I. Profile Report

1. Name: Church of Scientology;

   Scientology means " knowing about knowing," from the Latin, Scio, and the Greek, logos.

2. Founder: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (L. Ron)

3. Date of Birth and Death: 1911-1986

4. Birth Place: Tilden, Nebraska

5. Year Founded: 1954

6. How/Why?:

          L. Ron Hubbard first gained notoriety in the 1940s as a writer of penny-a-word science fiction stories for pulp magazines like Amazing Science Fiction. After leaving George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he had been at best a mediocre student, Hubbard embarked on a career in the U.S. Navy. Hubbard later claimed that injuries sustained during the war landed him by 1947 in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, crippled and blinded. According to "L. Ron Hubbard, A Brief Biographical Sketch," a Church publication, "he developed techniques [at Oak Knoll] that would help him overcome his injuries and regain his abilities. Altogether, he spent nearly a year at Oak Knoll, during which time he synthesized what he had learned of Eastern philosophy, his understanding of nuclear physics and his experiences among men." While Scientology's critics question Hubbard's account of his Navy convalescence, there can be no doubt that during this period the fundamental innovations which brought forth Dianetics, a melange of Eastern mysticism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and a fair amount of pseudo-science, took place. In 1950, the publishing of an article on Dianetics in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, followed by the rollout of Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, set off a craze in the U.S.. Hubbard set up the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in late 1950, in part to cash in on the popularity his self-help philosophy had garnered.
   

          Subsequently, Dianetics centers opened in major cities across the country. In the four years which followed the publishing of his book, Hubbard made the crucial innovative leaps which transformed and extended Dianetics into the realm of the spiritual. Scientology was born. In 1954 the First Church of Scientology was opened in Los Angeles. In 1955 the Founding Church of Scientology was established in NW Washington D.C.. Subsequently, the Church spread throughout the country and around the world as it evolved its current highly-organized, regimented structure. Throughout the many stages of its evolution, L. Ron Hubbard guided Scientology's development as the movement's idiosyncratic, paranoid prophet.

7. Sacred or Revered Texts:

          Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, authored in 1950 by L. Ron Hubbard, is the fundamental sacred text of Scientology, but the entire corpus of Hubbard's writings and recorded spoken words are considered by Church members to be sacred scriptures. Hubbard has written dozens of books which are claimed to total more than 500,000 pages, and there are nearly 3,000 tape-recorded lectures. In addition, the Church's Religious Technology Center, based in California, zealously guards access to a few thousand pages of what it calls "upper-level" scriptural materials, which may only be viewed by initiates who have completed many years and thousands of hours of coursework. The Church has often resorted to litigation in order to keep these " Operating Thetan" or "OT" materials secret and under its sole control. The OT levels could be regarded as the most sacred scriptures of Scientology.

8. Cult or Sect:

   Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.

          The Church of Scientology is an innovative religious system which combines elements of Eastern mysticism, Freudian psychoanalysis, the occult, and L. Ron Hubbard's own cosmology. As such, it is not an offshoot of any particular existing religious group. In fact, Scientologists claim that Scientology is an "Applied Religious Philosophy" which can coexist with and complement other religious beliefs. As an innovative belief system which is in high tension and seemingly continual conflict with society, Scientology can be classified as a cult.

         Since the vast majority of people who experience Scientology do so through exposure to its "engram-clearing" self-help auditing coursework (specific services which are rendered in exchange for "fixed donations,") it can thus be said that, for most participants, Scientology is a "client" cult (by the definition of sociologists Stark and Bainbridge). However, for those who go "on staff" and become more deeply involved in the pursuit of more general compensators, Scientology may be a full-fledged Cult Movement.

