Scientology

Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices based on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, an American writer and philosopher. "Scientology" means "the study of knowledge." Hubbard founded Scientology in 1954 and contributed to it until his death in 1986. David Miscavige succeeded him and still leads Scientology today.  

Scientology has been controversial since its beginning.Hugh B. Urban (2006): Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America. In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74 (2): 356–389, S. 356f. Some critics call it a cult and a money-making business. Churches of Scientology exist in some countries. The largest is in Clearwater, Florida.

Scientology teaches that people are immortal spirits who have forgotten their true nature. According to Scientology, a system called auditing can help people remember their true nature through re-experiencing painful events in their past and understanding them better. 

Many organizations are linked to Scientology. Some help people to stop using harmful drugs or to get back into society after spending time in prison. 

According to Scientology, psychiatry should not be allowed to existKent, Stephen A "Scientology – Is this a Religion?" (1999) . Retrieved 24 November 2008 because it uses false and torturous methods without helping people.

Number of followers
The Church of Scientology says that 13–15 million people are a part of the Church.Virginia Linn: Scientology comes to town. In: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24. Juli 2005. Online Edition Critics disagree with that figure, however. They say the organization probably does not have more than 100,000 followers,Gerald Willms: Scientology: Kulturbeobachtungen jenseits der Devianz, transcript verlag, Bielefeld 2005, page 91 (German) mostly in the United States.  They say that in 1960, there were probably 50,000 to 100,000 followers in the U.S.Sydney E. Ahlstrom: A Religious History of the American People., Yale University Press, New Haven, CT 1972, S. 955. In the 1990s there were only about 45,000 followers left, according to a representative survey.Seymour P. Lachman & Barry Alexander: One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society., Harmony Books, New York, NY 1993, page 16. By 2004, this number had grown to around 55,000.James R. Lewis: New Religion Adherents: An Overview of Anglophone Census and Survey Data. In: Marburg Journal of Religion (2004) 9 (1): 14. (Online edition) 

 Belief system 

 Key beliefs 
Scientology teaches that:
 Man is made of a body, a mind, and a spirit. The spirit is the person himself. He uses his mind and body.
 The purpose of life is to survive.
 People should not use harmful drugs.
 Affinity, reality, and communication help us get along with others.
 The better you feel about yourself and life, the freer you are.  This scale of emotion is called the Tone Scale.
 Auditing helps people look at thoughts and understand them better.  This in turn helps them feel better.
Auditing is very painful.
In 1972, Hubbard told a group of Scientologists: "You are the people the planet obeys. You are the people who own the planet."

 Goals 
L. Ron Hubbard wrote:
"A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest [people] can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology."

 Dianetics 
Scientologists say that Hubbard's 1950 book Dianetics was the first self-help book ever written. Some key concepts in the book are:
 A person's mind remembers painful times.  This helps a person to do bad things, and even get sick.  Dianetics calls these kinds of memories "engrams".
 A person's mind also remembers everything else.
 Auditing is meant to help a person understand his engrams.  Its goal is to become clear of them.

 ARC triangle 
Another basic teaching of Scientology is that understanding comes from three things together:
 Affinity (being willing to be close to other people);
 Reality (an agreement on what is real); and
 Communication (the exchange of ideas). 
Making one thing in this "ARC Triangle" better makes them all better, according to Hubbard. Scientologists use this in their everyday lives.

 Tone scale 
The tone scale is a way to rate an emotion as bad, better, or good. The scale goes from -40 ("Total Failure") to +40 ("Serenity of Being"). The scale assumes that one way of feeling is better than another. But Hubbard described many other things that go along with emotion, such as health, mating behavior, survival potential, and ability to deal with truth. 

The tone scale is frequently used by Scientologists to understand people. According to Scientology, the lower the individual is on the tone scale, the more complex their problems are.

 Well-known members 
Many well-known people are followers of Scientology. They include:
 Tom Cruise, actor
 John Travolta, actor
 Kirstie Alley, actress
 Anne Archer, actress
 Isaac Hayes, singer and actor
 Danny Masterson, actor and disc jockey
 Laura Prepon, actress
 Priscilla Presley, actress 
 Archer Xie, politician 
 Kelly Preston, actress

 Related pages 
 Xenu

 References 

 Other websites 
 Official Website
 Operation Clambake - The Inner Secrets of Scientology, a website critical of Scientology


Category:Religious organizations based in the United States