Disconnection (Scientology)
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Disconnection is the severance of all ties between a Scientologist and a friend, colleague, or family member deemed to be antagonistic towards Scientology. The practice of disconnection is a form of shunning.[1]: 144 Among Scientologists, disconnection is viewed as an important method of removing obstacles to one's spiritual growth. In some circumstances, disconnection has ended marriages and separated children from their parents.[2][3][4][5][6]
The
Policy
Antagonists to the Church of Scientology are declared by the Church to be
In Introduction to Scientology Ethics, L. Ron Hubbard sets out the doctrine that by being connected to suppressive persons, a Scientologist could become a Potential Trouble Source (PTS):
A Scientologist can become PTS by reason of being connected to someone that is antagonistic to Scientology or its tenets. In order to resolve the PTS condition, he either HANDLES the other person's antagonism (as covered in the materials on PTS handling) or, as a last resort when all attempts to handle have failed, he disconnects from the person. He is simply exercising his right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person.[12]: 206
Hubbard defined "handling" as an action to lessen a situation towards an antagonistic individual by means of communication, and disconnection as a decision to cut communication with another individual.[12]: 206 Hubbard also wrote that ethics officers should recommend handling rather than disconnection when the antagonistic individual is a close relative.[12]: 208 He also stated that failure, or refusal, to disconnect from a suppressive person is a suppressive act by itself.[12]: 209 In one case cited by the UK government, a six-year-old girl was declared suppressive for failing to disconnect from her mother.[6] Sociologist Roy Wallis reports that Scientologists connected to a suppressive would usually be required to handle or disconnect, although he found some "Ethics Orders" which ordered unconditional disconnection.[1]: 144
[In the child custody case, t]here had been much evidence as to how Scientology broke up marriages and alienated children from their parents. He gave examples which showed "the ruthless and inhuman disciplinary measures" used. The methods blocked out all reasoning powers, and everything had to be paid for. [5]
According to Church statements, disconnection is used as a "last resort", only to be employed if the people antagonistic to Scientology do not cease their antagonism—even after being provided with "true data" about Scientology, since it is taught that usually only people with false data are antagonistic to the Church.[13]
Originally, disconnection involved not only ending communication with someone but also declaring it publicly.[1]: 144 [14] The Scientology publication The Auditor included notices of disconnection from named individuals.[1]: 144 It was also common for Scientologists to send short letters to the suppressive person, to warn them that they were disconnected.[1]: 145 Roy Wallis interviewed a number of people who had been declared suppressive, some of whom had received hundreds of these letters.[1]: 145 The Scientologist was also required to take "any required civil action such as disavowal, separation or divorce" to cut off contact with the suppressive.[14]
The policy was introduced in 1965 in a policy letter written by Hubbard.[14] The "Code of Reform" introduced by Hubbard in 1968 discontinued fair game and security checks, and cancelled "disconnection as a relief to those suffering from familial suppression".[15] However, although the words "fair game", "disconnection", and "security checking" were discontinued due to them causing bad public relations, the practices continued with alternate labels.[16]: 188 When the New Zealand Government set up a Commission of Inquiry into Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to them saying that disconnection had been cancelled and that there was no intention to bring it back. The Commission welcomed the letter, but noted Hubbard did not promise never to re-introduce the practice of disconnection.[17]
In his book
Examples of application
The 1960s
In 1966, UK newspaper the Daily Mail quoted a disconnection letter from Scientologist Karen Henslow to her mother:
Dear Mother, I am hereby disconnecting from you because you are suppressive to me. You evaluate for me, invalidate me, interrupt me and remove all my gains. And you are destroying me.
