Affidavit of Lawrence Brennan
From End The Cult
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"more knowledge of actions taken by organized scientology to develop a religious cloaking and why it was done than anyone else currently in organized scientology"[1]Within the affidavit, the purpose of the team "Mission Corporate Category
Sort out" (MCCS) is described. Brennan explains:
"It was wanted to have MCCS develop a plan to give Hubbard and CMO complete control, to funnel millions of dollars to Hubbard, to justify taking most of the money from all scientology organizations around the world and put it under the control of CMO and to hide the major assets of organized scientology from the government or potential litigants. At the same time, it had to insulate both Hubbard and the CMO from any legal liability for running the organizations of scientology by lying about the level of control they really had."[2]
Brennan goes on to explain "religious cloaking" in the Church of Scientology, discussing how it would have been "impossible to follow Hubbard's policies"[3] otherwise. Some of the benefits of religious cloaking Brennan lists include:
- "minimum wages do not have to be paid"[4]
- Staff may move to other countries as religious workers
- Standard employee rights may be discarded, allowing ethics conditions and the Rehabilitation Project Force to be implemented
- "the services of dianetics and scientology could be
delivered without it being considered the practice of psychology and/or medicine. It was feared that unless there was a religious cloaking developed and used throughout organized scientology that its practices would be outlawed in many parts the world."[5]
It is explained how the Guardian's Office made self-serving documents to reflect a religious image, getting the opinions of "experts" to support the idea that organized scientology was a religion. Brennan himself worked on the scholar program "as early as 1974"[6]. Any reports written which did not reflect the idea of scientology being of religious nature were discarded. Many other methods were used to make scientology look religious, such as calling mandatory payments "fixed donations", and making up things that seem religious such as Sunday services. "This was done for no reason other than trying to “look religious” and gain advantages legally that were afforded to religions."[7]
This page currently covers up to halfway through page 7 of the affidavit, and requires further work.
