Scientology

Scientology is a new religious movement based on a system of beliefs, teachings, practices, and rituals that originated as philosophy in 1952 by author L. Ron Hubbard, and characterized by the Church of Scientology in 1953 as an "applied religious philosophy". Hubbard defined Scientology as "knowing how to know" [1], although he first introduced it with the words, "Scientology would be a study of knowledge."

The Church of Scientology has attracted much controversy and criticism. Scientology's principles have been characterized as pseudoscientific by scientists and by medical and psychotherapeutic practitioners. Critics — including government bodies of several countries — have characterized the Church as an unscrupulous commercial organization, citing harassment of critics and exploitation of its members. Because of these factors, the Church has frequently been called a cult.

The term Scientology is a trademark of the Religious Technology Center, which licenses its use and use of the copyrighted works of Hubbard to the Church of Scientology. The Church presents itself as a religious non-profit organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of the human spirit and providing counseling and rehabilitation programs. Church spokespeople claim that Hubbard's teachings (called "technology" or "tech" in Scientology terminology) have saved them from addictions, arthritis, depression, learning disabilities, mental illness and other problems.

Beliefs and practices

Scientology's doctrines were established by Hubbard over a period of about 34 years, beginning in 1952 and continuing until his death in January 1986. Most of the basic principles of the Church were set out during the 1950s and 1960s. Scientology followed Dianetics, an earlier system of self-improvement techniques laid out by Hubbard in his 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. By the mid-1950s, Dianetics was considered a system of therapy within the context of the religion of Scientology.

Thetan

The concept of the Thetan grew out of L. Ron Hubbard's observation of the results of Dianetics practice. Participation in Dianetics resolved the mental anguish of practioners in the present, but also uncovered anguish from preceding lives in a great deal of those undergoing the procedure. Hubbard postulated the existence of an eternal element, separate from the mind and body of the human being. Wary of the connotative baggage associated with the word "soul" he called this element the "thetan" (adapted from the Greek letter "theta"). The Church of Scientology affirms that each individual is at the most basic a thetan, possessing a mind and body. Thetans are believed to have existed since the beginning of time, formed at the moment of creation. These spiritual essences were entangled with MEST (matter, energy, space and time) to produce beings that are both spiritual and physical.

Auditing

The central practice of Scientology is auditing (from the Latin word audire,"to listen"), which is one-on-one communication with a trained Scientology counselor or "auditor". The practitoner undertaking the procedure is referred to as a preclear. Most auditing uses an E-meter (Electropsychometer), a device that measures galvanic skin response. The E-meter has two terminals that are held in both hands of the preclear and a display with which the auditor can monitor the progress of the individual.

The auditing process is intended to help preclear unburden himself or herself of specific traumatic incidents, prior ethical transgressions and bad decisions, which are said to collectively restrict the preclear from achieving his or her goals and lead to the development of a "reactive mind". The auditor asks the preclear to respond to a list of questions which are designed for specific purposes and given to the preclear in a strictly regulated way. Auditing requires that the preclear be a willing and interested participant who understands the questions, and the process goes more smoothly when he or she understands what is going on. Per Church policy, auditors are trained not to "evaluate for" their preclears; i.e., they are forbidden from suggesting, interpreting, degrading or invalidating the preclear's answers. The E-meter is used to help locate an area of concern.

Scientologists have claimed benefits from auditing including improved IQ, improved ability to communicate, enhanced memory, alleviated dyslexia and attention deficit problems, and improved relaxation; however, no scientific studies have verified these claims. The Church of Scientology now publishes disclaimers in its books and publications declaring that the E-meter "does nothing," and that it is used specifically for spiritual purposes.

The Eight Dynamics and the ARC Triangle

The concept of the Eight Dynamics is a graduated way of understanding the universe and one's relation to it. These dynamics are the basis for the cosmology of the Church of Scientology. A set of concentric circles radiating outward from the Self (the first dynamic) to the Infinite (the eighth dynamic), perhaps identified with a supreme being. The complete list of dynamics is as follows:

1. the Self
2. the Family
3. the Group (including community, state, etc.)
4. the Species
5. the Life Form (life in all its varieties)
6. the Physical Universe (MEST)
7. the Spirits (the Thetan)
8. the Infinite (the deity or ground of being)

Another basic tenet of Scientology are the three interrelated components that lead to perfect understanding: affinity (emotional responses), reality (an agreement on what is real) and communication (the exchange of ideas). Hubbard called this the "ARC Triangle", and the triangle is one of the many symbols adopted by the Church of Scientology. Communication is recognized as the paramount amongst the three points of the ARC Triangle, though all three points must be practiced across the Eight Dynamics.

