It has become fashionable to equate the word scientology with the infamous Church of Scientology Corporation…

by Caspar de Rijk,
former Church & Sea Org member

It has become fashionable to equate the word scientology with the infamous Church of Scientology Corporation. This is definitely a wrong equation.
Another claim is that Scientology is a trademark and according to the trademark office it is. How valid is that claim? Just consider someone trying to claim the word geology as a trademark, geology™.
Scientology is obviously a term in the list of such scientific, philosophical terms, so I expect that the trademark office will soon see its mistake and correct it.

Scientology in the main tradition of the sciences
The word scientology used in a serious context was begun by a Dr. Nordenholz who wrote a book with the title: “Scientologie, die Wissenschaft der Beschaffenheit und Tauglichkeit des Wissens” which translated reads ‘Scientology, the science of the character and soundness of knowingness’ which is another way of saying epistemology or modernly Philosophy of Science. If one is looking for an obvious term to use in the English language to designate a science that has science itself as a subject the word scientology would be an obvious choice.

Dr. Nordenholz
This is exactly what Dr. Nordenholz did and described in his book, published just before the WW II which may have to do with the fact this study never saw the limelight in Academia in Germany nor elsewhere.
The book is a profound treatise in quasi Kantian style of the subject of consciousness and knowingness and contains the very same axioms on which L. Ron Hubbard built his cosmology.

Church of Scientology, represents a fraction of the Scientologists
There are millions of people who have been in some form of contact with the subject through its literature or otherwise and thousands even call themselves scientologists inside the church framework and thousands more, are somewhat loosely, if at all ‘organized’ outside of the parameters of the church corporation. Thus the church of scientology represents only a frac-tion of scientologists.

Internal and external controversy
Some even consider that a war is ongoing between the ‘churchgoing’ scientologists and those in the Freezone or Independent field as they call it.
The main focus of the conflict is on the current and troublesome leadership of David Miscavige, the abuses he instigated, his technical and policy alterations and controversial family disconnection policies.

Public scrutiny
As more and more people are openly communicating their experiences with the church, it is now becoming possible to get a better concept. A few decades ago mainly outsiders were critical of the church organization, now the majority of book writing critics are former members including previously high ranking members of the churches’ Sea Organization.

History
As I see it there is a historical group of people who were inspired by the writings and applied philosophy of L. Ron Hubbard and held together by Hubbard’s charisma and leadership in a not over-regulated organizational format. After Hubbard left things started to change and sometime after 1980 a great schism took place.
A group of independents was slowly forming up, grabbing as much as they can of the actual materials and secret doctrines. The largest survivor of this group is the Freezone group of Ron’s orgs and another association of practicing scientologist called IFA. As recent as 2009 a whole new group of people started to leave the church after the St. Petersburg Times – ‘Truth Rundown’ series of publications.

Diversity
Ever since Scientology became known there have been offshoots in that people used some of the principles but started to publish and do business under other names such as Avatar, Landmark Forum, EST Erhard Seminars and many others.
The groups that stuck to Hubbard and/or the name Scientology could be somewhat arbitrarily divided in conservatives, orthodox, standard and neo.

The conservatives are the church members who wish to keep the original organization intact for various reasons including the fact they already invested so much money and /or time in it, they will not give up.
The orthodox are the Ron’s Orgs who deliver older pre-1980 scientology versions only slightly colored by some additional exegesis from their own guru Capt. Bill Robertson.
The ‘standard’ scientologists is a mix of people many of whom left the church in more recent years and practice scientology more liberally, but from a technical viewpoint more or less the same as in the church – except for some of the abusive practices of said church.
The Neo-Hubbardians is another category, Captain Bill Robertson created his own cosmology on top of that of Hubbard’s. There are others who use the basic Hubbardian principles and add their own interpretations, additions, alterations or improvements. Another example is Spiritologie, its founder claims to have been the originator of Scientology and in his current lifetime has reviewed the subject, spotted its errors and omissions and created a sequel to Scientology. It has a greatly simplified procedure and is said to embrace the dynamic of the creator-divine, which was not included in scientology.

Tikkun*
Some people still loyal to Hubbard’s original views and ideas long for a re-unification of the world of scientology, some like myself, in the hope of ever seeing my daughters again.
We may already be closer to that now as I recently got an indirect recognition of my status of ‘non-ecclesiastical’ scientologist by the Church.

‘Tikkun’ comes from mystical Hebrew concept tikkun olam (Hebrew: תיקון עולם‎; “healing or restoring the world”) which suggests humanity’s shared responsibility (with the Creator) “to heal, repair and transform the world.”
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