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

according to categories, such as “Disappearance of L. Ron Hubbard,” “Tom Cruise,”
“Gold Base,” and “Haggis’s Involvement in Scientology.” Davis emphasized that the
church had gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare for this meeting. “Frankly, the only
thing I can think that compares would be the presentation that we made in the early
1990s to the IRS.”
We sat around a large blond conference table with the kaleidoscopic lights of Times
Square garishly whirling in the background. I particularly recall the Dunkin’ Donuts sign
over Davis’s shoulder as he began his presentation. First, he ruled out any discussion of
the church’s condential scripture. He compared it to “shoving an image of the Prophet
Mohammed in the face of a Muslim” or “insisting that a Jew eat pork.” He then attacked
the credibility of some of the sources for the piece, whom he called “bitter apostates.”
“They are unreliable,” he said. “They make up stories.” He produced a paper by Bryan
Wilson, who was an eminent Oxford sociologist and prominent defender of new
religious movements (he died in 2004). Wilson argues that testimony from disaected
members should be treated skeptically, noting, “The apostate is generally in need of
self-justication. He seeks to reconstruct his own past to excuse his former aliations
and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates.… He is likely to be
suggestible and ready to enlarge or embellish his grievances to satisfy that species of
journalist whose interest is more in sensational copy than in an objective statement of
the truth.” Davis had highlighted the last part for my benefit.
As an example, Davis singled out Gerald Armstrong, the former Scientology archivist,
who received an $800,000 settlement in a fraud suit against the church in 1986. Davis
charged that Armstrong had forged many of the documents that he later disseminated in
order to discredit the church’s founder, although he produced no evidence to substantiate
that allegation. He passed around a photograph of Armstrong, which, he said, showed
Armstrong “sitting naked” with a giant globe in his lap. “This was a photo that was in a
newspaper article he did where he said that all people should give up money,” Davis
said. “He’s not a very sane person.” 6
Davis also displayed photographs of what he said were bruises sustained by Mike
Rinder’s former wife in 2010, after Rinder physically assaulted her in a Florida parking
lot. 7 Davis then showed a mug shot of Marty Rathbun in a jailhouse jumpsuit, after
being detained in New Orleans in July 2010 for public drunkenness. “Getting arrested
for being drunk on the intersection of Bourbon and Toulouse?” Davis cracked. “That’s
like getting arrested for being a leper in a leper colony.” Other defectors, such as Claire
and Marc Headley, were “the most despicable people in the world.” Jeerson Hawkins
was “an inveterate liar.”
If these people were so reprehensible, I asked, how had they all arrived at such
elevated positions in the church?
“They weren’t like that when they were in those positions,” Davis replied.
The defectors we were discussing had not only risen to positions of responsibility
within the church; they had also ascended Scientology’s ladder of spiritual
accomplishment. I suggested that Scientology didn’t seem to be eective if people at the
highest levels of spiritual attainment were actually liars, adulterers, wife beaters,