I’ve been moving around a lot in the last few years, and I’ve developed some little rituals over the process. My last move was only a month ago, and like so many of my moves, it involved extended amounts of time dicking around with Ikea furniture and getting rather frustrated.
I have an audiobook especially for that task. It must have been eight or nine years ago now, but I had spend the best part of an afternoon trying to put a damned bed together and popped this audiobook on as a distraction. And now every time I deal with aforementioned damned bed, I go running for the book.
The book is Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia by Steve Cannane, and there is a lot in here to keep you distracted. Trust me.
It’s not often mentioned in other sources on Scientology, but Australia was quite involved in the rise of Dietetics, Scientology’s precursor. It found a firm following in the suburbs of both Melbourne and Sydney in the 1950s, and this led to many Australians taking up some very high-ranking positions in the organization from very early on. Hubbard himself was very pleased with the early movement into Australia, and in a characteristic display of over confidence, declared that Australia would be the very first “clear continent” while visiting Melbourne in 1959.
This rosy relationship would not last though, and Scientology’s goings-on in Australia in the latter half of the 20th century were very, very messy. They tangled with almost anyone and everyone. Far from being the first continent to go clear, Australia became the first place to implement Scientology bans, starting with Victoria in the 1960s. I knew from when I first read this book the ban would not last; I used to live a five-minute walk away from one of Scientology’s main centers in Melbourne back in the mid-2000s*, where they maintained an active presence. But the initial bans in the 60’s had knock on effects overseas, leaving Scientology fighting a lot of critical attention.
Of course, Hubbard was still active in his own cult back then, and it seems these events helped with the shaping of the ‘Fair Game’ policies that the book is named after. Ronnie was not a happy camper. In his mind we went from the great white hope to the land of criminals descended from criminals. And he was bitter.
A lot of the material here was very new to me when I first read it; Cannane managed to interview the three children of Yvonne Gillham Jentzsch, who went from being an Australian suburban mum to the founder of the Celebrity Centre, which was revealing. His interview with a survivor of one of Scientology’s punishment centers in Dundas was also eye-opening; Venezuelan Jose Navarro was eventually awarded a protection visa by the Australian government for being trafficked by an organization currently recognized by the same government as charitable. Make it make sense.
Also note the irony of Hubbard mocking Australia for being made up of convicts and then basically starting his own penal camp there.
There’s a lot of other fascinating details as well. Of course, Cannane writes about Tom Cruise and his relationship with Our Nicole. (Whose dad is a psychologist—now we know why they were wary of her.) Other subjects he mentions are all hilarious, scandalous or horrifying, often in equal measure. He touches on Scientology’s attempts to recruit rugby players, their attempts to infiltrate one branch of the Australian Labor Party and their tussles with the Murdochs. Scientology had already made headway with the son of one media magnate—James Packer**— and it seems they were hoping to use his friendship with Murdoch’s son Lachlan to influence him as well.
Look, it’s not often I come down on the same side as Rupert, but here we are.
And if you want to know what Julian Assange used to get up to before he founded Wikileaks? Pissing off Scientology and becoming one of the earliest players in the online war against the organization. It’s very in character of him.
But there is one story Cannane reports on that is perhaps the one positive thing Scientology did for Australia: it was a Scientologist plant who helped expose the dangers of “deep sleep therapy” at Sydney’s Chelmsford hospital in the 1960s and ’70s, by smuggling out patient files. Deep sleep therapy had already killed 24 patients by this point, so the whistleblower’s actions were very much warranted in this case, even if their motivation was against all psychiatric drugs, rather than the particular regime in question.
Interestingly, for a man who wrote a book about Scientology, I don’t think Steve Cannane has been sued by the organization yet. His work is thorough. The twist? He found himself sued by two of the former the doctors he mentioned in relation to Chelmsford… Did not see that coming.
Fair Game was an effective distraction for me at a time where I was frustrated by missing screws and nonsensical fittings. If you’re interested in the history of Scientology, it’s not one to miss.
For cbr16bingo, this is Scandal. Book’s chock full of them.
Also, Cult’s already been done.