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 different 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 the mainstream religions that judges and jurors were likely to be members of.
In the 1990s, Flinn had interviewed several Scientologists who were doing RPF in Los Angeles. Their quarters didn’t look any worse than his cell in the monastery, where he slept on a straw bed on a board. He asked if they were free to go. They told him they were, but they wanted to stay and do penance.
Flinn admits to having been a cutup when he was in the order, and he felt out of place. “I was an Irishman in a sea of Germans.” He would be sent out to dig the potato field as punishment for his misbehavior. However, when he finally decided to leave his order, instead of being incarcerated or given a freeloader tab, he was given a dispensation releasing him from his vows. He never felt the need to escape. He took off his robe, put on civilian clothes, and walked away. His spiritual adviser gave him five hundred dollars to help him out. He was never punished or fined, or made to disconnect from anyone.
IN TRUTH, the IRS was ill equipped to make a case in court that Scientology—or any other creed—was not a religion. Moreover, the commissioner of the IRS, Fred T. Goldberg, Jr., had to balance the longing on the part of some of his executives to destroy the church against the need to keep his resources, both human and financial, from being sucked into the black hole that Scientology had created.
One afternoon in Washington, in October 1991, Miscavige and Rathbun were having lunch at the Bombay Club, a swank Indian restaurant near the White House. Miscavige was fed up with the stalemate, which looked as if it could go on forever, in an endless stream of billable hours to the church’s attorneys. At the lunch, Miscavige announced to Gerald Feffer, one of their lawyers, “Marty and I are just going to bypass you entirely. We’re going to see Fred.”
Feffer laughed at the thought that Miscavige would talk directly to the commissioner.
“I’m not joking,” Miscavige said. “Marty, do you want to go?”
The two men hailed a cab after lunch and went to 1111 Constitution Avenue, the IRS headquarters, and announced to the security officer that they wanted to see the commissioner.