release, and the rest. It
got so that I reveled rsic] in Gerald's speech. He was recounting
my gains; it was mt he was describing, a Grade IV Release....It was
plain now that my rceital had been the result of processing after
all. I did owe it to Scientology. I was glad I had taken the course
and gone to the added lectures. It wasn't until Gerald had given me
a complete list of my gains that they became a reality to me I

As the pre-clear accepts the first steps of the theory and
technique he learns to see himseif suffermg from the restimulation
of traumatic events. The model of mental and spiritual functioning
on the basis of which he has achieved 'gains' in interpersonal
relations or in relief from some hidden guilt, also prescribes the
state of 'clear' as the only condition under which he would be
fully free from such problems in future. From the relief of some
parbcular pressing concern, the individual's goals are redirected
toward achieving the state of clear.

The recruit, in the light of his newfound commdence, psychological
relief, or enhanced ability, redemmes his past biogTaphy as
somethmng to which he does not wish to return:

I saw my old life as one big reaceive mind. My moods had been
a8feeted by everything around me: weather, plaees, people. A
person with a reactive mind was like a piece of lint blown about on
a windowsill.'

Hence his current improvementS can only be seen in the context of a
scientologically-defined biogTaphy. His current condition is only
the beginning, and can only be stabilized by continuing with
training and auditing, at least to the state of clear. Cleanng, he
learns, is the only permanent means of maintaining his currently
improved condition, and advancing beyond it. He acquires a 'vision'
of clearing which motivates heightened commitment, and submission
to the ngorous discipline cf the movement:

This vision represented fulfillment of all hope and escape from all
aversions. Tl gains that I felt I owed o Scientology were based
entirely upon a projection into tl future. The aversions were
mostly unknown to me until Seientology made me awa of them.a
Kaufman, op. cit., p. 44Kaufman, op. cit., p. 68. 3 Ibid., p. 67.

By the time that he reaches this state he will have spent anything
between six months and two years in the movement undergoing
training andor auditing, and have invested between ul3 and
u2000. Having achieved clear, he learns that to be sure of
maintaining his gains, and to achieve the spiritual abilities only
a short distance beyond, he must take the OT levels. In the case of
a number of those interviewed, on achieving the state of clear,
they felt, after the initial exultation had subsided, that very
little of any concrete kind had been gained. In the hope that the
OT levels ·vould provide more concrete demonstration of the
efficacy of the theory and practice on which they had spent so much
time and money, and in the pursuit of which they may have suffered
indignity and embarrassment as a result of Ethics treatment, they
invested sums in the region of umOO to ul37s to secure the further
knowledge and e:cperience they had come to see as so vital to their
personal development.

The novice is rendered more malleable to this process of
socialization by the injunction that he approach the material
without a 'ftxed opinion', that what he is being told is 'stable
data' tested on many thousands of cases, and that he should only
accept what is 'true for you' . The assumption, however, is that
shortly it will all become true for him, since the entire system is
an interlocking whole. The student is enjoined not to puzzle over
possible sources of disagreement. 'Figure, f gure', and 'Q

A' (Question and Answer) are not approved.

Iaintaining reservations indicates that one is 'hung up on a
maybe'.

A person who's being imparhal, conservahve, eic. is hung up on a
maybe so hard

that it would take tugs to get him off. Maintaining reservations
indicates that one is 'hung up on a maybe'.

A person who's being imparhal, conservative, etc. is hung up on a
maybe so ha that it would take tugs to get him off. ...figure,
figure, figure is...very far from eertainty.3

This condition is in need of remedy through auditing and
'cramming', before one proceeds further, and therefore slows one's
progress to the goals one seeks to achieve (and is, moreover, a
source of further expense).

[Scientology] attains [its] aims in precise and definite ways, ways
in which there is no rnom for 'maybes'.t

As one progresses further up the grades and levels of training it
becomes increasingly difficult to admit disagreements or doubts,
since to do so would endanger one's earlier achievements.
Disagreement might suggest that one had 'falsely attested' to the
earlier grades and levels, requiring that one retakt them, have a
'review', or become subject to Ethics penalhes. Doubts and
disagreements, as matters for remedy, have costly consequences, and
the incentives are therefore entirely in favour of easy
acquiescence.4

l The cost of the OT levels is detailed in Sir John G. Foster,
Enquiry into the Prectic and Effecls of Scicntoloy (HMSO, London,
1971, p. 102, The higher of the two figures is that given in
Aduancc!, issue 20 (AugustlSeptember, 1973), pmS.
2BothquotatinnsarefromPtofessionelAudior'sBull6tin, 1 (mMay
sgs3,p.4 3 Herbert Parkhouse, Scientoiogy and religion', Ccrtainty,
2, 9, p. 14.

: One of the characterishcs of the 'Suppressive Person', for
example, is that he does not 'respond to audihng'. 180

THE SZCT: SCILNTOLOGY

The further one progresses, the greater the commitment of time,
money, and ego-involvement one has made, and the harder it is to
admit that one has made a mistake. One's purpose in continuing
involvement has become not the achievement of some particular
improvement that, however nebulously, ont had identified in
oneself, but the achievement of a goal identified by the organi-
zation, by means vhich it alone provides. The client has become
transmuted into a follower.

Mobiliz,2tion Scientology is a movement with some totalitarian
features. Its leadership seeks not merely to secure a clientele for
its services, but to maximize the commitment of a large
unselected membership and mobilize them in the service ol the
organization. Mobilization is directed to the end of transforming
followers into achve, deployable agents who see their own salvation
intimately linked with the achievement of ends established by the
organizahon leadership. Generally such ends are those of promotion
and dissemination of Scientology, but othe include staffing of
Scientology Orgs, recruitment to the Sea Org, and tl enhancement of
the individual's commitmenr and dependency.

The members of the movement are early accusmmed to submitting heL
selves to direction by Org personnel. On entry into an Org
facility, the member ha8 to 'go through lines', that i8 through an
establisbed routine of pas5age from one post to another collecting
forms or other documentation, paying fees, awaiting an auditor,
etc. While waiting for service8 he will often be expected to occupy
hi8 time on some clencal task for promotional purposes. After a day
at the Org he may be asked to distribute leaflets to houses on his
route home,9 and when taking his traimng he will be required to
secure a pre-clear from among the public, on whom he can
demonstrate his competence and, if possible, recruit for
Scientology. During later stages of his training he is required to
undertake penods of 'intern8hip' during which he audits full-time
for the Org. When not taking training or auditing, the follower is
mobilized in the field. His increasing ahenation from the rest of
society, particularly from inter-

I When interviewed after having severed their connecOOn with
Scientology, some would refer to this proeess in which they were
transfommed into a following of the movement in terms which, if
often less elegant than those of Fischer referring to his own
commitment to Stalinism, mirrored his conclusions closely, on 'the
lengths to which a man can go who, though neither stupid nor
vicious, deliberately eeaseS to see, to listen, to think
criticallY, subordinabng his intellect to the "Credo gul:
absurdurn" so as not to doubt the cause he serves and, having thus
snbordinated bis intellect, proceeds to abuse it by clothing the
resulung nonsense in thretdbare syllogisms.' Ernst Fischer, An
Opposine Man (Allen Lane, London, 1974), cited in a review by
George Stelner, Sundcy Imes, 17 arch 1974

9 Kauman, op. cit., p. 199. personal relations with
non-Scientoiogists is exploited to the end of proselytization for
the movement:

LONESOME? Have people who don't know Scientology stopped making
'sense' to you? Start a Group. People don't bite. Ask them over to
a sociable evening to discuss forming a mental health group. When
they get there, don't ask them to join,Just eLect them as omCers.
Get them to agree on future meetings and the programs.

Assume they want to know more about Scientology. Explain
Scientology offhandedly as though it's sort of strange they don't
know and get on with group organisation and business I

He is encouraged to commit further resources to Scientology in
order to maintain his advances. He receives promotional hterature
on the follosving lines:

Targets to Total Freedom These targets have been designed to Decide
on arrival date at

ASHOIAOLA

[Etc.r To go clear by-

ASHOIAOLA

(date)

[Etc.]'

AOLA is your home for Clear and OT. The popular 'thetaccount' (the
'unbank'

account) was designed for you so you can invest in your future
self, Clear and OT,

by sending regular advance payments to the AO. [Etc.]3 He is
encouraged throughout his association with Scientology to take not
only audihng, but also training, to become an auditor rather than
merely a preclear. Becoming an auditor offers the porsibility not
only of conducting the self-audit levels of processing more
competently, but also of recouping some of the costs of auditing
and training by auditing others professionally in private practice
.

Those who have not committed themselves to a professional career as
an auditor, or have not yet achieved the necessary qualif cations,
can be mobilized as partor full-time Field Staff Members. These
individuals act as recruiting agents for the Org, receiving a
commission on the amount spent on Org services by the 'selected'
individual. In recent vears, the leadership have sought to mobilize
a Ir rger proportion of the membership as Field Staff Members, and
to tie them more closely to official Orgs. Policy published in 1968
expressed an Abilty, 50, p. 8.

Promotional leaflet. ASHO is Advanced organisation, Saint Hill;
AOLA lo Advanced organisation, Los ngeles.

Promotmnal leaflet 182

Tr SECT: SClrNTOLOGY

aspiration 'to reclaim and enrol as staff members everyone we have
ever trained' 5

The member is encouraged to attend Congresses and other mass
membersbip events designed to increase promobonal and
disseminational activities in the field, such as a mass meeting
early in 1974, which heralded the 'Battle of Britain' .

The True Battle of Britain is Beginning. L. Ron Hubbard has sent
Special Representatives to the United Kingdom. They have a
message from him for eaeh and every lJK Scientologist...It u
imprratiK thatyou atknd! ! ! A Special tape from L. Ron Hubbard,
will be played which you mtut hear. [Etc.]'

Encouragement is also particularly strong for members to join the
Org staffon a contractual basis or more permanently. The incentives
for younger members to join are considerable Without an established
career to which thev are committed and without adequate resources
to finance training and processing, working for the Org often has
considerable attraction. In particular, auditing and training are
made available (in the evenings) at reduced rates or free.

Staff Status Two, ii on contract, is entitled to free processing up
to Grade V, and so % discount on training and further processing
and uniforms.3

While pay is low and condihons often arduous, the young member
without familial obligations may find this no great bar. The staff
member is not tied to the Org by the mere formality of a contract.
Should he break his contract, for example, by defection, he becomes
liable for the full cost of all the training, processing and travel
expenses that he has received.4 Staffseconded for advanced training
and auditing are required to sign prommssory notes to the sum of
$5000 on each occasion.

pmccssinandtravelexnensesthathehrsreceivefl
ISaffserondrdforadvanced Such a Note...must be legally binding in
that if he breaks his Contract, he is automatically in debt to the
Org for 55,ooo.'

The acme of Scientology involvement is membersbip of the Sea Org.
Members at all levels of the movement are encouraged to join up.
Come and work as part of Ron's expanding team of Sea Org members
here at Saint Hill now I Contaet me immediately !

Love,

G-[sigmed]

G-E-

Area SecretaryC

I L. Ron Hubbard, 'Field auditors become staff', C0 Polic Ltkr May
g AD [After Dianetics] rs, revised and reissued 14January 1968.

' Promotional Leaflet, emphasis in the onginal. OEC, Vol. O, p. 4f.
' Ibid., pp. 48-9.

' Ibid., p. 52 One interview respondent received a bill for $ 14
ooo for services ren. dered while on eourse at the Sea Org Flag
ship, when expelled shordy after taking tht course, and was
threalened with civil suit for the collection of his sum.

' Letter to the author. TE}E SClE3iTOLOGlCAL CAREER

 103

Dear Roy, I note you have had some Scientology training. Here at S
t Hill we need people with Some training to train further to hold
vital Technical and Administrahve posts within the Sea Org.

