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Semi-protected edit request on 1 May 2022

There is a mention of Juliette Lewis as having spoken out in support of Scientology, however it seems that she has recently gone on the record as no longer following this belief system. The article should probably be updated to reflect this. 142.117.171.78 (talk) 03:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. 💜  melecie  talk - 04:22, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

A. E. van Vogt explored the implications of Korzybski's non-Aristotelian logic in works such as The World of Null-A

This is a rather too generous description. Readers familiar with both non-Aristotelian logics and the null-A cycle by Van Vogt will know that the two have very little in common... "inspired by" might just be defensible but solely on the basis of how the novels came to be. I fear this sentence is one of many that is there to intimate that there is just that little bit more "science" in "scientology" (even if null-A is not directly a book of faith for the cult) than there really is. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:98D2:65CA:1142:73EE (talk) 08:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

 Done Good suggestion. The text now uses phrase "inspired by", rather than "explored the implications". Thank you for helping! Feoffer (talk) 01:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Stoner & Parke 1977

@Jmcgnh: With respect to your 2017 tag on a quotation, I tracked down Stoner & Parke 1977 to All Gods Children (book). I cannot find an online copy to verify or change the quote. Someone else removed my notation which I had placed in the code of the page right after your tag, so I'm putting it here for posterity. That is, in case anyone wants to track down 'the source of the source' of the tagged quotation. Grorp (talk) 02:55, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It's a fine kettle of fish. It turns out that you now can, for simply registering or logging in through Google, borrow the digitized copy of Stoner and Parke 1977 from Archive.org https://archive.org/details/allgodschildren00carr/, but looking at page 89 shows nothing like what page 79 of Zald says it is quoting. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jmcgnh: Bingo! It's on page 47. [1] (Thanks for that link, by the way). Grorp (talk) 03:52, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Nice work! — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:58, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect use of "sic" and capitalization for "the Church"

It is either "the Church of Scientology" or "the church". It is not "the Church", nor "the church [sic]". I fixed a lot of them, but may have missed some of the over-100 occurrences. (Most of the sic markings were added by this edit.) Grorp (talk) 08:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

The opposite is true. It is never "the church" because there is no agreement in sources that it is a church. Many sources explicitly say it is not a church. Thus it is inappropriate to use the common noun, and only the proper noun or occasionally its shortened form can be used. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:50, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

The [sic]s need to go. It's already clear when quoting that Wikipedia's voice is not in use. I agree about using "the Church" whenever the short form is needed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's start with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Institutions, which basically says to either use the full proper name or use a generic (lower case). The only exception is "Also treat as a proper name a shorter but still specific form, consistently capitalized in reliable generalist sources". Okay, so let's look at some reliable generalist sources:

• Reporters Thomas Tobin and Joe Childs of the Tampabay Times used "the church" in their 2009 exposé, The Truth Rundown (part 1, part 2, part 3)
• American religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, who is used as a source substantially within the series of Scientology articles in Wikipedia, uses "the church" or "the Church of Scientology".
• Investigative reporter Douglas Frantz wrote a piece for the New York Times in 1997 where he used "the church" consistently. He, too, has been cited in numerous COS articles on Wikipedia.
• Reporter Tony Ortega consistently uses "the church" on his website and substack unless using the full name "the Church of Scientology".
• A court ruling from United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit uses "the church" consistently throughout a 2018 document.
• Using google-news to find recent articles (while ignoring those of press release style) I consistently found the lowercase version in the top results searching for "Church of Scientology": Fox News, Hollywood Life, The Guardian, Rolling Stones, Newsweek, New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

So there you have evidence that the shortened form of "the Church of Scientology" is NOT consistently capitalized in reliable generalist sources.

@Cambial Yellowing: If what you wrote is your only reason for choosing to capitalize "the Church", then you are engaging in WP:OR. Regardless of whether you think the Church of Scientology is a "church" or not, and whether or not you think the Wikipedia article shows the matter is still up for debate, it remains that all the government institutions treat the COS conglomerate as if it were a church: the IRS has declared it a religious-based nonprofit, all of the USA county and city property tax offices treat properties owned by COS as if they are a nonprofit, the courts treat the Church of Scientology as if it is a church and Scientology a religion, as do police departments and lawyers. Whether or not you or me or anyone else thinks the Church of Scientology is a church is irrelevant for the purposes of capitalization in this Wikipedia article. The argument of whether it is or isn't can continue to be discussed or debated in the article without resorting to an abbreviation for "the Church of Scientology" as "the Church". There are so many alternatives available (organization, COS, Church of Scientology, etc.) if "the church" still rubs you wrong.

Re "[sic]": Please review the lead section of Sic, and MOS:SIC on how it should be coded, which is either {{sic}} or overwrite as "the [C]hurch". When quoting someone else, it is always prefered to use exactly what they wrote. Per Sic, "Sic may also be inserted derisively or sarcastically, to call attention to the original writer's spelling mistakes or erroneous logic, or to show general disapproval or dislike of the material,"[2] which is what I think is going on here. The sics should be removed from all quotations.

As Wikipedia editors we are to compile what others write about Scientology. And how others write about it is more important than any one editor's viewpoint on the religious/nonreligious classification of Scientology.

Grorp (talk) 02:41, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree on [sic]. I would be fine with removing all the "the Church"s and replacing with your suggestions (organization, COS, Church of Scientology) or "institution". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:49, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Your assertion that it is "original research" betrays either a lack of understanding of that term, or a failure to engage with the scholarly, judicial, and institutional literature that is already cited in the article. A few news articles does not weigh against scores of academic literature, intergovernmental reports, inquiries etc addressing precisely this question, some but far from all of which is already cited in the article. There are already multiple academic articles and reports cited in the article, not merely those which refer to it as "not a church" and those which refer to it as "a church", but sources whose entire purpose is to explicitly address the issue of how different institutions and groups refer to it. They reach the same conclusion the article gives: the answer depends on the person or institution; in fact it could even depend on the academic discipline in which one works, or the legal system in which one operates.

I and other editors have in fact already changed literally dozens of instances to "organisation", and I have no opposition to changes to it or similar neutral common nouns. Organisation is the best term, in my view. The use of "church" as a common noun does not maintain a neutral point of view, which we are obliged to do.

Your claim that all the government institutions treat it as a church is wildly inaccurate. It may surprise you to know that the U.S. is not the only country in the world. Numerous governments explicitly state (Germany, France, Chile, Argentina, ...) that it is not a church but a cult/anti-democratic sect/etc etc. Wikipedia is written from an international perspective for an international readership.

I don’t strongly oppose the removal of [sic] in quotes where the only reason for its use is after the lower case "church". Cambial — foliar❧ 04:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing: Please assume good faith and focus on content. I was not arguing that the Church of Scientology is a church; I was arguing about the style of capitalization which was unusual enough to catch my attention as it differed from the standard method of capitalization in English. Instead of providing even a single source to support the unusual capitalization, you wrote a diatribe on whether or not scientology is a religion/church — which is irrelevant to capitalization. And even if it were relevant, you didn't take your argument to a conclusion about capitalizing a shortened version of a proper name. I can agree with you that Scientology isn't a religion and COS isn't a church, however they have acquired legal bona fides to say they are, which is why reporters and judges and even scholars use "the church" and why we should also when using WP:WIKIVOICE. And since WP:NPOV requires us to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic," that means covering a lot of sources as if COS is a church. Grorp (talk) 10:29, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It is unnecessary to repeatedly ping me on reply. Yes, we should focus on content, including by reading the content of one another's replies. Nothing in my post indicates I have not assumed good faith, nor anything other than a focus on the content and the points you raise. Your post, however, mischaracterising as it does my reply as a "diatribe", borders on the uncivil. Remember to maintain civility when editing a subject about which you evidently have strong feelings.

Secondly, a brief note on your unsupported claim that "the Church" is an "unusual capitalization": as just some examples, articles in the DePaul Law Review, Politics and Religion and the Journal of Cultural and Religious Studies use that form of capitalisation throughout.

I agree that we should follow MOS, which is why I have already edited following your suggestion (which is what I and other editors had already done in multiple instances). More importantly, we must adhere to WP:NPOV.

Your claim that whether the Scientology organisation is considered a church is irrelevant to capitalization of the word "church" is inaccurate. If you genuinely think that, one wonders why you take up so much text in both of your previous posts trying to argue that it remains that all the government institutions treat the COS conglomerate as if it were a church (they don't) the courts treat the Church of Scientology as if it is a church and Scientology a religion, as do police departments and lawyers (most don't) and they have acquired legal bona fides to say they are [a church] (in some jurisdictions they have, others they have the legal status of a cult). It is relevant to capitalisation of the word "church" because we would only describe them as "a church" (using it as a common noun) if reliable sources agreed that it is a church. Reliable sources do not agree that they are a church.

When it comes to sources on Wikipedia, the fact that a judge stated something in a judgement (what you call "legal bona fides") does not make it special relative to what other reliable sources state. They do not carry greater weight than academic publications or other highly reliable sources. Scholarly sources refer to the organization's pursuit of "legal bona fides" as a "legitimation strategy" (one source calls it "disciplined or vigilante litigation") – seeking legal judgements as a way to gain recognition as a religion. It does not apply to Wikipedia. Some legal authorities (in a minority of the jurisdictions in which the organization operates) said it is a religion or church. Other legal authorities and reliable sources said it is not a church, and say it is a dangerous cult, or a cool, cynical manipulating business and nothing else, or a ruthless global scam. Given this disagreement, fair representation of the reliable sources requires that we not adopt the view of one segment of the available literature, and instead use a neutral term that is accepted and used by those taking different sides on that question. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:08, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing: As is typical with many Wikipedia articles, a mix of writers will cause a document over time to become inconsistent with a mishmash of styles. The Scientology article is one of these. First, no one introduced any specific shortened version (COS, Church, the Church, or the church) and second, there was no consistency throughout the document. I tried to fix that. (I originally went to the article just to fix the Mr Shouty citation and got sidetracked.)

In both legal as well as academic writings, it is standard practice to introduce an abbreviation, acronym or shortened version of a lengthy name the first time it is used in the document, and then continue to use the shorter version consistently throughout the document. Documents authored in the legal field take the form of the full name followed by the shortened version in parentheses, sometimes also with quotation marks. The writer then does not use any other shortened version and preferably continues to use the shorter version throughout the document instead of flipping back and forth between the long and short versions.

