The Road to Total Freedom
A sociological analysis of scientology

by Roy Wallis


[Part 1]   --   [Part 2]   --   [Part 3]

Criticizing Scientology does have a price, as Wallis found out, and L. Ron Hubbard wanted to get known - to deter criticism. The following appears in Chapter 4 of Stewart Lamont's book Religion Inc.: the Church of Scientology:

In the early 1970s, sociologist Roy Wallis was completing his research project on Scientology eventually published under the title *The Road to Total Freedom* when he became the victim of the Guardians' paranoia. Ironically the book is now accepted by the Public Affairs office of the Church of Scientology as reasonable and fair (they even loaned me a copy) but at the time an undercover agent was sent to Stirling University where Wallis then taught. Posing as a student, he attempted to get Wallis to tell him if he was involved in the drug scene. Wallis recognized him from Saint Hill, so the student then changed his story, claiming to be a defector from the Church of Scientology. In 'The Moral Career of a Research Project' (published within *Doing Sociological Research* in 1977) Wallis describes what happened next: 'In the weeks following his visit a number of forged letters came to light, some of which were supposedly written by me. These letters sent to my university employers, colleagues and others, implicated me in a variety of acts from a homosexual love affair to spying for the drug squad. Because I had few enemies and because this attention followed so closely upon the receipt of my paper by the Church of Scientology organization, it did not seem too difficult to infer the source of these attempts to inconvenience me.'


Article by Roy Wallis of 7 June 1973, "Religious sects and the fear of publicity". Here too, Wallis describe some strange instances of harassment:

A later batch of letters was addressed to "The Chancellor" of Stirling University. The covering letter this time was purportedly from a disgusted landlady. Contained with it were two homosexual love letters of an obscene kind, written on Stirling Department of Sociology notepaper -- or more probably a photograph copy of the letter-head -- typed on a machine with a distinctive type-face very similar to my personal portable, and signed with my name. On investigation by the police the landlady was found not to exist.


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