Two years ago, Tanya Durni received a letter from her brother.
But it wasn't a friendly note. In the letter, Fred Lennox told his
sister that he was "disconnecting" completely from her.
Her offense?
Criticizing Scientology - especially on an Internet news group.
The letter jolted Durni, a golf shop manager at Oak Hill Country Club
in Rochester.
"It was like someone writing to say my brother was dead," she
said.
But what happened to Durni that day wasn't unusual.
Family members and friends of Scientologists - including parents,
spouses and children - who are critical of the church can be declared
"suppressive." That means the church sees them as intent on harming or
destroying Scientology.
Under strict directives set by Scientology's late founder, L. Ron
Hubbard, church members must persuade them to check their criticism -
or sever all contact.
Critics say they have witnessed that scenario happen repeatedly with
Scientology.
"(The policy) is very destructive to family relationships - it's like
an iron door that keeps people from any kind of dialogue," said the
Rev. Robert W. Thornburg, dean emeritus of Marsh Chapel at Boston
University and an expert on destructive religious practices.
"Scientology's biggest threat - how they get control of you - is that
you will be labeled a "suppressive person,' " said Rich Dunning of
Niagara Falls, who was deputy executive director of the Buffalo church
from October 2001 to May 2003.
Because Hubbard wrote that suppressive people inhibit spiritual
growth, their influence with Scientologists must be minimized or
removed entirely.
Joseph Sgroi, a Buffalo church member and its largest benefactor, said
the practice of cutting off families is a last resort, undertaken only
when someone remains hostile to the religion.
If a family member has "an incredibly negative effect" and refuses to
change, he said, "it might make sense to not deal with that
person."
"The concept isn't to destroy families, but to put families together,"
he added.
Al Buttnor, the church's Canadian spokesman, said Scientologists
highly value marriage, raising children and families.
Durni was not alone among her family in being accused of spreading
anti-Scientology views by the Buffalo church.
The church accused Fred Lennox's older brother, Jeff Lennox, of
spreading "black propaganda" because he told Fred the Church of
Scientology was a cult.
"They sent Fred a letter with a threatening bent, saying I had said
things untrue about Scientology," Jeff Lennox said.
Ultimately, Fred Lennox was told by the church to face its Board of
Investigations. He also was told to undergo a "security check." That's
a practice in which Scientologists can be interrogated about moral
transgressions with the use of a lie detector-like device called an
E-meter.
His family members said his involvement with Scientology deeply
affected other family members.
"For years, I never said anything about Scientology," Durni
recalled. "You couldn't. It was like we were controlled by it."
Blasdell man's account
Frank Green, a Blasdell resident, posted some anti-Scientology
comments on the Internet.
And like Durni, he said the church tried to destroy his relationship
with a family member - in Green's case, his niece, Heather Barvian, a
Scientologist.
The actions of the church led Green, a retired steelworker, to stage a
one-man picket outside the Buffalo church in September. He carred a
sign that read, "Scientology Destroys Families" - with the "S" in
Scientology sporting a dollar sign.
"It's torn my niece and great-nephews and nieces away from us. Over
the last couple of years, it's been nothing but a nightmare," Green
said. "I just know it's not the Heather I knew doing all this. She's
being led."
Barvian, who now lives in Colorado, denied that being a Scientologist
had anything to do with the estrangement.
She said her uncle posted messages on the Internet threatening to
kidnap her family from the clutches of Scientology and return them to
Western New York. She said he also opposed her decision to escape a
marriage she felt was abusive.
Green said neither charge was true.
Critics of Scientology say church tenets function as highly effective
instruments of control over members.
Hubbard's "Introduction to Scientology Ethics" lists more than 100
"misdemeanors," "crimes" and "high crimes" that are part of the
church's code of discipline.
"It's a system of extreme control that keeps you in a bubble," said
Dunning, the ex-deputy director. "You don't dare talk to anyone or
read anything (critical of Scientology), because Hubbard wrote that it
could make you an accomplice."
