Jane Shaw, Tory Shepherd, Nick Xenophon, the cult of scientology and cult busting ...

With all the fuss stirred up by Nick Xenophon and his parliamentary privileged rant against scientology, you might almost be inclined to be sympathetic when contemplating the average scientologist caught up in the storm, without a Thetan for fear or guidance.

Almost. A bit like having sympathy for sheep on the way to the shearing shed.

Truth to tell, the absurdity of scientology has been around for awhile now, along with its notorious sales tactics and street-side campaigning for converts in the guise of personality tests.

But what to do about it?

Well a parliamentary inquiry would be a good starting point. Spilling the beans on the sordid underbelly might save a few sheep from the shearing or the slaughter. But it's amazing how sheep line up to be fleeced, no matter what they might be told about delusional cults. Look at the flocks lined up behind the Pellist and Jensenist heresies.

Lately there's been a surge of interest in Xenophon's note about the church of scientology enjoying tax free status for what are the loony ramblings of a second rate science fiction writer, who managed to incorporate bizarre sci fi concepts into a mix of hypnosis and mind shaping and phony, cheap-assed gadgets.

The trouble here of course is that believing in Thetans and worrisome spirit-infested volcanoes is no more weird than believing in transubstantiation, a point Jane Shaw makes in Xenophon didn't go far enough: no religion should be tax free.

Scientologists really are fish in a barrel though: they owe their beginnings to a not-terribly-good science fiction writer, they believe in aliens and they have couch-jumping Tom Cruise as their mascot. You’re not going to provoke a riot by poking them with pointy sticks; but if you are going to question the right of Scientologists to run a tax free organisation, how can you not ask the same question about the Catholics, the Jews, the Pentecostals and the Muslims?

Religious groups in Australia have a combined wealth of around $1 billion, they run cereal companies, insurance companies, wineries and pizza chains, and pay none of the income tax or capital gains tax that slows the rest of us down on our climb to wealth and profit.

The trouble of course, as soon as you ask this eminently sensible and logical question, is that it foreshadows its own demise. It'll never happen. The other cults have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, and if push came to shove on the matter of tax, they'd unleash the mother of all campaigns.

No politician, especially of the cowardly and Christian Chairman Rudd type, would contemplate it, not even a more secular Malcolm in the middle, surrounded as he is by luddites, denialists, and fundamentalists.

And by lumping a recent cult-like scientology in with long standing religious cults, they gain a kind of false status and esteem. As if they were a religion like all the others. As if L Ron Hubbard is up there with Christ.

You see, we're a meaningful cult, just like all those other cults, they say, as they get lumped in with all the other cults. Well whatever you might say about Christ, he told a good parable, and it's not his fault his followers manage to ignore every message when the going gets too tough (Money lenders in the temple? Watch the Jensen flock piss A$160 million against the wall in the stockmarket).

Tory Shepherd also joins in the hunt, with Scientology scandal shows we should tax all religions, which also suggests that contributors to The Punch write with one eye cast over their shoulder at the thoughts and doings of contributors to Crikey.

Never mind. Shepherd's thoughts are true and pure:

The ATO defines a religion as involving “belief in a supernatural being, thing or principle and acceptance of canons of conduct that give effect to that belief”. Vague to the point of uselessness.

Most religious movements are similar in structure. They have rituals, emotional and often financial investment, charismatic leaders, tenets. They have their own language. They posit life as a journey with a specific goal, which will only be attained if certain prerequisites are met. For some this may be the 10 commandments, for others it’s wearing purple Nikes, for others it’s being achieving higher states through being audited. Different keys to different heavens.

The debate is an interesting philosophical one, but when it comes to the legal issues, the taxation decisions, it’s clear we must treat them as though they are all the same. Take away the taxpayer support for the non-charity part of their operations. Redistribute the money through all charities, or through welfare. Australians are free to believe whatever they want, but the taxpayer has no obligation to prop up their faith.

This is all very well, but by generalizing the campaign, there's a risk that scientology will in the mean time get off the hook. The organization has shown itself adept at lobbying, and as it noted in its indignant response to Xenophon, it has legal precedents on its side (here):

The High Court of 1983 that decided the case that declared Scientology was a bona fide religion in Australia was one of the most venerated benches in the history of the High Court. Moreover the decision was a unanimous decision of the full bench.

The decision has stood the test of time and has proven an authority on issues related to religions and tax status in Australia and throughout the Commonwealth.

