Hugh B. Urban’s The Church of Scientology: a History of a
New Religion offers a non-judgemental look into the controversial new
religious movement, Scientology for those who have little to no previous
knowledge of the religion. Urban is aiming to fill the void in scholarly
studies on Scientology, which he claims many scholars have avoided due to the
repercussions they may encounter from Scientologists for being critical towards
their organization. For this reason, Urban is also targeting other religious scholars
like himself by expanding the availability of academic research on the subject.
Urban’s book provides a historical account of the beginnings of Scientology,
from the first publication of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, to the founding of Scientology
as a ‘religion’, and continues in a fairly chronological manner, ending with
where Scientology presently stands in society. Furthermore, he looks at
Scientology in light of a few main themes. These themes include, how the movement
was shaped through the time period and culture that existed in the 1950’s, the
idea of secrecy in Scientology and the issues they have faced regarding
religious freedom. In addition to these, the major underlying theme of the book
is the question, “is Scientology a religion or a profit-orientated organization?”
This is explored carefully and without judgement by Urban, who leaves the
reader to come to his or her own decision.
Hugh Urban explains that he
has chosen to approach this topic because he is not only a historian of
religions (teaching a Comparative Region course at Ohio State University), but
because he is primarily interested in the question “what is religion?” and
wishes to use this book as a means to explore the idea of “which groups do we
privilege with the label “religion” and which do we exclude?” and more
important, “What are the stakes – legal, financial and political – in laying
claim to the status of religion?” furthermore, “What is at risk when government
agencies, media, or academics deny a given group such status?”(6). Urban considers each of these societal
concerns by examining the controversial implications surrounding the major
theme, “is Scientology a religion or an profit-orientated organization?”
The first two chapters are
mainly intended to educate the reader on the founder of Scientology, L. Ron
Hubbard and how he crafted his invention of Dianetics into one of the most
successful NRM’s in the twentieth century. Urban is sure to give Hubbard credit
for his successful career, describing him as a charismatic leader and an
excellent businessman and entrepreneur. He claims, “Hubbard is perhaps
best understood neither as a romantic philosopher-hero nor as a
cynical con man; rather, he was an extremely savvy entrepreneur and bricoleur[1]
with an unusually keen sense of the spiritual marketplace of 1950's
America" (55). In regards to the genuineness of his ‘religion’, this quote
also encapsulates much of Urban’s critical discussion throughout the first and
second chapters, in which he advances the notion that Hubbard constructed his
religion solely based on what the market wanted,
the same way that a businessman would craft a company; to perfectly suit the
needs of the marketplace by filling a market niche and in order to maximize
profit. By describing Hubbard using the term bricoleur, Urban appeals to Hubbard’s own words, in which he claimed
to explore and use “anything that worked” in order to create a following behind
his movement and “make profit” (55). Furthermore, he explains how Hubbard had harsh
feelings towards religion, especially Christianity, until he realized that he
could use it to his own advantage as a means to keep his movement alive.
According to Urban, this is what prompted him to take on the “religious angle”, creating the Church of
Scientology.
The first two chapters help
the reader consider the major theme, “Is Scientology a religion or a
profit-orientated organization?” and precondition the readers’ expectations for
the preceding chapters from the idea that Scientology is a strategically crafted
religious movement. In the third and fourth chapters, Urban explores the
culture of the 1950’s and 1960’s and explains how they also played a role in
the crafting of Scientology and the popularity that followed. It is interesting
how Urban describes Scientology as “not just a reflection, but the very epitome
of American religion during the cold war” (89) and claims that the historical
overlap between the two is “hardly accidental.” Urban argues that Scientology
is an embodiment of the cold war spirit in terms of its beliefs, practices,
organizational structure, and in its obsession with secrecy. Urban see’s a clear
parallel between the United States’ relationship with the Soviet Union and
Scientology’s relationship with the FBI; they were very much afraid of each
other. Hubbard became so paranoid that the FBI, CIA and the IRA were spying on
his organization that he implemented a new series of intensive audits called
“security checks” to ensure there was no disloyalty or criticism towards the
church from inside members who could potentially leak information. Urban successfully
reasons that this mirrors the sense of secrecy and security that was
experienced in the United States during the cold war era.
Hubbard also claimed that
Scientology, most specifically, Dianetics was the solution to communism, claiming,
“Dianetics was born as a response to the threat of nuclear war” (95). Urban
uses this as evidence to show how Hubbard crafted his religion to attend to the
needs and interests of his audience, who were, at the time, living in fear of
communist threats. These cold war anxieties were also met with the fascination
of UFO’s and aliens due to the amount of unidentified phenomena flying around
during the 1950’s. Hubbard’s “space opera” stories about the origins of
Scientology, such as the Xenu and Xemu story, Urban argues, were crafted to fit
perfectly with this UFO fascination and thus, made the organization much more
appealing to outsiders at the time. These among other examples given by Urban
demonstrate his argument that Scientology was modelled off the cold war and
perfectly embodied the post world war II consumer market. Urban does
an excellent job of arguing this, especially with the numerous examples he
provides that show a clear parallel between Scientology and the cold war. This
type of argument that Urban presents is similar to theories discussed in class
that answer the question “why do NRM’s emerge?” Specifically, the idea that a
number of NRM’s rose in the 1960’s and 1970’s in response to the counterculture
movement and sexual revolution that occurred in that time period. It can be
observed, for instance, that the Children of God grew in membership by
appealing to the corruption of society and the acceptance of hard drugs and
sexual liberation in the same way that Scientology appealed to the threat of
communism and fascination with UFO’s. Both of these NRM’s were crafted to suit
the interests of the market during each respective time periods.
