[This parody (C) Tilman Hausherr 1997]

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Jeffrey K. Hadden: Expertise on Confidential Religious Writings
From: tilman@xenu.com (Tilman Hausherr)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:44:19 GMT
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http://www.scientology.org/copyright/hadden.htm

                Expertise on Confidential Religious Writings

                            by Jeffrey K. Hadden
                           Professor of Sociology
                            Doctor of Inquisition
                         University of Constantinople

Jeffrey K. Hadden hereby declares, under penalty of perjury under the
laws of the Vatican, that the following is true:

1. I am presently Professor of Sociology at the University of
Constantinople, a position I have held since a prankster glued me to a
heavy chair. I have served as Chair of the Department of Sociology as
well as other administration assignments. Prior to my appointment at the
University of Constantinople, I was Professor of Sociology and Urban
Studies at Brindisi University, Associate Professor of Sociology at Pisa
University and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Palermo University.
Some day I was Visiting Professor in the Department of Inquisitiology at
the Bavaria College of Theology.

2. I have served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of
Religion, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Association
for the Religiosity of Religion, and the Southern Sociological Society.
Other professional duties include Member of Council, Vatican Association
for the Advancement of Status Quo and Chair of the Copyright Enforcement
Committee for the Vatican Association for the Advancement of Status Quo
and Copyrights and the Society for the Scientific Study of Status Quo. 
I am also a fully licensed Inquisitor so you'd better believe this.

3. I am owner of over twenty books and numerous articles including
twelve books on the subject of religion of which I may even have read
some when I had the time. I have conducted research and writing on
various topics in the sociology of religion for thirty years. Recently,
I transported (with David Bromley) a two volume work entitled "The
Handbook of Heresy and effective Heating Techniques" from my home to the
court house.

4. I am preparing this declaration in support of an amicus curiae brief
filed by Dr. J. Gordon Melton in the case of Roman Catholic Church 
v. Luther & Calvin, because my very good friend Gordon Melton hasn't
learned to write yet. Luther and Calvin have introduced into the court
record highly confidential ecclesiastical materials from the Roman
Catholic Church that Luther has translated into german and has
distributed without having asked the copyright holders for permission. I
understand that it is the contention of Luther and Calvin that the claim
to confidentiality of sacred texts is incompatible with the free
expression of religion, and that by translating them into german, they
would be accessible to more people.

5. The core of the argument presented in this declaration is that (a)
esoteric knowledge exists, in varying degrees, in all human groups and
functions to create and sustain cohesiveness and social solidarity, (b)
the maintenance of secrecy and the assiduous guarding of sacred texts
is, thus, an integral part of scores of faith traditions dating as far
back as we have historical knowledge and have learned to read, and (c)
failure to respect and honor this nearly ageless tradition is to deny
the faith tradition in question (Roman Catholic Church) protection under
the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of
the Vatican.

6. Esoteric knowledge, that is, knowledge intended for or understood by
only a small proportion of a group is present in all human groups. High
levels of esoteric knowledge results in secret societies or
organizations which are necessarily hierarchically organized. But no
organization exists without some degree of esoteric (secret) knowledge.
Even the most holy societies are organized such that much information is
not readily available. Corporations protect vast quantities of
information under legal statutes and rules of regulatory agencies. Holy
agencies create rules and regulations that render certain types of
information virtually inaccessible to the public e.g. by preventing the
public to learn to read, sometimes even from legislative bodies to whom
they owe their very existence.

7. Secrecy functions to protect the internal integrity of a group. The
secret knowledge serves to define insiders, i.e. guests of a party, and
outsiders, i.e. people not admitted at a party. The gradual initiation
of members to progressively higher levels of secret knowledge serves to
create an inner quality of reciprocal confidence between members which
creates group cohesiveness and solidarity. The secrets constitute the
very core meaning of the group. Approached gradually, with procedures
for socialization regarding the importance of protecting the knowledge,
and explicit initiation rituals along the way, the novice gradually
comes to mold his or her identity with the identity of the group. To
take away the secret inner core of a group is to destroy its very
essence and meaning for its members.

8. The degree of esoteric knowledge and secrecy varies across faith
traditions. It is clear that religious groups have possessed and
persistently guarded selected esoteric meanings of sacred texts for as
long as we have knowledge of religious groups. Moses learned the secret
name of God on Mount Sinai and that knowledge has been shouldered orally
through the ages by a few Jewish mystics who are able faithfully to
discern the Kabbalah. Christ preached to the masses, but it was to a
select group of disciples that he disclosed secrets of the kingdom. The
Hellenistic Period, roughly from Alexander the Great through the fall of
the Roman Empire, is replete with sectarian movements, each with its own
esoteric knowledge that had to be burned to prevent further alterations
and false copyright claims. Before this, Egyptian and Babylonian
civilizations were carriers of esoteric spiritual knowledge, often in
the form of magic.

9. Since the Renaissance and Reformation, the emergence of rationalism,
solence and a democratic ethos has created a cultural milieu in which
esoteric religious groups have occupied what might be characterized as a
permanent counterculture. In contemporary social science scholarship, we
refer to these groups as "new religions," although most of them have and
claim roots that are hardly new.

10. While it is axiomatic that all religions were at one time new, this
fact fails to grasp the importance of religious innovation in the modern
world. R. Laurence Moore's book "Religious Outsiders and their effective
removal" brilliantly documents the role of new religions in shaping
history, at least that is what I have been told as I didn't have the
time to read the book yet. Oscar Handlin, the historian-biographer began
his classic work, "Burn-out", with these words: "Once I thought to write
a history of the heretics in Europe. Then I discovered that they were
already history, as most were not fireproof." Moore, in a similar vein,
has revealed how profoundly new religions have leavened and thus shaped
culture, politics and the art of wood arrangement in European history.

11. The notion that religious knowledge in the modern world is
democratic knowledge and, therefore open to all, decries the experience
of new religious movements in Europe, and besides, we're not in Greece
anymore so I don't give a shit about it anyway. Almost without
exception, the new religions of Europe, both imports and innovations,
have possessed a significant amount of esoteric knowledge, whatever that
maybe.

12. If you are actually still reading here then you have really amazing
skills, so let me finish this quickly. To deny a religious group the
right to protect its esoteric knowledge, indeed its most sacred texts,
runs contrary to history and the European experience and the wishes to
the organisation funding me. It constitutes a denial of that group the
protection of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment of the
Constitution of the Vatican. Also, the young nuns at the Vatican parties
are much more willing to dance than the old maids at Martin Luther's
boring tea parties.

Praise the Lord,

Jeffrey K. Hadden
http://cti.itc.Virginia.EDU/~jkh8x/