Why do some people oppose Scientology?

In the first place, very few do.

There are those in psychiatry who have long opposed spiritual betterment of any kind, but particularly that offered by Dianetics and Scientology.

Additionally, there are certain characteristics and mental attitudes that cause a percentage of the population to oppose violently any betterment activity or group. This small percentage of the society (roughly 2 percent) cannot tolerate that Scientology is successful at improving conditions around the world. This same 2 percent is opposed to any effective self-betterment activity. Those who are upset by seeing man get better are small in number compared to the millions who have embraced Scientology and its efforts to create a sane civilization and more freedom for the individual.

Is Scientology a cult?

No. It is a religion in the fullest sense of the word.

“Cult” is usually meant in a disparaging sense to imply a secret or closed group with limited membership and mysterious beliefs. Religious scholars point out that the term has become almost meaningless, since its modern use reflects a growing prejudice against all religions. For example, a government report in Belgium labeled the Hasidic Jews and even the YWCA as “cults.” The French Parliament included Baptists on their list.

Scientology is unique in that it does not require or tell anyone to “believe” anything. Rather, Scientology believes every individual should think for himself. In Scientology, what is true for the individual is only what he has observed personally and knows is true for him. Scientology is not authoritarian, but offers a technology one can use and then decide whether it works for him.

Is Scientology secretive?

Not at all. There is nothing mysterious about Scientology or its members and practices. The Church’s leaders are in close touch with the membership and they hold events throughout the year which are attended by tens of thousands.

Scientologists are actively involved in their communities, visible and effective.

The Church has found that those who allege the Church is secret are almost always those who never bothered to try and communicate with or find out anything from actual Scientologists.

Does one have to change one’s religion to be a Scientologist?

No. Scientology doesn’t require that anyone convert. Indeed Scientology can compliment one’s existing religion. Scientologists include Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and those with no other religion. Having two religions in quite common in the Far East.

Is a belief in “aliens” fundamental to Scientology?

No. Like many scientists Scientology teaches that there must be life in the Universe apart from Earth. Indeed Scientology teaches that spiritual beings existed prior to the creation of the Universe. Scientology deals with the spiritual being ie the person themselves and the origin of the spirit as distinct from the body. Scientology does not say that one’s body did not come down an evolutionary line. Scientology merely states that one is not one’s body and that the spirit, namely the person themselves, can find out and know about their past and decide what is true for them.

What does Scientology say about brainwashing?

Brainwashing is a psychiatric technique and Scientology is totally opposed to it.

Scientology makes people spiritually free and enables them to think for themselves.This is the exact opposite of brainwashing. Indeed, one of the maxims used in the Church is that a parishioner should not just believe, but should observe the truth and workability of Scientology for himself and only accept it when it is true for him.

What is true is what is true for you.

Millions of Scientologists from literally all walks of life have attested to the positive benefits received from Scientology. A common theme to their personal success stories is that they say that they are now in more control of their lives than they have ever been.

Then, too, L. Ron Hubbard was one of the first to discover and expose actual mind control and brainwashing experimentation conducted by United States military and intelligence agencies during and after World War II. He called these techniques “pain-drug-hypnosis.”

Did L. Ron Hubbard state that the way to make money was to start a religion?

No.

This is an unfounded rumor. One individual once claimed L. Ron Hubbard made such a comment during a lecture in 1948. The only two people who could be found who attended that very lecture in 1948 denied that Mr. Hubbard ever made this statement. And Mr. Hubbard himself certainly denied it.

Another famous writer from the same era who did make such a statement was George Orwell, who wrote to a friend in 1938 that “there might be a lot of cash in starting a new religion.” His letter was later published as part of a collection of letters which was circulated widely. It seems that Orwell’s comment has been misattributed to Mr. Hubbard. This was recognized by courts in Germany who ordered those who had attributed such a statement to Mr. Hubbard to stop repeating it.

Does it cost a lot?

No.

A person who donates for auditing [Scientology counselling] receives one-to-one personal and effective assistance to solve problems in life, to communicate more freely with others and to handle the upsets of life preventing his true spiritual freedom. Having achieved these lower levels a parishioner moves on to more advanced levels on which he is literally seeking immortality, which is priceless.

