Inside Scientology

by Janet Reitman

  Over the past decade or so, Scientologists have forged bonds with state and local lawmakers in cities across the United States, some of whom may not be fully aware of the Scientology connection. One example is the church's close ties to the National Foundation of Women Legislators, which counts more than eight hundred members in state and federal government. Since the late 1990s, Scientologists have held key positions in the organization, which they have used to reach out to lawmakers on issues pertaining to drugs and social reform, notably psychiatry.

  In the spring of 2010, this link became notably clear after it was revealed that the Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, a Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate and a member of the NFWL, had backed a bill to implement a Hubbard-inspired drug rehabilitation and reform program known as Second Chance in Nevada state prisons. The president of Second Chance, Joy Westrum, sat on the NFWL board and had reportedly been instrumental in linking Second Chance, which uses the Purification Rundown, with a drug awareness program known as Shoulder to Shoulder, which has nothing to do with Scientology but happens to be supported by the NFWL.

  Angle, a Southern Baptist, was clearly enamored of Second Chance, appearing in a promotional video for the program. Angle also became an advocate of CCHR's agenda—though she did not publicly endorse CCHR—and in 2001 and 2003 tried to introduce legislation that would prohibit school nurses or psychologists (though not licensed physicians) to require that certain students take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin. These efforts failed, but in 2003, Angle did manage to convince the Nevada senator John Ensign to introduce a similar bill in Congress. (According to theLas Vegas Sun, Angle's website at one point contained a reference, later scrubbed, to her partnering with actresses Jenna Elfman and Kelly Preston, who joined her in lobbying Ensign.)

  "The Church of Scientology has been excellent at taking well-established social problems and capitalizing on them for its own good," noted the Canadian sociologist Stephen Kent, who has studied Scientology's tactics and practices for twenty years. The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, for example, provided Applied Scholastics—along with many other for-profit educational systems—with the opportunity to introduce Hubbard's study technology into the schools, and it was highly successful at implementing the program in one middle school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was notorious for its poor performance record. Similarly, in Washington, D.C., Applied Scholastics International is now one of twenty-nine tutoring services listed in the Title I Supplemental Educational Services Guide provided to parents of children attending D.C.'s failing public schools.

  The attacks of 9/11 also gave Scientologists a chance to introduce Hubbard's Purification Rundown to skeptical New Yorkers, and first responders continue to receive help from the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, which critics decry is Narconon by another name. WISE has a number of management consultancy groups that specialize in teaching small business owners L. Ron Hubbard's management technology—indeed, Mike Henderson's wife, Donna, was introduced to Scientology through a WISE-affiliated company that had promised to help her better manage her veterinary practice.

  Where Scientology has not been wary of using its name has been in its humanitarian work. After the Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010, for example, teams of Scientology missionaries, known as "volunteer ministers," flocked to Port-au-Prince, where they established a semi-permanent base, along with several other relief organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and Doctors Without Borders. Wearing the signature yellow T-shirts that identified them as members of the Church of Scientology's volunteer minister program, they brought food, water, medical supplies, and also plentiful Scientology literature. They served as surgical assistants and orderlies at the makeshift hospitals set up in the wake of the disaster, and also offered their own holistic healing techniques, known as "touch assists," to wounded children.

  John Travolta flew his private plane to the island, bringing with him a team of doctors, more volunteer ministers, and a reported six tons of ready-to-eat military rations and medical supplies. The project won Travolta, and Scientology, tremendous media coverage. And, as with every church initiative, Scientologists were encouraged to donate to the cause. "We need to get as much Scientology technology into the hands of the Haitian people," noted one fundraising letter promising members that a $3,000 gift or more would win the donor a "very special commendation" in their ethics file.

  The appeal likened the tragedy in Haiti to the attacks of September 11, 2001, which Miscavige had described as a "wake-up call" to Scientologists to proselytize.

