Schulte The Scientology file

The Secret Documents of Germany's Federal Government
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-3-96544-551-2
Verlag: PI-Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Scientology: A topic that has been mired in controversy for many years in Germany.Why is it that Scientology is recognised as a religion in many countries, whereas in Germany, it has only been generating harsh discussions since the 1970s?What lies behind this?An unvarnished account of the history of Scientology in German-speaking countries. Exclusive insight into the hitherto confidential documents of the Federal Government of Germanymade accessible only afteryears of litigation, and made public, for the very first time, in this book.Facts instead of opinions are what make this book a must-read for anyone interestedin this topic.

Dr Peter Schulte, born in 1962 in Paderborn, Germany, is a sociologist and lives in Innsbruck, Austria.From 1998 to 2010, he was the sect commissioner for the Austrian federal state of Tirol. He has been delving into New Religious Movements since many years. His highly-regarded book Neue Religiöse Bewegungen. Gesellschaftliche Dramatisierungsstrategien und soziale Wirklichkeit (New Religious Movements. Social dramatisation strategies and social reality) was published in 2012 (Publisher: Dr Kovac).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schulte, Peter

Leseproben

Introduction

Spring 2017. “Sect alert” sounded at Munich’s Haus der Kunst (House of Art Museum). The state-level counterpart of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency—the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)1—in Bavaria is investigating whether Scientology has infiltrated the museum. Specifically, the work of a long-standing employee, who has been responsible for personnel management since 1995. He was allegedly not even a permanent employee of the museum. His specific offence: He is an avowed member of Scientology. Although he has only been doing his job till then, his religious orientation has suddenly become his undoing. The Bavarian Minister of the Arts, Ludwig Spaenle (CSU), who is also the chairman of the supervisory board at the Haus der Kunst, is said to be aware of this since 2015 and speaks of “grossly improper acts”.2 Meanwhile, employees were called upon across the board to issue statements affirming that they “have nothing to do with Scientology”. However, most of them ignored this request. Instead, they showed solidarity with the colleague in question and collected signatures against this action. By now, the Bavarian state domestic intelligence agency has been called in and an external human resources consultant tasked with investigating the administration of the museum and making “recommendations for reorganisation”. The Museum Director, Okwui Enwezor, considers the tumult in Munich to be exaggerated and even speaks of a “smear campaign” against the Haus der Kunst.3 Scientology, however, views the events as state-initiated snooping on people’s convictions and gross violation of human rights.4 The employee in question has since been dismissed and has filed a lawsuit against the parent company of the Haus der Kunst with the Labour Court in Munich.

November 2015. A small town somewhere in Germany. A special event is taking place in the evening, in this middle-of-nowhere town: In a panel discussion at the community centre, the question being taken up is: how dangerous is Scientology? For a medium-sized municipality, an unusually large gathering of prominent locals and external speakers has been announced. In addition to a member of the state parliament, “well-known” sect experts and a filmmaker, who has made a name for himself on public television as a sect critic, are expected to attend. A “high-ranking former Scientologist”, as stated in the invitation, is also expected to be on the panel. At the beginning, the filmmaker will present his latest film, and later on the panelists will analyse and evaluate Scientology. No representative of the “sect” has been invited. People prefer to keep to themselves and mutually validate what they already know and have always said. What had really happened? The background to this event is as follows: The son (43) of a local entrepreneur has been a professed Scientologist for about two years. Lately, there have been repeated disputes between father and son, because the son had joined Scientology and attended their courses and seminars. However, the relationship between the son and the father, who is known to be extremely dominant, has already been extremely tense for many years now. The son, himself a father of four school-age children, claims that using the knowledge he gained from Scientology, he had meanwhile patched up his relationship with his parents to the extent that they had even spent their holidays together. Soon thereafter a rift occurred again because the father had by chance learned of the son’s membership and insisted that the son renounce the “sect”. Discussions to resolve the situation came to naught. Since then, there is radio silence between them.

