who owns scientology, really?

Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology

yertletheturtle asked this question on 7/31/2000:

What is Mead Emory's current role in the church and who are these guys who have control of Scientology?

Also, is the following web site accurate?

http://www.clever.net/webwerks/veritas/

honorarykid gave this response on 8/1/2000:

Mead Emory is a high level board member in Scientology's corporate structure. According to Veritas, Emory is a non-Scientologist. Although I don't have any information on this point, I can buy the claim.

Also, by roundabout implications, Veritas also argues that Emory one of the secret leaders of the CoS, and that he has, and does use and control David Miscavige as some sort of puppet on a string. I think this is wrong.

Emory used to be a deputy at the IRS during the time Hubbard's fear of being arrested kept him in hiding, leaving a power vacuum in Scientology which was mostly filled by Hubbard's third wife, Mary Sue.

After Mary Sue and other top G.O. officials were convicted in the Snow White operation the power vacuum became much more acute.

Also at the time, Scientology was in the process of losing a huge monetary judgement to former OT member, Larry Wollersheim in the Wollersheim I case.

To make sure Mary Sue would not be able to regain power following her release from prison, and also to avoid paying Wollersheim, and to insulate itself from others who might mimic Wollersheim's successful lawsuit, the new CoS leaders (Miscavige or Emory) needed new, more liability-proof corporations to protect their newly won power.

So at the time, Emory helped to create the CST and RTC and ASI, among other corporate entities. The CSC then shifted all assets away from itself and into those newly formed entities.

The main question for Veritas is, what role did current RTC COB, David Miscavige, play in the formation of those corporations? It's beyond any doubt that he certainly benefitted from them.

Most Scientologists who were in S. California at that time recall that a youthful member of the powerful CMO (Commodore's Messenger Org) named David Miscavige organized a power take-over from the Broekers, and wrested control away from the kindly, subservient couple, then widely assumed to be 1st in line to succeed Hubbard following his death.

But the Veritas people believe that David Miscavige was too uneducated and inexperienced at the time to have set up the new corporations. After all, he was a high-school dropout, just in his early to mid 20s.

Veritas thinks Miscavige was too young and easily controllable (perhaps some classical Freudian projection?) and must therefore now be just a pawn of Mead Emory and Sherman Lenske and some other lawyers. They believe that Miscavige was not instrumental in the creation of the more liability-proof corporate structures set up by Emory and Lenske.

Are they correct? I doubt it.

Generally, I think the Veritas web site has some terrific research about the formation of those various Scientology corporations. Their facts are usually quite reliable.

But I also agree with another expert's observation that the analysis of the folks who created that site are frought with illogic, conspiracy fears, and over-the-top conclusions not supported by fact.

Scientologists near the top of the food chain are not generally ambitious power grabbers. Like in other totalitarian systems, the one's just below the top are not leaders at all, but really are just the best brown-nosers. Following the imprisonment of the G.O. 11, the remaining power centers of Scientology were ripe to be taken over by a bold, brash stroke. And this, according to many, many ex-Scientologists, is exactly what David Miscavige orchestrated.

Once he began to consolidate power, it is highly likely that he had plenty of money and power and influence needed to employ Lenske and Emory WITHOUT taking orders from them.

Officially and legally, the CST trustees may have the right to remove David Miscavige from his seat of Scientology power. But Veritas doesn't even know if Miscavige is himself a CST trustee.

Veritas has never supplied a single document which supports their contention that Miscavige is taking orders from Lenske and Emory.

yertletheturtle rated this answer:

Thank you! Whatever the final truth turns out to be, the one clear fact seems to be that managment definitely has no accountablity to the parishoners. Why else would they make it so complicated to find out what is going on?

I can't imagine how the scientology public can be such a group of dunderheads to allow this sort of one-pointed control over their future.

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