  Since leaving Scientology, Marty Rathbun has become the chief thorn in David Miscavige's side. On his blog, and in several key interviews with the St. Petersburg Times, CNN, and other media, he has railed against Miscavige's policies and accused him of human rights abuses. But Rathbun is still a Scientologist, as are a number of former Int staffers mentioned in this book, among them Dan Koon, Steve Hall, and Mike Rinder. They are part of a new "Independent Scientology" movement: people who've remained true to the original theories and teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, though not to the current management of the church.

  Such splintering is not unusual for religions—Protestantism, after all, was originally a splinter movement—and indeed, dissension has been a hallmark of Scientology since its earliest days, when Dianeticists like Helen O'Brien split with Hubbard over the very creation of a religious movement called Scientology. In the 1980s, the so-called Free Zone movement attracted a few thousand members but was ultimately hounded out of existence—ironically, by Rathbun and the church's legal department. Now Rathbun's own movement (which is largely, but not entirely, comprised of former Sea Org members) is facing similar attacks leveled by the Church of Scientology, which claims, among other things, that Rathbun, not Miscavige, was responsible for the culture of violence that developed on the base.

  After leaving the Sea Org, Rathbun moved to south Texas, where he spent several years staying assiduously under the radar. Many former Scientologists, including Marc and Claire Headley, believed he was dead. Then, in 2008, he emerged, posting on an ex-Scientologist message board that he was open for business as an auditor. Since then, hundreds of former church loyalists have reportedly availed themselves of his services at his Corpus Christi home.

  But Rathbun's "church," if it could be called that, is still largely a virtual church, located on his website, where the former RTC inspector general sermonizes on everything from David Miscavige's abusiveness to the inspiration he draws from the rapper Nas, who, on his album Hip Hop Is Dead criticized the music industry—and America—for, as Rathbun saw it, "degraded values."* Rathbun similarly judged Miscavige's church to be degraded. Indeed, he has likened himself, in vague terms, to Martin Luther, challenging a corrupt and megalomaniacal pope.

  Such tactics have their price, and since the summer of 2009, when Rathbun gave several lengthy interviews to theSt. Petersburg Times, he has been hounded by private investigators. "My wife and I can't even have a quiet meal at the local Chuck Wagon without some[one] plopping down beside us, straining his ear," Rathbun wrote on his blog in September 2010. His home, he said, is under constant surveillance, and investigators have dug into his personal life. One of them, Rathbun claimed, has suggested to authorities that Rathbun was somehow involved in the 1981 murder of his brother, Bruce, a charge he unequivocally denied. "I joined Scientology for the sole purpose of helping my troubled brother," Rathbun has said.

  Marc and Claire Headley too have been followed by church-funded P.I.'s, although for different reasons. The Headleys, who disavowed Scientology, sued the Church of Scientology in 2009 for violations of labor law, human trafficking, and forced abortions. On August 5, 2010, the suits were dismissed by the U.S. district judge Dale Fischer, who ruled that as the ministerial arm of the church, the Sea Organization was protected by the First Amendment. "Inquiry into these allegations would entangle the court in the religious doctrine of Scientology and the doctrinally motivated practices of t
he Sea Org," Judge Fischer wrote.

  In response to the ruling, the Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis said succinctly, "Scientology wins."

  The Church of Scientology in the twenty-first century may be very different from the therapy group L. Ron Hubbard founded in 1954, but its core tenets have not changed. Scientologists continue to see tax collectors and government officials as "criminal elements," largely because of Hubbard's belief that these groups take money from the public and deliver nothing in return. They view journalists with distrust and disdain as "merchants of chaos" and believe that psychiatrists, in cahoots with drug companies like Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKlein, are part of a broad, government-endorsed, global conspiracy to subjugate the human race. Scientology continues to use the legal system as a weapon, just as Hubbard intended; its lawsuits aim to "harass and discourage" as well as, in myriad cases, "ruin" its opponents utterly: since the Operation Snow White investigation of the late 1970s, the U.S. government has been loath to investigate the Church of Scientology despite numerous charges of wrongdoing, ranging from human rights abuse to financial corruption. According to several reports, the FBI is currently investigating Scientology over the abuse allegations made by numerous Sea Org staff; the agency is also reportedly investigating David Miscavige for "inurement," or allegations that he has personally enriched himself with church funds.

