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David Christopher Lane, Ph.D, is a Professor of Philosophy at Mt. San Antonio College and Founder of the MSAC Philosophy Group. He is the author of several books, including The Sound Current Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and the graphic novel, The Cult of the Seven Sages, translated into Tamil (Kannadhasan Pathippagam, 2024). His website is neuralsurfer.com

Cult Tales

The Day I Landed on Scientology's "List"

David Lane

Setting: London School of Economics. Winter 1993. Conference on New Religions in Europe.

I am occasionally asked about the stranger corners I've wandered through while investigating new religions and cults for nearly five decades. I've learned to answer one story at a time—both to spare the reader whiplash and to spare my own memory from playing hopscotch with the facts. The movement I get asked about most is the Church of Scientology, founded by the late L. Ron Hubbard. I've never published a book solely about Scientology, but I've dealt with its long shadow often enough—Paul Twitchell, for instance, who once did publicity for Hubbard, and Franklin Jones (Adi Da), who trained in Scientology before scrubbing that line from his official hagiography.

What I do have is a very particular evening in London, winter of 1993, where the story bent toward theater.

I was teaching in the University of London's study-abroad program and had been invited by J. Gordon Melton and Eileen Barker to present at the London School of Economics on new religious movements in Europe. I planned to speak about Eckankar, MSIA, and the shabd-yoga constellation. But mid-talk the professor in me strayed, as professors do, and I began to outline L. Ron Hubbard's curiously inflatable résumé—his supposed mastery of physics, his heroic war wounds that mysteriously eluded his naval records, and his habit of letting myth drive the getaway car. (The Los Angeles Times had already documented in 1990 that Hubbard's military files do not support key claims of combat injuries or medals—an awkward fact for a religion that holds up his self-healing as origin story. )

I did not know, as I riffed on the perils of auto-canonization, that the President of Scientology was sitting in the back row.

“Dr. Lane, you are on our list.”

After the session, as coffee and small talk swirled, Heber Jentzsch introduced himself. He looked like any charming, unflappable American religious executive you might meet at an interfaith luncheon—until he didn't. The temperature dropped a few degrees when he began to “correct” my summary of Hubbard's life. I stuck to documentation. He stuck to certitudes. Then came the closer, delivered with that professional smile that never reaches the eyes: “Dr. Lane, you are on our list.”

Naively, I imagined a mailing list. He meant something a touch more Old Testament. “I will be watching you and your work,” he added, in a tone less “peer review” and more “season finale reveal.” I was already battle-tested—threatened with lawsuits by Eckankar, once robbed and threatened by John-Roger Hinkins of MSIA—so the line lodged mostly as gallows humor. I'd apparently been promoted from scholar to subplot.

For years after, my university mailbox filled with glossy Scientology brochures, as if a paper blizzard might soften my skepticism. Happily, because Scientology wasn't the focus of my own research, nothing worse befell me.

Heber, however, did not fare so well.

What happened to the president?

From frontman to a ghost in his own church

In the 1980s and 90s, Heber Jentzsch was Scientology's public face, endlessly on television and quoted in newspapers—the “president,” though even the LA Times noted in 1990 that real power sat elsewhere, with David Miscavige. By the 2000s, multiple defectors and reporters said Heber had been swept into the Hole, a guarded set of office-trailers at Scientology's Gold Base compound near Hemet, California—described by ex-officials as group confinement for senior executives, with cots on floors, short food breaks, and humiliating “confession” sessions. The church has repeatedly denied the Hole exists, calling what outsiders describe “religious discipline,” but extensive reporting names Heber among those held there. (Wikipedia)

Former top Scientology staff told the Tampa Bay Times that Miscavige used intimidation and even beatings to enforce loyalty—allegations the church rejects. The series also detailed the Hole and the internal purge that fed it. If you want the institutional irony in one image: the “president” reduced to sleeping under a desk.

In 2018, Heber's niece sought a sheriff-accompanied welfare check at Gold Base. According to documents later posted by ex-spokesman Mike Rinder, deputies reported that Heber was present on the base, apparently under the watch of a full-time nurse—though family members still couldn't see him. The church didn't offer public clarity; former members cried foul. (I'm noting this as their account; the church disputes most such claims.)

And in a final twist of corporate metaphysics, a 2023 California filing surfaced in 2024 still listing the 88-year-old Jentzsch as CEO of Church of Scientology International—paperwork lagging reality by a decade, or perhaps reality lagging paperwork, depending on your theology of spreadsheets.

The death of his son, and “disconnection”

The human cost hit even closer. In July 2012, Heber's son, Alexander, died at 27. LA media initially reported the eerie gaps around his final hours and that his mother, Karen de la Carrière (a prominent ex-member), was barred from viewing his body—“disconnection” in action, the practice of cutting off those deemed enemies of the church. Later that year, the Los Angeles County Coroner ruled Alexander's death an accident—pneumonia complicated by methadone; the combination can depress breathing fatally. De la Carrière has long maintained that Scientology's “disconnection” kept her son isolated when he most needed help.

Bad reports the church can't seem to audit away

If you study new religions long enough, you learn to separate allegation, evidence, and the organization's reply. With Scientology, that triangle is crowded:

Violence and coercion at the top. The Tampa Bay Times' investigation (“The Truth Rundown”) quoted multiple veteran executives alleging physical assaults by Miscavige and described the Hole as a degrading lock-in for senior staff. The church calls these defectors liars and says the Hole “never existed.”