As a Sea Org member you would have no domestic worries as all
accommodation and food is provided. This wlll free you up to really
expand as a being on all the Dynamics. You would be helping tD make
this Planet a safe and sane place to be thus aiding the survival of
all 8 dynamics.

The eompany and life in the Sea Org is very good, the Sea Org
people are a dedieated team who can see that Planet Earth could be
better and who are doing something to make it so.

The Clears and OTs leaving St Hill vouch for that.

So if you want to do something to help you are most welcome, I'd
like you to call at St Hill to see me.

Love,

J__p_I

Members are encouraged to become auditors, staff members, and Sea
Org personnel in order to assist Ron to 'Clear the Planet'. On
staff they become subject to remunerative as well as normahve
control 2 Their commitment is increased in the sense that more and
more resources are invested in the movement. 'Side-bets' are laid
on continuing membership,3 as the member increasingly withdraws
from external social relationships, career, and financial
involvements, centering all his resources and aspirations on the
movement. Staff members become totally dependent finanQally on the
Org, unless they possess independent incomes. Outside the Org they
are forbidden to audit pre-clears for a fee. Their incomes are
precarious, subject to the vicissitudes of Stats and Condicions.
Indeed in some Conditions, for example, Doubt, they are not
eligible for pay at all. Failure to fulfil the norms established by
the movement leadership therefore raises the threat of sanchons of
a far-reaching kind. The threat of financial liability at a
punitive rate for courses ta}ten while on staff, is a powerful
incentive for subordination.

Exulsion and defection

In this section we are concerned with the reasons why people ended
their association with the movement. Some, of course, had no choice
in the matter. They were expelled, despite some continuing
commitment to it. This commitment might be to other
Scientologists friends or relatives - or it might be a ' Letter
to the author, 28 October 1973. ' Amitai Etzioni, A Comparahus
Analysis of Complrx Organisations (Free Press, Glencoe, 61).

3 Howard Becker, 'Notes on the concept of commitment, Amcrican
Journal of Sociology, 66 (1960), pp. 32-4o.

' See Vosper, op. cit. 184

THE SECT: SCIENTOLOGY

continuing commitment to some of the beliefs and practices of
Scientology. In these latter cases, however, generally a measure of
alienahon from the organisation had already occurred. A
relatively high degree of antipathy toward the movement's
mechanisms of social control could co-exist with a continuing and
fervent belief in the theory and practise of auditing. Some time
after his break with Scientology, one formerly prominent figure in
the movement could still

If Ron said it was all a 'con', I would reply to him:

I feel sorry for you that that is all you have ot out of it' I

Individuals interviewed were found to have left the movement at
various points in their involvement with it, some after many years
assoCiatiOn, others after reading their first book on the subject.5
vloreover, except for those whose association was decisively
severed by expulsion, one could disassociate from Scientology in
very varying degTees. A number of those interviewed, while out of
touch with the movement for some time and conscious of aspects of
it of which they strongly disapproved, had made no irrevocable
break. Several expressed the feeling that when they had sufficient
funds, or when the period of severe authoritarianism was over, they
would return.

Reasons for disaffection with the movement fell generally into the
following categories.

1. Disaffection emerged as a result of the application of parhcular
practices of social control to oneself or to a close acquaintance
or relative. categories.

I just wanted to know more about the auditing. But they made it
hard. I was one

mmnute late one morning on course, for a very good reason...I
arrived just as the

roll-call was ending and said sorry...but the Course Supervisor
said, 'You must

have overts against the Org'. She said, 'You have to write out what
yoube done

against the organisation in order to have been late...' There were
many oeeasions

like that...Should I walk out, or should I learn more about this
auditing from

whmch I had had actual physieal benefit. So I stuck it out. But I
got less and less

interested . Another interview respondent was asked to disconnect
from his wife, who was declared an S.P. and, although he did so at
first, he became disturbed by this demand and returned to her. This
led to his also being declared an S.P. Others were also expelled
for refusing to disconnect from a friend declared to be a
Suppressive Person.

2. Others became disaffected, not as a result of any one specific
application of

Interview

To be fair to the movement and its following, one should perhaps
stress the obvious point that many individuals do not leave even
after many years' association. As far as an outside observer can
tell, despite a very considerable turnover of membersbip, there
are shll a few individuals in the movement who first joined in the
early 1950S. 3 Interview.

I Looked back over my hlstory m it and saw that ld done a lot oi
good things

THE SCIEITOLOCICAL CAREER

 185

harsh measures of social control, but rather as a result of what
they vie-ved as the developing authoritarian atmosphere of the
organization. ...it became a crime to doubt any of Hubbard's
statements, and I had always doubted a iot of Hubbard's statements,
but when I went in, it wasn't considered a crime, even if one was
given looks of incomprehension. I could not belong to any
organisation which said you mZst believe this and that. Also there
began to be strict codes of rules about Suppressive People...who
were declared to be enemies of Scientology and one was not meant to
have any contact with them...I was not willing to subscribe to
this. It seemed to me to be a paranoid set-up and getting too
fanatical, and I didn't want anything to do with this.l

Two former franchise operators in America also became disaffected
largely as a result of the general tightening of control and the
authoritarian imposition of Org practices, They both found that the
official Orgs were increasingly interfering with the operation of
tle franchises, insisting that they employ Ethics Officers, use
only prescribed techniques, and hand on their mailing lists of
students and pre-clears to the Org.2 A former senior Org executive
found that organizational practices led to a cri e de conscience
which undermined his faith in Scientology.

[Why did you leave?] Conscience...I just couldn't be a party to
what was happening in the Organisation...I no longer had the same
belief as when I started...I'd been embarrassed, Conscience .. I
Just eouldn be a party to what was happening in the Orgamsa-
tion...I no longer had the sL me belief as when r started...I'd
been embanTassed, humiliated, eonfused. It didn't serve any purpose
for me to be part of it any longer

. I looked baek over my history in it and saw that I'd done a lot
of good things ...but I'd been party to things I'd mueh rather not
have been party to.3

Harsh or indifferent treatment of people was the source of much
dissatisfaction. Two respondents had received a severe blow to
their faith in the movement when sick friends in hospital who had
long been committed to Scientology were, despite requests, never
visited or helped by Org personnel. Another became alienated, he
said, when he saw a young girl being told she was not fit for
Scientology because, only just having started work, she lacked
adequate funds for training and audihng.

Several of those whose reasons for leaving Scientology fell
predominantly into either or both of these first two categones
commented on what they had seen as an increasing disparity between
the ideology and the organizahonal structure of the movement,
between the belief in 'Total sreedom' and the increasing
authoritarianism of the orgarization.

3 . A third important category of reasons for disaffection were
what Gabriel Almond, et al. refer to as 'career-related
dissatisfactions'.' These might occur to a student as well as to a
staffmember. One of the women who was interyiewed hac' been
committed to becoming a professional practitioner, but had failed
he Interview. ' Inter iews. ' Interview.

Gabriel A. Almond, et al., 'rhe Appeeis of ommunism (Princeton
University Press Princeton, NewJersey, 1954), p 300. professional
course, and felt very strongly that she had 'lost facc' whcn
another woman who had formerly been her pre-clear [patient passed
with flying colours. Another interview respondent failed the course
twlce and lost much of his enthusiasm for the movement in
consequence. Yet another had believed himself capable of
professional practice but had been unable to afford the course
which ·vould qualify him, and u hich the Org insisted that he take.

Some staff members, particularly m the leadership echelons of the
movement, regarded themselves as virtually indispensable and able
to assert their own views in independence of, or even in opposition
to, Hubbard. They became disaffected when they were removed from
authority, and were reduced to the same status as ordinary staff,
and subjected to the same indignihes. Others felt that their
relationship with Hubbard, or their long-standing in the movement,
entitled them to superior status and income, which they did not
receive.

4. For some, dissatisfaction with Scientology was the result of
their own metaphysical development. They gradually found that their
own plulosophies were diverging from that of the movement. Others,
beginning to have doubts about the theory and techniques of
Scientology, came to hear of one of the schismatic developments and
pursued it, either dropping their association with the Org, or
being expelled in consequence. One questionnaire respondent replied
to the question 'Why did you leave?' as follows:

I left because I met someching far better, Truth itself I thought,
which helped my understanding of anything to increase ' A small
proportion of those mterviewed simply felt that the more they
learned of

understanding of anything to increaseP

A small proportion of those interviewed simply felt that the more
they learned of Scientology, the less it had to offer them, or the
more vacuous they found it to be. One woman found moral objections
to some of the OT courses. The aim of the OT 7 course, which she
described as attempting to implant a thought in another person's
mind, she regarded as a form of 'Black Magic'.

5. Dissatisfactions for some were based on more practical
considerations. A number of those interviewed claimed that the
failure of the results they had expected to materialize was one
cause of dissatisfaction. Some, for example, were thoroughly
committed to the notion of Clear and were not convinced that some
of those declared Clear in fact were so. One interview respondent
said:

You meet Clears and OTs who are meant to have tremendous abilities
and you find

them making little mistakes you don't expect them t^ make.t

Such considerations were sometimes a cause of growing doubt, which
might be compounded wben at times the techniques vere not found to
be successful when used on oneself or on those one was auditing.
Some found that their 'gains' from auditing were very short-lived,
or were disappointed when they found themselves to possess no
significant new abilities after Clearing or the OT levels.

6. A number of those interviewed found the expense of training and
auditing a barrier to increased commitmcnt, or a source of
alienation. They lacked the

l Interview. : Interview. resourceS to involve themselves deeply in
Scientology and either gave up, or looked around for less expensive
paths to salvation. A few had a stronger objection, regarding the
leadership of the movement as largely oriented to the pursuit of
profit - a conclusion which disillusioned them.

7. One important cause of defection that was reported in interviews
and questionnaires occurred among followers who had had relatively
little conviction of their own, but ·vho were attached to other
members whose conviction was stronger. A break with the close
associate often led them to drop Scientology as well, since usually
their involvement had been aimed at pleasing the more committed
partner.

8. Finally, of course, there are a range of residual reasons for
disaffection. One intervie-v respondent dropped Scientology finally
when it adopted the corporate structure of a church, since
membership in a church was incompatible with his faith as a Baha'i.
Others simply drifted away from the move.nent when they moved home
and lost contact with distant acquaintances and the Org. Generally,
most of those interviewed offered a range of such reasons in their
accounts of why they left the movement.

For those who were expelled, or who walked out over some particular
event, the break was sharp. More often defection from the movement
was . process which took some weeks or months, or in some cases
years, ot mounting dissatisfaction and disillusionment. They would
often find means of excusing practices they found objectionable,
for example, by blaming Hubbard's lieutenants for them and argtung
that he must be misinformed about what was going on at the Org's
operational level. Or they excused their lack of results, as
directed by Hubbard's writing, by blaming the lack of skill of
particular auditors, rather than the 'technology' itself.

They mmght stifle doubts and confusions by concluding that these
were a product of their reachve minds, or by followmg the
injunction that they should not 'invalidate' the levels and 'gains'
they had received: [Did beirg clear live up to what you had heard
?] Yes and no. I put aside the doubts because I didn't feel that it
was right to doubt it. Yet I was wondering whv I couldn't do the
things that I was supposed to be able to do.l

...one thinks, well, maybe all my doubts have been 'bank'...'

Others continued in the movement out of a belief that this was the
only answer available, or through attachment to others in the
movement, or because they were unwilling to admit that they had
been wrong, or because they had linger ing suspicions that they
might be wrong now.

[...what kept you at it? Well, the feeling that even though there
were hold-ups and wrong decisions made, that it was still aiming
towards a better thing than anything else that was ofiered. .lso
just the inertia or momentum of the whole thing. Once you-rc in a
group like l Interview. Interview. that, its extraordinarily
difficult to get out of it. How can you say to your friend you're a
liar, a fraud and a eharlatan? How can you say that, unless you arc
absolutely convinced? It's easier to keep in Scientology and have
doubts than to gout of it with doubts.

