Refund and Reparation

          There has been some stir amongst auditors concerning the fact that Scientology has allied itself with the Church of American Science, why a Church of Scientology has come into existence and why auditors qualified by training and personal attainments are applying for and have received ordination as ministers in these churches.

          To some this seems mere opportunism, to some it would seem that Scientology is simply making itself bulletproof in the eyes of the law, and to some it might appear that any association with religion is a reduction of the ethics and purposes of Scientology itself. The broad majority of those interested have accepted this step, but not all have entirely understood it.

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          The Vedic hymns are religious hymns. Yet the material in them contains all that is to be found in the works of Charles Darwin and even in the works used today by nuclear physicists.

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          The Dharma, existing some time before the advent of Gautama, is a religion preached by individuals known as Buddhas. The Western world knows this as Buddhism and variously believes it to be a superstition or idolatrous practice or believes that it was founded by a man named Buddha, none of which are true. A Buddha is simply one who has attained Bodhi. A Bodhi is “one who has attained an ideal state of intellectual and ethical perfection by purely physical means.” There have been many Buddhas and there are expected to be many more.

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          Although the Dharma does not give and does not contain, as it is handed down to us, any real or workable methodology to accomplish the state of Bodhi, it cleaves very strongly to a scientific rationale which, coming to us from two-and-one-half millenia ago, is startling in view of the fact that it is more delineative, more exact, more comprehensive and more comprehensible than any and all psychological doctrine as known to us in this twentieth century.

          Here is an amazing body of scientific-philosophical-religious truth. These texts written about 600 B.C. outline a scientific religion of compassion and magnitude.

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          Backed fully by the precedent of all the ages concerning teachings, a Scientologist has a better right to call himself a priest, a minister, a missionary, a doctor of divinity, a faith healer or a preacher than any other man who bears the insignia of religion of the Western world. And remember that it is precedent which masters the opinion of multitudes and nations.

          Why should Scientology ally itself with religion or use the word religion in connection with its philosophy?

           There are many, many reasons. Amongst them is that a society accords to men of the church an access not given to others. Prisons, hospitals, and institutions, and those who manage them, cannot do otherwise than welcome men of the church. We are talking now about more than simply expediency or protection under law. We are talking about urgency indeed.

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          We have in this year of 1954 processes which, even when worked upon groups, produce en masse a state of beingness which 2500 years ago was being groped for by the select few. We have more command over the phenomena of life than any have ever had before.

          In another time, in another place, those men (the Buddhas) responsible for what Western culture calls their religion, called themselves priests. I do not see, then, any inconsistency of any kind in the issuance to those well-schooled and well-skilled in Scientology the degree of Doctor of Divinity as a passport into those areas where they are needed. Only a barbaric minister is a “man of God.” In all enlightened religions such men are called “men of wisdom.”

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           And I am telling you this to dispel some of your shyness and to increase your boldness and overtness where the society itself is concerned. No door need be closed to you, nor need you apologize should you accept through the Church of American Science or the Church of Scientology any degree or title for which you are qualified. Western civilization is engaged in a worship of superstition, the supernatural and the miraculous even as other nations long ago.