Scientology

Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indicate that there were about 25,000 followers in the United States (in 2008); around 1,800 followers in England (2021); 1,400 in Canada (2021); and about 1,600 in Australia (2016). Hubbard initially developed a set of ideas that he called Dianetics, which he represented as a form of therapy. This he promoted through various publications, as well as through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation that he established in 1950. The foundation went bankrupt, and Hubbard lost the rights to his book '' Dianetics'' in 1952. He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of " auditing". By 1954 he had regained the rights to Dianetics and retained both subjects under the umbrella of the Church of Scientology.

Scientology teaches that a human is an immortal, spiritual being ( Thetan) that resides in a physical body and has had innumerable past lives. Some Scientology texts are only revealed after followers have spent more than $200,000 in the organization, and it charges tens of thousands of dollars for access to these texts in what it calls " Operating Thetan" levels. The organization has gone to considerable lengths to try to keep these secret, but they are freely available on the internet. These texts say that lives preceding a Thetan's arrival on Earth were lived in extraterrestrial cultures. The Scientology doctrine states that any Scientologist undergoing "auditing" will eventually come across and recount a common series of events. They include reference to an extraterrestrial life-form called Xenu. The secret Scientology texts say this was a ruler of a confederation of planets 70 million years ago who brought billions of alien beings to Earth and then killed them with thermonuclear weapons. Despite being kept secret from most followers, this forms the central mythological framework of Scientology's ostensible soteriology: attainment of a status referred to by Scientologists as " clear". These aspects have become the subject of popular ridicule.

From soon after their formation, Hubbard's groups have generated considerable opposition and controversy, in several instances because of their illegal activities. In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners brought proceedings against the Dianetic Research Foundation on the charge of teaching medicine without a license. During the 1970s, Hubbard's followers engaged in a program of criminal infiltration of the U.S. government, resulting in several executives of the organization being convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a U.S. Federal Court. Hubbard himself was convicted '' in absentia'' of fraud by a French court in 1978 and sentenced to four years in prison. In 1992, a court in Canada convicted the Scientology organization in Toronto of spying on law enforcement and government agencies, and criminal breach of trust, later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a judgment upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation in 2013.

The Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgments as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business. Following extensive litigation in numerous countries, the organization has managed to attain a legal recognition as a religious institution in some jurisdictions, including Australia, "the evidence, in our view, establishes that Scientology must, for relevant purposes, be accepted as "a religion" in Victoria" Italy, and the United States. Germany classifies Scientology groups as an "anti-constitutional sect", while the French government classifies the group as a dangerous cult.Le point sur l'Eglise de Scientologie
Le Nouvel Observateur

History

L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) was the only child of Harry Ross Hubbard, a United States Navy officer, and his wife, Ledora Waterbury. Hubbard spent three semesters at George Washington University (in Washington, D.C.), but was placed on probation in September 1931. He failed to return for the fall 1932 semester.

During World War II in July 1941, Hubbard was commissioned as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the U.S. Naval Reserve. On May 18, 1943, his subchaser left Portland. That night, Hubbard ordered his crew to fire 35 depth charges and a number of gun rounds at what he believed were Japanese submarines. His ship sustained minor damage and three crew were injured. Having run out of depth charges and with the presence of a submarine still unconfirmed by other ships, Hubbard's ship was ordered back to port. A navy report concluded that "there was no submarine in the area." A decade later, Hubbard claimed in his Scientology lectures that he had sunk a Japanese submarine.

On June 28, 1943, Hubbard ordered his crew to fire on the Coronado Islands. Hubbard apparently did not realize that the islands belonged to US-allied Mexico, nor that he had taken his vessel into Mexican territorial waters. He was reprimanded and removed from command on July 7. After reassignment to a naval facility in Monterey, California, Hubbard became depressed and fell ill. Reporting stomach pains in April 1945, he spent the remainder of the war as a patient in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. According to his later teachings, during this time Hubbard made scientific "breakthroughs" by use of "endocrine experiments".