An entire team of Scientology staff members is required to deliver auditing, which is always individual, and/or training to a parishioner. Compare this to a church with a single priest or minister who delivers a single sermon to a congregation of perhaps 1,000 and the difference starts to become apparent. It would take about 650 ministers just to audit 2,000 Scientologists (one auditor can counsel three parishioners per day with some administrative assistance), and this does not account for all other staff who provide the services necessary for the Church itself to function.

The training delivered by Churches of Scientology could be compared to taking a course in a school or similar facility.

The most thorough study of Scientology available is the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, which takes more than 50 weeks to complete, at 40 hours per week of study. It provides a student with a full understanding of the mind and life and is the functional equivalent of a complete college education. The requested donation is between a fourth to a tenth of that charged by universities. Yet, the manpower required to deliver such training is very comparable. And Scientology churches provide this service without being supported by any government funding, as many universities are.

Students who are learning to become auditors must audit others as part of their training. In many cases, they coaudit each other and, of course, there is no donation requested for that. A person can receive the majority of his own auditing in this manner.

Furthermore, Scientology’s donation system is fair. Unlike some religions which tithe the incomes of all parishioners, regardless of how much they participate in religious activities, the Church of Scientology receives donations from those parishioners who avail themselves of the services it offers and in proportion to services actually received.

For parishioners who can afford no donation, there is even a center at every Church where they can still receive auditing from ministers in training. And finally, Churches of Scientology conduct services similar to other denominations each week—including Sunday services—and no donation whatsoever is requested.

How does Scientology help family relationships?

Scientology encourages and helps its members to have excellent family relationships, whether their relatives are Scientologists or not. In fact, relationships between a Scientologist and the rest of his family routinely improve after his involvement in Scientology, because through Scientology one acquires the means to increase communication and resolve any problems that might have existed before.

Scientology goes to great lengths to reconcile family differences should any such problem arise. Family members of Scientologists are always welcome to visit the organisation, to meet other Scientologists and to have their questions about Scientology answered.

The only occasions when reconciliation is hard to accomplish is when extremist, anti-religious hate groups intervene and make communication difficult or impossible. Such groups have a vested interest in inflaming rather than defusing upsets among family members, and are always closely connected to deprogrammers—hired thugs who prey upon the concerns of families in exchange for payments of thousands.

Scientology Chaplains have assisted on numerous occasions in bringing family members together and enabling them to discover the real cause of their disagreements. Regardless of whether the other family members choose to become Scientologists or not, Scientologists take deep pride in their record of resolving family problems and conflicts.

Can Scientologists come and go as members if they wish?

Certainly. A Scientologist is free to be as active in participating in services as he or she wishes. Non-practicing Scientologists may return to services at any time. If someone decides he no longer wants to be a member of Scientology, he or she is free to leave. Parishioners visit or participate in Scientology as they wish.

What does the term“Suppressive Person” mean?

A suppressive person is a person who seeks to suppress any betterment activity or group. The suppressive person, also called an antisocial personality, works to upset, continuously undermine, spread bad news and denigrate other people and their activities. While it has sometimes been said that a Suppressive person is just anti-Scientology, the fact is they oppose anyone doing better in life. Such people are not always easy to identify, however, they can be known by specific characteristics:

1. He or she speaks only in very broad generalities. “They say…” “Everybody thinks…” “Everyone knows…”
2. Such a person deals mainly in bad news, critical or hostile remarks, invalidation and general suppression.
3. The antisocial personality alters, to worsen, communication when he or she relays a message or news.
4. A characteristic, and one of the sad things about an antisocial personality, is that it does not respond to treatment or reform.
5. Surrounding such a personality we find cowed or ill associates or friends who, when not driven actually insane, are yet behaving in a crippled manner in life, failing, not succeeding.
6. The antisocial personality habitually selects the wrong target. If A is the obvious cause, the antisocial personality inevitably blames B or C or D.
7. The antisocial cannot finish a cycle of action. The antisocial becomes surrounded with incomplete projects.
8. Many antisocial persons will freely confess to the most alarming crimes when forced to do so, but will have no faintest sense of responsibility for them.
9. The antisocial personality supports only destructive groups and rages against and attacks any constructive or betterment group.
10. This type of personality approves only of destructive actions and fights against constructive or helpful actions or activities.
11. Helping others is an activity which drives the antisocial personality nearly berserk. Activities, however, which destroy in the name of help are closely supported.
12. The antisocial personality has a bad sense of property and conceives that the idea that anyone owns anything is a pretense, made up to fool people. Nothing is every really owned.

