The Little Gods Down Under

 

In a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals following the second trial in the District Court, lawyers for the Church of Scientology again argued that the "misbranded device" provisions of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act were not applicable to a harmless instrument such as the E-meter, which is central to a bona fide religious practice.Under First Amendment guarantees of religious freedom, it was a well-settled fact of law that such an encroachment could be justified only in cases that involved the gravest abuses which endangered paramount interests.

Even then) a regulation of religious practice is invalid unless the Government can show "that no alternative forms of regulation would combat such abuses without infringing First Amendment rights". 

The FDA was trying to apply a consumerism statute to matters of religion by attempting to prove the "misbranding" of a confessional aid because its "labelling" - that is, the Church's scripture - did not bear adequate directions for its use!Who gave the food and drug mandarins the right to determine what are or are not adequate directions for the use of a harmless galvanometer used in a religious setting?"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," declared the Supreme Court in an earlier case, "it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." 

That constitutional luminary may still be shining stead fastly out there in the legal firmament somewhere, but it has long since been lost to the view of federal agencies, such as FDA and IRS, who daily issue official opinions on virtually every act of the citizen's life, including religious acts. And their officially proclaimed dogma has, time after time, been supported by the nation's courts. It was the Supreme Court itself that in 1954 declared that the state may set up standards that are "spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary".

Dangerous and chilling words these) coming from the court of last resort. As in the case of so many other decisions that have followed in the past two decades, the cynical observation of Chief justice Marshall that the Constitution means what the judges say it means, would seem to apply. Indeed, the U.S. today is ruled not by law, but by judges, some of whom grossly distort or wholly ignore the clear meaning of the supreme statutes. The result has been a gradual erosion of public respect for the entire legal system in America.When the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a final ruling in its "clarified" rehearing of the Scientology case, the three-judge panel again reaffirmed the judgment of the District Court, and ordered the FDA to return to the Church of Scientology the literature and E-Meters seized in the illegal 1962 raid.

This judgment was widely interpreted in the press and elsewhere as a great victory in the church's fight for religious freedom. As the large truck drew up in front of the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington to return the material the Government had confiscated in its Nazi-style raid more than nine years previously, a large crowd of onlookers burst into loud applause. The Scientologists themselves celebrated with ceremony and champagne the seemingly successful denouement of the longest case ever brought by the FDA.However, a careful look at the legal facts makes it abundantly clear that the church's adherents were celebrating something less than a Pyrrhic victory.While directing the FDA to return the confiscated material, the high court at the same time ordered the Scientologists to pay the enormous storage bill for warehousing the literature and devices stolen and held by the FDA for so long.

Not only that, but the church was also required to pay all legal costs and fees of the Government's disgraceful prosecution of them (exclusive of those involved in their appeal following the first trial.)

The judges further decreed that the Scientologists must post a penal bond of $2o,ooo to insure their compliance with the court's judgment.Yet another clause of the court's ruling restored the master-slave relationship between FDA and the church by making the E-meter and credal literature subject to provisions of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Even worse, it stated that "the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C., Inc., shall compensate the United States of America for costs of reasonable supervision of matters under the direction or control of the Church at the rate of $8.00 per hour, per representative for each hour or portion thereof actually employed in such supervision under the terms of this Decree as salary or wage; and where subsistence expenses are incurred, at the rate of $25.oo per day or portion thereof per person for such subsistence expenses. Said claimant shall also compensate the United States of America (i.e., FDA commissars) for necessary travelin expenses and for any other necessary expenses which may be incurred in connection with supervisory responsibilities of the United States Food and Drug Administration."

Most shocking of all the judges' over-riding contempt for the Bill of Rights in purporting to exercise prior restraint in the publication of the churches literature: "Any and all items of written, printed, or graphic matter which directly or indirectly refers to the E-meter or to Dianetics and/or Scientology and/or auditing or processing shall not be further used or distributed unless and until" the said items carried a printed caveat on the outside front cover or in the title page, a "warning" prescribed by FDA.

In these circumstances, the Church of Scientology's long and costly legal battle against governmental despotism assumes an importance far beyond its own self-interest.All Americans, whether religiously affiliated or not, were the unnamed defendants in the case.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's move against Scientology did not deal the crippling blow to the movement that its initiators had hoped it might do.Confiscation of the Church's E-meters occasioned a brief period of inconvenience; the court trials entailed a substantial outlay for legal fees and provided material for biased news stories in the media; but Scientology was growing faster than ever.Not only in America, but in other English-speaking countries as well, people in great numbers were enrolling in communications courses and auditing sessions. A man-and-wife team of hack writers who had been put to work to do a derogatory magazine piece on the movement, lamented: "Millions of young people all over the world are becoming 'addicted' to the dangerous new cult of Scientology."News of the FDA raid, always in a slanted and sometimes in a distorted version, was given the widest circulation possible, in an effort to discredit Scientology abroad. The global network of Scientology's detractors correctly reasoned that the prestige of the U.S. Government would lend weight to their charges that Hubbard and his adherents were operating what an AMA official called "a well organized piece of chicanery".

In Australia, where Scientology had attracted a very large following, the much-publicized FDA action encouraged the Church's enemies to renew their attacks with even greater vigour.The best organized and loudest campaign was mounted in the state of Victoria, where Scientologists had the largest and most active branches.Unlike the Church's opponents in the United States, who remained discreetly in the background and used other persons and organizations to do their fighting for them, the Australian group made no bones about identifying themselves. It was composed of prominent psychiatrists, psychologists, professors from Melbourne University, mental health crusaders, members of the Australian Medical Association and their obedient representatives, the civil authorities.

Leading the pack was Dr. E. Cunningham Dax, chairman of the Victoria Mental Health Authority. In 1962, he wrote to every Minister of Health in Australia, citing what he considered to be the dangers of Scientology. He also urged the State Government to curb the activities of Scientologists by prohibiting their advertising.An interesting fact about Dr. Dax is that he attended the inaugural congress of the World Federation for Mental Health in 1948, and has maintained close ties with that organization over the ensuing years. In 1961, the WFMH sponsored the publication of Dr. Dax's book, Asylum To Community, which describes the rapid expansion of community psychiatric centres in Australia.