title: Uttar Pradesh

text: The state is sometimes called the 'Hindi heartland of India'. Hindi became the language of state administration with the Uttar Pradesh Official Language Act of 1951. A 1989 amendment to the act added Urdu, as an additional language of the state. Linguistically, the state spreads across the Central, East-Central, and Eastern zones of the Indo Aryan languages. The major Hindi languages of the state are Awadhi, Bagheli, Bundeli, Braj Bhasha, Kannauji, and Hindustani. Bhojpuri is an Eastern Indo Aryan language spoken in the state.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: With each district of Uttar Pradesh having its unique music and tradition, traditional folk music in Uttar Pradesh has been categorised in three different ways including music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and music performed by custom. The popular folk music of Uttar Pradesh includes sohar which is sung to celebrate the birth of a child, Kajari sung during the rainy season, Ghazal, Thumri and Qawwali which is a form of Sufi poetry is popular in the Awadh region, Rasiya (especially popular in Braj), which celebrate the divine love of Radha and Krishna. Khayal is a form of semi-classical singing which comes from the courts of Awadh. Other forms of music are Biraha, Chaiti, Chowtal, Alha, and Sawani.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Kathak, a classical dance form, owes its origin to the state of Uttar Pradesh. The dance form is connected to classical Hindustani music where the rhythmic nimbleness of the feet is accompanied by either Tabla or Pakhawaj. Ramlila is one of the oldest dramatic folk dance which depicts the life of Lord Rama and is mainly performed during the Vijayadashami festival. Svanga is a dance drama of semi-historical tales and ballads. Traditional dance and musical styles are taught at the Bhatkhande Music Institute University in Lucknow, named after the musician Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande. Four of the six schools of this dance form, Lucknow gharana, Ajrara gharana, Farukhabad gharana and Benares gharana, are situated in Uttar Pradesh.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Diwali (celebrated between mid-October and mid-December) and Rama Navami are popular festivals in Uttar Pradesh. Chhath Puja is the biggest festival of eastern Uttar Pradesh and it is considered as Mahaparva by the Bhojpuri people. Kumbh Mela, organised in the month of Maagha (February—March), is a major festival held every twelve years in rotation at Allahabad on the river Ganges. Lath mar Holi is a local celebration of the Hindu festival of Holi. It takes place well before the actual Holi in the town of Barsana near Mathura. Taj Mahotsav, held annually at Agra, is a colourful display of the culture of the Braj area. Ganga Mahotsav festival of Kartik Poornima celebrated fifteen days after Diwali. Buddha Purnima, which marks the birth of Gautama Buddha, is a major Hindu and Buddhist festival, while Christmas is celebrated by the minority Christian population. Other festivals are Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adhaa/Bakreed, Vijayadashami, Makar Sankranti, Vasant Panchami, Ayudha Puja, Janmashtami, Sardhana Christian Fair, Maha Shivaratri, Mahavir Janma Kalyanak, Ayurved Jhansi Mahotsav, Bārah Wafāṭ, Lucknow Mahotsav, Moharram, Kabob and Hanuman Jayanti.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: A typical day-to-day traditional vegetarian meal of Uttar Pradesh, like any other North Indian thali, consists of roti (flatbread), chawal, dal, sabji, raita and papad. On festive occasions, usually 'tava' (flat pan for roti) is considered inauspicious, and instead fried foods are consumed. A typical festive thali consists of Puri, Kachauri, sabji, pulav, papad, raita, salad and desserts (such as sewai or Kheer). Lassi (yogurt-based) and chaach (traditional buttermilk) are most favoured drink in Uttar Pradesh.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Many communities have their own particular style of cuisines, such as the Jains, Kayasths and Muslims. There are also certain sub-regional delicacies. Awadhi cuisine is world-famous for dishes such as kebab, biryani, keema and nihari. Sweets occupy an important place in the Hindu diet and are eaten at social ceremonies. People make distinctive sweetmeats from milk products, including khurchan, peda, gulabjamun, petha, makkhan malai, and chamcham. The chaat in Lucknow and Banarasi Paan is known across India for its flavour and ingredients.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Awadhi cuisine is from the city of Lucknow. The cuisine consists of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Awadh has been greatly influenced by Mughal cooking techniques, and the cuisine of Lucknow bears similarities to those of Central Asia, Kashmir, Punjab and Hyderabad; and the city is known for Nawabi foods.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: The bawarchis and rakabdars of Awadh gave birth to the dum style of cooking or the art of cooking over a slow fire, which has become synonymous with Lucknow today. Their spread consisted of elaborate dishes like kebabs ("shish kebab" or "shashlik"), kormas, biryani, kaliya, nahari-kulchas, zarda, sheermal, roomali rotis, and warqi parathas. The richness of Awadh cuisine lies not only in the variety of cuisine but also in the ingredients used to like mutton, paneer, and rich spices including cardamom and saffron.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Mughlai cuisine is a style of cooking developed in the Indian subcontinent by the kitchens of the Mughal Empire. It represents the cooking styles used in North India, especially Uttar Pradesh. The cuisine is strongly influenced by the cuisine of Central Asia, and has in turn strongly similarities to the regional cuisines of Kashmir and the Punjab region. The tastes of Mughlai cuisine vary from extremely mild to spicy, and is often associated with a distinctive aroma and the taste of ground and whole spices.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: The people of Uttar Pradesh dress in a variety of traditional and Western styles. Traditional styles of dress include colourful draped garments – such as sari for women and dhoti or lungi for men – and tailored clothes such as salwar kameez for women and kurta-pyjama for men. Men often sport head-gear like topi or pagri. Sherwani is a more formal male dress and is frequently worn along with chooridar on festive occasions. European-style trousers and shirts are also common among the men.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: A number of newspapers and periodicals are published in Hindi, English, and Urdu. "The Pioneer" was founded in Allahabad in 1865 by George Allen. "Amar Ujala", "Dainik Bhaskar", "Dainik Jagran", "Rajasthan Patrika" and "Hindustan Dainik" have a wide circulation, with local editions published from several important cities. Major English language newspapers which are published and sold in large numbers are "The Telegraph", "The Times of India", "Hindustan Times", "The Hindu", "The Statesman", "The Indian Express", and "Asian Age". Some prominent financial dailies like "The Economic Times", "Financial Express", "Business Line", and "Business Standard" are widely circulated. Vernacular newspapers such as those in Hindi, Nepali, Gujarati, Odia, Urdu, and Punjabi are also read by a select readership.