The DePaul document which you presented as an example uses this technique of announcement, to wit, "this Article examines the legal treatment of one new religious movement: the Church of Scientology ("Church")..." Such abbreviations are for the purpose of convenience and brevity within the immediate document only and do not serve as the usual or typical shortened form of a proper name as required by MOS:INSTITUTIONS.

The Cambridge document you presented is a wildcard re capitalization and abbreviation. First, the author fails to introduce his first abbreviated use of the proper name (he uses "the Church"). Second, the author frequently switches between the long form and short form, usually using the long form for the first instance in each paragraph, followed by the short form. After several pages, the author abandons that pattern and just starts using whichever term he feels like. In one instance, he even uses the lower case form ("the church"). At least the author of the DePaul document was consistent. Therefore, not following the usual standards of writing, I'm inclined to exclude the Cambridge document as a reliable generalist source (on the subject of capitalization).

Whatever. This has been a grand waste of my time. At this point, the Scientology article has mostly been fixed on this subject. Grorp (talk) 03:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The academic journal articles (what you refer to as the “document”) are not exhaustive. Multiple other scholars also use the capitalisation as “the Church” in reference to Scientology. The Church of Scientology’s own websites, [3], [4], [5], [6] [7] all consistently use "the Church" throughout. As do the Charity Commission[8], ABC News[9], Far Out[10] and many other publications. The rules you speculate govern its capitalisation are evidently not followed by a wide variety of publishers and institutions. Almost as if they don’t exist. Cambial — foliar❧ 09:20, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

References

US Census

@Cambial Yellowing: Re your recent edit: You are the one who originally added this content in May 2021, used the phrase "The most recent information published by census agencies, and did NOT provide a date, nor did you provide a citation to support that claim". The recent tag requesting updated information is a valid question. I also searched for "recent census data" and could not find any mention of Scientology, though I found numbers for lists of other religions. I don't know what "ARIS" is (from your edit summary) nor what it has to do with "census". Please provide which year of the census and a citation for the information, or otherwise clarify, or remove. Grorp (talk) 08:33, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

It’s completely irrelevant that the year was not added in one specific edit. The date was added later – so? Have you read the sentence in question? It already includes the date, and the content is sourced, multiple times over, in the article body, as is normal practice and as it already was when it was added to the lead. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I explained what ARIS is in the edit summary, and it is noted in the article body. If you believe that there are more recent data obtained through census surveys (on which ARIS piggybacked and was then cited by the census bureau) by all means add them; I welcome them and they would be a useful addition. My conclusion was that they do not exist, and a temporary update template which you have put on the article for data which does not exist is not useful for editors. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:36, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I went through the section Scientology#Membership statistics. I also checked all the citations and updated them for deadlinks, etc.

Here is the published 2008 Trinity College study, which doesn't mention Scientology at all. Though ARIS seemed to have reported figures for Scientology for 1990 and 2001, they did NOT report any Scientology figures for 2008.

We currently have three reliable sources saying 25,000 (Bernstein, Ortega, and Goldstein), each of which mention ARIS and/or Trinity which it seems are related, and here explains how the US Census gets religion numbers (not that the numbers originated with the Census).

Digging deeper, I came to the theory that someone had probably extrapolated the numbers from the "New Religious Movement" figures. If ARIS had any figures for Scientology for 2008, they would have put it in their table, but they didn't. Further googling found this CENSUR article which came to some similar conclusions as mine.

From the CESNUR page: Professor Barry Kosmin, Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He wrote to me that “we never reported adherent figures for small religious groups in ARIS 2008 because of their unreliability. We were approached by several scholars and media outlets interested in Scientology. Our informal response – caveat emptor- was that our data suggested 25,000 +/- 300,000”.

Even if CESNUR is not a reliable source for citations in Wikipedia, the thought process and conclusions about the 25,000 number are interesting. Add to that the ARIS mention that they surveyed around 50,000 households (Ortega says "54,000 Americans"), and I cannot believe there is any statistical reliability on the 25,000 number (nor the 2 earlier ARIS figures).

At any rate, we shouldn't be saying in Wikivoice in the lead that "The most recent published census data indicate that there were about 25,000 followers in the United States (in 2008)" because none of our RSes say 'the census said it', and they didn't (not really) — so that is a misattribution. Also starting the sentence with "the most recent" and putting "2008" at the tag end of the sentence is misleading, as well as being horribly out of date (14 years). Though I would love to have numbers here, I'm not sure we really have any. At best, the 25,000 gives a reader "a magnitude of" indicator.

For clarification, Cambial, it wasn't me who put the tag on. It was some other editor, but that tag did alert me to the problem/issues, though I'm not sure where we go from here with this US membership information. Ideas?

The whole series of Scientology articles in Wikipedia are horrendously out of date and have fallen prey to the "too many cooks" method of making a Frankenstein article over time. Most of the articles need some serious going through and updating on the micro level, as well as a cogent plan on what to do with the conglomeration of articles on the macro level. Many articles seem to have been created around 2008, probably when the whole Anonymous thing got a lot of attention and press. Grorp (talk) 03:22, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The sources which refer to the figure are the New York Times (two separate articles), the Nation, the Village Voice and the academic journal Nova Religio. All simply report the survey finding as fact, and all are considered reliable. You're right that they refer to it as a survey, whose data is published by the census bureau, and we should reflect this accurately.

Given CESNUR's history of distortion, omission, and misrepresentation of the facts, I go with the community consensus on this website and give it no credence. Using the phrase "the most recent published" and then stating "2008" – which is the most recent published – is not misleading. Cambial — foliar❧ 17:46, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

One last ref error after Midnightblueowl edits

There were 9 citation errors in the References section due to missing named-citations. I added 8 back from the version just prior to Midnightblueowl's run of 142 edits. However, adding the 9th gives a new error so I didn't add it. Maybe someone else can decipher/modify it so it goes into the article without giving a new error message.

<ref name=RothLew09Xenu>{{Cite book |last=Rothstein |first=Mikael|author-link=Mikael Rothstein|chapter='His name was Xenu. He used renegades...':{{nbsp}}Aspects of Scientology's Founding Myth|title =Scientology|editor-last=Lewis|editor-first=James R.|editor-link=James R. Lewis (scholar) |location=New York/Oxford|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=March 2009 |pages=365–367, 371 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331493.001.0001/acprof-9780195331493|isbn=9780195331493|quote=the narrative...ultimately, but not necessarily openly, provides the mythological framework for Hubbard's Gnostic soteriology, and thus the machinery of the (often quite expensive) courses that take the patient devotee step by step over the 'Bridge to Total Freedom,' Scientology's metaphor for the path of salvation. ...it is necessary to progress on the Bridge to the advanced stages before the participant is exposed to the myth about Xenu}}</ref>

Grorp (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

 Fixed. Looks fixed now. Thanks, Midnightblueow and Wham2001. Grorp (talk) 01:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

International Association of Scientologists (IAS)

Thie article should probably have some mention of International Association of Scientologists (IAS). It is the organization which takes donations for 'status levels' in Scientology and gives out awards for such status, and the Freedom Medal awards. Major event once a year. Big big deal in Scientology. Zero mention in article. I think it operates from England but is not officially registered in the USA. Scientologists get a discount on training and auditing based on their IAS level. Very little to nothing in Wikipedia about this important aspect of the Church of Scientology. Maybe it got deleted. Oh, I see it was turned into a redirect for the specious reason of the article being out of date. This is the last/previous version. Grorp (talk) 01:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

According to Chryssides, the International Association of Scientologists Anniversary event is one of the 6 "festivals" of Scientology. Grorp (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

References

The Aims of Scientology

@Midnightblueowl: This edit This edit removed what I consider a key quote from Hubbard: "A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war; where the world can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology". It is frequently quoted by the Church of Scientology and is on just about every Scientology website there is. You can read the entire text of The Aims of Scientology (1965) here.

Kent and Chryssides are both available to view at OpenLibrary, making verification and page-finding easy. I located the page numbers of each and fixed up some citations for you, here: The Chryssides citation is used elsewhere, too, under <ref name="chryssides2006">.

Please re-insert this somewhere appropriate. Thank you. Grorp (talk) 02:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

That's fair enough, Grorp, I'll re-insert that information. Thanks for finding the specific page number. Given that it's a key quotation, perhaps it would be best presented within a quotebox? Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:39, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

What you did looks just fine. Grorp (talk) 11:17, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Notes for Midnightblueowl

@Midnightblueowl: Here are some comments on my latest reading of changes. I don't have any of those books you've been citing in your recent work on the article, so I don't know how they word or explain these three topics. How it eventually gets explained in the article, I'm not sure, but I'm offering these observations for whatever that's worth.

Implants

Re: Implants were inserted into them, designed to kill any body that these thetans would subsequently inhabit should they recall the event of their destruction

There is no description of 'implant' in the article. See also Implant (Scientology), though that article is pretty sad (also not linked in the article).

Further explanation: implant

Hubbard's implants were electronic incidents where electricity was imposed on a thetan (a being, not a body) to get them to believe something that didn't actually happen. It's an implanting of a thought. There is no "in", as in "inserted into them". The "kill any body" is the Xenu/OT III myth; the present day idea that if anyone would contact the information before they were [spiritually] ready for it, they would "get sick and die". Picture, if you will, a Sci-Fi movie with a guy strapped down and beams of white-hot sizzling electricity going into his brain while he screams. Sort of like that. From the Scientology Tech Dictionary: IMPLANT, 1. a painful and forceful means of overwhelming a being with artificial purpose or false concepts in a malicious attempt to control and suppress him. 2. an electronic means of overwhelming the thetan with a significance. 3. an unwilling and unknowing receipt of a thought. An intentional installation of fixed ideas, contrasurvival to the thetan.

