Scientology

Scientology is a system of beliefs, teachings and rituals, originally established as an alternative psychotherapy in 1951 by science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, then recharacterized by him in 1953 as an "applied religious philosophy."

Controversy and criticism

Main article: Scientology controversy

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Of the many new religious movements to appear during the 20th century, Scientology has been one of the most controversial almost since its inception. The Church of Scientology has come into conflict with the governments and police of several countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany) numerous times over the years, though supporters point out that many major world religions have found themselves in conflict with civil government while in their early years.

Related Topics:
New religious movement - 20th century

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The ongoing controversies involving the Church of Scientology and its critics include:

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• Scientology's harassing and litigious actions against its critics and "enemies."
• Differing accounts of L. Ron Hubbard's life. Critics charge Scientology with being a cult of personality, with much emphasis placed on the alleged accomplishments of its founder. Scientologists claim that government files, such as those from the FBI, are loaded with forgeries and other false documents detrimental to Scientology, but have never substantiated this claim.
• Deaths of Scientologists, most notably Lisa McPherson, due to mistreatment by other members.
• Scientology's disconnection policy, in which members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members critical of the Church.
• Criminal activities by Scientologists, both those committed for personal gain (Reed Slatkin, others) and those committed on behalf of the Church and directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout and others).
• Claims of brainwashing and mind control.
• Use of high-pressure sales tactics to obtain money from members.
• Accounts of L. Ron Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit.

This last criticism of Scientology is referenced, among other places, in a May 1980 Reader's Digest article, which quotes Hubbard, "If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion".

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The nature of Scientology is hotly debated in many countries. Scientology is considered a religion in the United States and Australia, and thus it enjoys the constitutional protections afforded to religious practice (First Amendment to the United States Constitution; Australian Constitution, s 116). In the United States, the church obtained "public charity" status (IRS Code 501(c)(3)) and the associated preferential tax treatment after extended litigation. Some European governments (including Germany) do not consider the Church of Scientology to be a bona fide religious organization, but instead a commercial enterprise, or a totalitarian cult (see the list of alleged cults).

Related Topics:
Australia - Australian Constitution - IRS - 501(c)(3) - Religious organization - The list of alleged cults

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The Church of Scientology pursues an extensive public relations campaign arguing that Scientology is a bona fide religion. The organization cites numerous scholarly sources supporting its position, many of which can be found on a website the Church has established for this purpose. http://www.bonafidescientology.org/bonafide-scientology.htm

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Scientology critics

Critics dismiss many of these studies as biased, contending the studies were commissioned by Scientology to produce the results that Scientology desired. Academic papers that conclude Scientology is a not a legitimate religion have also been published (some are available online in the Marburg Journal of Religion). http://www.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr

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In the U.S., in October of 1993 the Internal Revenue Service, after reviewing voluminous information on the Church's financial and other operations, recognized the Church as an "organization operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes." http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-news/ir-97-50.txt The Church offers this tax exemption as proof it is a religion.

Related Topics:
1993 - Internal Revenue Service

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There is wide belief among critics and some evidence (NYT article) Scientology paid private investigators (named in the article) to obtain compromising material on the IRS commissioner and blackmailed the IRS into submission http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/90eb915a3a789fe9?hl=en& costing taxpayers 1-2 billion dollars.

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Six levels of indents down in the eventually leaked "closing agreement" http://www.xenu.net/archive/IRS/ the IRS is contractually required to discriminate in their treatment of Scientology to the exclusion of all other groups:

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:The following actions will be considered to be a material breach by the Service: ...The issuance of a Regulation, Revenue Ruling or other pronouncement of general applicability providing that fixed donations to a religious organization other than a church of Scientology are fully deductible.

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The Sklars, in the case MICHAEL SKLAR; MARLA SKLAR v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL No. 00-70753, attempted to obtain the same deduction for their payments to a Jewish school. On January 29 2002 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the IRS's opposition. Judge Silverman concurring http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/27B565D1754D4E5E88256B50005F20CE/$file/0070753.pdf?openelement said:

Related Topics:
January 29 - 2002

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:An IRS closing agreement cannot overrule Congress and the Supreme Court.

