Scientology

Scientology, the faith of the Church of Scientology International, is a new religious movement founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986). Spreading from the United States around the globe, it claimed membership in the millions worldwide in the early 21st century. Scientology has also attracted considerable controversy globally.

In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer and explorer, published Dianetics, a bestselling book presenting the basic ideas underlying Scientology. Mental and behavioral problems are created by “engrams” implanted in the mind as a result of shock in this or previous lives. They can be released by a process called “auditing,” which enables the client to go “Clear.” Later developments, based on a Gnostic-type mythology, offer to free the “Clear” individual to become an Operating Thetan, or spiritual being.

Moving up the bridge “to total freedom,” as Scientology describes it, requires substantial commitments of time and money. At the same time, Scientologists, many of whom are young adults, enjoy opportunities in church centers for a full social life, including parties, entertainment, and even the hope of meeting one of the celebrities whose names are prominently associated with the movement.

The unimpressed charge the church with practicing a fraudulent form of psychotherapy, alleging that it is actually a commercial activity posing as religion, extortionate in its monetary demands, and excessively harassing critics and defectors. Scientology has not been slow to answer with countercharges and lawsuits, including contentious court and administrative cases regarding its right to be recognized as a tax-exempt religious organization under a number of jurisdictions. Recognition was eventually won in the United States (1993), the United Kingdom (2000), Australia (1983, in what is considered that nation's landmark religious freedom case), New Zealand (2002), Spain (2007), Russia (2007, in the European Court of Human Rights), and Italy (1997, in a decision important for its legal definition of religion) but has been more problematic in France, in the wake of the government's strict “anticult” policies, and in Germany, where Scientology has been severely criticized.

These highly publicized disputes have done much to test popular and governmental attitudes toward new religious movements and to clarify meanings of religious freedom—indeed the definition of religion itself—on a global basis. Overall, recognition appears to be feasible where freedom of religion is taken to cover religious organizations as such, despite turpitude on the part of a religion's individual representatives or agencies, and more difficult when the government considers it has a legitimate duty to protect citizens from purveyors of religious beliefs and practices that it judges to be psychologically or materially dangerous. Scientology has had a significant role in illuminating these issues.