On October 15, 1947, Hubbard wrote a letter to the Veterans Administration formally requesting psychiatric treatment, and said he was unable to afford to pay for it himself. Within a few years, Hubbard would condemn psychiatry as evil, and this would grow into a major theme in Scientology.

''Excalibur'' and Babalon Working

In April 1938, Hubbard reportedly reacted to a drug used in a dental procedure. According to his account, this triggered a revelatory near-death experience. Allegedly inspired by this experience, Hubbard composed a manuscript, which was never published, with the working titles of "The One Command" or ''Excalibur''. The contents of ''Excalibur'' formed the basis for some of his later publications. Arthur J. Burks, who read the work in 1938, later recalled it discussed the "one command": to survive. This theme would be revisited in Dianetics, the set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body which became the central philosophy of Scientology. Hubbard later cited ''Excalibur'' as an early version of Dianetics.

In August 1945, Hubbard moved into the Pasadena mansion of John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons, an avid occultist and Thelemite, follower of the English ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley and leader of a lodge of Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Parsons and Hubbard collaborated on the "Babalon Working", a sex magic ritual intended to summon an incarnation of Babalon, the supreme Thelemite goddess.Urban, Hugh B. ''Magia sexualis: sex, magic, and liberation in modern Western esotericism'', p. 137. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. In 1969, The Church of Scientology admitted to Hubbard's involvement with Parsons while claiming that Hubbard, a US Navy Officer, was "sent in to handle the situation".

In the late 1940s, Hubbard practiced as a hypnotist and he worked in Hollywood posing as a swami. The Scientology organization says that Hubbard's experience with hypnosis led him to create Dianetics.

Dianetics

In May 1950, Hubbard's '' Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science'' was published by pulp magazine '' Astounding Science Fiction''. Originally published by Stephen A. Kent in December 1999. In the same year, he published the book-length '' Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health,'' considered the seminal event of the century by Scientologists. Scientologists sometimes use a dating system based on the book's publication; for example, "A.D. 25" does not stand for ''Anno Domini'', but "After Dianetics".

''Dianetics'' describes a "counseling" technique known as " auditing" in which an auditor assists a subject in conscious recall of traumatic events in the individual's past. It was originally intended to be a new psychotherapy.Wilson, Bryan (1970). ''Religious Sects: A Sociological Study'', McGraw-Hill, p. 163 Hubbard variously defined Dianetics as a spiritual healing technology and an organized science of thought. The stated intent is to free individuals of the influence of past traumas by systematic exposure and removal of the engrams (painful memories) these events have left behind, a process called ''clearing''. Rutgers scholar Beryl Satter says that "there was little that was original in Hubbard's approach", with much of the theory having origins in popular conceptions of psychology. Satter observes that in "keeping with the typical 1950s distrust of emotion, Hubbard promised that Dianetic treatment would release and erase psychosomatic ills and painful emotions, thereby leaving individuals with increased powers of rationality." According to Gallagher and Ashcraft, in contrast to psychotherapy, Hubbard stated that Dianetics "was more accessible to the average person, promised practitioners more immediate progress, and placed them in control of the therapy process." Hubbard's thought was parallel with the trend of humanist psychology at that time, which also came about in the 1950s. Passas and Castillo write that the appeal of Dianetics was based on its consistency with prevailing values. Shortly after the introduction of Dianetics, Hubbard introduced the concept of the "Thetan" (or soul) which he claimed to have discovered. Dianetics was organized and centralized to consolidate power under Hubbard, and groups that were previously recruited into Dianetics were no longer permitted to organize autonomously.

Two of Hubbard's key supporters at the time were John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'', and Campbell's brother-in-law, physician Joseph A. Winter. Dr. Winter, hoping to have Dianetics accepted in the medical community, submitted papers outlining the principles and methodology of Dianetic therapy to the '' Journal of the American Medical Association'' and the '' American Journal of Psychiatry'' in 1949, but these were rejected.

''Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health'' spent six months on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list. ''Publishers Weekly'' gave a posthumous plaque to Hubbard to commemorate ''Dianetics appearance on its list of bestsellers for one hundred weeks. Studies that address the topic of the origins of the work and its significance to Scientology as a whole include Peter Rowley's ''New Gods in America'', Omar V. Garrison's ''The Hidden Story of Scientology'', and Albert I. Berger's ''Towards a Science of the Nuclear Mind: Science-fiction Origins of Dianetics''. More complex studies include Roy Wallis's '' The Road to Total Freedom''.

Dianetics appealed to a broad range of people who used instructions from the book and applied the method to each other, becoming practitioners themselves. Dianetics soon faced criticism. Morris Fishbein, the editor of the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' and well known at the time as a debunker of quack medicine, dismissed Hubbard's book. An article in Newsweek stated that "the Dianetics concept is unscientific and unworthy of discussion or review". Hubbard asserted that Dianetics is "an organized science of thought built on definite axioms: statements of natural laws on the order of those of the physical sciences".

Hubbard became the leader of a growing Dianetics movement. He started giving talks about Dianetics and established the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he trained his first Dianetics "counselors" or ''auditors''.

Some practitioners of Dianetics reported experiences that they believed had occurred in past lives, or previous incarnations. Hubbard took the reports of past life events seriously and introduced the concept of the ''Thetan'', an immortal being analogous to the soul. This was an important factor in the transition from secular Dianetics to the presenting of Scientology as an ostensible religion. Sociologists Roy Wallis and Steve Bruce suggest that Dianetics, which set each person as his or her own authority, was about to fail due to its inherent individualism, and that Hubbard started Scientology, framed as a religion, to establish himself as the overarching authority.

Also in 1951, Hubbard incorporated the '' electropsychometer'' ( E-meter for short), a kind of electrodermal activity meter, as an auditing aid. Based on a design by Volney Mathison, the device is held by Scientologists to be a useful tool in detecting changes in a person's state of mind. The global spread of Scientology in the latter half of the 1950s culminated with the opening of Church of Scientology buildings in Johannesburg and Paris, while world headquarters transferred to England in Saint Hill, a rural estate. Hubbard lived there for the next seven years.

Dianetics is different from Scientology in that Scientology's advocates like to frame it as a religion. The purpose of Dianetics is the improvement of the individual, the individual or "self" being only one of eight "dynamics". According to Hugh B. Urban, Hubbard's early science of Dianetics would be best comprehended as a "bricolage that brought together his various explorations in psychology, hypnosis, and science fiction". If Dianetics is understood as a bricolage, then Scientology is "an even more ambitious sort of religious bricolage adapted to the new religious marketplace of 1950s America", continues Urban. According to Roy Wallis, "Scientology emerged as a religious commodity eminently suited to the contemporary market of postwar America." L. Ron Hubbard Jr. said in an interview that the spiritual bricolage of Scientology, as written by Hugh B. Urban, "seemed to be uniquely suited to the individualism and quick-fix mentality of 1950s America: just by doing a few assignments, one can become a god".

Harlan Ellison has told a story of seeing Hubbard at a gathering of the Hydra Club in 1953 or 1954. Hubbard was complaining of not being able to make a living on what he was being paid as a science fiction writer. Ellison says that Lester del Rey told Hubbard that what he needed to do to get rich was start a religion.

Church of Scientology

In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners began proceedings against the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation for teaching medicine without a license, which eventually led to that foundation's bankruptcy. In December 1952, the Hubbard Dianetic Foundation filed for bankruptcy, and Hubbard lost control of the Dianetics trademark and copyrights to financier Don Purcell. Author Russell Miller argues that Scientology "was a development of undeniable expedience, since it ensured that he would be able to stay in business even if the courts eventually awarded control of Dianetics and its valuable copyrights to ... Purcell".

L. Ron Hubbard originally intended for Scientology to be considered a science, as stated in his writings. In May 1952, Scientology was organized to put this intended science into practice, and in the same year, Hubbard published a new set of teachings as ''Scientology, a religious philosophy.'' Marco Frenschkowski quotes Hubbard in a letter written in 1953, to show that he never denied that his original approach was not a religious one: "Probably the greatest discovery of Scientology and its most forceful contribution to mankind has been the isolation, description and handling of the human spirit, accomplished in July 1951, in Phoenix, Arizona. I established, along scientific rather than religious or humanitarian lines that the thing which is the person, the personality, is separable from the body and the mind at will and without causing bodily death or derangement. (Hubbard 1983: 55)."