Operating Thetan levels and the Xenu incident

The "Hidden Truth" about the nature of the universe is taught to only the most advanced Scientologists, those who have achieved the level "clear", in a series of courses known as the Advanced Levels. The contents of these courses are held in strict confidence within Scientology. They have never been published by the church, except for use in highly secure areas. The most advanced of all are the eight Operating Thetan levels, which require the initiate to be thoroughly prepared. The highest level, OT VIII, is only disclosed at sea, on the Scientology cruise ship Freewinds. Because Scientology is a mystery religion, the more closely guarded and esoteric teachings imparted at these higher levels may not always be entirely consistent with its entry-level teachings.

In the confidential OT levels, Hubbard describes a variety of traumas commonly experienced in past lives. He also explains how to reverse the effects of such traumas. Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III has been widely remarked upon in the press: the story of Xenu

Scientologists argue that published accounts of the Xenu story and other colorful teachings are presented out of context for the purpose of ridiculing their religion. Journalists and critics of Scientology counter that Xenu is part of a much wider Scientology belief in past lives on other planets, some of which has been public knowledge for decades. For instance, Hubbard's 1958 book Have You Lived Before This Life documents past lives described by individual Scientologists during auditing sessions. These included memories of being "deceived into a love affair with a robot decked out as a beautiful red-haired girl", being run over by a Martian bishop driving a steamroller, being transformed into an intergalactic walrus that perished after falling out of a flying saucer, and being "a very happy being who strayed to the planet Nostra 23,064,000,000 years ago".

Scientologists argue that most members of the organization have not attained a sufficiently high level to learn about Xenu. Therefore, while knowledge of Xenu and Body Thetans is said to be crucial to the highest level church teachings, it cannot be regarded as a core belief of rank and file Scientologists. Such information is not published in commonly available materials, and as such may not be part of what the vast majority of ordinary Scientologists believe.

Critics point out that Scientology literature does include many references to extraterrestrial past lives (even to low levels on the bridge), and that internal Scientology publications are often illustrated with pictures of spaceships and oblique references to catastrophic events that happened "75 million years ago" (e.g. the Xenu incident). This material ties in to the general purpose of Scientology, which is to learn about these "whole track" incidents on the OT Levels to confront the negativity the mind still holds from these incidents, and as a result to be free of the ill effects of these "whole track" incidents. Thereby, it is believed by Scientologists that they will achieve greater freedom, happiness, and abilities in their present lives.

The Church of Scientology

A Church of Scientology was first incorporated in Camden, New Jersey as a non-profit organization in 1953. Today's Church of Scientology was established in 1954. It forms the center of a complex worldwide network of corporations dedicated to the promotion of L. Ron Hubbard's philosophies in all areas of life. This includes:

• Drug treatment centers (Narconon);
• Criminal rehab programs (Criminon);
• Activities to reform the field of mental health (Citizens Commission on Human Rights);
• Projects to implement Hubbard's educational methods in schools (Applied Scholastics);
• A "moral values" campaign (The Way to Happiness);
• World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE, which licenses Hubbard's management techniques for use in businesses;
• A consulting firm based on Hubbard's management techniques (Sterling Management Systems);
• A publishing company, e-Republic, which publishes Government Technology and Converge magazines and coordinates the Center for Digital Government;
• A campaign directed to world leaders, as well as the general public, to implement the 1948 United Nations document "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (with particular emphasis on the religious freedom elements).
• An organization dedicated to bettering plant and animal life on Earth that applies Scientology tools, such as "The Dynamics" (Earth Organization)

Independent Scientology Groups

Although "Scientology" is most often used as shorthand for the Church of Scientology, a number of groups practice Scientology and Dianetics outside of the official Church. Such groups are invariably breakaways from the original Church, and usually argue that it has corrupted L. Ron Hubbard's principles or otherwise become overly domineering. The Church takes an extremely hard line on breakaway groups, labeling them "apostates" (or "squirrels" in Scientology jargon) and often subjecting them to considerable legal and social pressure. Breakaway groups avoid the name "Scientology" so as to keep from infringing that copyright, instead referring to themselves collectively as the Free Zone.