title: Uttar Pradesh

text: Doordarshan is the state-owned television broadcaster. Multi system operators provide a mix of Hindi, English, Bengali, Nepali and international channels via cable. are NDTV India, Zee News, Aaj Tak, News18 India, News18 Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand, ABP News and ABP Ganga. All India Radio is a public radio station. There are 32 private FM stations available in major cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Agra, and Noida. Cell phone providers include Vi India, Airtel, BSNL and Reliance Jio. Broadband internet is available in select towns and cities and is provided by the state-run BSNL and by private companies. Dial-up access is provided throughout the state by BSNL and other providers.


title: Scientology

text: 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 "" 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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, 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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. 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: In May 1950, Hubbard's "" was published by pulp magazine "Astounding Science Fiction". In the same year, he published the book-length "," 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".


title: Scientology

text: "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. 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: "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 "".


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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)."


title: Scientology

text: 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". 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:


title: Scientology

text: In December 1953, Hubbard incorporated three Church of Scientology 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 [sic] for the religious faith known as 'Scientology' and to act as a church [sic] for the religious worship of the faith".


title: Scientology

text: During this period the Church 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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 Church of Scientology, 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

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


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: In 1950, founding member Joseph Winter cut ties with Hubbard and set up a private Dianetics practice in New York. In 1965, a longtime Church member and "Doctor of Scientology" Jack Horner (born 1927), dissatisfied with the Church'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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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."


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: Scientology asserts that people have hidden abilities which have not yet been fully realized. 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. 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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").


title: Scientology

text: Douglas E. Cowan writes that the e-meter "provides an external, material locus for the legitimation of [Scientology] practice". 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 may not have survived the early years when Dianetics was just formed.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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 , an anti-psychiatry museum.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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".


title: Scientology

text: 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.


title: Scientology

text: 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. 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.


title: Scientology

text: A large Church of Spiritual Technology symbol carved into the ground at Scientology's Trementina Base is visible from the air. Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby wrote, "Former Scientologists familiar with Hubbard's teachings on reincarnation say the symbol marks a 'return point' so loyal staff members know where they can find the founder's works when they travel here in the future from other places in the universe."


title: Scientology

text: The "Ethics" system regulates member behavior, and "Ethics officers" are present in every Scientology organization. "Ethics" officers ensure "correct application of Scientology technology" and deal with "behavior adversely affecting a Scientology organization's performance", ranging from "Errors" and "Misdemeanors" to "Crimes" and "Suppressive Acts", as those terms defined by Scientology.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology asserts some people are truly malevolent, and Hubbard taught 20 percent of the population were "suppressive persons", which includes some hopelessly antisocial personalities who are the truly dangerous individuals in humanity: "the Adolf Hitlers and the Genghis Khans, the unrepentant murderers and the drug lords". Scientology disconnection policy prohibits most contact with Suppressive Persons. The Church of Scientology denies that a disconnection policy exists, and quotes Hubbard's definition of disconnection as "a self-determined decision made by an individual that he is not going to be connected to another".


title: Scientology

text: A Scientologist who communicates with a suppressive person risks being declared a "Potential Trouble Source". Defectors who turn into critics of the movement are declared suppressive persons, and the Church of Scientology has a reputation for moving aggressively against such detractors.


title: Scientology

text: The term "Fair Game" is used to describe policies and practices carried out against people the Church perceives as its enemies. Hubbard established the policy in the 1950s, in response to criticism both from within and outside his organization. Individuals or groups who are "Fair Game" are judged to be a threat to the Church and, according to the policy, can be punished and harassed using any and all means possible.


title: Scientology

text: Hubbard and his followers targeted many individuals as well as government officials and agencies, including a program of illegal infiltration of the IRS and other U.S. government agencies during the 1970s. They also conducted private investigations, character assassination and legal action against the Church's critics in the media. The policy remains in effect and has been defended by the Church of Scientology as a core "religious practice".


title: Scientology

text: In Scientology, ceremonies for events such as weddings, child naming, and funerals are observed. Friday services are held to commemorate the completion of a person's services during the prior week. Ordained Scientology ministers may perform such rites. However, these services and the clergy who perform them play only a minor role in Scientologists' lives.


title: Scientology

text: The internal structure of Scientology organizations is strongly bureaucratic with a focus on statistics-based management. Organizational operating budgets are performance-related and subject to frequent reviews.


title: Scientology

text: The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey found that the there were 25,000 Scientologists in the US. A 2008 Trinity College survey concluded there were 25,000 Scientologists. This was a drop from a survey in 2001 that estimated that 55,000 people in the United States claimed to be Scientologists. Worldwide estimates of Scientology's core practicing membership range between 40,000 and 200,000, mostly in the U.S., Europe, South Africa and Australia. Scientology is also declining in the United Kingdom. In 2011, high-level defector Jeff Hawkins estimated there were 40,000 Scientologists worldwide. According to the Australian census data in 2016 less than 1700 people listed themselves as Scientologists.


title: Scientology

text: Although the Church of Scientology claims to be the "fastest growing religious movement" on Earth, the organization's estimates of its membership numbers are significantly exaggerated.


title: Scientology

text: The highest ranking people in the Scientology hierarchy are the members of the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. The organization includes some 5,000 of Scientology's most dedicated adherents, who work for low pay, and sign a billion-year contract.


title: Scientology

text: The Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) is a controversial part of the Scientology "justice" system. When Sea Org members are found guilty of a violation, they are assigned to the RPF. The RPF involves a daily regimen of five hours of auditing or studying, eight hours of work, often physical labor, such as building renovation, and at least seven hours of sleep. Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley state that scholars and observers have come to radically different conclusions about the RPF and whether it is "voluntary or coercive, therapeutic or punitive".