Fortunately, such individuals are a very small percentage of the population. But because society as a whole has not had any means to identify them, the amount of havoc wreaked by the anti-social personality throughout the centuries is incalculable.

Virtually all the turmoil and conflict in an individual’s life can be traced to contact with such personalities. Individual men and women can usually sort out their differences through communication if they are not adversely influenced, often unknowingly, by an antisocial personality attempting to inflame, instead of resolve, conflicts.

What is “Disconnection?”

If an individual attempting to improve his life through Scientology is encountering persistent opposition from a close associate, his spiritual advancement is impeded.

In the vast majority of cases, the antagonism is rooted in false information about Scientology and providing the true data ends the matter. As a last resort, when all attempts to sort out such situations have failed, the Scientologist may decide to disconnect from the person until the antagonism ceases.

A person who disconnects is simply exercising his right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person. This is one of the most fundamental rights of man. Members of other religions have exercised it down the ages when confronted by those who persistently opposed the practice of their faiths. Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Amish practice “shunning”—a form of disconnection—and their right to do so has been upheld by courts across the country. Certain Orthodox Jewish congregations practice an extreme form of disconnection in which a mock funeral is held for apostate members. Disconnection in Scientology is neither new nor strange in the annals of religion.

Why is Scientology opposed to psychiatric abuses?

As the stepchildren of the German dictator Bismarck and later Hitler and the Nazis, psychiatry and psychology formed the philosophical basis for the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II. Psychiatry uses electric shock, brain-mutilating psychosurgery and mind-damaging drugs to destroy a person and make him “docile and quiet” in the name of “treatment.”

Psychiatric methods involving the butchering of human beings and their sanity are condemned by the Church. Scientologists are trying to create a world without war, insanity and criminality. Psychiatry is seeking to create a world where man is reduced to a robotized or drugged, vegetable-like state so that he can be controlled.

Scientologists do not believe that psychiatrists should tell their patients what they think is wrong with them. This interjects lies or ideas which are not true for the individual himself, thereby violating his basic integrity. Scientologists believe that one should find out for himself the source of his troubles since this gives him the ability to improve conditions in his own life and environment.

Scientology and psychiatry will always be working at cross-purposes. Scientology is a religion and recognizes that man is a spiritual being. Psychiatrists view man as an animal. Psychiatry is strongly opposed to all religions as it does not even recognize that man is a spiritual being.

Scientologists disagree with the enforced and harmful psychiatric methods of involuntary commitment, forced and heavy drugging, electroconvulsive shock treatment, lobotomy and other psychosurgical operations.

By the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the healing of mentally caused ills should not be condoned in nonreligious fields. The reason for this is that violent psychiatric therapies cause spiritual trauma. At best, psychiatry suppresses life’s problems; at worst, it causes severe damage, irreversible setbacks in a person’s life and even death.

Why has the German government tried to portray Scientology as controversial?

Germany and, indeed, much of Central Europe, has a long and bitter history of religious intolerance and persecution, a trend which has continued into the present. Many religious and ethnic minorities have become the targets of escalating incidents of violence, xenophobia and religious discrimination.

Unfortunately, many government officials in Germany continue to fuel the intolerance. The Kohl government left a dismal legacy as far as human and civil rights are concerned. Muslims, Charismatic Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Scientologists and in some cases even Jews are among those who have been denied fundamental rights because of their race or religion. In recent years, the German government has been strongly criticized in more than 25 reports from international human rights bodies including the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Helsinki Commission, the United States State Department, and a British Ad-Hoc Human Rights Committee composed of Lords and scholars.

In 1997, a study by the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex, England, found that, “In Germany, democracy is used as an ideology to impose conformity. It has been dismaying to discover that the state, and some of its politicians and people, are using what are known from the past to be well-worn paths of discrimination and intolerance.” The U.S. State Reporter has criticized the German government for the “clearly discriminatory practice” of “prevent[ing] a person from practicing his or her profession of participating in public or private fora solely based on that person’s religion or belief.”

