It’s a staple of controversy, the butt of many jokes, and a system of religious beliefs for more than 56 years. But does it really deserve the joke status most of society has given to it?
To find out, I called The Church of Scientology office in Ottawa (called an “org”) many, many times. Each time they politely declined my requests for an interview. I even tried to reach the Canadian headquarters in Toronto, but they snubbed me again. This went on for weeks. The sidestepping and silence left me with no choice. I was going to try and learn more . . . in the most nerve-wracking, awkward way possible. I climbed up the stairs off Rideau Street into the Ottawa org, and descended into a delusional world of e-mails, e-meters, engrams and pseudonyms.
“Come have a seat,” Hélène Lacombe, director of the Ottawa org says. “What do you want to know about Scientology?”
I winced through a spiel about how much I detested the Catholic Church. She set me straight: “Scientology is not there to make you change your religion . . . You continue your religion and you are a Scientologist at the same time.”
Comforting, I thought.
Lacombe went to get Roland Soucy, the org’s resident guru of dianetics – Scientology’s own system of Freudian psycho-analysis.
“So you want to learn more about dianetics, eh?” Soucy says. I nodded.
An aging, tall, academic-looking man, he took me down a long corridor past wall-high cabinets stuffed with Scientology books and magazines. I saw a ceremonial office dedicated to Scientology’s founder, Lafayette Ron Hubbard. He led me into a dark, carpet-padded cell with a projector screen drawn across the far side. Soucy put on a dianetics DVD and we watched silently.
At this point I realized my expertly conceived plan of darting out of the place once things got strange was not going to be enough. What had I done?
Hubbard, a science fiction writer, published Dianetics in May 1950 after both the Journal of the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Psychiatry refused to print it. After incorporating the name “Church of Scientology,” Hubbard established the first church in February 1954. It soon spread across the English-speaking world. It has not yet achieved tax-exempt status as a religion in Canada.
Hubbard taught that humans are spiritual beings who collectively forgot their true nature eons ago. He devised programs within his church aimed at ending addiction, correcting criminal tendencies and promoting successful business practices.
Central to Scientology is dianetics. It was devised to help individuals improve their life through a reflection of past experiences called auditing. Once a scientologist divulges all of their troublesome past experiences (called “engrams”) to a certified “auditor” they are said to have crossed “the bridge to total freedom” into a nirvana-like mental state called “clear.”
Although simple on the surface, the functions of Scientology became murky to me as Soucy stopped the DVD.
“Even if you don’t know at this moment know how [dianetics] really works . . . if you apply it, it works.” I began to ponder.
The Hollywood-esque DVD went on: “The part of your mind that analyzes information to make decisions and solve problems is actually incapable of error.”
What? Our brains are error-free? I tuned out.
The film was slick, but it fell far short of what Soucy had to say: “You can use dianetics to heal an insane person. . . . In the future, when there are enough Scientologists we will take care of them.”
“There may be a war against us. . . . We’ve been at war with psychiatry,” Soucy said. Adding the word “war” to the conversation pushed our exchange toward dillusional.
“When you know that what you’re doing is a fraud . . . and you receive billions of dollars from the government, you get afraid of being found out,” Soucy says.
He said the pharmaceutical industry, the media and the federal government were all conspiring to manipulate the citizenry and bring down Scientology. Feeling a bit left out, I asked him why more people hadn’t heard of his plight.
“You’re in the system,” Soucy says. “You’re [in university] to be part of the system.”
As it happens, there is no sweeping conspiracy against Scientology in Canada.
In fact, in 1991 the Ontario government fined the Toronto org $250,000 for breach of trust, after Scientologists were caught trying to infiltrate federal buildings in Ottawa. This makes it the only religious organization to be convicted of such a crime in Ontario.
The DVD ended and Soucy took me into another small room at the back of the org where he audits people. He brought out an e-meter – a rudimentary polygraph machine Scientologists use to take readings of the natural electric current (“the carrier wave”) that passes through the body.
He handed me metal cans that act like contact points.
“Think of a moment when you were really angry,” Soucy says.
The needle on the e-meter jumped. Could this actually work?
“Think of a great achievement in your past,” Soucy says.
Instead, I thought of nothing, and just squeezed the cans slightly. The e-meter needle jumped just the same way. Thrilled, Soucy didn’t realize I had just fooled his device.
Not at all convinced, I thanked Soucy for his time.
He invited me to a weekend auditing seminar. Cost: $115. I declined his offer and sped down what felt like the longest flight of steps in history.
An Internet-based group of Scientology critics called Anonymous regularly pickets the Ottawa org. They expose what they say are Scientology’s “crimes.”
Agreeing to be identified only by their Internet pseudonyms, Bahamut, Murphy and Blooanon spoke with me at a Starbucks.
“First of all, their place is above a bong shop,” says Blooanon as we sat down. The Ottawa org occupies the second floor of a building in a less-desirable strip of Rideau Street.
They handed me homemade DVDs and pamphlets showing all of Scientology’s supposed misdeeds. They say Scientology leadership is accused of stalking its critics, subjecting unruly followers to slave labour in a program called Rehabilitation Project Force, and forcing thousands into bankruptcy with its high fees.
They also note some Scientologists attempt to infiltrate American government offices in the late 1970s. As a result, 11 Scientologists, including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue, were sentenced to five years in prison in 1979.
Surely, this meant Anonymous were merely fighting the injustices of a brutal and secretive organization . . . right?
“The last census said there’s only about 40 [Scientologists] in Ottawa,” Blooanon says. Only 40? How many Anonymous are there in Ottawa?
“You’re looking at us . . . plus one or two other people,” Bahamut says.
“You have no idea how much some people [in Anonymous] want to be punched in the face by a Scientologist. . . . It’s so boring here,” Murphy says. “The Scientologists here are very tame.”
Scientologists in Ottawa committed none of the supposed crimes Anonymous members claimed, the Anonymous members say. They had all happened in California or Florida.
At our meeting, Blooanon tied a yellow scarf around her face for the entire meeting. Murphy readied a Guy Fawkes mask (the one from V for Vendetta) on the table.
“It’s a precaution we’re more than willing to take,” Bahamut says. “Even if we’re not afraid. . . . We have families.”
I couldn’t reconcile the difference between my experience with Soucy and the evils Anonymous claim Scientologists commit. The more I thought about it, the more the whole experience descended into a mundane conflict. Both groups made points I could agree with.
But word to the wise: unless you’re looking to write a quirky perspectives piece in the Charlatan, it’s probably best to stay out of their way.