Yeah, I'm up for Amos's religion. Sounds . . . reasonable.

But as far as Scientology is concerned, Little Hawk, I think there's a little more to Dianetics/Scientology than just L. Ron Hubbard wanting to control people.

He had hatched up an interesting approach to psychology. The idea of the analogy between the human mind and a computer may sound pretty simplistic, but Hubbard was working on it, and gradually developing it into something that, at the very least, merited a serious look. His research into the beneficial effects of "auditing" did seem to produce results with some people, and it was still very much in the experimentation and evaluation stage when, as I understand it, the Officially Ordained Establishment began trying to charge him and the people he was working with as "practicing psychiatry without a license," complete with legal implications.

More that one type of alternate health care approach (some of which have been declared sufficiently effective that insurance companies are now willing to pay for that kind of treatment) has had to joust with the Establishment (fearing and /or resenting competition) to establish their effectiveness and legitimacy.

I was told by a person involved in Dianetics that the decision to change the name to Scientology and declare it to be a religion was an effort to avoid persecution, and prosecution, by the Powers That Be so they could continue the research and experimentation without having to spend vast quantities of money duking it out in the courts.

It was some time later that it seemed to start believing its own smoke screen.

Someone else here may know a lot more about this that I do.

I knew a few people who were interested in Dianetics early on, and I was a bit curious myself, but not enough to get really involved. I was too busy in school at the time. My last contact with Dianetics was when I dropped in on the Scientology Center in Seattle about thirty-five years ago to see how far Dianetics had progressed (if it had progressed) and wound up talking to a young woman of about eighteen or nineteen (a certified auditor or whatever) dressed in black with a white collar, like a priest. She assured me that Dianetics was a good beginning, but it was outmoded, and that Scientology was indeed a religion. She made this assertion almost belligerently. Then, when she started to explain it all too me and I identified what she was saying as totally blithering balderdash that she didn't even believe herself, I pointedly looked at my watch, thanked her for her time, and fled the prmises.

Not all religions are God-centered. Nor, do I think, does a religion need to be, contrary to popular belief. Amos's outline above sounds good. But it raises the question:   where does religion leave off and philosopy begin?

I think that this question merits some serious discussion, so I just toss it out there.

Don Firth