High crimes include interacting with Scientology critics and holding
Scientology policies up to scorn.
Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta
who has written extensively on the church, said Scientology's
aggressive attitude toward critics, including family members, is
ingrained.
"Part of becoming a Scientologist involves learning an alternative
ethics system," Kent said, "which places Scientology's survival as
vital and attacking critics as necessary."
The Buffalo News obtained a copy of an "Ethics Order" from the church
concerning Fred Lennox, dated March 1, 2002. The order tells Lennox to
"handle or disconnect" from his sister.
"It has come to the Church's attention that Fred's sister has been on
the Internet spreading entheta (a made-up word from Hubbard meaning
"lies and confusions') about Scientology," the order reads. "This is
the second situation that has come up with Fred's sister in the last
eight months . . . Fred was warned that if he does not handle or
disconnect from her, he would be declared PTS (Potential Trouble
Source) Type A."
Such a declaration prevents an offender from taking courses and
counseling, or "auditing" sessions, required for spiritual
advancement.
Arnold Markowitz, director of the Cult Hotline and Clinic operated by
the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services in New York City,
said the agency has seen clients anguished by Scientology
disconnection orders.
"If a parent complains - we usually see this with adult children - the
member tries to handle it," Markowitz said. "But if the criticism
persists, there is a continuum of a distancing of the relationship
down to the disconnection letter."
That was Durni's experience roughly two years ago with her brother,
Fred Lennox. She said she had warned him that when she posted her
views about Scientology on the Internet, the church would pressure him
to stop talking to her.
He insisted that would never happen, Durni recalled.
Short-lived inheritance
Lennox, 46, has spent half his life in Scientology.
Older sister Tracy Kane said her brother was a "very sensitive child"
who had a particular affection for children and animals. Family
members suspect he had learning disabilities undetected in
school. Kane said he was recruited by Scientology during a
particularly vulnerable period in his life.
That would fit a pattern of the Church of Scientology's preying on
susceptible people, said Thornburg, the expert on destructive
religious practices who considers the church a cult.
"For folks who do not feel they belong anywhere, there's a sense of
instant belonging," he said. "Their control of persons who get
involved is as complete as any of the destructive groups I've ever
studied."
Lennox became involved in 1980, went on staff at the Buffalo church in
1984 and in 1986 joined the church's elite Sea Organization based in
Clearwater, Fla., according to Durni. The church believes in
reincarnation and, before joining the "Sea Org," Lennox was required
to sign a billion-year contract.
Lennox eventually left and resumed Scientology classes in Buffalo.
He was living at home with his parents in 2001 and making $7 an hour
when he inherited cash and stocks with a total value of $25,000, Durni
said.
Soon after telling a Scientologist official of his inheritance, she
said, his family's house began receiving mail with new credit card
accounts for Fred, including expensive charges to the Church.
"You would have to know Fred to realize he didn't know how to apply
for credit cards on his own," Durni said. "We had to literally take
him down and show him how to open up a checking account. They would
have had to make the calls and have the applications all ready for him
to sign on the dotted line."
A short time later, Lennox went on Scientology's 500-passenger cruise
ship based in the Caribbean Sea, where members take expensive,
high-level courses.
Durni believes the church enticed her brother to go on the cruise in
order to isolate him and make him more susceptible to part with his
inheritance.
On the cruise ship, Lennox was supposed to take one week, then
two.
After 41/2 weeks, Durni reached her brother by phone and coaxed him
back with the promise of more inheritance money. After the call, he
was home in less than 48 hours, Durni said.
From a short time before he went on the ship until he returned, Durni
said, Lennox went through all of his inheritance and was more than
$40,000 in debt. He had gone through $65,000, she said, on courses,
tapes and books, travel expenses and repaying a "freeloader debt" from
the church.