Germany is generally regarded as the birthplace of institutional psychiatry which spawned the theory of eugenics, created the first death camps and instigated the wholesale slaughter of millions. As in the United States in the early 1950s, the Church of Scientology traced the source of false reports and government attacks in Germany to psychiatric vested interests seeking to protect a multibillion dollar mental health monopoly. Operating without popular support but with taxpayer funds, psychiatric special interests regard as a threat any religion that provides man with genuine freedom without the use of mind altering drugs or similar unscientific “therapies.”

Unfortunately, some priests from the predominant Catholic and Lutheran churches in Germany have encouraged government persecution of Scientology and other new religions. Although supported through parishioner-paid government “church taxes,” the membership of these churches has been declining dramatically and so have their revenues. Rather than looking within their own organizations to find and cure the causes of declining membership, they have wrongly blamed Scientology, which continues to grow.

Fortunately, those who are upset by seeing man improve are small in number compared to the many who have followed Scientology’s invitation to “think for yourselves” and who consequently, have embraced Scientology and its efforts to create a harmonious and peaceful civilization and more freedom for the individual.

Wasn’t there a long battle between the Church of Scientology and the Internal Revenue Service of the United States?

The battle with the Internal Revenue Service was finally and favorably resolved on October 1, 1993. On that day, the IRS issued letters recognizing the Church of Scientology International and its related churches and organizations—all 150 of them—as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

This ruling marked the end of a 40-year war between the Church and the IRS. The IRS’s determination followed the most intensive scrutiny in the agency’s history of any organization applying for tax exemption and included a meticulous review of Church activities and financial records. During this examination, an enormous amount of false information that IRS officials had been operating on in relation to the Church was addressed and corrected. Once the facts were established, the IRS came to the only possible conclusion.

• The religion of Scientology is a bona fide religion;
• Churches of Scientology and their related charitable and educational institutions are operated exclusively for recognized religious purposes.
• Churches of Scientology and their related charitable and educational institutions operate for the benefit of the public interest rather than for the interests of private individuals;
• No part of the net earnings of Churches of Scientology and their related charitable and educational institutions inures for the benefit of any individual or noncharitable entity;
• The Churches of Scientology do not violate any public policy.

What was the Guardian’s Office and does it still exist?

The Guardian’s Office, known as the GO, was initially created in 1966 as a unit to deal with the Church’s legal and external affairs. It no longer exists. It was permanently disbanded in the early 1980s by current Church management.

The GO had been infiltrated and set to up fail in its mission to protect the Church. It was influenced to abandon its original mandate and established itself as an independent, autonomous unit, answerable to nobody. It was isolated not only from the mainstream activity and management of the Church, but even from the Founder of the religion. Some GO executives actually tried to gain exclusive control over Church corporate and financial affairs.

The first warning that all was not well with the Guardian’s Office came in the late 1970s. Representatives of Church management realized that the GO no longer had the best interests of the Church and its Founder at heart. The GO’s management of the Church’s external affairs was notably deficient and many parishioners and staff began to suspect that matters for which the GO was responsible were not being dealt with in accordance with the teachings of Mr. Hubbard. In fact, by this time, the Guardian’s Office had abandoned any pretense of following the principles described in Mr. Hubbard’s writings.

It subsequently came to light that a handful of GO staff members had been influenced to adopt an “anything goes” approach in dealing with government discrimination against the Church. The dupes infiltrated and burglarized several U.S. government offices to obtain copies of files maintained and circulated about the Church. Obviously such activity was illegal and directly violated Mr. Hubbard’s policies.

However, while such illegal conduct was afoot, the GO managed to keep its operations secret from Church management, staff and membership. Its autonomy shielded it from accountability. Most Scientologists were altogether unaware of GO clandestine activities.

Even the government prosecutor in the later criminal case that arose from this illegal conduct testified that only a handful of people in the GO had engaged in or even knew about these illegal acts. The rest, including thousands of staff and millions of parishioners, had no involvement or knowledge of such unlawful activities.

When the GO’s criminal activities were discovered by those who today form the core of the Church’s leadership, the GO was disbanded, no small feat since it was the GO officials who held corporate control. Its functions were completely reorganized and brought under the control of the Church’s ecclesiastical management officers. Many of the GO staff were not involved in any of the unlawful activities and, wanting to conduct their affairs in accordance with the Founder’s teachings, abandoned their former GO leaders. They then gave their full support to Church management in the clean out and disbanding of the GO. Those who participated in or knew of the GO’s illegal conduct in any way were removed from Church staff and forever banned from future Church employment.

