A recent interview with Alex Gibney in Rolling Stone where he was asked the following question, jogged my memory.
I had the pleasure of seeing Going Clear at its Sundance premiere, which was pretty wild. Is Scientology still on your case? And I’ve done a lot of reporting on Scientology as well, so what’s it like to see Tom Cruise still be the king of Hollywood? It seems he hasn’t had to answer a single question about this stuff in the eight years since Going Clear.
I agree. And I’m kind of surprised. I think he took a step away, so he’s not the kind of ambassador for Scientology that he used to be — not like he was back in the day when he was making War of the Worlds and had a Scientology tent on the set. Being a star is super important to him. I agree, there hasn’t been any reckoning for him. It’s surprised me. There are stories about him that, if one could get people to go on the record, would be shocking. But they have to be willing to do it. And so far, they haven’t been.
Back at the time of the premiere of Going Clear on HBO, Alex published an OpEd in the LA Times . It’s 8 years ago now, but in re-reading it, I was struck by how nothing has changed with regard to the IRS over those years and how true this remains to this day. Certainly scientology has continued to dwindle — so perhaps there are fewer people suffering the abuses. But one person being abused by a tax exempt organization is too many, and there are certainly a lot more than one.
If you have not read this before, please do so. If you read it 8 years ago, it is worth refreshing your memory.
ALEX GIBNEY
When I made the film “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” which aired on HBO on March 29, I assumed that the response from the Church of Scientology would be vitriolic. I was right; but I hold out hope that this reaction may lead to the reform of an organization that has harassed its critics and, in my view, abused its tax-exempt status.
Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, believed that critics of the church were so fundamentally evil that any kind of counterattack was, according to doctrine, “fair game.” He wrote in a 1967 “Policy Letter” that critics “may be deprived of property or injured by any means … may be tricked, sued, lied to or destroyed.”
In keeping with this doctrine, the church has waged a crusade against the film starting months before its release. The ex-Scientologists who testify in “Going Clear” have been on the receiving end of threats, surveillance and a smear campaign on the Scientology website Freedommag.org. In one of the attack videos, titled “Crocodile Liar,” a bull’s-eye frames a picture of Sara Goldberg, a grandmother who left the church in 2013. Rather than engage in informed debate, the videos accuse all the critical ex-members of various misdeeds, including theft and perjury, without mentioning that some appear to have been committed on behalf of the church.
Lawrence Wright, the New Yorker staff writer and author of the book on which the film is based, has not been immune. Nor have I. The church spent a great deal of its followers’ money publishing a parody of the New Yorker; it contained expensive graphics that were the envy of David Remnick, the actual editor of the New Yorker, which published Wright’s first investigation into Scientology. Because I am a filmmaker, the church produced a video going after me and my father, who has very little to say on the matter since he died in 2006. Wright and I have received countless letters from the church and its attorneys. My face appeared on full-page ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times attacking the film.
These tactics, however, don’t seem to have damaged the film’s popularity. On the contrary, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “Going Clear” attracted over 1.75 million viewers on its first broadcast, the best showing for a documentary on HBO in 10 years.
Only one group is averting their eyes: active Scientologists, who are encouraged, by doctrine, to avoid any criticism of the church. As “Going Clear” shows, the church will sanction its members for reading or viewing critical material. It may be that many of the church’s attacks on the film are not designed for the general public, but rather serve as a signal of possible danger for the flock. Recently, longtime Scientologist John Travolta criticized the film — even as he said he had no intention of ever watching it — because it would be a “crime” to “approach a negative perspective.”
Judging by online feedback, the most fervent viewers have been ex-Scientologists who seem to be delighted by the fact that their experience has been given voice in a national broadcast. As one long-suffering former member of the Sea Org (the church’s clergy) told me, “We were afraid our story would never be told.”
The reason for that fear — and the apparent pent-up demand for this story among the general public — may be that, historically, Scientology has been effective at limiting or even preventing open debate about its practices. Over the years, reporters on this beat have been ruthlessly intimidated and their journals and networks subject to war by litigation.
