Scientology: Therapeutic Cult to Religious Sect (original) (raw)

Abstract

Prevailing conceptions of the cult are criticized. A new typology of religious collectivities is elaborated and related to a theory of the development of cults. This theory claims that a central feature of the cult is `epistemological individualism'. The central characteristic of the sect on the other hand is `epistemological authoritarianism'. The process of sectarianization therefore involves the arrogation of authority typically on the basis of a claim to a new and superior revelation. Sectarianization is portrayed as a strategy with particular appeal to the leaders of cults faced with the problems of managing and maintaining a fragile institution. These processes are illustrated from the development of Scientology.

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References

I am grateful to the editor of Social Research for permission to include brief passages from my paper `Ideology, authority and the development of cultic movements', Social Research 41, 2, Summer 1974, pp. 299-327 .

Some aspects of the analysis in a very preliminary form appeared in my `A comparative analysis of problems and processes of change in two manipulationist movements: Christian Science and Scientology', in The Contemporary Metamorphosis of Religion? Acts of the 12th International Conference on the Sociology of Religion, The Hague, Netherlands, August 1973, pp. 407-422 . I am grateful to the Social Science Research Council for a grant in support of my research and to Dr. B. R. Wilson, Reader in Sociology at the University of Oxford, for his helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. In substantially its current form the paper was delivered to a Staff Seminar in the Sociology Department, University of Essex, January 1974.

H. R. Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1925;

Bryan R. Wilson, `An analysis of sect development', American Sociological Review, 24, 1959, 3-15 .

Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Religion and Society in Tension, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965, p. 245.

John Lofland, Doomsday Cult, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966, p. 1.

H. T. Dohrman, California Cult: The Story of Mankind United, Boston: Beacon Press, 1958, p. xi.

As it does in the work of some theologians, e.g. A. A. Hoekema, The Four Major Cults, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.

For a comparison of Christian Science and Scientology, see Roy Wallis, `A comparative analysis of problems and processes of change in two manipulationist movements: Christian Science and Scientology', op. cit.

On the prevailing religious climate in Britain and America, see Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969;

Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1960;

Rodney Stark and Charles Glock, American Piety: The Nature of Religious Commitment, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

The notions of unique and pluralistic legitimacy were first employed by Roland Robertson, The Sociological Interpretation of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell, 1970, p. 123 in slightly different fashion.

In the context of some ideological collectivities the label `church' would be inappropriate, as indeed might some of the others. In the case of political movements, e.g. what one has in mind here is the Nazi party in Germany post 1934, or the Bolshevik party in Russia post 1922. In terms of churches, Catholicism would typically fit this category, as would Calvinism in Geneva. Catholicism in contemporary America, however, is clearly denominational.

It is frequently identified as religious by followers today although some observers appear to find it a matter of debate-among others the authors of the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Scientology for 1972, Pretoria, South Africa: The Govemment Printer, 1973, Ch. 13.

The Quakers e.g. appear to have fluctuated between sectarianism and denominationalism, see Elizabeth Isichei, `From sect to denomination among English Quakers', in Bryan Wilson, editor, Patterns of Sectarianism, London: Heinemann, 1967, pp. 161-181.

Colin Campbell, `The cult, the cultic milieu and secularization', in Michael Hill, editor, A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, No. 5, London: S.C.M. Press, 1972, p. 122.

For some of the pseudo-scientific cults to have developed, see Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, New York: Dover Publications, 1957.

See Geoffrey K. Nelson, `The concept of cult', Sociological Review, 16, 3, 1968, 351-362, for a review.

Geoffrey K. Nelson, Spiritualism and Society, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

Charles S. Braden, Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought, Dallas, Texas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963;

J. Stillson Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967.

H. Taylor Buckner, `The flying saucerians: a lingering cult', New Society, 9 September 1965.

An exception is the Aetherius Society, which has moved very much closer than Buckner's groups toward sectarianism. See Roy Wallis, `The Aetherius Society: a case study in the formation of a mystagogic congregation', Sociological Review, 22, 1, 1974 27-44 .

Buckner suggests `A typical occult seeker will probably have been a Rosicrucian, a member of Mankind United, a Theosophist, and also a member of four or five smaller specific cults. The pattern of membership is one of continuous movement from one idea to another. Seekers stay with a cult until they are satisfied that they can learn no more from it or that it has nothing further to offer, and then move on'. H. Taylor Buckner, `The flying saucerians: an open door cult', in Marcello Truzzi, editor, Sociology and Everyday Life, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 225-226.

Buckner, op. cit., 1965 suggests such a process occurred in the flying saucer groups which he observed.

Benton Johnson, `A critical appraisal of the church-sect typology', American Sociological Review, 22, 1957, 88-92 ;

idem, `On church and sect', American Sociological Review, 28, 1963, 539-549 ;

idem, `Church and sect revisited', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 10, 2, 1971, 124-137 ;

J. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion, New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1970;

Bryan R. Wilson, Sects and Society, London: Heinemann, 1960.

I have argued this point in Roy Wallis, `The sectarianism of Scientology', in Michael Hill, editor, A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, No. 6, London: S.C.M. Press, 1973, pp. 136-155.

Where such authority lies may not always be obvious, even to members. It may sometimes be shared between two or more loci, a situation liable to lead to conflict, and a power-struggle, as e.g. in the struggle between the prophets and the apostles in the Catholic Apostolic Church.

See Kenneth Jones, `The Catholic Apostolic Church: a study in diffused commitment', in Michael Hill, editor, A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, No. 5 London: S.C.M. Press, 1972, pp. 137-160.

Martin Gardner, op. cit., p. 264.

Dr. Martin Gumpert, `The Dianetics craze', New Republic, 132, August 14, 1950, 20-21 .

`Poor man's psychoanalysis', Newsweek, October 16, 1950, 58-59 .

The evidence for this and the rest of my commentary on this movement is explored at length in my forthcoming study, The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Dianetics and Scientology, London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975.

Dianotes, 1, 9-10, March 1952.

Anonymous, `Introduction' to Jack Horner Speaks, (transcription of a lecture to the New York Dianetic Association) Fairhope, Alabama: Eidetic Foundation, 1952, p. 2.

Georgine Milmine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909, passim.

H(ubbard) C(ommunication) O(ffice), Policy Letter, 17 January, 1967.

There is, however, a sense of individualism which has Hubbard's approval, that is the sense in which it is appropriately contrasted with state intervention, or state control.

H.C.O. Executive Letter, 2 June 1968.

I have explored this in greater depth in my `Societal reaction to Scientology: an essay in the sociology of deviant religion', in Roy Wallis, editor, Sectarianism: Analyses of Religious and Non-Religious Sects, London: Peter Owen, 1975.

E.g. in a recent British T.V. film `Thank You Ron', A.T.V. 1973.

See the comments quoted from Mormons, Jews, Catholics, etc. in Anonyomus, Scientology: Twentieth Century Religion, East Grinstead, Surrey: The Church of Scientology World Wide, 1972, pp. 50-54.

E.g. Freedom, 37, 1972, `Free Courses for Ministers'.

Roy Wallis, `Religious sects and the fear of publicity', New Society, 24, 557, 7 June 1973, pp. 545-547 .

Roy Wallis, `Ideology, authority and the development of cultic movements', op. cit.

idem, `The cult and its transformations' in Roy Wallis, editor, Sectarianism: Analyses of Religious and Non-Religious Sects, op. cit.