title: Scientology

text: The Office of Special Affairs or "OSA" (formerly the "Guardian's Office") is a department of the Church of Scientology which has been characterized as a non-state intelligence agency. It has targeted critics of the Church for "dead agent" operations, which is mounting character assassination operations against perceived enemies.


title: Scientology

text: A 1990 article in the "Los Angeles Times" reported that in the 1980s the Church more commonly used private investigators, including former and current Los Angeles police officers, to give themselves a layer of protection in case embarrassing tactics were used and became public.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) has been described as the "most secret organization in all of Scientology". The organization owns the copyrights to all Scientology materials and the bulk of Hubbard's estate. CST licenses this intellectual property to the Religious Technology Center who then sub-licenses it to Church of Scientology International.


title: Scientology

text: The organization also operates the Scientology archiving project, which aims to preserve the works of Hubbard on stainless steel tablets, encased in titanium capsules in specially constructed vaults throughout the world. In addition, the group maintains fully-furnished homes in multiple locations intended to eventually accommodate the reincarnated L. Ron Hubbard.


title: Scientology

text: Shelly Miscavige, wife of leader David Miscavige, who hasn't been seen in public since 2007, is said to be held at a CST compound in Twin Peaks, California.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology operates hundreds of Churches and Missions around the world. This is where Scientologists receive introductory training, and it is at this local level that most Scientologists participate. Churches and Missions are licensed franchises; they may offer services for a fee provided they contribute a proportion of their income and comply with the Religious Technology Center (RTC) and its standards.


title: Scientology

text: Operating Thetan levels are offered only at Scientology's Advanced Organizations (Los Angeles, Sydney, East Grinstead and Copenhagen). The Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Florida offers OT levels VI and VII. The Scientology ship "Freewinds" offers OT VIII.


title: Scientology

text: In 1955, Hubbard created a list of 63 celebrities targeted for conversion to Scientology. In a Church of Scientology policy letter in 1973, L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "The purpose of [the] Celebrity Centre is, to forward the expansion and popularization of Scientology through the arts."


title: Scientology

text: Scientology operates eight locations that are designated "Celebrity Centres", designed to minister to celebrity Scientologists. The largest of these is in Hollywood, California, called "Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International". The Celebrity Centre International was the first one that was opened in 1969 and its opening is celebrated the first week of August each year in an evening gala.


title: Scientology

text: Former silent-screen star Gloria Swanson and actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta have spoken publicly about their commitment to Scientology.


title: Scientology

text: The applicability of Hubbard's teachings also led to the formation of secular organizations focused on fields such as drug abuse awareness and rehabilitation, literacy, and human rights. Several Scientology organizations promote the use of Scientology practices as a means to solve social problems. Scientology began to focus on these issues in the early 1970s, led by Hubbard. The Church developed outreach programs to fight drug addiction, illiteracy, learning disabilities and criminal behavior. These have been presented to schools, businesses and communities as secular techniques based on Hubbard's writings. The Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE) acts as an umbrella organization for these efforts. Notable examples include:


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology began its "Volunteer Ministers" program as a way to participate in community outreach projects. Volunteer Ministers sometimes travel to the scenes of major disasters in order to provide assistance with relief efforts. According to critics, these relief efforts consist of passing out copies of a pamphlet authored by Hubbard entitled "The Way to Happiness", and engaging in a method said to calm panicked or injured individuals known in Scientology as a "touch assist". Accounts of the Volunteer Ministers' effectiveness have been mixed, and touch assists are not supported by scientific evidence.


title: Scientology

text: According to leaked tax documents, the Church of Scientology International and Church of Spiritual Technology in the US had a combined $1.7 billion in assets in 2012, in addition to annual revenues estimated at $200 million a year. This does not include assets and revenue of International Association of Scientologists.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology is a highly controversial organization. A first point of controversy was its challenge of the psychotherapeutic establishment. Another was a 1991 "Time" magazine article that attacked the organization, which responded with a major lawsuit that was rejected by the court as baseless early in 1992. A third is its religious tax status in the United States, as the IRS granted the organization tax-exempt status in 1993.


title: Scientology

text: It has been in conflict with the governments and police forces of many countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany). It has been one of the most litigious religious movements in history, filing countless lawsuits against governments, organizations and individuals.


title: Scientology

text: Reports and allegations have been made, by journalists, courts, and governmental bodies of several countries, that the Church of Scientology is an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and brutally exploits its members. A considerable amount of investigation has been aimed at the organization, by groups ranging from the media to governmental agencies.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology social programs such as drug and criminal rehabilitation have likewise drawn both support and criticism.


title: Scientology

text: Stephen A. Kent, a professor of sociology, has said that "Scientologists see themselves as possessors of doctrines and skills that can save the world, if not the galaxy." As stated in Scientology doctrine: "The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology." Kent has described Scientology's ethics system as "a peculiar brand of morality that uniquely benefited [the Church of Scientology] ... In plain English, the purpose of Scientology ethics is to eliminate opponents, then eliminate people's interests in things other than Scientology."


title: Scientology

text: Many former members have come forward to speak out about the Church and the negative effects its teachings have had on them, including celebrities such as Leah Remini. Remini spoke about her split from the Church, saying that she still has friends within the organization whom she is no longer able to speak with.


title: Scientology

text: Much of the controversy surrounding Scientology stems from the criminal convictions of core members of the Scientology organization.


title: Scientology

text: In 1978, a number of Scientologists, including L. Ron Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard (who was second in command in the organization at the time), were convicted of perpetrating what was at the time the largest incident of domestic espionage in the history of the United States, called "Operation Snow White". This involved infiltrating, wiretapping, and stealing documents from the offices of Federal attorneys and the Internal Revenue Service. L. Ron Hubbard was convicted "in absentia" by French authorities of engaging in fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. The head of the French Church of Scientology was convicted at the same trial and given a suspended one-year prison sentence.


title: Scientology

text: An FBI raid on the Church of Scientology's headquarters revealed documentation that detailed Scientology's criminal actions against various critics of the organization. In "Operation Freakout", agents of the organization attempted to destroy Paulette Cooper, author of "The Scandal of Scientology", an early book that had been critical of the movement. Among these documents was a plan to frame Gabe Cazares, the mayor of Clearwater, Florida, with a staged hit-and-run accident. Nine individuals related to the case were prosecuted on charges of theft, burglary, conspiracy, and other crimes.


