The possibly-familiar face I've posted is of actor Larry Anderson, who once did a recruiting film for Scientology, who now expresses dissatisfaction with the religion, and wants his money back.
I find this an interesting case:
As was his custom for administrative matters, Hubbard wrote a "policy letter'' to set down Scientology's rules for "Refunds and Repayments.''
"A refund is a return of money after service,'' it says. A parishioner dissatisfied with a service has 90 days to apply for a refund.
A repayment is different. For someone who prepays, it is "a return of money without the service being taken.'' There is no time limit to seek a repayment.
The policy was among many the Internal Revenue Service reviewed before it granted the church tax exempt status in 1993. The church told the IRS its policy was "exceedingly fair'' and said a dissatisfied parishioner "simply has to make a proper request for his donations back, agree to forgo further services and his donations will be returned.''
The policy pays off for Scientology as well, the church told the IRS. It allows "parishioners who are very happy with Scientology to carry on without the unhappy few in their midst.''
Much of the donations given by Scientology members are in exchange for a "service" of sorts, in the form of instruction. It seems like Mr. Anderson may have paid for instruction received, only to find that he did not benefit from it (whether he ever could have, or if the instruction itself was beneficial, almost seem beside the point.) He took auditing sessions and courses that he found unsatisfactory--but still took more. A defense attorney for Scientology would make a lot out of that--why would he still be forking over money in support of Scientology if he didn't think it had some merit?
But what might stand to amaze people reading the article is just how much money was paid out to the Church of Scientology, and also, one might wonder if it wasn't done in part because of a feeling that that he could pay himself out of a spiritual hole. In other words, if one course didn't do the job, why not take another? Belief was encouraged, and failure discouraged. He had time, money, and an emotional investment via contacts he'd made through the church. As it stands, even challenging them now has a cost to him.
But there's an interesting issue--as expressed as an analogy with a more popular church, by a Scientologist:
"We're under no obligation to do that (return money),'' Davis said. "If you gave donations to any other church and went back and said, 'I went to confession, confession didn't work for me and I'm not happy so I want all my donations back,' they would laugh at you.''
I've wondered before, especially in the context of churches that do "faith healings" and prayer-workings, if donations could be recouped by claiming "spiritual malpractice" as in--it didn't work. But the very idea puts on trial the notion that any faith ever really "works" for someone. I think it might be interesting to see how this plays out.
2 comments:
There are numerous comedy sketches on the theme, certainly. But I'm not quite clear how God or indeed Lord Xenu could be called to give evidence in court. Religious organisations are surely immune from having to prove anything, as logically proof denies faith?
Well, as I understand it, attaining advanced levels in Scientology is really all about the money, I mean, there are even fairly specific price-tags on those thetan levels, right? So presumably they delivered the thetan levels, and, as Valdemar said, how do you prove otherwise?
That being said, it does sound like Scientology is reneging on its refund policy, and if that was one of the conditions of their nonprofit status, they should probably shut up and settle. That nonprofit deal is probably worth millions (billions?), they'd be stupid to risk it. That statement comparing it to a regular church is irrelevant, regular churches don't have refund policies.
I don't see a particular conflict in paying for more services when the last ones didn't work, it's natural to want to keep trying.
The only way for this to win is if it turns out the Elronners are violating their own policy. Otherwise, it would be like a philosophy major suing a university because he never figured anything out.
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