The scope of Scientology is immense. The full body of knowledge that comprises the religious Scripture is contained in more than 40 million spoken and written words on the subject—all by L. Ron Hubbard, the source and founder of the Scientology religion. A lifetime of searching for truth and a deep examination of the wisdom to be found in both East and West led Mr. Hubbard to write, “And when we call Scientology a religion, we are calling it a religion out of a much deeper well than only the last two thousand years. It is a wisdom in the tradition of ten thousand years of search in Asia and in Western civilization.”

Nevertheless, Scientology is a religion without dogma. There is nothing in Scientology that one is expected to take on faith or on the basis of arbitrary authority. The goal of Scientology is to know—to achieve complete certainty of one’s spiritual existence and one’s relationship to the Supreme Being. While countless authorities have affirmed that Scientology sits squarely within the tradition of the world’s major religions, one of the factors which clearly makes Scientology unique is the religious practice by which this spiritual certainty is attained.

The religious practices of Scientology include exact, precise methods by which a person achieves greater spiritual awareness. These practices are referred to collectively as the technology of the Scientology religion. “Technology” describes the methods of application of the principles of something, as opposed to mere knowledge of the subject itself.