The Anderson Report

CHAPTER 27
SCIENTOLOGY AND RELIGION

From time to time during the Inquiry the question arose as to whether the Board was concerned to investigate scientology theories on the basis that scientology was a religion and the theories and practices of scientology were religious beliefs and practices. The Board repeatedly stated that it was not some form of ecclesiastical or theological commission charged to investigate religious beliefs as such, and that it was not concerned to determine whether the beliefs that were held by scientologists were religious or otherwise. The Board was concerned to ascertain the scientology theories and practices so far as they were held and engaged in in Victoria, and its task was the same in that respect whether or not the theories and practices could properly be described as religious.

The Board was further concerned to investigate the manner in which these theories and practices, whether religious or not, operated in Victoria and their impact on the community, and whether or not benefit was being obtained by or harm was being done to members of the community by such practices. The Board made it clear that scientologists were quite entitled to believe whatever they wished - freedom of thought was their right - and it was immaterial that the Board might disagree with a very large part of scientology and regard it as nonsense and contrary to reason. Scientologists are, of course, free to disagree with the Board's conclusion as to the validity of scientology theories, and there are already indications that they will disagree - that is their right.

However, the carrying into practice of such theories by pernicious techniques from which grave harm results is quite a different matter. In this community, there are different faiths and their members are free to hold whatever beliefs they wish, though their creeds differ and are even in positive disagreement on various tenets. The adherents of scientology, if it be a religion, are entitled to the same freedom of belief, and they have the same freedom, even though it is not a religion. This, however, as the Board repeatedly pointed out, was not the question.

Those who claim that their beliefs constitute a religion cannot, under the cloak of such "religion", pursue a course which is evil and a danger to the mental health of the community. A group of people, by claiming that its particular religion requires the killing of human beings by way of sacrifice, does not obtain a licence to kill according to its creed. Neither are the adherents of scientology entitled to practise on others their "skills" and techniques which have deleterious effects upon their victims. Nor are they entitled to proselytize by calculated deception.

The Board reiterates that the holding of beliefs is a private matter; it may even be that the holding of certain scientology beliefs is, with some scientologists, a matter of conscience, though that would seem to be inconsistent with the general theme of scientology. What the Board is concerned to do, pursuant to its terms of reference, is to draw attention to the harm which has been done in the past by the practice of scientology, and the harm which will inevitably result in the future should scientology be allowed to continue to exploit and mentally ruin the anxious victims of its deception.

The foregoing observations apply on the assumption that scientology is a religion; they are equally applicable should scientology as known, carried on, practised and applied in Victoria not be a religion. In fact, scientology is not a religion. Apart from an occasional reference to scientology as a religious brotherhood and a claim to have some affinity with Buddhism and other religions, no claim was made at the Inquiry, except forlornly in the final stages, that scientology as known, carried on, practised and applied in Victoria was a religion.

When the Inquiry began, the stated attitude of the HASI was that scientology was a science and not a religion. However, towards the end of the Inquiry, when it became apparent to the HASI that the practice of scientology in Victoria had been revealed in a very unfavourable light, and that it had no evidence with which to controvert the impressive body of expert evidence to the effect that it was dangerous to the mental health of the community, an attempt was belatedly made to present it as a religion. No evidence was tendered to that effect, but the complaint began to be made that scientologists were being persecuted because of their religious beliefs, and the suggestion was that bigotry was rampant. This change of front was merely laying the foundation for the eventual withdrawal of the HASI from the Inquiry, and is dealt with elsewhere in this Report.

Though scientology has not been, and is not, a religion, some early attempts were made in Victoria to exploit the favourable attitude which the community usually adopts towards ministers of religion and these attempts were along lines suggested by Hubbard. In the early years of scientology in Victoria, about 1955-1958, some of its practitioners assumed ecclesiastical titles, one or more posing as a "minister" and adopting the title "reverend", and one the title "bishop".