Following the prosecution of Hubbard's foundation for teaching medicine without a license, in April 1953 Hubbard wrote a letter proposing that Scientology should be transformed into a religion. As membership declined and finances grew tighter, Hubbard had reversed the hostility to religion he voiced in ''Dianetics''.Kent, Stephen A. "The Creation of 'Religious' Scientology". ''Religious Studies and Theology'' 18:2, pp. 97–126. 1999. ISSN 1747-5414 His letter discussed the legal and financial benefits of religious status. Hubbard outlined plans for setting up a chain of "Spiritual Guidance Centers" charging customers $500 for twenty-four hours of auditing ("That is real money ... Charge enough and we'd be swamped."). Hubbard wrote:

In December 1953, Hubbard incorporated three organizations – a "Church of American Science", a "Church of Scientology" and a "Church of Spiritual Engineering" – in Camden, New Jersey. On February 18, 1954, with Hubbard's blessing, some of his followers set up the first local Church of Scientology, the Church of Scientology of California, adopting the "aims, purposes, principles and creed of the Church of American Science, as founded by L. Ron Hubbard". In 1955, Hubbard established the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. The group declared that the Founding Church, as written in the certificate of incorporation for the Founding Church of Scientology in the District of Columbia, was to "act as a parent church for the religious faith known as 'Scientology' and to act as a church for the religious worship of the faith".

During this period the organization expanded to Australia, New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In 1959, Hubbard purchased Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, Sussex, United Kingdom, which became the worldwide headquarters of the Church of Scientology and his personal residence. During Hubbard's years at Saint Hill, he traveled, providing lectures and training in Australia, South Africa in the United States, and developing materials that would eventually become Scientology's "core systematic theology and praxis. Throughout this period, Hubbard continued to develop the materials of Dianetics and Scientology as well as the organizational structure necessary to the administration of the Church of Scientology.

The Scientology organization experienced further challenges. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation concerning the claims the Church of Scientology made in connection with its E-meters. On January 4, 1963, FDA agents raided offices of the organization, seizing hundreds of E-meters as illegal medical devices and tons of literature that they accused of making false medical claims. The original suit by the FDA to condemn the literature and E-meters did not succeed, but the court ordered the organization to label every meter with a disclaimer that it is purely religious artifact, to post a $20,000 bond of compliance, and to pay the FDA's legal expenses.

In the course of developing Scientology, Hubbard presented rapidly changing teachings that some have seen as often self-contradictory. According to Lindholm, for the inner cadre of Scientologists in that period, involvement depended not so much on belief in a particular doctrine but on unquestioning faith in Hubbard.

In 1966, Hubbard purportedly stepped down as executive director of Scientology to devote himself to research and writing. The following year, he formed the ship-based Sea Organization or Sea Org which operated three ships: the ''Diana'', the ''Athena'', and the flagship the ''Apollo''. One month after the establishment of the Sea Org, Hubbard announced that he had made a breakthrough discovery, the result of which were the "OT III" materials purporting to provide a method for overcoming factors inhibiting spiritual progress. These materials were first disseminated on the ships, and then propagated by Sea Org members reassigned to staff Advanced Organizations on land.

Hubbard in hiding, death, and aftermath

In 1972, facing criminal charges in France, Hubbard returned to the United States and began living in an apartment in Queens, New York. When faced with possible indictment in the United States, Hubbard went into hiding in April 1979. He hid first in an apartment in Hemet, California, where his only contact with the outside world was via ten trusted messengers. He cut contact with everyone else, even his wife, whom he saw for the last time in August 1979. In February 1980 he disappeared into deep cover in the company of two trusted messengers, Pat and Anne Broeker.

