HARMLESS OR HATEFUL ?

by Joe Humphreys

RELIGION: The Church of Scientology:

A History of a New Religion By Hugh B Urban

Princeton University Press, 268pp. £19.95

Seeing red: L Ron Hubbard tests whether tomatoes experience pain, in 1968. He concluded that they

"scream when sliced". Photograph: Scott Lauder/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty

FIRST, A CONFESSION. I once went for a job interview at the Church of Scientology. Unwittingly, I hasten to add. As a J-1 student in recession-hit San Francisco, I answered a classified ad: “Rewarding work at church available for modest pay.” The address led me to a bookstore-cum-office, and I knew this was no ordinary “church” when the application form asked, “Are you related to intelligence agencies?” and “Have you ever been involved in any sexual perversion? Give who, where, when, what, on each instance.”

The misleading nature of that advertisement is small fry in the context of Scientology’s reputation, but it is illustrative of the organisation’s modus operandi. To its critics, the church of L Ron Hubbard is a loopy spiritual pyramid scheme designed to prey on the gullible and weak-minded. It is ridiculed probably more than any other belief system, it was almost banned in Germany and it’s the target of a vitriolic campaign by anonymous techies seeking its “destruction”.

Yet bear in mind that Scientologists have started no wars and committed no atrocities – unless you count John Travolta’s big-screen adaptation of Hubbard’s science-fiction saga Battlefield Earth, which is “widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made”, according to Hugh B Urban, a historian of religion. In fact, no one has been provably killed in the name of Scientology. The most serious charge against it arose from the death of 36-year-old Lisa McPherson in controversial circumstances at a Scientology camp at Clearwater, Florida, in 1995. The case was dropped by prosecutors five years later after a botched autopsy.

Urban, who has also written books about sexuality and the occult, is determined to give Hubbard’s disciples a fair hearing in The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion . Tracing how “a penny-a-word science fiction writer” founded a popular self-help therapy, Dianetics, the springboard for Scientology, Urban is resolutely straight-faced, even when discussing the church’s most fanciful teachings. The closest he comes to a chuckle is when recounting Hubbard’s claim that reaching upper states of knowledge can kill: “Yet Hubbard risked his own life and health in order to achieve the dramatic breakthrough, passing through ‘the Wall of Fire’ to uncover the secret history of our galaxy.”

The deferential approach stretches credulity at times, but it generates interesting questions about double standards in our treatment of religions. Urban highlights how many religions are hierarchical and combine elements of secrecy with a self-justifying language or narrative. Repeatedly, he makes the point that the followers of a religion should not necessarily be judged by those in positions of power. “After all, the fact that Catholic bishops have covered up child sexual abuse does not prevent millions of ordinary believers worldwide from continuing to find Catholicism meaningful in their daily lives.”

In addition, by looking at Scientology in context, Urban helps to identify just why the church antagonises people so much. For the religious, it’s so brazen in its myth-making it’s a parody of faith. For the nonreligious, it contains just the right dose of pseudoscience to resemble the homeopathy of belief systems.

What’s more, it’s so goddam American, blending the celebration of self-advancement with what Urban concludes is an ostensibly for-profit motive. Hubbard once said Scientology appealed to Americans “because they tend to believe in instant everything, from instant coffee to instant nirvana”.

Urban also sheds light on why the church is so secretive and litigious, and convincingly explains how it has evolved – and even adapted its teachings – in response to regulation by government agencies. A clampdown by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1963 led Hubbard to reposition himself as a salesman of “spiritual” rather than “healing” services. Five years later, he set up the Sea Org, a naval branch of hard-core followers, as a preliminary strike against the threat of being banned.

Crucially, Hubbard then rebranded Scientology as a religion, adopting some of the iconography of Christianity despite dismissing Jesus as “a lover of young boys and men”. This allowed the church to make a plea for special protections in the US and, most significantly, to gain tax-free status in 1993.

