It is unfortunate that some government officials and media continue to rely on discredited apostates to justify discriminatory policies against the Church of Scientology and its members. Virtually all punitive government actions targeting Scientology in the past decades were based on unsubstantiated anecdotal testimony from disgruntled apostates. When the evidence was finally reviewed by objective government officials or judicial bodies, the Church emerged completely vindicated while the false allegations of apostates were exposed and discredited.

Apostasy is a well-researched phenomenon in the field of religion and sociology, and leading scholars have devoted major studies to documenting the inherent unreliability of apostates' allegations against their former religions.

Dr. Bryan Wilson, Reader Emeritus in Sociology at Oxford University from 1963 to 1993, was one of the world's pre-eminent scholars of new religions during his lifetime. He was a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford and the British Academy. He researched, published and lectured on religion and new religious movements around the world for 50 years and provided expert opinions on religion for the British House of Commons and the courts.

Dr. Wilson noted that apostates of new religious movements generally crave self-justification by seeking to reconstruct their past to excuse their former affiliations, while blaming those who were formerly their closest associates. They must be regarded as inherently unreliable sources by government bodies, the judiciary and the media:

"Neither the objective sociological researcher nor the court of law can readily regard the apostate as a creditable or reliable source of evidence. He must always be seen as one whose personal history predisposes him to bias with respect to both his previous religious commitment and affiliations, the suspicion must arise that he acts from a personal motivation to vindicate himself and to regain his self-esteem, by showing himself to have been first a victim but subsequently to have become a redeemed crusader. As various instances have indicated, 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."(2)

Another acclaimed expert, Dr. Lonnie Kliever, longtime Professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, determined that the credibility of apostates is highly suspect. Dr. Kliever found that the overwhelming majority of individuals who exit from religions harbor no ill-will toward their past religious associations and activities. However, there is invariably a much smaller number of disaffected individuals—apostates—who are deeply committed to discrediting and undertaking actions designed to denigrate and destroy the religious communities that once claimed their loyalties. In Dr. Kliever's opinion, these apostates:

"[P]resent a distorted view of the new religions to the public, the academy, and the courts by virtue of their ready availability and eagerness to testify against their former religious associations and activities. Such apostates always act out of a scenario that vindicates themselves by shifting responsibility for their actions to the religious group.... Such apostates can hardly be regarded as reliable informants by responsible journalists, scholars, or jurists."(3)

Courts and administrative bodies also routinely dismiss the anecdotal testimony of apostates as inherently unreliable.

The Italian Court of Cassation (the Supreme Court for Italy) issued a landmark ruling in October 1997 in which it recognized Scientology's religious bona fides, a decision now regarded as part of the pivotal jurisprudence that sets the standard regarding the definition of religion throughout the European Union. In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court refused to rely on the testimony of apostates in determining that Scientology must be treated like other religions.

The Supreme Court questioned how a Court could know that the opinion of disgruntled ex-members is representative of the larger population of ex-members. The Court therefore determined that the opinion of two, or even 20, apostates is hardly representative of what the average ex-member believes. The Court specifically noted the inherent unreliability of such witnesses, chastised the lower court for having relied upon two notorious apostates of the Church and overturned the ruling.(4)

Likewise, the Administrative Court of Stuttgart ruled against the German state of Baden-Württemberg in 1999, dismissing the reliability of the government's key witness and questioning his credibility because he was a Scientology apostate subsequently trained by a Protestant center to publicly criticize the Church of Scientology.(5)

Moreover, in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) exemption proceedings, false allegations regarding illegal activity raised by apostates that the IRS had previously relied upon to take adverse action against the Church and its parishioners were extensively investigated and dismissed as untrue by the IRS before recognizing that Churches of Scientology are religious charitable organizations operating for the public benefit.(6)

"Disconnect", the Sea Org and "defected high-ranking executives" - the policy of Freedom of Association

Family is the building block of any society. The Church of Scientology encourages and helps its members to have excellent family relationships, whether their relatives are Scientologists or not. Family members of Scientologists are always welcome to visit the Church, to meet other Scientologists and to have their questions about Scientology answered.

Marriage, raising children and building strong family relationships are major factors in a stable life. Where once the family was the stable foundation upon which all else was built, today its shattered remnants are the source of much of what troubles society. And while marriages still outnumber divorces, the gap is rapidly closing. Marriage is well on the way to becoming a failed institution.

L. Ron Hubbard wrote extensively on interpersonal relationships, and much of it is applicable to this most personal of relationships. Through its Volunteer Minister Program, the Church of Scientology provides online courses in building relationships. These courses resolve how to make a marriage work, why many marriages fail, how to discover if partners are well suited to each other, and how to save a failing marriage.