In 1979, as a result of FBI raids during Operation Snow White, 11 senior people in the organization's Guardian's Office were convicted of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. In 1981, Scientology took the German government to court for the first time.

On January 24, 1986, L. Ron Hubbard died at his ranch in Creston, California. David Miscavige emerged as the new head of the organization.

Splinter groups: Independent Scientology, Freezone, and Miscavige's RTC

While ''Scientology'' generally refers to the Miscavige-led Church of Scientology, other groups practice Scientology. These groups, collectively known as Independent Scientologists, consist of former members of the official Church of Scientology as well as entirely new members.

In 1950, founding member Joseph Winter cut ties with Hubbard and set up a private Dianetics practice in New York. In 1965, a longtime member of the Scientology organization and "Doctor of Scientology" Jack Horner (born 1927), dissatisfied with the organization's "ethics" program, developed Dianology. Capt. Bill Robertson, a former Sea Org member, was a primary instigator of the movement in the early 1980s. The Church of Scientology labels these groups " squirrels" (Scientology jargon) and often subjects them to considerable legal and social pressure.

On January 1, 1982, Miscavige established the Religious Technology Center (RTC). On November 11, 1982, the Free Zone was established by top Scientologists in disagreement with RTC. The Free Zone Association was founded and registered under the laws of Germany, and espouses the doctrine that the official Church of Scientology led by David Miscavige has departed from Hubbard's original philosophy.

The Advanced Ability Center was established by Hubbard's personal auditor David Mayo after February 1983 – a time when some of Scientology's upper and middle management split with Miscavige's organization. Nordhausen & Billerbeck (2008), pp. 469–470

More recently, high-profile defectors Mark Rathbun and Mike Rinder have championed the cause of Independent Scientologists wishing to practice Scientology outside of the Church of Scientology organization.

Beliefs and practices

According to Scientology, its beliefs and practices are based on rigorous research, and its doctrines are accorded a significance equivalent to scientific laws. Scientologist cosmology is, however, at odds with modern science, with claims of memories going back "76 trillion years", much longer than the age of the universe. Blind belief is held to be of lesser significance than the practical application of Scientologist methods. Adherents are encouraged to validate the practices through their personal experience. Hubbard put it this way: "For a Scientologist, the final test of any knowledge he has gained is, 'did the data and the use of it in life actually improve conditions or didn't it? He defined Scientology's aims as: "A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war; where the world can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology". He described Scientology as an "applied religious philosophy" because, according to him, it consists of a metaphysical doctrine, a theory of psychology, and teachings in morality. The core of Scientology teaching lies in the belief that "each human has a reactive mind that responds to life's traumas, clouding the analytic mind and keeping us from experiencing reality." Scientologists undergo auditing to discover sources of this trauma, believing that re-experiencing it neutralizes it and reinforces the ascendancy of the analytic mind, with the final goal believed to be achieving a spiritual state that Scientology calls "clear".

Theological doctrine

Scientology claims not to preach or impose a particular idea of god on Scientologists. According to Scientology promotional materials, followers are expected to discover the truth through their own observations as their awareness advances.

... the Church of Scientology has no set dogma concerning God that it imposes on its members. As with all its tenets, Scientology does not ask individuals to accept anything on faith alone. Rather, as one's level of spiritual awareness increases through participation in Scientology ''auditing'' and ''training'', one attains his own certainty of every dynamic. Accordingly, only when the Seventh Dynamic (spiritual) is reached in its entirety will one discover and come to a full understanding of the Eighth Dynamic (infinity) and one's relationship to the Supreme Being.

Many Scientologists avoid using the words "belief" or "faith" to describe how Hubbard's teachings impacts their lives. They perceive that Scientology is based on verifiable technologies, speaking to Hubbard's original scientific objectives for Dianetics, based on the quantifiability of auditing on the E-meter. Scientologists call Dianetics and Scientology as technologies because of their claim of their scientific precision and workability.