Roughly 20 years ago, according to investigative reporter Richard Behar, the Church of Scientology spent millions attacking him and his employer, Time magazine, in court and through the aggressive use of private investigators. Although the church lost at every level, right up to the Supreme Court, it regarded the litigation battle as a victory because it succeeded in putting the “fear of God” into most media organizations.
In the wake of Wright’s book and the film, many reporters, critics and ex-Scientologists seem to be more confident about speaking out and investigating ongoing charges of abuse. Only a few days ago, this newspaper published a story about a private investigator armed with a cache of weapons and 2,000 rounds of ammunition, who was allegedly paid by Scientology to spy on the father of the church’s “Chairman of the Board,” David Miscavige. A number of articles have even raised the question of whether the church should be permitted to maintain its tax-exempt status in the face of so many alleged or documented civil rights abuses, such as the videotaped harassment of ex-Scientologist Marty Rathbun and his wife, Monique. It’s an important question, since it implicates all of us.
The church maintains that its activities are protected by the 1st Amendment as religious practices. Partially on that basis, the church convinced the Internal Revenue Service in 1993 that Scientology should be tax-exempt and that all donations to the church should be tax-deductible. (The film shows that the church’s method of “convincing” the IRS featured lawsuits and vilification of its agents.)
In the past, critics of the church have called for its tax exemption to be revoked because it is not a “real religion.” I agree that tax-exemption isn’t merited, but not for that reason. The Church of Scientology has a distinct belief system which, despite its somewhat strange cosmology — mocked by the TV show “South Park” and many others — is not essentially more strange than, say, the idea of a virgin birth. Scientologists are entitled to believe what they want to believe. And the IRS website makes it clear that anyone is entitled to start a religion at any time without seeking IRS permission. To maintain the right to be tax-exempt, however, religions must fulfill certain requirements for charitable organizations. For example, they may not “serve the private interests of any individual” and/or “the organization’s purposes and activities may not be illegal or violate fundamental public policy.”
On these points alone, it is hard to see why Americans should subsidize Scientology through its tax-exemption.
Regarding “private interests,” it seems clear that Scientology is ruled by only one man, David Miscavige. Further, powerful celebrities within the church, particularly Tom Cruise, receive private benefits through the exploitation of low-wage labor (clergy members belonging to the Sea Org make roughly 40 cents an hour) and other use of church assets for his personal gain.
It appears that many church activities may have been either illegal or in violation of public policy. Numerous lawsuits, my film, other media accounts and an abandoned FBI investigation have turned up allegations of false imprisonment, human trafficking, wiretaps, assault, harassment and invasion of privacy. And the church doctrine of “disconnection,” in which members are forced to “disconnect” from anyone critical of the church, seems cruelly at odds with any reasonable definition of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
A proper criminal investigation that followed the money — a virtual river of cash from tax-exempt donations and fees — could sort out some of these issues. Or a congressional subcommittee investigation could force Miscavige — who was unwilling to answer questions for Wright’s book or the film — to testify under oath about allegations of abuse.
There is ample precedent for the revocation of tax-exempt status: It happens more than 100 times per year. There is also an important Supreme Court ruling that addresses the religious issue. In 1983, the court upheld a decision revoking the charitable status of a religious college, Bob Jones University, because it forbade interracial dating. The court stated in Bob Jones University vs. the United States that the “government has a fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education … which substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on [the university’s] exercise of their religious beliefs.”
It seems to me that our government has a “fundamental, overriding interest” in protecting individual liberty by not subsidizing harassment or surveillance by gun-toting private eyes. The 1st Amendment should not be a smokescreen to hide human rights abuses and possible criminal activities.
Alex Gibney is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.
