We all know Tom Cruise, but not Scientology

BANGALORE, INDIA: Hollywood 'Top Gun' Tom Cruise's marital conflict has brought back under the scanner, among his personal life and many other things, Scientology, a cult that he follows religiously.

The speculated reason? His wife, Katie Holmes might have filed for divorce, fearing that their daughter, Suri, might be made to embrace Scientology.

It throws up a question on what the sect is all about and whether it has got something to do with science at all. All the more, to those who got to know about Scientology only because of Tom Cruise's and John Travolta's adherence to it.

It, basically, is a organized unit of beliefs and related practices, as formulated by Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, famously L. Ron Hubbard, an American pulp fiction author.

Scientology teaches that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature. There is also a belief propagated that souls, called thetans (named after the Greek letter, Theta), reincarnate and have lived on other planets before coming into existence on planet Earth.

Based on their history, around 75 million years ago, Xenu, the ruler of a Galactic Confederation of 76 planets, transported billions of his charges in spaceships similar to DC-8 jets to Earth. Among Scientology circles, Earth is known as Teegeeack.

A Scientology legend has it that they were placed near volcanoes and killed by exploding hydrogen bombs, after which their souls remained on Earth, which would later inhabit the bodies of future earthlings.

It is believed that it is causing humans today great spiritual harm and unhappiness, which could be remedied through special techniques, involving an Electropsychometer (in short, E-meter) in a process called auditing, a self-devised method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counseling. It passes low electric current through a user.

Among the Scientologist convictions are: In the primordial past, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe has no independent reality, but derives its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists.

Followers also condemn practice of psychiatry, with a belief that it is destructive and abusive, and must be abolished. They view psychiatrists as corrupt and abusive, and has a strict policy against the use of psychoactive drugs.

In a U.S.-based publication on scientific issues, Scientific American, columnist Michael Shermer writes in an article, titled The Real Science behind Scientology: It's not what you think, "The real science behind Scientology seems to be an understanding of the very human need, as social animals, to be part of a supportive group — and the willingness of people to pay handsomely for it."

"So did its founder, writer L. Ron Hubbard, just make it all up — as legend has it — to create a religion that was more lucrative than producing science fiction?"

It's best left to an individual to decide whether to believe and follow it or not.