title: Scientology

text: In 1988, Scientology president Heber Jentzsch and ten other members of the organization were arrested in Spain on various charges including illicit association, coercion, fraud, and labor law violations.


title: Scientology

text: In October 2009, the Church of Scientology was found guilty of organized fraud in France. The sentence was confirmed by the court of appeal in February 2012, and by the supreme Court of Cassation in October 2013.


title: Scientology

text: and extortion. In March 2016, the Church of Scientology was acquitted of all charges, and demands to close its Belgian branch and European headquarters were dismissed.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology has historically engaged in hostile action toward its critics; executives within the organization have proclaimed that Scientology is "not a turn-the-other-cheek religion". Journalists, politicians, former Scientologists and various anti-cult groups have made accusations of wrongdoing against Scientology since the 1960s, and Scientology has targeted these critics – almost without exception – for retaliation, in the form of lawsuits and public counter-accusations of personal wrongdoing. Many of Scientology's critics have also reported they were subject to threats and harassment in their private lives.


title: Scientology

text: According to a 1990 "Los Angeles Times" article, Scientology had largely switched from using Church members to using private investigators, including former and current Los Angeles police officers, as this gives the organization a layer of protection in case investigators use tactics which might cause the organization embarrassment. In one case, the organization described their tactics as "LAPD sanctioned", which was energetically disputed by Police Chief Daryl Gates. The officer involved in this particular case of surveillance and harassment was suspended for six months.


title: Scientology

text: Journalist John Sweeney reported that "While making our BBC Panorama film "Scientology and Me" I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a 'bigot' by star Scientologists, brain-washed—that is how it felt to me—in a mock up of a Nazi-style torture chamber and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers".


title: Scientology

text: While the Church of Scientology claims to protect the confidentiality of auditing records, the organization has a history of attacking and psychologically abusing former members using information culled from the records. For example, a December 16, 1969, a Guardian's Office order (G. O. 121669) by Mary Sue Hubbard explicitly authorized the use of auditing records for purposes of "internal security". Former members report having participated in combing through information obtained in auditing sessions to see if it could be used for smear campaigns against critics.


title: Scientology

text: The practice of shunning in Scientology is termed "disconnection". Members can disconnect from any person they already know, including existing family members. Many examples of this policy's application have been established in court. Failure to disconnect from a Suppressive Person is itself labeled a Suppressive act.


title: Scientology

text: The Sea Org originally operated on vessels at sea where it was understood that it was not permitted to raise children on board the ships. Pregnant women in the Sea Org have stated that they had been pressured to undergo abortions.


title: Scientology

text: In 2003, "The Times of India" reported "Forced abortions, beatings, starvation are considered tools of discipline in this church [sic]".


title: Scientology

text: A former high-ranking source reports that "some 1,500 abortions" have been "carried out by women in the Sea Organization since the implementation of a rule in the late 80s that members could not remain in the organization if they decided to have children". The source noted that "And if members who have been in the Sea Organization for, say, 10 years do decide to have kids, they are dismissed with no more than $1,000" as a severance package.


title: Scientology

text: Longtime member Astra Woodcraft reportedly "left Scientology for good when the church tried to pressure her to have an abortion". Former Sea Org member Karen Pressley recounted that she was often asked by fellow Scientologists for loans so that they could get an abortion and remain in the Sea Org. Scientology employee Claire Headley has said she "was forced to have (two) abortions to keep her job and was subjected to violations of personal rights and liberties for the purpose of obtaining forced labor". Laura Ann DeCrescenzo reported she was "coerced to have an abortion" as a minor.


title: Scientology

text: In March 2009, Maureen Bolstad reported that women who worked at Scientology's headquarters were forced to have abortions, or faced being declared a "Suppressive Person" by the organization's management. In March 2010, former Scientologist Janette Lang stated that at age 20 she became pregnant by her boyfriend while in the organization, and her boyfriend's Scientology supervisors "coerced them into terminating the pregnancy". "We fought for a week, I was devastated, I felt abused, I was lost and eventually I gave in. It was my baby, my body and my choice, and all of that was taken away from me by Scientology," said Lang.


title: Scientology

text: Australian Senator Nick Xenophon gave a speech to the Australian Parliament in November 2009, about statements he had received from former Scientologists. He said that he had been told members of the organization had coerced pregnant female employees to have abortions. "I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers," said Senator Xenophon, and he requested that the Australian Senate begin an investigation into Scientology. According to the letters presented by Senator Xenophon, the organization was involved in "ordering" its members to have abortions. Former Scientologist Aaron Saxton sent a letter to Senator Xenophon stating he had participated in coercing pregnant women within the organization to have abortions. "Aaron says women who fell pregnant were taken to offices and bullied to have an abortion. If they refused, they faced demotion and hard labour. Aaron says one staff member used a coat hanger and self-aborted her child for fear of punishment," said Senator Xenophon. Carmel Underwood, another former Scientologist, said she had been put under "extreme pressure" to have an abortion, and that she was placed into a "disappearing programme", after refusing. Underwood was the executive director of Scientology's branch in Sydney, Australia.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis said these statements are "utterly meritless". Mike Ferriss, the head of Scientology in New Zealand, told media that "There are no forced abortions in Scientology". Scientology spokesperson Virginia Stewart likewise rejected the statements and asserted "The Church of Scientology considers the family unit and children to be of the utmost importance and does not condone nor force anyone to undertake any medical procedure whatsoever."


title: Scientology

text: A number of women have sued the Church of Scientology, alleging a variety of complaints including human trafficking, rape, forced labor, and child abuse.


title: Scientology

text: In the 1990s, Miscavige's organization took action against increased criticism of Scientology on the Internet and online distribution of Scientology-related documents.


title: Scientology

text: Starting in 1991, Scientology filed fifty lawsuits against Scientology-critic Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Many of the suits were dismissed, but one resulted in $2 million in losses, bankrupting the network. At bankruptcy, CAN's name and logo were obtained by a Scientologist. A New Cult Awareness Network was set up with Scientology backing, which says it operates as an information and networking center for non-traditional religions, referring callers to academics and other experts.


