The Church of Scientology is to be blessed with interesting times. The father of David Miscavage, head of the church, is publishing a tell-all book next week, titled Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me. Well, they plan to, anyway — David Miscavage is threatening to sue for defamation if they go through with it. That’s the best advertisement ever. It must be really juicy, although I can’t say I look forward to reading about the childhood of a psychopath.
That the religion would tear apart families is no surprise. Like many cults, they have a policy of disconnection: new converts are told to sever all ties with family members who might weaken the influence of the church on them. The church becomes a collection of deeply unhappy people who have no choice but to rely on each other.
Scientology is to be featured on 20/20 this Friday. Man, it’s hard to be a secretive evil organization when people keep shining a spotlight on you.
And they’re shedding celebrities! Lisa Marie Presley has become disaffected and is dishing dirt behind the scenes. Could it be that we’ll see a religion die in our lifetimes? That would be nice.
How did that work out for the People’s Temple?
Or the Branch Davidians, or Heaven’s Gate…
@2. Man I thought of that too.
Well, I was thinking “die peacefully and just fade away” like the Shakers, not “die horribly in a paroxysm of bloody violence”, like the Branch Davidians.
Also not literally die, like Heaven’s Gate.
I guess I should have put a whole bunch of qualifiers on that.
Given what we know about Scientology, which option do you think is most likely?
yeah, ‘fade away’ would be optimal. Maybe if they stop their passive-aggressive recruiting procedures and rely on people seeking them out after reading their “Dianetics” (which is essentially sci-fi).
ugh. but that latter part only applies to a single “philosophy” [literally scare quotes, for emphasis].
Are the top guys already stripping the Scientology organization of its assets and hiding money in the Cayman Islands? Are the top rats abandoning ship without appearing to do so?
I’d like to see some serious prosecution of the portion who are scammers or quacks; plus revocation of tax-exempt status, and back-taxes paid. Just “fading away” suggests too many will “get away with it” (and leaves unclear what happens to the ill-gotten gains).
There are many victims who have to be handled carefully, with compassion, and helped to reintegrate into civil society. These — who I assume are the bulk of the “members” — are not the people who probably should be prosecuted.
Perhaps we should send in the psychologists to help them before the violence starts.
OK, maybe not.
#5
Well since they discourage sexual relations among their most die hard adherents, the route the Shakers took is possible. However, the Shakers had some positive impact on society (seed packets and furniture design for example). Not certain if there is anything positive to come from Scientologists…
Given that rumors have it that the church was started as a drunken bet between Hubbard and John Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction at a Hugos (iirc) afterparty, (Jerry Pournelle skirted around this rather delicately in “Dante’s Inferno”) I expect that the ‘upper echelon rats absconding with the assets’ is extremely likely.
It’s ALWAYS been a grift.
Lynna, OM said:
Given how secretive Scientology is, the only way we’ll find out the answer to this is when (a) the top guys actually bail out and head to their retirement villas, or (b) their arguments over divvying up the spoils get acrimonious enough for one of them to rat out the rest.
always the safe bet when dealing with authoritarian organizations especially ones that operate close to the line of legality. greed and power are very unreliable motivations for generating unquestioning loyalty.
I have heard that TMZ will pay good money for juicy stories.
uncle frogy
IIRC correctly the Church of Scientology has been milking their flock harder than usual to invest in real estaste under the guise of building new church buildings that are then left empty.