Where's the Science in Scientology? (cont.)

Sea Org
Along the way, Christman tried to join Sea Org, a branch of Scientology whose members are deemed more "elite" than others despite the fact they're the only members required to sign the big billion-year commitment and they have to live in group settings while considerations of marriage and children are seriously frowned upon as distractions from working for the cause.

In fact, in what might be the most disturbing revelation of all, anti-Scientology Web sites feature the signed affidavit of Mary Tabayoyon, a former high-level Sea Org staffer who claims that the church attempts to verbally coerce and harass Sea Org members into having abortions.

"The majority of members live out in the public, but the Sea Org gets young idealistic people to come in and save the planet and they give them a lot of power to control things and that's how they keep them," said Christman. "Who else would give people that young such power? Kids get into that thing, and it's a trap, a very bad trap. I gave them my whole adult life. I don't want [someone else] to do the same unless they know both sides."

For her part, Stith claimed that allegations of coerced abortions are patently ridiculous, stating that her sister is a member of Sea Org, has five children and moved to St. Louis and then Albuquerque simply because the church offered positions in those cities as a slower-paced alternative in which to better raise her family. And Stith herself proudly noted that she herself is a mother of four and is an artist who merely works 40 hours a week for the church.

"We would never advocate or pressure someone to have an abortion. We don't deny someone's legal right to have one if they choose, but we do try to teach people to be responsible both in using birth control but also in raising their kid if at all possible," Stith said. "It's right there in Dianetics."

For Christman, the will to leave came from her disgust with the most two-sided aspect of Scientology. There is perhaps nothing Hubbard claimed to hate more than psychiatry, which many critics and historians believe stemmed from the fact he had a lifelong love of the sea that led him to join the Navy, only to be diagnosed as mentally unstable and discharged from the service.

Hubbard retaliated by inventing Dianetics, crafting a self-help philosophy that was supposedly gleaned from the best of the lessons he learned from diverse cultures while traveling the earth since childhood. (Numerous judges and historians have proclaimed Hubbard probably wildly exaggerated his life's adventures, however.)

And as Scientology flowed out from Dianetics, he made sure his followers believed that the answer to nearly every sort of affliction lay in "clearing" the body through auditing or taking a bizarre mix of vitamins and other allegedly natural materials rather than turning to traditional medical professionals.

The ironic and even shocking fact is that upon Hubbard's death in 1986 at age 74 (so much for immortality), the coroner's report revealed that he had "a band aide affixed to the right gluteal area where 10 recent needle marks are recognized of 5-8 cm." Meaning, the King of No Medicine had been shot in the ass with something soon before his death.

The fact that the "post mortem examination was refused because of religious reasons" also proved strange; a member of the District Attorney's office advised "immediate toxicology be performed on body fluids." The fluids, which were not handed over easily by church officials, were also found to have traces of the anti-anxiety medication Vistaril.

"I speak out because I know tons of people who died in Scientology, because of their fraud with guys like Tom Cruise telling people not to take meds. Those are abuses that should not be allowed," said Christman, who finally walked out after suffering grand mal seizures when the church refused to let her take epilepsy medications. "Hubbard was on meds all his life and he had them the whole time."

Stith, however, denies the allegations that Hubbard was on mental medications.

"He might have been taking some medicine for asthma, but he certainly was not under any medicine for psychiatric reasons," she said, despite being told of the copy of Hubbard's death certificate and coroner's report showing otherwise.

Judging from what a reporter who covered Hubbard's early Florida days has to say, it sounds like the founder was out to sea in more ways than one.

"Hubbard was seeking a land base for what had been a seagoing operation for a long time, and he, in the early 70s, decided to build in Clearwater, Fla. Until then, they were more or less chased around the world by police and refused berthing rights," said Rich Lieby, a Washington Post reporter who started writing about Scientologists up close while working for the local Clearwater newspaper. "Hubbard was in the Navy in World War II so he called himself The Commander and transformed Scientology into the Sea Org. He gave a nautical flavor to all the uniforms. "

Lieby's recollections of the way Scientology operated in Florida -- creating an East Coast outpost nearly as impressive as their expansive California holdings -- sheds light on several of the business practices of Scientology.

First they used a front organization to buy the property, calling themselves the United Churches of Florida without actually uniting with other churches.

At the same time the Scientologists were building their headquarters, called the FLAG Land Base, in a town that was leery of a church fixated on aliens, Hubbard's wife and eight of his minions were convicted in Washington for waging a massive infiltration of the federal government through the use of phony IRS and Justice Department badges. The illegal activities were in the midst of Scientology's battle with the IRS over receiving tax-exempt status as a legally sanctioned church.

European countries had gotten wise early -- with Britain banning the entry of Scientologists from 1968 to 1980 and Germany having established a permanent ban on the church because it felt it was a cult of personality in the Nazi vein -- but the US government found itself reeling from the fact it looked the other way just a little too long. The Scientologists' dream of morphing from self-help group to official religion had begun back in 1969, when Hubbard suddenly ordered crosses with discreetly odd designs -- which were in fact modeled on his warlock hero Aleister Crowley's Satanic Cross -- planted in the lobbies of all the Scientology offices nationwide.

The Scientologists finally won their battle for tax-exempt religious status in a secret agreement with the IRS in 1993, in which they paid a penalty of $12 million. But church leaders weren't only hoping to avoid taxation of its vast holdings. Due to church-state separation, police and other authorities would be highly unlikely to investigate the church's operations.

A final bonus was the knowledge that church divisions like Christman's Office of Special Affairs could get away with utterly outrageous intimidation tactics -- ranging from incessant phone calls and wiretaps, to spreading flyers accusing critics of being pedophiles, to filing enough lawsuits to drive opponents bankrupt via legal costs alone -- because no one would ever believe a church could be that crazy.

The church’s biggest battleground in recent years, however, seemed to be on the Internet. Not only did the church encourage members to post happy Web sites about their membership, but they allegedly engaged in the devious tactics that Christman listed earlier: setting up fake sites and redirecting users looking for impartial information.

Yet Scientology couldn't clamp down on free speech and cyberspace forever, and their membership is believed to have decreased sharply in the past decade as anyone is free to now read about the church and many of its "truths" on the Web.