The Flag Issue:Celebrating Scientology's New Spiritual Center

What is Scientology?

By L. Ron Hubbard, Founder

(From the essay “An Invitation to Freedom—Man Can Save His Soul,” 1954)

Man, for all the days of which we have record, has sought the answer to the riddle of himself.

In the ages past he has aspired to wisdom upon a thousand paths.

The earliest peoples, the Vedics, the Buddhists, the Taoists and the Christians have all yearned toward the knowingness which would open the doors of the Universe and discover more splendid states.

“Scientology” is a word in the tradition of all such words. It means in English the same as its counterparts in Hindu, in Sanskrit, in Hebrew and Latin. “Veda,” “Tao,” “Dhyana,” and many other religious words mean exactly what “Scientology” means: the study of Wisdom.

Scientology embraces that knowingness necessary to the resolution of problems, such as those found in any human situation, whether the magnitude of the problem is personal or community in size.

Specifically, in Scientology we carry forward ten thousand years of known religious search into the mystery of life.

The efforts of Dharma, Lao-tzu, Gautama, Moses and Christ have given Man his principal lodestars upon this path.

The wisdom sought was the actuality of life, the identity of Creator of Life, and the actuality and identity of the human soul. The technology sought by all religious sages in all Man’s past was the salvation of the human soul.

By fascinating adventures and through many difficulties this wisdom has come, factually, into the hands of modern man under the word which groups such wisdom and technology—“Scientology.”

Scientology masters various body ills and solves problems of the mind, but this is natural that it would and such is a small use of it.

Scientology describes the human soul and frees it by simple technology.

A “Scientologist” is one who knows and practices Scientology on others. A Scientologist is an expert in human affairs. The long-trained Scientologist is an ordained minister. To be at the highest levels of training in Scientology one must have studied some thousands of hours or many times as long as doctors in comparable professions.

There are also “lay practitioners” in Scientology, as in many churches.

The Church of Scientology seeks no empire in this universe.

There are two categories of religion—the first is religious wisdom, the second is religious practice.

The first is composed entirely of teachings; the second is composed of opinions and practices.

Various mutually used writings serve many faiths. So it is with Scientology.

The Church of Scientology operates on its own creed.

Scientology is a wisdom of how to free and heal the human soul.

About L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard dedicated his life to discovering and codifying wisdom. Travels in Asia steeped him in wisdom of the East; studies in engineering and nuclear physics educated him in the tools of scientific inquiry. Using these reservoirs of knowledge, he charted a path to make spiritual freedom an obtainable reality in the 21st century—the Scientology religion.

Read more about L. Ron Hubbard at http://lronhubbard.org