Argument from Holy Scripture: Scientology
Aleister Crowley (Off Site) by Jeff Jacobsen
“Hubbard had connections with the occult. He was, at one time, Aleister Crowley’s pal. It shows in his work, too. Apart from that, the idea put forward in the OT’s–to have control over matter, energy, space and time–is very much indebted to gnosticism.”
Dianetics Changes Over Time (Off Site) by Geoff Burling
After stumbling across an older (1971) copy of Hubbard’s Dianetics, Burling discovers that even a cursory comparison shows that “Hubbard made one consistent & important change to his work: every place where another author’s name appears in this work has been omitted. Reading the later version of Dianetics,” Burling says, he “was led to assume that Hubbard invented the entire opus himself . . .”
The Hubbard is Bare (Off Site) by Jeff Jacobsen
Jacobsen stumbles upon a book that bears a striking resemblance to Hubbard’s Dianetics, and is older, too.
Hubbard’s Sources (Off Site) by Jeff Jacobsen
” Many of the ideas Hubbard puts forward in Dianetics and Scientology have been developed elsewhere. In psycho-analysis, for instance. And in Thomas Hobbes’ work.”
Medical claims within Scientology’s secret teachings (Off Site) by Jeff Jacobsen
Jacobsen lists all medical claims made in Scientology’s so-called secret teachings, focusing on the NOTS (New OT’s for New Era Dianetics), and quite convincingly argues that these are fraudulent medical claims.
OT3 – Scientology’s “Secret” Course Rewritten for Beginners (1996) (Off Site) by Jon Atack
Scientology’s once secret “Operating Thetan Section Three Course” is exposed, its mythological claims revealed as contradicting modern geological science.
The Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) (1997) (Off Site) by Tom Betz
Betz, in this letter to the New York Times Magazine, criticizes “uncritical” acceptance of the claims that Hubbard authored the Oxford Capacity Analysis. Not only is the OCA “useless” as a tool for the evaluation of personality, but the authorship of the OCA was not Hubbard’s–he borrowed it from a plagiarist.
Possible Origins for Dianetics and Scientology (Off Site) by Jon Atack
Atack offers evidence for Hubbard’s “extensive plagiarism.” “He took ideas from earlier authors without proper acknowledgment; repudiated his initial, partial acknowledgment of other authors; and many times took ideas from his followers without acknowledging them . . . Over time, acknowledgment for these co-authors has simply been removed from newer publications.
Scientology’s Relationship With Eastern Religious Traditions (1996) (Off Site) by Stephen A. Kent
From the Journal of Contemporary Religion, this article refutes Hubbard’s claims that Scientology was related to or shared significant similarities with Hinduism, Theravada Buddhism and Taoism.
Word-clearing Dianetics (Off Site) by Geoff Burling
Using the technique of “close reading” (as performed in literary criticism and philology), Burling finds that it is possible to draw out “certain things [Dianetics] reveals that the author did not consciously intend to say.”