Reactive mind, traumatic memories, and auditing

Scientology presents two major divisions of the mind. The '' reactive mind'' is thought to record all pain and emotional trauma, while the ''analytical mind'' is a rational mechanism that serves consciousness. The reactive mind stores mental images which are not readily available to the analytical (conscious) mind; these are referred to as '' engrams''. According to Scientology, engrams are painful and debilitating; as they accumulate, people move further away from their true identity. To avoid this fate is Scientology's basic goal. Some engrams are taught by Hubbard to happen by accident while others are inflicted by "Thetans who have gone bad and want power", as described by the Los Angeles Times. These engrams are named Implants in the doctrine of Scientology. Hubbard said, "Implants result in all varieties of illness, apathy, degradation, neurosis and insanity and are the principal cause of these in man."

L. Ron Hubbard described the analytical mind in terms of a computer: "the analytical mind is not just a good computer, it is a perfect computer." According to him it makes the best decisions based on available data. Errors are made based on erroneous data and is not the error of the analytical mind.

David V. Barrett, a sociologist of religion who has written widely about the subject, says that according to Scientology, the "first major goal is to go Clear." Clearing was described to represent "the attainment of Man's dreams through the ages of attaining a new and higher state of existence and freedom from the endless cycle of birth, death, birth … Clear is the total erasure of the reactive mind from which stems all the anxieties and problems the individual has".

Scientology asserts that people have hidden abilities which have not yet been fully realized.J. Gordon Melton ''The Encyclopedia of American Religion'', p. 224, McGrath Publishing Co., 1978 It teaches that increased spiritual awareness and physical benefits are accomplished through sessions referred to as "auditing", for which the organization charges hundreds of dollars per hour. There is no evidence of any of these notional benefits being realized.Paul Finkelman ''Religion and American Law'', p. 509, Taylor & Francis, 2000 Scientology doctrine claims that through auditing, people can solve their problems and free themselves of engrams. It also claims that this restores them to their "natural condition" as Thetans and enables them to be "at cause" in their daily lives, responding rationally and creatively to life events, rather than reacting to them under the direction of stored engrams. Accordingly, those who study Scientology materials and receive auditing sessions advance from a status of ''Preclear'' to ''Clear'' and ''Operating Thetan''. Scientology's utopian aim is to "clear the planet", that is, clear all people in the world of their engrams.

Auditing is a one-on-one session with a Scientology "counselor" or "''auditor''." The auditor's task is to help a person discover and understand the "universal principles of affinity, reality, and communication" (ARC). Most auditing requires an Emeter, a device that measures minute changes in electrical resistance through the body when a person holds electrodes (metal "cans"), and a small current is passed through them.

Scientology teaches that the E-meter helps to locate spiritual difficulties. Once an area of concern has been identified, the auditor asks the individual specific questions about it to help him or her eliminate the difficulty, and uses the E-meter to confirm that the "charge" has been dissipated. As the individual progresses up the "Bridge to Total Freedom", the focus of auditing moves from simple engrams to engrams of increasing complexity and other difficulties. At the more advanced OT levels, Scientologists act as their own auditors ("solo auditors").

Douglas E. Cowan writes that the e-meter "provides an external, material locus for the legitimation of cientologypractice". Scientologists depend on the "appearance of objectivity or empirical validity" of the e-meter rather than simply trusting an auditor's abstract interpretation of a participant's statements. He also states that without the e-meter, "Scientology could not have achieved whatever status it enjoys as a new religious movement." He also argues that without it, the Church of Scientology may not have survived the early years when Dianetics was just formed.

Emotional Tone Scale and survival

Scientology uses an emotional classification system called the '' tone scale''. The tone scale is a tool used in auditing; Scientologists maintain that knowing a person's place on the scale makes it easier to predict his or her actions and assists in bettering his or her condition.

Scientology emphasizes the importance of ''survival'', which it subdivides into eight classifications that are referred to as ''" dynamics"''. An individual's desire to survive is considered to be the first dynamic, while the second dynamic relates to procreation and family. The remaining dynamics encompass wider fields of action, involving groups, mankind, all life, the physical universe, the spirit, and infinity, often associated with the Supreme Being. The optimum solution to any problem is believed to be the one that brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number of dynamics.