Sadly, there were also some people in the Church, but outside of the GO itself, who sympathized with the GO because of their own agendas to achieve autonomy and gain control of the Church’s finances. In some cases, it was the Scriptures themselves they wanted to pervert for their own ends. Given these people had proven themselves to be avowed enemies of L. Ron Hubbard and the religion, they were excommunicated.

Today, some of these same people, no longer part of the Church, are loudly and bitterly critical of the Church’s current management. It is these few apostates who are most often the ones who spread vitriol in the media about Scientology and Church leaders. When they make allegations of wrongdoing, they are referring to the acts of the GO, of which many of them were either a part or in sympathy with. They fail to mention their involvement or the fact that they were kicked out of the Church because of their GO involvement—or the fact that the very people they now try to tarnish with their allegations are the very people who permanently rid the Church of those who committed or supported such misdeeds.

Outsiders familiar with these events leading to, and culminating in, the disbanding of the GO, have often commented on the decisive and thorough manner in which the entire situation was managed. Relations with the U.S. government have been restored and the Church has obtained from the Internal Revenue Service full recognition and tax-exemption as an exclusively charitable, religious endeavor.

Virtually all major religions have gone through periods of trial and upheaval, especially during their formative years. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, underwent numerous schisms which splintered the faith. Sometimes history lingers. It took its leaders hundreds of years to come to terms with and acknowledge that the Inquisition was wrong.

One of the steps taken to ensure that nothing like the GO could ever occur within Scientology again was the formation of Religious Technology Center (RTC). RTC is responsible for ensuring the purity of the religion and the Scientology Scriptures, and provides a policing mechanism for the Church.

Indeed, the reorganization of the Church in the wake of the GO debacle marked the beginning of a new era. The Scientology religion not only successfully weathered the storm; it emerged even stronger, more stable, larger and more influential than before. In 1980 there were 328 churches, missions and groups around the world. Today, more than 3,000 churches, missions, related organizations and groups minister the religion to parishioners in more than 130 countries. Dianetics and Scientology books are on bestseller lists all over the world, with Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health having sold four times as many copies since 1980 as it did the world of the prior 30 years.

What is the Rehabilitation Project Force?

The Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) is a rehabilitation program offered only to members of the Sea Organization—a religious order consisting of full-time staff members who have signed a pledge of eternal service to Scientology and its goals (See: What is the Sea Organization?). Sea Organization staff who would otherwise be subject to dismissal for serious and/or continuous ecclesiastical violations are offered a second chance through the RPF. Personnel “burn out” is not new to organizations, but the concept of complete rehabilitation is.

Those participating in the RPF both study and receive religious counseling on a daily basis to address areas of difficulty in their personal lives.

Along with study and auditing, members of the RPF work eight hours per day as a team on tasks which improve the facilities of the Church by which they are employed and improve teamwork and coordination among the participants. The work allows the individual to regain confidence in himself and the pride of accomplishment.

Some critics of the Church who do not understand the purpose of this program have tried to intentionally misinterpret it as something other than what it is. Those critics, however, cannot speak authentically from personal experience. Those who know—graduates the RPF program—attest to its enormous personal benefit, and their appreciation for being able to avail themselves of redemption as opposed to dismissal.

How does Scientology view deprogrammers and groups that attempt to force people to denounce their chosen religion?

These so-called “deprogrammers,” better described as psychiatric depersonalizers, are money-motivated individuals who kidnap others for profit. Their methods include brainwashing, imprisonment, food and sleep deprivation and various forms of torture. Such activities are clearly against the principles held by Scientologists —and have been proven to be against the law as well.

“Fair Game” was canceled in 1968, more than 30 years ago, expressly because it was susceptible to misinterpretation and misuse. The term meant that apostate members could not seek protection or refuge under the Church’s internal ethics or justice codes. It had been intentionally and grossly misinterpreted by apostates, when all it meant was that those expelled from the Church could no longer take advantage of the internal ecclesiastical support and justice procedures churches of Scientology provide to resolve disputes and upsets among parishioners. They would have to make their own way, unaided, with the justice procedures of the society as their only recourse.

This concept is as old as religion itself. Many faiths reserve the right to expel or excommunicate members who refuse to abide by the moral and ecclesiastical codes of the group.