title: Scientology

text: In a 1993 U.S. lawsuit brought by the Church of Scientology against Steven Fishman, a former member of the Church, Fishman made a court declaration which included several dozen pages of formerly secret esoterica detailing aspects of Scientologist cosmogony. As a result of the litigation, this material, normally strictly safeguarded and used only in Scientology's more advanced "OT levels", found its way onto the Internet. This resulted in a battle between the Church of Scientology and its online critics over the right to disclose this material, or safeguard its confidentiality. The Church of Scientology was forced to issue a press release acknowledging the existence of this cosmogony, rather than allow its critics "to distort and misuse this information for their own purposes". Even so, the material, notably the story of Xenu, has since been widely disseminated and used to caricature Scientology, despite the Church's vigorous program of copyright litigation.


title: Scientology

text: In January 1995, Church of Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin attempted to shut down the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology by sending a control message instructing Usenet servers to delete the group. In practice, this rmgroup message had little effect, since most Usenet servers are configured to disregard such messages when sent to groups that receive substantial traffic, and newgroup messages were quickly issued to recreate the group on those servers that did not do so. However, the issuance of the message led to a great deal of public criticism by free-speech advocates. Among the criticisms raised, one suggestion is that Scientology's true motive is to suppress the free speech of its critics.


title: Scientology

text: The Church also began filing lawsuits against those who posted copyrighted texts on the newsgroup and the World Wide Web, and lobbied for tighter restrictions on copyrights in general. The Church supported the controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act as well as the even more controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).


title: Scientology

text: Beginning in the middle of 1996 and ensuing for several years, the newsgroup was attacked by anonymous parties using a tactic dubbed "sporgery" by some, in the form of hundreds of thousands of forged spam messages posted on the group. Some investigators said that some spam had been traced to members of the Church of Scientology. Former Scientologist Tory Christman later asserted that the Office of Special Affairs had undertaken a concerted effort to destroy alt.religion.scientology through these means; the effort failed.


title: Scientology

text: On January 14, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Tom Cruise was leaked to the Internet and uploaded to YouTube.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology issued a copyright violation claim against YouTube requesting the removal of the video. Subsequently, the group Anonymous voiced its criticism of Scientology and began attacking the Church. Calling the action by the Church of Scientology a form of Internet censorship, participants of Anonymous coordinated Project Chanology, consisting of a series of denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites, prank calls, and black faxes to Scientology centers. On January 21, 2008, Anonymous announced its intentions via a video posted to YouTube entitled "Message to Scientology", and a press release declaring a "war" against the Church of Scientology and the Religious Technology Center. In the press release, the group stated that the attacks against the Church of Scientology would continue in order to protect the freedom of speech, and end what they saw as the financial exploitation of members of the organization.


title: Scientology

text: On January 28, 2008, an Anonymous video appeared on YouTube calling for protests outside Church of Scientology centers on February 10, 2008. According to a letter Anonymous e-mailed to the press, about 7,000 people protested in more than 90 cities worldwide. Many protesters wore masks based on the character V from "V for Vendetta" (who was influenced by Guy Fawkes) or otherwise disguised their identities, in part to protect themselves from reprisals from the Church of Scientology. Many further protests have followed since then in cities around the world.


title: Scientology

text: The Arbitration Committee of the Wikipedia internet encyclopedia decided in May 2009 to restrict access to its site from Church of Scientology IP addresses, to prevent self-serving edits by Scientologists. A "host of anti-Scientologist editors" were topic-banned as well. The committee concluded that both sides had "gamed policy" and resorted to "battlefield tactics", with articles on living persons being the "worst casualties".


title: Scientology

text: The legal status of Scientology or Scientology-related organizations differs between jurisdictions. Scientology was legally recognized as a tax-exempt religion in Australia, Portugal, and Spain. Scientology was granted tax-exempt status in the United States in 1993. The organization is considered a cult in Chile and an "anticonstitutional sect" in Germany, and is considered a cult (French "secte") by some French public authorities.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology argues that Scientology is a genuine religious movement that has been misrepresented, maligned, and persecuted. The organization has pursued an extensive public relations campaign for the recognition of Scientology as a tax-exempt religion in the various countries in which it exists.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology has often generated opposition due to its strong-arm tactics directed against critics and members wishing to leave the organization. A minority of governments regard it as a religious organization entitled to tax-exempt status, while other governments variously classify it as a business, cult, pseudoreligion, or criminal organization.


title: Scientology

text: In 1957, the Church of Scientology of California was granted tax-exempt status by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and so, for a time, were other local branches of the organization. In 1958 however, the IRS started a review of the appropriateness of this status. In 1959, Hubbard moved to England, remaining there until the mid-1960s.


title: Scientology

text: In the mid-sixties, the Church of Scientology was banned in several Australian states, starting with Victoria in 1965. The ban was based on the Anderson Report, which found that the auditing process involved "command" hypnosis, in which the hypnotist assumes "positive authoritative control" over the patient. On this point the report stated, It is the firm conclusion of this Board that most scientology and dianetic techniques are those of authoritative hypnosis and as such are dangerous ... the scientific evidence which the Board heard from several expert witnesses of the highest repute ... leads to the inescapable conclusion that it is only in name that there is any difference between authoritative hypnosis and most of the techniques of scientology. Many scientology techniques are in fact hypnotic techniques, and Hubbard has not changed their nature by changing their names. The Australian Church was forced to operate under the name of the "Church of the New Faith" as a result, the name and practice of Scientology having become illegal in the relevant states. Several years of court proceedings aimed at overturning the ban followed. In 1973, state laws banning Scientology were overturned in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. In 1983 the High Court of Australia ruled in a unanimous decision that the Church of Scientology was "undoubtedly a religion and deserving of tax exemption".


title: Scientology

text: In 1967, the IRS removed Scientology's tax-exempt status, asserting that its activities were commercial and operated for the benefit of Hubbard, rather than for charitable or religious purposes.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology is officially recognized as a religion in the United States. Recognition came in 1993, when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stated that "[Scientology is] operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes." Scientology was again recognized as a religion by the U.S. courts when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in "Headley v. Church of Scientology International" in 2012.


