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Behind The Babble; Church or cult?

SECTION: THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. T12

LENGTH: 2974 words

Church or cult? Sarah Boseley assesses Scientology's campaign to change its image

BYLINE: Sarah Boseley

IN THE beginning was the word of L. Ron Hubbard, an extraordinary confusion of techno-babble, sci-fi speak, naval jargon and Biblical parody which goes by the name of Scientology. And the word spread to about eight million people worldwide and was the source of much suspicion and derision amongst men. But believers in the word (recorded in person on 447 tapes and zillions of printed pages by L. Ron for the enlightenment of his followers in the hereinafter) were undismayed and fought in the courts and the media to have Scientology recognised as a bona-fide religion with social status and tax exemption.

SCIENTOLOGY wants respectability. After 40 years of fear and loathing, played out in the courts and the media, its leaders seem to be winning gradual acceptance of the religious nature of its creed - wacky as it may seem to unbelievers. Celebrity converts like John Travolta and Tom Cruise have vastly helped its cause in the US. Lately there has been speculation that Lisa-Marie Presley, a Scientologist since childhood, may lure husband Michael Jackson into the Church. Perhaps it was significant that last month his elder brother Germaine Jackson, not a Scientologist but not unsympathetic, starred with Isaac Hayes (a member) at a concert in the grounds of the organisation's UK headquarters in East Grinstead.

Last October came the biggest breakthrough when Scientology was granted tax -exempt status in the US after a two-year examination, the longest in the history of the Internal Revenue Service. Millions of pages, many of them rehearsing allegations of the coercion and brain-washing of disciples, went in as evidence, but ultimately the IRS decided the Church and more than 150 of its corporate entities "operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes." It has won similar status in Australia and parts of Canada.

But now it has probably a tougher nut to crack. Although the leadership have said nothing publicly and shy away from discussing it, in June it put in an application for charitable status as a religion in Britain, where it has some 200,000 members and rising.

Down at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, the mansion bought by Hubbard from the Maharajah of Jaipur and where the sci-fi writer reinvented as 20th century Moses lived in the sixties, there is clear nervousness of possible bad publicity. A fax from Greg Ryerson, director of the Office of Special Affairs, stated that "wherever appropriate, individual churches of Scientology are taking whatever action may be necessary to achieve a recognition of their charitable status in their respective countries . . . it would be premature to comment further regarding the Church's charitable status in the United Kingdom."

Over tea at the end of a long discussion and tour, I am pressured not to call Scientology a cult. The Oxford Dictionary definition of a cult is "system of religious worship; devotion, homage to person or thing; fad, passing fancy, for some particular thing." Nobody leaves the Scientologists without acres of documents. I am handed a 58-page dossier on the redefinition of the word which now has, they insist, a negative image. "The word cult is offensive to us," says Margaret Reese from Special Affairs.

But the alternative is clearly "religion", and however many conquests Scientology has made abroad, it will have trouble with the Charity Commissioners in the UK, whose tenets say specifically that for their approval, a religion has to be "founded on a belief in a god or gods".

In 1970, Lord Denning as Master of the Rolls ruled that the chapel at Saint Hill could not be registered as a place of religious worship. "Turning to the Creed of the Church of Scientology," he said, "I must say that it seems to me to be more a philosophy of the existence of man or of life, rather than a religion. Religious worship means reverence or veneration of God or of a Supreme Being. I do not find any such reverence or veneration in the Creed of this Church . . . there may be a belief in the spirit of man, but this is no belief in a spirit of God." In 1978, the Church applied for charity status and was turned down, on just this ground.

L. Ron is not a god, say his disciples, but a man and a friend. He died in 1986 but his spirit, they believe, lives on - in another body if he has so chosen, for that is up to him. Scientologists believe that if, through the teachings of L. Ron, they progress in knowledge of their spirit selves and rid themselves of evil thoughts and deeds in this and in past lives, they can set themselves up for a better life next time.

BESIDES the reincarnation prospects, Scientology is supposed to improve life, relationships and careers in this world. It is strongly opposed to drugs, especially those administered by the psychiatric profession, with which the Church has long battled.

"Scientology is a spiritual pathway to higher awareness," says Margaret. "If you are increasing a person's individual awareness of himself as a spiritual entity or being, you are bringing up a person's ability to think more for himself and communicate with others and be able to handle children, handle work and handle problems."