Suggestion

Paragraph under section "Reactive mind, traumatic memories, and auditing"... maybe morph the paragraph into something like this:

Hubbard claimed that the "reactive" mind stores painful traumatic experiences in pictorial forms which he termed "engrams." Dianetics holds that even if the traumatic experience is forgotten, the engram remains embedded in the reactive mind. Hubbard maintained that humans develop engrams from as far back as during incubation in the womb, as well as from their "past lives". Hubbard taught that these engrams cause people problems, ranging from neurosis and physical sickness to insanity. Scientology maintains that the mind holds a timeline of a person's memories, called the "time track" which is billions and trillions of years long, and auditing attempts to "clear" engrams off one's time track. The existence of engrams has never been verified through scientific investigation. (underline indicates where there's a change)

Further explanation: time track and lock

Time track Re: Scientology maintains that the mind holds a timeline of a person's memories, called the "time track. It's a thetan's track (not a person's), and it would be good to mention that Hubbard's beliefs were that a time track could be billions or trillions of years long. Per Hubbard: "THE TIME TRACK: The endless record, called the TIME TRACK, complete with 52 perceptions, of the pc’s entire past, is available to the auditor and his or her auditing commands. The rules are: THE TIME TRACK OBEYS THE AUDITOR; THE TIME TRACK DOES NOT OBEY A PRECLEAR (early in auditing). The Time Track is a very accurate record of the pc’s past, very accurately timed, very obedient to the auditor. If motion picture film were 3D, had 52 perceptions and could fully react upon the observer, the Time Track could be called a motion picture film. It is at least 350,000,000,000,000 years long, probably much longer, with a scene about every 1/25 of a second." (Hubbard, HCO Bulletin 15 MAY 1963 "The Time Track and Engram Running by Chains, Bulletin 1") Locks Re: Each specific memory is a "lock". Engrams are the earliest incident on a 'chain' of incidents. The later incidents are called 'locks'. In some auditing, locks need to be 'relieved' before earlier locks and the earliest engram can be reached (and relieved). How that gets explained in the article, I don't know. But to say simply "Each specific memory is a "lock"" is not really clarifying and is rather amiguous. Perhaps write "Locks are later incidents which are similar to, and related to, a specific engram" and leave it at that? Or leave it out entirely since I don't think 'locks' are much of a big thing in an introduction to Scientology.

Grorp (talk) 11:19, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Grorp. You make a fair point that these particular topics need to be better covered in this article, and your proposed wording is good, although we will need WP:Reliable Sources to support their statements. For far too long, this article has neglected to provide good coverage of what Scientologists believe and practice, instead focusing predominantly on controversies involving the Church of Scientology itself. Thankfully there is now a growing body of academic literature on Scientology that can be used as the basis of the article's contents. If we make use of these academic sources, there is no reason why this Scientology article cannot come to equal the quality of Wikipedia's currently FA-rated articles on new religions with controversial histories, such as Rastafari or Heathenry (new religious movement). Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2023

Section: Hubbard's motives

Sentence: Common criticisms directed at Hubbard was that he drew upon pre-existing sources and the allegaton htat he was motivated by financial reasons.

Change: ‘allegaton htat’ to ‘allegation that’ 188.30.160.6 (talk) 08:30, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

 Done ––FormalDude (talk) 08:33, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Notes from 1/26/23 review

• Cambial Yellowing: This edit inserted Xenu stuff between "auditing engrams" and "going Clear". Xenu is part of the OT III level, which is 3 levels above Clear. Clear IS created by removing all one's engrams. The previous version looked better. I'm not sure how to fix your edit except to perhaps revert it, but I wanted to give you a chance to put it back in correct order and still express whatever it was you wanted to add in this paragraph in the lead. Grorp (talk) 10:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• I agree. I also think that the second paragraph of the lead gives too much space to the Xenu myth; it could be made a bit more concise. Ideally, the length of the second paragraph would balance with the third paragraph. When paragraphs get too long it just puts readers off. Again I'd point to FA-rated new religion articles like Rastafari and Heathenry (new religious movement) as good exemplars of how this article could be structured. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
• As the widely cited chapter from Lewis makes clear, and as is explained in the text, this is the mythological framework in which the notion of “clear” arises. To explain the beliefs and mythology of Scientology is the central purpose of the article. As this is the mythological framework from which notions of ‘clear’ arise, as Rothstein explains, it’s appropriate to place it first and give it due coverage. It’s central to the belief system, and the soteriology that Scientology claims to its followers. The particular order in which the con operates is neither here nor there. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:17, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Cambial, the concept of "Clear" was introduced in Hubbard's book Dianetics. It remained the key goal of auditing from the start of Dianetics (1950) and Scientology (1952+). The beginning of the OT Levels was announced in 1966, and OT III and the Xenu story was invented/disclosed in 1967. The word "clear" doesn't exist in the Xenu story. So I'm not sure why you think the Xenu story ties in with Clear. At any rate, I re-inserted the original paragraph ending, before your Xenu stuff, and removed the tail end about Clear. I didn't attempt further to smooth the two concepts together, so it probably needs another set of eyeballs on it. Grorp (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• I'm more concerned about getting the main body of the article into shape at present, but perhaps we could have a separate discussion about developing the lead (or trimming it down, as it's got very long) at a later date. I think that there is quite a lot to discuss there. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:15, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Later is good. In fact, doing the lead last is often recommended. Grorp (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl: This edit adds a false statement: "Members of the Church are not discouraged from active involvement in other religions." That is a PR line by the Church of Scientology. In reality, any other religious participation is considered "other practices" and a Scientologist can be sanctioned in the Ethics dept and made to stop the practice. The truth is "Members of the Church are discouraged from active involvement in other religions." I don't have a copy of those cited sources, so I cannot compare how they wrote it. I did find a Stephen Kent article where is written "In plain English, the purpose of Scientology ethics is to eliminate opponents, then eliminate people's interests in things other than Scientology." Grorp (talk) 10:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• The fact that several academics make the same claim mean that it is unlikely to be false per se, but I acknowledge that the situation may be more complex than the aforementioned sentence suggests. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl, it is false. All three of those citations are from a single book which I don't have. If you have it, is there any way you could photo just those 3 pages for me to see how they word it? Grorp (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Hi Grorp. I've added some more material, sourced to Westbrook, on this issue, fleshing out what was a single sentence into a short paragraph. As Westbrook makes clear from his interviews with Church members, there are a minority of Church Scientologists who also practice other religious traditions simultaneously. He even encountered a Scientologist who was a Baptist minister. Take a look at the expanded paragraph and see what you think. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Still not right. And like I said, it's a PR line; and like I posted below under section "Westbrook", those are words from the [PR] mouths of Scientologists. We can drop the issue for now, though. I have a series of books coming through inter-library loan (which can take quite a while) so I'll put it on my to-do list to look this up in those other references, as well as keep an eye out for other reliable sources which convey the concept. The concept like is found on these two blog articles [11] [12]. Search for "other practices", which is a specific Hubbard term in Scientology Ethics and why you'll see it often put between quotation marks. I'll fix it later. FYI, Baptist minister Alfreddie Johnson doesn't count. [grorptodomarker] Grorp (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl: This edit removed the concept of Hubbard losing the copyrights of Dianetics to Purcell, and the concept is completely missing from the current version of the article. The loss of control of the copyrights is the reason that Hubbard started to invent Scientology. It would go after the phrase "distanced themselves from Hubbard, citing the latter's dogmatism and authoritarianism" and before "In 1952, Hubbard broke from his Dianetics group". Grorp (talk) 10:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• The sources provided as evidence were not necessarily the best; I'll check to see if Urban discusses this issue in his history of Scientology. I'm certainly not averse to reintegrating the information, but ideally we need top quality academic sources to back up these statements. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• @Midnightblueowl: Reitman's book covers this on page 38. If you don't have a page number, or a copy of a source to verify it, then tag the problem with one of the inline cleanup tags rather than remove content. Grorp (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Reitman quote, page 38

Hubbard by now had many other problems to worry about. Because the existing foundations were in shambles, he had accepted the offer of a wealthy supporter named Don Purcell to leave Havana and start a new Dianetic Research Foundation in Wichita, Kansas, which he did. But Purcell was not prepared to assume the debts of the other foundations, particularly not the Elizabeth Foundation, which closed its doors for good at the end of 1951, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. In 1952, a court ruled that the Wichita Foundation was liable for the Elizabeth Foundation's debts. Purcell implored Hubbard to file for voluntary bankruptcy, which he refused to do. Left with no choice, Purcell held an emergency meeting of the Wichita Foundation's board of directors in February 1952, which voted to go ahead with the bankruptcy proceedings. Furious, Hubbard resigned from the board and sued Purcell for mismanagement, breach of faith, and breach of contract. To no avail: the court auctioned off the foundation's assets, which Purcell bought for just over $6,000. Hubbard launched a bitter campaign to discredit Purcell, accusing him of accepting a $500,000 bribe from the American Medical Association to destroy Dianetics. It was no use. Purcell owned Dianetics; Hubbard was left without rights to any part of his creation, including its name. His great scientific adventure, it appeared, was at an end. Hubbard needed to reinvent himself, once again.

• I've added mention of the Purcell situation back into the article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

•  Resolved Thanks. Grorp (talk) 10:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl: This edit removed several key points that are no longer in the article: Bridge includes training AND auditing sides, gradual, increase complexity, donations, expensive, move at your own rate. Is there any way/place to re-insert it? Grorp (talk) 10:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Sure, but let's make sure we try and do so in a condensed form and cite top-quality sources. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl, I'll let you do that since you're the main "editor with the vision" this week. I hate edit-conflicts. "Top-quality sources" is a good idea, but please don't discredit/reject other reliable sources just because they're not "top qual". Grorp (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• I've re-inserted several sentences on the financial aspect to progressing through the Bridge in "The Bridge to Total Freedom" sub-section. Introduction of the terms "Technology" and "Tech" now appears in the opening sentences of the "Beliefs and practices" section. Does it look okay to you? Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:15, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Better, but incomplete. Another thing to add to my "later to-do-list". [grorptodomarker] Grorp (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl: This edit... I like the Benarowski quote. Can it be re-fitted into the article? Grorp (talk) 10:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Maybe as a quotebox? Tens, if not hundreds, of academics have now published on Scientology to a greater or lesser extent, so we need to be very judicious in who we choose to quote from. Certain sections of this article, namely "Scientology in religious studies", have become little more than long lists of quotations, and that is not particularly helpful for the reader. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

• Inline would be fine. And you do need to provide a variety of sources, not just quote from the same few books. Besides, I like the concept of the Benarowski quote because she concisely highlighted the fact that Hubbard tried repeatedly to get his 'tech' evaluated, recognized and approved by anyone in authority... but failed. Grorp (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
• I've re-inserted the Bednarowski quote, in the Definitions and Classification section. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you. Grorp (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Midnightblueowl: If you want some content to trim, I suggest splitting out "History of Scientology". I tested the size in bytes in my sandbox2, and it could trim about 33,000 bytes. There WAS a page History of Scientology, which now redirects back to this article, and that would be a good destination (with a summary left here, of course). No one interested in finding out "What is Scientology" needs the entire history that you currently see in this article, but it is valuable already-worked-on content that should go somewhere (for those interested in reading it). If we were to split out History, then I would sugggest adding back (to there) some of the recently trimmed content, including from these 4 edits: [13] [14] [15] [16]. Grorp (talk) 11:10, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Likewise, splitting out the Controversies section (to put into Scientology controversies) would save up to 64K bytes here. Grorp (talk) 11:19, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree, that's another good place where we could cut down the length. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Notes from 1/28/23 review

