Talk:Scientology

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Edit request

The opening sentence should be edited to read "Scientology is a cult, invented by the American author L. Ron Hubbard, claiming to be a religious movement" (or something similiar). The article must be clear that it is a cult, not simply that some believe it is a cult. Cult analysts strongly believe it is one of the world's most destructive cults. It has done countless harm to many people, ruining their lives. Only people within the cult believe it is legitimate. By stating that "it is variously defined as a cult", you imply it might not be. Wikipedia has indicated other cults are indeed cults in the opening sentences of those other pages - including other cults that are less destructive than Scientology is. Wikipedia must be accurate and not feed into any lies that are sometimes perpetuated by problematic groups. Relegating the concern to the "Controversy" section is not enough, especially since that section is not very explicit that the movement is indeed a cult. All cult experts agree about the destructiveness of Scientology - it is not an opinion. If you define other cults as indeed cults, you must also do the same about the most destructive cult our world faces. Please note: I am not, nor have I ever been, affiliated with Scientology. I am a social worker and have followed news of world-wide cults for many years. 97.120.78.249 (talk) 15:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide citations from
reliable sources to support your assertion? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 04:30, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply
]
Scientology is defined as a religion and is registered so. The use of the word cult is therefore unjustified. Skippy9999 (talk) 07:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Defined thus by whom? There is no such thing as "registering as a religion" in the United States. I don't know what country you live in, and are referring to, but you might want to consult Scientology status by country.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 08:20, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is tax exempt in the us therefore reccognised as a religion. Same in many other countries including the UK. 2A0D:3344:150:1910:C8D5:7619:ED41:7F12 (talk) 21:03, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not tax exempt in the UK. There’s no point making things up here: others will see through it. Cambial — foliar❧ 21:29, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is tax exempt in the us therefore recognised as a religion. Same in many other countries including the UK where it gets the benefits of being a religion. Skippy9999 (talk) 04:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but your assumptions are incorrect. Since you appear to be new to Wikipedia, though no doubt are familiar with arguing your viewpoint on social media, let me inform you that
insert their own beliefs about a topic. For example, trying to discuss the merits of Scientology or its status as religion or not-religion is not the purpose of a talk page in Wikipedia. The material is already covered in the Wikipedia article Scientology status by country. There is no definitive or exclusive status or category for Scientology world-wide. The US government is forbidden by its constitution from "declaring" any group a religion or not. A tax-exempt status is not the same as being declared a religion, as you will see from reading Scientology status by country.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 05:41, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Demographics

the comment that there are 40,000 Scientologists is incorrect… it is way bigger than that. please correct with:

Over 11,000 Scientology Churches, Missions and affiliated groups exist across 167 nations. 92 million L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology have been distributed in the last decade. Skippy9999 (talk) 08:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done. This is per sources in the Scientology#Demographics section. Grayfell (talk) 09:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead sentences

The lead sentences discussing the definition of Scientology are redundant, lengthy and unpolished. Is calling Scientology a "scam" an actual "definition?" Is it represented with enough weight in the literature? It also seems to be a word that's redundant with business and cult, and makes the sentence excessively wordy. The word "scam" is not actually a definition either, but more of an evaluative statement of some people based on their experience. This word is not discussed or represented in the body of the article either. I move that the word "scam" be removed here, because it does not really add to the content. It's beefing up an already convoluted and lengthy section.Summerallergies (talk) 21:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The lead sentences are not redundant. Yes, scam (or racket) is a definition that has been used by a variety of journalistic and scholarly sources. Business and cult are utterly different things to scams, so your claim of redundancy between them makes no sense. A scam is a definition, contrary to your claim. The word is discussed in the body of the article, contrary to your claim. It's an appropriate - and accurate - description of the article subject. Cambial — foliar❧ 00:11, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Summerallergies: We went down this same road six months ago. You do realize that anyone can scrutinize every single edit you make in Wikipedia, right? [1] I'm beginning to see a pattern. Please review Wikipedia:Advocacy if you haven't already.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 00:50, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

" The US State Department has criticised Germany's treatment of Scientologists in its reports on international religious freedom"

Well, they would, wouldn't they?

Can anyone guess where Scientology originated from?

