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ANSWERS TO
QUESTIONS
MOST
COMMONLY
ASKED BY
MEDIA
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?
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