As we documented in 2015, Scientology argued that the Sea Org does not exist. In our 2015 article we cited former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson — who was then one of twenty-two lawyers working for David Miscavige and the other defendants in Rathbun v. Miscavige et. al. in Comal County, Texas. Mr. Jefferson wrote of the Sea Org in his Writ of Mandamus:
“Plaintiff asserts that Mr. Miscavige exercised control because he leads the Sea Organization, a religious order within Scientology. But the ‘Sea Org’ is not a corporate entity; it has no physical or legal existence. It is not incorporated or established pursuant to legal formalities. It has no constitution, charter or bylaws, and no formal or informal ecclesiastical, corporate, or other management structure. It has no directors, officers, managing agents, or other executives; no employees, staff members, or volunteers; no income; no disbursements, no bank accounts or other assets; no liabilities; no stationery; no office, home, address, or telephone number. It does not create or maintain any financial, personnel, or other records. It can neither give nor receive orders because it has no one to either give or receive them or to carry them out. It cannot sue or be sued. (MR1810-12 at ¶13.) The evidence Mrs. Rathbun has submitted fails to establish a prima facie basis for an alter ego finding, because none of it involves the defendants’ purported contacts relating to this suit, nor does any of it speak to the organizations’ current practices.”
The public and the courts are supposed to believe that the multibillion-dollar transnational “ecclesiastical hierarchy” known as the Church of Scientology is wholly managed and operated by ~3,000 unpaid volunteers from a legally nonexistent “Sea Org” that — per by Mr. Jefferson’s own words — “has no directors, officers, managing agents, or other executives; no employees, staff members, or volunteers.”
And yet to join the legally non-existent Sea Org one must fill out an application. But as the Sea Org has no members to where does the Sea Org application go? Who reads and approves the application?
The answer is the Church of Scientology International (CSI). CSI is the tax-exempt religious corporation which licenses and manages all the churches of Scientology and Scientology’s secular groups such as Narconon, WISE, and ABLE.
CSI is a non-membership corporation. While it has a Board of Directors and Trustees, it cannot have members. Therefore, in order to operate at all it is staffed and managed by Sea Org members. Indeed, all of Scientology’s churches and secular groups are managed and staffed by Sea Org members.
We view CSI as the operating arm and alter ego of the Sea Org. Likewise, CST and RTC are also managed and staffed by Sea Org members.
All of Scientology is managed and staffed by the Sea Org. Scientology itself cannot exist without the legally nonexistent Sea Org. This absurdity proves our argument that the Sea Org is an actual entity and, as such, is managing agent of the Church of Scientology.
We see Scientology playing the same game the Cosa Nostra did for decades in America. Whenever a member of the Cosa Nostra a/k/a “the Mafia” was arrested, he argued that the Mafia did not exist. And the Mafia did not technically exist as it had no legal form of existence. Just like the Sea Org.
The US Department of Justice and the FBI proved the Mafia did exist and had formal organized command structure, bank accounts, and severe membership rules. RICO laws were passed to prosecute members of organized crime and destroy their charade that the Mafia did not exist. Under RICO laws, prosecutors merely have to prove that a group of people engaged in a common criminal conspiracy to commit organized crime.
The “Sea Org application form” is a contradiction in terms if the Sea Org does not exist. The Sea Org clearly exists and the pretense that it does not is a lie designed to fend off lawsuits for human trafficking, human rights abuses, and the slave labor force Scientology employs while claiming this slave labor force has no legal existence.
The Sea Org application form is quite interesting to examine. The document serves as a culling mechanism to keep many types of people from becoming a member of an organization that does not exist:
Sea.Org.Application.Form.2022