Religion 101 (27 page)

Hubbard has excited considerable controversy. He was a prolific writer of science fiction and, according to his own account, spent time as a highly decorated officer in the navy, an explorer of the Far East, and for a time an adherent of an occult group in California. According to others who have investigated his biography, he performed poorly in the navy and was never decorated, probably made up the stories about exploring China and Tibet, and spent much of his time writing and making up fictions about himself.

No God?

The words
god
,
sacred deity
,
holy deity
, or any similar descriptive name does not appear in any text that is part of Scientology literature.

The Church of Scientology was formally established in the United States in 1954. It was subsequently incorporated in Great Britain and other countries. It is considered a religio-scientific movement.

The movement has generated considerable controversy, even extreme anger, with accusations of being dangerous and vicious, fleecing its members, and harassing those who disagree with its philosophy and manner of operation.

At
www.scientology.org
, a section titled “What Is Scientology?” says in part:

Comparing specific Scientology doctrines and practices with those of other religions, similarities and differences emerge which make it clear that although Scientology is entirely new, its origins are as ancient as religious thought itself.

… And because the principles of Scientology encompass the entire scope of life, the answers it provides apply to all existence and have broad ranging applicability.

Controversies Concerning Scientology

The Church of Scientology and its officers have had many private lawsuits brought against them. The government prosecuted the movement for fraud, tax evasion, financial mismanagement, and conspiracy to steal government documents. The church claimed that it was being persecuted by government agencies and in retaliation has filed thousands of its own lawsuits against the government and private individuals. Former members testified that Hubbard was guilty of using a tax-exempt church status to build a thriving, profitable business.

Central Beliefs

The core of the movement is based on a system of psychology and the way the mind seems to work. The word
engram
is part of the Scientology nomenclature; it means a memory trace that is supposedly a permanent change in the brain that accounts for the existence of a memory that is not available to the conscious mind. However, it remains dormant in the subconscious, and can be brought into consciousness when triggered by new experiences. These new experiences are supplied in what Scientology calls an audit, which is conducted by an auditor in a one-on-one session with a potential devotee where the auditor confronts the engram in order to bring it to the surface and clear, or free, the devotee’s mind of it. The purpose is to free the mind of engrams and thus allow the devotee to achieve improved mental health and outlook. Those familiar with the techniques originated by Sigmund Freud might find similarities.

To quote again from official statements: “An auditor is a minister or minister-in-training of the Church of Scientology.
Auditor
means one who listens, from the Latin
audire
meaning “to hear or listen.” An auditor is a person trained and qualified in applying auditing to individuals for their betterment. An auditor works together with the preclear (a person who has not yet completed the clearing process) to help him or her defeat his or her reactive mind.”

The officially stated Scientology meaning of the word
engram
is, “A recording made by the reactive mind when a person is unconscious.” An engram is not a memory, it is a particular type of mental image that is a complete recording, down to the last accurate details, of every perception present in a moment of partial or full unconsciousness. “To become ‘clear’ indicates a highly desirable state for the individual, achieved through auditing, which was never attainable before Dianetics. A Clear is a person who no longer has his own reactive mind and therefore suffers none of the ill effects that the reactive mind can cause. The Clear has no engrams, which when restimulated, throw out the correctness of his computations by entering hidden and false data.”

In addition to the personal mental freeing that supposedly takes place, Scientology lays great stress on a universal life energy, what they call thetan
.

One unusual feature of Scientology, as compared with other religions, is that those progressing through the different levels, seeking to attain Clear status, have to pay for the process — something that can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Part of the controversy regarding the church is precisely the fact that in no other religion do adherents have to pay for the privilege of receiving the faith’s benefits.

The Works of L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard has described his philosophy in more than 5,000 writings and in 3,000 tape-recorded lectures.
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
has been described by the movement as marking a turning point in history. There are no sacred texts.

Worship and Practices

The movement appoints its own ministers. Scientology ministers perform the same types of ceremonies and services that ministers and priests of other religions perform. At a weekly service a sermon may be given that addresses the idea that a person is a spiritual being.

Scientologist Celebrities

Scientology has been vigorous in its attempts to recruit celebrities, especially from the entertainment world. Among the prominent Scientologist celebrities are:

• Tom Cruise
  
• John Travolta
  
• Kirstie Alley
  
• Anne Archer
  
• Nancy Cartwright
  
• Jenna Elfman
  
• Juliette Lewis
  
• Bijou Phillips
  
• Giovanni Ribisi
  
• Greta Van Susteren
  

Scientology congregations celebrate weddings and christenings with their own formal ceremonies and mark the passing of their fellows with funeral rites.