title: Scientology

text: The "New York Times" noted in this connection that the Church of Scientology had funded a campaign which included a whistle-blower organization to publicly attack the IRS, as well as hiring of private investigators to look into the private lives of IRS officials. In 1991, Miscavige, the highest-ranking Scientology leader, arranged a meeting with Fred T. Goldberg Jr., the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service at the time. According to the Church of Scientology's version of events, the meeting was an opportunity for the organization to offer to end its long dispute with the IRS, including the dozens of suits brought against the agency, in exchange for the exemptions that Scientology believed it deserved. Goldberg's response was quite out of the ordinary: he created a special working group to resolve the dispute, bypassing the agency's exempt organizations division. The group met several times with the Scientology legal team and, according to an unnamed official quoted by the "New York Times", "was persuaded that those involved in the Snow White crimes had been purged, that church [sic] money was devoted to tax-exempt purposes and that, with Mr. Hubbard's death, no one was getting rich from Scientology." In August 1993, a settlement was reached; the organization would receive its tax-exempt status and end its legal actions against the IRS and its personnel. The organization was required only to resubmit new applications for exemption to the IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) division, which was told "not to consider any substantive matters" because those issues had been resolved by the committee. The secret agreement was announced on October 13, 1993, with the IRS refusing to disclose any of the terms or the reasoning behind the decision. Both the IRS and Scientology rejected any allegations that foul play or undue pressure had been used on IRS officials, insisting that the decision had been based on the merits of the case. IRS officials "insisted that Scientology's tactics had not affected the decision" and that "ultimately the decision was made on a legal basis". Miscavige claims that the IRS's examination of Scientology was the most exhaustive review of any non-profit organization in history.


title: Scientology

text: Elsewhere, Scientology is recognized as a religion in Australia, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary and Kyrgyzstan. In New Zealand, the Inland Revenue Department classified the Church of Scientology as a charitable organization and stated that its income would be tax exempt. Scientology officials have won the right to perform marriages in South Africa. In Italy, Scientology was judicially recognized as a religious denomination in 2000, when the Supreme Court held that Christian-based definitions of religion are not applicable because they would lead to the exclusion of Taoism, Buddhism, and many polytheistic, shamanistic, or animist religions.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology is not recognized as a religion in Canada. In the UK, the Charity Commission for England and Wales ruled in 1999 that Scientology was not a religion and refused to register the organization as a charity, although a year later, it was recognized as a not-for-profit body in a separate proceeding by the UK Revenue and Customs and exempted from UK value added tax. In December 2013, the United Kingdom's highest court officially recognized Scientology as a religion. The ruling ended a five-year legal battle by Scientologist Louisa Hodkin, who sought the legal right to marry at the Church of Scientology chapel in central London. The opinion by five supreme court justices redefined religion in law, rendering the 1970 definition "out of date" in restricting religious worship to "reverence or veneration of God or of a Supreme Being".


title: Scientology

text: In May 2008, the City of London police, senior officers of which had earlier received gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Scientology organization, unsuccessfully attempted to initiate a prosecution of a 15-year-old boy following a peaceful protest at which he held a sign reading "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult". This statement is a quote from a superior court judgement against the Scientology organization. The summons was ostensibly issued under the Public Order Act 1986. The City of London police were swiftly instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that the word "cult" was "not abusive or insulting" to the Church of Scientology. The CPS advised the force on what action or behaviour at a demonstration might be considered to be threatening, abusive or insulting. The police force was then obliged to accept that their policing of future demonstrations will reflect this advice.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology has been accused of being "a business, often given to criminal acts, and sometimes masquerading as a religion".


title: Scientology

text: In conjunction with the Church of Scientology's request to be officially recognized as a religion in Germany, around 1996 the German state Baden-Württemberg conducted a thorough investigation of the group's activities within Germany. The results of this investigation indicated that at the time of publication, Scientology's main sources of revenue ("Haupteinnahmequellen der SO") were from course offerings and sales of their various publications. Course offerings ranged from (German Marks) DM 182.50 to about DM 30,000the equivalent today of approximately $119 to US$19,560. Revenue from monthly, bi-monthly, and other membership offerings could not be estimated in the report.


title: Scientology

text: Since 1997 Germany has considered Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution. It is seen as an anticonstitutional sect and a new version of political extremism and because there is "evidence for intentions against the free democratic basic order" it is observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In 1997, an open letter to then-German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the "International Herald Tribune", drew parallels between the "organized oppression" of Scientologists in Germany and the treatment of Jews in 1930s' Nazi Germany. The letter was signed by Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn and a number of other Hollywood celebrities and executives. Commenting on the matter, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said that Scientologists were discriminated against in Germany, but condemned the comparisons to the Nazis' treatment of Jews as extremely inappropriate, as did a United Nations Special Rapporteur. Based on the IRS exemptions, the U.S. State Department formally criticized Germany for discriminating against Scientologists and began to note Scientologists' complaints of harassment in its annual human rights reports, as well as the annual International Religious Freedom Reports it has released from 1999 onwards. Germany will continue to monitor Scientology's activities in the country, despite continued objection from Scientology which cites such monitoring as abuse of freedom of religion.


title: Scientology

text: France and Belgium have not recognized Scientology as a religion, and Stephen A. Kent, writing in 2001, noted that recognition had not been obtained in Ireland, Luxembourg, Israel or Mexico either. Although the Belgian State Prosecution Service recommended that various individuals and organizations associated with Scientology should be prosecuted, the Belgian courts finally decided in March 2016 that Scientology is not a criminal organization.


title: Scientology

text: In Greece, Scientology is not recognized as a religion by the Greek government, and multiple applications for religious status have been denied, notably in 2000 and 2003.


