Scientology: A to Xenu: An Insider's Guide to What Scientology is Really All About by Chris Shelton

Author:Chris Shelton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: GraphicsWerks
Published: 2015-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

12. Scientology’s PR Problem (Let’s talk about OSA)

To anyone who pays attention to the Church of Scientology on a fairly regular basis, it has become obvious over the past couple of years its public image has taken repeated (well-deserved) beatings. It's so bad at this point I believe it has passed the point of no return. There is no road for Scientology to regain a favorable public image and it's only going down from here.

What's not so obvious is why this has happened.

We critics of the Church can only stand with our mouths open in shock when we see some of the more insane displays of hate and fear high-level Scientologists demonstrate when the cameras are rolling. I can only imagine the horror Church members themselves must feel when they see how their organization represents itself to the world at large. Believe me, despite the Church's internal demands on its members to not watch or read anything bad about Scientology, the widespread accessibility of mass media in this day and age makes it impossible to censor the truth anymore.

There are reasons the Church of Scientology acts so blatantly against its own best interests and I'm going to break down some of those reasons for you. With more exposés and full-blown documentaries about Scientology on the horizon, I want to also lay out what we can expect to see from the Church in response to these and why their responses are only going to make matters worse for them.

The Office of Special Affairs (OSA)

I think most people who have any awareness of Scientology know about the Office of Special Affairs, the Church's legal division. In fact, much of the Church's bad PR is due to the hard work of OSA's Investigation and Legal departments, including the non-Scientologist lawyers and private investigators they hire to actually carry out most of their dirty work. When you see Scientology stalking and harassing its ex-members, for example, you are seeing these investigators and lawyers doing their daily work.

What many may not realize is OSA also has a Public Relations department fully responsible for the Church's external public image and media representation.

Public Relations is an important subject for any group, company or organization. Technically, it's the practice of managing the spread of information between the individual or group and the rest of the world, the public. Billions of dollars are spent every year on PR. Some do it better than others, but it's safe to say almost anything you see in any mass media outlet has been directly affected by professional PR work.

By any yardstick you care to use, OSA has done an absolutely horrendous job for many years. It's degenerated so badly there hasn't even been a public media representative or international spokesman for Scientology since Tommy Davis disappeared in 2011. It took two years just for the public to find out Mr. Davis left the employment of the Church along with his wife and does his absolute best to stay out of the limelight now.

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