The Decline and Fall of Scientology? Skeptic Magazine Makes the Case

by Tony Ortega

January 26, 2012

A colleague of mine once explained to me why he keeps away from Scientology stories at his publication (which will remain nameless).

He wasn’t concerned about the church’s reputation for litigiousness, and he wasn’t worried that a story about Scientology’s most recent controversies and excesses wouldn’t resonate with readers.

No, his reluctance was much more quotidian. “The problem I always have with Scientology stories is the massive backstory, which is an obstacle that fails the cost-benefit test,” he told me.

I completely understood where he was coming from. It isn’t easy dealing with the steamer trunks of baggage that come with explaining new developments in Scientology. Which is why I’m all the more impressed with the job Jim Lippard pulls off while he deals with all of the complex backstory in an upcoming issue of Skeptic magazine, and which editor Michael Shermer gave me an advance look at.

Keying off the publication of two books about Scientology published last year — Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology and Hugh Urban’s The Church of Scientology — Lippard puts together a robust yet concise history of the church, and along the way makes the case that L. Ron Hubbard’s creation is in serious trouble.

For readers of this blog, especially those who have also read the Reitman and Urban books, Lippard’s richly packed look at Scientology’s history and controversies will likely be familiar material. But for those who have wanted a compact overview of where Scientology has been and where it is going, this is a handy guide.

As Lippard points out, when you consider how Scientology grew — largely through its containment of secrets, control of members, and crushing of dissent — it’s not surprising that church leader David Miscavige is today finding that things aren’t so easy to keep under wraps:

But now the flow of information has become virtually impossible to control, and as a result, the empire shows signs of crumbling. With the aid of the Internet, those inside and outside the organizations that make up the Church of Scientology can easily find and communicate with each other, and realize that there are others who share their views and concerns. Records of past abuses in the form of documents and personal testimony are but a few short clicks away using a search engine. Virtual communities online have sprung up and flourished, and real-life actions have been recorded and displayed online for all to see, producing new conditions of mutual knowledge about what has been going on in past years, and what’s going on now.

And while Lippard gives due praise to Reitman and Urban for their histories, he rightly identifies an area that Reitman largely ignored (Urban less so): Scientology’s Waterloo, its battles online. Lippard doesn’t have the space in this article to show off his deep knowledge of Scientology’s online war — it’s really the material for another book, and Jim might be the one to write it.

One of the best features of this Skeptic piece is the sidebar Lippard breaks out titled “A Few Scientology Policies Associated With Claims of Abuse.” It’s not long, but Jim has collected key original L. Ron Hubbard policies that still govern the church and produce some of its worst excesses. One of the most telling is Hubbard’s classic concept of using the courts as a weapon: “The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway…will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”

For longtime Scientology watchers, these are familiar words. But it’s nice to have so many of them collected in one spot.

The issue also contains an essay by Shermer, in which the editor asks the question, is Scientology a cult?

Veteran readers of this blog may have noticed that I try not to use the “c-word” myself (except when quoting other people). For me, I find it more valuable to spend my time reporting on and holding up to scrutiny Scientology’s controversial practices rather than debate such questions as whether it’s a church or a cult or something else entirely.

But in his essay, Shermer wrestles with that same question in an intelligent way. I won’t spoil the surprise of what conclusion he comes to — I’ll only recommend that you pick up a copy of the magazine, which Shermer tells me will be hitting newsstands in about a week.

Tony Ortega is the editor-in-chief of The Village Voice. Since 1995, he’s been writing about Scientology at several publications.

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