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Possibly forever lamenting whatever involvement he may have had, if I recall correctly Mike was close to the scene when Scientology strong-armed the IRS Commissioner and his agents into handing over the non-profit churchly tax exemption. People in the cherch today probably don’t even know that Hubbard’s Church of Scientology once operated under the official US IRS religious non-profit tax exemption back, in the 1950s. The IRS took it away from a very unhappy Scientology due to Hubbard’s excessive enurement of cherch monies. (Enurement, or inurement, is the practice of one or more individuals at the top taking too much of the organization’s assets for their personal use. )
This second time around the IRS gave Scientology strict directives – a five year plan, I think – about how they were to behave to prove they deserved the exemption. As part of that deal, Scientology was relieved of most of the huge burden of unpaid back taxes.
Did Scientology keep their end of the deal? That I do not know for sure, but I believe one of our stalwart critics of the cherch has explained it, somewhere on the web. In any event, Scientology took Hubbard’s Fair Game to its limits to secure the second-time-around not-for-profit tax exemption. Despite a Supreme Court decision about the cherch being a fee-for-services business, Scientology has used the non-profit exemption to convince themselves and others that they really are a religion, and every critic who mentions otherwise is nothing but a Biggut of the wurst sort.
BTW, there’s nothing to see here. Might as well skip over today’s blog. It is nothing but Really Olde Gnus. Those people who did something, or anything, or maybe nothing, all got kicked out of the cherch a Really Long Time Ago, unless they had a lot of money, and today Scientology remains The Most Ethical Group On The Planet.
They couldn’t say it if it weren’t true, right?
p.s. apologies to Mike for any inaccuracies, I got too wound up taking a cat to the vet to check sources deeply.today.
This is such a vital blog and is high recommended reading for all.
We have long since come to realize that the way to stop their daily criminality is to have tax exempt pulled where they are held accountable like any business.
I wonder how many people right now are held against will for voicing their wish to leave !
Holding against will is against the law !
There are tons of laws that protect the consumer and the SCN cult evades all of them because of masquerading as a “religion” and invoking 1st amendment privileges.
Eliminating the cult’s tax exempt status is the way to go.
As a strategy, appealing to common sense with these people is largely a waste of time.
Its obvious that the die hard still ins WANT to be lied to, NEED to be lied to.
With the exception of an unknown percentage of them who are actually UTR it is apparent to me that the hard core rest of them know the truth, see the truth and yet insist upon being lied to about it. So Miscavige obliges. They don’t WANT the truth. They don’t WANT to be told that what they’re observing with their own eyes is the truth. Because that would mean they have nothing. Miscavige’s lies are all they have. Without his lies they have nothing.
If he were to stand in front of them and admit the truth and the doors of their collective Prison of Belief were opened for them to walk out, they would certainly destroy COB, yes, he would be ruined and destroyed, but it would destroy THEM as well. It bears repeating: His lies are ALL they have. Miscavige’s fairy tales keep them alive. They’ll go to their graves believing his bullshit. Very likely early graves too.
I saw John Travolta’s PX folder in 1979. Per the front of the folder he was OTIII then.Not that I looked inside it. It was on it’s way to the C/S ( sorry to any of you fucks who don’t know what a C/S is, but just let me say that you got off easy. I know all about it but I ended up with had less than a 5 % chance of remaining alive.
I met JT in person around 1990 on the Freewinds. He wanted to go to an island by Aruba to have a little party with his brother Frank as it was Frank’s birthday. As the senior repair engineer on the Freewinds I was sent because they knew that I could rebuild the whole engine if necessary, true, but I did not have the tools. It started raining when we got to the island so we returned to the ship
Spot on. Revoke its tax exempt status and Co$ dies. Finis. Cut the head off this snake. Correct target.
Get its tax exempt status revoked and Co$ dies. Finis. Cut this snake’s head off. It IS the correct target.
