Fast Facts on False Teachings

Scientology

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;

2 Timothy 4:4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

Introduction

The word for "fables" is the Greek word "muthos," from which we get myth. Keep this word in mind as we study Scientology – for it truly is a myth, a fable. Listen to this quote:

"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

These words, quoted in Time Magazine, February 10, 1986, were uttered by Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Hubbard had actually first made this statement in 1949, not in 1986. In 1950 he published his best-seller, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which became the textbook for a religion that he invented in 1955, popularly known as Scientology. Hubbard had indeed discovered a way to earn a million dollars, even millions of dollars. He created a myth, a fable, that people "turned aside" to.

Scientology is extremely popular, especially among Hollywood celebrities. John Travolta is an outspoken adherent of Scientology. Their Web Site makes this bold claim:

Let’s take a look at its background and its beliefs.

As I said, Scientology is the invention of L. Ron Hubbard. Born in Tilden, Nebraska, Hubbard spent much of his childhood in Helena, Montana. He attended George Washington University, and according to his publications, graduated with a major in civil engineering. However, campus records indicate that Hubbard had attended the college for only two years and that during his second year he failed physics and was placed on academic probation. Hubbard's Ph.D. was said to be from Sequoia University in California, although there is no proof of the existence of any accredited institution in California by that name that grants doctorates.

Hubbard did meet with success as a science fiction writer in the 1930’s. Some of the ideas common to Scientology first appeared in his 1938 manuscript titled Excalibur. At age twenty-nine he organized the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International. In May of 1950, Hubbard collected and published many of his ideas in an article in Astounding Science Fiction. During the same year, the systematic presentation of his ideas were published as the non-fiction Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The book has now sold millions of copies, and Hubbard has written prolifically about his revolutionary new way to promote mental, emotional, and spiritual perfection in literally dozens of Scientology books.

Hubbard's movement was known as Dianetics until, in 1952, Hubbard

reorganized it and renamed it Scientology, and declared it a religious system and its centers of instruction, churches.

In 1955 Hubbard established the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., and New York. The international headquarters for Scientology was originally located at Saint Hill, England, but is now located in Los Angeles, California. From 1965 -75, Hubbard divided his time and residence between Sussex, England, and a three hundred foot ship, Apollo, along with a flotilla sometimes called Sea Org.

Trouble with the law broke out in 1963 when the Food and Drug Administration raided the Washington, D.C., church on the grounds that Hubbard's E-meter device, which the church utilized, should be banned. Appeal was won by the church in 1971 on the freedom of religion clause of the U. S. Constitution.

National governments of a number of countries (including the United States, Australia, Great Britain, and France) have investigated the Scientology organization and have issued warnings about the veracity of its claims. Scientology's troubles with the United States government have included the raid by the Food and Drug Administration in 1963; Internal Revenue Service audits, rulings, and judgments concerning the collection and taxation of the millions of dollars of annual church income; an FBI raid of church offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles in 1977; and indictments and/or convictions in federal court of leading Scientologists (including Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue) for "burglary, obstruction of justice, wiretapping, harboring a fugitive, and conspiracy.'' The alleged extent of Scientology's operations against the government were described by Time Magazine:

".... bugging and burglarizing the Washington offices of the IRS, the Federal Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Justice, Treasury and Labor departments. These break-ins were part of a vast spying operation, created by Hubbard and directed by his wife, to gather information on "enemies" of the church. One Scientology document so identifies 136 governmental agencies at home and abroad. At its height, the espionage system, called "Operation Snow White" by Hubbard, included up to 5,000 covert agents who were placed in government offices, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as in private organizations critical of Scientology. Hubbard even assembled a dossier on President Richard Nixon and individuals ranging from U.S. Senators to members of the Rockefeller family" (Time, January 13, 1983).

In the last half of the 1970’s Hubbard disappeared both from public view and from his family and lived in seclusion. Some sources suggest that he was living in California at this time. TIME Magazine described him as,

"A reclusive multimillionaire who preferred to work all night. A man terrified of germs who fought his growing array of ailments with a variety of drugs and massive vitamin injections. A brilliant and dominating figure who built an empire and who was both revered and feared. And now, to make the comparison [to the late Howard Hughes] more compelling still, the question of his fate. Even longtime intimates have not seen him in more than two years. They do not know whether he is living in seclusion by his own choice, or whether he is mentally incompetent and a captive of former underlings. Some of his old aides think he may even be dead."

In 1982 Hubbard's son, Ronald DeWolf, petitioned a California court to name him trustee of his father's estate on the grounds that his father had died. The court ruled, however, that Hubbard was still very much alive. DeWolf was one of five children and had changed his name to renounce his father, claiming that he was "one of the biggest con men of the century."

Death did come to L. Run Hubbard in 1986.