It'samorepositicthing.
Doubtsarenegativeandthey'realwaysseenasinferiorts any positive
drive. S^ you tend to swallow your doubts. And you say: 'Well,
maybt next week...' Sometimes you have incredible successes. I had
a top executive wh: came back from the Congo with a weird disease.
Did 170 hours auditing on him an he walked out a changed man.
a'here must be some good in Scientology if it can dthis much for
one individual, and it wasn't just one individual.

My wife, who is ahighly intelligent and sane person and not easily
eonned was 3 totally dedicated Scientologist, and still is. r still
feel, talking to her, maybe I hav made a terrible mistake.3

Cotcltiriotr Scientology appeals to people with very diverse
motivations for affiliation. These motivations can be broadly
classified in the categories: career-orientated. truth-seeking and
problem-solving. We have aimed to describe and analyse th career of
the typical recruit who becomes a core member of the movement. Such
a recruit typically becomes associated with Scientology as a
clierr, seeking som specific aid, knowledge or problem-soluhom He
becomes attached to th movement on cogmtive, experiential, or
affective grounds. He comes to view his biography in terms o' a
vocabulary and conceptual scheme provided by Scientology theory
and practice, and to see his own goals as only attainable through
the achievement of broader goals specmed by the movement
leadership. In the course of socializatior he comes to internalize
the movement's normative code. EIis association with the movement
leads to the comrmtment of resources and ego-involvement which make
withdrawal expensive and threatening to his own seluesteem. The
recruit is transformed from a client to a follower and from a
follower to a ct'eplo;a613 crgent.

A similar process would seem to be characteristic of most
more-or-less totalitarian movements which seek to maximize the
involvement and commitment of followers. Totalitarian movements
seek to secure the total commitment of recruits rather than
accepting partial or segmental commitment.

The processes outlined for typical recruits to Scientology are
similar in many respects to those described by Gabriel Almond, et
al., in their study of Communist defectors. The authors argue that
'at the point of entrance into the movement, the party is all
things to all men' . 3 A range of 'images' are presented to
different sections of the recruitment catchment area. These images
are described as the 'public or exoteric images of the Communist
movement', fashioned to have a broad appeal and 'to suit the
susceptibilities of particular audiences'.3 While Interview.
Almond, et al., op. cit., p. 5.

THE SCIENTOLOGICAL CAREER

 189

those who are to become party cadres are gradually inducted into
the esoteric, power-seeking, goals of the Communist movement, a
large proportion of recruits are not exposed to the esoteric
doctrine and practice. Similarly, among recruits to Scientology,
probably only a small proportion become employees or func-
tionaries of the Org, and only a small proportion of these will be
e:cposed to inner-movement decision-making, and strategy
formulation. The majority of Scientologists, as of Communists, are
only exposed to, and remain committed to, one or more of the
movement's propaganda representations. Most Scientologists remain
in full-time employment outside the movement, utilizing Scientology
facilities only occasionally and limiting their involvement to a
level compatible with their occupational and domestic
responsibilities. In this respect they resemble the rank-and-file
party member. As a result of their limited involvement and
exposure, they remain unaware of the movement's esoteric,
power-seeking orientation. 7. RELATIONS WITH STATE

AND SOCIETY

During the period between the emergence of Scientology and the
centralizatior of operations in Washington DC, the movement made
litt]e public impact. I grew very slowly after the losi of the
early mass following, although from 195C it began to grow at an
accelerated rate9 While the reasons for the growth a this time are
obscure, its consequences are more readily apparent.

After the disappearance of Dianetics, the movement only
occasionally came tc public attention, and this almost always only
locally, when in the USA, Scientol ogy practitioners were arrested
for 'teaching medicine without a license'.S Ir 1958, however, the
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seized and destroyed a
consignment of 2 r ooo tablets of a compound known as Dianazene
marketed by an agency associated with the Founding Church of
Scientology in Washington, the Distnbution Center, claiming that
they were falsely labelled as a preventative and treatment for
'radiation sickness'.9 The Church of Scientology maintain that
the product 'Dianezene [sic] was mis-labelled because the contents
did not measure up to the contents quoted on the label (a fault in
the mamlfacturer's process)'. The Church of Scientology also later
pointed out thal the only labelling whmch referred to
anti-radiation was on the manufacturer" bulk sbipment, not on the
bottles made up by Distnbution Center Inc. However. the relevant
federal legislation allows a wide interpretation of 'labelling'. In
a book published by the Scientology organization, part two of which
is accredited to L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard gives a formula for
Dianazene which approxih..ll. h

n t An h hAttl

n h T;tri hllhon (nt

T lowevr-

I Figures cited during a later tar. case indicate that the income
of the Washington Church almost doubled between 1956 and rg57
('Brieffor the Urited States', Founding Church of Scientology v.
USA in th US Court of Claims, Washington, DC., r 967

5 A schismatic publieation, rhc Abcrrcc reports that in 955, two
Seientologists were arrested on such a chargc in Detroit, and
placed on probation. hc Abarcc, 2, (October rgss), p. r3. 5
Personal communication, Food and Drug Administration, z I January
1972 ' Personal communication, The Guardian's Offiee, November 974.

5 Al About Rdition, by a Nuclear Physicist and a Medical Doctor
(Publicatio Organisation [East Grinstead] 19$7, l967), pp. 121-4.

rr LATIONS WITH STATr AND SOCILTY

191

mates to that found in the FDA seized tablets. He asserts that
'Dianazene runs out radiation or what appears to be radiahon. It
also proofs a person up againstradiationinsomedegree.
Italsoturnsonandrunsoutincipientcancer.'l

The Dianazene seizure received little press publicity, but marks
the beginning of active interest in the movement by federal
agencies. The first serious adverse press reaction to the movement
in Britain occurred as a result of the activities of the
headmistress of an East Grinstead private preparatory school who
was carrying out Scientology exercises on her pupils for a brief
period each day.t Most of these exercises involved simple,
repetitive, and rather innocuous commands such as 'stand up', 'sit
down', etc., or communication exercises such as the teacher saying
'hello' and the children replying 'all right' for a few minutes.
The exercise that led to the press outhurst involved the pupils
following the directions: Close your eyes. Concentrate. Now imagine
you are dying. Imagine you are dead. I-ow you have turned to dust
and ashes. Now imagine you are putting the ashes back inside
yourself The press reports referred histrionically to those periods
as 'Death Lessons'.3

After conducting preliminary investigations into the E-meter during
1962, the FDA again raided the premises of the Founding Church of
Scientology in Washington early in 1963 to seize examples of the
E-meter, and associated literature. I On this occasion, unlike that
of r 958, the FDA clearly saw an opportunity to t.xhibit their
importance as agents of the public interest, meriting the
appropriations of public funds which they received. The raid was
accompanied by considerable publicity, the press, it was said,
having been forewarned.S

...recent hearings before the Subcommmttee on Administrative
Practice and Procedure exposed certain activities of the Food and
Drug Administration to be disgraceful and completely contrary to
the protective guarantees of our Constituoon. Perhaps the most
shochng of these exposures, involved the raiding of a premises
here in the nation's capital. Thii raid was reminiscent of a bygone
era when large numbers of Federal and local law emforcement
officials set upon centers of gangland activitv. True to form, this
recent raid was preceded by intelligenee from an FDA spy planted on
the premises. In authentic Hollywood style, FDA agents and marshals
descended on pnvate property while local police roped o8f the
street and held back the crowds. ress reporters and photographers
accompanied the agenes while they ran through the premises, banged
on doors, shouted and seized what they viewed as incriminating
evidence.S

Ibid., p. t24.

Dally Mail, 29 November 1960.

' Daiiy Mail, 28 November, tg60; Paulette Cooper, rhe Scandal of
Scientology, (Tower, New York, 1971), p. 102.

4 George Maiko, Stientology: the Now Religion (Dell, New York,
1970, p. 75.

S Evidence before the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative
Practice and Procedure, reprinted in Church of Scientology, rht
Findings on the US Food and Dtrg Agsncy (Department of Publicaeions
World Wide, Church of Scientolosy, East Grinstead, 1968), p. g2.

' Senator Edward Long, Congtcssional Record, 8 September 1965. This
descnption of The FDA seizures gave Hubbard cause to reamrrn the
attitude of his organization to the press:

The reporter who cones to you, all smiles ard withholds [sic,
'wanting a story', has an AMA inshgatrd release in his pocket. He
is there to trick you into supporting his preconceived storr. The
story he will write has already been outlined by a sub-editor from
old clippings and AMA releases.l

In the subsequent suit, the FDA charged that:

...the labelling for the E-meter contains statements which
represent, suggest and imply that the E-meter is adequate and
effective for diagnosis, prevention, treatment, detection and
elimination of the causes of all mental and nervouS disorders and
illnesses such as neuroses, psychGses...arthritis, cancer, stomach
ulcers, and radiation burns from aton ic bombs, poliomyelitis, the
common cold, etc. and that the article is adequate and effecive to
improve the intelligence quotient...which statements are false and
misleading...'

The seizure action led to the ftrst serious press attention to
Scientology in ten years in Arnerica. Much of it was hostile, and
supported the FDA action. The Scientologists, however, reacted with
considerable indignation, subsequently referring to the FDA with
an uncharacterishc sense of irony, as 'an agency behaving as a sort
of cult, with an almost fanatical urge - to save the world a

The FDA raid v as rcported throughout the English-speaking world,
and in the state of Victoria in Australia it added fuel to a dehate
which had been taking place in the mass media over Scientology. In
Victoria, Scientology had been under observation for some years by
the Mental Health Authority, and the Australian Medical
Association, which had sought to bring the activities of the
movement to the attention of members of the government. agency
behaving as a sort of cult, with an almost fanatical urge-to save
the world.'J

During the period 1960 to 1965, Scientology received a great deal
of unfavourable publicity in Victoria. The Melbourne newspaper,
rulh, attacked the movement in a serie of feature articles. In
November 1964 the Leader of the Opposibon, the Hon. J. W.
Galballiy, in a speech to the Legislative Council of the Parliament
of Victoria, referred to the FDA raid in Washington and alleged
that Scientology was being used for blackmail and extortion and bad
seriously affected the mental well-being of undergraduates at
Melbourne

L. Ron Hubbard, CO Polity Teer 14 Augwt 196g, cited in Kevin Victor
Anderson, Peort of thJ Board of Enqriry into Scientoloey
(Government Pnnter, Melbourne, Australia, 196$), pp. 200-201.

' Cited in MaLko, op. cit., p. 76.

a Church of Scientolo.ly, 7 he Findings..., op. cit., p. 3.

the evenu was congenial to the Scientologists, who reprinted it in
Chureh of Seientology, 7he Fmdng en the U.S. Food and Drue
Aeency, (Department of Publication World Wide ;ast Grinstead,
1968), p. 27. University.l On 26 November 1963, Mr Galbally
introduced a Scientology Restnction Bill seelting to provide that
fees should not be charged for Scientology services. Shortly
afterwards the Victoria government agreed to establisL a Board of
Inquiry into Scientology.

The Hubbard Association o Scientologists International (HASI) in
Australia initially co-operated with the Board of Inquiry but
withdrew its representatives in November 1964. The Report published
in 1965 presented an unmitigated condemnation of the movement. In
the Report, Anderson, its author, formu lated a number of phrases
which were subsequently to be quoted throughou the world:

Scientology is evil; its techmques evil; its practice a ;erious
threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its
adherents sadly deluded and ofte] mentally ill 2 The appeal of
Scientology is at times deliberately directed towards me wea, th am
ious, the disappointed, the inadequate and the lonely...' The
principles and practices of Scientology are eontrary to accepted
principles and practices of medicine and science, and constitute a
grave danger to the health, par ticularly the mental health of the
community.