Most venerated? Sure the wording is nauseating and infuriating, and sure Chairman Rudd has already shown via weasel words, that he's likely to try to weasel around doing anything, and already the scientologists are out with their smears about the apostate. Oh they learn well from the Christian cults:

The late Bryan Wilson, Ph.D. of Oxford University, one of the most renowned sociologists of modern times, put it this way:

The disaffected and the apostate are in particular informants whose evidence has to be used with circumspection. The apostate is generally in need of selfjustification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates... Apostates, sensationalised by the press, have sometimes sought to make a profit from accounts of their experiences in stories sold to newspapers..."
statement

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.

This is a propaganda campaign that would suit a totalitarian regime not Australia, a country that recognises freedom of religion.

Totalitarian regime? Um hello pot, now why not tithe the kettle while remedying its psychological blockages and letting its spout pour 'clear'?

Sure it's enough to make you choke on your breakfast cereal, but what to do?

Well a call for taxing all religions is a sure way to muddy the water, and ensure nothing will happen.

There's simply no way to rid the world of cults - many people enjoy their cults, and believe what they want to believe, and no amount of logic will sway them from following cults like the Pellist and Jensenist heresies. So it goes, and so it's gone for a long time.

But the chance for a juicy parliamentary inquiry into Scientology is just irresistible, and what a pity the scribes in their scribbles haven't been howling to the moon for just such an inquiry.

Sure I'd be even happier if cults like the Brethren, and John Howard and Peter Costello's connections to fundamentalist Christians were made a part of the inquiry, but let's not get over anxious and over eager. The reality is that scientologists target the rich and powerful - you can hardly say James Packer was short of a quid - and they love to play dirty pool, which is why even getting an inquiry up would be a substantial win.

Sometimes you can only fry one cult at a time, so why not just settle for a campaign in support of Xenophon and his call for a parliamentary inquiry. Come to think of it, why not email your federal MP today? It's easy with this newfangled intertubes connectivity ...

Let the scientologists feel the heat from the hot volcanic rock fermenting in their collective mind set, and let Australia do what the French have already done, by applying a legal blow torch to the feet (and perhaps even a pair of pliers to the nails - hey, with cults, it's always inquisition time).

Meantime, keep the impossible dream of taxing religion in the drawer, ready for the right moment in the never never land of secularist truth and justice, but remember that even then it's likely to be a two edged sword, since (a) with a handy accountant, the cults can avoid profits and taxes, and (b) if in their business dealings, they incur losses they can use those, as well as their charitable activities, to get their cults into a handy corporate place, the envy of a Chainsaw Dunlap.

Perhaps for the moment it's just better and easier to chortle at the way the Sydney Anglicans pissed their A$160 mill against the wall playing the markets, and then started wondering if their god might be angry at them.

If Xenophon has evidence for a range of crimes, including forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, embezzlement of church funds, physical violence, intimidation, blackmail and the shipping overseas of documents required for a legal investigation, then bring on an inquiry, and bring on the dirty laundry and the filthy linen, and then slowly let it hang out to dry over many months ...

But even now I can sense the energy drifting away as Chairman Rudd dithers and does nothing, even if an inquiry sideshow would provide pleasant distractions and an ongoing circus for months, taking the heat out of some of the other issues he's stumbled on.

Not that you could expect much in the way of results ... because it's worth remembering that even in the recent French case, the best that could be managed via the courts was that four of the six leaders were found guilty of fraud, and the cult itself copped a fine of 400,000 Euros.

But the court stopped short of ordering the cult stop its activities in France, the leaders were given suspended sentences ranging from 10 months to 2 years, and it's likely that the cult will appeal. And this in a country where the cult is considered a sect rather than a religion, and they have a much prouder tradition of secularism than the god botherers have allowed in the antipodes.

That's why tackling the cult with an inquiry isn't a half-bad idea.

The more outrageous abuse they cop the better, and where better than in the privileged air of a parliamentary inquiry where there's some protection against the notoriously litigious cult ...

That way the next sheep to get stopped in the street by a wild eyed loon with a clipboard offering a personality test might just say 'oh you belong to that ratbag cult' and move along. Anything that's bad for business is good for the cult busters.

So sorry Shaw and Shepherd. Much as we hate religious cults, we'll settle this time for the vindictive persecution of the volcanic thetan abusers, all alone in their freshly minted cult, by making them spend hour upon hour in an extra heavy duty washing machine, filled to the brim with lashings of foamin,g cleansing soap suds ...

(Below: allerheiligste means holies of holies, or so I'm told, and cash is worthwhile putting at the heart of any cult temple so they can do their fine work of sheep stripping).