How Scientology churchified itself to capitalize on its IRS tax exemption

[David Miscavige in 1993, and the War Is Over announcement that October]

We have a special treat for you today. A former Sea Org member who worked in Scientology’s management wanted to add some more detail to something Sunny Pereira wrote for us recently. Sunny had pointed out that after Lisa McPherson’s death in 1995, Scientology sent out a new contract that included language that enabled the church to declare someone unwell so that it could take over their care. This has been dubbed the “kidnap contract” by critics, and Sunny said that she and others at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre were relieved at the time that the contract would give them the power to take over control of Sea Org members who were causing problems. Sunny also suggested that this may have been the first set of contracts that contained an arbitration clause, or at least the first ones she remembers seeing.

Today’s contributor thinks that date should be pushed back a little further. It was after Scientology achieved tax exempt status in 1993 that they remember seeing new contracts with the arbitration clause for the first time. This was part of Scientology amping up its “religious” branding after the IRS granted it church status in the US. Our contributor today agrees with Sunny that another new contract emerged after McPherson’s death that contained the language of the kidnap contract, but the arbitration clause came a little earlier.

With Scientology making so much use of the arbitration clause today in order to derail lawsuits by former members, we consider this to be important Scientology history, and we hope you enjoy this glimpse of the view from from a former member who still has family in the church and so asked not to be identified.

After the IRS tax exemption happened in October ’93 we were all made to sign three or four contracts that were written to come across as religious as possible. If there was a religious word or even religious sounding word it was used rather than a standard English word. These contracts changed things such as: calling a payment for your next service a “donation” to the church. Scientology being referred to as a “religious order.” Public now being called “parishioners,” and so on.

These contracts also stated that you would not sue the organization or report them to a public official, and would use Scientology “arbitration” in the case of any dispute. I don’t remember all of the points but they were designed to protect the organization as much as possible from a legal standpoint. As Sea Org members, we were told that about the contracts when we were told to sign them. Anyone who appeared to have “bad-indicators” about this, or who disagreed, were to be seen in Ethics to find out if they had plans to sue, attack, or want to leave. On this first round we were told to make sure to go through them thoroughly, look up any words we didn’t know, etc. If I remember correctly we were even given spot checks on them.

The idea for us as Sea Org members was to protect the organization from us if we defected, but also to get us on the same page with the changes in verbiage so that we would be using it as well in communication to the orgs, public, in promotional material and so on. We needed to have a more religious appearance.

So while you’d still hear “public,” “org,” etc. you’d have “church,” “parishioner” and the like sprinkled in. And if you did a promotional piece, email, or something that had the possibility of being seen by the outside world you would use the religious words.

A gimmick that was used to get these contracts signed by all public was a church-wide amnesty for all to be forgiven and start fresh in honor of the hard work put in (and money donated for) becoming tax exempt. The public who dished out money, did crusades, and whatnot over the years got a pat on the back with this.

We (the Sea Org) were briefed that the on-lines public would come in to take the amnesty and sign the contracts as part of whatever course they were on. They would be informed this was part of our tax exemption if needed. For the public that had fallen by the way side (or were “off-lines” as they are called), they would have the amnesty used to get them to come back in, and them get regged (pressured by salespeople, known as registrars or “regges”) to do any course or service. Signing the contracts was part of signing up for service — so it was money made for the orgs and contracts signed.

It was also an excuse to get the 200-plus people on the RPF (the Rehabilitation Project Force, the Sea Org’s prison program) off so that they could be used for posting in the orgs. It had been mentioned many times that the RPF was a drain. They were being paid, given auditing and training, but not working to get public in, regged and serviced (how the money is made).

Another part of this whole tax exemption was legitimizing the organization by making it comparable to other churches. So, an all-new What is Scientology book was released in paperback in 1993 for massive distribution and thus massive dissemination. It was supposed to sort of compare to the bible, tells “all” about our beliefs and religion.

Scientologists were sold this in bulk to sell to others (you aren’t supposed to give out books for free per Ron). A whole sliding scale of discounts was created to get them to buy as many as possible. The public were hyped up to be disseminating machines at the event and bought the books to sell. Unfortunately, the whole public selling them thing wasn’t really happening so of course they wouldn’t “restock.” It then became OK for them to be able to give this book away as it was now being considered a dissemination item or informational piece. Still the sales dwindled. It was a pricey book to manufacture – expensive paper, lots of color photos, manufactured by other companies, etc.

There was an attempt to release it to the book trade at this same time as well (didn’t do well there) and was done on slightly less expensive paper, more black and white pictures, etc. to try to get it in the price range of other trade paperbacks on the market at the time but it was still a bit higher than the average. We got most of these returned after the allotted time on the shelves. It was a flop. Heads rolled.

This was followed by the release of the newly expanded Volunteer Ministers Handbook in 1994 with each chapter having a booklet for selling or handing out. Again a lot of this was to legitimize Scientology. We were trying to show the world that we had comparable books, material, handouts, etc. that other churches had.

A few years later, whether directly related to the Lisa McPherson situation or not, but definitely at the same time, new contracts were made but with addition of a clause for when you have a psychotic break or lose your mental facilities you agree for the “church” to take you into their own hands and administer care and processing without a family member or spouse approval. (The so-called “kidnap contract.”)

Some people asked if they were different and we were told just slightly but pretty much the same thing and to hurry up and sign them as we needed to get back to post. The HCOs and Quals (the divisions responsible for staff care, training, establishment) were briefed otherwise and told about the new clause so that we could take “care” of the person should they have a psychotic break. Things were said so that no one would fall into the hands of psychiatry (where they would have their minds destroyed for eternity).

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

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