There was no valid basis for the assumption of such titles; their adoption, and also the wearing of clerical garb which was practised for a short time, merely indicated compliance with directions from Hubbard to assume such poses to help gain entry into hospitals and other places where no one would "dare to hinder or oppose a man of God". In PAB 32, Hubbard wrote that "a society accords to men of the church an access not given to others. Prisons, hospitals and institutions, and those who manage them, cannot do otherwise than welcome men of the church." The practice of such infiltration was referred to as procurement or dissemination, its purpose being to inveigle the sick and the distressed into scientology. The "bishop", one Frank Turnbull, went to New Zealand in the late 1950's (For further details, see Chapter 15).

Scientology in Victoria has not developed the "founding churches of scientology" which have arisen in the United States and are located in Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Seattle, Detroit and Dallas. On such evidence as the Board heard concerning the founding churches, one would not classify their practices as those of a religion. What their beliefs are did not appear in evidence and a handbook of their ritual, which was produced in evidence, dealt with little more than how to conduct church services, weddings, christenings and funerals. The instructions as to sermons were that they must always be on some phase of scientology. The handbook did contain "The Church of Scientology Creed", which asserted that its adherents believed, in effect, in the right of man to be free, and included declarations "That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance", and "That the spirit alone may save or heal the body."

When, in 1962, the United States Food and Drug Administration began to investigate the E-meter as an instrument of healing, Hubbard promptly issued HCO Pol. Lr. of the 29th October, 1962, claiming that the E-meter was "a valid religious instrument, used in Confessionals", pointing out that all scientology corporations were religious in nature, and were incorporated as religious fellowships, and that, as to the London and Commonwealth offices, "they will soon be transferred to Church status when the founding Church of Washington DC is given full tax exemption." Williams said that nothing was done to implement the plan to transfer the Melbourne HASI to "Church status", and he repudiated the suggestion that tax exemption had anything to do with the proposal to give "Church status".

There is no justification for the claim that the E-meter is "a valid religious instrument, used in Confessionals"; in the course of being audited with an E-meter, a preclear is forced to tell his most intimate and shameful secrets and he does not make such disclosures as part of a religious practice.

In the early days of scientology in Victoria scientology weddings were performed, the total of such ceremonies being probably under ten in number. In such cases as the Board heard about, the scientology "wedding" was supplementary to the conventionally recognized nuptials, except, perhaps, in one instance. In that case, a witness gave evidence that in about 1957 one of the "reverend" gentlemen mentioned above with whom the witness was then residing was summoned at 4 o'clock in the morning to a flat where a scientologist had a sudden urge to be married. The "reverend" and the witness proceeded to the flat where the expectant couple were and the scientology ceremony took place. The witness said that he felt some anxiety that the couple should embark upon the sea of matrimony with no more formal launching than a scientology ceremony - his anxieties stemmed from the fact that adverse publicity might be given to scientology if such a secret leaked out - but, he said, his anxieties were allayed because eventually the couple were "churched", albeit somewhat tardily, a couple of weeks later.

Some scientologists claim to be "doctors of divinity" and assume the letters "D.D.", a distinction believed to have been bestowed by a Hubbardian institution in America. There are few such dignitaries in Australia. One curious instance, however, is that of "Doctor" Marcus Tooley, who practises in Sydney, with a branch office in Melbourne, under the name of "The American College", what he calls "dynamic psychology". Tooley was formerly a prominent scientologist and held the degree of "Doctor of Scientology" and a Hubbardian-bestowed "D.D.". The Hubbardian-bestowed "doctorates" are the only justification for Tooley's title of "doctor". Tooley now denies that he is a scientologist, and he claims that what he practises is a form of psychology which has developed either parallel with or independent of scientology. His case is dealt with in Chapter 29.

There is in Victoria one "minister" of the founding church, but this is the founding church of America, for as the witness explained, there is no founding church in Victoria. This "minister" is a woman who qualified for this title, and a certificate signed by Hubbard, by writing a 2,500 word thesis. She has confined the practice of her "ministry", so she said, to a very occasional scientology wedding service which she has conducted merely to oblige friends, and her services have been additional to the conventional ceremonies because she says that she was well aware that she had no authority to conduct a regular wedding service. She has found scientology consistent with her religion, so she said, but in her day she has had several religions and would probably have difficulty today in nominating her current religion.