9. Beliefs: From Dianetics...

          Dianetics posits three separate components of the human mind: the Analytical, Reactive, and Somatic components. The Analytical mind, roughly akin to Freud's "ego," normally overlays the Reactive and Somatic. The Analytical mind is completely logical and is incapable of error - it is the brain's computer. With the Analytical mind functioning properly, humans are able to make logical decisions in complex situations. Lurking just below the functional level of the Analytical Mind, however, is the Reactive Mind. The Reactive Mind is a vestigial artifact which controls unthinking stimulus/response reactions. In times of great pain or stress, the fragile Analytical Mind ceases to function - in its absence, the Reactive Mind takes primacy. During these periods, the Reactive Mind perfectly records traumatic experiences in full sensory detail, with all their painful and unpleasant sensations intact.

          Scientologists believe that it is these complete experiential "recordings" by the Reactive Mind of painful past experiences, called " engrams," which cause all manner of "psychosomatic" illness in individuals. While the individual may not be able to recall them at will, engrams are retained by the mind - fragments of these traumatic sensory records intrude periodically into the consciousness of the individual, to deleterious effect. Engrams are believed to be the root of human irrationality and error - they are impediments to each individual's realization of his full potential. Dianetics therapy, called "auditing," encourages individuals to relive or "run through" engrams. Dianetics teaches that when engrams are dealt with this way they can be inactivated. Auditing sessions are formalized encounters between an auditor and a client. These sessions often involve the use of the lie-detector-like E-meter (electropsychometer).

          The goal of Dianetic auditing is the eradication of all engrams from the individual. When this occurs, a person is said to be "clear," that is, free from all Reactive Mind subversion of the perfect functioning of the Analytical Mind. Scientologists believe that "clears" can more perfectly realize their true potential as humans. According to the Scientology document " The Bridge To A Better Life, "clears" experience "...the highest states of awareness as a spiritual being."

   ...to Scientology.

          Scientology is a logical extension of Dianetics. The crucial innovation which transformed L. Ron Hubbard's self-help "applied philosophy" into a religious movement was his creation of the concept of the "thetan," which is, in the words of sociologist William Bainbridge, "analogous to the Christian notion of soul. All humans actually are thetans, immortal spiritual entities possessing virtually infinite powers." Scientologists believe that the levels of Scientology beyond "clear" allow the individual to progress up the "bridge to total freedom;" freedom from physical constraints of their material bodies and the material universe, which Scientologists call MEST (Matter, Energy, Space and Time). Scientologists who progress up the OT Bridge may "know... immortality and freedom from the cycle of birth and death," according to "The State Of Operating Thetan," a Church document. Thus, the individual's goal in Scientology is to come into full awareness of his existence as a being who transcends MEST. Scientology, in sum, is a religious movement which professes to guide the journey of the individual towards a state of transcendent near-perfection.

          As Scientologists progress up the Bridge, they learn the details of Hubbard's cosmology, which articulates a many-trillion-year history eerily similar to the "galactic space opera" of Hubbard's prolific science-fiction efforts. Operating Thetan Level III ( NOT a link to the actual document, but rather to an independent summary of it.), which details how, when and why humans came to Earth, is a good sample of this cosmology.

10. Size of Group:

           Individuals can become Scientology "members" at vastly different levels of organizational involvement. "Membership" can involve attendance at a free "Dianetics" lecture, enrollment in auditing coursework, even the pledging of eternal service to the Church as a member of the elite Sea Organization. It is thus difficult to establish a concrete size estimate for the Church of Scientology. The core group of highly-involved Church members who oversee the functioning of the Church organizational hierarchy, most of them highly-committed Sea Org members, is perhaps a few thousand strong. The number of Scientologists who have progressed far along the OT-level "Bridge" is similarly small. The Church of Scientology's official current public size estimate hovers around 8 million active members. This number is undoubtedly rather inflated, but if all those who have had contact with Dianetics and Scientology over their nearly 50 years of existence were incorporated into the estimate, the total would almost certainly be in the millions.