Anyone? 24.69.97.22 (talk) 15:51, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done This passage that gave
undue weight to criticism given by a department of one government against another government's policy has been removed. Cambial — foliar❧ 16:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Quotation formatting

For accessibility and display compatibility, the manual of style (

MOS:QUOTE) indicates that quotes should be in blockquote format. Quoteboxes are not generally appropriate in articles as they display vertically on mobile browsers. Cambial — foliar❧ 14:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

@
Quotebox}}, it says Format a long quote (more than about forty words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) as a block quotation.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 14:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
By display vertically I mean that it is not over to one side as it is on a computer browser - one image does not demonstrate otherwise. Instead it displays above the beginning of the following paragraph (i.e. in that case at the beginning of the section before our paragraphs in wikivoice). The text you quoted supports what I wrote: Format a long quote as a block quotation - indicates that quotes should be in blockquote format. It doesn't support your misrepresentation of what I wrote, but that isn't relevant. Cambial — foliar❧ 14:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Grorp: see Safari on ios and Chrome on ios. Cambial — foliar❧ 15:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you had looked at the URL in the screenprint I posted, https://ibb.co/V38F1Jk, you would have noticed it IS the mobile version. If, however, you were referring only to a cell phone format, then please mention that next time. Not only is that quotation not very long, it is a key belief of Scientologists and as such should be more prominently placed than at the bottom of the section—which is where you put it at first, and it looked like crap, overlapping with the section which followed (not unlike placing an image too close to the bottom of a section).
Now that you provided some screenshots, and I checked my own cell phone (which I do not use for Wikipedia), I can see how a cell phone version looks better as a boxquote, though short boxquotes on a larger screen look awful unless you add a |author= parameter. I suppose that's because wiki's mobile version uses a bar along the left of a boxquote making it obvious it is a quote, and the non-mobile version does not (making the indentation look like a mistake or oversight).
I'll try to be more aware of cell and mobile version formatting, and hope you'll try to be more aware of non-mobile version formatting on screens bigger than a few inches.
Question: I'm curious if you always/only use a cell phone to access Wikipedia, or do you use other formats/devices?   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 15:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes require sourcing

This usually goes without saying, but a reminder that quotes

require high-quality sourcing. Please don't add text to quotes that is not in the cited reliable secondary sources. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:23, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Depending on the situation, that can be a requirement but as you wrote it is not a categorical requirement. North8000 (talk) 15:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cambial Yellowing: I am so sorry that you felt you needed to revert and scold me for making an edit that follows precisely what is in the sources. I guess the correct quotation wasn't sufficiently derogatory of Scientology for your liking. I already did this work yesterday, and I shouldn't have to jump through hoops just to prove you wrong, but here we are. Yet again. (Links to screenshots are provided for ease of access and illustration.)

I had already checked each citation before I made my edit. There were three sources at the time: Senn 1990, Passas n Castillo 1992, and Beit-Hallahmi 2003. Passas mentioned Senn, as well as Behar 1991, so I also looked up Behar. Then curious what policy everyone was quoting from, I searched and found the actual reference by L. Ron Hubbard—first the 1991 version (a revision) and then went looking for and found the 1972 original version.

Both Senn and Beit-Hallahmi had the same language as Hubbard's, whereas Passas did not match. The extra wording in Passas came from Behar (Time Magazine). I don't know where Behar got the extra words because they do not exist in the Hubbard versions of that document. Now you have added Behar 1991 and Harman 2012 as sources. Harman (Haaretz newspaper) doesn't mention where they got it, but the format is the same "run on text" exactly like Behar, including the ellipses.

Now I can hear you saying, "But there are reliable sources that say those extra words", and I will point out that half of your sources have extra language that is not in the original text (a primary source), while the others quote the original text precisely, and in a manner similar to the original text and dissimilar to the run on text of Behar. So one could reasonably conclude that somehow Behar (Time magazine) got it wrong, or was printing a quote from someone they interviewed rather than using the actual printed book from the Church of Scientology that was in print at the time. Some have perpetuated Behar's mistake, while others did not perpetuate the mistake.