Notes for @Midnightblueowl:

• This edit about the Volunteer Ministers Program is 90% Church PR and only 5% what it really is. The final sentence, the reality, is too subtle/downplayed: "The Church's critics regard this outreach as merely a public relations exercise." The reality is that these efforts are usually just photo shoots. Scientology Volunteer Ministers are often just in the way, do not really provide support for relief efforts, and don't stay long (after their photo shoot). There is no financial or other support from the Church of Scientology; if any Scientologists go to the scene of a disaster, they have to foot their own bill and they might even get in trouble for not getting back in time for their regularly scheduled course time. The paragraph is Grorp (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• This edit added this sentence: "Kent argued that the internal structure of the Sea Org was family-like." First of all, um, no. Secondly, it doesn't mean anything; what is "family-like"? Being in the Sea Org is the furthest possible scene from any family life. If Kent meant something by "family-like" then it need to be explained somehow. Grorp (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• I found an online copy of Kent 1999 and fixed the 'family-like' sentence. Grorp (talk) 09:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Same edit, you removed "[the RPF] is a controversial part of the Scientology "justice" system", which is a true statement, and I think important to say. It IS one of the major controversial practices of Scientology. Comm Evs and their "Findings", and the punishment ordered, IS part of Hubbard's standard writings under the Scientology "Ethics & Justice" system. You added stuff about Comm Evs which gives the impression there is a civlized trial with a defense possible. There isn't. I have never known anyone to "win" a CommEv. If the boss sends you to the RPF, the Comm Ev is just the rubber stamp before you go to the RPF. It provides a paper trail (aka evidence) to protect CofS if there's a problem with someone being on the RPF (like they escape and sue). Also, the Comm Ev procedure is closer to a "court martial" than a US court of law, with shades of Witch trial and Inquisition. There is no way to avoid your fate/punishment. To remove the concept of "controversial" and "justice system" and add the rubber stamp Comm Ev is to whitewash the whole thing. Grorp (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• I don't think the existing wording was particularly appropriate for Wikipedia. Starting a sentence by describing the RPF as "controversial" and then putting the word "justice" in scare quotes is clearly meant to be derogatory. Better to just describe, in plain English, what the RPF is, and then describe the controversies themselves, which is what the paragraph now does. I'm not saying that the paragraph can't be changed/improved, but it's important that it is neutrally worded and not just pushing an overt anti-Church bias. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:37, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

• This edit changed "[the RPF] is the Church's disciplinary program" to "[the RPF] is the Church's disciplinary program, one which deals with Church members deemed to have serious deviated from its teachings.". False, because "member" denotes at-large public Scientologist (not staff and not Sea Org) and the RPF is only for Sea Org members. Grorp (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• You're right. We need to make it clear that this does not apply to all members. I'll make an amendment on this one. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:37, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

• This edit which added "The International Association of Scientologists operates to advance the cause of the Church and its members across the world", isn't true. It might be a poor paraphrase their stated mission, but it's not what the IAS was created for, nor what it does. That's just more CofS PR. You'd be better off to simply state "The IAS is Scientology's membership organization" and I'll fix it later. [grorptodomarker] Grorp (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed Split for "Disputes over legal status"

At present, this article is well over two times the recommended length as per WP:LENGTH. One means of dealing with this problem is to split the "Disputes over legal status" section from this article, allowing it to form a standalone article titled "Disputes over legal status of the Church of Scientology" (or something like that). The section in question focuses largely on listing which countries have recognised the Church as a religious organization and which have not, which is not really necessary in an article about Scientology as a whole, especially when we already mention the dispute in much more concise fashion in the "Definition and classification" section. Is there support for such a split? Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:02, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would meet Wp:SIGCOV for an article of its own. That said, much of the content properly belongs on Church of Scientology, as it is about that organisation's legal status, rather than the status of the set of beliefs and the movement, and should be moved there. The parts focused on which countries etc are already covered in Scientology status by country, so can simply be removed with a link to that article and a brief summary. Cambial — foliar❧ 18:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: Ah, you're killing me! Another day, another hundred edits to review. Changes here and there are easy enough to decipher, but removing whole sections or recommending whole sections be removed... and you're getting into the territory of reorganization, which is a different scope of change entirely and often requires fixing/updating other articles before you can chop them out of here. I agree that these articles have been out of date for far too long, and not only do they need updating, they do need reorganizing with a fresh eye. I'm still going through the recent edits. I'll write more when I'm done and reach the current version. Grorp (talk) 06:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: No to split into a new article; probably yes to merge to Scientology status by country (which needs updating). There is quite a bit of cross-over (forking?) between Scientology status by country, Church of Scientology#Government opinions of Scientology, and Scientology#Disputes over legal status, and we don't need lengthy duplicate content. We could decide on the final destination of the content. I recommend Scientology status by country as the destination for full coverage, and a summary in Scientology and Church of Scientology. Grorp (talk) 10:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your input, both of you. Following this discussion, I've shifted the material over to Scientology status by country. It still needs to be worked over and better integrated into that article but at least it is no longer clogging up this page. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:49, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

We shouldn't have topics totally missing from the top level article. Need at least a few sentences here on major sub-topics. North8000 (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I mention this in my comment above. Special:Diff/1137775901 does not accord with WP:CORRECTSPLIT. Cambial — foliar❧ 17:20, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Per my edit summary: " Undo mass deletion. Thanks for working on it but can we go about this in a different way?" North8000 (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll try paring down what I put back in and see what y'all think. North8000 (talk) 21:03, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

So the net effect of all that I did is that there is a small section in place of the big section that was moved.North8000 (talk) 21:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: Where in the world did you get the idea that the 'discussion' above came to any sort of consensus about that move? You proposed it, I said No to split into a new article; probably yes to merge to Scientology status by country, and Cambial Yellowing suggested something entirely different. What were you thinking? What you did was no merge and you simply deleted the entire section "Disputes over legal status". If you were going to do the work, then that entails a whole lot of other work besides cut and paste and leaving the cleanup to someone else.

@Cambial Yellowing and North8000: Can we just restore the versions of the two articles prior to this mega-change? I can't quite tell what's been done, undone, patched, re-patched, etc. But I do know that three sections were cut from Scientology and only two made it into Scientology status by country. Grorp (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Never mind Cambial and North... after checking every last one of the edits, I see what you did, North... basically restored the section "Disputes over legal status" and added the section see-also hatnotes. I'll see how that seems. Meanwhile, I still want a response from Midnightblueowl. Grorp (talk) 05:03, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's the net effect what I did although my specific intent was to restore a reduced more general section.....the left-out subsections had a lot of country-specific info. I just did my best trying to find a "middle road" within time constraints. Feel free to modify. North8000 (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I was probably over-enthusiastic in taking too much out with my edits, so I apologise for that. I won't contest the reinsertion. It's still important that this article gets trimmed down, however. It is far too long. If we ever want to see this article reach GA, let alone FA quality, we will have to remove a lot of the material that has built up over the years, much of it poorly referenced. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: Cool. Me personally I just like working on articles to make the good/informative rather than setting GA or FA as a goal. But either way it's a similar goal. Per the discussion at the bottom I think that any successful effort will need to have a plan regarding the top level articles. Per discussion at the bottom IMO a good plan would be to consider this to the be top level Scientology article. We'd probably need a plan on a viable set of sub articles and then move detailed content to them. North8000 (talk) 15:07, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 March 2023

I want to add information about Scientology that I believe is not currently on the site, since it is presented as a religion in spite of the overwhelming evidence it is a cult (Operation Snow White, quotes from L. Ron Hubbard himself, etc) that I want to put here. Blackjackistan (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 17:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

@Blackjackistan: There is a Wikipedia article Operation Snow White. Perhaps the quote should go there? If you still want to put it in this article, please post the quote here and suggest where in the article you think it should go. Grorp (talk) 00:07, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

International Association of Scientologists (IAS)

Thie article should probably have some mention of International Association of Scientologists (IAS). It is the organization which takes donations for 'status levels' in Scientology and gives out awards for such status, and the Freedom Medal awards. Major event once a year. Big big deal in Scientology. Zero mention in article. I think it operates from England but is not officially registered in the USA. Scientologists get a discount on training and auditing based on their IAS level. Very little to nothing in Wikipedia about this important aspect of the Church of Scientology. Maybe it got deleted. Oh, I see it was turned into a redirect for the specious reason of the article being out of date. This is the last/previous version. Grorp (talk) 01:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

According to Chryssides, the International Association of Scientologists Anniversary event is one of the 6 "festivals" of Scientology. Grorp (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Not done with this topic. Too many projects to get to them all fast enough. Grorp (talk) 01:04, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

References

NPOV

Scientology is described in different ways by different groups of scholars. Unsurprisingly, sociologists of religion, approaching it as a religion, define it as a religion. Psychologists, other sociologists, logicians, philosophers, cultural theorists, and legal theorists, not to mention detailed journalism and output from other institutions, have defined it quite differently. They describe it as a business, or a cult, or a scam etc. In recent edits, a significant number of academic citations have been added, which I always welcome, especially given some of the dubious sourcing it replaced. However, Midnightblueowl, all of those you added, without exception, are from religious scholars.

We are obligated to follow WP:NPOV, that includes using academic sources from the full range of disciplines that have approached the article subject. We cannot decide "this group of academics are the experts because we decided Scientology is a religion". I have added some of the available sources from academic psychology and philosophy texts; there is a fairly sizeable body of literature to be used.

