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The Miscavige coup : Power takeover after Hubbard's death

Has anyone noticed that Wikipedia has very little content related to David Miscavige's takeover of power and control of the Church of Scientology after L. Ron Hubbard's death? I also mentioned it at Talk:Pat Broeker § Broeker's role and the power struggle. There is quite a bit of material in several books about the power struggle, including Atack, Lamont, Miller, Reitman and Wright (four of which are available online) and possibly Rinder and Urban.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Grorp (talk) 04:51, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also called "the corporate sort-out" (CSO). Here is another source giving tips of this period of corporate reorganization.[8] Grorp (talk) 07:31, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Today I added some of this information (in summary) into Church of Scientology § History... prompted by the auto-archival of this thread.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 08:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Still needs doing.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 05:59, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Atack, Jon (1990). A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed. Lyle Stuart Books. ISBN 081840499X. OL 9429654M.
  2. ^ Lamont, Stewart (1986). Religion Inc. : The Church of Scientology. Harrap. ISBN 0245543341. OL 2080316M.
  3. ^ Miller, Russell (1987). Bare-faced Messiah : The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0805006540. OL 26305813M.
  4. ^ Reitman, Janet (2011). Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618883028. OL 24881847M.
  5. ^ Rinder, Mike (2022). A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781982185763.
  6. ^ Urban, Hugh B. (2011). The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691146089.
  7. ^ Wright, Lawrence (2013). Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307700667. OL 25424776M.
  8. ^ "CST v US 1992". June 29, 1992.

Open discussion about categorizing Hubbard's Scientology books

(Pinging @GreenLipstickLesbian: and @Cambial Yellowing: as two editors recently involved in categorizing these sorts of articles.)

Over the last two years I have watched several attempts to categorize Hubbard-authored Scientology books (list of books, category) as non-fiction, or fiction, or pseudoscience. The fact is Hubbard intended them as non-fiction. Some others have categorized them as pseudoscience, therefore wanting to categorize the books as fiction as well. I've seen reverts and the same efforts happen again over time. I think it's time we solve the dilemnas.

Checking online about library science (not my wheelhouse) I find that libraries tend to categorize books as fiction or non-fiction based on the publisher's labeling of a book. Since the Church of Scientology has been publishing their own books for decades (they have their own print facility), that doesn't help to classify. Worldcat doesn't seem to mention fiction or non-fiction for the several Hubbard works I checked, so that's no help either.

Other search results yielded firm answers that the author's intention is key. If the author intended it to be entertainment or storytelling, a book is classified as fiction. If the author intended it to be 'the way things are', then it is considered non-fiction even if the material is hokum or pseudoscience. The truth or falsity of the material does not alter the classification.

That said, I checked Wikipedia categorization of other new religion type texts. A lot of those have their own categories which for Scientology would probably get labelled Category:Scientology texts. By using the word "texts", those other "belief systems" avoid the fiction versus nonfiction dichotomy. I think we should consider this method. That leaves open how we categorize Category:Scientology texts under parent categories, and avoids the fiction/nonfiction conundrum.

The other question is whether to call them "English" books because though authored originally in English, the Church of Scientology has translated and published each one of them into dozens of languages. I recommend avoiding Category:English books entirely.

Please discuss.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would love to solve this issue - our books and novels categorizations schemes have a lot of weak points, and this is very clearly one of them. Mind if I cross-post this to WP:BOOKS for some wider input?
Personally speaking, I am with you that the author's intent and what the book was marketed as is what matters the most. By placing a book in a non-fiction category, I'm not endorsing it, or saying that everything in it is true or objective fact, I'm just saying that it is a book which is primarily meant to deal with the real world. Whether or not it did it successfully is something for the article body to deal with. This means that I've been leaving books promoting pseudoscience and fringe medical claims, books about on alien abductions, and stuff like The Lightning and the Sun in the non-fiction categories. I'm not exactly thrilled about it, obviously, but as far as I know the authors wrote them as non-fiction and marketed them as non-fiction. I do really like the idea of at least moving the Scientology texts into a subcategory of Category:Religious texts. This could get weird with new religious movement-related texts (For an example, books promoting some alternative medicine might be classified as non-fiction, but also closely connected to Falun Gong, and the books of Jacques Breyer were influential amongst followers of the OTS but I don't believe he was ever a member). Sorry if I'm dragging this too far off the Scientology aspect, I'm just excited that somebody other than me is looking at this and thinking we need a better solution, and I want whatever solution we come up with to be as widely-implementable as possible!
As for the English-language thing - the Category:Books by language organization scheme isn't perfect, but generally, a book is categorized by the language it was originally published in. If there is a notable translation which has a stand-alone article, it can go into the new language category. So the Scientology books were originally published in English, as far as I can tell, so that's the most defining language for them. I totally get what you're saying though, about the translations maybe changing things. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 05:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, notify WP:BOOKS of this discussion. I tried to find something, anything, in Wikipedia that addressed the fiction/nonfiction topic and couldn't find anything. Maybe the folks at BOOKS have been through this sort of discussion before.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:14, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've left a notification. [1] GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 07:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree we should avoid the fiction/non-fiction dichotomy.
I see no evidence that the books were intended to deal with the real world. Hubbard knew he was making it up, and there is no evidence of any effort on his part to make the contents an accurate reflection of reality. The purpose was to sell books and to market his courses. It is true that some of the books were marketed as non-fiction - a different question. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was also marketed as non-fiction. For the same reason as Hubbard's works, we do not categorise it as non-fiction. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:04, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Rinder nominated at WP:ITNC

I have nominated the article Mike Rinder to be linked on the main page under In the News following his recent death. The discussion may be found here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Scientology