A partiality for dalliance in numerous religions was a characteristic of a number of witnesses who were scientologists. They were anxious people seeking something to believe in, and the various beliefs they had savoured did not satisfy them, for such beliefs required the searcher to accept the hard realities of life. In their search for the truth, as they wanted it to be, they found in scientology a soporific which insulated their minds against reality and allowed them to treat as their creed anything which pleased or satisfied or quieted them. Scientology promised them immortality if only they could have a reality on the thetan; the scientology "hereafter", with no heaven or hell or purgatory but an unending progress beyond time as a clear or even an operating thetan, gave them just the sort of thing they wanted to believe in. They had not found such escape in the tenets of the major religions, Christian and otherwise. Instead, they found refuge from reality in scientology and were able to sustain their illusion of escape by continued scientology processing. One witness had subscribed at one time or another to as many as 23 different religions, some of them quite exotic, but he was somewhat exceptional.

When the Inquiry began, scientologists were very concerned to establish scientology as a science, a precise science, and the whole of the evidence which they then gave was directed towards this end. So far as religion was concerned, reference was made to the injunction of Hubbard - "change no man's politics, change no man's religion, deny sovereignty to no nation" - to demonstrate its non-religious quality. Witnesses said that a person could be a scientologist and could at the same time subscribe to any religion he wished and there would be no conflict. An undated pamphlet from the HASI states that "the HASI is non-religious - it does not demand any belief or faith and is not in conflict with faith. There are people of all faiths who use scientology in their every day living, better their relations with people and their environment." In HCO Bull. of the l9th August, 1959, which is entitled "To a Roman Catholic", Hubbard, in an endeavour to ingratiate scientology with members of that denomination, wrote that in Ireland scientology had operated without coming into conflict with the Church, and he added, "Scientology is not an heretic religion and demands no belief or faith and thus is not in conflict with faith." Some witnesses even said that scientology helped them understand and appreciate their own particular religion better, though they were considerably surprised and embarrassed when they were referred to some of Hubbard's writings, to be mentioned later, on matters religious which they could not reconcile with their particular religious beliefs.

The eighth dynamic in scientology is variously described as the urge towards existence, as infinity, the dynamic of the Supreme Being, the infinite or God dynamic, the Creator, the Infinite Nature; it is called the eighth dynamic, so Hubbard states, because the symbol for infinity stood upright makes the letter "8". Hubbard shows a curious reluctance to write about the eighth dynamic, and scientology writers somewhat ingenuously leave it to each other to discuss. Scientology, writes Hubbard, "does not intrude into the dynamic of the Supreme Being", and his claim is that scientology "embraces" only the first seven dynamics.

The Attitude of Scientology to Religion.

Except for the purpose of deceit, scientology has not been practised in Victoria on the basis that it even remotely resembles a religion. In advertisements and in the personal efficiency courses the HASI takes care not to disclose Hubbard's disparagement of religion. The directive, "Change no man's religion" is brought to the attention of the beginner, and scientology is paraded as quite consistent with and even as a help to all religion, of whatever denomination. It is only after the preclear has been conditioned by training and processing that he is likely to learn of Hubbard's cynical hostility to religion.

The attitude of Hubbard towards religion is one of bitter cynicism and ridicule, which gives the lie to his directive to "change no man's religion". In a warped and sneering fashion he snipes at all things sacred in much the same way as he attacks the medical profession, though there is generally less venom in his tone when he is dealing with religion.

Scientology is opposed to religion as such, irrespective of kind or denomination. The essence of Hubbard's axioms of scientology is that the universe was created not by God, but by a conglomeration of thetans who postulated the universe. Sometimes God is referred to as the Big Thetan. Many of the theories he propounds are almost the negation of Christian thought and morality.

Hubbard spent some of his youthful years in the Orient and probably absorbed some Eastern learning, being particularly interested in Buddhism. He considers that his travels and research have made him an authority on the customs and religions of the peoples of the world. In Scientology: 8-8008, after dealing with the Early Greeks, he writes that

"more modern man has fallen into the error of making God into the body of a homo sapiens and posting him somewhere on high with a craving for vengeance and a pettiness in punishment matched only by the degradation of homo sapiens himself. There are gods above all other gods, and gods beyond the gods of universes, but it were better, far better, to be a raving madman in his cell than to be a thing with the ego, cruelty and jealous lust that base religions have set up to make men grovel down."