I [unreadable] from this time consider myself disconnected from you and I do not want to see you or hear from you again. From now you don't exist in my life.[20]
Henslow, a thirty-year-old sufferer from manic depression, had been a Scientology staff member for two weeks when she disconnected. The message was accompanied by a second letter apologising for the first and saying that it had been mailed without her permission.[21]: 180
Raymond Buckingham, a singer who ran a voice school in Manhattan, was recruited into Scientology by one of his pupils. He was asked to disconnect from a business associate who had been labelled suppressive. When he spoke out publicly against Scientology, his Scientologist pupils disconnected from him and refused to pay him. One of these was a famous singer for whom he had arranged a series of performances.[21]: 79–80
Disconnection was the subject of a 1970 court case in which the Church of Scientology unsuccessfully attempted to sue the
In 1969, the New Zealand government set up an official inquiry into the Church of Scientology. The ensuing
The 1971 UK government investigation into Scientology and ensuing Foster Report reproduced a number of internal "Ethics Orders". One of these, dating from November 1967, concerns a member who had asked for a refund. It declares him to be a suppressive person and continues, "Any and all persons connected [to him] are declared Potential Trouble Sources and are not to be Trained or Processed before they have presented evidence in writing ... of handling or disconnecting".[24]
Cyril Vosper received a "Declaration of Enemy" in response to his violations of Scientology ethics and justice codes. It is reproduced in his book The Mind Benders and states, "Anyone connected to him is not to be processed or trained until he or she has disconnected from him in writing."[26]
The 1980s and 1990s
In 1982,
In
In his 1984 High Court judgment, which considered many aspects of Scientology, English judge Justice Latey wrote that "many examples [of disconnection] have been given and proved in evidence." As examples, he reproduced two disconnection letters. One is written by a Scientologist to his fiancée. In the other, a man writes to his business partner and former friend, "What you are now doing in setting yourself against the Church is not only very suppressive but also non-survival for you, your family and any group you are associated with."[27][5]
That year, the Daily Mail brought up further examples of disconnection, including a 13-year-old boy who disconnected from his father and a woman who said her fiancé was forced to abandon her. The fiancé concerned said "it was a personal decision" and a Church of Scientology spokesman was quoted denying that there is a policy to split up relationships.[9]
Also in 1984, The Mail on Sunday interviewed Gulliver Smithers, a former Scientologist who had left the group's base at Saint Hill Manor when he was 14 years old. Smithers explained that disconnection was an everyday part of life in Saint Hill, "It goes round by word of mouth when someone is an outcast. He or she is just ignored and shunned. It was what we were brought up to do."[28]
In a lengthy court case in the 1980s, ex-member Lawrence Wollersheim successfully argued that he had been coerced into disconnecting from his wife, parents, and other family members. Since the disconnection was not voluntary, it did not count as protected religious practice.[11]
In 1995, the UK local paper Kent Today talked to Pauline Day, whose Scientologist daughter Helen had sent a disconnection letter and then dropped all contact, even changing her phone number. A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology denied that this decision had anything to do with the Church.[29][30]
21st century
A
Ex-Scientologist Tory Christman told Rolling Stone magazine that her Scientologist husband and friends refused to talk to her after she left the Church.[32]
In January 2008,
To make the television documentary
Actor Jason Beghe has alleged that after he left the Church of Scientology in 2007, former friends who remained in the Church disconnected from him.[34]
In 2009, a man named Shane Clark was about to be declared a
When actress Leah Remini publicly left the Church in 2013, Remini's sister, Nicole, revealed that she and the rest of Remini's family did as well to avoid being split up by the Church's disconnection policy.[36]
Comments by religious scholars
The
This view is not shared by all religious scholars.
In popular culture
See also
- Suppressive person
- Shunning
- Excommunication
- Jehovah's Witnesses congregational discipline
- Church membership council
References
- ^ OL 4596322M.
- ^ a b Jacobsen, Jonny (January 28, 2008). "Niece of Scientology's leader backs Cruise biography". Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008.
- ^ St. Petersburg Times. pp. 1A, 14A. Archived from the originalon March 16, 2018. Retrieved June 25, 2006.
