There has been much debate about whether Scientology should be considered an official religion.
One thing is for sure, Scientology is a worldwide phenomenon, with an estimated 10 million followers in 159 countries operating out of 6,000 specialised churches.
Scientology is legally seen as a legitimate religion in both Australia (where there are around 2000 believers) and in its country of origin, the United States. And considering it shares many similarities with the world’s traditional faiths—most obviously Christianity and Judaism—Scientology can lay strong claim to its status as a religion.
Like traditional faiths, Scientology requires believers to give financial donations; has a narrative central to its beliefs, and considers man a spiritual being— not simply flesh and blood. And according to Mark Oppenheimer from the Washington Post, Scientology, like most religions, becomes increasingly authoritarian and cult-like at the higher levels of the faith.
But whilst Scientology shares similarities with other faiths, it takes religious narrative to a whole new level—a level of science fiction fantasy that is way beyond belief.
The Scientology farce
‘Scientology’ literally translated means, ‘the study of truth’, but to any non-believer the foundations of Scientology are very hard to believe.
In a nutshell, Scientologists claim that tens of millions of years ago an alien named Xenu, from a distant planet unknown to man, rounded up 13.5 trillion beings from various planets in the galaxy and flew them to Earth.
These beings were then dumped into Earth’s volcanoes and vaporized with bombs. These bombs scattered the being’s evil spirits (or ‘body thetans’ in Scientology speak) across the globe and in turn the spirits attached themselves to human beings. Scientologists believe it’s these spirits that are responsible for all our weaknesses, including sin and illness.
Scientology proclaims that the only way that humans can rid themselves of the evil body thetans is through the teachings of their spiritual guru, L. Ron Hubbard. Once human beings have been enlightened by the teachings of Hubbard, we will then be able to create perfect human societies free from insanity, crime and war.
The cost of knowledge
In Scientology, knowledge is imparted to believers like goods are bought from a store.
“What’s special about this cult is the price believers are charged to take each step along the ‘Bridge to Total Freedom’. It's pay as you go. Pay per view of the secret texts” says Australian journalist David Marr.
Hubbard himself remarked in the 1940s (before he had fully developed Scientology) that ‘if a man really [wanted] to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion’.
Estimates of how much it costs to reach Scientology’s holy level of Operating Thetan (OT) range between $US100,000 and $US300,000. The church is structured so that followers pay greater and greater amounts of money for spiritual guidance depending on their position within the church and their level of theological knowledge.
This is a major reason why so many celebrities have been lured into the church’s clutches — most notably James Packer, Isaac Hayes, John Travolta and of course Hollywood action man, Tom Cruise who has become the perfectly chiselled poster boy of Scientology. Cruise has been a practicing Scientologist for 20 years and is currently the second most powerful member of the church, making him an ‘Operating Thetan 7’.
Janet Reitman, who embarked on a nine month investigation into Scientology in 2006 for Rolling Stone Magazine (US), discovered OTs to be regarded as ‘enlightened beings who are said to have total 'control' over themselves and their environment. OTs can allegedly move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and telepathically communicate with, and control the behaviour of, both animals and human beings.’
However, this is all part and parcel of Scientology’s fictional illusion. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in being able to move inanimate objects without physically touching them?
Edward Lottick, father of a 24 year-old Pennsylvanian man who committed suicide in 1991 after loosing everything to Scientology, believes the church prays upon the very human weaknesses its theology claims to free us from. ‘I believe it's a school for psychopaths. Their so-called therapies are manipulations. They take the best and brightest people and destroy them,’ Lottick stated.
By charging believers huge amounts of money for bad science fiction writing that masquerades as religious gospel, Scientology has developed a strong global following. But how it can be seen as a legitimate religion, is simply beyond me.
How do I know this?
Associated Press 2007, ‘Push to Charge Scientologists’, The Australian, 6 September
Behar, R 1991, ‘The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power’, Time Magazine, May,
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865,00.html
Marr, D 2008, ‘Print and be Damned’, The Age, 19 January
Oppenheimer, M 2007, ‘Weird, Sure. A Cult, No’, The Washington Post, 5 August
Reitman, J 2006, ‘Inside Scientology: Unlocking the complex code of America's most mysterious religion’, Rolling Stone Magazine, February,
www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9363363/inside_scientology
Religious Tolerance,
www.religioustolerance.org/scientol.htm
The Church of Scientology - Australia,
www.scientology.org.au
The Church of Scientology - International,
www.scientology.org
The Gawker, the Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress,
http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress
What is Scientology?
www.whatisscientology.org