To this end, Hubbard's courses are run at the castle built by the cult in the elegant gardens of Saint Hill. There is just a hint of a Hollywood set about it - a touch too much like a Californian concept of an English castle turned Oxbridge college - all in squeaky clean light oak with scrolled writing on door plaques and chintz -covered chairs.

There are guided tours of the place, as there are of the Manor, where L. Ron's old study is maintained intact with old-fashioned telephones and telex machine and some of his overcoats in a glass case. His library contains no books but his own, from the earliest pulp sci-fi stories in Dime Adventure Magazine and Argosy in the 1920s to the best-selling 10-volume Mission Earth yarns he finished not long before he died.

But his mega-opus is his Scientology output, which began with the Dianetics volume in the early 1950s. There is no doubt he was a master of invention. Reading his works is like walking into a literary hall of crazy mirrors. Finnegans Wake and Lord of the Rings came nowhere near the extent of this fantasy.

There are passages of Old Testament parody. "Summation of the considerations and examinations of the human spirit and the material universe completed between A.D. (After Dianetics) 1923 and A.D. 1953" runs a passage on "The axioms of Dianetics and Scientology". "1. Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect."

By 14, we have got to: "Many dimension points combine into larger gases, fluids or solids. Thus there is matter. But the most valued point is admiration, and admiration is so strong its absence alone permits persistence."

Hubbard's courses have strange pseudo-scientific names, from "Hubbard Method One Co-Audit Course Graduate" to "Hubbard Professional Auditor (HPA, Provisional)". Scientology claims learning how to communicate is at the core of its philosophy, but the jargon is baffling to outsiders. What is taught is "technology", a command of which will lead one to "The Bridge", which appears to be the passage to the next life. "Additional processing services" offered to students include "cause resurgence breakdown", "false purpose rundown" and "method one word clearing".

Hubbard's naval service during the second world war was the inspiration for the uniforms, with hats, epaulettes and much braid, worn by staff members of the Church and for more of the terminology. The top brass are called the Sea Organisation. Hubbard promoted himself from Commodore to Admiral before he died. The movement owns a ship which cruises round the Antilles running courses.

Opponents of Scientology - many of them former, disenchanted members - claim the cult gains a psychological hold over people by the counselling process, called auditing, which is part of almost all its courses. They also say that confidential information obtained by auditors is held on files and used to keep people in the sect.

It is like a scene from a 1950s sci-fi movie. The subject holds a pair of tin cans, through which passes an imperceptible electric current. On any subject - marriage, children, money, death - the subject's emotional "charge" is supposedly measured by a flickering needle on the so-called E-meter. Subjects talk through their troubles until the needle shows all distress has gone.

The greatest damage the cult has suffered in this country was not the ban from 1968-80 on foreign Scientologists entering, which kept Hubbard out for 12 years, but a High Court judgment over a custody case in 1984. The cult is so sensitive to it that they are even now trying to have Mr Justice Latey's words set aside.

THE TWO children in the case had been living with their father, a Scientologist, in East Grinstead. Their mother, who had left the Church, was asking for custody in order to remove them from the influence of the cult. Mr Justice Latey called Scientology "both immoral and socially obnoxious".

"It is corrupt," he said in his judgment, "because it is based on lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power for its founder, his wife, and those close to him at the top. It is sinister because it indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line unquestioningly and to those outside who oppose it. It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult."

The uneasiest feeling one has about the Church is that its members' convictions give them the determination to achieve anything. The mother, who got custody of the children, has since handed the boy back to the father, who says the girl will soon follow. The Church claims the mother could not cope and that it has reclaimed the children, who have both themselves become Scientologists, from drugs.

As part of their campaign against the judgment, the Church has now put out a letter from the father, David Banks, complaining that Latey set himself up as "judge, jury and executioner of my religion". He argues that "what was claimed to be in my children's best interests ended up being a disaster - years of their lives lost". But then, in a style typical of Scientologists in the past, he claims that the principal witness in the case against him was on video admitting "a personal policy of committing perjury when testifying against the Church of Scientology".

At East Grinstead, the Church's leaders believe Britain is a few years behind the US, where Scientology used to be the constan t subject of court cases and brainwashing charges, but is rarely now. British culture has proved much harder for the so-called new religious movements to penetrate.

Scientology could be made for the end of the 20th century, with its jargonal mish-mash of science and technology, its stress on the individual rather than any god, its fantasy castle cum university and its anti-drug crusading, endorsed by pop stars. Every religion has had to be invented some time and most were persecuted in their early years. On the other hand, the cynic might wonder if L. Ron is sitting somewhere up there, laughing his socks off.

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