Oh dear, what do we do when we have conflicting "reliable sources"? Pondering... which version to use, which version to use. I know, let's use the higher quality sources which actually match the original text from Hubbard. What a concept!   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is your reliable source for what you describe as the “original version”? An imgbb upload? Oh dear indeed. Contrary to your claim, the reliable sources are not in conflict. The term reliable sources
need scare quotes. The phrase you added, "The governing policy of finance in any organization is to", does not appear in any of the cited reliable sources, so your claim above that your edit follows precisely what is in the sources does not bear scrutiny. Cambial — foliar❧ 10:53, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
My sources are the actual books. I went to great lengths to make all of those images yesterday and upload them to imgbb.com to assist in illustrating my post above. The blue is computer-generated highlighting. Do you think I'm trying to deceive you? Why would I do that? Or do you think I'm stupid enough to rely on some little image I found on the internet? You should know me better than that by now. If you would actually
suit your POV (almost the entire lede is now your authorship).
  ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 23:44, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
I’m not reading yet another of your ridiculous personal attacks. “Sneaking in”? Every edit is visible to anyone. Don’t be absurd. Your imagined (projected?) views of my motivations do not merit discussion.
It is only you who repeatedly takes an aggressive tone with extensive use of bold and groundless accusations on the talk page. You repeatedly fabricate charges of 'ownership' and fail to demonstrate what you claim. Note the short and to-the-point length of my prior responses compared to your umpteenth diatribe.
Back to the topic: the originals are not books, so whatever you took those from are not the original. As is cited in multiple reliable sources, the original is a letter reproduced and sent as “policy” to Scientology franchises in 1972. Similar letters - facsimilies, not retypings of many of which are or were available on enturbulation.org and WikiLeaks - are, unsurprisingly, typed and Xeroxed, not printed, and are thus set in Courier font, not Times New Roman.
The very obviously digitally created documents to which you linked (check the pure white background) are not even the first version from Hubbard’s Management Series 1974. They look identical to OCR copies of the 2001 reprint edition Management Series that have circulated online for years (an authentic reproduction of the 1991 edition of the book - irrelevant to the topic as it is - can be found at the Internet Archive).
Given you evidently have not taken from the original source - a policy letter to Scientology franchisees - but have taken from what appears to be a copy of a book marketed as a secular guide to administration and management, your claim that this is a phrase "that didn't actually exist in the original" has no basis [unnecessary bolding in your original comment]. Cambial — foliar❧ 00:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Grorp: What is it that you imagine are the contradicting facts for which you've tagged the article? Three reliable sources refer to this quote. No sources deny this quote. There is no evidence of a contradiction. Cambial — foliar❧ 01:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure there is. Senn 1990 is cited, and it contradicts your preferred version (Behar 1991). There really are only two versions—Senn and Behar. Passas n Castillo 1992 quotes Behar directly, and Harman 2012 too, because Behar and Harman both call the document a "bulletin" when it's a "policy letter"; "bulletin" has a special meaning in Scientology—bulletins are printed red-on-white and are about auditing, whereas policy letters are printed green-on-white and are about organizational administration. The slip in language belies that Harman copied it from Behar (or from someone else who copied Behar).
Senn was published before the 1991 Hubbard version you said was irrelevant to the topic, though they match. And Senn's footnote says they obtained it from the 1985 case Scientology v. Commissioner 83 T.C. 381, 422 1985, which also matches.
Behar's extra wording "make sure that lots of bodies move through the shop" and "however you get them in or why, just do it" doesn't appear anywhere else I can find.
I've presented evidence that the 1972 Hubbard version (published in book form in 1976, which is a reprint of the 1974 first edition) was similar or identical to the 1991 Hubbard version (and Senn's version). That leaves only 1972–1974 for possible differences. Even if you imagine adding those extra words into the A to L list, they just don't make sense there. You have produced no evidence that there ever was some other-worded version that matches Behar (just some guess about franchisees though the policy letter wasn't addressed to franchisees and its content doesn't apply to them).
Using critical thinking skills, if an earlier version of the policy letter had included the extra words, but they were removed before the 1985 case, and were removed before the 1974 book publishing, then what is the likelihood that Behar in 1991 would have been looking at such an [alleged] early version from 1972–1974 instead of all the other versions/copies that would have been printed during the 17 intervening [pre-internet] years since then?
Meanwhile, the quote in the article right this minute (and the minute I tagged it with {{
WP:OVERCITEd.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 06:34, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
You are implicitly claiming, without actually coming out and saying so, that Richard Behar and the extensive fact-checking team at
TIME manufactured a quote. There is zero chance of this. The editors anticipated the potential of legal action prior to publication. The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power
is easily amongst the most heavily litigated pieces of journalism in history. All the cases against the author and various publishers were dismissed.
You claim Senn 1990 is cited, and it contradicts Passos, Behar, and Harman.
It doesn’t contradict them. There are ellipses in the quote in Senn and in the others. Neither Senn, Passos, Beit-Hallahmi, Harman nor Behar claim to be giving a complete version of the document. In fact their use of ellipsis indictes explicitly that they are quoting it in part.