Hubbard combined Freudian psychoanalysis with Eastern thought – especially Hinduism - and ideas from his science fiction writings to invent a religion that has gained a wide appeal with those seeking improved mental health.

Fundamental to Scientology is the concept that the mind is divided into two basic parts: the Analytical and the Reactive:

The analytical mind perceives, remembers, and conducts the reasoning processes.

The reactive mind is said to record these sensory experiences as engrams. These mental pictures are the cause of our emotional and physical problems today. They can be dislodged only through Scientology procedures.

The mind is vulnerable to engrams during traumatic moments, particularly during prenatal stages and at birth. They may extend into previous lives as well. Through reincarnation people have been accumulating engrams for trillions of years. In order to resolve hidden engrams, initiates must be mentally whisked back to reexperience the damaging events of their past lives.

While these memory pictures are perfectly recorded, they lay dormant in the brain until restimulated by a similar incident. When restimulated, they cause conditioned, stimulus response behavior that is counterproductive to the person's well being. Thus, when the brain sees a similar situation to a past negative experience, even if it is not now a personal threat, it responds as if it were, producing inappropriate and self-defeating behavior. For example, a boy falls out of a tree just as a red car passes by and is knocked unconscious. Later, even as a man, red cars (even red things) may restimulate the episode in various ways and cause irrational re actions. This "engram," therefore, may cause the man to refuse to ride in red cars, and he may get ill or dizzy when confronted with the possibility.

In this sense, we are all more or less conditioned "machines" that respond to our "operator" (the reactive mind). Scientology believes that this restimulation is fairly automatic. In other words, we are not free beings; we are slaves of what they call an "aberrated" mind. Scientotogy maintains that through Dianetic or Scientology therapy we can be exposed to our engrams and "erase" them and become "clear," in control of our behavior ("at cause") rather than at the mercy of a damaged reactive mind ("at effect").

The key to achieving mental health is to subject oneself to the examination and treatment of an Auditor. The goal is to expose the engrams hidden by the reactive mind within the subject and remove them. The subject, before the removal of the engrams, is called a preclear.

One who has had all engrams removed is called a clear. Auditors use a device called an E-meter, which supposedly measures the body's response and resistance to engrams. Paul Twitchell joined the Church of Scientology prior to his founding of Eckankar. He is alledgedly one of the first to ever achieve the status of a clear.

That’s the psychological orientation of Scientology. The religious foundation on which it is built stems from the notion that

human beings were once Thetans. Thetans relinquished their godlike powers to enter MEST - matter, energy, space, time – what we call earth. On earth, a process of evolution took place, and human beings, who could no longer remember their preexistent state as thetans, emerged onto the pages of history. Scientology teaches that lying within a human being is a latent, preexistent state of deity.

A frequent recruiting technique in Scientology is to ask an individual on the street if he or she would like to take a free personality test. The test answers are graphed, and the individual is then shown his or her results. Most often the results indicate the presence of engrams within the person's reactive mind. But the personality test is the only part of the process that is free. As recently as 1993, the cost of becoming a clear was a minimum of $2,500.

Having achieved the state of clear, the initiate then takes courses with such titles as "Clear Certainty Rundown." This five hour course was taken for $2,800. At this stage, the clear is able to move on to the advanced courses in order to become an OT (operating thetan). There are nine OT stages, attainment of which may cost the participant in excess of $80,000.

Scientology says: "There are gods above all other gods, and gods beyond the gods of the universes" (Scientology 8-8008).

The Bible says: "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour" (Isaiah 43: 10, 11).

"Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and His redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and besides Me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6; see also Isaiah 45:18, 22; Mark 12:28-29, 32).

"Neither Lord Buddha nor Jesus Christ were OTs (Operating Thetans, the highest Scientology level) according to evidence. They were just a shadow above clears" (L. Ron Hubbard, Certainty Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 10).

Scientology denigrates the cross as an ancient symbol introduced by "preclears a million years ago."

As stated above, Scientology sees the human being as a fallen thetan. Human beings have the potential to be coached (audited) to an awareness of their pre-MEST deity.

There is no such thing. as sin or evil:

"It is despicable and utterly beneath contempt to tell a man he must repent, that he is evil" (Scientology: A World Religion, pp. 16, 35)

There is no heaven in the sense that the Bible defines it. But heaven does exist in that it is the embodiment of a deified sate to which humanity may return.

Without a doctrine of original sin or eternal damnation, and coupled with a pantheistic view of life and God, Scientology leaves one to seek out a salvation that is latent within the human soul and grounded in the past and in past lives in the cycle of reincarnation. You can see its Hindu influence in the escape from the birth/death/rebirth cycle of reincarnation.

Scientology offers society nothing except an expensive and highly dubious method of psycho-therapy, the goal of which is self-improvement, self-mastery, and personal happiness. The door to salvation is shut to those who cannot afford to pay the price of processing.

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