Scientology: Cult or Religion?

What if I told you that there was a religious group based in the States that was founded in the 1950’s by an illiterate ex-convict, who claimed that shortly after the resurrection, Jesus Christ paid a visit North America.  What if I told you that this modern-day ‘prophet’ further claimed that, while here, Jesus created a peaceful society of sophisticated and enlightened artisans, who were ultimately decimated in a series of wars with neighbouring groups? What if he claimed that all or some of today’s Native Americans are descendants of a lost Israelite tribe that was led to the new world around 600B.C. by a previously unknown Jewish prophet named Lehi?  What if you learned that, according to this so-called prophet, he discovered all these ‘truths’ when he was visited upon by an angel during a routine walk in the woods, and that the angel led him to a hidden treasure consisting of two golden tablets upon which the story of the American Israelites was inscribed using a mysterious, ancient language.  And finally, suppose that the prophet insisted that only he could translate the tablets through divine guidance and so he forbade anybody, including those he depended upon to transcribe his revelatory dictations, from ever seeing the actual tablets themselves.

At first glance this group would seem to have all the characteristics of a fringe, religious cult, but in fact, with the exception of the date of its founding, the above profile accurately describes the Mormon Church and its founder Joseph Smith.  With worldwide membership in the millions and 3 sitting United States senators including the current majority leader, Harry Ried, it’s difficult to think of the Mormon Church as a cult. (For context, there have been only 3 African American senators since reconstruction, one of which was appointed as an interim senator).  When one adds to this list, mainstream public figures like Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate and former governor of the very liberal, very non-Mormon state of Massachusetts, we get the sense that in America it’s possible for any individual or group to gain societal acceptance regardless of how kooky their private beliefs and practices may be.

But as mentioned earlier, Mormonism wasn’t founded in the 1950’s.  Rather, it began in the first half of the 19th century, at a time and place where diseases were believed to be caused by evil spirits and fringe religious groups popped up more frequently than penis enlargement ads.  Therefore, Mormons have benefited from an ideological veil that’s been built up over the last century-and-a-half and that naturally shields them from the type of scrutiny and skepticism with which modern-day cult founders must contend.

But are the beliefs and practices of Mormons any less outlandish than those of recognized cults?  In addition to believing Joseph Smith’s apocryphal genesis story, Mormons wear a sacred undergarment that is purported to magically shield them from harm.  They posthumously induct dead people into their church to be ‘saved’, including holocaust survivors, much to the chagrin of the Jewish community.  And until 1978, blacks were forbidden from entering the priesthood, based partly on the wealth scriptures in the Mormon cannon that state that dark people have been condemned to suffer with their complexion because they have not repented for their sins.

Unfortunately Scientology, by contrast, was founded in the 1950’s, by a man no less colourful than Joseph Smith himself.  Being the imaginative soul that he was, L. Ron Hubbard infused his religion’s mythology with fantastical tidbits, fitting of something conceived of by a 20th century science fiction writer.  The crux of the narrative is as follows.  75 million years ago, an alien warlord named Xenu transported billions of frozen people from outer space to Earth on spacecraft that looked curiously similar to 1950’s jetliners.  Once here Xenu packed the bodies into volcanoes and then blew them up using hydrogen bombs, which scattered billions of alien spirits (known as body thetans) across the planet.  These body thetans attach themselves to humans like parasites, and can be blamed for a large portion of our misfortune and spiritual unhappiness.

Reading this, it’s no wonder why the church policy is to keep this information tightly guarded, only to be divulged to its most senior members after they’ve already reached a sufficient level of indoctrination.  When asked about the story of Xenu, Scientologists either deny that he is part of their teachings or they change the subject.  The church does acknowledge that it has certain beliefs which are kept secret from the public and from its junior members.  However, its official explanation for this policy is that these teachings could be harmful to those who are unprepared, and misleading to those who are uninitiated and therefore have no context or framework with which to make sense of such heavy concepts.

In reality, the church simply recognizes (consciously or subconsciously) that going public with these teachings would be a public relations nightmare and would make recruiting new members almost impossible, at least on the scale to which they’ve become accustomed.  This is the difference between cults and religions.  The whole idea of needing to ‘protect’ members from the more outrageous teachings of the faith is a meme, which serves to prevent scientology from truly being relegated to the cult status assigned to similar, equally-outlandish groups with alien-inspired mythologies, such as the Heaven’s Gate Cult (it probably also helps that Scientology doesn’t sanction castration and mass suicide).

The term ‘meme’ was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to describe cultural ideas that get transmitted from one person to another.  A meme is the ideological analog of a gene in biology.  Therefore, in the same way that certain genes corresponding to beneficial physical traits get propagated throughout large populations of individuals over generations, stronger memes get passed on though time and distance while weaker memes tend to die out quickly.

Take Catholicism for example.  The catholic faith promises eternal salvation for those who enlist, and eternal damnation for those who don’t.  This alone is incredibly enticing!  On top of that, all the sins that were forbidden in orthodox Christianity, can be forgiven with one simple act of confession followed by a few Hail Mary’s.  But perhaps Catholicism’s most important meme of all, is the duty to proselytize.  The idea that Christians are morally obligated to vigourously spread the word because otherwise they would be denying their would-be recruits their own god-given right to eternal salvation.  Of course, historically this last meme is bolstered by another meme, which holds that those who refuse to convert can and should be dealt with violently.  This meme is also present in literal interpretations of Islam and went a long way toward spreading that faith throughout Africa and Asia.

It’s because of these crucial memes that Catholicism is able to get away with teachings that are far less politically expedient and mythologies that are on par with the Xenu parable in terms of ridiculousness.  Even in this modern day and age, millions of otherwise intelligent Catholics believe in Noah’s Ark, the virgin birth, the burning bush, Adam and Eve, and, my personal favourite, transubstantiation, which is the process through which bread and wine are literally converted into the actual body and blood of Christ during communion.  What’s worse is that in addition to being conclusively debunked by science, vast portions of the Catholic cannon have been blatantly plagiarized from earlier mythologies.

So while it’s true that the teachings of Scientology are patently absurd, all faiths contain foundational teachings that are demonstrably false - Christianity included.  What distinguishes the cults from the religions is that religions have survived long enough and spread far enough to become mainstream.  Just like animal species whose genes allow them to defeat and devour weaker animals, religions with strong memes are able to subsume and supplant weaker ideologies.  The caveat being that this is usually achieved through deceit (as in the case of Scientology) or violence (as in the case of Catholicism or Islam).  In other words, the primary reason Christianity, in spite of its cult origins, has been able to transcend cult status, is because of its history of imperialism and violent conquest.  This behaviour would be fine for lions, but for these religions, the fact that they’re no longer considered cults, should be considered a source of shame, not pride.