Scientology and Society

Scientology and other religions

File:ScientologyCenter1.jpg

A Scientology Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Scientology teaches that it is fully compatible with all existing major religions. The Church of Scientology has publicly stated:

"Scientology respects all religions. Scientology does not conflict with other religions or other religious practices." (What is Scientology? 1992, p.544)

However, the Church of Scientology has been questioned by other religious groups, including the Church of England who complained in March 2003 to the Advertising Standards Authority about the Church's advertising poster promoting Narconon—the drug rehabilitation program based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. The poster claimed "250,000 people salvaged from drugs." The Church of England Diocese of Birmingham challenged the claim. Upholding the complaint, the ASA considered that, "without clarification, readers were likely to interpret the claim '250,000 people salvaged from drugs' to mean that 250,000 people had stopped being dependent on street or prescription drugs because of Scientology. The Authority "accepted that more than 250,000 people had undertaken the Church's Drug Purification and Drug Rundown programmes, which were designed to free people from the effects of taking drugs," but "the Authority understood that, within Scientology, the concept of 'drug use' referred to a variety of behaviours that ranged from heavy use of street drugs to occasional ingestion of alcohol or prescription medicines and exposure to chemical toxins." In May 2001, the Russian Orthodox Church criticized Scientology along with Jehovah's Witnesses, Moonies and Mormons. The Lutheran Church in Germany has at times criticized Scientology's activities and doctrines. Many members of the Roman Catholic Church reject Scientology, because of the CoS's views on Jesus, and believe Scientology to be a form of gnosticism, which many Christians regard as a heresy. Other Roman Catholics can be found at high levels (OT VII) in the C of S.

Scientology's claim of religious compatibility to entry-level Scientologists is soon modified by the additional teaching that the various levels of spiritual prowess which can be reached through Scientology are more advanced than those attainable in other religions. Critics maintain that, within Scientology, "spiritual abilities" tends to be synonymous with "mystical powers" rather than with "inner peace". Hubbard himself cautioned against the unwise or improper use of powers in his book History of Man.

In its application for tax exempt status in the United States, the Church of Scientology International states:

"Although there is no policy or Scriptural mandate expressly requiring Scientologists to renounce other religious beliefs or membership in other churches, as a practical matter Scientologists are expected to and do become fully devoted to Scientology to the exclusion of other faiths. As Scientologists, they are required to look only to Scientology Scriptures for the answers to the fundamental questions of their existence and to seek enlightenment only from Scientology." (Response to Final Series of IRS Questions Prior to Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) As a Church, October 1, 1993)

Critics claim that a select group of advanced practitioners eventually discovered that Hubbard had left little doubt in his writings and lectures about the dim view he took toward existing major religions. In some of the teachings Hubbard had intended only for this select group, he claimed that Jesus had never existed, but was implanted in humanity's collective memory by Xenu 75 million years ago, and that Christianity was an "entheta [evil] operation" mounted by beings called Targs (Hubbard, "Electropsychometric Scouting: Battle of the Universes", April 1952). Some critics have claimed that one of the highest levels, OT VIII, tells initiates that Jesus was a pederast (it is decidedly unclear whether the version of OT VIII in the Fishman Affidavit, where this claim originates, is genuine). Thus, critics claim, Hubbard makes clear his belief that advanced Scientologists are to identify Jesus and Christianity more as a force of evil than as a force for good.

Hubbard claimed that Islam was also the result of an extraterrestrial memory implant, called the Emanator, of which the Kaaba is supposedly an artifact. Mainstream religions, in his view, had failed to realize their objectives: "It is all very well to idealize poverty and associate wisdom with begging bowls, or virtue with low estate. However, those who have done this (Buddhists, Christians, Communists and other fanatics) have dead ended or are dead ending." (Hubbard, HCOPL of January 21, 1965)

Based on an interpretation of Buddhist writings which described, among other things, a man from the west with hair like flames around his head who was said to be due to return some 2,500 years after the first Buddha, the red-haired Hubbard sometimes identified himself with Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. (Hubbard, Hymn of Asia, 1952).

In addition to the clergy of the religions not getting along, beliefs in Scientology as one progresses into higher levels become increasingly contradictory with other religions. Most notably is the concept of past lives which most western religions reject, although some Scientologists believe that Christianity at one time believed in reincarnation but the idea was taken out by the early Catholic Church. Whether this comes from Hubbard's theories as presented in the highest levels of Scientology or is just the belief of some Scientologists to create a way for the religion to better mesh, no proof of the claim has ever been presented. Other ideas such as the origins and age of the Earth, the root of evil, and the nature of man make it impossible to hold literal beliefs in most other religions while being a Scientologist.

