28. The range of attitudes and actions embraced in the concept of worship extends to the entire active side of religion. In its broadest scope, worship includes all rites, rituals, ceremonies, practices, observances, or services that occur within a sacred context and for a sacred purpose. Seen in this light, worship can run the gamut from public celebration to private contemplation, from solemn festivals to habitual routines. But the term “worship” is usually reserved for the intentional cultivation of persistent religious beliefs, values, and sentiments through a disciplined course of action. As such, worship involves the whole person in fixed patterns of divine service as defined by a specific religious tradition. Of course, religious traditions differ among themselves over the objects, forms, and occasions of worship, depending upon their distinctive understanding of the divine and the human reality.
30. Most historians of religion agree that the earliest forms of religion were rooted in the worship of natural phenomena or of parochial communities. The polytheisms of the ancient world were celebrations of the powers and possibilities of the natural environment or of the human world. These forms of worship have certainly not disappeared from the face of earth. But the great “world religions” are all focused on worship of an Absolute Reality that transcends both nature and history.
31. This Absolute Reality is conceived in very different ways among the different religions. Broadly speaking, the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam understand this Absolute Reality in personal terms. These traditions worship a personal Reality who can be known and served in a relational way. The worship of these theistic religions finally aims at communion with this personal Being. By contrast, again broadly speaking, the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism conceive of this Absolute Reality in impersonal terms. These traditions worship a unitive Reality that can be understood and experienced in an inward manner. The worship of these monistic religions finally seek a union with this impersonal Being.
32. Scientology clearly belongs among those religions whose worship is directed to an Absolute Reality that transcends the natural order and human existence while sustaining and fulfilling both. As noted above, the ultimate goal of the religious life in Scientology is survival “through a Supreme Being” or “as Infinity.” As we shall see, auditing and training are the primary forms of worship in the Church of Scientology. These worship activities equip and assist the Scientologist to survive and thrive across all Eight Dynamics. These spiritual exercises produce healthy and happy individuals, families and groups. But ultimately worship enables individual Scientologists to discover themselves as spiritual beings in a spiritual universe that radically transcends the physical body and the material world.
33. As such, Scientology’s understanding of Absolute Reality has more in common with the mystical traditions of Eastern religions than their theistic counterparts in the West. Though the Church of Scientology resolutely affirms the existence of God, it has no dogma concerning the nature of God. Scientologists are free to symbolize God in either personal and impersonal terms so long as they affirm the reality of God. For the most part, however, they think of God less as a personal Being who commands personal devotion and obedience than as a spiritual Force that invites individual exploration and discovery. God is to be found within rather than without, through individual experience rather then dogmatic teachings.
35. While Scientology is a distinctive religion with its own distinctive forms of worship, those forms have more in common with the spiritual disciplines of Eastern religions than the spiritual devotions of Western faiths. Like its Eastern counterparts, worship in the Church of Scientology is a highly disciplined and deeply cultivated process of self-examination and self-development. These spiritual exercises to increase individual awareness and ability are broadly divided into the two categories of “auditing” and “training.” Spiritual auditing and training make up the two sides of Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom.”
36. Scientology auditing, which bears some resemblance to Christian confession and Buddhist meditation, is a form of spiritual counseling that enables a person to discover his or her identity as a spiritual being who had the potential of infinite survival. Auditing ranges from very simple to more searching religious experiences as one progresses higher and higher on the Bridge. Scientologists believe that the highest levels of Spiritual awareness and ability can only be attained by progressing through graduated levels of auditing. The lower levels of auditing lead to the spiritual state of “clear,” in which a person is freed to live a sane and productive life, while the higher levels of auditing known as the “Operating Thetan” levels minister to the thetan’s ability to directly influence life, matter, energy, space and time.
37. Scientology training, which is similar to scriptural study and religious instruction in Judaism and Christianity as well as in Hinduism and Buddhism, augments the freedom achieved through spiritual auditing by knowledge achieved through religious education. The broad scope of training in Scientology is divided into numerous courses, ranging from lower level courses that teach basic principles to upper level courses that cover the full philosophic and technical materials of Dianetics and Scientology. In this sense, training offers just as much spiritual insight as does auditing. Indeed, the practice of faith for Scientologists is composed in equal parts of auditing and training in the principles and technology of Scientology. A person cannot achieve full spiritual awareness and empowerment without traveling up both sides of the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”
38. While the primary forms of worship in all religions are directed toward sacred objects and are expressive of spiritual experiences, there are other rituals that are routinely performed in the context and spirit of worship. Principle among these other practices are the rites of passage which mark the great moments of transition and transformation in individual and communal life. Every religion has its celebrations of the believer’s life cycle and of the tradition’s sacred history, and Scientology is no exception. Churches of Scientology regularly celebrate the rites of christening, marriage and burial according to the ceremonies of Scientology as well as commemorate the holy days in their faith’s sacred history and common life.
40. Similar to other religions, worship in the Church of Scientology may occur on private as well as public occasions. Both auditing and training, which are the central forms of Scientology worship, may be undertaken or administered by properly audited and trained Scientologists in any private setting, even in one’s home. But generally Scientologists participate in auditing and training at their Church. There are two reasons why the practice of worship usually occurs at a Church of Scientology. In the first place, auditing and training at the lower levels are always directed by trained auditors and teachers who are highly skilled in administering the spiritual healing technology and applied religious philosophy of Scientology. While Scientologists at the higher “Operating Thetan” levels of spiritual awareness and ability are able to audit and train themselves, such self-auditing and self-training is supervised by a highly-trained Case Supervisor who reviews and approves their spiritual exercises. Understandably, such spiritual supervision is most readily available to individual Scientologists at their Church. Indeed, all auditing and training at the upper levels are confined to the institutional settings and staffs of their various religious centers. In the second place, all auditing and training courses must follow the exact procedures as set forth in Scientology by
41. On any reckoning of the occasions of worship — whether worship is private or public, solitary or corporate — the worship center plays an indispensable role in every religion. Such worship centers go by different names and exhibit different architectures. Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, ashrams, shrines have their own distinctive look and feel. But their religious purposes and functions are quite similar. These “places of worship” provide the sacred setting in which the “divine services” appropriate to a given religion are regularly conducted. Like any religion, Scientology churches have their own distinctive ambiance. But they are the centers of or both private and public worship services.
(Signature)
Lonnie D. Kliever
Department of Religious Studies
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas.
Click here to return to Part One.
Click here to return to the Leisa Goodman’s home page on Scientology.
Visit the official Church of Scientology International site here.