Magic is risky merchandise.
Sometimes it will seem to work. At other times, it will clearly fail.
The more specific and serious the aims of magic, the more often it
will be seen to fail. For example, magic meant to improve our spirits
will succeed more often than magic meant to cause passionate response
in a specific object of our affections. Magic intended to bring rain
soon will more often seem to succeed than magic meant to bring rain
tomorrow. Yet even unspecific magic can fail. Personal misfortunes
can follow a ritual meant to cheer us up, and it might not rain again
for a year.
In previous chapters, we have emphasized that religion as such is not vulnerable to empirical disconfirmation and that, for this reason, religions tend to discard the practice of magic. For similar reasons, magical client cults often are prompted to evolve into fully developed religions. In this chapter, we examine these matters closely through a case study of the Church of Scientology. This case is of special interest for a number of reasons. First, Scientology is not just another obscure cult movement, but an international organization of considerable magnitude (see appendix). Second, Scientology has been the training ground for a host of other cult founders and has served as an inspiration for many new cult movements (Bainbridge, 1984). Third, its history has been extremely well documented, not only by journalists, scholars, and even government commissions and courts, but in exquisite detail through its own prolix publications. Finally, Scientology is of exceptional interest because it has not yet been able to escape its primary basis in extremely specific and serious magical claims.
This chapter examines the heroic attempt of Scientology to preserve its high tension magic -- indeed, to convince clients it has delivered on its impossible promises -- and the extreme lengths to which it went to protect its magic from disconfirmation. But this struggle is doomed to failure. Early in its history, Scientology switched from a pure client cult to one that presented two faces to the world. Many a recruit was told the group's specific claims were based on science and that the most marvelous real benefits would be received almost immediately. But, at the same time, the group claimed the official protection of religious status. That this double game was a very difficult one for the cult to win will be evident as we see the extreme tactics required to defend Scientology's magic.
Although this chapter is primarily theoretical, it rests on an empirical base. Bainbridge (1970) carried out six months of intensive ethnographic research inside the Boston branch of this group. Subsequently, we obtained a large library of Scientology publications, reports by outsiders and former members, and literature from groups related to this important innovative religion. Ten years ago, the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., was kind enough to provide tape recordings of many lectures by the founder. More recently, the Seattle church provided the quantitative data that we have incorporated in Chapter 18. The ethnographic research on Scientology was supplemented by more extensive investigations of The Process (Bainbridge, 1978c), a derivative cult, and of the science fiction subculture from which Scientology sprang (Bainbridge, 1976, forthcoming). Finally, we are guided by Roy Wallis's (1976) fine sociological study.
In our view, Scientology has great difficulty protecting its magic from empirical disconfirmation, a view that may not be held by all of our colleagues or (at least officially) by many practicing Scientologists. Yet there is much public evidence that the defense of its magic is a tough job for the cult. For one thing, Scientology has taken several authors and publishers to court, seeking to stop publication of debunking reports. Among the popular books involved were Scientology, The Now Religion by George Malko, The Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper (Wallis, 1976:22, 218), and, more recently, Snapping by Florence Conway and James Siegelman.
It seems to us that expensive legal action to block publication of these books would not be necessary were Scientology in a position to refute the debunking of its system carried out by the authors. As an experiment, in 1970, Bainbridge, while engaged in participant observation as a trainee in a Scientology course, quietly raised the question of whether Malko's book might be accurate. He was immediately isolated from contact with other students, given various therapy routines designed to make him feel better about the problem, but was provided no objective evidence of any kind to dispel Malko's criticisms.
Certainly, Scientology has good reason to resent the attacks made upon it by the secular institutions of society over the years, which are, typically, aggressive rejections of the cult's claims. One of the more dramatic moments in this continuing struggle came in 1963 when agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raided the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., confiscating "E-Meter" electronic equipment allegedly used in improper attempts to cure diseases, action finally reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals six years later. For a time, both the Australian and British governments seemed bent on banning Scientology, and disputes with the American government have continued unabated, marked by such extreme indicators of tension with the sociocultural environment as another government raid in 1977, this time on the Los Angeles branch.
Although Scientology has frequently succeeded in getting unfavorable court decisions overturned on appeal, often relying on the protection of its status as a religious organization, it has suffered from many attacks by dissatisfied customers of its magic. In 1979, an Oregon court awarded just over $2 million in damages to Julie Titchbourne, supporting her claim that Scientology had defrauded her in its promises to improve her life. Following a preparatory judgment by the state supreme court, the jury had been instructed that Scientology did not enjoy religious immunity for any promises that were not religious in nature (Lang, 1979).
From our perspective, many of Scientology's claims promise specific benefits, capable of empirical test but offered without public evidence of their truth. Thus, Scientology provides the specific compensators of magic, perhaps overshadowing the general compensators that mark religion. In effect, the Oregon courts decided that many of Scientology's claims were indeed magical, not religious, and thus susceptible to empirical refutation and legal attack. The following analysis demonstrates this point, with particular focus on the chief benefit originally promised by the cult.
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