People often find that once they begin practicing Scientology their relationships with their spouses and other family members are strengthened dramatically. The Church of Scientology teaches an individual to communicate more freely with others, raises his ability to love other people and puts him in better communication with family and friends.

Scientology and Marriage

Scientology contains practical tools that can help any marriage or relationship. The Scientology marriage ceremony itself stresses the very factors that can ensure a successful relationship. These factors are Affinity, Reality and Communication, known as ARC-the component parts of Understanding. The concept of ARC is represented by a triangle, known as the ARC Triangle (pronounced "A-R-C Triangle").

The first corner of the triangle is called Affinity. The word here is used to mean "love, liking or any other emotional attitude." These range from high emotions such as serenity, enthusiasm and cheerfulness, down through antagonism, anger, fear and apathy.

The second corner is called Reality. Reality could be defined as "that which appears to be." It is, fundamentally, agreement. We agree with each other as to what is real and what is not real. The opinions of people way out of agreement with commonly held realities are not well thought of.

The third point is Communication. In understanding the composition of human relations, Communication is more important than Affinity and Reality.

These three corners of the triangle interrelate in that you cannot raise or lower one corner without it affecting the others. In other words, without a high degree of liking and without some basis of agreement, there is no communication. Without communication and some basis of emotional response, there can be no reality. Without some basis for agreement and communication, there can be no affinity.

Considered together, Affinity, Reality and Communication are the component parts of Understanding.

These components of understanding are vital in a close relationship such as a marriage. If a married couple maintains a high level of communication and affinity with each other, they improve the existence of their marriage (i.e., its reality). If they fall out of communication and no longer share common agreements, their feelings for each other will lessen and ultimately there will be no marriage.

As a result of the application of Scientology, relationships between a Scientologist and the rest of his family routinely improve after his involvement in Scientology, because through Scientology one acquires the means to increase communication and resolve any problems that might have existed before. Scientologists regularly note this phenomenon:

"Prior to being in Scientology, I had many troubles in life. One of these was a marriage failing after only seven years. My husband and I were going to separate, but then we discovered Scientology. Life began to improve immediately. I soon found that by continuing to apply what I had learned, things got better and better in all areas of my life. Thanks to Scientology, my husband and I salvaged our marriage. And I began to understand what it truly meant to be happy and spiritually aware. Today, more than 29 years later, I am still happily married and still enthusiastic about life. I owe this all to Scientology." A.M.

"We have a great family and our involvement in Scientology gives us a strong moral and spiritual base. With Scientology, our family's future is guaranteed." C.H.

After participating in Scientology services, individuals are more likely to marry or stay married and to have children than before they became Scientologists.



Scientology and Children

L. Ron Hubbard has written a great deal about raising children. In Scientology, children are recognized as people who should be given all the respect and love granted adults.

Scientologists believe children should be encouraged to contribute to family life and not just be "seen and not heard," as the old saying goes. Children are spiritual beings, and as such they need to exchange with those around them for them to thrive and live productive, happy lives.

Children need respect, love, help and education. They want to help others from a very early age and it is important that adults allow them to do so, within the realms of safety. Children have to know they have a place in life, that they are important, and that their contributions are meaningful in a real way.

Education is an important part of this, as a child needs understanding of the workings of his family and society to be able to contribute to them in meaningful ways and in this he can be greatly assisted by his parents and other family members.

Some of the basic principles Scientologists apply to parenting are summed up in the following from L. Ron Hubbard:

"Today's children will become tomorrow's civilization. ...try to be the child's friend. It is certainly true that a child needs friends. Try to find out what a child's problem really is and, without crushing their own solutions, try to help solve them. ... A child factually does not do well without love. Most children have an abundance of it to return."

-The Way to Happiness

"The spoiled child is the child whose decisions have been interrupted continuously and who is robbed of his independence."

-Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

"Affection could no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline."

-Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

Most children raised in Scientology homes are above average in ability and quickly begin to understand how and why people act as they do. Life becomes happier and safer for them.

"I was born and raised in Scientology. My daughter (12) and son (4 months) are third-generation Scientologists. Being a Scientologist helped me to be brave, alert, competent, and aware and most of all it has made me want to help any and all who need help. I see this as well in my daughter who is now 12." K.R.

"As a kid, growing up in a Scientology family was fun, mainly because of my parents and the stable environment they provided. I had the experience most children are lacking today, of working in the family business. My parents believed it was good for children to earn their own way and exchange something with the family, and so did I. I loved the feeling of independence it gave me to be earning my own money from a young age. I worked hard on my education too, but I still had plenty of time to play. When I left my parents' house to go into the world on my own, I just kept on enjoying life, due to knowledge of Scientology, and the supportive environment my family had fostered. That stability and sincere and correct application of Scientology made all the difference in the world when I was growing up, and it still does to this day." M.W.