A number of questions go unanswered in the book, as Urban admits. He mentions as influencing factors the threat of litigation and a fear of being made “fair game” – a practice of intimidation officially denied by the church. Some readers will crave more detail about Scientology’s finances and about the bizarre Tom Cruise-Hollywood nexus.

Urban compensates for lack of colour with philosophical musings about whether, for example, a religion that depends on secrecy can survive in an internet-driven world. (A Google search will throw up Scientology’s most closely guarded revelations, saving you up to $400,000 in church fees.) Urban also points out that, contrary to popular belief, as well as to the church’s claims, Scientology is in decline. In 2008 it had an estimated 25,000 followers in the US, down from 55,000 in 2001.

Urban’s unstintingly nonjudgmental tone almost has you feeling sorry for Scientology in the end. Almost. Perhaps uninten- tionally, his refreshingly even-handed treatment of the controversial church puts other religions in the dock.

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Joe Humphreys is an Irish Times journalist. His latest book is God’s Entrepreneurs: How Irish Missionaries Tried to Change the World (New Island)

RELIGION: The Church of Scientology:

A History of a New Religion By Hugh B Urban

Princeton University Press, 268pp. £19.95

 

Scientology is one of the wealthiest and most powerful new religions to emerge in the past century. To its detractors, L. Ron Hubbard's space-age mysticism is a moneymaking scam and sinister brainwashing cult. But to its adherents, it is humanity's brightest hope. Few religious movements have been subject to public scrutiny like Scientology, yet much of what is written about the church is sensationalist and inaccurate. Here for the first time is the story of Scientology's protracted and turbulent journey to recognition as a religion in the postwar American landscape.

Hugh Urban tells the real story of Scientology from its cold war-era beginnings in the 1950s to its prominence today as the religion of Hollywood's celebrity elite. Urban paints a vivid portrait of Hubbard, the enigmatic founder who once commanded his own private fleet and an intelligence apparatus rivaling that of the U.S. government. One FBI agent described him as "a mental case," but to his followers he is the man who "solved the riddle of the human mind." Urban details Scientology's decades-long war with the IRS, which ended with the church winning tax-exempt status as a religion; the rancorous cult wars of the 1970s and 1980s; as well as the latest challenges confronting Scientology, from attacks by the Internet group Anonymous to the church's efforts to suppress the online dissemination of its esoteric teachings.

This book demonstrates how Scientology has reflected the broader anxieties and obsessions of postwar America, and raises profound questions about how religion is defined and who gets to define it.

Hugh B. Urban is professor of religious studies at Ohio State University. His books include Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism and Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion.

Reviews:

"[A] slim, thoughtful investigation of Scientology as a uniquely American religious phenomenon, one whose history has a great deal to teach us ... He is more interested in how the church has reflected and influenced currents in American history ... Most fascinating is Urban's argument that Scientology has been instrumental in shaping how the US government defines religion."--Mark Oppenheimer, The Nation

"The most scholarly treatment of the organization to date."--Michael Shermer, Scientific American

"Urban's book is valuable for how well he organizes a massive amount of information in a well-paced, enjoyable read ...[A] fascinating book."--Tony Ortega, Village Voice

"Urban describes concisely the development of the Church of Scientology from a pseudopsychological self-help business venture to a self-proclaimed 'religion' fighting vigorously for government recognition ... Highly recommended, this is a valuable, evenhanded, academic but engaging introduction to the controversial church, both for those interested in the topic of religious studies and for general readers."--Library Journal

"A fascinating and oftentimes mind-bending account of how penny-a-word sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard doggedly pursued the 'religion angle' in his quest to create the worldwide Church of Scientology. Urban makes it clear from the outset that he could have written a lot more about Scientology than he has here--perhaps even a few volumes more. Settling on a narrower scope, however, hasn't precluded the author from presenting a thoroughly absorbing chronicle of Scientology's 60-year history in America. ... An intriguing introduction into the labyrinthine world of Scientology and its meaning in American society."--Kirkus Reviews