The Dror Center Schism, the Cook Letter and Scientology's

chapter 20 The Dror Center Schism, The Cook Letter and Scientology’s Legitimation Crisis

James R. Lewis

Suddenly you have factions, schisms, all kinds of very horrible things – they will never occur to this Church, never… steve marlowe, Scientology Inspector General

On the first day of 2012, Dani Lemberger, head of the Church of Scientol- ogy (CoS) Mission in Haifa, Israel, was given a copy of an email by one of the Mission’s auditors (Scientology’s name for its counselors), Aviv Bershadsky.1 Lemberger was initially taken aback. The message was from Debbie Cook, a prominent Scientologist who had been a longtime member of the Sea Org (a religious order that has been described as Scientology’s Jesuits) and Captain of the Flag Service Organization – one of the top posts in the Church of Scien- tology.2 Lemberger and his wife Tami knew Debbie from time they had spent at the Flag Land Base, CoS’s spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. Cook’s email, which had originally been sent out to a wide range of Scien- tologists on New Year’s Eve, 2011, presented a startling analysis of various ways in which the Church had become dysfunctional and was beginning to decline. Furthermore, each of the problems she identified were described as deviating from the principles and guidelines laid down by CoS’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986); she backed up all of her points with references to policy letters and other sources authored by Hubbard (also referred to as lrh). Cook was not hesitant to assign blame to cob – Scientologese for ‘Chairman of the Board’ – David Miscavige, the Church of Scientology’s current leader. Lem- berger, a stubborn non-conformist within an organization that over the years has become increasingly conformist, had voiced a few of the same criti- cisms himself. Other issues raised by Cook were revelatory. As one might have

1 The following account is derived from Harman (2012), Ortega (2012a) and ongoing communi- cations with Dani Lemberger and Tami Lemberger. 2 ‘Org’ is short for organization. In addition to groups like the Sea Org, Scientologists refer to their official centers as Orgs. For general information on Scientology, refer to Urban (2011), Lewis 2012a and Hellesøy 2014.

The Dror Center Schism 463 anticipated, the Church later sued Cook, but then reached a settlement in ex- change for her promise to say no more in public (Ortega 2012b). Lemberger’s response to the e-mail was to forward it to Church adminis- trators for comment. Instead of receiving the requested commentary, however, Scientology officials put him ‘in ethics’ – a kind of interrogation program which implicitly questioned his loyalty. They also asked him to read a special issue of the Church’s Freedom magazine which attacked a variety of different former CoS members who had spoken out against the Church. A sampling of titles from relevant articles that have appeared in Freedom capture the intem- perate tone of these attacks:

The Posse of Lunatics: A Story of Lies, Crimes, Violence, Infidelity and Betrayal Jason Beghe: Apostate Poster Boy and Hollywood Psycho A Liar is a Coward; A Perjurer is a Criminal

The charges were so over the top that Lemberger knew most if not all of them had to have been fabricated. However, the magazine also mentioned that Mar- ty Rathbun, a former CoS leader, had a blog. So Lemberger went to the Internet and began exploring not only Rathbun’s blog, but also other critical information available about the Church of Scientology on the World Wide Web. It was an eye-opener. He was particularly intrigued by information on the growing independent Scientology movement. The Lembergers then brought together their staff, discussed the Cook email and encouraged staff members to do their own research into the critical material about Scientology that seemed to fill the Internet. Eventually, everyone reached the same conclusion, namely that they should leave the Church.3 They subsequently composed a letter to Miscavige stating that the Haifa Mission was resigning from its affiliation with the Church of Scientology. The Lembergers also continued to explore the independent movement, sometimes referred to as the Free Zone. For example, Dani Lemberger phoned Max Hauri, head of Ron’s Org, an independent Scientology organization that had left the official Church back in the 1980s. They had a long conversation; he liked Hauri’s frankness and self-deprecating humor. The Lembergers also flew to the United States and visited Marty Rathbun in south Texas.

3 In the Introduction to Sacred Schisms (2009), the editors indicate that one of the major sources of schisms is a significant change in the primary group. The Cook letter focused on changes within CoS that had taken place since Miscavige took over from Hubbard.