Scientology is a grave threat to family and home life 6 been unable
to find any wormwhile redeeming feature in Scientology. rt
constitute a serious medical, moral and social threat to
individualrs and to the community generaIiy,;

He described Scientology processes as having a 'brainwashmng
effect'. One disinterested commentator observed of the Report that
it

betrays a considerable lack of the objectivity and detachment
necessary for proper scientific evaluahon of evidence. The language
i5 often highly emotive, and argument proceeds by the use of
debating device5 rather than by the scientific method.' The
immediate result of this Report was the passage, in December 1965,
of the Psychological Practices Act (1965) whmch banned the practice
of Scientology; banned the use of the E-meter except by a
registered psychologist; and empowered the Attorney General to
seize and destroy Scientologicai documents and recordings.

It was not until 196 5 that mention of Scientology began to appear
systematically in the Brihsh Press. The first reports indicated
in he 7imes Index concern I anstrd (State of Victoria), Vol. z73,
rg November 1963. 5 Anderson, op. cit., p. n 3 Ibid.

' Ibid., p. 2. ' Ibid. ' Ibid,

Terence McMullen, 'Statutory Deciaration', manuscnpt onginaily
deiivered to a Joint Meehng of the Sydney University Psychologicai
Society and the Libertarian Society in tg68 - copy made availabi'
to me by Dr rcMuiien, but repnnted in WhtteDer appentd to Adeleide?
A eport on tle Select Gmmlttee on Scientology (Prohlbition) Act, no
pubiisher ststed [The Church of Scientology (1973), p 50 the
Australian Inquiry and Hubbard's subsequent threats to sue the
Victoria Government. Shortly afterwards, a number of other Bntish
newspapers discovered Scientology to be newsworthy. All cited the
Victoria Report at length I In January, the ,ews of the World
reported a young Scientologist's disconnection from her mother 8 In
February, Lord Balniel, MP, then the Chairman of the National
Association for Mental Health, asked whether the Minister of Health
would initiate an inquirv into Scientology in Britain, referring in
his queshOn to findings of the Anderson Inquiry.3 The IvIinister
replied that he would not, but the question itself roused the
Scientology leadership to a vigorous reaction. In a series of
documents issued in February 1966, Hubbard outlined a policy to be
followed in the face of proposals to investigate Scientology. The
basic principle of this policy was that critics of Scientology
should themselves be investigated and their past crimes' exposed
with 'widt lurid publicity'.7 A Public Investigahon Section was
established to pursue this end. In March, 7:he People, under the
headline: 'One man Britain can do without', published the story of
a pnvate investigator recruited by the Scientology organization to
advise on setting up [his section.S Lord Balniel, it appears, was
to be the first person to be investigated.

Other newspapers developed these themes. The Daily Mail was one of
the movement's most severe critics, publishing a front page story,
in February, which challenged Hubbard's credentials,7 and, in
August, the story of Karen Henslov, a schizophrenic who had been
working at Saint Hill Manor (which had by then

a schizophrenic who had been worhng at Saint Hill Manor (which had
by then become the headquarters of the movement), and who was
returned to her mother's home one night in a deranged state.S Thjs
case became a cause celebre when Peter Hordern, MP for Horsham,
referred to it in the House of Common5 in the adjournment debate of
6 March 1967.5 Geoffrey Johnson Smith, MP also spoke, referring to
the

...many open-minded people in the town of East Grinstead, whose
judgement on matters of this kind one can trust, [who5 are
seriously disturbed by the activities and objectives of this
organisation...17

The Ivlinister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, in his reply referred
to a resolution sent to him by East Grinstead Urban District
Council in December 1966, expressing 'grave concern' about
Scientology and its effects on the town and its

Ncws of the World, lo October 1965; rhc Sun 6 October 1965; Daily
Mail, 22 Deeember 1965; rhc rimcs, 6 October 1965.

' N6ws of the Wald, 16 January 1963.

3 Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 7z4, 7, February 1966.

9 Sir John G. Foster, Enauiry mto th5 Practic6 and Efcts of
Scintology (HMSO, London, 1971), pp. 140-5  Ibid., ppm40 9; L. Ron
Hubbard, HC0 Policy ettcr, z5 February tg66. ' 7 he Pcolc, 20 March
1966. ' Daily Mail, 14 February 1966.

Daily Mal, z3 August 1966. Hansad, House of Commons, Vol. 74z. 
Ibid. people. Liberal reference was made to the Anderson Report and
Mr Robinson concluded of the Scientologists:

What they do...is to direct Ihemselves deliberately towards the
weak, the unbalanced, the immature, the rootless and the mentally
or emotionally unstable, to promise them remoulded, mature
personalihes and to set about fulfilling the promises by means of
untrained sta6f, ignorantly practising quasi-psychological
techniques, including hypnosis. It is true that the Scientologists
claim not to accept as clients people known to be mentally sick,
but the evidence strongly suggests that they do.'

During 1967 reports continued to appear concerning
'disconnections', and the growth of the Sea Org t

Reactions to the Scientologists in the area of their headquarters
had not improved and the East Grinstead Urban District Council
refused planning permission for ectensions to their premises. The
ensuing inqmry by a vlinistry of Housing Inspector, in July 1960,
gave an opportunity for Scientology's neigbbours to voice their
feelings. The Scientologists were accused of accosting people in
the streets; of boycotting East Grinstead shops and services; of
visiting local schools in an attempt to give instruction in
Scientology to pupils; of bringing foot-and-mouth disease to the
district; and of allowing 'a mentally deranged member of your
estsblishment' to range at large over a neighbouring barrister's
estate.3 The view adopted by the Minister of Housing ·vas that
these accusations had little to do uith the subject of the inquiry.
He permitted the Scientologists' appeal against the UDC in a
decision finally rendered in 1969.4 InJuly 1968, Mr Robinson
announced in a statement to the House of Commons that during the
previoas two years the Govermment had 'become increasingly
concerned at the spread of Scientology in the United Kingdom'.

The Government are satisfied, having reviewed all the available
evidence, that Seientology is socially harmfuL It alienates members
of families from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful
motives to all who oppose it; its authoritarian principles and
practices are a potential menace to the personality and well-being
of those so deluded as to beeome its followers; above all its
methods can be a serious danger to the health of those who submit
to them. There is evidence that children are now being
indoctrinated.'

The Government had therefore decided to take action to 'curb the
growth' of the movement in Bntain. Scientology organizabons would
no longer be recognized as educational establishments for the
purpose of admission of foreign

I Ibid.

S Jiews of he I Vorld, 19 November 1967.

S C. H. Rolph, 7elteue What You ke (Andre Deutsch, London, 1973).
pp. 66-7; 7he rmes, IgJuly 1968.

Dady elegra>h, m August 1969.

S Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 769, z5 July 1968. nationals;
Scientologists would therefore no longer be eligible for admission
to the UK as students, and no extensions to entry or work permits
of foreign Scientologists would be allowed. Thereafter, up toJune
1971, some 145 aliens were refused admission to Britain to study or
work at Scientology establishments.l

In 1968, Acts were passed banning the practice of Scientology in
the states of South Australia and Western Australia.Z (The Act
banning Scientology in South Australia uas repealed on 21 vIarch
1974, that in Western Australia was repealed in Iay 1973.) A
petition was presented to the ew Zealand Parliament asking for an
Inquiry into, and Government action against, the movement there.Z
In South Africa, Scientology had been criticized in Parliament
during 1966, and in rg68 became the defendant in an achon for
defamation initiated by Dr E. L. Fisher, the MP most active in
Parliamentary criticism of the movement, who had been libelled in a
Scientology publication.' In the USA the FDA won a decision
ordering the destruction of the seized E-meters and in the same
year, 1967, the tax-exempt status of the Washington Church of
Scientology was revoked.

In the face of fierce criticism in the press and various national
parliaments, the Church of Scientology, in lovember 1968,
promulgated a Code of Refotm, including: Cancellation of
disconnectmn as a relief to those su6fering from familial
suppression . z. Cancellation of;rcllritv theckinr as a form of
confecion. n Cancellation of disconnection as a relief to those
suhfering from familial

suppression. 2. Cancellation of security checking as a form of
confesaion. 3. Prohibition of any confessional materials being
written down. 4. Cancellation of declaring people Fair Game.s

These reforms the Church of Scientology claimed were a response to
public criticism of the practices concerned. This action was too
late, however, to prevent the British government establishing an
Inquiry into Scientology in January 1969; and the South Afncan
government from doing so in April 1969.7 Already by mid-lg68,
however, the severe Bntish government action against Scientology
had begun to cause some doubts to appear about the justifiability
of these actions. Questions were raised as to why Scientology had
been singled out for such treatment when various other cults and
sects which seemed to Ibid., Vol. 820, 2gJune 1971.

' Seientolosy Aet, 1968 - Western Australia; ScientoloSy
(Prohibition) Act 1968 - South Australia.

; Sir Guy Richardson Powles and E. V. Dumbleton, Report of the
Commission of Inquiry into the Hubbard Scientology Organisation in
J'ew Zealand (Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, 1969),
p. 8.

G. R Kotze et al, Report of th6 Gmmission of Enquiry into
Srientology for rg7z (Government Pnnter, Pretoria, South Afriea
[1973]), p. I tg. S Ibid., P. 153.

oster, op. cin 7 Kotze, et al., op. eit., pp. 2-3.

RELATIO?IS WlTtt STATE AID SOCIETY

197 behave in a similar fashion were not.l MPs queshoned the logic
of banning people

coming to this country to study something which we now admit we
know so little

about that we have to set up an inquiry.3

The New Zealand Commission of Inquiry reported in June 1969 in mild
tones, recommending no changes in legislation and observing that if
Scientology kept to its Code of Reform there should be 'no further
occasion for Government or public alarm...'3 Such a finding must
have been heartening to the Scientologists who, in October 1970,
further modified their practices by dropping the vanous penalties
which attached to the assignment of an individual to a 'lower
condition' .4

In 1969, the Scientologists also scored a success in the United
States, when
theyappealedagainstthedecisionofafederaljuryinlg67infavouroftheFDA,
which directed that seized E-mcters and literature should be
destroyed. The US Court of Appeals reversed this decision in
February 1969, on the ground that the Founding Church of
Scientology had made out a prima facie case that it was a bona fide
religion and that the E-meter was related to its religious dogma,
and therefore not subject to the Court's condemnation.5 The FDA
retained the items seized pending a decision on appeal. In a final
action in which the FDA sought condemnation of the E-meter in 1971,
the Federal Judge ruled that the E-meter had been misbranded and
its secular use was condemned. However, he further ruled that it
might continue to be used in bona fide religious counselling if
labe led as ineffective in treating illness.6

The Report of the Bntrsh Inqurry conducted by Sir John Foster was
pubhshed in December 1971. This Report also contained passages of
undoubted comfort for the Scientology organization, Among these,
Sir John observed that he disagreed:

profoundly with the legislahon adopted in both Western and South
Austra]ia, in turn based on part of that adopted in Victoria, [sic]
wbereby the teaching and practice of Scientology as sueh i5 banned.
Such legislation appears to me to be discnminatory and contrary
to all the best traditions of the Anglo-Saxon legal system.7 He
advocated the establishment of a Psychotherapy Council to control
the practice of psychotherapy, whose ranks Scientologists should be
allowed to join provided they could satisfy the Council's
requirements. The Report argued that it was wrong for the Home
Secretary to exclude foreign Scientologists

l C. H. Rolph, 'Why pick on Scientology? JVew State$man (z3 August
1968), p. 220; Quintin Hogg, 'Political parley', Pneh (14 August
1968), pp. 230-l.

7 ansard, House of Commors, Vol. 776, 26January 1969.

owles and Dumbleton, op. cit., p. 58.

