The Scientology delegation brought with them forty-eight three-ring binders of supporting material, stretching nearly seven linear feet, to respond to the 971 questions the checkers had posed. It was an impressive display. The binders were labeled 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 confidential 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 disaffected members should be treated skeptically, noting, “The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past to excuse his former affiliations 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.” Jefferson 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 effective if people at the highest levels of spiritual attainment were actually liars, adulterers, wife beaters, drunks, and embezzlers.
“This is a religion,” Davis responded movingly. “It aspires to greatness, hope, humanity, spiritual freedom. To be greater than we are. To rise above our craven, humanoid instincts.” Scientology doesn’t pretend to be perfect, he said, and it shouldn’t be judged on the misconduct of a few apostates. “I haven’t done things like that,” Davis said. “I haven’t suborned perjury, destroyed evidence, lied—contrary to what Paul Haggis says.” He spoke of his frustration with Haggis after his resignation: “If he was so troubled and shaken on the fundamentals of Scientology … then why the hell did he stick around for thirty-five years?” He continued: “Did he stay a closet Scientologist for some career-advancement purpose?” Davis shook his head in disgust. “I think he’s the most hypocritical person in the world.” He said he felt that he’d done all he could in dealing with Haggis over the issue of Proposition 8. He added that the individual who had made the mistake of listing the San Diego church as a supporter of the initiative—he didn’t divulge his name—had been “disciplined” for it. I asked what that meant. “He was sat down by a staff member of the local organization,” Davis explained. “He got sorted out.”