title: Scientology

text: In the Netherlands, Scientology was granted tax exempt status in October 2013. The status was revoked in October 2015. The court ruled that because auditing fees and course costs were more expensive than most commercial education institutions, Scientology appeared to be aimed at making a profit.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology maintains strict control over the use of its symbols, icons, and names. It claims copyright and trademark over its "Scientology cross", and its lawyers have threatened lawsuits against individuals and organizations who have published the image in books and on Web sites. The Church of Scientology seeks to make it very difficult for individual groups to attempt to publicly practice Scientology on their own, independent of the official Church of Scientology. Scientology has filed suit against a number of individuals who have attempted to set up their own auditing practices, using copyright and trademark law to shut these groups down.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology and its many related organizations have amassed considerable real estate holdings worldwide, likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Scientology encourages existing members to "sell" Scientology to others by paying a commission to those who recruit new members. Scientology franchises, or missions, must pay the Church of Scientology roughly 10% of their gross income. On that basis, it is likened to a pyramid selling scheme. While introductory courses do not cost much, courses at the higher levels may cost several thousand dollars each.


title: Scientology

text: In November 2009, Australian Senator Nick Xenophon used a speech in Federal Parliament to allege that the Church of Scientology is a criminal organization. Based on letters from former followers, he said that there were "allegations of forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, and embezzlement of church funds [sic], of physical violence and intimidation, blackmail and the widespread and deliberate abuse of information obtained by the organization".


title: Scientology

text: In the early 2000s, Melton stated that most scholarship about the church had been by either critics of the church or church-affiliated writers that defend the church. In the more recent years, new literature about the church has emerged among scholars of new religious movements. The first scholarly work on the church emerged in 1976, 22 years after the church founding in 1954; the work was entitled "The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology" by Roy Wallis. The second scholarly work was Harriet Whitehead’s "Renunciation and Reformulation: A Study of Conversion in an American Sect." Four monographs emerged in the 21st century, adding to the body of scholarship about the Church of Scientology, including Hugh B. Urban’s "The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion," which focused mainly on L. Ron Hubbard and his creations from the 1950s. A second scholar, Aldo Natale Terrin, wrote "Scientology: Freedom and Immortality" about Scientology beliefs and practices. Donald Westbrook wrote "Among the Scientologists: History, Theology and Praxis" based on field interviews; and the most recent was "Free Zone Scientology: Contesting the Boundaries of a New Religion", pertaining to Independent Scientologists.


title: Scientology

text: Hugh B. Urban writes that "Scientology's efforts to get itself defined as a religion make it an ideal case study for thinking about how we understand and define religion." Toward the second decade of the 2000s, a new interest for Scientology emerged among scholars, bringing the subject from obscurity.


title: Scientology

text: According to the "Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States", "even as Scientology raises questions about how and who gets to define religion, most scholars recognize it as a religion, one that emerges from and builds on American individualism and the spiritual marketplace that dominated 1950s America." David G. Bromley comments that Scientology "could gain strength by adding to the new perspective on existence, the hope and human meaning that only a transcendent creed can give".


title: Scientology

text: Bromley and Cowan noted in 2008 that Scientology's attempts "to gain favor with new religion scholars" had often been problematic. According to Religious Studies professor Mary Farrell Benarowski, Scientology describes itself as drawing on science, religion, psychology and philosophy but "had been claimed by none of them and repudiated, for the most part, by all".


title: Scientology

text: Régis Dericquebourg writes about the efficacy of Scientology in imparting knowledge: "Scientology indeed not only brings knowledge, it also brings personal introspection through auditing, and transmission in upper levels is not merely reading texts: what is transmitted is experienced through a solo or duo auditing experience." He compared it to psychoanalysis.


title: Scientology

text: Frank K. Flinn, adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis wrote, "it is abundantly clear that Scientology has both the typical forms of ceremonial and celebratory worship and its own unique form of spiritual life." Flinn further states that religion requires "beliefs in something transcendental or ultimate, practices (rites and codes of behavior) that re-inforce those beliefs and, a community that is sustained by both the beliefs and practices", all of which are present within Scientology. Similarly, "World Religions in America" states that "Scientology contains the same elements of most other religions, including myths, scriptures, doctrines, worship, sacred practices and rituals, moral and ethical expectations, a community of believers, clergy, and ecclesiastic organizations."


title: Scientology

text: While acknowledging that a number of his colleagues accept Scientology as a religion, sociologist Stephen A. Kent writes: "Rather than struggling over whether or not to label Scientology as a religion, I find it far more helpful to view it as a multifaceted transnational corporation, only "one" element of which is religious" [emphasis in the original].


title: Scientology

text: Donna Batten in the "Gale Encyclopedia of American Law" writes, "A belief does not need to be stated in traditional terms to fall within First Amendment protection. For example, Scientology—a system of beliefs that a human being is essentially a free and immortal spirit who merely inhabits a body—does not propound the existence of a supreme being, but it qualifies as a religion under the broad definition propounded by the Supreme Court."


title: Scientology

text: The material contained in the OT levels has been characterized as bad science fiction by critics, while others claim it bears structural similarities to gnostic thought and ancient Hindu beliefs of creation and cosmic struggle.


title: Scientology

text: Scholar Luigi Berzano of the University of Turin listed five religious characteristics of Scientology: a set of doctrines leading to a spiritual goal, a community of believers, an authority figure (Hubbard), ritual practices, and "an ethical-moral view of life".


title: Scientology

text: During his lifetime, Hubbard was accused of using religion as a façade for Scientology to maintain tax-exempt status and avoid prosecution for false medical claims. The IRS cited a statement frequently attributed to Hubbard that the way to get rich was to found a religion. Many of Hubbard's science fiction colleagues, including Sam Merwin, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach and Sam Moscowitz, recall Hubbard raising the topic in conversation.


title: Scientology

text: Hubbard grew up in a climate that was very critical of organized religion, and frequently quoted anti-religious sentiments in his early lectures. The scholar Marco Frenschkowski (University of Mainz) has stated that it was not easy for Hubbard "to come to terms with the spiritual side of his own movement. Hubbard did not want to found a religion: he discovered that what he was talking about in fact was religion. This mainly happened when he had to deal with apparent memories from former lives. He had to defend himself about this to his friends." Frenschkowski allows that there were practical concerns in the question of "how to present Scientology to the outside world", but dismisses the notion that the religious format was just an expedient pretense; Frenschkowski points to many passages in Hubbard's works that document his struggle with this question. Frenschkowski suggests that it was a biographical mistake to suggest that Hubbard only became interested in Scientology as a religion in 1954. He notes that Hubbard discussed religion and the concept of god even in the years leading up to the emergence of Scientology, and that he did not "rush into religion" but rather, "discovered it through the development of his work with pre-clears".