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:If the IRS does, in fact, give preferential treatment to members of the Church of Scientology—allowing them a special right to claim deductions that are contrary to law and rightly disallowed to everybody else—then the proper course of action is a lawsuit to put a stop to that policy.

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To date, such a suit is not known to have been filed.

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Another point of controversy from 1979 is Scientology's infiltration of the United States Internal Revenue Service in what Scientology termed "Operation Snow White". Eleven high-ranking Scientologists, including Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard, served time in federal prison for their involvement in this infiltration.

Related Topics:
Internal Revenue Service - Operation Snow White

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In Australia, critics point to a certain passage in a 1982 ruling by the High Court of Australia. They claim that in the course of litigation between the Church of Scientology and the provincial government of Victoria, that even though the government of Victoria found that the Church of Scientology practiced charlatanism (see: Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner Of Pay-roll Tax), still, due to certain legal technicalities, the government of Victoria could not deny the Church of Scientology the right to operate in Victoria under the legal status of 'religion'.

Related Topics:
1982 - High Court of Australia - Victoria - Charlatan

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Also in Australia the Church of Scientology has received criticisms concerning the manner in which auditing is conducted. The Australian Report stated that auditing involved a kind of command hypnosis that could lead to potentially damaging delusional dissociative states. The claimed unethical use of general semantics and hypnosis is common to both neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and Scientology, which both hold many New Age similarities, such as the belief in past life regression and super-human potential.

Related Topics:
Neurolinguistic programming - New Age

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Scientology and psychiatry

Main Article: Scientology and psychiatry

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Scientology is publicly, and often vehemently, opposed to psychiatry and psychology. According to the Church, this is focused on psychiatry's practices.

Related Topics:
Psychiatry - Psychology

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This theme also appears in some of Hubbard's literary works. In Hubbard's Mission Earth series, various characters praise and criticize these methods; and the antagonists in his novel Battlefield Earth are called Psychlos, a similar allusion.

Related Topics:
Mission Earth - Battlefield Earth

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:What the Church opposes are brutal, inhumane psychiatric treatments. It does so for three principal reasons: 1) procedures such as electro-shock, drugs and lobotomy injure, maim and destroy people in the guise of help; 2) psychiatry is not a science and has no proven methods to justify the billions of dollars of government funds that are poured into it; and 3) psychiatric theories that man is a mere animal have been used to rationalize, for example, the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II. http://faq.scientology.org/psychtry.htm

Related Topics:
Electro-shock - Drugs - Lobotomy - Science - World Wars I - II

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L. Ron Hubbard was bitterly critical of psychiatry's citation of physical causes for mental disorders, for instance chemical imbalances in the brain. Although there are many questions remaining, the statements by Hubbard deny that psychiatry through the scientific method has shown some psychiatric disorders are related to anatomical and chemical cerebral anomalies. Furthermore, it is evident much of his criticism is based upon old and flawed information regarding psychiatry http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/279/14/1100?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=scientology&searchid=1126399221675_4821&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=jama. He regarded psychiatrists as denying human spirituality and peddling fake cures. He was also convinced psychiatrists were themselves deeply unethical individuals, committing "extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them." http://freedom.lronhubbard.org/page080.htm The Church of Scientology claims that psychiatry was responsible for World War I http://freedom.lronhubbard.org/page104a.htm, the rise of Hitler and Stalin http://www.freedommag.org/english/vol30I1/page40.htm, the decline in education standards in the United States http://www.cchr.org/educate/e_sr.htm, the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo http://www.cchr.org/failure/eng/page42.htm, and even the September 11th attacks http://www.freedommag.org/English/vol34i1/page02.htm. However, for all these statements, Hubbard has failed to present any evidence supporting his view of psychiatry.

Related Topics:
Chemical imbalances - Scientific method - Bosnia - Kosovo - September 11th attacks

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Scientology's opposition to psychiatry has also undoubtedly been influenced by the fact that a number of psychiatrists have strongly spoken out against the Church of Scientology, resulting in pressure from the media and governments. Additionally, after Hubbard's book on Dianetics was published, in which he tried to present a new form of psychotherapy, the American Psychological Association advised its members against using Hubbard's techniques with their patients until its effectiveness could be proven. Because of this critique Hubbard came to believe psychiatrists were behind a worldwide conspiracy to attack Scientology and create a "world government" run by psychiatrists on behalf of Soviet Russia:

Related Topics:
Media - Dianetics - Psychotherapy - American Psychological Association - Soviet - Russia

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:Our enemies are less than twelve men. They are members of the Bank of England and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they, oddly enough, run all the mental health groups in the world that had sprung up ...

