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Sample the Skeptic's Dictionary

Dianetics / Scientology

In 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (The American Saint Hill Organization, Los Angeles. All page references here are to this edition.) The book is treated as if it were a holy scripture by Scientologists and they treat it as if it were the cornerstone of their church, their religion, and what they consider to be their science. Hubbard tells the reader that dianetics "...contains a therapeutic technique with which can be treated all inorganic mental ills and all organic psycho-somatic ills, with assurance of complete cure...." He claims that he has discovered the "single source of mental derangement" (Hubbard 6). However, in a disclaimer on the frontispiece of the book, we are told that "Scientology and its sub-study, Dianetics, as practiced by the Church...does not wish to accept individuals who desire treatment of physical illness or insanity but refers these to qualified specialists of other organizations who deal in these matters." The disclaimer seems clearly to have been a protective mechanism against lawsuits for practicing medicine without a license; the author repeatedly insists that dianetics can cure just about anything that ails you. He also repeatedly insists that dianetics is a science. Yet, just about anyone familiar with scientific texts will be able to tell from the first few pages of Dianetics that the text is no scientific work and the author no scientist. Dianetics is a classic example of a pseudoscience. > >more

sample the Skeptic's Dictionary for Kids

UFOs (unidentified flying objects)

A UFO is an unidentified flying object that many people think might be spaceships run by aliens.

Many people believe that some aliens have come to Earth in flying saucers or UFOs from planets outside our solar system.

Most scientists think that UFOs are most likely things like meteors, satellites burning up, the planet Venus, flocks of birds, aircraft, car lights, weather balloons, reflections, or tricks. One of the tricks is to make fake photos of flying objects. Another trick is to set loose balloons with candles in little crates beneath them.>>more

a blast from the past

The Sound of One Mouth Blathering

review of

The Rediscovery of the Human Soul by L. Ron Hubbard

Despite what its founder and its advocates say, Scientology is not a religion. It has no creed, no rituals, and no hope of becoming a major social institution for the transmission of values. It has no cosmological myths and offers nothing new or interesting in ethical teachings. What it does have is philosophical dogma which it claims is scientifically validated by its practice of auditing. And while these dogmas do assert belief in a soul which is independent of the body and which usually resides in a person's head, the origin of the soul is obscure while its destiny is vaguely described in Buddhistic terms of escape from the cycle of rebirth. Scientology is an eclectic collage of philosophical and religious notions imaginatively brought together in a loose system by a man with a gift for fantasy....>>more

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