Origins of Scientology
Scientology was expanded and reworked from Dianetics an earlier system of self-improvement techniques originally set out by Hubbard in the 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Immediately prior to this work, Hubbard was intensively involved with the occultist Jack Parsons in performing the occult rites developed by Aleister Crowley. Some critics have pointed out the many similarities in Hubbard's writings to the doctrines of Crowley.

By the mid-1950s, Hubbard had relegated Dianetics to being a sub-study of Scientology, although it is still promoted and delivered by Scientology organizations. The chief difference between the two is that Dianetics is explicitly secular, focused on the individual's present life and dealing with physical and mental or emotional problems, whereas Scientology adopts a more overtly religious approach focused on dealing with spiritual issues spanning multiple past lives as well as the present day.

Hubbard was repeatedly accused of adopting a religious facade for Scientology in order for the organization to maintain tax-exempt status and avoid prosecution for false medical claims; these accusations have dogged the Church of Scientology to the present day, bolstered by numerous accounts from Hubbard's fellow science-fiction authors that on various occasions he stated that the way to get rich was to start a religion.

The word scientology has a history of its own. Although nowadays associated almost exclusively with Hubbard's work, it was coined by the philologist Alan Upward in 1907 as a synonym for "pseudoscience". In 1934, the Argentine-German writer Anastasius Nordenholz published a book using the word positively: Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens, or Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge. Nordenholz's book is a study of consciousness, and its usage of the word is not greatly different from Hubbard's definition, "knowing how to know". However, it is not clear whether Hubbard was aware of these earlier usages. The word itself is a pairing of the Latin word scio ("know" or "distinguish") and the Greek λόγος lógos ("reason itself" or "inward thought"). It seems plausible that Hubbard's meaning derived, like that of Nordenholz, from a simple translation of these root words.


Beliefs and practices
Scientology's doctrines were established by Hubbard over some 33 years from 1952 through to his death in January 1986, issued in the form of thousands of lectures, books, essays, and policies. Most of the basic principles of Scientology were set out during the first 15 years of its existence, with Hubbard devoting much of his later life to the more esoteric upper levels (or "Advanced Technologies") of the Scientology belief system. The church describes his actions as improving and expanding on the workability and use of these principles.

The central beliefs of Scientology are that a person is an immortal spiritual being (referred to as a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body, and that the person is basically good. The life one should lead is one of continual spiritual and ethical education, awareness, and improvement, so that he/she can be happy and achieve ultimate salvation, as well as being more effective in creating a better world. Scientology claims to offer specific methodologies to assist a person to achieve this.

Another basic tenet of Scientology is that there are three basic interrelated (and intrinsically spiritual) components that are the very makeup of successful "livingness": affinity, reality (or agreement), and communication, which equate to understanding. Hubbard called this the "ARC triangle". Scientologists utilize ARC to enhance their lives, primarily based upon the belief that raising one aspect of the triangle increases the other two.

In an attempt to clarify the concept of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious minds, Hubbard wrote that the mind of man is structured in two parts: the "analytical mind" and the "reactive mind". He described the analytical mind as the positive, rational, computing portion, while the "reactive mind", according to Hubbard, operates on a stimulus-response basis. Scientologists believe the reactive mind is the root of an individual's travail, as well as the root of mankind's inhumanity and inability to create lasting, prosperous, sane societies.

The central methodology of Scientology is called "auditing", (from the Latin root aud-, to listen), which is one-on-one communication with a Scientology-trained "auditor". The auditor assists a person to have realizations about himself and unravel the reactive portion of his mind, ie, emotional "charge", specific traumatic incidents, his own ethical transgressions, and bad decisions of his past that tend to lock him into a life not totally under his own control.

The Church states that the goal of Scientology is a world without war, criminals, and insanity, where good decent people have the freedom to reach their goals.


The Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology was first incorporated in the United States as a nonprofit organization in 1954. Today it forms the center of a complex worldwide network of corporations dedicated to the promotion of L. Ron Hubbard's philosophies in all areas of life. This includes drug treatment centers (Narconon), criminal rehab programs (Criminon), activities to reform the field of mental health (Citizens Commission on Human Rights), projects to implement workable and effective educational methods in schools (Applied Scholastics), a campaign to return moral values to living (The Way to Happiness), an organization to educate and assist businesses to succeed (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, or WISE), and a crusade directed to world leaders as well as the general public to implement the 1948 United Nations document, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

The Church of Scientology has been, and remains, a highly controversial organization. Countries have taken markedly different approaches to Scientology. In the United States, Scientology declares itself to be a religion and regularly cites religious protection under First Amendment to the United States Constitution; other countries, notably in Europe, have regarded Scientology as a potentially dangerous cult and have significantly restricted its activities at various times, or at least have not considered that the branches of the Church of Scientology met the legal criteria for being considered religion-supporting organizations. In Germany for instance, they are not seen as a religion by the government but as a financial organization. Scientology has also been the focus of criticism by anti-cult campaigners and has aroused controversy for its high-profile campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatric medication.