File:CoSTorontoFeb0105.jpg

Church of Scientology on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada.

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

The Church pursues an extensive public relations campaign supporting Scientology as 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. [2]

Different countries have taken markedly different approaches to Scientology. Scientology is considered a religion in the United States, Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Australia, and thus enjoys and regularly cites the constitutional protections afforded in both nations to religious practice (First Amendment to the United States Constitution; Australian Constitution, s 116). In Canada, the Church of Scientology is considered a religious non-profit organization. In 1992, Scientology became the only religious organization convicted in criminal court on two counts of breach of the public trust (for an organized conspiracy to infiltrate government offices) following a trial by jury. In the United States, the church obtained "public charity" status (IRS Code 501(c)(3)) and the associated preferential tax treatment after extended litigation. Applications for charity status in the UK and Canada were rejected in 1999. Some European governments (including notably, Germany, Belgium, France, and Austria) do not consider the Church to be a bona fide religious organization, but instead a commercial enterprise or a so-called cult.

Other countries, mostly in Europe, have regarded Scientology as a potentially dangerous cult, or at least have not considered local branches of the Church of Scientology to meet the legal criteria for being considered religion-supporting organizations. In Germany, for instance, Scientology is not considered a religion by the government, but a commercial business. Fifteen of the sixteen German states, positing that Scientology had potentially anti-democratic tendencies, have to a greater or lesser degree and for varying periods subjected Scientology and Scientologists to state surveillance since the early 1970's. No criminal or civil charges have been brought as a result of this surveillance. Two German states and the political party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) have passed rules or regulations limiting the participation of Scientologists in politics, business and public life. In several court cases Scientology lost filed complaints against continued surveillance because the courts held the opinion that Scientology still pursues anticonstitutional activities. In Berlin surveillance ceased because the court prohibited the use of paid undercover agents, in Saarland surveillance was stopped by the court because there was/is no current danger recognizable. The United Kingdom government does not recognize Scientology as a bona fide religion. The Church has been subjected to considerable pressure from the state in Russia. In Belgium, the minister of justice refused Scientology as a candidate for the status of recognized religion. [3]

Scientology has also been the focus of criticism by anti-cult campaigners and has aroused controversy for its high-profile campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatric medication. The religious bona fides of Scientology have been repeatedly questioned. Hubbard was accused of adopting a religious façade for Scientology to allow the organization to maintain tax-exempt status and to avoid prosecution for false medical claims. These accusations continue to the present day, bolstered by numerous accounts from Hubbard's fellow science-fiction authors and researchers, the most notable being Harlan Ellison, Neison Himmel, Sam Merwin, Sam Moskowitz, Theodore Sturgeon, and Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, who reported to have witnessed Hubbard stating on various occasions that the way to get rich was to start a religion. [4]

The many legal battles fought by the Church of Scientology since its inception have given it a reputation as an extremely litigious organization, characterized by forcing litigants to enter into a lengthy and costly legal process using a number of highly trained lawyers, expert at prolonging cases.

However, a notable number of countries around the world have apparently embraced Scientology, including Italy, Spain and Thailand. Also, the number of legal battles in which the Church has engaged seems to have peaked in the early-to-mid-1990s, and has been declining since then. Since that time, many Scientologists have adopted a more relaxed view toward minor criticism. The overall attitude in the Scientology community has partially shifted to spreading Scientology through direct application to communities, rather than combating those who attempt to stop or belittle it.

The ongoing controversies involving the Church and its critics include:

• Scientology's harassment and litigious actions against its critics and enemies.
• Some 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 accusation.
• Unexplained deaths of Scientologists, most notably Lisa McPherson, allegedly 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 benefit (Reed Slatkin, Gabriel Williams, and others) and those committed on behalf of the Church and directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout, Fair Game, and others).
• Claims of brainwashing and mind control.
• Use of high-pressure sales tactics to obtain money from members.
• Lobbying search engines such as Google and Yahoo to omit any webpages that are critical of Scientology from their search engines (and in Google's case, AdSense), or at least the first few search pages (now however, a search for Scientology on Google and Yahoo brings up this page, with both critical and official Scientology websites).
• Differing accounts of L. Ron Hubbard's life, in particular accounts of Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit. [5]

This last criticism 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."

