Scientology "reforms" itself in the UK

I recently came across some back issues of "Freedom", the Church of Scientology's in-house magazine. Virtually every issue I saw was almost completely taken up with anti-psychiatry rants and some ludicrous claims (a Belsen-style death camp outside Ely??? I'm sure the locals would have noticed).

Something caught my eye, though, in issues 6 and 7. It seems that the CoS felt obliged to make at least some cosmetic efforts to clean up its act following the savaging which it had got in the Commons and the media, which had culminated in Scientologists being banned from entering the UK. I know the articles are old, being published in mid-1969, but they have (IMHO) considerable relevance to the current state of the CoS. The policy changes announced below are, as far as I know, still officially in force but their implementation (or lack of it) is very much something that people such as Dennis Erlich and Grady Ward have felt. I don't plan to post any more Freedom articles in the immediate future, simply because I don't consider anti-psychiatry rants to be germane to the current debate on a.r.s; I do reserve my right to do so, however.

I've crossposted this article to uk.misc in the hope that a few posters there may be able to help with this. Does anyone recall seeing the questionnaire cited below?

The quoted text is indicated with a | by the side.

["Freedom" magazine, issue 6; outside back page. Reproduced without permission under the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act 1988, for purposes of reportage and comment only. The following article is (C) The Church of Scientology, East Grinstead, 1969 - all rights are acknowledged.]

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REFORMS On August 1st 1968 Scientology organizations in the UK began mailing a Code of Reform Questionnaire. One million questionnaires were sent out containing 4 questions as follows: 1. What reforms, if any, would you like effected in what you may have heard of or know of Scientology Organizations or policies? 2. What changes in conduct or what conduct would you suggest to Scientologists? 3. What services would you like Scientology to perform in the community? 4. How could Scientology better fit in with the aims and purposes of your area of interest? The responses and suggestions by the general public were more intelligent and constructive than those of their elected leaders. Some reforms have been implemented already. Any other criticisms levelled against Scientology is opinion only and exists in the imagination of deluded politicians and yellow journalists. POLICY CHANGES BY SCIENTOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS 1968 o Cancellation of disconnection as a relief to those suffering from familial suppression [sic]. o Cancellation of security checking as a form of confession. o Cancellation of condition known as fair game. o Prohibition of any confessional materials being written down or otherwise recorded.

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Some comments on the above, I think:

It's noticable that the emphasis is on *UK* Scientologists, despite the fact that the cover price of "Freedom" is given in US cents as well as in British pence. So when it says "policy changes by Scientology Organizations", I think it's at the very least arguable that this refers merely to UK orgs. This means that if "fair game" et al really *have* been withdrawn, the logic of the article states that they have only been withdrawn in the UK.

Of course, I don't need to add that the apparent cancellation of these policies appears to have been a sham anyway. "Fair game" was still being used against Cyril Vosper in 1971-72 and Russell Miller in 1986 in what turned out to be futile efforts to suppress their books on Scientology. Disconnection made national headlines in 1984 when a High Court judge roundly condemned the CoS for its "evil" in breaking up a family in a custody case. Given that, it's highly likely that the other "cancellations" are also phoney.

It's curious that no results are given for the survey, either. In fact, it's hard to tie any of the "reforms" to specific questions on the survey. What was suggested? How many suggested it? What happened as a result of the questions asked? Instead, the above article simply says in effect, "these are the questions we've asked, these are the reforms we've implemented", without saying *anything* about the connection (if any) between the suggestions and the "reforms". As far as I'm aware, this is pretty abnormal behaviour. Isn't it usual to let the public know that you are acting on their specific concerns? If the CoS was really implementing the suggestions it received, wouldn't it have said this specifically?

Also, who received the copies of the questionnaire in the first place? As the CoS claimed 100,000 members in the UK in the late 1960s (that figure's now 300,000 according to them), it seems reasonable to assume that many copies went to CoS members themselves. The question remains as to how and where the CoS carried out this survey. As any pollster will tell you, an opinion survey has to be conducted with reference to the type of person polled (age, class, gender, geographical location etc); how did the CoS do this? Does anyone from East Grinstead recall getting the questionnaire pushed through their letterbox?

I am *extremely* sceptical about the claim that no written records are kept. Isn't this the whole basis of "auditing"? How does the auditor know what has and has not been audited out if this is the case?

