Scientology: The Next Generation

by Chris Owen

From	co@romeo-klive.nvg.ntnu.no (Chris Owen)
Subject	Scientology: the Next Generation
Date	1997/09/02
Msg-ID	<5uhqon$re8$1@due.unit.no>
Newsgroups	alt.religion.scientology,alt.clearing.technology

I was recently musing over the differences (if any) between the now-disbanded Guardian Office and the present Office of Special Affairs when a thought occurred to me. I'll drop it into the debate and see if anyone agrees with it.

L. Ron Hubbard may have been a loon, but — say what you like about him — he was extremely effective in spreading Scientology. When he died in 1986, the organisation had at least 100,000 members spread across every inhabited continent and millions had dabbled in Scientology to a greater or lesser extent. (That's what the "7 million members" statistic refers to: not the number of currently active Scientologists but the number of people who had at one time or another taken courses or been placed on a mailing list. Their names are never removed from the rolls. So if 100 people leave an org in one year while 10 join, the counting method will make it seem like a net gain.)

David Miscavige, by contrast, has presided over a disastrous period for Scientology. At first sight, it might not seem that way: largely because of the support of Hollywood stars and the apparent tacit support of the US State Department, Scientology has gained a small degree of respectability. And, of course, it has gained US tax exemption (albeit in rather murky circumstances). But there's no doubt that, from a Scientologist's point of view, two unparalleled disasters have occurred:

1. Public criticism of Scientology is at an unprecedented level. It's easy to forget that only 15 years ago, newspapers would have hesitated even to mention Scientology for fear of a frivolous but expensive lawsuit. Of course, Scientology has sued publications since then — notably trying (and failing) to gouge Time magazine for $400m — but such suits are far rarer than they used to be. And the amount of criticism published in the last year alone on the Web and here on a.r.s is probably greater than everything published in the last 25 years.

2. Most seriously of all, Scientology has effectively lost control of its most prized asset — its "sacred scriptures". This is totally unprecedented. Until the 1990s, only fragments of the OT levels had been revealed to the public (and nothing of NOTs) — and even then, those who published such material risked copyright suits (the LA Times was famously sued for publishing 78 non-contiguous words). But now the whole thing is available on the Web and through the Swedish Parliament. This might not seem a big thing to a "wog". But to a Scientologist, it's a calamity.

This got me thinking. Why has Miscavige made such a hash of managing Scientology's relations with the outside world at the same time as presiding over a period of genuine consolidation within the organisation? Of course, he could simply be a hopeless incompetent. But that doesn't quite seem like the right answer.

So here's my big idea. The reason (or at least a reason) may lie in Miscavige's background. He became a Scientologist at the age of 14 as the child of Scientologist parents, dropping school to study the immortal words of Hubbard. He went on to be one of Hubbard's "messengers", albeit a junior one: the much-touted photograph of him operating a camera in the "Cine Org" under Hubbard's direction in the late 1970s belies the fact that he really was a junior member of Hubbard's inner circle. He was, if you will, on the outside of the inside. He effectively took over Scientology when he was only 20, pushing aside his fellow messengers to take control of the Religious Technology Center — the body which controls (or rather, now doesn't control) the use of the "sacred scriptures".

What effect has this had on Miscavige himself? Perhaps most obviously, it means that he has lived most of his life as a Scientologist, his formative years shaped by the thoughts of L. Ron Hubbard rather than the "normal" adolescent environment of a school. He is ill-experienced in the way the "wog world" operates. He is also almost certainly ill-educated, unless he took remedial classes along the way. Indeed, a former colleague has described him as nothing more than "a Philadelphia street brawler".

This is, of course, in total contrast to L. Ron Hubbard. He only created Scientology at the age of 41; he had had many years of relatively normal life before them. One can see this in his writings, for although many of his ideas are pretentious or just plain daft, he also at times shows genuine insight into the way in which people work — most clearly, and unpleasantly, in his tactics against critics of Scientology ("dead agenting" and the like). He had actually had some real-life experience on which to base his policies.

Contrast this to Miscavige's total immersion from an early age in Scientology. It makes him very well-equipped to survive in the organisation but his only real knowledge of the outside world is through Hubbard's eyes. Considering Hubbard's paranoid and (to outsiders at least) surreal view of us "wogs", this isn't exactly ideal.

So what's the implication of this? Not just that Miscavige will continue to misread the way the "wogs" will react — the infallibility of the tech is and has repeatedly been shown to be a myth. The real implication is that Miscavige may represent the harbinger of a new breed of Scientologists, the "next generation" — those who have been born and brought up in the organisation. Their complete mastery of and unshakeable devotion to Hubbard's philosophy will inevitably make them more qualified for leadership than recruited members. But it will also make them increasingly incapable of understanding the outside world.

Ironic, really. Whether Scientology expands or contracts in the future, senior leadership is likely to pass to those best equipped to run the organisation but least equipped to manage its relations with the outside world. If anything is going to cause the downfall of Scientology, I'd put my money on this being the primary cause.