Toxins and purification

The Purification Rundown is a controversial "detoxification" program used by the Church of Scientology as an introductory service. It features high-dose dietary supplements and extended time in a sauna (up to five hours a day for five weeks). The Church of Scientology claims it is the only effective way to deal with the long-term effects of drug abuse or toxic exposure.

Narconon is a "drug education and rehabilitation program" founded on Hubbard's beliefs about "toxins" and "purification". Narconon is offered in the United States, Canada and a number of European countries; its ''Purification Program'' also uses high-dose vitamins and extended sauna sessions, combined with auditing and study.

Introspection Rundown

The Introspection Rundown is a controversial Church of Scientology auditing process that is intended to handle a psychotic episode or complete mental breakdown. Introspection is defined for the purpose of this rundown as a condition where the person is "looking into one's own mind, feelings, reactions, etc." The Introspection Rundown came under public scrutiny after the death of Lisa McPherson in 1995.

Rejection of psychology and psychiatry

Scientology is vehemently opposed to psychiatry and psychology. Psychiatry rejected Hubbard's theories in the early 1950s and in 1951, Hubbard's wife Sara consulted doctors who recommended he "be committed to a private sanatorium for psychiatric observation and treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia". Thereafter, Hubbard criticized psychiatry as a "barbaric and corrupt profession".

Hubbard taught that psychiatrists were responsible for a great many wrongs in the world, saying that psychiatry has at various times offered itself as a tool of political suppression and "that psychiatry spawned the ideology which fired Hitler's mania, turned the Nazis into mass murderers, and created the Holocaust". Hubbard created the anti-psychiatry organization Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), which operates Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, an anti-psychiatry museum.

From 1969, CCHR has campaigned in opposition to psychiatric treatments, electroconvulsive shock therapy, lobotomy, and drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac. According to the official Church of Scientology website, "the effects of medical and psychiatric drugs, whether painkillers, tranquilizers or 'antidepressants', are as disastrous" as illegal drugs.

Body and Thetan

Scientology beliefs revolve around the immortal soul, the ''Thetan''. Scientology teaches that the Thetan is the true identity of a person – an intrinsically good, omniscient, non-material core capable of unlimited creativity.

Hubbard taught that Thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe has no independent reality but derives its apparent reality from the fact that Thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation rather than their original state of spiritual purity. Eventually they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, Thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

Thetans are reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption", which is analogous to reincarnation. Scientology posits a causal relationship between the experiences of earlier incarnations and one's present life, and with each rebirth, the effects of the ''MEST'' universe (MEST here stands for matter, energy, space, and time) on the Thetan become stronger.

Space opera and the Wall of Fire

The Church of Scientology organization holds that at the higher levels of initiation (" OT levels"), mystical teachings are imparted that may be harmful to unprepared readers. These teachings are kept secret from members who have not reached these levels. The organization says that the secrecy is warranted to keep its materials' use in context and to protect its members from being exposed to materials for which they are not yet prepared.

These are the OT levels, the levels above ''Clear'', whose contents are guarded within Scientology. The OT level teachings include accounts of various cosmic catastrophes that befell the Thetans. Hubbard described these early events collectively as " space opera".

In the OT levels, Hubbard explains how to reverse the effects of past-life trauma patterns that supposedly extend millions of years into the past. Among these advanced teachings is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as the tyrant ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy". According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The Thetans then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today. Scientologists at advanced levels place considerable emphasis on isolating body Thetans and neutralizing their ill effects.

Excerpts and descriptions of OT materials were published online by a former member in 1995 and then circulated in mainstream media. This occurred after the teachings were submitted as evidence in court cases involving Scientology, thus becoming a matter of public record. There are eight publicly known OT levels, OT I to VIII.Derek Davis ''New Religious Movements and Religious Liberty in America'', pp. 45–47, Baylor University Press, 2004 The highest level, OT VIII, is disclosed only at sea on the Scientology cruise ship ''Freewinds''. It has been rumored that additional OT levels, said to be based on material written by Hubbard long ago, will be released at some appropriate point in the future.

A large