It's also wholly typical of the CoS that it dismisses "any other criticism" as being mere hearsay and fantasies. Far better commentators that I have pointed out what rubbish this is; take a look at the various affadavits on FACTnet and the various WWW sites, read the anti-Scientology books and have a look at the All-England Law Reports, and then make up your own mind about the validity of the complaints. I did.

And now, the sequel:

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["Freedom" magazine, issue 7; inside front page. Reproduced without permission under the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act 1988, for purposes of reportage and comment only. The following article is (C) The Church of Scientology, East Grinstead, 1969 - all rights are acknowledged.]

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[Untitled]

[Photograph, right of article, shows a man and a woman throwing files onto a neatly-arranged bonfire some 6-7 feet high and 15 feet across; it appears to be dusk.]

Last week thousands of members' files were burnt at Saint Hill Manor, the world HQ of the Chirch of Scientology. Said to contain confessions which could be used for blackmail, press reporters were invited to see the contents before burning, and examine them for any 'secret data'. Tractor loads of files and records were burnt following the inspection. The authorities had been invited to examine the files many times previously, but fed up with waiting for them to make an appearance the whole lot were burnt. As the visiting journalists saw, the files contained no posible blackmail material, and the burning followed on the 'Code of Reform' [as above] implemented by the Church, which includes the prohibition of any confessional material being written down. Other reforms introduced include the abandonment of the practice of "disconnection" which meant some followers were asked [sic] to cut themselves off from their own families, and the cancellation of declaring people "fair game". In answer to a question from the Press, a Church spokesman said, "Please don't confuse us with psychiatrists. If these were psychiatric files they would be full of sordid sex because the psychiatrist considers sex the only important motivation in life. We are very happy with the public reaction to our Code of Reform, and hope that even Auntie BBC will have us clearly separated from psychiatrists and their practices".

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I find it *very* interesting that the CoS should have considered that its practices needed reforming in the first place - it is, after all, an acknowledgement (of sorts) that something had gone wrong. It *had* gone wrong, of course, in the PR department. Looking through the issues of "Freedom" which I've procured (ahem!) I see no statement that the practices supposedly abandoned in the "Code of Reform" were ever wrong or a matter of regret for the CoS. All that appears is an announcement that "these things will not be done any more". No explanation. No apology. Nothing. As Norman Lamont once said, "je ne regrette rien"...

With regard to the burning of files, an important point to make is that if there was nothing in them which could be used for blackmail purposes, *why get rid of them in the first place?* The Church was not using them for any illegal or unethical purposes, according to "Freedom", so what was the problem with them?

Also note the careful phrasing: "the cancellation of declaring people 'fair game'". This does not mean the same as people not being treated as fair game; it simply says that the formal process of publicly declaring it has been abandoned, *not* the policy itself.

I'm also rather suspicious of the claim that the authorities had been invited to inspect the files but had never turned up, so the CoS got fed up of waiting and burned the lot. If such an invitation *was* issued, it would obviously mean that the CoS had complete control of which documents the authorities saw (a fact which I have no doubt was recognised by the authorities). And what better way is there of disposing of embarrassing files than burning them?

The abandonment of "disconnection" is celebrated in a later article which claims that five families have been reunited with their Scientologist offspring as a result. It claims that the press were invited, but (perhaps due to a psychiatric conspiracy?) didn't cover the event. In the style of Milne and Vera, no names are named nor references cited. Given the condemnation of hearsay in the first article quoted above, it's curious that the CoS seems to rely so much upon hearsay to back its own claims.

The final paragraph of the article is the fishiest-sounding of the lot. I can't imagine any sort of question that could provoke that reply; I notice that the "spokesman" devotes most of his little speech to a vitrolic attack on psychiatry rather than addressing the issue of why the CoS is "reforming" itself. The actual language of the quote is very much the same as the usual, issue-by-issue denunciations of psychiatry. I have a strong feeling that the quote was made up and that the alleged spokesman was in fact the Scientology hack who wrote the article in the first place.

Given all of this, I think it's safe to conclude that

(a) the honesty of "Freedom" magazine is rather dubious (b) the sincerity of the CoS is probably minimal (c) the fact that the CoS apparently still stands behind the 1969 policy changes (so-called) but *still* does not appear to have implemented them after 26 years indicates that either they're very slow or have no intention of ever implementing them. I'd go for the latter, myself.

I leave it to the reader to decide what this says about the Church of Scientology...

-- Chris Owen | Trinity College, Oxford | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Sinclair WWW pages: http://sable.ox.ac.uk/~tr95006/sincover.html | Howling in the wires - Canter & Siegel, criminal Armenians at law |