LIFE Magazine Nov 15, 1968
A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind
SCIENTOLOGY

The lights in the hall go dim, leaving the bronzed bust of the Founder spotlighted at center stage. From the loudpeakers comes L Ron Hubbard's voice, deep and professional. It is a tape called "Some Aspects of Help. Part 1," a basic lecture" in Scientology that Hubbard recorded nearly 10 years ago.

No one in the intensely respectible Los Angeles audience of 500 -- some of whome paid as much as $16 to get in -- thought it odd to be sitting there listening to a disembodied voice.Among believera, Scientology and its founder are beyond frivolous question. Scieniology is the Truth, it is the path to "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war . . ." and "for the first time in all ages there is something that ....delivers the answers to the eternal questions and delivers immortality as well."

So much of a credo might be regarded as harmless -- practically indistinguishable from any number of minro schemes for the improvement of MAN. But Scientology is scary -- because of its size and growth, and because of the potentially disastrous technques it so casually makes use of. To attain the Truth, a Scientologist surrenders himself to "auditing," a crude form of psychoanalysis. In the best medical circumstances this is a delicate procedure, but in Scientlogy it is undetaken by an "auditor" who is simply another Scientologist in training, who uses an "E-meter," which resembles a lie detector. A government report, made to the parliament of the State of Victoria in Australia three years ago, called Scientology 'the worlds largest organization of unqualified persons engaging in the practice of dangerous technques which masquerade as mental therapy." As author Alan Levy found out by personal experience 'pages 100B - 114', the auditing expereince can be a shattering.

How many souls have become hooked on Scientology is impossible to say precisely. Worldwide membership -- England, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S. -- is probably between two and three million. In the U.S. officies in Washington, New York, Los Angeles and seven other cities, the figure may now be more than several hundred thousand. What is astonishing -- and frightening -- is the rate of growth in the u.s.: membership has probably tripled or quadrupled in the past three years.

Recruits to Scientology are most often young, intelligent and idealistic. They become fanatics on the subject, impervious to argument, quick to cut themselves off from soubters. Many young people have been instructed by their Scientology organizations "orgs," they are called to "disconnect" from their families. "Disconnect" means exactly that: sever all relations. Such estrangements can be deep and lasting, leaving heartsick parents no longer able to speak rationally with their children. Scientology is expensive. To reach the first meaningful stage costs the beginner $650 in tuition. To become a Operating Thetan, Class VIII -- the highest present classification -- can raise the all-in cost (books, tuition, equipment, board and lodging at Scientology centers suring advanced tarining) to as much as $15,000. The high costs have the effect of turning many young Scientologists into permanent parts of the apparatus. To finance their own advanced studies they take low paying jobs within the org -- and in the end find themselves alienated from life outside of Scientology.

Scientology is nominally a "religion," and the figure of Hubbard has taken on religious implications. The Nebraska born author of the 1950 best-seller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is now adored and remote. The literature hints at persecution. In 1963 agents of the Food and Drug Administration raided Scientology's Washington headquarters and seized a number of E-meters. Scientologists still speak of the raid on the "church." Scientology has been banned from the state of Victoria in Australia. In England, where Hubbard established the world headquarters of Scientology at Saint Hill, the government has looked with increasing disfavor on Scientology. Asserting that Scientology is "socially harmful," the government recently barred from entry a number of would-be participants in a world Scientology congress. Hubbard himself departed from England in the summer og 1966 and now lives on a 320 foot converted passenger ferry called the Royal Scot Man,cruising mostly between ports in the Mediterranean. There, although he claims to have given up his official ties to Saint Hill, he continues to train and send out super scientologists to all parts of the world.

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