As we outlined in another article, all Scientologists are made to sign four basic contracts when they become members of the Church of Scientology. These four contracts, among other things, strip Scientologists of their legal rights to sue the Church. In one of these four contracts, Scientologists agree to enter into binding arbitration conducted by the Church for any and all causes of action now and into the future.
Legally speaking, however, “The Church of Scientology” does not exist. So what exactly does it mean when Scientologists agree to not sue the Church? What “Church” is it that Scientologists are agreeing not to sue?
The answer is easy to explain and comes down to one fact: As the Church lawyers told the IRS (see below), “The Church of Scientology” is a term of convenience used to refer to all of the legally separate Scientology religious corporations (churches) which collectively comprise the Scientology religion and its hierarchy of churches.
The Scientology heirarchy of churches is simple to understand as it is, essentially, a business franchise operation:
1. The Religious Technology Center (RTC) is a legally separate Scientology church that owns all of Scientology’s copyrights and intellectual properties. David Miscavige is the Chairman of the Board of RTC and therefore controls the use of the copyrights. As the Scientology religion completely arises from, and inheres in, its copyrighted materials, David Miscavige effectively controls the Scientology religion across all of its corporations. He does this on a practical basis through his RTC Rep Network that is present in, and polices, all legally separate Scientology churches.
2. By charter, RTC does not, and cannot, deliver Scientology services. Therefore, RTC granted an exclusive license to the Church of Scientology International (CSI) to administer the copyrights. What this means is that CSI is the chief administrative corporation that sub-licenses all lesser “churches of Scientology” churches to operate.
3. Flag Land Base, the Freewinds, and all of the Orgs are licensed by CSI. In return for their licenses, these Orgs must pay CSI fees each week. Part of these fees go up to RTC. The Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) also gets a cut of the fees. CST is the Scientology archival entity that builds and maintains the nuclear proof vaults where Hubbard’s works are stored on steel plates in titanium safes.
4. The key principle is this: Everything is legally separate from everything else in Scientology.
5. Scientologists sign contracts with a legally separate and licensed Scientology Org each and every time they do a new course, grade, or action. By having each step of one’s Scientology “Bridge Progress” be a legally separate action conducted by a legally separate Org, any potential liability is chopped into very small pieces. Over against this, the Scientologist has also agreed to binding arbitration when they signed the four basic contracts with the Church of Scientology International. The four CSI contracts, as stated within their language, apply to all Scientology churches.
Where do all of these contracts Scientologists sign get stored?
The signed contracts are sent to the Valuable Documents Unit in Department 3 of CSI for safekeeping and storage against the day when a lawsuit is filed, repayments of unused monies are demanded, or some other kind of trouble occurs.
As always, there is policy on the collection and storage of the contracts. Part of the policy states:
The signed forms are VALUABLE DOCUMENTS. They are routed to the Valuable Documents Unit in Department 3 for filing in the valuable documents files. These forms arc filed alphabetically under the last name of the person who signed the form. HCO is responsible for ensuring that these forms are safely stored and kept totally secure and that the filing of these are not allowed to backlog, per point #47 of HCO PL 26 February 1972R I, ORDER OR CHAOS, THE QUALITY OF THE HCO DIVISION, AN HCO DlV CHECKLIST FOR QUALITY.
The Registrar enrolling a person for any service must ensure that the person has signed all the enrollment forms.
The policy letter Enrollment Form Lines in Your Org is posted below. Note: Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:
Valuable.Documents.Scientology