  A fiercely doctrinaire religion, Scientology has always required that its adherents follow L. Ron Hubbard's edicts to the letter. Dissent or opposition to any of Hubbard's views or technologies has never been tolerated. Throughout the church's history, those who challenged Hubbard's authority, including several early members of his Sea Organization, were immediately cast out. Debating church tenets in any context that would foster the free exchange of ideas and, ultimately, adaptation has never been looked upon favorably. While members are expected to take responsibility for one another—which would include reporting abusive Sea Org members, as Natalie Walet's mother once did—comporting oneself in any way that could be seen as contrary to church goals, including expressing curiosity about other philosophies, or about people or aspects of life that might be independent of the church's immediate purview, is considered subversive: punishable, in its most egregious cases, by excommunication.

  Scientology, in other words, is and has always been a fundamentalist faith. And like other fundamentalist groups, it will have its factions and its apostates. Whether it will endure in spite of that rests on whether its basic mission—to "clear" the planet and thus create a Scientology world—remains vital to its flock, and to their children.

  After Kendra Wiseman left Scientology in 2000, she spent a few years in Los Angeles, searching for meaning. Her passing interest in Wicca was over; now she explored Kabbalah, Buddhist meditation, yoga, and Pilates. She worked for Food Not Bombs, took part in anarchist conventions, protested the impending war in Iraq, and tried to become obsessed with various rock-and-roll bands. Nothing filled the void left by her abandonment of the church. "One of the most addictive things about Scientology is the constant feeling that you are part of the Universal Struggle," she later wrote in an essay, "Growing Up a Scientologist." This feeling is not unique to her; it is an integral feature of the movement's success. "Youpersonally are giving the universe real hope ... simply by existing, by the mere fact that you are Moving Up the Bridge." A science fiction fan, Kendra compared L. Ron Hubbard to Yoda and everyone else she knew to Luke Skywalker. "Imagine feeling that big, that important, that powerful every day of your life," she said. "I challenge anyone to look into their heart of hearts and tell me that if they ever found a cause that they considered worthy, as we considered that cause worthy, that they wouldn't join it."

  Now, Kendra realized, leaving Scientology was about much more than simply deciding not go to church or use language developed by L. Ron Hubbard. It was about learning to live in a world that hadn't in some way been designed by L. Ron Hubbard. In 2004, having dropped out of Delphi and gotten a GED, Kendra went to college. She chose a school as far away as she could imagine: in Beijing, a city where Scientology, like most religions, is outlawed.

  From there, she began posting to anti-Scientology websites. The church soon became aware of this, and in the spring of 2006, Kendra's name was entered onto what she called a church "blacklist" of Scientology critics. As a result, her parents disconnected from her. "They have abandoned me here," she wrote me from China. "But it's okay," she added. "I'm doing fine."

  She'd become a writer and a web designer. Warily, she continued to post her thoughts on anti-Scientology message boards. Then, in January 2008, Kendra and many other former Scientologists were given a tremendous boost by a loose affiliation of Internet hackers, free-speech advocates, and critics who, calling themselves "Anonymous," began attacking Scientology websites and holding large anti-Scientology rallies in cities around the world. Emboldened by the safety in numbers on the Internet and at the rallies, Kendra and two friends, Jenna Miscavige Hill, a niece of David Miscavige, and Astra Woodcraft, the daughter of one of Lisa McPherson's former caretakers, launched Ex-Scientology Kids, a website offering "non-judgmental support for those who are still in Scientology" as well as "discussion and debate for those who've already left." Their motto: "I was born. I grew up. I escaped."

