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Continued from previous pageThe Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., is in a rather shabby row house. The living room has been converted into an office and bookstore, the double size dining room into a lecture hall, and upstairs bedrooms into offices and classrooms. But despite the architectural nonconformity, to say nothing of its utter rejection of theological considerations, Scientology insists on calling itself a church. Moreover, it makes a special pitch to Christians by attempting to harmonize the teachings of founder L. Ron Hubbard with Scripture. Forty-four pages of the booklet Scientology and the Bible are set up in parallel columns with this objective. That often there is not the remotest correspondence between the Hubbard passages and the accompanying biblical quotations may be seen in the following examples:

SCIENTOLOGYTHE FACTORS. 3. The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint.GIC 18. A POSTULATE IS AS VALUABLE AS IT IS WORKABLE.Axiom 1. LIFE IS BASICALLY A STATIC. Definition: A Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.Axiom 16. COMPLETE DE STRUCTION IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE POSTULATION OF THE AS-IS-NESS OF ANY EXISTENCE AND THE PARTS THEREOF.Axiom 54. A TOLERANCE OF CONFUSION AND AN AGREED-UPON STABLE DATUM ON WHICH TO ALIGN THE DATA IN A CONFUSION ARE AT ONCE NECESSARY FOR A SANE REACTION ON THE EIGHT DYNAMICS. THIS DEFINES SANITY.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES St. John 1:5—And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. St. John 5:17—But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. St. John 10:28—And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Luke 4:32-37 (in which Jesus exorcises a demon from a man in the synagogue). St. John 19:5-11 (Jesus before Pilate).

Although all these examples are from the New Testament, numerous comparisons from the Old Testament are given as well, the vast majority of them from the Book of Proverbs. Absent from Scientology practice are the basic constituents of the Christian religion: reverent faith, prayer, worship, reading of and preaching from the Christian Scriptures, observance of the sacraments as instituted and explained in the New Testament. But if Scientology is not a bona fide religion, what is it? An organization of quack psychologists who are exploiting the emotionally and mentally distraught for financial gain? This appears to be the consensus of the critics. When Scientology was banned in the province of Victoria in Australia, a government report described it as "the world's largest organization of unqualified persons engaged in the practice of dangerous techniques which masquerade as mental therapy." The report continues: "The theories of Scientology are fantastic and impossible, the principles perverted and ill-founded, and the techniques debased and harmful." In an article in Today's Health, Ralph Lee Smith concurs:

Couched in pseudoscientific terms and rites, this dangerous cult claims to help mentally or emotionally disturbed persons, for sizable fees. Scientology has grown into a very profitable worldwide enterprise … and a serious threat to health. … Scientology is a cult which thrives on glowing promises that are heady stuff for the lonely, the weak, the confused, the ineffectual, and the mentally or emotionally ill [Today's Health, December, 1968].

In 1963 the Food and Drug Administration raided the Founding Church and impounded 100 E-meters and books labeled with "therapeutic claims charged to be false." In February, 1969, the U. S. Court of Appeals overturned a Federal Court ruling supporting the Food and Drug Administration "until the Government can refute the claim that Scientology is a religion … protected by the right of freedom of worship." Judge J. Skelly Wright ruled, that until proven otherwise, the Scientology practice of "auditing" must be assumed to be comparable to the Roman Catholic confession, and Scientology literature comparable to Holy Scripture. Articles exposing Scientology as a dangerous fraud relate numerous examples of persons who claim they were swindled by unscrupulous Scientologists. The Saturday Evening Post tells of a Florida millionaire who was fleeced out of $28,000 in processing fees in less than two years. According to Today's Health, a Los Angeles housewife marched angrily into court with the charge that she had spent $4,000 for Scientology processing "on assurance that it would help her overcome frigidity." The ironical outcome of her investment was that her husband divorced her. And Alan Levy, in the November 15, 1968, issue of Life, tells of his reportorial pilgrimage to Saint Hill (a sprawling English manor, thirty-one miles from London, that became Scientology's international headquarters in 1959) to enroll in an advanced course advertised at $390. Upon arrival he was informed that the cost of tuition alone would be $3,150, "plus living expenses, payable in advance." (Had the Scientologists smelled a rat?)Founder L. Ron Hubbard's financial relationship to the Scientology enterprise has come under investigation. When world headquarters were moved to Saint Hill ten years ago, Hubbard imposed a 10 per cent assessment on all fees collected by Scientology centers across the world, payable to him. At that time the annual take by the Founding Church alone reportedly approached $200,000. In 1966 Hubbard received a $240,000 fee from the movement for "the good will of his name" (Time, August 23, 1968). Two years later he "forgave" the organization a $13 million debt for "services rendered," a move described by Time as an "understandable act of' charity considering that he has boasted to friends of having $7,000,000 stashed away in two numbered Swiss bank accounts." When the organization ran into stormy weather in the British Parliament, Hubbard bailed out and headed for the Mediterranean on his 3,300-ton yacht, with its blue-uniformed crew of 200 sailors and students. There he dabbles in oceanographic research while the furor created by his controversial brainchild continues unabated. In August, 1968, he cabled Saint Hill, "I have finished my Work. Now it's up to others."Even if we assume complete honesty and sincerity on the part of its practitioners and promoters, Scientology must be viewed as a dangerous and menacing cult psychologically, socially, physically, and spiritually.

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September (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44