SCIENTOLOGY

A quasi-scientific and religious movement founded by L. Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction author. Hubbard's book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (New York 1950), became an international best seller and led, in 1952, to the incorporation of an international organization which later evolved into Scientology. Dianetics initially claimed to be "a science of mental health," but with the creation of the Founding Church of Scientology (offices in Wash., D.C., and in New York, N.Y.) in 1955, the organization took a religious turn. The church has followers in English speaking countries throughout the world, as well as in Denmark, France, and Sweden, and has claimed up to several million adherents.

Although formal religious services play no part in the activities of the organization, Scientology does possess a highly structured system of beliefs and identifies itself as a church. It accepts a doctrine of reincarnation that claims the human being is a thetan, a preexistent spiritual being. In this life human beings possess a body and mind that enable them to travel through the physical universe, called MEST (matter, energy, space, time). Mental functioning is guided by the quest for survival, the fundamental drive of human existence, which divides the mind into "analytic," or conscious, and "reactive," or subconscious functions. Every experience in one's life is said to be recorded as a mental image. Painful experiences, called "engrams," are not immediately available to the analytic mind, but are recorded in the reactive. They may be exceedingly difficult to detect, some tracing their origins back to prenatal injuries in the womb. When stimulated later, Scientology claims, they may lead to irrational behavior.

Therapy proceeds with the help of an "E-meter," similar to a skin galvanometer or lie detector, which identifies emotionally charged words. An "auditor" reviews one's past to help reduce the power of engrams or to convert them into conscious memories. Through long discipline in this procedure, a novice or "preclear" becomes a "clear" and is able to become an auditor to others or a minister of the church.

The church has been criticized for its scientific and religious claims, and for the financial demands it makes on its members. Psychotherapists deny that the unconscious mind can be neutralized by the procedures Hubbard proposed. Although the literature of Scientology and E-meters now carry medical disclaimers, the church has been plagued from its inception by lawsuits filed both by various governments and by disaffected members.

For its part, the church has filed scores of lawsuits against governmental agencies, asserting that it has been a victim of religious persecution. When L. Ron Hubbard died Jan. 28, 1986, at the age of 74, the church was still under investigation by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The church suffered its most serious blow in 1984 when the IRS successfully argued that the church's taxexeempt status should be revoked.

Bibliography: l. r. hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (Los Angeles 1968); The Problems of Work: How to Solve Them and Succeed (Los Angeles 1983). p. rowley, New Gods in America (New York 1971).

[e. j. furton/eds.]