The Church of Scientology: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

You are a thetan, and the recordings are not you.

Built by L. Ron Hubbard out of his 1950 self-help system Dianetics: the person is a thetan, an immortal being who has lived countless lifetimes and is held back by engrams — recordings of past pain that fire without being noticed. Auditing on the E-meter is the practice that finds and discharges them, along a graded route called the Bridge to Total Freedom. Recognised as a religion in law by the High Court of Australia in 1983, granted tax exemption by the United States Internal Revenue Service in 1993, and convicted of organised fraud in France in 2009.

On the record

The Victorian Board of Inquiry under Kevin Anderson QC reported against Scientology in 1965 and Victoria banned its practice under the Psychological Practices Act that year. The ban lapsed after the High Court of Australia held in Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) [1983] HCA 40, decided 27 October 1983, that Scientology is a religion in law. In 1979 Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard and ten others were convicted in Washington DC of conspiracy over the infiltration of federal agencies, an operation the church's own documents called Snow White. On 27 October 2009 a Paris court convicted the Celebrity Centre and the Scientology bookshop of organised fraud and fined them 600,000 euros; the conviction was upheld on appeal in February 2012 and by the Cour de cassation on 16 October 2013. The church rejects the French finding as a breach of religious freedom.

Why it is filed this way

Whether Scientology is a religion has been litigated in several countries and answered both ways. The High Court of Australia held in 1983 that it is one in law, and that ruling became the standard test for religion across the Commonwealth. The United States Internal Revenue Service granted its entities exemption in 1993. A Paris court convicted its French bodies of organised fraud in 2009 without ruling on the religious question. It is carried here as a movement, which is a statement about its age and shape and not about its truth.

DeitiesScientology names a Supreme Being as the Eighth Dynamic and then declines to describe it, holding that each person arrives at it themselves. Nothing is worshipped in the practice. The practice is auditing.

Founded1954 CE · Los Angeles, California

FounderL. Ron Hubbard

AfterlifeThe thetan does not die — it takes another body, and the recordings follow it

TextsDianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950) · Science of Survival (1951) · The technical bulletins and recorded lectures — the church calls these scripture

The map

The Church of Scientology’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

You are not your body and not your mind. You are a thetan: an immortal spiritual being who has lived before, who fell into the trap of matter, and who is now identified with the equipment. Go deeper — context →

Engrams are recordings, and they can be discharged. An engram is a moment of pain and unconsciousness recorded whole. Auditing locates it, runs it through until the charge is gone, and the church holds that the ability lost with it comes back. held by most Go deeper — context →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

L L. Ron Hubbard — the Founder. Pulp writer, naval officer, and author of the whole technical corpus. He withdrew from public life in 1980 and died in 1986; no one may alter what he wrote. Domain Dianetics, the technology, the whole corpusStanding Not divine and not worshipped — the source of the technology, whose word settles disputes about it Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Auditing on the E-meter. Two tin cans, a needle, and a question repeated until the reading flattens. It is the central practice, it is paid for by the hour, and the cost of the full Bridge is the criticism most often made of it. When Weekly or more often, in sessionsWho One preclear, one auditor, one E-meter Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Christianity — 11 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 11 shared ideas, a different faith Hinduism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Buddhism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Branch The Church of Scientology — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what The Church of Scientology shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

1 cited texts

Church of Scientology, FAQ on the Sea Organization (rendered) where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.