These loosely expressed sentences are probably susceptible of several meanings, but their evident meaning is one disparaging of Christian belief, and this passage somewhat shocked certain scientology witnesses who had earlier said that they had not found anything in scientology which was opposed to their particular religion.

Whenever Hubbard mentions religion the note of disparagement is present. For instance, in PAB 130, Hubbard writes, "Purgatory and hell is a total myth, an invention just to make people very unhappy and is a vicious lie." In PAB 32, Hubbard writes, "Only a barbaric minister is a 'Man of God'. In all enlightened religions such men are called 'Men of Wisdom' ". In PAB 31 Hubbard writes.

"Religion does much to keep the assumption in restimulation, being basically a control mechanism used by those who have sent the preclear into a body. You will find the cross as a symbol all over the universe, and the Christ legend as an implant in preclears a million years ago."

"For two thousand years Man has not had health, happiness, or immortality, yet they were promised to him two thousand years ago, and Scientology is delivering them today." .

"Some churches used a mechanism of confession. This was a limited effort to relieve a person of the pressure of his overt acts. Later the mechanism of confession was employed as a kind of blackmail by which increased contribution could be obtained from the person confessing."

"A few operating thetans - scarcity - could lead to trouble. Witness the chaos resulting from the activities and other determinism technology of one operating thetan, 2,000 years ago. It is despicable and utterly beneath contempt to tell a man he must repent, that he is evil. Those who talk most about peace on earth and good-will among men themselves carry forward the seas of unrest, war and chaos."

"Two and a half thousand years ago a handful of clears civilized half a billion people. What if we were all clear. Neither Lord Buddha nor Jesus Christ were OT's according to the evidence. They were just a shade above clear."

"They that worship Jesus nailed upon a cross above an altar,
While an old priest chants ....
Do they know what they worship?
Do they know who they worship?
Can they recognize what they worship .... ?
Bondage of unconfronted facsimiles implanted so as to control and invalidate, is what they worship."

"The whole christian movement is based on the victim. Compulsion of the overt-act motivator sequence. They won by appealing to victims. We can win by converting victims. Christianity succeeded by making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people."

"based on over a thousand hours of research auditing, analyzing the facsimiles of the reactive mind, and with the help of a Mark V Electrometer. It is scientific research and is not in any way based upon the mere opinion of the researcher .... The contents of this HCO Bulletin discover the apparent underlying impulses of religious zealotism and the source of the religious mania and insanity which terrorized Earth over the ages and has given religion the appearance of insanity."

"The Goals-Problems-Mass implants, which are the apparent basic source of aberration and human travail, which began with the goal to Forget, were cynically done 'in Heaven'.

For a long while, some people have been cross with me for my lack of co-operation in believing in a Christian Heaven, God and Christ. I have never said I didn't disbelieve in a Big Thetan but there was certainly something very corny about Heaven et al. Now I have to apologize. There was a Heaven. Not too unlike, in cruel betrayal, the heaven of the Assassins in the 12th Century who, like everyone else, dramatized the whole track implants-if a bit more so ....

The symbol of the crucified Christ is very apt indeed. It's the symbol of a thetan betrayed .... "

"The first time I arrived and the moment of the implant To Forget was dated at 43,891,832,611,177 years, 344 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds from 10:02 P.M. Daylight Greenwich Time May 9, 1963. The second series was dated to the moment of the implant To Forget as 42,681,459,477,315 years, 132 days, 18 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds from 11:02 P.M. Daylight Greenwich Time May 9, 1963."

On both occasions the Gates of Heaven were visible.

"The gates of the first series are well done, well built. An avenue of statues of saints leads up to them. The gate pillars are surmounted by marble angels. The entering grounds are very well kept, laid out like Bush Gardens in Pasadena, so often seen in the movies. Aside from the implant boxes which lie across from each. other on the walk there are other noises and sounds as though the saints are defending and berating .. . .