  But Kendra hadn't spoken to her parents in more than two years. "I write them letters sometimes," she told me in an e-mail. "I haven't heard from them in so long, writing the letters is like writing in a diary, or talking to myself." She had recently gotten engaged and was planning her wedding, which she knew her family wouldn't attend. "I don't hate them. I don't resent them. I don't want to see them punished, or forced to not be Scientologists, or anything like that. I just want to talk to them again." If she could say one thing to her family, "I'd tell them I love them. I wish they'd given me a chance to show that I've grown up, and that I'm happy."

  A few months later, these sentiments, which Kendra posted on Ex-Scientology Kids, abruptly disappeared from the site. By the end of 2008, Kendra's name had also disappeared from that website, save one small reference, which identified her as a founder. Scientology had not forced this to happen; Kendra herself had decided to do it.

  As it turned out, her parents had attended her wedding after all. Afterward, the family agreed to come to a sort of détente. Kendra would stop publicly voicing her opposition to church policies, which would make it easier for her parents to keep her in their lives. Both parties would maintain their own views, but they simply wouldn't talk about them. "I guess it's like don't ask, don't tell," Kendra told me. "We basically agreed that the only way it would work out was if we totally kept Scientology out of each other's lives."

  If the Church of Scientology—not Scientology as a philosophy, but the church as an institution—is to survive, it will have to find a way to reconcile itself, and its policies, with people like Kendra Wiseman. Reform is not an idea that sat well with L. Ron Hubbard, who preached that Scientology was the only way out of the maze of the human condition, and, moreover, that its message and practices could be delivered only through Scientology organizations or individuals controlled by them and licensed to provide "100 percent standard tech." But reform may nonetheless be what is needed. "LRH's real mission was to teach people to look for themselves: into themselves, into others, into the world around them," said Dan Koon, who is one of a number of former Scientologists who believe that Hubbard's original philosophy differed vastly from the policies and ideology imposed by his organization. Because of this, Koon estimated that there may now be more people practicing Scientology outside the organized church than inside.

  Those people have had to make a choice: should they speak out and be declared heretics or keep silent and maintain their ties with family and friends? It is a bitter and, for many, an impossible choice, and because of it, the Church of Scientology, controlled as it is by authoritarian and image-conscious leaders who appear to have invested far more in the look than the substance of the faith, may not, as its
detractors predict, survive as it exists today.

  I have no doubt, however, that for as long as people yearn for the answers to eternal questions, as well as to their own immediate problems, some vestiges of L. Ron Hubbard's philosophy will remain, provided the movement's second and third generations lead the way.

  Natalie Walet, for instance, has stayed true to Scientology, and to the organized church. She is also applying to law schools. On her list: Stanford, Georgetown, Columbia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan. While she waits, she is living in Tampa, working as a waitress, and taking Scientology courses at Flag. "I go there every week," she says. "I love it there."

  Which is not to say that Natalie is unaware of Scientology's problems. Like many young Scientologists, she has broken church rules and gone on the Internet to read the OT levels and peruse critical websites. Over the past years, she has read all the stories published in the St. Petersburg Times detailing the accounts of human rights violations at the Int Base. "I don't doubt that some of those things happened," she said. "I'm well aware of what it's like inside the Sea Org, and there is definitely truth to every bit of bad PR you hear."

  On the other hand, she wondered, why did officials let this happen? "All the people who've come out and told the press these things were in a position to do something about it—to change things. Instead, they stood there and watched. Why? It's so beyond what the church—any church—should stand for."

  She rejected the defectors' claims that the environment was too corrosive—too "cult-like," in the words of men like Jeff Hawkins and Tom De Vocht—for them to do anything more than take the abuse, and run. "If you know there's a problem, it's your responsibility to fix it—that's what LRH says," she noted. "When you look at the doctrine, it's not all that free-thinking, but the auditing is all about freedom of thought. If orders are coming down that you know are wrong, it's your responsibility as a Scientologist to handle them. So it really floors me that people saw DM doing this, if he did this, and didn't do anything. Shame on them for not fixing it."