By the same token, we cannot present everything that new religious scholars state as "scholarship" and everyone else's view as coming from "Scientology's critics". This presents the same failure to maintain NPOV as if we presented "cult" as the primary view and then presented other views as coming from "Scientology's apologists". Please bear these obligations in mind when selecting and presenting source material. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I would also like to see a little more wikivoice (where appropriate) and less of the academicisms of "Walker says (blah). Trotski says (blah). Cantori says (blah)." It is very awkward to read. I do like that this article is getting a thorough "going over". Grorp (talk) 01:10, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

That's fair enough, Cambial. I've mostly been using publications by scholars of religion but I do not object to the use of other high quality WP:Reliable Sources. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:06, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

This topic still needs attention. I watched a video a few days ago of someone (with almost 3M subscribers) interviewing a former Scientologist from about three weeks ago. He said he visited the Scientology article in Wikipedia and surprisingly it wasn't very negative about Scientology, and read like it was written by the Church of Scientology. Well, that's paraphrasing, but it was interesting to hear him remark at how the Wikipedia article was lacking in NPOV. Grorp (talk) 01:04, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Westbrook

One must be careful about how one uses Westbrook since he got all his information directly from Church of Scientology members. For example, this added content is unlikely true and the source (Scientologists themselves) is unreliable.

Most of Westbrook writings are based on direct interviews with then-current Scientologists. That would be okay for uncontroversial claims about Scientology auditing techniques, perhaps, or what does an e-meter look like. But claims about expansion? No. Scientologists and the Church of Scientology have a lengthy history of hyper-exaggerating their growth and numbers. Westbrook 2019, page 30 says "In fact, in recent years, many parishioners have permanently relocated to the Tampa Bay area to join the international community that has grown since the 2013 opening of the Flag Building.⁵⁵" (Google won't show me the page for his citation 55.)

The first half of that sentence is true; the second half is dubious. Because many of the higher levels of Scientology are only offered at the Flag Land Base in Clearwater Florida, Scientologists have been relocating to Clearwater for decades. Decades! However, I seriously doubt any new migration trends happened just because they opened yet another building. Add to that, Flag Land Base primarily services the higher levels (OT levels and specialty rundowns), and lower levels are charged at two to three times the price as any other ordinary CofS location, which means only the rich or the already-advanced members would consider moving to Clearwater — such people belong to a shrinking population.

Expansion of "stats" is a deadly serious activity in Scientology and is, frankly, bragging. Scientologists are always mindful of PR and like to puff up the CofS. CofS does the same. As such, this is unreliable information on the growth of the Church of Scientology. It's also superfluous trivia to this article; think about it, if Scientology was growing so too would their "local field". We've already established that their membership numbers are shrinking.

As such, I have removed the recently added sentence. However, I wanted to caution that one should use Westbrook only with the same caution as using any other primary source or questionable source: that the material isn't unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim, doesn't involve claims about third parties, and there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity.

Grorp (talk) 05:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. I won't contest that removal, unless further compelling sources arise that support Westbrook's claim. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:52, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I found more information about Westbrook's "apologist" position with Scientology.

• Academic goes ‘Among the Scientologists’ to bring back what we already knew (2018)
• The Top 25 People Enabling Scientology, No. 23: The apologist academics (2020)

I notice that today the word "Westbrook" appears 103 times in the Scientology article. "Melton", the pre-Westbrook apologist, appears "just" 40 times. Both seem a little over the top. Grorp (talk) 01:40, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

References

Info templates

There is no agreement in reliable sources that article subject is a religion, and multiple reliable sources, including scholarship, explicitly state it is not a religion. Given that context, the use of a religion template is inappropriate. Cambial — foliar❧ 15:29, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

It is appropriate. Readers have come to expect an infobox and an image, especially for lengthy articles. Cambial, you have several times deleted people's attempts to create an infobox in this article, but never suggested an alternative, which is one of the reasons I created the sidebar box. I think it's time to consider what would be an appropriate infobox for this article.

A search of Wikipedia shows the religion template is used in 186 articles including a parody/joke religion, organizations that are 'groups of religious groups', cults, and a whole swath of non-Christian religions (despite Template:Infobox religion being a redirect to Template:Infobox Christian denomination). What I'm getting at is that the use of the word "religion" in the template's name is neither an indicator nor an endorsement that a group or movement (the subject of a Wikipedia article) is a bonafide 'religion'. I think the template is appropriate for this article.

There are a few changes I would make to Abdurhman Ahmad's edit. The 40,000 number is to match the first sentence in Scientology#Demographics. It would be acceptable to omit the scripture parameter, but if left in it shouldn't be any more detailed than directing to Hubbard's Scientology works. Here is what I would suggest:

{{Infobox religion
| name = Scientology
| image = Scientology Cross Logo.png
| imagewidth = 120px
| caption = [[Scientology cross]]
| founder = [[L. Ron Hubbard]]
| founded_date = 1953
| leader_name1 = [[David Miscavige]]
| headquarters = [[Los Angeles]], [[California]], [[United States]]
| website = {{URL|scientology.org}}
| scripture = See [[Bibliography of Scientology]]
| members = 40,000 (2016 estimate)
}}

Cambial, your assertion that There is no agreement in reliable sources that article subject is a religion is far too vague and generalized to assert or refute in a wiki talk page discussion. I don't believe it is particularly accurate or useful to assert that. In that vein, if you wish to continue using that argument, please present some sources which support your viewpoint. It isn't Urban in The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion; see pages 208-213 where he presents that the concept of religion isn't static, isn't clear, is changing (amorphous), and he leaves it up to the reader (and his students) to decide for themselves if Scn is a religion or not.

On the weight of the evidence in support of calling Scientology a religion for the purposes of Wikipedia, I doubt there are a sufficient number of examples refuting it that could change the balance (is or isn't). But I don't think we even need to go down the path to decide if it is or isn't. There's sufficient agreement within reliable sources, and in fact the majority, which says it is. I don't think there's anything in the sources that could allow a Wikipedia editor to assert incontrovertibly that Scientology is not a religion in Wikivoice. That said, I don't think the title of an infobox is a barrier to the use of said infobox.

Grorp (talk) 06:05, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi Grorp. It is not remotely appropriate. You ask for sources, presumably having neglected to look at the sources already cited in the article. They are cited after the first sentence and in the first section in the body about classification. They are numerous, but include e.g. Beit-Halahmi 2003, Cowan & Bromley 2020, Kent 1999, the Anderson Report, Kent 2003, Shermer 2020, EU report 1999 (sects & NRM), Tobin 2016, etc. There’s also court judgements and other institutions which come to similar conclusions. These sources not only explicitly state article subject is not a religion. Numerous sources classify the movement as something different – several classify it as a business, others characterise it as a confidence trick or scam, others classify it as a cult. Some legal jurisdictions count it as a religion, other jurisdictions classify it as a dangerous cult or as a business (for tax, regulatory and monitoring purposes)

We have infobox templates for businesses which could just as well be used, under your thinking. I think there was an incipient one for cult as well. Given how widespread the understanding that it’s a business or scam is, one can’t deny that it is a business or scam.

Your claims about a majority are not accurate. Literally a two second google search, even not including the word ‘cult’ brings up reams of RS which describe it as a cult. Your line of argument on that point simply doesn’t stand up to a moment’s scrutiny. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:24, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Whether or not you consider it a religion, the fact is that it is treated as a church under the US Tax Code. That is as close as the US gets to defining what is and is not a religion. Ergo, it is a religion. QED. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 20:52, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, "religion" starts out as a word, and then you get into the widely varying definitions, and usually context-specific definitions. IMO a religion info box is an unattributed statement by Wikipedia that it is a religion. There is a very high bar for doing such which IMO has not been met. Even if many call it a religion. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:03, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm near-neutral on this, but lean slightly towards not using a religion box. If it is disputed, using the info box is sort of an implicit statement by Wikipedia that it is a religion thus taking sides in that dispute. Also, with it in reality being a combination of things it might be tough to fill in / make fit many of the items in it. By the same reasoning, I would avoid specialized boxes that implicitly take other sides (e.g. cult, business) Maybe use some type of a generic organization info box? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:31, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

On that last point, we use the infobox for organisation on the Church of Scientology page, where it seems appropriate. I think its use there is sufficient, whereas this article discusses the wider movement (some of which is separate and sets itself against the CoS organisation). Cambial — foliar❧ 13:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Per discussions here the topic and scope of the Church of Scientology page is a 95% overlap with this article. Because they are inseparable. Without talking about what might happen a year from now with the Church of Scientology article, the discussed idea is that have this article be a full top level article for Scientology and the Church of Scientology. IMHO we should handle the info box question accordingly. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Include infobox religion -- it's a controversial religion, but it IS a religion to the members of the public who practice it. Even if one argues its not a religion, that also argues that the religion template is relevant. I think we'll find most of the sources disputing its status as a religion are objecting to it being a tax-deductible religion. Feoffer (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Most religions are one thing: a religion. Scientology is about 5 or 10 major things, with only one of them being a religion so IMO trying to use a religion infobox would be like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. But maybe a bare bones one as proposed but maybe leave off the "scripture" would work. But then numbers estimates vary between 40,000 and millions. Probably best to have no infobox. North8000 (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Article size and related article title /scope challenges

Some overlap is inevitable but the set of top level Scientology articles is particularly challenged in this respect. I think that the main cause of the challenge is that that the belief set and the church and and organization are almost synonymous or as a minimum very hard to cover separately. But the Wiki-challenge is that the header here seems to identify this article as one of a set parallel articles. I think that the one-word "Scientology" title needs to be the top level article for all of them. And, contrary to the header note, that is what this article actually is and so IMO the header note should be removed. This would clear the way letting the "sub articles" stick to their topics and also letting this article depend on / leave more detailed stuff to the sub-articles. Then each of the "sub article" topics could be covered more generally / briefly here and then have links to the more specific articles to have in-depth coverage. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:40, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Within the world of Scientologists and management of the Church of Scientology, the word "Scientology" is used to mean both the beliefs and the organization. They do not recognize any practice of Scientology outside of CofS; independent scientologists or the Freezone are called the derogatory word 'squirrels'. Not only is the word 'Scientology' used as a shortened form of 'Church of Scientology', but Scientology is Hubbard's writings, and Hubbard wrote tomes on how to run his organization. The beliefs and practices of Scientology includes the running of the Church of Scientology. In fact, Hubbard wrote as much on how to run the organization as he wrote about 'auditing' or 'training', and it is all 'Scientology' to a Scientologist. For example, if one wrote History of Scientology, which I earlier suggested as a split from Scientology, I don't think one can separate the subject matter of Scientology from the organization; they are too closely intertwined.

