going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

There is a place for a Supreme Being in Scientology—in Hubbard’s Eight Dynamics,
it’s at the top—but the God idea plays a diminished role compared to many religions.
On the other hand, some religions worship objects—stones or icons or mandalas—rather
than a deity. Scientologists don’t pray; but then, neither do Buddhists. The idea of
salvation, so central to Christianity, is not so dierent from Hubbard’s assertion that the
fundamental law of the universe is the urge to survive. Flinn compared the Scientology
distinction between preclear and Clear to Buddhist notions of entanglement and
enlightenment, or Christian doctrines of sin and grace. The Scientology creed that
humans are “thetans” simply means we are beings with immortal souls, which no
Christian would argue with.
One of Flinn’s most interesting and contested points had to do with hagiography, by
which he meant attributing extraordinary powers—such as clairvoyance, visions of God
or angels, or the ability to perform miracles—to the charismatic founders of a religion.
He pointed to the virgin birth of Jesus, the ability of the Buddha to “transmigrate” his
soul into the heavens, or Moses bringing manna to the people of Israel. Such legends are
useful in that they bolster the faith of a community, Flinn said. The glaring
discrepancies in Hubbard’s biography should be seen in the light of the fact that any
religion tends to make its founder into something more than human.
Flinn was asked to testify about a policy Hubbard had written in 1965 titled “Fair
Game Law,” in which he laid down the rules for dealing with Suppressive Persons. That
category includes non-Scientologists who are hostile to the church, apostates, and
defectors, as well as their spouses, family members, and close friends. “A truly
Suppressive Person or Group has no rights of any kind,” Hubbard wrote. Such enemies,
he said, may be “tricked, lied to or destroyed.” In 1965, he wrote another policy letter
ambiguously stating, “The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR
GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. [The new
ruling] does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.” The supposed
revocation of Fair Game took place before Operation Snow White, the harassment of
Paulette Cooper and other journalists, the persecution of defectors, and many other
actions undertaken by church insiders that were done in the spirit, if not the name, of
the original policy.
“Almost all religious movements in their very early phase tend to be harsh,” Flinn
reminded the court. He contended that they tend to evolve and become more lenient
over time. As for disconnection, he declared that it was “functionally equivalent to other
types of religious exclusions,” such as shunning of nonbelievers among Mennonites and
the Amish. In the Book of Leviticus, for instance, which is part of the Torah and the Old
Testament of the Christian Bible, idolaters and those who have strayed from the faith
were to be stoned to death. That practice has disappeared; instead, Orthodox Jews will
sit Shiva for the nonbeliever, treating him as if he is already dead. “So this kind of
phenomenon is not peculiar to Scientology,” Flinn concluded. The implication
underlying Flinn’s testimony was that Scientology is a new religion that is reinventing
old religious norms; whatever abuses it may be committing are errors of youthful
exuberance, and in any case they are pale imitators of the practices once employed by