Binding arbitration is often presented as a neutral, efficient alternative to litigation. In many contexts, it genuinely is that. In Scientology’s contract, however, arbitration is not an alternative forum for resolution; it is a mechanism that prevents meaningful resolution altogether. The system operates not by adjudicating disputes but by ensuring they can never be heard or tested in any external or impartial venue. This is enforceability achieved not through balance but through impossibility.

At the core of the Scientology Religious Services Enrollment Application, Agreement and General Release is a clause that demands the signer forever abandon any right to sue or seek civil legal recourse against the Church or its affiliates.

This waiver is comprehensive, applying to all disputes, claims, or controversies irrespective of their nature or cause. It is not a limited agreement to arbitrate; it is a preemptive surrender of jurisdiction that removes civil courts from ever having standing to consider any claim. The contract allows no carve-outs, no exceptions, and no recourse beyond the Church’s own internal procedures. In practice, this transforms disputes from legally cognizable events into procedural nullities.

An agreement to arbitrate might still be defensible if it offered neutral adjudication, but Scientology’s arbitration system eliminates neutrality at its foundation. The contract requires that all arbitrators be Scientologists in good standing, selected either by the parties themselves or, failing agreement, by the Church’s International Justice Chief.

The arbitrator is, by definition, someone already aligned with the institutional and doctrinal commitments of the Church. A claimant does not confront a neutral decision-maker who applies general principles of law; instead, one enters a closed system where the adjudicator shares the worldview, training, and internal incentives of the opposing party. This is not bias by accident; it is structural bias by definition.

A critical element of Scientology’s arbitration structure is the categorical exclusion of legal counsel. Scientology arbitration does not merely discourage lawyers; it forbids their presence. The claimant must appear alone, stripped of the one professional trained to recognize coercion, preserve objections, create a record, or challenge jurisdictional abuse.

This is not a neutral procedural choice. It is a structural disarmament. By denying counsel, Scientology ensures that no legally cognizable dispute can be articulated, no procedural defect preserved, and no enforceable record created. The absence of lawyers is not incidental to the system; it is essential to it. A process in which one side designs the forum, selects the decision-makers, controls the rules, and bars legal representation is not arbitration. It is a demonstrative criminal intent to deny justice. Maximum enforceability is achieved not by fairness, but by rendering legal participation impossible at the moment it would otherwise begin. This is a violation of the principle of justice. 

The contract further asserts that all services, records, and interpretations are exclusively religious in nature, governed by ecclesiastical doctrine rather than civil standards. Scientology training materials, auditing records, and spiritual files are characterized as neither comprehensible nor intended to be understood by anyone outside a sanctioned doctrinal framework.

Claims of harm or misapplication must thus be articulated within a language that only insiders fully “understand” — a linguistic and doctrinal lock-in that effectively bars claimants from framing their experiences in ordinary legal or evidentiary terms.

Adding another layer to this impenetrable structure is the handling of records. Auditing and spiritual progress folders are declared the exclusive property of the Church and permanently inaccessible to the participant. They are protected by privileged status and cannot be subpoenaed, inspected, or used as evidence in any external forum. This evidentiary asymmetry ensures that even if a claimant could somehow get past jurisdictional barriers and doctrinal obfuscation, they would have no access to the very records that would be necessary to prove their case. Without evidence, there can be no adjudication; without access, there can be no evidence.

Perhaps most strikingly, the waiver of civil rights in the contract persists irrespective of the signer’s capacity, life status, or future circumstances. It binds heirs, representatives, and assigns in perpetuity. This is more than a simple contractual term; it is a permanent legal nullification of any civil claim or defense, effective even if the claimant is incapacitated or deceased. It is a forward-looking waiver that outlives context, harm, and the possibility of redress.

Courts have been reluctant to scrutinize such clauses when they are cloaked in the language of religious arbitration. Deference to religious autonomy and fear of entanglement frequently shield these provisions from rigorous judicial review. What gets obscured in judicial deference, however, is the underlying mechanism: a system that protects itself by making challenge structurally infeasible. The arbitration clause in Scientology’s contract is not an avenue for dispute resolution; it is a firewall against it.

The enforceability of this system rests precisely on its impossibility of meaningful challenge. Neutral adjudication is disallowed by design, evidence is inaccessible by contract, language is doctrinally closed, and jurisdiction is contractually extinguished. This combination creates what can most accurately be described as Maximum Enforceability Through Impossibility: a regime that is enforceable because it cannot be effectively tested or challenged. It is enforceability not through balance, fairness, or transparency, but through procedural exclusion.

A system that does not allow disputes to be understood in ordinary discourse, heard by neutral adjudicators, evaluated with accessible evidence, or reviewed in external courts is not dispute resolution in any meaningful sense. It is a mechanism of containment, not accountability.

Scientology’s arbitration clause is enforceable precisely because it eliminates almost every dimension on which enforceability could be tested. The structure does not resolve disputes; it prevents them from ever entering the legal world at all. What remains is not arbitration, but preclusion. The clause is impervious by design — and fraudulent ab initio.

Scientology Religious Services Enrollment Application, Agreement and Release Contract