The term does not appear in the scriptures of Scientology and has not existed since 1968. In fact, its only use since then is not by the Church at all, but by a handful of anti-Scientology apostates and their attorneys who have exploited it in efforts to generate anti-Scientology prejudice in the media or courtroom.

The truth is that Church management never has and never would tolerate illegal or unethical actions to be committed in the Church’s name. The scriptures of Scientology are replete with admonitions to its adherents to build their lives on foundations of honesty and integrity. The commission of dishonesties or harmful acts against another is the road to personal misery and destruction of positive interpersonal relationships.

Why has Scientology sometimes been considered controversial?

Like all new ideas, Scientology has come under attack by the uninformed and those who feel their vested interests are threatened. As Scientologists have openly and effectively advocated social reform causes, they have become the target of attacks. For those vested interests who cling to a status quo that is detrimental to society, Scientology’s technology of making the able more able and teaching people to think for themselves poses a serious threat.

This conflict dates back to 1950, a time when psychiatry was entrenched among the United States intelligence services and living off the fat of government grants. In May of that year, L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Not only did Dianetics contain the first workable technology of the mind that anyone could apply, but it also labeled their “state-of-the-art” psychiatric drugs as dangerous. Moreover, it decried the inhuman use of electro-shock treatment and lobotomy—then the mainstay of psychiatric “treatment”. One cannot overestimate the threat that Dianetics posed to that medical/psychiatric establishment, both in terms of its inherent message and its unprecedented popularity with the American public; for suddenly here was a work that effectively ripped away their pretense of authority.

The response was immediate and considerable. Less than a month after the publication of Dianetics, psychiatrists on government payrolls were denigrating the book as a hoax, while admitting in the same breath that they had never even read it. A handful of influential psychiatrists used their government connections to spread lies and false reports through media and government files, escalating into an all-out attempt to close down the Dianetics foundations which had sprung up across the country and later, after its formation in 1954, the Church of Scientology. The issue was clearly financial: how long could psychiatrists continue to convince the American taxpayer to foot the bill for multimillion dollar psychiatric appropriations when Dianetics provided a means to greater happiness and ability for only the price of a book?

The attacks intensified after 1951, the year Mr. Hubbard published Science of Survival. In that book, Mr. Hubbard publicly exposed, for the first time, government-funded mind-control experiments in which psychiatrists administered drugs and electric shock to unsuspecting human guinea pigs who were then implanted, while unconscious, with hypnotic commands. Decades later, victims would receive government compensation for the injuries they suffered from such experiments. But at the time these matters were among the best-kept secrets of the U.S. intelligence and psychiatric communities.

Once again the response from the federal/psychiatric circles was considerable. At least half a dozen federal agencies, including the FBI, IRS and FDA, were brought into the effort to suppress Dianetics and Scientology.

The story of the attempts to wipe out Scientology would fill a book, but this war was effectively over in October 1993, when, after its exhaustive scrutiny, the IRS issued a series of rulings expressly recognizing that the Church of Scientology and all its subordinate churches and related charitable and educational institutions in the United States are tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS ruling which encompassed not only every Scientology church in the United States but also several important Scientology organizations outside the United States signified that the IRS—and the U.S. government—had formally recognized that the Church of Scientology is a bona fide religious organization and that its activities are beneficial to society as a whole.

As old lies are disproved, the controversy quickly fades and the truth about Scientology, what the Church really is and what is members do, replaces it.

And today, the Church continues to make great efforts to provide the accurate information.

Why has Scientology been to court on occasion?

The Church has gone to court in many countries to uphold the right to freedom of religion. In Australia, as one example, legal actions by the Church brought about a landmark victory which greatly expanded religious freedom throughout that country.

In the United States, the Church’s use of the Freedom of Information Act, taking government agencies to court and holding them accountable to release vital documents to the public on a variety of subjects, has been heralded as a vital action to ensure honesty in government.

In certain cases, the Church has used the courts to protect its copyrighted materials, or to ensure it rights and the rights of its members are safeguarded.

During the history of the Church, a few unscrupulous individuals, lusting for money, have observed how Scientology is prospering and rapidly expanding, and unsuccessfully have abused the legal system in an attempt to line their own pockets.

Are there any laws against the practice of Scientology? Has it been banned?

Of course not.

In fact, the Church has received numerous recognitions, citations and validations from various governments for contributions to society in the fields of education, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, crime reduction, human rights, raising moral values and a host of other fields.