Urban briefly touches on the
theme of secrecy in NRM’s during his discussion of the cold war, however, he
looks at secrecy within Scientology at a much deeper level in chapter six. In
this chapter, Urban explores the numerous legal battles and aggressive
approaches taken by Scientologists against people or organizations that have
distributed Scientology’s highly secretive OT materials. There are two sides to
the argument of whether or not these publications should be freely available.
Scientology argues that based on their freedom of religion and copyrighted
material, their secret documents should be left alone. On the opposing side, it
is argued that based on the freedom of information act, anyone should have the
right to learn and to know what is in these documents. Urban presents both
sides of the argument fairly without showing any bias towards either side. However,
when discussing the monetary costs that a member must put into the organization
before being allowed to see the secretive OT documents, Urban presents an
interesting argument in which he claims “this goes against the idea of
copyright law, since one must literally buy into the doctrine before one has
had a chance to actually read it” (197). This correlates nicely with his
earlier arguments where he claims Hubbard was an excellent businessman,
motivated by making profit. This type of secrecy within an NRM also can
contribute to the insiders and outsiders’ mentality that has been discussed in
class. By keeping information highly confidential within an organization that
only they can see, members will feel bound to that organization and committed
to protecting these secrets from any ‘outsiders’.
The theme of religious
freedom, in which chapter five deals with, also brings the reader to Urban’s major
theme/question, “is scientology a religion? And if it is, what does that
entail?” This chapter deals primarily with Scientology’s struggle to become
recognized as a true religion and the advantages that were gained as a result
of successfully winning this battle. As mentioned in previous chapters, Urban
is highly critical of Hubbard’s reasons for wanting to be recognized as a
religion, and although giving a fair representation of both sides, it is
apparent that most evidence in his discussion leans to the notion that
Hubbard’s “religious angle” approach
was primarily profit orientated. His argument is based on the large amounts of
money being taken in by the church and Hubbard’s determination to become a tax-exempt
organization. Furthermore, Urban states that initially, Hubbard said the
religious angle was purely for “legal reasons and church services were minimal
to non existent” (163). However, after
the IRS made the decision to revoke their religious status and tax-exemption, Hubbard
began to demand “all staff to make certain to display religious paraphernalia
of crosses, clerical collars, and Scientology Creed” and made it mandatory to
display these visual evidences that Scientology is a religion. This aligns with
and supports Urban’s earlier claim that Hubbard would do “whatever worked” to
make money.
Upon finally winning the
battle to gain religious status, Hubbard used it as a means to avoid government
intervention and tax collectors and to attain tax and housing allowances (161).
Hubbard also gloated that parliaments do not attack religions and Urban offers
many examples within the chapter to demonstrate how Hubbard used his new found
‘religious freedom’ as a means of combating critics by claiming they were
bigots and intolerant. Urban uses an example that followed the FBI raids on the
church, where Scientologists used their religious status in their defence,
claiming the raids to be a “frightening, abusive, and unnecessarily violent
intrusion into a spiritual community” (168). Furthermore, they compared the FBI
raids to a type of “Nazi Mentality” (168). Urban made a good choice to use this
example, because it demonstrates the severity to which Scientologists took
advantage of their religious status. Based on the information presented by
Urban, it seems very evident that Hubbard was more interested in using his
religious status as a means towards different ends, primarily profit, rather
than truly wanting the religious title as its own end.
Overall,
Urban’s The Church of Scientology: a
History of a New Religion is highly informative to someone like me who is
new to Scientology and the depth of research, in particular, primary research is
excellent, which makes Urban’s advancements highly persuasive. The main themes
that are addressed in this book are interesting and useful in the sense that
they can be taken and applied to other NRM’s as well. I do believe that
although Urban tried to be very non-judgemental and fair towards Scientology,
there is still an obvious bias throughout the book hinting that Hubbard was in
fact a profit-orientated businessman and his religion was crafted solely as a
means to maximize profit. With that said, it appears to be the case that one
argument is just stronger than the other, making this type of bias unavoidable.
In all cases, Urban was sure to fairly present both opposing sides, which
allowed the reader to see each differing perspective. This was successful
because rather than enforcing his own personal beliefs on the reader, we were
able to read the facts and from there, come to our own conclusions.
Upon reading this book, I have
a much greater understanding of Scientology, its history and where it stands in
our society today. I am also much more clear on the different advantages of
being defined as a religion as opposed to a secular entity. The advantages are
plentiful and it seems as though religious status is something that could
easily become exploited by groups, like the Scientologists, who wish to be granted
this title. As Urban makes clear, whether or not to grant a group religious
status is clearly an impossible decision to make, especially considering there
is no set definition of what exactly counts as a religion and what does not. Based
on the strong research and evidence presented in this book, I have been
persuaded that Hubbard did not believe in his religion and was deep down, a con
man that wanted to live the life of the rich and famous. It seemed that he
enjoyed the immense success and popularity of his Dianetics publication so much
that he was willing to do whatever it took to keep it in the spotlight and
secure his followers, even if this meant lying to and misleading them. This
book has also motivated me to investigate further into Urban’s question “How is
religion defined and who get’s to define it?”
[1] Bricolage: something
constructed or created from a diverse range of available things (Oxford
Dictionary, 2013)
