Scientology: What Is It Really About? Why All The Fuss?

WHAT IS SCIENTOLOGY?

Scientology is a religion in its highest meaning, as it helps bring man to total freedom and truth. The essential tenets of Scientology are these:

You are an immortal spiritual being.

Your experience extends well beyond a single lifetime. And your capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized.

Furthermore, man is basically good. He is seeking to survive. And his survival depends upon himself and his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe.

Developed by L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology (based on Hubbard's book Dianetics) is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.

Scientology addresses the spirit—not the body or mind—and believes that Man is far more than a product of his environment, or his genes.

Scientology comprises a body of knowledge which extends from certain fundamental truths. Prime among these are:

Man is an immortal spiritual being.

His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime.

His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized.

Scientology further holds Man to be basically good, and that his spiritual salvation depends upon himself, his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe.

Scientology is not a dogmatic religion in which one is asked to accept anything on faith alone. On the contrary, one discovers for oneself that the principles of Scientology are true by applying its principles and observing or experiencing the results.

The ultimate goal of Scientology is true spiritual enlightenment and freedom for all.

SCIENTOLOGY: ITS BACKGROUND AND ORIGINS

Scientology follows a long tradition of religious practice. Its roots lie in the deepest beliefs and aspirations of all great religions, thus encompassing a religious heritage as old and as varied as Man himself.

Though it draws on the wisdom of some 50,000 years, Scientology is a new religion, one that has isolated fundamental laws of life and, for the first time, developed a workable technology that can be applied to help people achieve a happier and more spiritual existence in the here and now.

That Scientology’s development and rapid promulgation was made possible, in part, by advances in the physical sciences through the first half of the twentieth century is significant. For it bridges Eastern philosophy with Western thought. In that way, Scientology constitutes Man’s first real application of scientific methodology to spiritual questions.

Scientology is something one does, not something one believes in.

THE SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION

Thanks to scientific and technical advances over the last hundred years, most people today are materially wealthier than their forefathers. Yet, by their own accounts, the improvement in the quality of their lives has not matched their material gains.

In fact, it may be argued that people once were happier and more fulfilled. For some, material affluence breeds anxiety, a gnawing fear that if someone doesn’t take away their hard-earned acquisitions, the end of their days will prematurely arrive to finish the job. Others find death easier to face than a lifetime of assembly-line slavery, while most, in a less dramatic fashion, simply buckle down to lives of quiet desperation.

In this new millennium, most individuals have no real grasp of the factors that govern their existence. And yet, simply stated, if they had a greater understanding of themselves and their fellows, they would be able to improve conditions and help themselves and others to live happier lives.

This, then, is the purpose of Scientology: to enable Man to improve his lot through understanding.

BALANCING SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

The tremendous scientific advances of the 20th century were not matched by similar advances in the humanities. Man’s knowledge of the physical universe had far outdistanced his knowledge of himself. The resulting pressures from such an imbalance account for much of what has unsettled society and threatens our future. What Scientology represented to many when it appeared in the early 1950s was a restoration of the balance.

Despite its many successes, science has not provided answers to questions Man has been asking himself since time immemorial: Who are we? What do we consist of? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we doing?

These questions have always been the province of philosophy and religion, but traditional answers became inadequate in the face of the H-bomb.

Scientology, drawing on the same advances in knowledge that led to the understanding of nuclear physics, provides modern answers to these questions. And it supplied workable methods of application, that made it possible for Man to reach the ancient goal he has been striving toward for thousands of years: to know himself and, in knowing himself, to know and understand other people and, ultimately, life itself.

SCIENTOLOGY IS A RELIGION

Scientology holds in common many of the beliefs of other religions and philosophies. It considers Man to be a spiritual being with more to him than flesh and blood. This, of course, is a very different view to that espoused by prevailing scientific thought which views Man as only a material object, a complex combination of chemical compounds and stimulus-response mechanisms.

Scientology believes Man to be basically good, not evil. It is Man’s experiences that have led him to commit evil deeds, not his nature. Often, he mistakenly seeks to solve his problems by considering only his own interests, which then causes trouble for both himself and others.