Restoring Family Relationships

Should any problems arise, the Church of Scientology goes to great lengths to help reconcile family relationships. There are numerous cases on record where Scientology Chaplains have assisted in bringing family members together and enabling them to discover the real cause of their disagreements. Regardless of whether the other family members choose to become Scientologists or not, Scientologists take deep pride in their record of resolving family problems and conflicts.

Receiving Scientology Training while Connected to Someone who is Opposed to Spiritual Betterment

Someone closely connected to a person opposed to one's improvement and desire to be more self-determined will not be able to obtain and keep his gains from Scientology training. Detailed information available in Scientology fully describes this phenomenon and explains how to deal with it.

Suppose a wife is unhappy being a housewife and wants a career of her own where she can use her abilities, yet she is too timid to resolve the matter with her husband, who is violently opposed to the idea and believes a wife's place is in the home.

She begins Scientology training and starts to become stronger and more self-confident. The husband, viewing her progress as a threat to his own plans and comfort, tells his wife that he will divorce her and leave her with no support if she does not stop attending Scientology services. Or perhaps she comes home after an evening at the Church, tells her husband how much she is learning and how great she feels, and he sourly states that he does not see any difference in her. This situation will cause a phenomenon whereby the person feels much better at first and is steadily improving but then loses her gains.

Training must not be continued over such a situation, as training under this kind of duress will not produce the intended results.

Fortunately, the exact technology to resolve this exists in Scientology and it can be handled quite rapidly. The wife would sit down with a trained Scientologist who would assist her in communicating with her husband. The situation would be resolved in such a way that her own spiritual betterment was not slowed, but also that she would engage in communicating her needs and goals to her husband so that they could achieve consensus while respecting each other's interests.

The technology necessary to help people communicate with each other and deal with others who are antagonistic to their plans or desires for personal and spiritual betterment is available at Scientology Churches and Missions and through Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard's books and lectures available at Scientology bookstores and online at bridgepub.com and scientologyhandbook.org.

Disconnection of Abusive Relationships in Scientology

Of equal importance to learning how to build strong, stable relationships is what to do to handle abusive relationships.

There is no policy mandating that a member of the Church of Scientology must disconnect from anyone, let alone family and friends who simply have different beliefs. Disconnection is defined by Mr. Hubbard as "...a self-determined decision made by an individual that he is not going to be connected to another. It is a severing of a communication line."

Disconnection is a decision made to no longer be connected to an individual who is so antipathetic to someone and/or their beliefs that, no matter what the person does, he or she cannot resolve the matter with the antagonistic person.

L. Ron Hubbard wrote in 1983:

"Perhaps the most fundamental right of any being is the right to communicate. Without this freedom, other rights deteriorate. "Communication, however, is a two-way flow. If one has the right to communicate, then one must also have the right to not receive communication from another. It is this latter corollary of the right to communicate that gives us our right to privacy."

These rights to freedom of expression are so fundamental that they are enshrined in the United States Constitution and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19

As part of the larger body of L. Ron Hubbard's writings dealing with the subject of ethics and justice, the Church of Scientology practice of disconnection is stated simply: If an individual attempting to improve his life through Scientology is encountering persistent opposition from a close associate, his spiritual advancement is impeded. Most of the time, where a person has some family member or close associate who appears antagonistic to his getting better through Scientology, it is not really a matter of the antagonistic source wanting the individual to fail. It is most commonly a lack of correct information about Scientology that causes the problem or upset. Providing the true data ends the matter. As a last resort, when all attempts to sort out such situations have failed, the Scientologist may decide to disconnect from the person until the antagonism ceases.

That last phrase is a very important point: until the antagonism ceases. If an individual ceases hostilities, the door is always open for relations to be resumed.

There are situations, though, whereby an individual is connected to someone who is dedicating his or her life to making people worse, and the antagonism and hostility have nothing to do with Scientology. In extreme cases, the individual needs to act for his or her own safety.

A good comparative is the way in which society deals with criminal conduct. If an individual commits criminal acts that violate societal rules, society resorts to the only practical solution: it disconnects the criminal from the society by placing the individual in jail. In other words, the person is removed from society and put in a prison because he will not handle his problem or otherwise cease to commit criminal acts against others.

People trapped in abusive relationships have the right to sever those relationships for their own well-being, or apply to a court for an order preventing the harassing individual from contacting them. Likewise, an individual who discovers that his or her spouse is having an affair has every right to insist that the affair cease and, failing that, to dissolve the marriage. These are each a form of disconnection.

A person who disconnects from another is simply exercising his or her right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person. This is one of the most fundamental human rights, the right of freedom of expression. Moreover, freedom of religion or belief and freedom of association are fundamental rights that allow individuals to freely associate with individuals who share their religious principles and beliefs. The right to freedom of religion includes the right to be free from coercion to change one's religious beliefs. Individuals who actively oppose one's religious association and beliefs are involved in a form of coercion, which contravenes religious freedom.

