The Hidden Story of Scientology

by Omar V. Garrison

Everyone has heard or read of Scientology, the new religion which has aroused storms of controversy in America, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, and virtually every nation where English is the major tongue. Yet, few persons outside the movement's rapidly expanding membership understand the real principle of its teachings or why it is so vigorously opposed by influential groups throughout the world.

Now, in this first full-length presentation of the case for Scientology, a non-Scientologist gives us a much needed apologia to balance the great mass of literature, rumor, and broadcast reports hostile to the sect.

This book is a fully documented, inside account of a spiritual movement that began in 1950 as a radical new approach to mental therapy and later developed into one of the fastest growing religious denominations in the world, whose followers now number in the millions.

The first part of the book carefully examines the history and origins of Scientology, as well as the personality of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Then the author traces, in detail, the organized and often underhanded methods used in efforts to annihilate the new faith.

Writing in forthright and at times deliberately provocative language, Mr. Garrison --a veteran journalist -- seeks the answers to such disturbing questions as:

Is the any truth in the charge made by Scientologists that they are the victims of a hate campaign conducted by a world-wide secret power structure whose practices and aims they have challenged and exposed?

Have law-making bodies and agencies of national governments been used to persecute members of the new religion even though they are guilty of no offense against existing laws?

In the chapter on "The Crafty Art of Psycho-politics," the author provides some searching insights into the fallacies and dangers inherent in the mental health movement. He writes: "Just as the idea of a 'generation gap,' being boldly asserted and plausibly maintained, produced in our society the condition it describes, so the concept of a 'sick society,' insistently urged upon us by the mental health professionals, is producing the psycho-neurotic populace it postulates. One of the most significant changes in public attitudes, in fact, has been the uncritical and widespread acceptance of the idea that mental illness in Western countries (especially the United States) has reached virtually epidemic proportions and now constitutes a real threat to the survival of a sane, orderly society."

This book is certain to provoke strong reactions, pro or con, on the part of the thoughtful reader because it challenges him to review realistically the present practices of government and the state of those ideals of freedom he has so long taken for granted.

Article in Chicago Tribune, Saturday, January 25, 1975 on this book.

The hidden story of Scientology