Scientology

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	The Life and Death of a Scientologist (Washington Post; 1998)
	The John Zegel tapes (Real Audio and transcripts)
	Penthouse interview with L. Ron Hubbard Jr. (Penthouse; 1983)

Scientology is a new religious movement, considered by many to be a cult, that was established in 1951 as a pseudoscientific alternative to psychotherapy by science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, then recharacterized by him in 1953 as an “applied religious philosophy.”

The term Scientology is a trademark of the Religious Technology Center, which licenses its use and the copyrighted works of Hubbard to the controversial Church of Scientology. The Church presents itself as a religious non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging development of the human spirit, and providing counseling and rehabilitation programs as an alternative to psychiatry, which Scientologists believe to be a barbaric and corrupt profession. Church spokespeople attest that Hubbard’s teachings (called “technology” or “tech” in Scientology terminology) have freed them from addictions, depression, learning disabilities, mental illness and other problems.

However, the Church of Scientology has attracted much controversy and criticism. Critics—including government officials of various countries—have characterized the Church as an unscrupulous commercial organization, and it is often described as a cult that harasses critics and exploits its members. Critics also argue many of the Church's controversial actions are a direct reflection of Hubbard's teachings.

Despite the similarity between their names, there is no connection between Scientology and the Church of Christ, Scientist, better known as “Christian Science.”

Beliefs and practices

Scientology’s doctrines were established by Hubbard over a period of about 33 years, from 1952 until his death in January 1986. Most of its basic principles were set out during the 1950s and 1960s.

Scientology was expanded and reworked from Dianetics, an earlier system of self-improvement techniques set out by Hubbard in his 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. By the mid-1950s, Hubbard had relegated Dianetics to a sub-study of Scientology. The chief difference between Dianetics and Scientology is that Dianetics focuses on the individual’s present life and dealing with physical, mental or emotional problems, and teaches that most problems in a person's life are caused by reactions to past trauma. Scientology adopts a more overtly religious approach, dealing with spiritual issues such as past lives in addition to present-day issues. Scientology also covers topics such as ethics and morality (The Way to Happiness), physical health as it relates to spiritual wellbeing (Purification Rundown), communication, marriage, raising children, dealing with work-related problems, study technology, and the very nature of life (The Dynamics).

Scientology beliefs are structured in a series of levels leading to the more advanced strata of esoteric knowledge. This is described as the passage up “the Bridge to Total Freedom,” or simply “the Bridge.”

The central beliefs of Scientology are:

• A person is an immortal spiritual being (termed a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body.
• The thetan has lived through many past lives and will continue to live beyond the death of the body.
• A person is basically good, but becomes “aberrated” by moments of pain and unconsciousness in his life.
• What is true is what is true for you. No beliefs should be enforced as “true” on anyone. Rather, the tenets of Scientology are expected to be tested and seen to be true, or not, by its practitioners.
• Scientology can help the world on a large scale with problems such as drugs, crime, illiteracy, human rights, et cetera.

Scientology claims to offer an exact methodology to help a person achieve improved spiritual and ethical education, so that he or she may achieve a greater level of spiritual awareness and effectiveness in the physical world. Exact methods of spiritual counseling are proposed to enable this change. The ultimate goal of Scientology is to rehabilitate the thetan soul back to its native state of total freedom, thus gaining control over matter, energy, space, time, thoughts, form, and life. This state is called Operating Thetan, or OT for short.

References

• Atack, Jon (1990). A Piece of Blue Sky. A critical history of Scientology, by a Scientology archivist and former Scientologist. ISBN 081840499X.
• Frenschkowski, Marco (1999). L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology: An annotated bibliographical survey of primary and selected secondary literature.
• Spaink, Karin. The Fishman Affidavit. Includes details of some of Scientology’s high-level “Operating Thetan” teachings.
• Miller, Russell (1987). Bare-faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-0654-0.
• Kent, Stephen A. (1996). Scientology’s Relationship With Eastern Religious Traditions.

Further reading

• Hubbard, L. Ron. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Bridge Publications, 1995. ISBN 088404632X.

Web links

• Official Church of Scientology Web site
• Operation Clambake: Inner Secrets of Scientology

This article is licensed under the Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Scientology.”