For Scientology, reduction of magic means reduction of tension
with the surrounding sociocultural environment. It also means
reduction in the capacity to offer specific compensators for scarce
rewards. Many longtime members and new recruits will still want
efficacious specific compensators, however. In Chapter 5, we note
that a likely result is schism, especially if the religious group is
cut by deep social cleavages. Such is the case for Scientology, which
consists of dozens of relatively independent local orgs and branches,
often in uneasy competition with the advanced orgs.
In some cases, the local orgs are in direct competition with each other. Not long ago, a Scientologist canvassing the neighborhood came to Bainbridge's door in Cambridge, Massachusetts, thus conveniently, if inadvertently, making a home delivery of sociological data. The revealing fact was that he came not from the Cambridge org, but from the rival Boston org, which is closely allied with the central organization of the church and appears much stronger than the one in Cambridge. The New York Times (Lindsey, 1983) reported that disputes over authority have recently caused several orgs to split away, although the decentralized corporate structure of the church can blur the degree of association so that only the most overt conflicts are visible.
There have been other periods in which the threat of schism for Scientology has been high, and always before unity was reestablished in a short time. But now the situation is rendered more tense by apparently premature claims that Hubbard has died. Even if he survives for many years and actively guides his church through the rough waters ahead, this death scare underscores the fact that Hubbard has held in check the schismatic tendencies fueled by competing interests of different constituencies in both the leadership and the ordinary membership.
Aside from any guidance he gives the church, Hubbard is vital to its unity for two reasons. First, he is a figurehead and rallying point whom only one group may claim as its own so long as he lives. Many competing churches may claim the patronage of Jesus Christ because each has him only in spirit, not in the flesh. Clergy of one Christian denomination do not have to explain to their congregations why Jesus attends services at the church down the road rather than at theirs. Until Hubbard becomes a spirit, he will remain the property of the central organization.
Second, Hubbard is the only source of new auditing techniques and new levels of OT. Over the years, there has been an intense battle between Scientology and competing organizations, such as The Process, founded by ex-Scientologists seeking their own independent routes to spiritual advancement. Indeed, the surest sign that a schism or leadership defection was brewing was unauthorized experimentation with new processes. So long as Hubbard lives and produces the higher levels above clear so useful in protecting the magic from disconfirmation, the central organization will hold a very strong hand in its dealings with the local orgs, with him as their trump card. But once his time on earth has come to an end, the forces pressing for schism will be fully unleashed.
Among the wisest steps Hubbard has taken to preserve his movement as a whole, but one injurious in the long run to the central organization, is to make the new, streamlined version of clear available at the larger local orgs. Recent interviews at the Boston org indicate that members are of two minds over which kind of clear is actually superior. The traditional, more psychologically demanding, and more expensive Scientology clear offered only at the advanced orgs has a certain majesty and implies the person has gone through some very special experiences. But it also implies the person may have been incapable of going clear by the shorter, local Dianetics route and thus was someone initially inferior to those who could go clear at home. We note that one of the three officers named on the Boston org's letterhead achieved clear locally, one indication that it is a highly respectable route to status.
These developments are good for the movement in the long run not only because they strengthen the local churches, which, after all, are the organizations that recruit new members and through which the movement must spread. But perhaps more important, the movement will enter the period after Hubbard's stewardship with a number of centers of authority, each of which can innovate somewhat independently, giving the movement as a whole more chances of coming up with the right combination of beliefs and practices to achieve enduring growth.
This chapter describes a series of tactics designed to promote and protect Scientology's magic that Hubbard developed over nearly 20 years of experimentation. After his departure, Scientologists must experiment further to create a religious denomination of moderate tension attracting congregations interested in a faith designed for the modern world of science. Other Scientologists will undoubtedly find ways to keep the magic high, whether in small, high tension sects of Scientology or through independent therapy services. Then Scientology will fully illustrate the religious dynamic that is the theme of this book.
Reduction of magic and tension constitutes the secularization process. In Scientology, as in the larger world of religion, this process is self-limiting, calling forth schisms in the form of sect movements and innovations in the form of cult movements. Thus, if Scientology is really successful, it will not merely evolve into a single, solid, liberal denomination. Rather, it will give birth to a whole range of groups at different levels of tension and degrees of organization, a space-age copy of what Protestantism has become.
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