11. Remarks: A Notorious Movement

           Without a doubt, Scientology is one of the most notorious new religious movements in the modern world. Few other groups have recieved as much negative publicity as Scientology has; significantly, much of this negative publicity has come from mainstream, established mass media outlets. Few other groups have been investigated and accused of wrongdoing at various times by so many government agencies (including the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, and the FBI). Few other movements have as vocal a cabal of angry apostates and critics who seek to warn the world of the multiplicity of evils routinely perpetrated by the Church.

           Why is this? Much of the adverse publicity which has beset the Church in recent years has resulted from Scientology's willingness to fight when the group perceives that it is being threatened or encroached upon. L. Ron Hubbard imbued the institutions he created to perpetuate Scientology with an aggressive survival philosophy. This is why the Church's Religious Technology Center, holder of copyright on all of L. Ron Hubbard's "Tech" materials, is so quick to litigate in response to distribution by apostates of their secret Upper Level OT materials (ex. over the Internet); Scientologists perceive such actions as a threat to their existence, and take appropriate steps.

           In the past, action against percieved "threats" to Scientology has even been extra-legal. In 1980 Scientologists from the para-military Guardian's Office, including L. Ron Hubbard's wife, were convicted and sent to federal prison after infiltrating, bugging, and stealing thousands of Scientology-related documents from federal agencies, foreign embassies, and other organizations critical of Scientology in Washington D.C.. Scientology often coordinates litigation and harassment of its most vocal critics through its Office of Special Affairs, the "enforcement" arm of the movement which succeeded the old Guardian's Office. Scientology's harassment of critics and apostates (which has in many cases only made them fight harder) is the logical extension of a doctrine formulated by Hubbard in the 1960s which he called "Fair Game." Very simply, this doctrine declares that enemies of the Church "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologists. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed" (from Hubbard's original HCOPL (policy letter)). Though the Church officially states that it no longer advocates "fair game," its actions continue to prove otherwise.

    A Labrynthine Structure

           One of the most unusual features of the Church of Scientology is the enormous number of separate institutions which comprise it. The Church organization is so complex that only a very brief sketch can be outlined here. Missions, which are Scientology "franchises" located all over the world, are run by independent Scientologists - they remit a fixed percentage of their income to the movement. These franchises offer low-level auditing coursework. Above them are four Advanced Orgs, in the United States and elsewhere (notably at Saint Hill in England). Above these Orgs is the Flag Service Org, based in an old hotel in Clearwater, Florida. The Sea Organization also runs a mobile, sea-based Flag Service Org. The umbrella organization for all these missions, churches, and Orgs worldwide is the Church Of Scientology International (CSI) in Los Angeles. However, indications are that real power over Scientology's affairs is wielded by the pseudo-independent Religious Technology Center, which holds the rights to all of L. Ron Hubbard's intellectual property, including the trade-secret upper OT levels. The reclusive David Miscaviage, President of the RTC, is said to have the final authority over Scientology's affairs.

           Scientology also controls a diverse group of organizations which advance its interests, either overtly or covertly. These include Narconon, a drug-abuse treatment program, and Criminon, which aims to rehabilitate criminals, WISE (the World Institute of Scientology Enterprise), which promotes Scientology's applicability in the business world, the CCHR (Citizen's Commission on Human Rights), which fights psychiatry (one of Scientology's avowed enemies), and the Cult Awareness Network Reform Group (an anti-CAN group), though this last may now be superfluous.

II. Links to Scientology Web Sites

Scientology: Applied Religious Philosophy.
The Church Of Scientology's new official web site. Read about Scientology as it describes itself. An amazingly rich, professionally-authored resource, though often quite vague about specific Church practices. The Scientologists have truly outdone themselves with this site, which replaces a hodgepodge of earlier, more amateurish efforts.
http://www.scientology.org

Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health
Actually a subset of Scientology's gargantuan site, this site covers Hubbard's Dianetics therapies.
http://www.dianetics.org

The L. Ron Hubbard Homepage
Another Scientology site, this page very comprehensively details the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard, albeit in a decidedly biased and fairly inaccurate way.
http://www.lronhubbard.org

Scientology Codes and Creeds
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about beliefs of Scientology.
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/scientology.users.codes_and_creeds.html

The alt.religion.scientology newsgroup.
This is without a doubt one of the highest-traffic, most interesting, and most contentious newsgroups on the Internet. ARS has been featured in Wired magazine as well as the Washington Post and the New York Times. Many prominent Scientology critics, as well as official mouthpieces of the Church, post here, and the tone is often virulent and confrontational. While information gleaned from this newsgroup must always be treated with skepticism, it is a valuable resource where one can interact with Scientologists and their critics.