: Foster, op. eit., p. 128.

fi Malko, op. cit., pp 76-7; srhiatrie Jlews, arch 1969. Washington
Post, 31 July Igj]; DenterPost, 14 August 1971. Foster, op. cit.,
p. 181 (empkasis in the onginal). when there was no law against
Scientology being practised by their British colleagues.

The South African Commission of Enquiry reported in June 1972. It
recommended the passage of legislation to provide for the
registration and control of psychotherapists; to make illegal
'disconnection', 'public investigation', 'security checking' and
similar Scientology practices; and to control psychological
testing, and the dissemination of 'inaccurate, untruthful and
harmful information in regard to psychiatry and the field of mental
health in general'.l Assuming that these recommendations were
implemented, the Commission held that 'no positive purpose will
be served by banning the practice of Scientology as such'.2

In Australia, it would appear that an attitude of increased
tolerance for Scientology had begun to prevail. The electoral
victory of the Labour party resulted in the registlation of the
Church of the New Faith, a Scientology organization, as a
recognized denomination for the purposes of the Marriage Act, and
the authorizauon of its nominated personnel to undertake the lawful
solemnization of marriage. In May 1973 the Western Australia
Scientology Act v. as repealed.

Socia inuoluemen

While the movement developed no active programme of involvement
with the wider society during its Dianetics phase, the emergence of
Scientology produced a progressive transformation of this
situation. Increased involvement by such means as the establismment
of 'front organizations' and infiltration, can be seen as an
attempt to achieve two distinct goals on the part of the movement
leadership. First, increased involvement was seen as a propaganda
and promotional activity designed to spread the name and basic
beliefs of the movement to a wider potential clientele. Hence one
prominent goal was that of recruitment. Second, particularly as
sections of the public became increasingly hostile toward
Scientology, increased involvement by vanous means appears to have
been seen as a method of control (creating a 'safe space for
Scientology'). The similarity of these apparent goals to those
suggested by students of the Communist Party as rationales for
aspects of its social involvement, give grounds for some expecta-
tion that there might also be similarities in the means employed in
the pursuit of these goals.4

Shortly after the incorporation of the Church of American Science
and the Church of Scientology in New Jersey late in 1953, a
Freudian Foundation of America was established in Phoenix, Arizona.
While the Churches offered degrees as Doctor of Divinity, the
Freudian Foundation offered certification as

I Kotze, et al., op. cit., p. 252 No such legisiation has yet
materialized.

S Ibid., p. 232

S Gmmonuueath Gazetle, 15 February 1973, p. 20.

Philip Seiznick, he Ore:nisahona Veapon (Pree Press, Giencoe,
1960). 'Psychoanalyst', or 'FreudianAnalyst'.5 Hubbard proposed
that the Foundation be established, but it was run by a prominent
Scientologist, Burke Belknap. It appears to have been less
successful as a marketing device than the Church, however, and was
shortlv abandoned.t

With removal to Washington DC, a number of new organizations were
started. The Society of Consulting Ministers provided a useful
business-card title for harassed Scientolo Ministers. The American
Society for Disaster Relief uas also isted on the Founding Church
of Scientology letter paper, although it does not appear to have
been activated. Among Hubbard's projects in Washington was the
formation of a political party, the Constitutional Administration
Party, in which his wife held executive office. Its manifesto,
circulated to Scientologists, contained much high-minded rhetoric
appealing to the Constitution and the rights of the individual
against the unconstitutional behaviour of the Department of
Internal Revenue and the

...Supreme Court Justiee who does not recognize the rights o the
majority, but who stresses the rights of the minority and who uses
psycholot Y tetibooks written by Communists to enforce an unDopular
opinion...i

At the same time, Hubbard had plans for establishing a corporation,
the Citizens of Washington Inc., with much the same programme
e:cept that it emphasized an additional item, namely that members
should mount a campaign demanding that citizens of the federas
capital should have the same voting rights as other Americans.
Hubbard had a rather grandiose view of the role this organization
was to play:

The ground in the District of Columbia at this time is npe for
subversion and only the Citizens of Washington Inc is capable of
exercising a power of restraint upon the citizens. Should a
depression strike which is extremely likely in view of the Repub-
lican withdrawal of funds we may find ourselves in the role of not
only protecting [sic] the citizens of the city from the wrath and
carelessness of the Federal Government, but the Federal
Government from the wrath and forthright vengefulness of the
citizens of this area.g

Hubbard planned to establish a newspaper through the sale of bonds,
and later buy radio and television 'facilities'. As in the case of
the Constitutional Administration Party, no direct link with
Scientology was to be displayed, but their activities were to be
monitored by a further corporation, Scientology Consultants Inc. I
one of these plans seems to have gone far beyond the drawing board.

See the Ghost of Seientology, t6, April rgs4, p2Interview.

S 'The Campaign of the Constitutional Administration Party of
Amenea', eireular (1956), p. 2.

4 L Ron Hubbard, from r dictation tape provided by an informant,
dictated some time during 956.

Another project was that of establlshing United Survival Action
tlubs. This project was promotec on the basis of fear aboue the
possibility of nuclear attack:

...Survivai Clubs bill permit a large section of the American
public to survive a national disaster...The United States is the
only country in the world which is organised to be destmyed by an
atomic bombing [sic]...Yet, our leaders act as though they uere afe
and secure in the porsession of 'defences against atomic weapons'.
There ar no defences against atomic weapons except the defences
which will be erected by tl.t Survival Clubs.'

Scientologists were herefore encouraged to begin organizing such
clubs, although the purpose of promoting Scientology was
evidently more important than civil defence:

The real and actualreason we want these people organised in clubs
is not to protect them from atomic bombing, although this is r very
worlhwhile reason, but to raise their individual capabilides.t

During the late I gjos, the movement leadership also began more
vigorously to attack orthodox med!cal and psychiatric practice. One
agency for this assault was the National Aademy of American
Psychology founded at a Scientolog-

'It is time', Ron saidat the Congress, 'tha[ we cleaned up the
cnfire field of psychotherapy'. He explaised that we were impeded
by the bari aric conduct of psychotherapy in the UDited States.

One of the main rangers is government fear of psychological
subversion. In tht

One of the main dangers is government fear of psychological
subversion. In that vested psychotherapy in the United States is
Euro-Russian, and in that the government will sooner or later
diicover this, it is time ue took the initiative in reforming the
practice of psychology, psychiatryand psychoanalysu J

The 'National Academy' was established with an executive board of
Scientology personnel. It proposed to circulate a loyalty oath 'to
a]l psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, as well as
ministers of various denorninations who engage in mental
practice'.4 The loyalty oath contained the following clauses to
which such individuals were expected to swear: (o) To refuse to
przctise 'Brainwashing' upon American citizens. (3) To activeiy
prevent the teaching of only foreign psychology in public schools

and universities. (g) To refuse to contribute money, dues or my
services to organisations wbich

knowingly impede American scientific research programmes or which
work to

discredit American psychologists to the public. (18) To accept as
fellow psychologists only the psychologists adhering to this code

and to speak no word of criticism in public of them.'

L. Ron Hubbard, Survival Clubs', Certaint, 5, 3 (1958), p. 7. t
Ibid., p. 6. ' 'National Academy of Ameriean Psychology', Certnint,
5, 5 (tg58), p. m 4 Ibid t Ibid., pp. 4-5 See this: a housewife,
already successfully employing Scientology in her own home, trained
to professional level, takes over a woman's club as secretary or
some key position. She straightens up the club afairs bvapplying
comm practice and making peace, and then, incidental ro the club's
main function, pushes Scientology into a zone of special interest
in the club children, straightening up marriages, whatever comes to
hand, and even taking fees for it.... Government could also be
infiltratedr on the same basis.

RELATIONS WITH STATE AND SOCIETY

201

Having circulated the loyalty oath, the NAP then proposed to
maintain a register on which all those who signed and returned the
oath would be declared 'safe', v hile

those who ignore it or refuse to sign it before witnesses are
listed as 'potential subversive'. Those who rail against it are
listed as 'subversive t

Signatories were to be 'offered an opportunity to have the National
Academy verify their credentials' for a charge.a Newspaper
advertisements were to be run asking the public to patronize only
practitioners with an NAAP Certificate, which Scientologists were
to be offered for $2s.00 (others having to pay $80 oo for
'verification of credentials' and certification).3

As well as establishing peripheral organizations, the movements'
leaders advocated the infiltration of organizations and political
agencies as a means of promoting Scientology and extending control
over its social environment. Generically, thls was known as the
'Zone Plan'. It could be operationalized in a zone of special
interest in the club - children, straightening up marriages,
whatever comes to hand, and even taking fees for it....4

Government could also be infiltrated5 on the same basis.

...a nation or a state runs on the ability of its department heads,
its governors, or any other leaders. It is easy to get posts in
such areas...Don't bother to get elected. Get a job on the
secretarial staff or the bodyguard, use any talent one has to get a
place close in, go to work on the environment and make it function
better. Occasionally one might lose, but in the large majority,
doing a good job and making the environment function will result in
promotion, better contacts, a widening zone.

Anderson reported that one Australian Scientologist who had
affiliations with the Australian Labour Party proposed to
infiltrate and win over the Labour Party leadership for
Scientology.7

1 Ibid., p. 7. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 8.

4 L. Ron Hubbard, 'Special Zone Plan', Comm Mag, 2, 6 (June I960),
cited in Anderson, op. cit., p. I54.

6 The Scientologists point out to me that 'advised' would be a more
neutral word than 'infiltrated. 'Advice' provided by such means
seems to me to be part of what is involved in infiltration.

6 L. Ron Hubbard, 'Special Zone Plan', op. cit.

7 Ibid-, pp. 154-5. An interview respondent indicated that he had
proposed a similar plan. Infiltration tactics have also been
employed for recruitment purposes by a new religious movement, The
Unified Family. See John Lofland, Doomsday Clt (PrenticeHall,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, I966) . I have myself seen this
tactic in operation by Unified Family Members at the meetings of
other cults. The tactic is also not 202

THE SECT: SCIENTOLOOY

Another technique employed from time to time was that of
establishing a committee or society, whose leading personnel would
always, covertly, be Scientologists, which would concern itself
with public morality, mental health, the state of the nation, or
some other public issue. An Australian example was the formation of
a Citizen's Purity League in Melbourne inaugurated by a
Scientologist who heard of the idea on one of Hubbard's tapes I Its
ececutive committee was composed of HASI members, but the links
with Scientology were not publicized A campaign was started to
secure public membership and support on morality issues.

The aim of this Citizens' PuDty League would be to reach a point of
prestige and inf uence in the community that wouid enable it to
carry out a plan of clearing, first the State Poliee Force, and
then those engaged in the governing of the State of

victoria.D

Such tactics are said to have been employed in more recent years.
Informants allege that the Scientology leadership indirectly
organized a 'Loyalty Petition to Parliament' in the late 19605
which adocated that psychiatrists, psychologists and
psychotherapists declare before a Justice of the Peace that they
were neither in the pay of foreign governments nor members of any
movement or party which aimed to subvert the Constitution and
Parliament of Great Britain. Several thousand sigmatures of members
of the public were secured, but it was found that the Petition was
not drawn up in a form proper for parliamentary presentation.D
presentation D Tnrrrv;

 nnrlent hnvr alco aileted that they were cncouraged to form

Interview respondents have also alleged that they were encouraged
to form committees with highminded titles for promotional purposes.
The aim of such committees was to treate a political lobby to
promote the publication o material in the press related to such
issues as the 'evils of psychiatry', 'brutality in mental
hospitals', communism', and other issues on which the Scientology
leadership had exprtssed a position. Whenever possible prominent
public figures unconnected with Scientology were approached to join
the roster o patrons for such cornroittees and associations. One
such body known as the Association for Health Development and Aid
among whose patrons, executive and consultant doctors were a number
of Scientologists, managed briefty to secure the support ofthe
Bishop of Southwarkdt

Other committees md associations clearly have a more specific and
ad hoc purpose. One explored by the JeroS of the World was
entitled the Citizens' Press Association. The group was established
after reports concerning Scientology appeared in the leus of the
World, and sought to secure the support of other

I Mary Sue Hubbard, HCO ovewskttDr r4 April r 961.