From the point of view of the parents, Scientology is to blame for all the misery. A letter to their son’s parents-in-law says that their beloved son has “been a slave of the sect” for some time now. Scientology has made their child so “compliant” that he no longer has any control over himself. The same has also been confirmed to them by the domestic intelligence agency. Moreover, suicide is the order of the day in Scientology, with marriages breaking up and people losing everything. Their son is now in a stage “from which he cannot escape on his own”. The parents are equally concerned about the grandchildren, who have also been “dragged in”. They say only pressure would lead to success, and they are exercising it abundantly. They are threatening to terminate the son’s shareholding in the company in order to “dry him out financially”. The inheritance will be organised in such a way that he will not have access even to the compulsory share (Pflichtteil) of the estate. However, that is not enough: They will notify the employer of their son’s wife that she is a sympathiser and follower of the sect, and also inform the school of the children of the couple about the sect’s influence on her. In short: bring about economic and social isolation in order to force them to abandon their religious beliefs; public and private authorities would additionally be notified of the alleged “machinations of the sect”. The fact that their son does not seem overly impressed gives the whole thing a special impact. A dialogue is no longer possible. It is obvious that his parents want him to renounce Scientology when they write to him: “One small step and your whole life would be free from worries”.

Is this a one-off story—or the frequently observed result of complex interactions associated with Scientology that could happen anywhere in Germany?

Anyone who, as a social scientist, deals with new religious movements (of which Scientology is definitely one), colloquially also called “sects”, repeatedly runs into a brick wall. It towers over you like a warning, not to proceed any further. I sometimes have the impression that it is not desirable to get to the heart of the matter, to the crux, but this is precisely what is needed in order to analyse, as objectively as possible, all the factors that could be considered significant in this context. And that is quite a lot. Even the mere mention of the name Scientology in a smaller group usually leads to animated discussions, which quickly become loud and intense. Everyone seems to be an expert in Scientology, even if he or she has never had any contact with this community.

However, anyone who does have contact with Scientology, or is actually a member, has a hard time in Germany, both in their private and in their professional lives. As soon as anyone reveals that they are a Scientologist, they are suddenly looked at with different eyes: Everything they do is suddenly perceived and interpreted differently, because “it is well known” that Scientology seeks to conquer, rule over and change the whole world. By what means? That should not be our concern at this point, because the self-appointed “experts” on television explain this to us time and again in an impressive manner. What a German needs is a concrete image of the enemy that can be described in simple words, something that gives him the certainty of being on the “right” side and being “normal”—not one of the nutcases of this “psycho-sect”, who dare to declare publicly that they have been wronged and who defend themselves by legal means against the insolent “sect fighters”. A German cannot tolerate other people shaking his world view and presenting their own alternative interpretation of events. Is this possibly the cause of the “bite reflex” we see in some sect experts—lashing out instantaneously and rejecting opinions or persons due to their own prejudices or partisan viewpoints—which is triggered when they are reminded that they are not God?

Perhaps the truth is not so easy to explain, and perhaps there are several explanations for the same facts, depending on which side we are on.

If we look at the discussions on Scientology over the past forty years, we can see—at least that is the impression I have—that a judgement on this religious community of American origin has been carved in stone. The verdict is: evil! They say Scientology is not a true religion, but only pretends to be one; its true goal is to rip people off. Therefore, it is important to warn people against Scientology and take action to stop it from spreading further.

This was also done on a grand scale and with a harshness reminiscent of the Middle Ages, when people were deprived of their rights, persecuted and killed simply because they belonged to a particular religion. The state and the church formed an alliance against undesirable dissenters or religious misfits. Together they sprayed the poison of the Inquisition, using torture to force dissenters to renounce their gods/ their religion or burned the most steadfast of these dissenters at the stake.

Today, the Inquisition is a thing of the past, the torture chambers are closed and the fires at the stakes have been extinguished. The Enlightenment brought about many changes in people’s thinking, despite all the resistance of the state church. Nevertheless, the spectre of the Inquisition lives on: in anonymous forums on the internet, in the mass media, in evening lectures on Scientology, in television talk shows and, of course, in the offices of those who provide “insights” into sects, who are plentiful in the German-speaking world. These opinion makers—and not just them—have shaped and solidified the image of Scientology, and nothing could be further from their intentions than to question this image—their image, their actions and their methods—and state specifically the real motive behind their work: simply to say how many Scientologists who actually want to leave and how many alleged victims of Scientology are really in their...