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Full article: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/is_scientology_imploding.php
By Tony Ortega Tue., Jan. 3 2012 at 8:00 AM
Is Scientology Imploding? Watching the Panic After a Former Executive Dares to Question Church Management
The world of Scientology watching is still reeling after Debbie Cook's New Year's Eve e-mail landed in the inboxes of thousands of church members Saturday night.
A few minutes after midnight, we began receiving copies of the broadside, written by one of Scientology's most important former executives. Citing the words of L. Ron Hubbard, Cook trashed the church's current management under leader David Miscavige, complaining about a "new age of continuous fundraising" and "extreme over-regging."
Over the next couple of days, it was remarkable to watch the reaction of church members who received the e-mail and variously praised it, condemned it, or simply freaked out.
Then, we noticed this statement by Larry Brennan, an ex-Scientologist who helped reorganize the corporate structure of the church in 1980s, and who knows perhaps as much as anyone else about the strength of Scientology to defend itself:
Organized Scientology was structured to withstand 'attacks' from the outside. But all its corporate veils and religious cloaking are powerless to prevent an implosion, emptying course rooms, and causing a mass exodus.
Implosion? A mass exodus? Can a single e-mail really cause such widespread panic? We asked someone who knew Debbie Cook and could explain to us what her salvo means for an organization on the edge.
But first, we wanted to give some indication that we here at the Voice aren't the only ones who jumped on this story New Year's Day and consider it an important one.
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I wanted to know what kind of an impact her e-mail might have on the church, and I called Jason Beghe, an actor who famously left the church in 2008 and has criticized it vocally since then. When he was still in, Beghe was a popular celebrity member, spent considerable time at "Flag," and understood very well Debbie Cook's role in Scientology.
"This lady is as hardcore as anybody who ever picked up a can. This is hardcore. This is the commanding officer of the Flag Service Organization for 17 years," he told me by phone from Malibu. ("Can" is a reference to the sensors of an e-meter, the device Scientologists use during counseling sessions.)
"She had a lot of status. But she was always very warm and professional. She was extremely friendly, but she never crossed any boundaries," Beghe said, referring to the times he met Cook when he was receiving services in Clearwater. "When she had left, I thought she could really do something. And the way she did it, wow, it was perfect."
Beghe has encouraged other people to leave the church since he defected, and he's worked with former executive Marty Rathbun, who has been especially effective at convincing longtime members to disavow the church because of the way Miscavige is running it.
"Let's face it, there's not a lot of new people getting into Scientology. And the target now is to get to the people who are abused who are inside. And she's reaching the people who need help," Beghe said. "I applaud the hell out of her."
Beghe wanted me to understand just how important Cook's job was in Clearwater.
"She ran the entire Flag organization. She was the commanding officer. Like, if your egg was overcooked, that was her responsibility. She was responsible for every single person who worked at Flag," he said.
And as for the people she's trying to reach, he says, they simply won't respond to someone from the outside, or even from most other church members who might voice discontent. It takes someone with Cook's name to shake them up, Beghe said.
"I know it's hard to understand how someone can be so dense. But you're in a trance. When someone of this magnitude speaks up, it has an effect. And it's as 'standard' as you can get. All she's doing is complaining about 'non-standard' tech," he said, meaning that by quoting Hubbard, Cook was trying to appeal to church members in a way that would help them question Miscavige's leadership.
"Her intention is to help those 12,000 people and the people they decide to contact. Going to the press, on the other hand, would have had little effect. The name of this game is help those motherfuckers who are in that cult. And this, I think, will do a lot," Beghe said. "I'm sure there were maybe hundreds of people who just went, holy shit, and had a revelation."
But didn't the reaction at Facebook indicate that she's going to have a difficult time getting through to some members, who instinctively reacted by turning her into authorities for daring to criticize Miscavige?
"There's going to be a campaign against her, I'm sure. They're going to do their standard, retarded fucking routine. But that's great, because every time they do that, it makes the next one that less credible," Beghe said, referring to an effort already under way to "dead agent" Cook -- turn someone with an illustrious history in Scientology into an unperson, reminiscent of the way figures were erased from photos in old issues of Pravda.
"I'm sure they're going to come down very hard on her, however they do it," Beghe added. "The church is furiously coming up with ways to counteract the effects of her e-mail. So already, most of these people are being 'handled.' One reason you're not hearing anything from the church on this is that they're busy."
And such a campaign by the church to 'handle' members who saw the e-mail will be effective on some, Beghe added. "These people cannot think for themselves, which is ironic, because they're told when they get into Scientology that they'll be trained to do exactly that," he said. Others, however, will begin to question seriously what is happening to their church after seeing Cook's criticisms.
"At some point they're going to wake up. Hopefully."
Full article: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/is_scientology_imploding.php
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