D Ibid.

D Interview.

Rolph, op. eit., pp. 5g-4; Letter to the author from the Bishop of
Southwark. uniamiliar from the history of the CommuniDt party.
Nathan LeiteD, Operntiontl Coer of)hDPoiit6zro(McGraw-Hill,NewYork,
1951).

RELATlOt 5 3VlTH STATE AND SOCIETY

203 'victims' of this paper for the introduction of legislation to
'cope with these papers and prevent any further wrongs being
committed'P No associahon with Scientology was indicated in the
letter from the Citizens' Press Association, although a spokesman
for Scientology later admitted to :ews of the World reporters,
'that this was one of our ideas...'3

As well as such covert organizations, Scientology openly sponsors
or assists a variety of organizations engsged in pressure-gToup or
welfare activities.3 A major pressure gTOUp openly supported by the
Church of Seientology and predominantly composed of
Scientologists is the Citizens' Commission for Human Rights. This
organization seeks to bring pressure to bear on administrators of
mental hospitals and members of government, by direct means and
through press reports, to improve conditions in mental hospitals,
protest against involuntary committal, physical and
psychopharmacological modes of treatment, psychosurgery, and what
are referred to gencrically as 'psychiatric atrocities'.

A prominent welfare organization sponsored by the Church is
Narconon, which operates a drug programme employing Scientology
techniques. It claims a very high rate of success, and omcial
support in America and Scandinavia. Letters from various addiction
facilities and prisons, in reply to my requests for information,
indicated that arconon was generally admitted to such facilities on
the same basis as other community-based, volunteer, self-help
groups. Replies were received from eight facilities in the USA
listed in a Scientology publication as 'supporting' the Narconon
programme. Four indicated that the programme was in operation and
received unqualified support, as did most other volunteer self-help
groups. Three indicated that the programme had met ith little
success and had died of attrition, while the final reply indicated
that the programme had been cancelled some time previously by the
prison director.4 (this may not, however, be a true redection of
the status of Narconon. The City of Los Angeles, for example,
recognized Narconon's contnbution in a 'Resolution' which highly
commended its efforts in twenty-five programmes, half of which were
in penal institutions, and which had 'achieved remarkable success,
in that 85 per cent of those in the program released on parole have
no further involvement in the criminal justice system...')5

I Letter from Citizens' Press Association cited in JVes of the
World, 24 August 1969. t Ibid.

3 Such front groups and organizations are not uncommon among more
recent sectanan moements. On the front groups of the Japanese
manipulationist sect Soka Gakkai, see James W. White, he Sokagakkai
end Mass Sociely (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California,
1970), p. I r3. On those of the Communist Party, see Philip
Selznick, rhe Orgeniselional Weeon (Free Press, New York, 1952),
pp. 27, m4. On those of the Nazi Party, see William Ebenstein, rht
azi Stale (Farrar

Rinehart, NewYork, 1943) p 59

4 Letters to the author.

5 'Resoluhon' adopted by the Council of the City of Los Angeles, I
March 1974, copy made available by the Church of Scientology.

A further welfare organization associated with the Church is
Applied Scholastics Inc, the aim of which is said to be to
provide an educational programme for slow learners or potential
educational dropouts. This programme also employs Scientology
techniques.l The Church of Scientology supplied, in a letter to the
author, the names of a number of US educational establishmentS in
which the programme was said to be operating. Not all of these
could be traced. Of five sucb institutions approached, four could
not trace any programme in association with Applied Scholastics -
although the programme may have been operating on an unofficial
basis. The fifth institution located 'an informal program'.S

Scientology's most vocal social involvement is in its campaign
against orthodoY psychiatry and the methods which it currently
employs. To promote this campaign, a 'newspaper', Freedom, was
establisbed in 1963. It concentrated on vilifying psychiatrists;
attacking the practices of mental bospitals; and impugning the
motives of supporters anG leaders of the mental health movement and
its organizations, such as the National Association for Mental
Health.a

The Scientology movement secured a great deal of publicity when its
members began demonstrating outside the offices of the National
Association for Mental Health with banners reading, 'Psychiatrists
maim and kill' and 'Buy your meat from a psychiatrist'4 during
early 1969, and when later that year it was discovered that between
200 to 300 Scientologists had secured membership in the NAMIH.6 The
enormous increase in applications to the NAMH does not in the
NAMH.s The enormous increase in applications to the NAMH does not
appear to have merited attention until, shortly before the
scheduled Annual General Meeting in November, nominations began
arriving for office in the NAMH which included known Scientologists
such as David Gaiman, an Assistant Guardian of the Church, who was
nominated for the office of Chairman of the NAMH. The Association
hastily insisted on the resignation of over goo recently admitted
members, rendering them ineligible for attendance at the Annual
General Meeting, and a lengthy period of lihgation ensued, in which
the Scientologists sought reinstatement. Their actions to this end
proved unsuccessful.5 Recourse to the law courts has been a
frequent occurrence for the Scientolo-

I See the Banc Study Manual, compiled from the works of L. Ron
Hubbard (Applied Scholastics Inc, Los Angeles, 1972).

Letters to the author.

S Such attacks led to the settlement of a libel action in favour of
Kenneth Robinson as a result of his suit over a Freedom article.

' C. H. Rolph, Beliere What rOu Like (Andre Deutsch, London, 1973),
pp. 52, 102.

6 Ibid., p. 102.

1 Ibid., pas,im. The Scientologists' version of these events i, the
subject of David R. Dalton, 7 wo Disparate Phiiosophies (Regency
Press, London, 197g). See also my review of this work 'Convert or
Subvert', rhe Spectator (29 December 197g). The Scientologists'
arguments are a so rehearsed in Omar V Garrison, 'I he llidder
Story of ScientoloSy (Arlington sooks, London, 1974). gists. Often
this recourse has been pursued in reaction to criticism of the
movement by individuals, newspapers or books. At one time at least
thirty-six libel writs were outstanding in Britain against
newspapers. Wnts have also been issued against East Grinstead
Councillors who expressed disapproval of the movement,a and
recently against a number of senior police officers alleging libel
in an Interpol report.a Probably the most significant libel action
in which the movement was involved was in respect of a television
broadcast in July 1968, in which Mr GeoffreyJohnson Smith MP
stated, in reply to a question, that the Scientologists

direct themselves towards the weak, the unbalanced, the immature,
the rootless and

the mentally or emotionally unstable.4 This action was decided
against the Scientologists.

Books critical of Scientology have often been the subject of
extensive litigation.5 At one stage in the litigation connccted
with Cyril Vosper's he Mind Benders,' a High Court Judge was
reported as saying of applications by the Church of Scientology
that its author and a newspaper editor be committed to prison for
contempt of court, that these actions were de iberately taken 'to
try to stifie any criticism or inquiry into their [the Church of
Scientology's] affairs' ,7

Models Df deDiance

Scientology is a deviant religious movement. Its deviance lay
initially in its rejection of the 'facilities...culturally provided
for man's salvation ..'1 In this respect it is not unique.
Scientology shares characteristics with other forms of sectananism
Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soka Gakkai, etc., but
among the many contemporary deviant forms of religion, Scientology
appeared for a while to become something of a bete noir, an object
of special attention in the mass media, the courts and national
legislatures. Scientology was publicly portrayed as 'an evil
cult',9 and a 'senous threat to the community'.lt Laws were passed
prohibiting its pracrice in three states of Australia, and aliens
were prohibited from entering Great Bntain to pursue its study. The
pejorative and stigmatizing terms which were often employed to
describe it, and the relative severity with which Scientology was
treated on occasion, suggest that this

Rolph, op. cit., p. 63. ' Ibid., p. 6r. J FvningStandard 1l
December 1973; rhe Times, ISDecember 1973. 4 Rolph, op. cit., P. 75

61 discuss five such works in my article Religious sects and the
fear of publicity', New Society (7June 1973), pp. 545-7. ' Cyril
Vosper, rhr Mind Benders (Nexille Spearman, London, 1971).

Daily relegrah, 4 March 1972. ' Bryan R. Wil90n, Magic and the
3ill6nnium (Heinemann, London, 973), p. 21. 9 rhe Peole, 19 March
1967

' Anderson, op. cit., pm. o6

THE SECT: SCIENTOLOGY

movement might fruitfu Iy be examined from the theoretical
perspective of the .ociology of deviance.

The nature of the debate surrounding Scientology, and some of the
rhetoric that appeared during itt course, suggest that at tumes
Scientology was viewed in a manner approaching morel penic. Stanley
Cohen has defined moral panic as

a condition, episode, penon or group of persons which] emerges to
become defined as a threat to soci-tal values and interests; its
nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashirn by the
mass media .. I

Drawing on ieil Smelser's definition of panic, we may add that it
can be understood as involving a collective sense of an immediate,
powerful, but ambiguous threat to deeply heid norms or values,
for the preservation of which it is seen as urgent to take some
action.2

This section is specificallv concerned with the question of the
relahonship between the developnnnt of Scientology and the reaction
to it from state agencies and society at large, particularly in the
way this was portraved in the mass media. The relationship between
deviance and societal reaction has been an important focus of
endeavour in the sociology of deviance, and three simpiified models
of the nature of this relationship may be extracted from the
literature.

The first model whiche mav call the cles ic modtl relates deviance
and societal rcaction as a simple n.atter of undirectional
causation:

The first model w hich we may call the classic model relates
deviance and societal reaction as a simple matter of undirectional
causation:

Dev.ance

Societal reaction

Deviance, on this view, is essentially unproblematic. It lies in
the infringement of social norms which are consensually held.
Deviance develops as a result of processes internal to the deviant,
and in due course provokes reactions of disapproval from
conforrning groups and individuals, and the mobilization of agents
of social control.

This view informed most early speculation and theorizing concerning
criminality. Due to diflerences in physiology, psychology, or early
life-experience, criminals were held tc have some differentiating
characteristics) which led them to violahons of the law. The
reaction of agents of social control was seen as a relatively
straightforward process of identifying and dealing with norm
violators. Hence the accounting procedures and official statistics
generated by social control agents could be employed by social
scientists with some conviction that they reflected, more or less
directly, occurrences of deviance in the 'real world'. This view of
the nature of the relationship between deviance and societal
reaction has tended to be the 'official' view. It generalizes the
account of this

' Stanley Cohen, ilk Devils and .roral Panics (MacGibbon & Kee,
London, 1972), P 9

2 Ncil Smelser, Theoy of Colleetive Behauiour (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, London,

62) .

rELATlONS WITH STATE AND SOCIETY

207

relationship typically held by agents of social control, moral
entrepreneurs and the mass media. The assumptions upon which this
model rests, however, have come under considerable criticism during
the last fifteen years from proponents of the second model.

