Abstract: Advances a theory to explain the apparent success of Scientology in raising its members to a superhuman level of functioning known as "clear". It is argued that empirical evidence does not support this claim and that the state of "clear" "is not a state of personal development at all, but a social status conferring honor within the cult's status system and demanding certain kinds of behavior from the person labeled `clear'." Hubbard's social mechanisms used to establish and defend the status of "clear" are discussed. Scientology caters to those people who suffer from chronic unhappiness or inability to perform at the level set for themselves. It does not solve the underlying problems; it merely "cures the complaints by ending the person's freedom to complain."
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Excerpted from The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation, by Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, University of California Press, 1985. Chapter 12, pp. 263-283, supplemented with a section of chapter 21, pp. 483-484 (Scientology in Europe) and portions of chapters 1 and 2 (Theory). You may order this book from www.amazon.com (paperback; $19.00).
An early version of this chapter was given at the 1979 annual meeting of the Association for the Society of Religion and published as William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, "Scientology: To Be Perfectly Clear," Sociological Analysis, 1980, 41:2, pp. 128-136.
[In 1985,] Rodney Stark is Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, and William Sims Bainbridge is Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.