There is no image or infobox or sidebar on the main article to break up the wall of text. I earlier made up a sample sidebar which I didn't implement live, yet, but which you can see here. In lieu of an infobox (since we can't seem to agree on what possible infobox would work in the Scientology article), perhaps a solution to the too long article and Scientology being the main article, would be to have a Scientology-series-sidebar to help tie together at least the main articles and let the readers know that the subject is much larger than just this one article. That would make it easier, too, to split out some of the content already in Scientology with the idea of summarizing it (distilling it) into smaller blocks of content. What do you think?

Of course, I highly recommend that breakout articles (many of which are already written but just need updating) contain all the content, appropriately organized, and a decent summary be written for Scientology, before one chops it out of the article — unlike the hack-job Midnightblueowl did recently... which was bandaged (thank you, North8000), but remains incomplete. If one isn't willing to complete the job, it shouldn't be attempted. Splitting an article is not always an easy task. I'm capable of doing splitting tasks, but I'm only one person and can only do so much in a given time frame — and without some sort of community consensus to do a particular section, I find myself somewhat unwilling to put in the hard work just to get it summarily reverted.

Anyway, what do others think of the sample Scientology-series-sidebar model? Grorp (talk) 05:37, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that that sidebar is a great idea. Regarding organization, it sounds like you are I are saying the same thing. Although I would thank Midnightblueowl for their efforts even if disagreeing with what they did to this article. The top level isn't separable into parallel articles. Scientology should be the top level article. Does anyone object to this? I would see this as more of a direction to evolve towards rather than something to try to do quickly. Although I think that the note at the top of this article should go. It conflicts with reality, with such a plan, and with what the current contents of this article actually is. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I didn't mean to imply parallel articles, merely pointed out why there are difficulties in separating 'Scientology' from 'Church of Scientology'. I concur with Scientology should be the top level article. I also concur with the note at the top of this article should go. Per WP:Article size: There is no need for haste in splitting an article when it starts getting large. Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage. Until a particular sub-article is improved, perhaps with content obtained from Scientology, I recommend we don't delete chunks of content just for the purpose of trying to comply with recommended article size limits. I'll work on a sidebar. Grorp (talk) 00:39, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I wrote a sidebar, {{Scientology sidebar}} and added it just to this one article. What do you think? Grorp (talk) 03:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I got bold and added it to all the articles in the new sidebar. Grorp (talk) 10:36, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I 100% agree with with you. What I disagree with is the "disambig" or "hat note" line at the beginning for the reasons stated above. I'm going to take it out. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with North8000's point that this particular article should be "the top level article" covering all others on Scientology. It makes sense. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I took a closer look with respect to organization of articles. There's an issue which will be really hard to fix. As discussed, Scientology and the Church of Scientology are in reality synonyms yet each of these is a large article with hundreds of references. To put it another way, there is about a 99% overlap between their subjects/ titles. Probably Church of Scientology should get merged into Scientology, a herculean task. So then the idea of paring down the merged article and moving material to sub-articles comes to mind, while still leaving a full coverage top level article. Another herculean task. Without 2 Hercules's to tackle that, an incremental way to evolve towards that would be to agree on a topology of articles that does not include Church of Scientology (because it is a 99% synonym to Scientology ) and over the years evolve the coverage towards that plan. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC).

First, I want to say that I resurrected WikiProject Scientology, so the talk page is open for project-wide discussions.

Second, I wouldn't worry at this point over which of the two articles is senior, nor that each is full of duplicate content. Just as we need to write an article before really understanding the best presentation of a lead section, so too do I feel the two main articles, Scientology and Church of Scientology, need to be better cleaned up before we can be able to make a reasonable determination if one is senior to the other or whether they simply overlap somewhat.

I think continuing to focus on the subtopics (especially those which are covered in both S and CofS articles) will allow us to trim the mega-articles down to a more manageable size over time. At some point, it will become more clear whether one is senior to the other, or if (which I think is more likely) they are both top-level articles of equal importance and strength but with some overlapping material.

As an example, there is a large "controversies" section in both articles, but that topic has its own article, Scientology controversies. That may be one area we can trim significantly from the S and CofS articles (of course always making sure that trimmed content exists in the subtopic article). Another example is that there is a "countries" section in Church of Scientology, probably most of which could be moved to the Scientology status by country (which needs cleaning up after getting some content dumped into it).

I do agree that it is quite a bit of a project. I'm definitely on board with doing some of the work. How about you, North8000?

Grorp (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm up for helping if we have a viable plan. The gorilla in the living room is that the topics of the two biggest/main articles are I think a 99% inseparable overlap with each other. Even if the plan is to: "acknowledge that, work on sub-articles for now, and deal with that issue later " I would consider that to be a viable plan. Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 15:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I have lots of plans. I just wrote one about the history content forks at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scientology#Overlapping and duplicate histories, CONTENTFORKs. I'd like your opinion about it. I'm also working on a Glossary of Scientology. (Sorry I didn't respond earlier; my internet was out for two days.) Grorp (talk) 07:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I took a look.....a lot of good work and thought there, far more than me/mine. So my addition would be: Plan that someday (maybe a year from now) we merge Scientology and Church of Scientology. More specifically:

1. Pick one of the two which has the most complete content. Do the top level content work on that article, and merge the content from the other article into that one.
2. A year from now, decide which title the merged article should be and implement that. Either via a merge or via a deletion and move.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: In short, I think that any major work will inevitably need to include work on the content of these two top level articles which are currently 95% about the same topic. For me to jump in I'd need to know where we're headed, at least enough to to do work on the two top level articles properly. My idea lets us do work on content while leaving the question of a title for the top level article for later. What do you think of it? Either way (or some other idea) is cool, it's just about whether or not I'd get more involved. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:33, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I would prefer to see Scientology as the top article since (a) readers will search for "Scientology", not "Church of", and (b) the word "Scientology" is used universally as a synonym for "Church of Scientology" (both within and outside of Scientology). In Wikipedia we have granted too much effort to the separation of "Church of" and "Scientology".

The first lead paragraph of the current Scientology article is "Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by Hubbard ... adherents ... primary exponent ... many practitioners exist independently". No, no, no, no! Hubbard wrote the writings, invented the practices, and codified the organizational practices to keep his juggernaut going. It is ALL "Scientology", and Hubbard is called "Source". Hubbard writings must be followed, and anyone else's ideas/writings are 'squirrel' (bad). (Miscavige is the exception because he rules with an iron fist; but that's a different issue.) You cannot separate the organizational practices from the auditing/training practices. "Church of" is the name of the formal organization and corporations, but "Scientology" is ALL OF IT. Although there are the freezone/independents, they rate a mere FRINGE-like mention in the realm of Scientology but we've used their presence as a reason to separate "Scientology" and "Church of". Wrong!

It's difficult to come up with an all-compassing plan. Having worked in other fields, I know that one can often envision where next we should go towards an end goal, but cannot envision every step that needs to be done to get to the ultimate goal. I have written up several sub-plans that should lead toward the a desirable result, including here on the wikiproject page. (Please watchlist that page if you haven't already done so.) I'm not a fan of history in general, so I'd love it if you worked on any of that.

There's are several topics of forked/duplicate content (not just the histories) but also the subject of countries/status, and also of organizations, and also beliefs/practices, and controversies. Almost every subtopic has its own break-out article as well as content in Scientology. Each one of these should have the breakout article checked for comprehensiveness, as well as shortening (by summarizing) the amount of content in Scientology, while moving any excess content to its breakout article. You could work on any of those; they all need looking at.

Another project I would like done is to obtain a copy of the Scientology book by Lewis and go through all the citations used from it in Scientology. But I'd have to clear my IRL schedule if I'm going to wade in on it because it would require an inter-library loan which only grants me 30 days with the book and yet it's used hundreds of times in the article. My concern is the vast number of citations here by NRM-folk who are mainly pro-Scientology, and less citations from critics (whether they are uninvolved scholarly critics or ex-Scientologists who know what's been going on inside the organization). I recently watched a podcast where the host (who is neutral on Scientology) had visited this Wikipedia article and said it read like it was written by the Church of Scientology and had little to any criticism in it. The tells me that NPOV is lacking in this article. If you have access to the book, or some of the chapters, then I'd be glad if you'd start on that.

Just as a lead paragraph summarizes an article below it, I think that the Scientology article should become the "lead" to Wikipedia's collection of Scientology-related articles. It should give any reader a summary of "What is Scientology" without being too lengthy, and without getting bogged down too deeply into any one [sub]topic.

I hope that by pointing out the end goal and some of the steps we need to get there is enough for you to get involved further in the project.

Grorp (talk) 21:03, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree that it's not practical or needed to make a thorough "master plan". My idea was only 5% of a plan that deals with the immediate issue. So, to put it briefly, it would be to develop Scientology as the full top level article, irrespective of the Church of Scientology article. If you're cool with that I'd be happy to jump in.

I haven analyzed which of the many Lewis books we're talking about / are used most in the article. It looks like the one called simply scientology is under $30 and I'd be happy to buy that one if it would be helpful. Not so for the one or more that are over $200. North8000 (talk) 23:13, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes. And Yay! It's the book with ISBN 9780195331493. Of the many citations in this article's reference list, the book is the source for chapters by all these authors: Andersen, Bainbridge, Bogdan, Bromley, Christensen 2009a & 2009b, Cowan, Cusack, Dericquebourg, Finn, Grünschloß, Harley, Lawis 2009 2009a 2009b, Melton, Palmer, Possamai, Richardson, Rigal-Cellard, Rothstein, Willms, and I might have missed some. I wouldn't be surprised to find it as the source for 80% of the content in this article. I have no idea if the book is pro-, anti-, mixed-, or neutral-Scientology. What I do know is that it's heavily used (odd)... and I don't have easy access to a copy (grumble grumble). Grorp (talk) 00:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I ordered it. Will take about a week. Look forward to working with you. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: I got the book. So far I spent only about 10 minutes on looking at it. Read the intros, looked at the structure and sampled various pages. Looks expert, scholarly and and objective. It's basically a intro by Lewis, 10 page intro/overview by Lewis (listed as the editor) and 21 essays by 21 authors All looks scholarly and neutral. There is "bias" only inherent in the job that it set out to do which is scholarly coverage and analysis of Scientology whereas a big part of the "news" regarding Scientology is the various conflicts and controversy, relationships/status with governments etc. Coverage of all of the the latter looks very small because it is not what the book is about. Again, that's just from a 10 minute glance and could be wrong. North8000 (talk) 17:14, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I'm jealous, now. Add this interesting tidbit from the author (Lewis) to your collection about the book. Grorp (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: Thanks! I plan to read the(2009) book and that update and "look back" from Lewis will help me read/absorb it in context. North8000 (talk) 15:17, 31 March 2023 (UTC).