More important than the 1983 SCOTUS case referenced by Mr. Gibney is the Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680 (1989) case. This is the one where SCOTUS determined $cientology was a quid pro quo business, not entitled to a tax exemption. Although the IRS later ignored the decision, it has never been overturned. A Congressional inquiry into why the exemption was granted, including things no other 401(c)3 organization is allowed to do, in spite of the SCOTUS ruling is long overdue
I got into scientology in late spring 1977. When I heard about the FBI raid on the church–from a letter my grandmother sent me 2,100 miles away–I asked my Course Supervisor for advice. He suggested that I read the chapter, “Handling the Dangerous Environment” in the Volunteer Minister’s Handbook. After I read it, I answered grandma’s letter and never heard her say anything negative about scientology ever again.
In the mid-1980’s, while working as an Independent Contractor for the Office of Special Affairs U.S., I heard news on the radio about a legal case involving the church. When I asked my boss, an OSA US Sea Org staff member for advice, she told me to “ignore the noise and just continue your work.” So I did just that.
When in 1991 the TIME magazine article came out on scientology–and my employer, Sterling Management Systems–we were told by Chris and Tina Estey (who were temporarily running the company at the time), that we, as a company, were going to have one of the highest Gross Income’s ever. And we did just that.
That TIME magazine article, however, would prove to be the turning point for Sterling, which used to be scientology’s biggest FSM. And into the toilet Sterling went, with me and many others holding onto the rim, kicking and screaming as the water circled the drain. I think I worked there for 4 more years.
In the 37 years that I sat trapped in scientology, I found it easier to always look away from whatever shit was hitting scientology’s fan. In just a few months in 1977 (especially after I joined the Sea Org), I learned to distrust ANYTHING bad or negative that anybody said about scientology. “If those wogs are yelling about us,” screamed L. Ron Hubbard, “then we know that we’re winning!”
From 1977 to 2014, the year I managed to leave the church, I rarely, if ever, read a newspaper or watched the news on TV. Yes, I used to have a Sunday subscription to the Los Angeles Times, but I’d throw out all but the Calendar section. In 1999, I even threw my TV out.
When I became homeless in 2012 due to a down economy, I moved into a faith-based homeless shelter. There–on a TV that I didn’t own and in a news broadcast I would have not bothered with otherwise–I learned of the death of Mary Sue Hubbard’s dog. The wife of the founder of my church had loved her dog more than her own children when, 14 years prior, Mary Sue had died and left her estate to her pooch. The dog had been treated like a king, living in her Hollywood estate, pampered by servants. As a result, that crazy story began my road out of Scientology (which took just a matter of weeks, if that).
Fast forward two years and I’m protesting scientology at the front steps of the American St. Hill Organization (where I used to work and study). A group of about 35 scientologists are in front of me awaiting transport to take them to the Grand Opening of Scientology Media Productions. Suddenly, a scientology executive orders that group to turn around–to face away from the protestors–and they do. Like trained seals.
Like the trained SEAL I used to be.
Fred, if Mary Sue loved her dog more than her children, maybe the dog deserved it. Where were her children when she needed them? After losing her elder son to suicide, shielding her husband and going to prison for him, and all the while being reviled by Miscavige and treated like dirt by the rest of the execs, where were Diana, Suzette and Arthur during her ordeals?
They knew the truth; what did they do for her? did they even visit her or try to visit her during her years of isolation? Damned right she loved the dog more! Outcast that she was, ill and old, tired, defeated, spurned by everyone and lonely, and probably still grieving for Quentin, at least here was a creature that loved her and was glad she was alive, even if it was only a dog!
Aquamarine,
Your points are spot-on!
Back in 2014, when the news broke of the death of Mary Sue Hubbard’s beloved dog, however, I knew nothing of what you noted, absolutely nothing. That’s because I had been given the whitewashed scientology story, the one that all Scientologists in Good Standing know and understand: that Diana, Suzette and Arthur loved their parents and were dedicated Sea Org members; that MSH (Hubbard’s second wife) loved LRH (and likewise), and had dedicated the next billion years to serving her husband and her church; that one’s children and husband (part of the Second Dynamic) are more important than a pet (part of the Fifth Dynamic); that anything bad or negative ever said or written about LRH, MSH or scientology came from Suppressive Persons who cared nothing about helping mankind.