The "freeloader debt" was for leaving the Sea Org and breaking his
billion-year contract to remain in the group. The church says the debt
is repayment for courses taken for free while in the Sea Org.
Teresa Reger, president of the Buffalo church, defended the length of
a Sea Org contract and the penalty for breaking it.
"It's the policy they know they go into when they sign the contract,"
she said.
Kane, a children's book illustrator in Durham, N.H., believes
Scientology took advantage of her brother in an unconscionable
way.
"When he inherited the money, I saw the way they sucked him in and ran
up credit cards for money he didn't have," Kane said. "Then they
seemed to drop him again, because he's not the kind of person who can
excel and move up in their world. He's not important to them unless he
has money."
Changed personality
The Lennox family has hoped Fred Lennox, who works part time in a
supermarket bakery, will leave Scientology.
They tried an unsuccessful family intervention several years ago, led
by someone who counsels mind control victims.
"I saw a side of Fred that was scary, because you could see he was
controlled by something," Kane recalled of the attempt.
Although The News previously attempted to reach Lennox and he refused,
Scientologists told The News they would try to get in touch with
him.
On Tuesday, a statement signed by Fred Lennox was faxed to The Buffalo
News, saying he should be free to do what he wanted with his money and
life.
"I have no regrets about donating money to my church and did so
freely," the letter said. "I live my own life, not one dictated by my
sister or family members."
The letter added: "I have dreams and goals and my Church helps me with
that. The problem is with people stopping me from achieving my dreams
and goals . . . If my sister would stop making my life miserable over
my church and my choices in life, I would be happy to speak with
her. There was a time when we were very close and I miss that."
Fred Lennox's brother, Jeff, said The News received the letter because
Buttnor contacted Fred and asked for a statement regarding this
article. Fred told his brother he hadn't done anything with the church
for "a long time" until he was contacted and asked to write a
statement, which he did Monday with the help of Scientology
officials.
On Tuesday morning, over breakfast in a diner, Jeff Lennox said his
brother seemed at times proud of the church and at other times
intimidated by it.
"He compared Scientology to the Mafia as a metaphor three or four
times. I had never heard him do that before," Jeff Lennox said.
There was also an air of futility, Jeff Lennox observed.
"Tanya's efforts against Scientology," Jeff Lennox quoted Fred as
saying, "was like throwing a stone at the Empire State Building."
|
"Scientology's biggest threat - how they get control of you - is that
you will be labeled a "suppressive person,' " said Rich Dunning of
Niagara Falls, who was deputy executive director of the Buffalo church
from October 2001 to May 2003.
Because Hubbard wrote that suppressive people inhibit spiritual
growth, their influence with Scientologists must be minimized or
removed entirely.
Joseph Sgroi, a Buffalo church member and its largest benefactor, said
the practice of cutting off families is a last resort, undertaken only
when someone remains hostile to the religion.
If a family member has "an incredibly negative effect" and refuses to
change, he said, "it might make sense to not deal with that
person."
"The concept isn't to destroy families, but to put families together,"
he added.
Al Buttnor, the church's Canadian spokesman, said Scientologists
highly value marriage, raising children and families.
Durni was not alone among her family in being accused of spreading
anti-Scientology views by the Buffalo church.
The church accused Fred Lennox's older brother, Jeff Lennox, of
spreading "black propaganda" because he told Fred the Church of
Scientology was a cult.
"They sent Fred a letter with a threatening bent, saying I had said
things untrue about Scientology," Jeff Lennox said.
Ultimately, Fred Lennox was told by the church to face its Board of
Investigations. He also was told to undergo a "security check." That's
a practice in which Scientologists can be interrogated about moral
transgressions with the use of a lie detector-like device called an
E-meter.
His family members said his involvement with Scientology deeply
affected other family members.
"For years, I never said anything about Scientology," Durni
recalled. "You couldn't. It was like we were controlled by it."