@Grorp: I read the whole Lewis book. It's basically 23 chapters/ essays by 23 different scholars. I'd call it all pretty neutral and very scholarly. 437 pages in small print it wasn't light reading. If there's any shortcoming, it's coverage was sparse on the nastiness in the US. I bought and am starting to read the Leah Remini book (she was in it 30 years and left and is a critic). North8000 (talk) 20:35, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: Wow, I cannot imagine reading that many pages in one go. I haven't read through Leah's book, but our library has it. I've found Rinder's book quite helpful since he had insider knowledge from upper management levels of the Sea Org. FYI, I've put together a collection of books in my Sandbox. If there's an OL number in the citation, then it's available for borrow on OpenLibrary.org (except for Reitman's book which used to be available there). Depending on what I'm working on, I've found the most handy and informative books to be Atack, Corydon, Miller, Reitman, Rinder and Wright. I like using OpenLibrary.org because I can search for keywords in a book. I also keep a changing pile of library books within reach, often including Reitman, Rinder and Urban 2011. Grorp (talk) 10:15, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I second the recommendation of Atack, a work which is frequently cited in Lewis and in other academic texts. I found some chapters of Lewis to be reasonably good, mostly those focused on its internal texts, other chapters were apologist to the point of failing as scholarship. The critical reviews in Private Eye and elsewhere are not inaccurate. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:27, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, so far I have found that most things written by academics/scholars in the New Religious Movement field are either too simplistic or too complicated, but always skewed or faulty. I do not find them useable. Grorp (talk) 10:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

In fairness to him, Lewis addresses some – but only some – of the academic and other criticism of his work on CoS in a later response reproduced in this article. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:59, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I read the book in one sitting. It was more like 50 sittings. When I think about whether Lewis is/was objective or not the analogy comes to mind if somebody did an expert scholarly book (only) on Hitler's childhood without any mention of what he did later. It would probably be not negative if not positive regarding Hitler. I would consider it to be a good objective resource on it's narrow topic but if it was billed as a general book on Hitler, I would consider it to be terribly biased. While not as dramatic as my analogy, that's kind of where I put Lewis and the "Lewis" book which was put together by him but 90% written by others. North8000 (talk) 13:38, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: I finished reading the Leah Remini book. It's about her approx 30 years in Scientology plus a few years before for context and the years after. At each stage, it took the perspective of her views at that time whether it be good or bad or both. It was observations and discussions of what she saw and knew and her thought processes at each stage. In later phases she still thought that the Hubbard system was good but that the top people in Scientology weren't following it. In the end it was that the system mostly doesn't work and that it's often used in a a disingenuous way by people seeking money and power and that it does far more harm than good. And after the fact how nasty and aggressively vindictive they are toward people they see as opposing them, and to intimidate others from doing so. The latter point was reinforced several times regarding research in the Lewis book. Many researchers are afraid to research and publish because they said that Scientology aggressively goes after them with lawsuits if they publish something that they don't like. North8000 (talk) 20:33, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: Same old pattern of pretty much every ex-scientologist: notices something is wrong, points out some inconsistencies, gets run through the ethics gristmill until they either cede or leave or are expelled, gets harassed by corporate to keep their mouth shut. Still believing in "Scientology technology", meets other ex-members, researches scientology controversies, discovers what the organization hides from adherents, and finally quits believing in Hubbard when they realize he made it all up and it was all a scam from Day One. Joins the anti-scientology movement. Lather, rinse, repeat with next questioning scientologist. Leah Remini has grit and her celebrity status and her contacts from decades in the film/TV industry to help publish a book and produce a TV series exposing Scientology. Your mileage may vary. Grorp (talk) 01:54, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Recapping Intention for the next two years

Recapping, there is inherent and inseparably a 95% overlap between both the topics and the articles Scientology and Church of Scientology I plan to work towards Scientology Church of Scientology being the top level article and all of the other articles except Church of Scientology being sub articles and so that that set of article covers the topic without reliance on Church of Scientology. That set of sub-articles is already extensive and robust. Also making sure that any good material in the Church of Scientology is also in one of the other articles. The maybe like 2 years from now merge Church of Scientology into Scientology. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi North. I agree completely that there is a great deal of overlap between the two articles. As your proposal is a merge of two fairly high-traffic articles (100k-300k/month) it needs to go through the WP:MERGEPROP process. My own view is that the two ought to be kept separate, each meeting the general notability guidelines for its own article. But some content from here about CoS ought to be more succinctly summarised here with the detail in the CoS article. This article should focus on the set of beliefs and the movement. It could possibly be merged with the Scientology beliefs and practices article. n.b. I think there's a typo (?) in your comment (I plan to work towards...[[Scientology]] [[Church of Scientology]] being the top...) leaving it slightly unclear. Cambial — foliar❧ 20:44, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing: Thanks for the post. I should have written my first sentence in shorter more focused form. Like: IMO there is an inherent and inseparable 95% overlap between the topics of the two top level articles. Per the above conversations I'd be content with just leaving it like that and working elsewhere and only sporadically here . But if I were to work on this article (especially in response to the recent tagging as too long) I would need to see a resolution to work towards to deal with the otherwise unsolvable mess of the top level article being two articles on essentially the same topic. Because such work inevitably means recognizing / dealing with the other Scientology articles. I've been reading a bunch of the scholarly sources and it's becoming more and more clear that structurally Scientology is primarily the practices and the organization.....third on that list would be everything (including hagiography) surrounding Hubbard and then beliefs are somewhat just supportive of all of those things. Regarding "each meeting the general notability guidelines for its own article" I would argue that of course they do because they are the same topic. :-) And regarding the (100k-300k/month) traffic for each, I would argue that the top level Scientology article is a 200K - 600k views per month article that has been split in half by duplication. :-) Finally, the two top level articles are two gigantic well written articles. Trying to start by deciding to "merge" and then trying to somewhat quickly merge two very large well written articles would probably do a lot of damage. So I guess I'm floating the idea to sort of decide where we're headed and then gradually work towards that. Again, if the feeling is "leave as is" that's cool and I'd only work sporadically here. What are your thoughts? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

structurally Scientology is primarily the practices and the organization.....third on that list would be everything (including hagiography) surrounding Hubbard and then beliefs are somewhat just supportive of all of those things I agree and would go further; the beliefs are mere artifacts, created to ensure retention of the manipulated sources of the scam's revenue stream. That said, these artifacts have nevertheless obtained sufficient discussion in RS as a separate topic, in my view, to satisfy WP:SIGCOV. Cambial — foliar❧ 08:17, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree and would argue that Scientology beliefs and practices is the top level article for that and that it also has several more specific sub articles. I was discussing that Scientology and Church of Scientology are inseparably 95% the same topic. And to advocate to do a slow motion merge of Church of Scientology into the other Scientology articles, especially Scientology. The beginnings of the merge would be to make sure that everything that is in the Church of Scientology article is also covered & contained in one of the other Scientology articles, with all of the top level type stuff being in Scientology. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Summary and final wrap up

So we're tagged as the article being too long. Also, IMHO the two top level Scientology articles (Scientology and Church of Scientology) are on the same inseperable topic. So the topics of Scientology" and "Church of Scientology"are inseparable. Work on the Scientology article for the "too long" issues (and any other issues) needs to be done with the titles/scopes of other articles in mind and a plan with respect to them. IMHO there is no way to do this with there being another article Church of Scientology with the essentially the same topic and scope within the plan.

• If both @Grorp: and @Cambial Yellowing: approved / wanted it I'd be happy to work on some major work on Scientology condense it a bit while moving some material into sub-articles, but to consider Church of Scientology to be not a part of the plan. And so everything that is good in Church of Scientology would also end up being contained in one of the other articles. Someday this could lead to redirecting Church of Scientology into Scientology.
• Unless folks indicate that they want the previous item, my current plan could would be to just watch the pages and occasionally edit or contribute in talk as I have been.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:35, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I don't want to discourage you from working on the article(s). It sounds like you've presented two all-or-nothing options, and I'm not sure what to say about that. I would vote for edits whose purpose is to correct or improve content, rather than edits designed solely for trimming article size. I will say, though, that this thread seems to have run its course by defining the scope of the problem, suggesting options, and coming up with some general plans. Grorp (talk) 00:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: Either way I'll help on the articles and I didn't intend for an "all or nothing" tone and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. To correct my post the two possibilities are:

• Big work on major structural stuff per my first item
• Normal active editor participation here, which is my current plan unless y'all want the first item.

And I would be VERY happy with either. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:44, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Prose size tool

@North8000: Well that's a game changer. An editor just added the prose size to the top banner note about size. Following the template documentation, I installed the tool suggested at WP:SIZERULE. Sure enough, instead of the filesize (which is currently at 269 kB), the prose size is just 114 kB. So maybe we don't need to kill ourselves trying to shorten the article as quickly as possible. Grorp (talk) 03:51, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@Grorp: To be honest, for me, the "too long" tag was/is just a bit of an impetus to look at the overall situation. I'm happy to be bold enough to take it off if you think we should do that. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I don't mind it being there, and I agree we still need to address the article which I feel is too long, too wordy, too overlapping of other articles, and too detailed in some sections. Grorp (talk) 06:00, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Scientology vs. The Church of Scientology

In this discussion, I would like to clarify and emphasize the distinction between the beliefs founded by L. Ron Hubbard, which I will refer to as the "Scientology religion" and the organization known as the Church of Scientology. This differentiation is crucial to avoid confusion and to foster a more nuanced conversation. Many criticisms often attributed to "Scientology" are actually directed at the Church of Scientology, and it is essential to recognize that these two entities are separate.

I acknowledge that people have given various classifications to the Scientology belief system. However, for the sake of clarity, I will be referring to it as a religion. It is worth noting that my perspective may be influenced by personal connections, as I have friends who identify as Scientologists, both within and outside the Church. Despite this, I will strive to maintain impartiality, recognizing that everyone possesses some degree of bias.

The conflation of "Scientology" with the "Church of Scientology" can be attributed to a deliberate strategy employed by the Church to position itself as the sole authority on Scientology practice. However, this portrayal is inaccurate, as many individuals practice the Scientology religion independently of the Church. It is unjust to generalize all practitioners by associating them solely with the Church and its actions.