If your browser does not support inline newsreading, direct your favorite newsreader program to alt.religion.scientology.

"An Essay on Scientology" by David John Carter
A concise articulation of some of the tenets of Scientology by a partisan of the movement.
http://gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au/~carterd/essaycos.html

Scientology Critics' Information
Vitriolic, passionate criticism of Scientology makes for very interesting reading. There is much truth here, mixed up with a fair amount of evil-cult-brainwashing hysteria and hyperbole. http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/mpoulter/scum.html

The Secret Library Of Scientology
An entire critical library of books on Scientology have been digitized, uploaded, and segmented by chapter at this site. Especially reccomended is Bare-Faced Messiah. This is a well-written debunking of the Church's official "sanitized" version of its development and its prophet. Margery Wakefield's The Road to Xenu is also highly reccomended - it is an account of one woman's difficult experience inside Scientology.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/index.html

NOTS Scholars Home Page
An excellent page which contains detailed, informative summary and review of the New Operating Thetan Scientology scriptures ( but not the actual documents). This site also has links to several pages in the Netherlands which have the complete, unedited OT Levels available for perusal.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/NOTs/index.html

Karin Spaink's Homepage
A Dutch citizen's. Karin Spaink, a writer, put up this site after Scientology took legal action against critics in the Netherlands. Basically a clearinghouse of anti-Scientology links and information (some of it in Dutch), this is a well-organized, interesting site which primarily focuses on Scientology's legal harassment of critics in the Netherlands.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink

Watchman Fellowship Profile of Scientology This Profile of the Church of Scientology was written by Rick Branch for The Watchman Fellowship. The Watchman fellowship is a major evangelical counter-cult organization. http://www.watchman.org/scientpro.htm

III. Selected References

Books

Bednarowski, Mary Farrell. 1989.

New Religions and the Theological Imagination in America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Church of Scientology. 1998.

Theology & Practice of a Contemporary Religions: Scientology. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Church of Scientology. 1992.

What is Scientology? Los Angeles, CA: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Hubbard, L. Ron. 1987.

Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health: a Handbook of Dianetics Procedure. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications.

Wallis, Roy. 1976.

The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology. London, Heinemann.

Articles

Bainbridge, William Sims and Rodney Stark. 1980.

"Scientology: To Be Perfectly Clear." Sociological Analysis. 41:2 pp. 128-136.

Bainbridge, William Sims. 1987.

"Science and Religion: The Core of Scientology." In David G. Bromley and Phillip E. Hammond, eds. The Future of New Religious Movements. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, pp. 59-79.

Bainbridge, William Sims. 1997.

The Sociology of Religious Movements New York: Routledge. See concluding chapter, "The Perpetual System." 395-422.

Bednarowski, Mary Farrell. 1995.

"The Church of Scientology: Lightening Rod for Cultural Boundary Conflicts," in Timothy Miller, ed., America's Alternative Religions. Albany, NY: State Unniversity of New York Press. pp. 385-392.

Bromley, David G. and Mitchaell L. Bracey, Jr. 1998.

"The Church of Scientology: A Quasi-Religion," in Willaim W. Zellner and Marc Petrowsky, eds. Sects, Cults, and Spiritual Communities: A Sociological Analysis. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 141-156.

Wallis, Roy. 1973.

"The Sectarianism of Scientology," in Michael Hill, ed., A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, London: SCM Press. 136-55.