The second series, probably in the same place, shows what a trillion years of overt acts does (or is an additional trickery to collapse one's time). The place is shabby. The vegetation is gone. The pillars are scruffy. The saints have vanished. So have the angels. A sign on one (the left as you enter) says 'This is Heaven'. The right has a sign 'Hell' with an arrow and inside the grounds one can see the excavations like archaeological diggings with raw terraces, that lead to 'Hell'. Plain wire fencing encloses the place. There is a sentry box beside and outside the right pillar. The roadway 'leading up' to the gates is deeply eroded. An effigy of Joseph, complete with desert clothing is seen approaching the gates (but not moving) leading a donkey which 'carries' the original Madonna and child from 'Bethlehem'. The implanting boxes lie on either side of this 'entering' path at path level."

The bulletin concludes,

"Further, we have our hands on an appalling bit of technology where the world is concerned. With rapidity and a Meter it can be shown that Heaven is a false dream and that the old religion was based on a very painful lie, a cynical betrayal.

What does this do to any religious nature of Scientology? It strengthens it. New religions always overthrow the false gods of the old, they do something to better man. We can improve man. We can show the old gods false. And we can open up the universe as a happier place in which the spirit may dwell. What more can you expect. This actually places us far beyond any other beings that are about. It puts us, through increased beingness and a restoration of life, in control of much destiny.

We have now only a few unsolved problems about life, huge though they may be, such as the construction of bodies and how does one establish the character of and communicate, if feasible, with beings who are making trees and insects. There are a few things like these. But I imagine when we finally manage to communicate with beetles under rocks and free them, we'll no doubt find the Creator of Heaven who 43½ Trillion years ago designed and built the Pearly Gates and entrapped us all.

Good Lord, I'd hate to be guilty of that overt. But never mind - you aren't either. That guy is Gone (I hope!)".

or very bad, but you didn't think you had lived only once and you had a good memory and knew who you were and enjoyed life", and that when you went to this place which was got up to resemble Heaven, you were implanted with aberrative goals to forget and the like, which somehow conditioned you to believe in this present lifetime a variety of things about Heaven because of the deception practised by the implanters 43 trillion years ago. Actually no scientology witnesses could explain what Hubbard meant, except that Hubbard says what he means and that "an ordinary person" would not understand the bulletin.

Care is taken by Hubbard to ensure that while a student is on course he is kept away from influences which might be likely to assist him to resist the pernicious learning which he is absorbing. In HCO Pol. Lr. of the 22nd November, 1961, appear the "Training Course Rules and Regulations", one of which reads -

"24. Do not engage in any rite, ceremony, practice, exercise, meditation, diet, food therapy, or any similar occult, mystical, religious, naturopathic, homeopathic or chiropractic treatment or any other healing or mental therapy while on Course without the express permission of the Director of Training."

Williams, the grandson of a clergyman, said that scientology was particularly careful not to interfere with anyone's religion and that his own religious views had not been changed away from Christianity by reason of anything he had studied in scientology. One young woman, struggling to escape from scientology, said that one of the many side effects of the past lives teaching of scientology was that it "knocks your belief in the [Christian] church."

One scientology witness considered that it was consistent with his Christian teaching in relation to the human soul, that it might well have returned to Earth on a number of occasions after visiting implant stations in the intermediate period. Other witnesses agreed that scientology was inconsistent with their Christian beliefs. Some said that they saw no inconsistency. One considered scientology more christian than Christianity. Another said that Hubbard's disparagement of religion was merely the expression of scientific or philosophic hypotheses, and there was no inconsistency because religion was one thing and philosophy another, and the witness sought to justify the apparent difference between Christianity and scientology by saying in effect that one was not being inconsistent if, when writing in one frame of reference, one contradicted what was a fact in another frame of reference.

That scientology witnesses were partisan on the question of whether Hubbard was hostile to religion was, of course, apparent. An ordinary person, reading the writings of Hubbard, a man who "says what he means", can judge for himself.

In a community which is nominally Christian, Hubbard's disparagement of religion is blasphemous and a further evil feature of scientology.

Promise of Immortality.

