Scientologikopplad skola i Stockholm stängs

Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by the American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. Its adherents are called Scientologists. The largest exponent of Scientology is the Church of Scientology, a centralized and hierarchical organization based in Florida and California, although practitioners exist independently of the Church, in what is called the Free Zone. Estimates put the number of Scientologists at under 40,000 worldwide. Scientology texts say that a human possesses an immortal inner self, termed a thetan, that resides in the physical body and has experienced many past lives. Scientologists believe that traumatic events experienced by the thetan over its lifetimes have resulted in negative "engrams" forming in the mind, causing neuroses and mental problems. They claim that the practice of auditing can remove these engrams; Scientology groups charge fees for clients undergoing auditing. Once an auditing practitioner deems the engrams to have been removed, an individual is given the status of "clear". They can take part in a further series of activities to advance through "Operating Thetan" (OT) levels, which require further payments. The Operating Thetan texts are kept secret from most followers, and are only revealed after adherents have typically given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the organization in order to complete what Scientology refers to as The Bridge to Total Freedom. The Scientology organization has gone to considerable lengths to try to maintain the secrecy of the texts but they are freely available on the internet. These texts say that lives preceding a thetan's arrival on Earth were lived in extraterrestrial cultures. Scientology doctrine states that any Scientologist undergoing "auditing" will eventually come across and recount what is called the "Incident". The secret texts refer to an alien being called Xenu. They say Xenu was a ruler of a confederation of planets 70 million years ago who brought billions of aliens to Earth and then killed them with thermonuclear weapons. Despite being kept secret from most followers, this forms the central mythological framework of Scientology's ostensible soteriology. These aspects have become the subject of popular ridicule. Hubbard wrote primarily science fiction, and had experience with religions such as Thelema. In the late 1940s he created Dianetics, a set of practices which he presented as therapy. Over time, he came to consider auditing useful not just for problems of the mind, but also of the spirit, developing Scientology as an expansion of Dianetics. Although he had framed Dianetics as a "science" – a characterisation rejected by the medical establishment – in the 1950s, for pragmatic legal reasons, he increasingly portrayed Scientology as a religion. In 1954 he established the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles before swiftly establishing similar organisations internationally. Relations with various governments were strained. In the 1970s Hubbard's followers engaged in a program of criminal infiltration of the U.S. government, resulting in several executives of the organization being convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a U.S. Federal Court. Becoming increasingly reclusive, Hubbard built an elite group called the Sea Organization around himself. After Hubbard's death in 1986, David Miscavige became head of the Church. From the 1980s, various senior Church members left and established groups such as Ron's Org, forming the basis of the Free Zone. From soon after their formation, Hubbard's groups have generated considerable opposition and controversy, in several instances because of their illegal activities. Hubbard himself was convicted in absentia of fraud by a French court in 1978 and sentenced to four years in prison. In 1992, a court in Canada convicted the Scientology organization in Toronto of spying on law enforcement and government agencies, and criminal breach of trust, later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a judgment upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation in 2013.The Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgments as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business. Following extensive litigation in numerous countries, the organization has managed to attain a legal recognition as a religious institution with respect to tax laws in some jurisdictions, including Australia, Italy, and the United States. Germany classifies Scientology groups as an "anti-constitutional sect", while the French government classifies the group as a dangerous cult.