Scientology: Part I--Origins and History

Here is the first of the Scientology posts I promised I'd write...I am going to use a different font for my research articles than I do for my regular postings.

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Scientology, Part I: Origins and History

How It All Began…

Scientology, as an applied religious philosophy, was created in the early 1950’s by American sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard. It was created as a sub-study of Hubbard’s earlier self-help system, Dianetics, a while after the original Dianetics center failed due to financial issues. The first Church of Scientology was begun in 1953.

Scientology encompasses a rehabilitative philosophy and covers topics such as morals, ethics, education and so on. The Church of Scientology has been labeled as a cult and an “unscrupulous commercial enterprise” by many areas of society and the world. There is also a charge against Scientology for harassment and abuse of the trust of its adherents. Its members refute such claims by saying that most of the controversy is negatively spread and motivated by certain interest groups and that most of the controversy is considered past history.

Though the word ‘scientology’ in itself has been mostly associated with L. Ron Hubbard, its use predates him by a few decades. Three writers have used it to define their own thinking, including philologist Allen Upward, who used the term as a synonym for pseudoscience, and Argentine-German writer Anastasius Nordenholz used it in a more positive light, using a definition of ‘scientology’ that is not unlike Hubbard’s.

The Church of Scientology defines ‘Scientology’ as “a study of truth.” The word itself is a combination of the Latin word ‘scientia’ (knowledge, skill), which is a form of the verb ‘scire’ (to know), and the Greek word ‘logos’ (reason, inward thought, logic or ‘an account of’). The term and related words are trademarks held by the Religious Technology Center, which grants the mother church, Church of Scientology International (CSI), all rights to use said trademarks and license their use to other Scientology entities and churches.

Influences...

Hubbard’s creation is influenced by many people and other religious thoughtforms. Chief among these are Freud, Jung, Alfred Korzybski, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Tao Te Ching and even Christian Gnosticism. He even claimed that the Hindu Vedas were “Scientology’s earliest ancestor” and credited Buddha for being one of Scientology’s forerunners. Indeed, the practice of “auditing,” a one-on-one, two-hour counseling session, seeks to rid the reactive, unconscious mind of what Hubbard called “engrams,” or negative occurrences affecting the unconscious mind and emotions, therefore supposedly healing any physical or emotional hindrances to life success. The goal in Buddhism to ease suffering due to what usually goes on in the reactive mind is something similar to Hubbard’s goals and ideas, but the approach is quite different.

Despite the influence of other greats on both Dianetics and Scientology, such as Freud and Jung, whose theories Hubbard studied copiously, he did not place Scientology within the realm of psychiatry or psychology. In fact, he blamed the American Communist Party for most of the hostile press towards his ideas, and in later years, he developed the belief that the true origin of the criticisms was from the psychiatric profession, and that the profession secretly controlled most of the world’s governments.

End of Part I

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MY THOUGHTS: I was surprised at how many sources L. Ron Hubbard drew from, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. I was also surprised to find out where the Church of Scientology's hostility towards the psychiatric community came from. I am unsure of whether psychiatry actually has as much control as Hubbard claimed, though as a mystic, I am personally not too fond of the current attitudes coming from the psychiatric community towards anyone who is not supposedly "normal." They have also not stopped to consider that what is making our children mentally whacko is all the processed foods, sugars and environmental pollutants/hazards to human health.