"No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice."

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 18[2]

Disconnection is also practiced in another context. When someone has been expelled from the religion, that person loses not only his or her fellowship with the Church, but with Scientologists, until they have been restored to good standing. Like other faiths with similar practices, Scientology provides a means whereby someone who has been expelled can restore himself or herself to good standing. These steps include the confession of wrongdoing and making up any damage caused by the harmful conduct if one has engaged in wrongdoing. Once the person has been restored to good standing, the prohibition against fellowship with other Scientologists is lifted. Similar practices have been part of religious communities for thousands of years and have been recognized by courts of law as a fundamental right.

Expulsion from Scientology is an extreme measure and is only resorted to after many attempts have been made to resolve the matter. Indeed, disconnection takes place in Scientology less than in many other religions. Religious studies scholar Dr. Frank K. Flinn has extensively studied Scientology and numerous other religions. After thoroughly researching the subject, Dr. Flinn found that "studies of the new religious movements showed that 'disconnection' between members and their relatives occurred the least among Scientologists."(7)

Disconnection as Practiced in Other Faiths

Disconnection is not unusual in the annals of religion. From Biblical times to the present, members of other religions have exercised the same prerogative when confronted by those who have persistently opposed the practice of their faiths or who have committed crimes against it.

Degrees of excommunication in the Catholic Church range from full expulsion from a church with loss of all rights and contacts, to lesser limitations on communication, such as separation from the group at meals or censorship of communications (8).

The Jehovah's Witnesses practice of "disfellowship" has been examined by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and found to be a protected religious practice(9).

The Amish practice of shunning-avoiding a former member in every way possible, excluding that person from both the church and community—is considered a means of guarding the Amish culture. The Amish base this practice on Biblical passages, including Matthew 18:15-17: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you ... But if he will not listen, take one or two others along. ... If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Other references are I Corinthians 5:11 and Romans 16:17(10).

The Church Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, contains several references to excommunication of members for various causes, including apostasy and alteration of Christian Science doctrine(11).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practices excommunication, as well as the lesser sanctions of private counsel and caution, informal probation, formal probation, and disfellowshipment. Excommunication is generally reserved for what are seen as the most serious sins. In most cases, excommunication is a last resort, used only after repeated warnings(12).

Colorado College Professor David Weddle writes that some ultra-orthodox Jewish congregations practice an extreme form of disconnection in which a mock funeral is held for apostate members(13)

The practice of disconnection in the Church of Scientology is a small part of the larger subject of Ethics, the fundamentals of which are described in the book Introduction to Scientology Ethics by L. Ron Hubbard(14).

L. Ron Hubbard simplified and codified the subject of Ethics and developed a workable technology with the aim of applying the subject to an individual's daily life to bring about increased happiness, prosperity and survival. The subject of Ethics includes the identification of the people in one's environment that hold someone back from achieving their full potential. Scientology teaches about the mechanics behind this destructive yet commonplace situation and ways to counteract it(15).

Ethics plays a vital role in an individual's spiritual development in Scientology.

In his essay Scientology, An Analysis and Comparison of its Religious Systems and Doctrines, the late Dr. Bryan R. Wilson of Oxford University wrote:

"In an important publication, Introduction to Scientology Ethics, L. Ron Hubbard set out the ethical standards required of a Scientologist, and made it clear that a commitment to ethics was fundamental to the faith. The individual's goal is survival—that is, survival on all eight dynamics, from concern for the self and the family up to concern for the urge towards existence as infinity, the so-called God dynamic. Survival, as a Scientological concept, conforms to the general concern of all religion-salvation. Ethical action is deemed to be rational behaviour conducive to that end. Thus Hubbard laid stress on the individual's need to apply ethical standards to his conduct and to behave rationally if he was to achieve his own salvation and facilitate that of all mankind"(16).

More information is available in Introduction to Scientology Ethics by L. Ron Hubbard or The Scientology Handbook available in Scientology bookstores or online or by visiting the Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers' website at www.volunteerministers.org.

References:

An "apostate" is defined as one who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.

Kliever, Lonnie: The Reliability of Apostate Testimony About New Religious Movements.See also, Bromley, David G. (ed.) (1998). Apostasy and the Management of Spoiled Identity and Wright, Stuart A., "Exploring Factors that Shape the Apostate Role" in The Politics of Religious Apostasy, pp.185-186 and pp 95 -114, Praeger Publishers.

Supreme Court of Italy, case no. 1329, October 8, 1997

Administrative Court of Stuttgart, case no. 16 K 3182/98, 1999