We can refer to the second model as the Itthelling model.l Deviance
on this view is seen as essentially problematic. Social norms and
values are regarded as having at best sub-cultural rather than
general cultural acceptance, and infringements of norms are seen as
regular and widespread. Deviance is therefore a characterishc
attributed to another, or a label assigned to him, which he is led
to accept by public degradation and stigmatization, and coercive
control. In Becker's oft-quoted words:

...sociol groups creafe deriance by mking the rules whose
infrcction coluti(utes eoicnce and by applying those rules to
particular persons and labelling them as outsiders... The deviant
is one to whom the label has successfully been applied; deviant be-
haviour is behaviour that people so label.

reaction as a similarly simple matter of unidirectional causation,
but in the reverse direction to the classic model:

Such an extreme formulation is not altogether a 'straw man',
Lemert, for example, states that:

...older soeiology tended to rest heavily upon the idea that
deviance leads to soeial eontrol. I have come to believe that the
reverse idea, i.e. soeial control leads to devianee, is equaf y
tenable and the potentially rieher premise for studying deviance in
modern society.' This model is evident in David Cooper's notion of
schizophrenia, which he defines as:

...a micro-social crisis situation in which acts and experience of
a certain person are invalidated by orhers for certain intelligible
eultural and micro-cultural (usually familial) reasons, to the
point where he is elected and identified as being 'mentally ill' in
a certain way, and is then eonfirmed (by a specifiable but bighly
arbitrary labelling process) in the identity 'scbizopbrenic
patient' by medieal or quasimedieal agents.'

I Since what I am seeking to do here is to erect three models for
heuristie purposes, rather than to characterize accurately the v ay
this perspeetive has generally been employed, I shall draw it in
extreme terms, ignoring partieularly those soeiologuts who combine,
or draw no distinction between, this model and the following one,
and I shall create a distinction where they would not.

r Howard S. Beeker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociolog of Deriance
(Free Press, New York, 196g), p. 9.

S Edwin M. Lemert, Somel Pathology (McGraw-Hill, iew York, 1951).

DavidCooper,PsychiotrytndAnli-Psychietry(Paladin,London, Ig70),p.
16 In order to define or dramatize the normahve boundanes of
society, moral entrepreneurs and soQal control agents select among
a range of available norm-violators those suitable for labelling.
On some accounts, the labelling model provides a conspiracy theory
of deviance-generation. A 'victim' is selected who is 'scapegoated'
by others and forced into a deviant role, more or less coercively,
from which he may not be permitted to escape. Appeal is frequently
made to this model by those identified as deviant, as an account of
their own situation.l

The third model can be referred to as the deviance-ampliicatiol
motel. This model, elaborated initially by Leslie Wilkins to
account for gang delinquency,Z has since been employed to explain
among other things, the development of 'Mods and Rockers' as a
social problem,3 and the nature of the societal reaction to
drug-taking.: In its simplest form the deviance-amplification model
suggests the possible sequence: . Initial deviation from valued
norms

leads to z Punitive reaetion

which leads to 3. Further alienation of the deviants

which leads to 4. Further deviation

wbach leads to 5. Increased punitive reaction

wbich leads to (3)...etc., in an amplifying spiral.

Cohen discusses this process as it affected the idenhfication of
the Mods and Rockers as a social problem and the subsequent
attempts to control them.

Minor acts of rowdy and irritating behaviour at a seaside resort
during Easter Weekend 1964 were exaggerated and distorted
enormously by the press, whicb presented the incidents as epi90des
of uncontrolled vandalism and violence. The media reports were
instrumental in the creation of a stereotype accepted and
reinforced by social control agents on subsequent occasions. Future
bankholiday weekends were viewed with fearful anticipation by
residents, businessmen, and police in seaside comtnunities,
leading to a propensity to over-react to the behaviour of the young
people. The latter in turn were attracted to the resorts in
increased numbers by the possibility of a repetition of the
previous incidents,

I Gresham Sykes and David Matza, 'Techniques of neutralisation',
Amet ican ournal of Sociology 22 (December 1957), pp. 664-70;
Miriam Siegler, Humphry Osmond and Harriet Mann, 'Laing's models of
madness', British g70urnal of Psychiatry mS (1969), p p. 947-58

' Leslie T. Wilkins, Social DDianee (Tavistock, London, 1964) pp.
87-94, reprinted in W. G. Carsan and Paul Wiles, eds, Crime and
Delinauency in Britain (Martin Robertson & Co., London, 971), pp.
219-26.

Cohen, op. cit.

Jock Young, rhe Drugtaes (Paladin, London, 1971). and identified
themselves with one of the two stereotypical factions portrayed by
the media

The inevitable friction between police and Mods and Rockers was
further dramatized in the mass media, and by the courts, and
sanctioned by heavy fines and some ctses of imprisonment,
De-amplification, Cohen suggests, finally set in as a result of the
severity of social control. Potential deviants were

frightened off or deterred by actual or threatened eontrol
measures. After being put off the train by the police before
arnving at one's destination, and then being continually pushed
around and harassed by the police on the streets and beaches,
searched in the clubs, refused service in cafes, one might just
give up in disgust. The game was simply not worth it...the
amplification stops because the social distance from the deviants
is made so Sreat, that new recruits are put offfrom joining I

The models of the relationship between deviance and social control
outlined above are suggested as competing hypotheses to account for
developments in the relationship between Scientology and society.
While empirically rather than normahvely directed, they have clear
implications for the attribuhon of responsibility for the process,
and those involved therefore tend to have an interest in promoting
one theory rather than another. The Scientologists themselves are
clear that model two best char tcterizes their brief history: To
understand why the (:hurch of Scientology ever needed stiffinternal
discipline in the past to defend a perimeter against over helming
odds - it is necessary to look in the past to defend a perimeter
against overwhelming odds - it is necessary to look at the
situation which existed at those hmes, uvhich forcad the Churth to
develop polieies to handle outside threats. Which came first, the
strict internal ethies policies, or the threat which they were
designed to cater for?'

The implication here, and elsewhere, is that Scientology has been
the victim of a concerted campaign ultimately sponsored by the
World Federation for Mental Health for its 'forthright' stand
against 'psychiatric atrocities':

An analysiz of 2 r years of attacks shows a very plain pattern.
First, several extremely vieiouS newspaper and magazine articles
are published. Investigation by Church officials has shown these
often to be commissioned articles. Reprints or copies are then made
of these articles and are sent to every government or private
ageney which might he in a position officially or unoffieially to
censure or take action against the Church After a period of time in
which several articles have been sent, these agencieS then receive
a letter basically expressing the following; 'See how public
opinion is against this group. Don't you think something should be
done?' (

The moral entrepreneurs and social control agents who have opposed
Scientology may be assumed to regard the situation in something
like the terms

Cohen, op. cit., p. 20Z.

' Anonymous, 'Attacks on Seientology and "attack" policies - a
wider perspective, photocopy of manuscript, n.d., made available to
me by the Church of Scientology. (My emphasis.)

'Anonymous, 'Seientology: rhe JVouo BJligion: false report
correction, mimeo, n.d., made available by the Church of
Scientology. proposed in the first of the foregoing models,
although I have found no explicit statement which propcunds this
view of events, and reconstruct their position from the course of
omcial action. In contrast to both these views I shall argue that
model three most adequately characterizes the process that
developed.

Howard Becker and others have stressed that social problems are in
part at least a consequence of monz erkrpnke. Some individual, or
group of individuals, must generate public concern and mobilize
public opinion or the opinion of legislators and law enforcers that
'something needs to be done', about the object of concern.l This
moral enterprise may be exhibited by any number of individuals and
agencies, vanously motivated. Gusfield has described how the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union originally formed part of the
general progressive, humanitarian movement for social reform in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its adherents were
members of socially dominant groups whose secure rocial position
permitted them to feel sympathy for the plight of immigrant
workers, and led them to organize to seek the conversion of
individual drinkers.

After the repeal of prohibition, the WCTU found itself in a changed
situation. Abstinence was no longer a norm of the dominant middle
class. As drinking became increasingly acceptable, the total
abstainer became a figure of ndicule, and the WCTU lost its
upper-middle-class members. The movement increasingly adopted an
attitude of moral indignation and a policy of coercive reform
toward drinking as lower-mmddle and lower-class members found their
values repudiated by the upper and middle classes.

Donald Dickson offers a persuasive account of the role of the
Bureau of Narcotics in the passage of Federal legislation against
marihuana,S suggesting that the primary motivation was to improve
the position of the narcotics Bureau as a bureaucratic agency in a
period of declining appropriations. Generating anxiety about
marihuana use was a means of impressing upon the public and
Congress that the Bureau was an important agency which should be
maintained, even expanded.

The generation of moral panic may therefore be motivated in some
cases by status anxiety or bureaucratic insecurity, or 'empire
building' . It may, of course, also arise from sincereiy felt
confiicts of values. Whatever its sources, the mass media are
usually central to its propagation. As various studies have
suggested, the operation of the mass media is to some extent
constrained by commercial objectives. Fulfilment of these
objectives may lead to exaggeration and distortion in the
presentation of news concerning 'social problems'. Howard Becker,
op. cit., Chapter 8.

'Joseph Gusfield, Symbalic Crusa e (University of Illinois Press,
Urbana, Illinois, z963); and 'Social structure and moral reform: a
study of the Woman's Christian TemperanceUnion',Americtzn
ournalofStciolo,61 (lgsg),pp.22l-32.

Donald T. Dickson, 'Bureaucracy and moralityan organisational
perspective o a moral crusade', Social Proolems, z6 ( z 968), pp
143-56. The mass media operate with certain definitions of what is
newsworthy. It is not that instruction manuals exlst telling
newsmen that certain subjects (drugs, sex, violenee) will appeal to
the public or that certain groups (youth, immigrants) should be
continually exposed to scrutiny. Rather there are built-in
factors ranging rom the individual news-man's intuitive hunch about
what constitutes a 'good story' through precepts such as 'give the
public what it wants' to structured ideological biases, which
predispose the media to make a certain event into news.l

The media typically build upon labels imputed to individuals and
groups, elaborating a stereotype which will render the phenomenon
intelligible and predictable to the readership in terms of general
cultural images

i he moral cTtsaders

Those who have filled the ranks of the anti-Scientology crusade
have fallen into a number of discrete categories, with distinct
motivations for involvement:

n State agencies - such as the FDA in America and the Mental Health

Authority in Victoria 2. Doctors and psychiatrists (and to a lesser
extent ministers of religion) and

their professional bodies 3 Disgruntled ex-Scientologists 4.
Relatives of Scientologists 5. eighbours of Scientology 6. Members
of Parliament 7. The Press.

While one would not wish to impugn the motives of any of those
involved in demanding action against Scientology, it is clear that
however righteous their moral indignation, such a crusade had
useful and desirable consequences for each group. Characterizations
of Scientology as a 'fraud', 'brainwashing', 'hypnosis', or
'quackery', served to legitimate attitudes adopted by the crusad-
ing groups and individuals, and their demands for social control of
the movement. The interests of several of these groups directly
conflicted with those of Scientology. Doctors and psychiatrists
have persistently attacked Dianetics and Scientology, tending to
resent the therapeutic claims made by their adherents particularly
in respect of fields, such as severe psychological disorder, in
which they had themselves experienced little concrete success. They
also scorned the brief and unorthodox training of its practitioners
in comparison with their own lengthy and arduous process of
qualification. State agencies appear sometimes to have seen in
Scientology an opportunity to impress legislators and the public
with their zeal for the public protection, and the good use to
which they put public funds. Former Scientologists and relatives of
members may somctimes have seen in Cohen, op. cit., p. 45. 212

THZ sr CT: SCIZITOLOCY

stigmatization and grvernment action against the movement a means
of selfjustification. If Scientology was a form of hypnosis or
brainwashing, then this could jushfy and explain their involvement
in, and devotion of considerable resources to, a movement which
they now repudiated. Similarly relatives could explain the
involvement of spouses or children in the movement as a result of
fraud or brainwashing, and thereby excuse what might otherwise have
been conceived as a failure on their own part. Some of Scientologys
neighbours in East Grinstead appear to have found the presence of
the movement in a respectable middle-class townshmp a source of
irTitation and embarTassment.