I left scientology in August 2014: it’s funny how a scientologist’s perspective (i.e. the whitewashed scientology story) can change almost overnight.
Thanks, Fred. Of course, everyone was (and continually is) lied to in Scientology, and LRH’s kids were now exception; in fact strong evidence exists that LRH himself was totally lied to in his final years. There’s no blame that can be fairly and justly given.
The whole system was rotten to the core and from that viewpoint Mary Sue and her children were casualties of it as were many others.
I suppose I’m just conflicted about her. About Mary Sue.
On the one hand as head of the Guardian office she was LRH’s chief enabler and enforcer of his suppressive policies and thus deserved all the punishment she got. What she did, what she countenanced under her watch, was despicable and beyond rotten and dirty.
But on the other hand, she was a woman, she loved her husband, believed in him and showed incredible strength of character by never ratting him out, while at the same time enduring the weight of her vilification and castigation by everyone including her own kids. Enduring this while at the same time very likely still in intense albeit grief over the loss of Quentin and, no small thing – being ignored and shunned by and out of communication with her cowardly husband…such pain and loss, such emotional cruelty, such injustice, all of which she bore, alone. She was strong, amazingly strong, inside. For that strength I admire her very much.
Yes, conflicted 🙂
Aquamarine,
Thank you. It’s a pleasure, as always.
Mary Sue Hubbard: in many ways, a martyr to “The Bridge to Total Freedom”; she sacrificed almost everything for the “cause.”
“f we read this 8 years ago, it’s worth reading again to refresh our minds now.”
Why?
Is the IRS any closer to revoking their Tax Exempt Status? That is certainly not likely.
It might be likely if the IRS was losing out on collecting more and more money. But since the cult has been steadily shrinking, they have been withholding less and less money. So the IRS would see this as a small problem that continues to grow even smaller.
There is no reason for anyone to read this again and refresh our minds about this issue. This issue is steadily dying.
Why should people read this again?
It’s not like Alex Gibney has been a steady vocal presence in the struggle to outlaw this cult.
Alex is a great director. But during the past eight years, I have never once heard or seen him be active in the struggle to revoke this Tax Exempt Status.
Can you give any good reasons why people should read this old news again? I mean above and beyond because you say so.
Because it is as important today as it was when he wrote it. And if you understood anything about the abuses of scientology ongoing on a daily basis you would know that the way they will be dropped us for Scientology to lose its tax exempt status.
If you don’t want to read or reread it, don’t spend your time doing so (try bough it would take less time than writing and posting this comment).
More likely you are trolling here because this message being repeated IS of concern to scientology.
Yes. . A troll hiding under the bridge snipping at heels of decent people making good observations about the “church” of Scientology abuses in violation of human decency any even many of Scientology’s own principles, identifies these observations as “old news” a-la COS attorney Karen Pau.
It’s true: There are fewer and fewer folks shelling out for “services” and taking a tax deduction.
At the same time, the cult has a massive (and amazingly, still growing) holding of real estate that they have taken off the tax roll. Whales, large and small, continue to be impressed enough to shell out gazillions of tax-exempt bucks. Human trafficking from less fortunate countries, if anything, has increased as the cult is no longer able to lure first-world dupes into servitude in sufficient numbers to tend to all the vacant real estate, orchestrate mass mailings of junk and maintain a plethora of hate web sites.
Atrocities against workers and critics, even to the point of witness intimidation and other forms of obstruction of justice, continue to be standard operating procedure. Not to mention that the religious cloak lends not only financial support to this criminality but also offers protection from legal consequences.
