Scientology addresses the spirit - not simply 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.
In Scientology we hold man to be basically good, and that spiritual salvation depends upon the individual and people around them and attainment of brotherhood with the universe.
Scientology is not a dogmatic religion in which one is asked to believe anything on faith. An individual discovers for himself that Scientology works by applying its principles and observing or experiencing the results.
The ultimate goal of Scientology is true spiritual enlightenment and freedom for the individual.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY
To understand Scientology, something should be known of the path of research which led L. Ron Hubbard to Scientology—Dianetics.
Dianetics techniques can help alleviate unwanted emotions, irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses (illnesses caused or aggravated by mental stress). It is most accurately described as what the soul is doing to the body through the mind.
Prior to 1950, prevailing scientific thought had concluded Man’s mind to be his brain, i.e., a collection of cells and neurons and nothing more. Not only was it considered that Man’s ability could not be improved, but it also was believed that with the formation of his cerebral cortex, his personality was likewise irrevocably established. These theories were, however, inaccurate and as a consequence science has never evolved a workable theory of the mind nor a means to resolve problems of the mind.
L. Ron Hubbard changed all that with Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Its publication in 1950 marks a watershed in the history of Man’s quest for a true understanding of himself.
Like Scientology, Dianetics rests on basic principles, easily learned, clearly demonstrated as true and every bit as valid today as when they were first released in 1950.
SCIENTOLOGY: A KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE
The Scientology symbol is an S imposed over two triangles. The S stands for Scientology. The two triangles represent important concepts in the Scientology religion. The lower triangle is made up of affinity, reality and communication, which together equate to understanding. The top triangle consists of another set of closely interrelated factors: knowledge, responsibility and control.
For all that Dianetics resolved in the field of human behavior and the mind, there still remained one outstanding question. When someone was looking at a mental image picture, who was looking at that picture?
The breakthrough came in the autumn of 1951, after L. Ron Hubbard observed many, many people using Dianetics and found a commonality of experience and phenomena. After carefully reviewing all relevant research data, he isolated the answer: Man was neither his body nor his mind, but a spiritual being. This was the source of all that is good, decent and creative in the world: the individual being himself. With this discovery, L. Ron Hubbard founded the religion of Scientology, for he had moved firmly into the field traditionally belonging to religion—the realm of the human soul.
The term soul, however, had developed so many other meanings from use in other religions and practices that a new term was needed to connote precisely what had been discovered. The term LRH chose was thetan, from the Greek letter theta (
) the traditional symbol for thought or life.
A thetan is the person himself, not his body or his name or the physical universe, his mind or anything else. It is that which is aware of being aware; the identity which IS the individual. One does not have a thetan, something one keeps somewhere apart from oneself; he is a thetan.
Very pertinent to L. Ron Hubbard’s research at this juncture was his examination into the phenomena known as exteriorization. Although various religious texts make mention of it, no one had ever considered the matter with such careful scrutiny. From this research, he concluded that the thetan is able to leave the body and exist independent of the flesh. Exteriorized, the person can see without the body’s eyes, hear without the body’s ears and feel without the body’s hands. Man previously had very little understanding of this detachment from his mind and body. With the act of exteriorization attainable in Scientology a person gains the certainty he is himself and not his body.