“Disconnection” and “Fair Game.” Paul Haggis' long interview in The New Yorker detailed how policy pressures members to sever ties with critical family and friends, and described accounts of punishing “ethics” regimens and forced labor in the Sea Org. While Hubbard cancelled the term “Fair Game” in 1968 for PR reasons, ex-members argue the aggressive tactics toward critics endured under other labels; the church insists it acts within the law.

Forced-labor and trafficking claims. The Ninth Circuit's Headley decision (2012) dismissed a human-trafficking suit by two former Sea Org members—not because the alleged conditions were rosy, but because the court concluded the statute didn't fit the facts as pled and the plaintiffs were not legally coerced. Other civil actions continue to probe similar allegations; a 2022 complaint filed by Cohen Milstein outlined stories of children doing grueling labor with little schooling, claims the church denies.

The RPF—“rehabilitation” or re-education? Scholarly and journalistic accounts describe the Rehabilitation Project Force as harsh isolation plus long hours of manual labor; Scientology says it's a voluntary spiritual second chance for Sea Org members. Even here the optics do not favor the church: boiler-suits, running everywhere, “MEST work,” and eating leftovers do not scream wellness retreat.

Criminal convictions abroad, and a long domestic rap sheet of controversy. In France, Scientology's organizations were found guilty of organized fraud in 2009; appeals courts upheld those convictions in 2012 and 2013. In the U.S., the church's 1970s Guardian's Office ran Operation Snow White, one of the largest infiltrations of the federal government in history; eleven Scientologists (including Hubbard's wife) were convicted, and courts documented the FBI's massive raids. Scientology says that era is long past and those involved were removed.

The Lisa McPherson case. After the 36-year-old Scientologist died in Clearwater in 1995 following 17 days in church care, criminal charges were brought against the church as a corporation and later dropped; a civil wrongful-death suit by her family was settled in 2004. The case became a rallying point for critics and a reputational scar the church never really buffed out.

Forced-abortion allegations. Former Sea Org member Laura DeCrescenzo alleged she was coerced to have an abortion at 17. After nearly a decade of litigation, the church settled just weeks before trial (while denying every claim). Whatever the confidential terms, the optics were brutal.

Celebrities, courts, and public heat. In recent years, cases connected to celebrity Scientologists—most notably Danny Masterson's criminal conviction—have spawned separate civil suits alleging harassment of accusers, with courts allowing some claims to proceed despite the church's push for religious arbitration. (The church denies wrongdoing.)

And threading through all of this is an institutional paradox worthy of satire: a religion that preaches freedom from the “reactive mind” often responds to critics with extraordinary reactivity—legal blitzes, private investigators, and tight message discipline. (Hubbard's own wars with the IRS ended in a 1993 global settlement granting tax-exempt status to Scientology entities; years later the deal's details leaked, prompting a fresh round of debate about how, exactly, that détente came about.)

What Heber may have endured

If we stitch together the most credible reporting and testimony (while noting the church's blanket denials), a stark picture emerges:

Confinement among peers. Multiple defectors say Heber was among dozens of senior executives confined in the Hole for long stretches in the mid-2000s, sleeping on floors or cots, marched to showers, and subjected to group “confession” sessions in cramped, ant-ridden office trailers. The church says the Hole “never existed,” but the Tampa Bay Times and others documented consistent, independent accounts.

Humiliation and menial work. Accounts from ex-staff describe inmates doing demeaning chores and “ethics” punishments; more broadly, Sea Org “rehabilitation” programs emphasize heavy manual labor, isolation, and submission to authority—“a second chance,” per the church; “coercion,” per critics. If Heber cycled through similar regimens, it would explain why a man once flanked by celebrities might vanish into mop buckets and midnight roll-calls.

Family grief in the shadow of policy. Alexander's death in 2012 was ruled an accidental combination of pneumonia and methadone. Yet the story around his funeral—his mother's “disconnected” status and inability to view his body—became a case study in how doctrine can turn a family tragedy into a public relations wound.

Alive, but unheard. In 2018, a sheriff's welfare check (as reported by ex-members who posted the paperwork) confirmed Heber on-site and under care—but without resolving why the onetime president has not been allowed to speak publicly for himself. Bureaucracy later listed him as “CEO” on a California filing, a title that reads less like power and more like a ghost note in a corporate hymn.

A little irony, because how else do you tell this story?

Scientology loves the language of clearing—the great unburdening of the human psyche. And yet its institutional biography reads like a reactive-mind greatest hits: infiltration of government offices in the 1970s (Snow White), furious campaigns against defectors and journalists, high-pressure fundraising, secretive justice systems, and a steel-belted aversion to accountability. The best quip I can offer is modest: if you truly conquer the mind, you don't need security gates, trailer bars, and nondisclosure agreements to keep your truths from walking away.

That evening in London now plays in my head like a stage scene:

A lecture hall; the skeptical professor; the famous spokesman incognito in the back; a duel of dossiers. Then a line:

“You are on our list.”

Cue the pamphlets, the certified letters, the phone calls, the slow retreat of the president himself into a place his own church says does not exist.

If there's a moral, it's this: cults (and yes, I include over-controlled religions) always promise certainty as an anesthetic for doubt. But the bill for certainty comes due—in families severed, in executives reduced to inmates, in presidents turned into rumors. Meanwhile, I still prefer doubt. Doubt keeps the lights on. Doubt asks for receipts. Doubt insists we treat every human being—insider, outsider, critic, believer—as something more than a unit of public relations.

And if I'm still on a list somewhere, I hope it's the one at a coffee shop where we can sit, pull primary sources, compare notes, and ask the humblest question a scholar can: What, exactly, happened—and how do we know?