The chaplain also ministers to Scientologists on a personal level. Apparently such aid can take many forms. It is stated that Scientology is a religion where, ultimately, everyone wins. An escalating fee structure for services rendered is stringently applied.

APPENDIX
TIMELINE OF IMPORTANT DATES

What follows is an overview calendar of some of the important dates in the history of religion. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but it should provide a general reference to the emergence of important people and events. It should also provide a good indication of the dissension between religions that took place over the centuries. Please note that the dates given in the
B.C.
time period are, even among scholars, frequently educated guesstimates.

B.C.

2000–1501 — Stonehenge, England is the center of religious worship.

1500–1001 — Moses is given the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

1100–500 — The Veda, sacred texts of the Hindus, are compiled.

800–701 — Isaiah teaches of the coming of the Messiah.

600–501 — Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, and the Jewish prophets are at their height.

540–468 — Mahavira establishes Jainism. Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is born.

450–401 — The Torah becomes the moral essence of the Jews.

200 — The Bhagavad Gita is written.

The year 1 — Believed to be the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, founder of Christianity.

A.D.

30 — Probable date of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.

51–100 — St. Peter, disciple of Jesus, is executed. First four books of the New Testament, the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, believed written.

570 — Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is born.

622 — Muhammad flees persecution in Mecca and settles in Yathrib (later Madinah). Marks year one in the Muslim calendar.

625 — Muhammad begins to dictate the Qur’an.

632 — Buddhism becomes the state religion of Tibet.

695 — Persecution of the Jews in Spain.

936 — Traditional date of the arrival in India from Iran of the first Parsis (followers of Zoroastrianism).

1054 — The split between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church becomes permanent.

1200 — Islam begins to replace Indian religions.

1229 — The Inquisition in Toulouse, France, bans the reading of the Bible by all laymen.

1252 — The Inquisition begins to use instruments of torture.

1306 — The Jews are expelled from France.

1309 — The Roman Catholic papacy is seated in Avignon, France.

1349 — Persecution of the Jews in Germany.

1483 — Martin Luther, who becomes leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, is born.

1491 — Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit Order of Roman Catholic priests, is born.

1492 — The Jews are given three months by the Inquisitor General of Spain to accept Christianity or leave the country.

1507 — Martin Luther is ordained.

1509 — John Calvin, leader of the Protestant Reformation in France, is born.

1509 — Emperor Maximilian I orders the confiscation and destruction of all Jewish books, including the Torah.

1531 — The Inquisition in Portugal.

1549 — Only the new Book of Prayer allowed to be used in England.

1561 — French Calvinist refugees from Flanders settle in England.

1611 — The authorized version of the King James Bible is published.

1620 — The Pilgrim fathers leave Plymouth, England, in the
Mayflower
for North America. They settle at New Plymouth, Mass., and establish the Plymouth Colony.

1642 — George Fox, English founder of the Protestant Society of Friends (the Quakers), is born.

1703 — John Wesley, English founder of the Protestant movement that later became the Methodist Church, is born.

1716 — Christian religious teaching banned in China.

1859 — Charles Darwin, English naturalist, publishes
Origin of Species
.

1869 — Meeting of the first Roman Catholic Vatican Council, at which the dogma of papal infallibility is advocated.

1869 — Mohandas K. Gandhi, who helped his country achieve independence from Britain and sought rapprochement between Hindus and Muslims, is born.

1933 — The persecution and extermination of European Jews, known as the Holocaust, by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party begins.

1948 — The independent Jewish state of Israel comes into existence.

1952 — The Revised Standard Version of the Bible reaches number one on the nonfiction bestseller lists.

1962 — Meeting of the second Roman Catholic Vatican Council, at which changes were made in the liturgy and greater participation in services by lay church members was encouraged.

1983 — The World Council of Churches establishes new levels of consensus in regard to Christian faith and worship. The Council holds a historic interdenominational Eucharist.

1990 — The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible is published.

Egyptian Papyrus.
This Egyptian papyrus depicts Horus, the falcon-headed offspring of Isis and Osiris, as he oversees a funerary rite. Kneeling by the scales is Anubis, the jackal-headed god who weighs the heart of the deceased to determine if he is worthy to enter the realms of the dead.

Photo Credit:
123rf.com

Kiss of Judas.
Judas, a disciple of Jesus, betrayed his master to the Romans. According to legend, he indicated to the troops Jesus’ identity by kissing him. That scene is portrayed here by the fourteenth-century painter Giotto.