Vol. 14, No. 5, 1997

Scientology's Moral and Financial "Black Hole"

Scientology claims that its ultimate system of counseling or auditing "always delivers" and that it alone brings people along "the bridge to total freedom." The stories of Lisa McPherson and many others indicate that Scientology can lead people to "freedom" from their money, as well as their friends, family, and sanity.

Investigations have disclosed that in the four years prior to her death, Lisa spent more than $176,000 on Scientology counseling courses and causes. She spent over $57,000 in the last ten months of her life (St. Petersburg Times, October 31, 1997).

According to church records, during eighteen years Lisa spent all this and more, yet had only been able to reach the middle Scientology level of "clear," supposedly free from all limiting past experiences stored in the "reactive mind." But during all those years of "counseling," apparently all that Scientology was able to really deliver was a second failed marriage and bankruptcy for Lisa (Ibid.). In June of 1995 Lisa became psychotic, but by September she was pronounced by Scientology to be "clear" (Ibid.). In November, she was again psychotic, and in December she was dead, after receiving more Scientology processing.

The huge sums required for such "counseling" are at the center of the charges by Germany and others, that Scientology is a business scam attempting to masquerade as a religion. Scientology counters by claiming their courses are not expensive, and by pointing out that many other religions either require or receive large donations.

This response is absurd in the light of the McPherson example, as well as donation statistics in America. U.S. Protestants averaged $477 in contributions per member in 1994 and Catholics averaged $200 per year. Lisa's "donations" ranged from 29%-55% of her income, compared to the national average of only 2.5% for those in her income range (Ibid.). And in fact, the only U.S. churches which require a donation or tithe as a precondition for receiving such "salvation" as they offer are cultic groups such as the Mormon church, the Worldwide Church of God before its recent reformation, and now its splinter groups.