The article's opening statement describes Scientology as "variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement," but it is important to clarify that these descriptions primarily apply to the Church of Scientology. For instance, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Baden-Württemberg in Germany investigated Ron's Org, a Free Zone organization operating outside the Church, and concluded that it did not pursue any unconstitutional purposes and was not affiliated with the Church of Scientology [1]. This investigation, even in a country with a history of scepticism towards the Church of Scientology, demonstrates that the Scientology religion, when separated from the Church, can be seen as a legitimate and independent spiritual belief system.

[1] Source: Ron's Org: The Alternative - ronsorg.ch 91.110.25.95 (talk) 02:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Reversion of my edit

I would like to contest the reason for the reversion that my edit is “inappropriate to the lead.” Can you explain this further? I have been keeping track of the discussions on this talk page and have seen that I am not alone in the perspective that the Church of Scientology and Scientology are two separate things. To say that Scientology and Church of Scientology is the same is the same as saying that The Catholic Church and Christianity are the same. While the statement - business, cult might be attributable to the organization, Scientology in itself is a neutral body of knowledge, religion to some, and a philosophy to others. To jump to the statement that “It has been variously defined as a cult, business or new religious movement” is to ignore that nuances that have been presented in various scholarly articles about Scientology. I can compile a list of this articles if needed. There is no context to the second sentence of the lead either - because the previous statement says it’s a set of beliefs and practices invented by Hubbard and then we abruptly go to a blanket statement. The statement I added helps ideas flow more smoothly from the first statement to the next. I propose that an uninvolved editor join the discussion/reinstate it, or we could discuss and work on this problematic lead that to me, is calling out to be improved.Summerallergies (talk) 01:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of the lead is to serve as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. We give emphasis to material based on the body and on its prominence in reliable secondary sources. Whether it is a a religion to some, and a philosophy to others is irrelevant. We are not looking to state everything that any Scientologist or ex-Scientologist thinks it is (philosophy, death-cult, evil trap, religion). We define the topic with a neutral point of view based on the most reliable secondary sources – based on the facts, not on opinions. As there are a wide variety of definitions in reliable sources, we cannot state them all – for example, a definition found in multiple reliable secondary sources is that Scientology is a scam or confidence trick. But we don't have room in the lead to include every definition that has been given in reliable secondary sources for a large and vexed subject. The opinion of a mentally ill huckster and pathological liar is both undue weight and, as an opinion rather than a fact, not the type of material that goes in the lead paragraph. Cambial — foliar❧ 06:35, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

While I understand where you’re coming from - if you’re saying that not every definition has to be in the lead, we are covering a significant ground with the statement cult, business and new religious movement. As for reliable sources based on NPOV, it really depends on which references you deem valid, because there are many, many references that reflect the contents of my edit, which you just choose to ignore. I also feel that if you have such strong feelings against Hubbard, it would be wise to also seek out the insight of someone who is less involved. Hubbard’s statement, no matter what you think of him, is relevant in this case because he is the founder of Scientology, and I have also used neutral words such as “present” and “referred to,” not assuming what he said as fact but a subjective representation. Scientology’s development as a religion is reflected in the body of the article. I have seen that there have been many efforts to improve the lead and it seems that there is a resistance to changing any part of it, much to the detriment of this page. As far as I know, the talk page is about discussing improvements to the page, not about shooting down anybody who wishes to make improvements to it. I am optimistic about Wikipedia being a democratic platform where individuals can civilly discuss changes. I’d like a 2nd and 3rd opinion. I am not concerned about my exact wording to be kept, but there is a glaring need to improve this introduction, which is not NPOV at all, but myopic and limited. I’d like to work with other editors to improve this and I am offering my help.Summerallergies (talk) 17:48, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings, though perhaps your evident admiration for Hubbard is clouding your judgement. We should however discuss matters in honest terms - Hubbard was a convicted fraudster, so it's fair to describe him as a huckster; his close relatives indicated that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a serious mental illness. The only major biography of Hubbard found that he lied pathologically about practically every aspect of his life story. There are many, many references supporting a variety of individual opinions, but that does not make them suitable for the introduction, which lays out what secondary reliable sources - not the sales pitch of the subject's inventor - say about the article subject. As there have been multiple previous discussions that indicate a clear and unambiguous consensus that the current wording neutrally represents the extant sources, you will need to demonstrate a consensus for your proposal. Given your proposal goes against a number of fundamental policies regarding how this website is written, particularly, but not exclusively, a neutral point of view, I assure you you'll not be able to do so.

If you have other proposals for the lead which do accord with how we write Wikipedia, they will be welcome. There is, for example, material that needs to be covered in the lead about deaths of individuals undergoing Scientology processes, forced abortions within Scientology groups, destruction of families through the doctrine of 'disconnection', and coverage of Scientology's place in the wider culture (emmy-winning documentaries etc.). You can learn about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines here. Cambial — foliar❧ 18:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it in the lead. The phrase "applied religious philosophy" was a "label" for Scientology invented by Hubbard to align it with religion, philosophy, and the applied sciences. As with all things Hubbard, everything was coated with a layer of false marketing that didn't always have any basis in fact, as is the case for this phrase. The phrase doesn't really mean anything and no one else uses that phraseology except to quote/mirror Hubbard. In this instance, you cited Dericquebourg. But Dericquebourg quotes from Hubbard's book Have You Lived Before This Life?. It is, in fact, from a page describing Dianetics and Scientology before even the introduction to the book. Also, the phrase isn't consistent over all versions. For example, the 1968 Third Printing USA version uses "applied religious philosphy" (isbn 0-88404-004-6 [17]) whereas the 1968 Third Printing European/Denmark version says merely "applied philosophy" (isbn 87-87347-35-0 [private copy]). Dericquebourg cites the 1958 version, Denmark. It is highly unlikely that the omission of the single word "religious" is accidental, whereas it supports my assertion that most of what Hubbard wrote is targeted/propaganda. I wouldn't put it in the lead, either. Grorp (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2023

Change "Hubbard maintained that 20 percent of the population would be classed as "suppressive persons" because were truly malevolent or dangerous:" to "Hubbard maintained that 20 percent of the population would be classed as "suppressive persons" because they were truly malevolent or dangerous:" Code807 (talk) 17:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done Cannolis (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 October 2023

Key Scientology beliefs include reincarnation, and that traumatic events cause problematic "engrams" in the mind which can only be removed through an activity called "auditing". A fee is charged for each session of "auditing". Once an "auditor" deems an individual free of "engrams", typically after several years, they are given the status of "clear". CHANGES BEGIN HERE: Change Scholarship differs to Scholars differ on the interpretation of these beliefs: Disneybuff2002 (talk) 23:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. WanderingMorpheme 00:15, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done. I did it. looked like a simple issue of which sounds better in a general English sentence.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:09, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you I didn't notice they were asking for a simple typo fix, I saw that it was on Scientology so I thought they were trying to add unsourced information, thank you for looking out and I'll be more careful. WanderingMorpheme 02:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

The solution may have been simple, but the deciphering of the request took me a bit. LOL.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:37, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing: Oy. Please explain further why you think this change was not acceptable. Re "Both written text and authors can do this", note that only authors make written text.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 21:11, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Don't know about "not acceptable": I didn't say that. But the relevant fact here is that sources - i.e. scholarship about the subject from which this article draws its information - differ on the nature of these beliefs. "Scholars differ" suggests or implies an argument or debate (yet to exist explicitly). Scholarship differs indicates the facts: some sources say a. some sources say b. Cambial — foliar❧ 21:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Honors World Religions

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2023 and 8 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Trisandejarnatt (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Someonecute1.

— Assignment last updated by Someonecute1 (talk) 07:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Medical claims, cancer, illness, PTSness

Has anyone noticed how there's nothing in Wikipedia about Hubbard's ideas of the cause of cancer (especially his claims re babies), and how he codified his idea that "all illness in greater or lesser degree ... stem directly and only from a PTS condition" (meaning there is a suppressive person around). There are his medical claims for Dianetics, Scientology and the Purification Rundown, and numerous instances where governments/agencies accused Hubbard/Dn/Scn of practicing medicine without a license. And don't forget how many top of the Bridge Scientologists have died from cancer (seemingly their leading cause of death).

Hubbard's ideas about illness are far-reaching within the Church of Scientology, and factor into the organization's everyday actions. It is used as a recruiting tool as well as a reason to break up families, and absolutely is wielded heavily when someone is "sent to ethics" even for things as benign as being 5 minutes late for class.

Hubbard said: "Cancer is not caused - never has been and never will be ... It always requires a second-dynamic or sexual upset, such as the loss of children or some other mechanism to bring about a condition known as cancer. This is cancer at the outset. I have examined too many cases not to have recognized this, because it is present in every single case that had cancer that I've ever examined - real wild curve on the second dynamic. And where we have helped a case with cancer we have processed such things as wasting babies and accepting babies, and mocking up babies and throwing them away, and doing suchlike and so on, and we have had a considerable change in the condition of the case. However, a person can get so far gone that he can hardly be processed or not processed at all, and when this is the case, why, the cancer gets him." L. Ron Hubbard, The Scale of Havingness, lecture of 29 Nov 1959

A few quick links to illustrate:

• Hysterical Radiation and Bogus Science
• Kirstie Alley's Death Sparks Debate About Scientology's Views on Cancer
• PTS Handling

I have tried searching Wikipedia to see if these topics are covered; not finding them. Maybe we need a Scientology and medicine type of article.

  ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 04:32, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Adding some sources which might be useful in the creation of a Scientology/medicine article.

• Owen, Chris (December 19, 2023). "How a police raid in Detroit prompted the creation of the Church of Scientology". Tony Ortega.
• Anderson, Kevin Victor (1965). "Report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology". Government Printer, Melbourne. (html version)
• Reitman, Janet (February 8, 2011) [February 23, 2006]. "Inside Scientology". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 2, 2018.
• Hubbard, L. Ron (2002) [1990]. Clear Body, Clear Mind: The Effective Purification Program. Bridge Publications. ISBN 1573182249. OL 1949412M.
• Hubbard, L. Ron (1950). Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. OL 6069624M.

  ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a good idea. Could cover it in more depth than the "beliefs and practices" article. One tricky part is that in Scientology beliefs are just disparate pieces that are a part of / support for their system. But I think that that can be navigated. North8000 (talk) 15:10, 2 January 2024 (UTC)