In Certainty Magazine, Vol. 3, No 9, R. Kemp, who is described as "D.Scn., D.D.", writes,

"Of course all people are thetans (spirits) and all thetans are immortal and indestructible; they cannot under any circumstances actually and finally die , but they can get awful close to it .... "

"Well, I've been working now for a lot of years to bring Dianetics and Scientology up to a point of super-magic. It was easy to get them up to magic .... "

The claim is made in PAB's Book 3, and repeated elsewhere that "Scientology can demonstrate that it can obtain the goals set for man by Christ, which are: Wisdom, Good Health and Immortality". In Infm. Lr. of the 24th November, 1963, Hubbard writes,

"No organization which can achieve individual immortality ever worries much about momentary hostility. And individual immortality is not only in our grasp but is now being achieved."

In HCO Infm. Lr. of the 1st September, AD 13 (1963), which tells of a young woman, who on her death had indicated that she would return to pick up the body of a girl and take up where she had left off, Hubbard writes, "We lose very few people by death, unlike the healing professions who lose their practitioners in hordes. But we do temporarily lose some by death. A dozen or so in the past few years." Though, when writing along these lines, Hubbard is writing about the thetan, so garbled is much of what he writes on this subject that his followers may be excused for believing - as some appear to have believed - that the immortality promised is immortality in respect of their earthly or human life. As recently as May, 1965, the Melbourne Communication Magazine, unequivocally states "An intensive at the Hubbard Guidance Centre puts you on the road to freedom from sickness misery and death."

The Auditor, the Saint Hill Journal of Scientology, mailed direct from East Grinstead to Victorians on the HASI mailing lists, in explaining in issue No. 8 (1965) what scientology really is asserts, "It is the only thing which can salvage you from sickness and eventual death".

It was said by one witness that, since scientology ensured good health by proofing against illness, scientology was, in effect, ensuring at least longevity, and very few if any people who had espoused scientology were known to have died.

Scientology is opposed to all forms of punishment, and Hubbard has told his followers that "purgatory and hell is a total myth, an invention just to make people very unhappy and is a vicious lie". Comforted by these and similar statements, deluded preclears are able to shut their eyes to the reality of normal human problems which they may have, and to find refuge in scientology theories about the immortality of the thetan which will keep on returning to earth again and again for eternity, without the obligation of accounting, according to Christian belief, for this life's conduct.

Hubbard repeatedly predicts death or disaster for those who oppose scientology. He writes from time to time of long lists of people who have died because they have opposed scientology and offers to produce the death list to the doubters. Specifically, in Com. Mag. Vol. 1, No. 19, Hubbard writes, "On the other hand, without any action taken against them, of twenty-one highly placed attackers, seventeen are now dead." Elsewhere he writes that each and every one of the "squirrels" of yesteryear have met with disaster, the biggest squirrel in Great Britain being recently found in the bankruptcy court. (A squirrel is one who has given up allegiance to Hubbard but still purports to practise scientology, picturesquely described in evidence by a former scientologist as a madman running around collecting nuts.) Hubbard lists other cases of individuals who, having acted in a way hostile to scientology, have suffered disaster, such as one tradesman who overcharged the organization and contracted TB, and a bill collector who, when he realized how terrible it was to endeavour to collect a debt from Hubbard, committed suicide half an hour later.

In HCO Bull. of the 29th July, 1963, Hubbard reports with evident glee, "Government attacks have entered a more desultory stage. Meters will go to jury trial eventually and we will certainly win. The U.S. Government Attorney handling the case became terribly ill and had to resign it".

A number of witnesses gave evidence that they were aware of a general belief amongst scientologists that hostility to scientology rendered a person likely to die on that account, not by physical violence at the hands of scientologists but because he would be so overwhelmed by the enormity of his overt that death would ensue as the motivator. The effect of such a belief was observed in the case of one woman witness who believed that any person who turned against scientology could expect to die within twelve months. She tried to break away from scientology in the early stages of the Inquiry but she returned to the fold at a later stage partly, at least, because she feared she would suffer harm, even death, should she defect.

This fear of death is one of the elements which keep Hubbard's followers in subjection, and constrain them to continue in their acceptance of his teachings. They fear the human death which Hubbard has said will follow their defection, and they fear the loss of the immortality which acceptance of his teachings makes into a reality for them. Hubbard prescribes effective treatment as soon as doubts begin to arise. The waverer, while still a worried believer, is processed and his overts revealed and his continued subjection ensured by further indoctrination.