- ^ a b c "Scientology and Me: transcript". BBC News. May 11, 2007. Retrieved December 22, 2009.
- ^ a b c "Judge brands Scientology 'sinister' as mother is given custody of children". The Times. July 24, 1987.
There had been much evidence as to how Scientology broke up marriages and alienated children from their parents.
- ^ a b "UK officials feared church 'evil'". BBC News. BBC. June 1, 2007. Retrieved June 22, 2009.
- ^ a b c Brooks, Xan (October 26, 2009). "Film-maker Paul Haggis quits Scientology over gay rights stance". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media. Retrieved November 30, 2009.
- ^ a b c Adams, Guy (October 27, 2009). "Oscar-winning director: why I'm leaving Scientology". The Independent. Independent News and Media. Retrieved November 30, 2009.
- ^ a b Sheridan, Peter (February 11, 1984). "We disconnect you". Daily Mail.
- ^ "What is Disconnection" explanation by Church of Scientology
- ^ a b California appellate court, 2nd district, 7th division, Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California, Civ. No. B023193 Cal. Super. (1986)
- ^ OL 16702654M.
- ^ Church of Scientology What is Disconnection? (archive.org copy of website Retrieved on 2008-05-16)
- ^ )
- )
- ^ OL 9429654M.
- ^ )
- ^ "Buy-out bid for sect HQ: Factions announce plans to fight 'disconnections'". East Grinstead Courier. February 16, 1984.
- ^ "Sect row over policy: Members Quit in 'Disconnection' Protest". East Grinstead Courier. February 9, 1984.
- ^ "Minister is asked to investigate... The case of the processed woman". Daily Mail. August 22, 1966.
- ^ OL 39467941M.
- PMID 5294085.
- ^ "Scientologists lose libel action against Tory MP and decide against an appeal". The Times. London. December 22, 1970.
- OCLC 301564428.
- ^ Boyd, Joe (January 4, 1997). "A mind-bending experience". The Guardian. pp. Weekend 18–22.
- ISBN 0-583-12249-3.
- ^ Judgement of Mr Justice Latey, Re: B & G (Minors) (Custody) Delivered in the High Court (Family Division), London, 23 July 1984
- ^ "Hubbard Youth: The teenage bullies who reign supreme over a sinister cult". Mail on Sunday. July 29, 1984.
- ^ Jardine, Clare (May 20, 1995). "Talk To Me, Plea By Cult Girl's Mum". Kent Today.
- ^ "Our Little Boy Lost: Grandparents in Legal Battle for the right to see two-year-old Sam". Daily Mail. May 29, 1995.
- ^ a b Sommer, Mark (February 2, 2005). "Outside critics are unacceptable". Buffalo News.
- Reitman, Janet (February 8, 2011) [February 23, 2006]. "Inside Scientology". Rolling Stone. Archived from the originalon May 2, 2018.
- Nightline. April 24, 2008.
- ^ Beaumont, Peter; Toni O'Loughlin; Paul Harris (November 22, 2009). "Celebrities lead charge against Scientology". The Observer. Guardian News & Media. Retrieved November 30, 2009.
- ^ Ortega, Tony. "Tommy Davis, Scientology Spokesman, Secretly Recorded Discussing 'Disconnection'". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on July 7, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2013.
- myTalk 107.1 FM.
- ^ Burroughs, William S. (March 6, 1970). "William S. Burroughs On Scientology". Los Angeles Free Press. Sans Soleil. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
External links
- Scientologyhandbook.org on PTS handling
- Scientologytoday.org: "What is Disconnection?"
- "What is 'disconnection'? The President of the Church of Scientology Answers Your Questions". faq.scientology.org. Retrieved June 5, 2008.
- Articles on disconnection
- Disconnection Hurts: a collection of interviews with people who have experienced disconnection
- Scientology Disconnection: scans of disconnection letters
- Lord, Phil (2019). Scientology's Legal System. Marburg Journal of Religion. )