Scientology believes that Man advances to the degree that he preserves his spiritual integrity and values and remains honest and decent. Indeed, he deteriorates to the degree that he abandons these qualities.

But because Man is basically good, he is capable of spiritual betterment. And it is the goal of Scientology to bring him to a point where he is capable of sorting out the factors in his own life and solving his own problems.

Other efforts to help Man have tried to solve his problems for him and, in this respect, Scientology is different. Scientology believes that an individual placed in a position where he can increase his abilities, where he can confront life better, where he can identify the factors in his life more easily, is also in a position to solve his own problems and so, better his own life.

FIRST DIANETICS, THEN SCIENTOLOGY

The source and Founder of the Scientology religion is L. Ron Hubbard who devoted his life to finding answers to questions that have troubled Mankind for millennia. Mr. Hubbard’s intellectual rigor, his curiosity and boundless spirit of adventure inspired his search, even as a young man.

The first widely released results of Mr. Hubbard’s researches did not lie in Scientology, however, but in another field of endeavor: “Dianetics.” The word Dianetics comes from the Greek words dia, meaning “through” and nous, meaning “mind or soul,” and is defined as “what the mind (or soul) is doing to the body.”

Dianetics constituted L. Ron Hubbard’s first breakthrough. And it was his initial discoveries in this area that led to further researches and the exact isolation of the source of life itself.

Man does not have a spirit. He is a spirit. He has a mind and he has a body. Dianetics addresses and handles the effects of the spirit on the body. Dianetics thus helps provide relief from unwanted sensations and emotions, accidents and psychosomatic illnesses (ailments caused or aggravated by mental stress).

The word Scientology is taken from the Latin scio, which means “knowing, in the fullest sense of the word,” and the Greek word logos, meaning “study of.” It literally means knowing how to know. Scientology itself is defined as “the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.”

Scientology addresses the spiritual being. It directly raises his awareness and ability. And by so doing, he also becomes increasingly able to overcome the negative factors that impair him.

Inside Sea Org: Scientology's elite compound is root of TomKat split 

A series of photos gives a rare glimpse into the California headquarters of the Church of Scientology, home to Sea Org, the hardcore priesthood that may have be the catalyst in Katie Holmes’s shocking split with Tom Cruise.

TUESDAY, JULY 3, 2012, 7:26 PM

BY CHRISTINE ROBERTS / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 A series of photos gives a rare glimpse into the California headquarters of the Church of Scientology, home to Sea Org, the hardcore priesthood that may have be the catalyst in Katie Holmes’s shocking split with Tom Cruise.

Holmes reportedly decided to pull the plug on her five-year marriage to the “Top Gun” actor Thursday in fear that he was planning to induct Suri into Sea Organization, an ultrazealous offshoot of Scientology.

Marty Rathbun, a former high-ranking Sea Org member who left the controversial religious organization in 2004 told the Daily News that it is “more than plausible” that the hard-core higher order wanted the 6-year-old.

“The whole purpose for being a tutor for the kids is not education; it’s to get them on to be full-blown zealots at an early age. The thought process is to turn them into zealots,” Rathburn said.

A mansion, Bonnie View, at Gold Base that has been prepared in expectation of the eventual return of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard,  say former members. Hubbard died in 1986.

The Church of Scientology, however, maintains that no one under the age of 16 is allowed to join the elite priesthood, TMZ reported.

Sea Org, which reportedly boasts more than 6,000 members, is Scientology’s answer to a religious order, according to a 2011 story in The New Yorker.

Members of the priesthood, who are paid just $50 a week for their services, reside at Scientology’s 500-acre compound in Gilman Hot Springs, Calif.

The compound, known as Gold Base, is heavily guarded, protected by razor-tipped wire fences, motion sensors and a suspected bunker.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sea-org-scientology-elite-compound-root-tomkat-split-article-1.1107410#ixzz1zd8ftUUZ


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/sea-org-scientology-elite-compound-root-tomkat-split-article-1.1107410#ixzz1zd5CHEOp