The Press and Members of Parliament have an institutionalized
interest in talring up a moral crusade of concern to customers or
constituents. The two MPs most active in the British cnticism of
the movement were the MP for East Grinstead, the constiruency
containing the movements headquarters, and the MP for a
neighbouring constituency, Horsham. The Press found sensational
copy in Scientology and the allegations made about it, and as Young
has pointed out:

The mass media in Western countriQ are placed in a Compehhve
situation where they must attempt constantly to maintain and extend
their circulation. A major component of what is news-vorthy is that
which arouseS public indignation. Thus the media have an
irthtutionalised need to expose social problems, to act as if they
were the personified moral censors of their readership Reelity
conqict

were the personified moral censors of their readership9

Reality confiicl

Scientology confronts the conventional world with a deviant reality
of massive proportions. Unlike a belief-system such as spuitualism,
it does not merely add another level to existing reality with only
marginal implications for conventional life.8 Rather, it offers a
total Weenscheuung, a complex meaning system which interprets,
explains and directs everyday life by alternative means to conven-
tional, common-sense knowledge. Particularly in the area of the
psychological life of man, it offers a radically competing theory
to those prevailing in orthodox scientific circles and among those
which look to them for the authority for their beliefs. The
somewhat precarious status of the sciences of the person, and the
therapeutic arts dependent upon them, have led their practitioners
to be particularly sensihve to belief systems and practices which
challenge their authority. The proponents of orthodox psychological
healing prachces have managed to secure no more than a tenuous
claim to public legitimation as possessors of some umque
professional expertise.a Like many radical belief

I Jock Young, he Druetahers, (Paladin, 1971), p. 103.

5 On 8piritualism, see Geofirey . Nelson, Siriualism and Socicty
(Routledge & I:egan Paul, London, 1969).

3 Harold L Wilensky, The professionalizafion of everyone?',
Arnaican 7autnal of Socioloey 70 ( 1964), pp. 137-58, reprinted in
Oscar Grusky and George A. Miller, eds, he Sotioloy of
Oreanisations (Free Press, New York, 1970), p 489. systems, and in
this respect no more than early Christianity, Scientology also
presented a competing claim to the loyalty typically owed to the
family. Unlike early Christianitv, however, Scientology emerged in
an era when the family had become a sbmewhat fragile institution,1
and its claim to a higher loyalty under some circumstances wa5 thus
peculiarly threatening.

A further important feature of Scientology's challenge to
prevailing reality lay in its ambiguous status. Vestern conceptions
of religion, grounded in the Christian experience, idenhfy
religious institutions and practices in terms drawn from that
tradihon and its vicissitudes. Religious institutions are
dishnguishable from secular institutions. The boundaries between
church, business, science, and to a lesser extent psychotherapy,
are relatively clearly drawn. Scientology infringed these
boundaries and refusing to recogmze any necessity of occupying one
category rather than another, behaved in ways characteristic of
them all. It was thus a source of cognitive anomaly and
psychological anxiety.a Since it behaved as a business as well as a
religion (and that of a singularly alien form), many argued that
its religious claim must be purely 'a front', and Scientology 'a
confidence trick'.

Scientology's challenge to conventional reality remained
unimportant while the movement itself ·vas insignifcant. However,
there are indications that during the late l 950s and early 1 g60s
Scientology began to grow rapidly. Figures cited during the
American tax case indicate that the income of the Washington Church
almost doubled between 1956 and 1957. The Victoria Report shows a
steady growth at least from 1958 through 1962:

Incorne of Scientology Orgnnizations in Meoournes

Year ended 30June ;

8

12 150

959

3 5

60

47 75

61

57 640

62

71 977

63

54 071

relations to personality and the social

structure', in T. Parsons and R. F. Bales, arnly 5acialisation and
Intsracbon Ptotess (Free Press, Glencoe, 1956), pp. 3-21. t Mary
Douglas, Purity and Daner (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1966). a
This anxiety seems evident, for example, from the almost audible
sigh of relief uttered by the American Psychiatric Associahon when
Scientology was legally declared a religion in a Federal Court, and
thev could henceforth regard it as beyond their domain. Psychatric
JTews, 4, 3 (March 1969), p. 2. ' Founding Church of Scientology v.
L-SA in US Court of Claims, Washington, D.C.
lg67,'BrieffortheUnitedStates'. 6 Anderson, op. cit, p. 38. The
Foster Report indicates that in Bntain, the movement's income
roughly doubled every year between 1965 and 1968.l

Scientology was clearly having a considerable impact, recruiting
individuals away from conventional reality. Moreover, the
individuals recruited were not by any means marginal in
conventional terms. Many were prosperous. Businessmen and
professionals were converted as well as the less successful.

For some, particularly Anderson, Scientology's conflict with
conventional reality was a moral aflfront. The Victoria Report
reverberates with Anderson's indignation that anyone could believe
such a 'weird idea',9 such 'nonsense',a so much that v as ;entirely
contrary to conventional learning and experience', 'irrational and
perverted'.S He appears to have found it perverse and indeed
'incredible that a witness with such high academic qualifications,
could voice such nonsense...'9 and was forced to conclude that
Hubbard's followers were 'deluded',9 or in the grip of 'some
inescapable compulsion'.9 How otherwise could one account for the
fact that apparentLy rational men could come to hold such bizarre
and alien beliefs, than that they were 'hypnotized' or 'brain-
washed'? Scientology posed a threat not only to the precarious
domains ol psychological treatment and family life,9 but to the
fabric of conventional reality itself. Deriance-amplihcation and
Scientology

Since its early days Scientology has been an authoritarian movement
w ith only

Since its early days Scientology has been an authoritanan movement
with only one source of authoritative definition of reality, its
founder Ron Hubbard. The debacle of Dianetics in the early l950S
convinced Hubbard that two major dangers threatened the survival of
his organizahon - attacks from outside the Scientology community
inspired by medical and psychiatric interests, and threats from
within, in the form of heresy, 'individualism' and schism. Both
these perceived dangers need to be considered to understand the
movement's development. While the response of the movement's
leadership to the latter was sectarianization, its response to the
former appears to have been a complex combinahon of strategies
involving the generation of peripheral organizations, infiltration,
and undercover tactics designed to secure some control over the
external environment. One important means of secunng greater
control over

Foster, op. cit., p. 36. 9 Andenon, op. cit., p. 48. 9 Ibid., p. S9
t Ibid., p. 48. 5 Ibid., p. 12. 9 Ibid., p. 52. 7 Ibid., p. Sn
Ibid., p. 52.

9 One of the most penistent complaints against Scientoiogy during
this period was that it broke up families. he evidence in support
of these elaims, however, does nDt appear very strong. Scientology
does not appear to cause familial disruption to a greater extent
than other systems ot beliets to which one family member holds with
great conviction but the rest rqect. Indeed, it is my impression
that it causes lest familial disruption than some contemporary
communitarian groups, and perhaps les than the early Christian
church. the movements environment was through a more aggressive use
of ehe techniques of public relations. This could be directed to
the dual end of increased mobilization of recruits to the movement,
as well as increased control.

Unless you have control of the Public, driving the Public into the
Org becomes a difficult task. This is why PR control is so
irnportant. Once you have the control, it is easy to bring in the
public, in the thousands and millions ! It is also needed to
protect org expansion from attaeks by opposition groups. PR is a
social technique of control.

How do you do this? Well, you get all the people who oUNT in the
area - the VIPs, the community group, news media, under YOUP.
control. Then you USE these public control points to get the raw
public in. Simple !l

(The Scientologists point out to me in a private communication that
'the authenticitv of the quote is doubtful'.)

One response of the movement to a hostile environment appeas to
have been a process of eDiance-amplihcaton. In the late l950S and
early 19605, the gradual growth of the movement and its
quasi-therapeutic claims brought it to the attention of a variety
of state and professional agencies. In the pursuit of largely
bureaucratic ends, the Food and Drug Administration in America, the
Medical Health Authority in Victoria, the American ;ledical
Association, the British Medical Association, the American
Psychological Association, and similar agencies maintained a
certain surveillance over Scientology, and occasionally issued
public comment upon it. This led to defensive and offensive action
by the Scientology organization in response. Critics were attacked,
and internal security tightened. The FDA raid in 1963 inevitably
led to further alienation from, and hostility towards, the state,
press, and professional bodies, for what was felt by many
Scientologists to be, and what was charactenzed by its leadership
as, religious persecution.l

It was, however, the developments in Victoria which led to an
international moral panic. There, prexs, medical and psychiatric
agencies, professional bodies and disgruntled former Scientologists
joined forces to promote government action against Scientology.
The grounds for such action - alleged blackmail, extortion, and
adverse effects on the mental health of local university students,
were generally unsubstantiated by the Anderson Enquiry.

However, Anderson's Report presented, often in emotive terms, a
highly negative stereotype of the movement. It instituted a moral
passage in public designations of Scientology, leading to a
transformation of the prevailing stereotype. The former
conception of the movement as a relatively harmless, if 'cranky',
health and self-improvement cult, was transformed into one which
portrayed it as 'evil', 'dangerous', a form of 'hypnosis' (with all
the overtones

I Diana Hubbard, April 1971, cited in St Louis Post-Dispotch, 6
March 1974, original source not indicated.

This is the tenor of Church of Scientology, rhe iiindngs..., op.
eit., for example. of Svengali in the layman's mind), and
'brainwashing'. The symbolization of the movement rested largely on
the putative fcatures of its deviation, that is:

that portion of the societal definition of the deviant which has no
foundation in his objective behaviour. Frequently these fallacious
imputations are incorporated into myth and stereotype and mediate
much of the formal treatment of the deviant.'

Much play was made of Scientology practices which were liely to
cause harm;t the 'potentiality for the misuse of confidences';S and
activities that were 'poter tially very dangerous to the mental
health of the community'.: Exaggeration and distortion appear
throughout the Report, probab]y the most notorious example of wbich
occurs where Anderson asserts that he realized he had obselved a
woman being 'processed into insanity' when nine days after a
demonstration auditmg session in which she participated, she was
admitted to a mental hospital.5

The Anderson Report provoked not only a legal ban on Scientology in
Victoria, but a reaction in many other English-speaking countries.
In 1966 Scientology became the subject of a question in the House
of Commons, as well as of numerous unfavourable press reports, many
of which drew directly upon Anderson's rhetoric and stereotyping.
Hubbard was also requested to leave Rhodesia where it appears he
may have hoped to settle 6 In 1967 Scientolog came under the
scrutiny of the Ontario Committee on the Healing Arts.' The process
described by amplification theorists began accelerating: came under
the scrutiny of the Ontario Cornmittee on the Healing Arts.7 The
process descnbed by amplification theorists began acceleratmg:

...when society defines a group oi people as deviant it tends to
react against them so ai to isolate and alienate them from me
company of 'normal' people. In this situation of isolation and
alienation, the group...tends to develop its own norms and values
which society perceives as even more deviant than before.S

What Scientologists regarded as their 'persecution', evperienced at
a personal and not merely at an organizational level, resulted m
the rapld development of a severe sense of alienation from the
surrounding society, and the development among core members of new
norms conceived to be essential for the movement's survival,
although regarded by the conventional society as further evidence
of Scientology's deviance. This alienation is evident in passages
such as the following:

I Edwin M. Lernert, Soeia Pathology, McGraw-Hill, New York, 195l,
pp. 55-6. 2 Anderson, op. eit., p 4 t Ibid., p. 1. (My emphasis.

' Ibid., p. 108. (My emphasis.) ' Ibid., p. 135.

: This is suggested in Christopher Evans, Cults of Unteason
(Harrap, London, 1973), p. 85; Daily Mail, 14July 1966.

7John A. Lee, Sectanan Healers and Jypnotherapy: a Sttdyfor the
Committee on the }leaimg Arts (Queen's Printer, Toronto, Ontario, 1
97O.

Jock Young, 'The role of the poliee as amplifiers of deviance,
negotiatorS of reality and translatots of fantasy, [etc]', in
Stanley Coben, ed., Images of :)eriance (Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth, 1971).
Scientologyre