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:Their apparent programme was to use mental health, which is to say psychiatric electric shock and pre-frontal lobotomy, to remove from their path any political dissenters ... These fellows have gotten nearly every government in the world to owe them considerable quantities of money through various chicaneries and they control, of course, income tax, government finance ? (Harold) Wilson, for instance, the current Premier of England, is totally involved with these fellows and talks about nothing else actually. (Hubbard, Ron's Journal 67 http://www.solitarytrees.net/cowen/misc/psywar.htm)

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In 1966, Hubbard declared war on psychiatry, telling Scientologists "We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one." He committed the Church of Scientology to eradicating psychiatry in 1969, announcing "Our war has been forced to become 'To take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms.'" http://www.solitarytrees.net/cowen/misc/psywar.htm Not coincidentally, the Church of Scientology founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights that same year as its primary vehicle for attacking psychiatry.

Related Topics:
1966 - 1969 - Citizens Commission on Human Rights

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Around the same time, Hubbard decided psychiatrists were an ancient evil that had been a problem for billions of years. He cast them in the role of assisting Xenu's genocide of 75 million years ago. In a 1982 bulletin entitled "Pain and Sex", Hubbard declares that "pain and sex were the INVENTED TOOLS of degradation", having been devised eons ago by psychiatrists "who have been on the track a long time and are the sole cause of decline in this universe." (Hubbard, HCO Bulletin of 26 August 1982)

Related Topics:
26 August - 1982

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Celebrity Scientologists, notably Tom Cruise, have been extremely vocal in attacking the use of psychiatric medication.http://www.xenutv.com/cruise/index.html Their position has attracted considerable criticism from psychiatrists, physicians, and mentally ill individuals who cite numerous scientific studies showing benefit from psychiatry and detrimental effects from Scientology. Also, there is evidence Scientology adherents destroyed scientific data in a lengthy campaign to discredit research http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/329/7457/72. Nevertheless, it is still being defended and promoted by Scientologists. http://www.cchr.org/pseudoscience/index.htm

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Scientology vs. the Internet

Main Article: Scientology vs. the Internet

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Leaders of Scientology have undertaken extensive operations on the Internet to deal with growing allegations of fraud and exposure of unscrupulousness within Scientology. The organization states that it is taking actions to prevent distribution of copyrighted Scientology documents and publications online by people whom it has called "copyright terrorists". Critics claim the organization's true motive is an attempt to suppress free speech and legitimate criticism.

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In January 1995, Church lawyer Helena Kobrin attempted to shut down the Usenet discussion group alt.religion.scientology by sending a control message instructing Usenet servers to delete the group on the grounds that

Related Topics:
1995 - Helena Kobrin - Usenet - Discussion group - Alt.religion.scientology

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:(1) It was started with a forged message; (2) not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack the Scientology religion; (4) it has been and continues to be heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal practices. http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/rnewman/usenet/rmgroup

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In practice, this rmgroup message had little effect, since most Usenet servers are configured to disregard such messages when applied to groups that receive substantial traffic, and newgroup messages were quickly issued for those servers that did not do so. However, the issuance of the message led to a great deal of public criticism of Scientology by free-speech advocates.

Related Topics:
Rmgroup - Newgroup

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The Church also started suing people for posting copies of its copyrighted scriptures on the newsgroup and the World Wide Web, and pressed for tighter restrictions on copyrights in general. This effort was spearheaded by Sonny Bono, a Scientologist, who introduced the controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. The even more controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act was also strongly promoted by the Church and some of its provisions (notably the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act) were heavily influenced by Church litigation against US Internet service providers over copyrighted Scientology materials that had been posted or uploaded through their servers.

Related Topics:
World Wide Web - Sonny Bono - Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act - Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act - Internet service providers

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Beginning in the middle of 1996 and for several years after, 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. Although the Church neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind the spam, some investigators claimed that some of the spam had been traced to Church members.

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