If anything, this discussion is more timely than ever. The Biden administration has beefed up the IRS’s enforcement team by an unprecedented appx. 90,000 new hires. They have announced that audits will increase ten-fold. They have sought to invade the privacy of Americans to the point of having even relatively small banking transactions become reportable. So next time you make a few hundred bucks selling some stuff you no longer want on ebay you may well have to answer and pay up taxes for it. Under Obama, the IRS systematically targeted tax exemptions for organizations whose political mission it found disagreeable, causing a significant scandal in the process.
So while the IRS increasingly encroaches on the minutiae of the lives of not particularly well-heeled (and hence powerless) citizens and shows plenty resolve to go after tax-exemptions (albeit for self-serving political purposes), it is irrelevant that a billion-dollar “religion” continues to have tax payers subsidize atrocities that have no place in a civilized society? And it’s of no concern that courts have their hands ties? Surely you jest!
Oh, and I forgot: There’s also the issue of financial transparency. Of which there is practically none. Again, due to the “religious” cloak afforded by the IRS. So in addition to abusing its workforce the cult also gets to abuse its donors. And we the tax payers are forced to be complicit in this. This is as true today as it was 8 years ago.
Well said!
Todd, I think financial transparency should apply to all religious groups, regardless – just as it does to all other non-profits. The CoS is simply taking advantage of an exception that invites abuse, in a realm where belief gives organizations extraordinarily powerful influence that is easily exploited, and where I think transparency and accountability is critical.
How many ex Scientologists (or even active Scientologists) have you seen suffer, being financially crippled, lost their homes by being under-capitalized and financially destitute, especially, in just this one example, but when the GFC hit because of the endless donations being coerced out of them by Scientology and resulting in them being in heavy debt, unable to do anything but capitulate the last of their assets. Plus losing family and friends by enforced disconnection or dying a premature death by stress, cancer etc? I’ve experienced seeing all those things and also the inconsolable tears of close friends and family who pledged their life and soul only to be betrayed by the lies of Scientology, which also broke my heart as well.
Not to even the mention the countless staff and SO who suffered the most by being subjected to Hubbard’s insane policies based upon some type of savage revenge against anything or anyone that criticized him or his one sided perceived view of Scientology against the world. He granted no beingness to anyone outside of an auditing room, but then again, gave us things like the ‘Truth Rundown’ and numerous security checks that contradicts the sanity and well being of the recipients. Scientology has a ‘legally’ masked, but active side that deals in fear as its main operating basis.
There have been numerous suicides and deaths of questionable circumstances resulting from involvement in and with Scientology.
From the apparent safety behind your keyboard you have the audacity to question someone’s motive and actions who is doing the best they can, despite many years of frustrating disappointments trying to put an end to an easily proven evil man running a very devious religious scam of mind boggling proportions upon the IRS, the Constitution and the people of the United States. Why should the citizens of the US subsidize such criminality by tax exception?
There is one concept not easily grasped as I see it concerning the safety of the democracy of the United States, and that is the application of effectively dealing with enemies both foreign and in this case, particularly concerning Scientology, domestic.
I may not be American, but I care enough about humanity to know the value of the American people adhering to its constitution. For all it’s problems, it has something very precious to defend, world peace counts on it. Getting rid of the Scientology Organisational abuses while it may seem small in the general scheme of things is vitally important imo in restoring faith in the US judicial system. The 3rd part of the body of power as I understand it that runs the US.
AWWWW, YOUR CULT AND MY CULT IN THE SAME OP-ED. 💕
Isn’t healing wonderful?
Thanks Mike.
I love the pounding the church of scientology and david miscavige are getting from all angles. All stories new and old need to be discussed – again and again.
The abuses of the church of scientology and articles like this and Alex Gibney 2015 piece are NEVER too old to publish again and again. Maybe the IRS or some senate committee will allow some tiny piece of this horror story to seep into a couple of brain cells and wake them up so they can start taking steps to take away tax exempt status AND ALSO shut down this vile group.
How any group is allowed to ruin lives for so long under the guise of a religion is beyond me and anyone with an ounce of humanity left in their hearts, minds and souls.
Keep up the good work Mike.