It is currently a synthesis, but only because you inappropriately altered it so it no longer matches the Behar and Passos sources cited. Complaining about the problem you introduced is a waste of time: we can simply go back to before you created the problem.
You claim, erroneously, to have presented evidence that the 1972 Hubbard version [is] published in book form in 1976, which is a reprint of the 1974 first edition. There is no evidence of this, and you’ve presented nothing to indicate as much. The original is an internal letter to subordinate Scientology staff. The books titled Management Series are works marketed by Hubbard as a secular management principles guide – "all an executive need know on the subject of how to manage an organization."
You have given no evidence this is a complete and unaltered version of the original bulletin/letter. The books are explicit that they are altered from one edition to the next, and one can see that the version of this document changes from one edition to the next. Looking at the differences it’s clear this includes removal of whole sections of text. There is no reason to believe the version in Management Series is a complete reproduction of the original, and every reason to believe it is a partial version, inclding that the Management Series was intended for a public audience, while the bulletin/letter was only for internal use.
You ask “what is the likelihood that Behar in 1991 would have been looking at the original bulletin/letter? He gives an extensive quote from it, so given how reliable TIME is as a source, I’d say 99.8-100%. Certainly, given how this website works, reliable enough to be included here. There are numerous holdings in private collections and university libraries of boxes of Scientology documents used by researchers.
How this website works is to report on the content of reliable secondary sources. What we don’t do is to find a different, later version of a document, the original of which is quoted by a secondary source - this later version of the document produced for an entirely different purpose and scrubbed for optics and public consumption - and then to claim on zero evidence, and in spite of evidence to the contrary, that it’s identical to the document referred to by the reliable secondary source, and that the reliable secondary source is lying. Cambial — foliar❧ 11:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cambial Yellowing: Don't twist the basic facts. My one single edit fixed the quote to match two of the three cited sources: Senn and Beit-Hallahmi (and Hubbard). Then you made 5 edits in a row resulting in the current SYNTH. So don't sit here and accuse me now of being the one who created the current state of the quote in the article.
While doing your 5 edits, you snarked through the edit summaries: "this is part of the quote", "restore sourced text", "removed text not present in any of four cited sources", and "adding unsourced text to quotes is not 'correcting' it"—followed by you posting on the talk page: This usually goes without saying, but a reminder that quotes require high-quality sourcing. Please don't add text to quotes that is not in the cited reliable secondary sources.
Even after that snarkfest, I still tried to explain why and how I decided to make that one single edit. But that wasn't good enough for you. Since then, you've dragged this thread into the weeds, called me a liar numerous times, and even complained that I used bolding for godsake (*facepalm*). This is all just worthless noise. All I had tried to do was correct what I saw as an incorrect quotation that didn't match the extant sources cited. Well maybe you like all this arguing, but I don't.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 17:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Refrain from fabricating accusations, such as twist[ing] the basic facts and you snarked through the edit summaries. Your edit did not "fix" the quote, because a. it had no need of fixing and b. you added unsourced material. I have not called you a liar, and because I haven't, you are
being rude and uncivil
.
The version immediately prior to your disruptive edit contains a quotation that is entirely supported by citations to Time and to a peer-reviewed academic paper. None of the citations (nor any other source) deny this is an accurate quotation. So it's simply a fact that you are the one who created the current state of the quote in the article.
In reality, the edit summary texts you quote are not "snarked through" but statements of fact. It is part of the quote. The edit did restore sourced text. The edit did remove text not present in any of the four cited sources. The addition of text that is not in the sources is adding unsourced text, and it isn't correcting the quote.
Your argument boils down to the view that the highly regarded news publication
original research on this is not persuasive and certainly does not suggest to a reasonable person that Time and Richard Behar invented a quote. Cambial — foliar❧ 18:52, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2024

Scientology describes itself as a religion that was founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard. At the core of Scientology is a belief that each human has a reactive mind that responds to life's traumas, clouding the analytic mind and keeping us from experiencing reality. Vikas nalage (talk) 15:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would need strong sourcing. While that being a belief , a far reaching statement making it a singular item and, "at the core" is quite a stretch, and treating "scientology" as a monolith. Also, since Scientology is so many different things, it would probably need calibration e.g. "at the core of it's teachings" or something like that.North8000 (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Things like a sect, a cult, a company, an organisation of organised criminality. Things like that. Encyclopédisme (talk) 21:16, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not disputing what you wrote but it's not really useful for this edit request. Actually I was just discussing the contents of the edit request. The more specific appropriate response is that of M.Bitton below. Edit requests need to be very specific as described below. Not just a general idea that somebody else needs to develop a specific edit for. If anyone wants to discuss general ideas/suggestions, that is welcome in article talk, an edit request is not the place to do it. North8000 (talk) 23:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a
"change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 15:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
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