|
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 Scientology as a business, 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: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Dianetics'' in 1952. He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of "Auditing (Scientol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The movement has been the subject of a number of controversies, and the Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgements as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business. In 1979, several executives of the organization were convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a U.S. Federal Court. The Church of Scientology itself was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a decision upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation in 2013. The German government classifies Scientology as an anti-constitutional sect. In France, it has been classified as a dangerous cult. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Thriving Cult Of Greed And Power
"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power" is an article, written in 1991 by U.S. investigative journalist Richard Behar, which is highly critical of Scientology. It was first published by ''Time'' magazine on May 6, 1991, as an eight-page cover story, and was later published in ''Reader's Digest'' in October 1991. Behar had previously published an article on Scientology in ''Forbes'' magazine. He stated that he was investigated by attorneys and private investigators affiliated with the Church of Scientology while researching the ''Time'' article, and that investigators contacted his friends and family as well. Behar's article covers topics including L. Ron Hubbard and the development of Scientology, its controversies over the years and history of litigation, conflict with psychiatry and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the suicide of Noah Lottick, its status as a religion, and its business dealings. After the article's publication, the Church of Scientology mounted a pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenu
Xenu (), also called Xemu, is a figure in the Church of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology", a sacred and esoteric teaching. According to the "Technology", Xenu was the extraterrestrial ruler of a "Galactic Confederacy" who brought billionsAs 109, or thousands of millions in Long Scale of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in DC-8-like spacecraft 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm. These events are known within Scientology as "Incident II", and the traumatic memories associated with them as "The Wall of Fire" or "R6 implant". The narrative of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described as "space opera" by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan level ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientology As A Business
The Church of Scientology publicly classifies itself as a religion, but scholars and other observers regard it as a business, because the organization operates more like a for-profit business than a religious institution. Some scholars of sociology working in religious studies consider it a new religious movement. Overall, as stated by Stephen A. Kent, Scientology can be seen as a " multi-faceted transnational corporation that has religion as only one of its many components. Other components include political aspirations, business ventures, cultural productions, pseudo-medical practices, pseudo-psychiatric claims, and (among its most devoted members who have joined the Sea Organization), an alternative family structure." Business practices Several of the Church's practices resemble business operations, including paying recruiters a cut of the money made from the people they attract and the franchising network that results in large revenues for the highest levels of the Chu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dianetics
Dianetics (from Greek ''dia'', meaning "through", and ''nous'', meaning " mind") is a set of pseudoscientific ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Dianetics is practiced by followers of Scientology and the Nation of Islam (as of 2010). Dianetics was originally conceived as a branch of psychiatry, which Hubbard would later despise when various psychoanalysts refused his form of psychotherapy. Though it is presented as a form of psychological treatment, Dianetics, and its core concepts including auditing and engrams, have been rejected by psychologists and other scientists from the outset and are unsupported by credible evidence. Background Dianetics divides the mind into three parts: the conscious "analytical mind", the subconscious "reactive mind", and the somatic mind. The goal of Dianetics is to erase the content of the "reactive mind", which practitioners believe interfe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating Thetan
In Scientology, Operating Thetan (OT) is a notional spiritual status above Clear. It is defined as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time (MEST)." According to religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, "It’s basically a variation of the Gnostic myth about souls falling into matter and the encumbrances that come with that" with the exception in that instead of Divine intervention, there is Alien intervention. The Church teaches Operating Thetan doctrine in eight separate stages, or Levels; however, the Church claims there are actually fifteen Levels, and critics argue the Church uses the missing Levels to incentivize believers into giving more money to the Church in order to be able to experience them once they are finally released. Sometimes the Church requires believers to retake, and therefore pay again for, previous courses in the meantime as they await the missing Levels. Each course costs a considerable amount of money, often thousands of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auditing (Scientology)
In Dianetics and Scientology, auditing is a process whereby the "auditor" takes an individual through times in their current or past lives with the ostensible purpose of ridding the individual of negative influences from past events or behaviors. Auditing is meant to bring the individual to " Clear" status; thus, an individual being audited is known as a "preclear" or PC. Auditing was invented by L. Ron Hubbard as an integral part of Dianetics, first introduced in 1950. In 1951, auditing also became a core practice of Scientology. The E-meter, a device to measure electrodermal activity, became an integral part of auditing in scientology. According to the Church of Scientology, "one formal definition of auditing is the action of asking a person a question (which he can understand and answer), getting an answer to that question and acknowledging him or her for that answer". Hubbard claimed auditing provided many benefits including unsupported medical and psychological health effe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anderson Report
The ''Anderson Report'' is the colloquial name of the report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology, an official inquiry into the Church of Scientology conducted for the State of Victoria, Australia. It was written by Kevin Victor Anderson QC and published in 1965. The report led to legislation attempting to ban Scientology in Victoria and similar legislation in several other States of Australia. No convictions were made under the legislation and Scientologists continued to practice their beliefs, although the headquarters was moved to South Australia. The legislation has been repealed in all States and subsequently Scientology was found to be a religion by the High Court of Australia.. Background In 1959, L. Ron Hubbard had set up the Church's headquarters at Saint Hill a few miles from East Grinstead in West Sussex, England. The Church of Scientology had spread from its origin in USA to a number of other English-speaking countries and soon attracted attention. Sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thetan
In Scientology, the concept of the thetan () is similar to the concept of self, or the spirit or soul as found in several belief systems. The term is derived from the Greek letter Θ, theta, which in Scientology beliefs represents "the source of life, or life itself." In Scientology it is believed that it is the thetan, not the central nervous system, which commands the body through . Thetans have been described in the Applied Religious Philosophy of Scientology in a number of ways. * A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul." * "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body." * "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things." * A thetan is "the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual." According to Scientology, the concept for the thetan was first discovered in the early 1950s by the science fiction au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clear (Scientology)
In Dianetics and Scientology, Clear is a status afforded to followers by the Scientology organization, or by other Scientologists, after they complete certain activities. It is one of the major ostensible "states" practitioners strive to reach on their way up what the Scientologists call the Bridge to Total Freedom. Scientology followers are given the status of Clear when a person is deemed to be free of the influence of engrams – supposed unwanted emotions or painful traumas which Scientology claims are not readily available to the conscious mind. Scientologists believe that human beings accumulate anxieties, psychosomatic illnesses, and aberration due to receiving engrams throughout their current or past lives, and that by applying Dianetics, every single person can obtain the status of Clear.Goldstein, Laurie"Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse" ''The New York Times'', March 6, 2010. A Clear is defined by the Church of Scientology as a person who no longer has a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incident (Scientology)
L. Ron Hubbard used the term Incident in a specific context for auditing in Scientology and Dianetics: the description of space operatic events in the Universe's distant past, involving alien interventions in past lives. It is a basic belief of Scientology that a human being is an immortal spiritual being, termed a thetan, trapped on planet Earth in a " meat body". Although said to be capable of occurring anywhere and at any time, Hubbard's writings described some incidents in particular, set in Earth's prehistory. Many of them first appeared in Hubbard's book ''What to Audit'' (later retitled '' A History of Man''). In his writings and lectures, Hubbard describes Incidents said to have occurred to thetans during the past few trillionBillion in Long Scale. years. Most of these followed a consistent pattern, wherein a hostile alien civilization captured and brainwashed free thetans. Often, instances of implantation are termed ''Incidents'', while the subject of the implants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Religious Movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.Eileen Barker, 1999, "New Religious Movements: their incidence and significance", ''New Religious Movements: challenge and response'', Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell editors, Routledge There is no single, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