Official Status as a Religion

The Church pursues an extensive public relations campaign supporting Scientology as 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. [6]

Journalists proved that, in order to obtain its tax-exempt status in the United States, Scientologists paid private investigators to obtain compromising material on the IRS commissioner and blackmailed the IRS into submission, NYT article costing taxpayers 1-2 billion dollars. [7] Six levels of indents down in the eventually leaked "closing agreement", [8] the IRS is contractually required to discriminate in their treatment of Scientology to the exclusion of all other groups:

"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."

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 United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the IRS's opposition. Judge Silverman concurred, [9] saying:

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

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."

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

Another source of controversy in 1979 was 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.

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 and the government of Victoria, even though the government of the state found that the Church practiced charlatanism, (Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner Of Pay-roll Tax [10]) nevertheless the government of Victoria, due to certain legal technicalities, could not deny the Church the right to operate in Victoria under the legal status of "religion".

Scientology and psychiatry

Scientologists regularly hold anti-psychiatry demonstrations they call "Psychbusts"

Scientology is publicly and vehemently opposed to psychiatry and psychology.

This theme 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.

From the Church of Scientology FAQ on Psychiatry:

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. [11]

L. Ron Hubbard was bitterly critical of psychiatry's citation of physical causes for mental disorders, such as 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 [12]. 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." [13] The Church claims that psychiatry was responsible for World War I [14], the rise of Hitler and Stalin [15], the decline in education standards in the United States [16], the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo [17], and even the September 11th attacks [18]. However, for all these statements, the Church has failed to present any evidence supporting this view of psychiatry. 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, 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:

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 ...

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 [19])

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 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.'" [20] Not coincidentally, the Church founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights that same year as its primary vehicle for attacking psychiatry.

Around the same time, Hubbard decided that 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 [time] track a long time and are the sole cause of decline in this universe." (Hubbard, HCO Bulletin of August 26, 1982)

Celebrity Scientologists, notably Tom Cruise, have been extremely vocal in attacking the use of psychiatric medication. [21] Their position has attracted considerable criticism from psychiatrists, physicians, and mental health patients and advocates who cite numerous scientific studies showing benefit from psychiatry. On top of that, there is evidence Scientology adherents destroyed scientific data in a lengthy campaign to discredit research. [22] Nevertheless, this position is still defended and promoted by Scientologists. [23]

Scientology versus the Internet

Scientology leaders 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 criticism.

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

(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. [24]

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 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.

The Church also began filing lawsuits against those who posted copyrighted texts on the newsgroup and the World Wide Web, and pressed for tighter restrictions on copyrights in general. The Church supported 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.

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 its involvement with the spam, some investigators claimed that some spam had been traced to Church members. Former Scientologist Tory Christman, after she left the church, confessed to having been part of the sporgery project, taking money supplied by the Office of Special Affairs to open up Internet accounts at various ISPs under false names, accounts from which she later saw forged and garbled communications going out.

See also

• Symbols of Scientology
• Scientology and psychiatry
• Space opera in Scientology doctrine
• Scientology versus the Internet
• Alt.religion.scientology
• List of religious organizations

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Atack, Jon (1990). A Piece of Blue Sky. Lyle Stuart. ISBN 081840499X
• Frenschkowski, Marco (1999). L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology: An annotated bibliographical survey of primary and selected secondary literature [25]
• Kent, Stephen A. (1996). Scientology's Relationship With Eastern Religious Traditions [26]
• Miller, Russell (1987). Bare-faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-0654-0.
• Spaink, Karin. Fishman Affidavit. I write therefore I am.

External links

• Scientology.org - The Church of Scientology's main page.
• whatisscientology.org - The Church of Scientology's site promoting Scientology.
• Related Groups - List of groups related to the Scientology organization.
• Operation Clambake
• The Secrets of Scientology
• InternationalFreeZone - Association dedicated to the promotion of the original philosophy of Lafayette Ron Hubbard.
• Ron's Organisation and Network for Standard Tech - Delivers auditing and training outside the Chuch of Scientology.
• scientologists freezone - A comparative study of the church and the freezone
• Interview with L. Ron Hubbard Jr., 1983, Penthouse Magazine - Critical Insider Interview

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Scientology  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Scientology"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.