title: Scientology

text: Drawing parallels to similar struggles for identity in other religious movements such as Theosophy and Transcendental Meditation, Frenschkowski sees in Hubbard's lectures "the case of a man whose background was non-religious and who nevertheless discovers that his ideas somehow oscillate between 'science' (in a very popular sense), 'religion' and 'philosophy', and that these ideas somehow fascinate so many people that they start to form a separate movement". Hubbard experiments with traditional religious language in a short piece written in 1953 called "The Factors", "a basic expression of Scientologist cosmology and metaphysics", reprinted in current Scientology literature. Frenschkowski observes that the text is partly biblical in structure and that this development is a component of Scientology's metamorphosis into a religion, written at a point when the nature of the new movement was unclear.


title: Scientology

text: The Church of Scientology says that the idea of Hubbard starting a religion for personal gain is an unfounded rumor. The organization also suggests that the origin of the rumor was a remark by George Orwell which had been misattributed to Hubbard. Robert Vaughn Young, who left the organization in 1989 after being its spokesman for 20 years, suggested that reports of Hubbard making such a statement could be explained as a misattribution, despite having encountered three of Hubbard's associates from his science fiction days who remembered Hubbard making statements of that sort in person. It was Young who by a stroke of luck came up with the "Orwell quote": "but I have always thought there might be a lot of cash in starting a new religion, and we'll talk it over some time". It appears in a letter by Eric Blair (known to the world as George Orwell) to his friend, Jack Common, dated 16 February 1938, and was published in "Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell", vol. 1. In 2006, "Rolling Stone"'s Janet Reitman also attributed the statement to Hubbard, as a remark to science fiction writer Lloyd Eshbach and recorded in Eshbach's autobiography.


title: Scientology

text: Scientology can be seen as a UFO religion in which the existence of extraterrestrial entities operating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are an element of belief. In this context, it is discussed in "UFO Religions" by Christopher Partridge, and "The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions" by James R. Lewis, while Susan Palmer draws several parallels with Raelianism. Gregory Reece, in his book "UFO Religion: Inside flying saucer cults and culture", writes: Scientology is unique within the UFO culture because of this secretiveness, as well as because of the capitalist format under which they operate. Scientology is also difficult to categorize. While it bears strong similarities to the Ashtar Command or the Aetherius Society, its emphasis upon the Xenu event as the central message of the group seems to place them within the ancient astronaut tradition. Either way, Scientology is perhaps most different from other UFO groups in their attempt to keep all of the space opera stuff under wraps. They really would have preferred the rest of us not to know about Xenu and the galactic federation. Alas, such secrets are hard to keep


title: Scientology

text: Regardless of such statements by critics, Hubbard wrote and lectured openly about the material he himself called "space opera". In 1952, Hubbard published a book ("") on space opera and other material that may be encountered when auditing preclears.


title: Scientology

text: According to David G. Bromley, Scientology is "part therapy, part religion, part UFO group. It's a mix of things unlike any other religious group out there." Scholar Andreas Grunschlo writes that as a ufogical religion, Scientology "conceives of earthly human beings primarily as extraterrestrial spirits ('Thetans') which have now to put on their 'bridge to freedom' again —a soul conception which is paralleled by the typical ufogical 'star seeds' or 'walk-ins' planted on this earthly 'garden' for spiritual growth".


title: Scientology

text: The general orientation of Hubbard's philosophy owes much to Will Durant, author of the popular 1926 classic "The Story of Philosophy"; "Dianetics" is dedicated to Durant. Hubbard's view of a mechanically functioning mind in particular finds close parallels in Durant's work on Spinoza. According to Hubbard himself, Scientology is "the Western anglicized continuance of many early forms of wisdom". Ankerberg and Weldon mention the sources of Scientology to include "the Vedas, Buddhism, Judaism, Gnosticism, Taoism, early Greek civilization and the teachings of Jesus, Nietzsche and Freud". Hubbard asserted that Freudian thought was a "major precursor" to Scientology. W. Vaughn Mccall, Professor and Chairman of the Georgia Regents University writes, "Both Freudian theory and Hubbard assume that there are unconscious mental processes that may be shaped by early life experiences, and that these influence later behavior and thought." Both schools of thought propose a "tripartite structure of the mind". Sigmund Freud's psychology, popularized in the 1930s and 1940s, was a key contributor to the Dianetics therapy model, and was acknowledged unreservedly as such by Hubbard in his early works. Hubbard never forgot, when he was 12 years old, meeting Cmdr. Joseph Cheesman Thompson, a U.S. Navy officer who had studied with Freud and when writing to the American Psychological Association in 1949, he stated that he was conducting research based on the "early work of Freud".


title: Scientology

text: In "Dianetics", Hubbard cites Hegel as a negative influence — an object lesson in "confusing" writing. According to Mary A. Mann, Scientology is considered nondenominational, accepting all people regardless of their religions background, ethnicity, or educational attainment. Another influence was Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics. Hubbard was friends with fellow science fiction writers A. E. van Vogt and Robert Heinlein, who both wrote science-fiction inspired by Korzybski's writings, such as Vogt's "The World of Null-A". Hubbard's view of the "reactive mind" has clear and acknowledged parallels with Korzybski's thought; in fact, Korzybski's "anthropometer" may have been what inspired Hubbard's invention of the E-meter.


title: Scientology

text: Beyond that, Hubbard himself named a great many other influences in his own writing – in "Scientology 8-8008", for example, these include philosophers from Anaxagoras and Aristotle to Herbert Spencer and Voltaire, physicists and mathematicians like Euclid and Isaac Newton, as well as founders of religions such as Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Mohammed – but there is little evidence in Hubbard's writings that he studied these figures to any great depth.