How a Scientologist Loses Faith in His Church

source: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/

Last November The St. Petersburg Times (since then renamed The Tamba Bay Times) published an exposé on the Church of Scientology’s extreme fundraising methods.

One of the videos accompanying that story featured, among others, ex-Scientologist Synthia Fagan.

Now Tony Ortega at The Village Voice reports that Dave Fagen, Synthia’s husband, has posted a book-length description of his decision to leave Scientology on his blog, “My Side of the Story.”

Dave has written his account with his former Chicago Org co-workers in mind, and he knows that his reader will naturally wonder about Synthia’s decision to talk to the Tampa Bay Times and whether he simply followed her out of the church. So he carefully explains how each of them lost their faith in the church and its leader, Miscavige.

David Miscavige has been under fire as a number of former top Scientology staff members have leveled accusations against him, saying he engaged in physical or mental abuse.

Then, at the end of last year, former Scientology executive Debbie Cook wrote an explosive email accusing the Church of Scientology of becoming a hollow moneymaking machine run by an autocratic ruler.

Ortega says

Cook’s e-mail spelled out in high relief what ex-Scientologists had been telling us were the issues causing so many longtime, dedicated church members to flee the organization. It had nothing to do with Xenu, the jokes of late-night comedians, the constant bad press, or even the global protests. Cook’s complaints were all about a cancer eating away at Scientology from its guts: a crisis in faith over the leadership of David Miscavige.

And he notes that Fagen’s many-chaptered blog “in its entirety reflects and amplifies Debbie Cook’s own litany of charges in very interesting ways”

Critics have long referred to the cult as $cientology. After all, Scientology is known for selling its allegedly spiritual teachings at exorbitant prices:

Scientology — Business or Religion?
The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power
Scientology as a business
The cost of Scientology
The high cost of Scientology
Prices up to OT8 and beyond
Research resources on Scientology

IMHO
FACTNet