SCI
page 1 / 4
us 10
---
title: "Understanding Scientology — us-10"
source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-10.html
retrieved: 2026-06-28
---
Understanding Scientology, by Margery
Wakefield
- Next
- Previous
Chapter 10
## Religion Inc. -- The Selling of Scientology
Scientology 1970 is being planned on a religious
organization basis throughout the world.
This will not upset in any way the usual activities of any
organization. It is entirely a matter for accountants and solicitors.
-- Religion, by L. Ron Hubbard
I entreat you students not to be carried away by the claims
that any and many "teachers" or "masters" make. ESPECIALLY, BEWARE OF
ANY TEACHER, OR SCHOOL, WHICH CLAIMS TO HAVE ABSOLUTE TRUTH AND
ESPECIALLY WATCH YOUR MONEY DONATIONS.
-- The Art and Practice of the Occult, by
Ophiel
During the 1930s, L. Ron Hubbard had acquired a formidable
reputation as a writer of pulp fiction and science fiction. Fans looked
forward to his swashbuckling tales each month, and they were rarely
disappointed. Whether it was westerns, full of the drama and dust of the
West, or adventures set in the exotic Orient, or eerie science fiction
tales -- Hubbard seemed to have tapped into an inexhaustible supply of
plots and characters. His fertile imagination, coupled with a prodigious
writing talent, his capacity for an amazingly prolific verbal output,
made him the envy of many of his fiction-writing peers.
Any lesser man would have been satisfied with the success that
Hubbard had found as an adventure writer. But Hubbard was no ordinary
man. Burning inside him was, as he once confided in an associate, "an
insatiable lust for money and power." He had made remarks more than once
to friends that he was considering starting his own religion. He told
one friend that he had not decided whether to destroy the Catholic
Church, or "merely start a new one." (1)
And the now famous quote which he made to a writer's conference,
that it was silly to write for a penny a word, and that the real way to
make a million dollars was to start your own religion.
Scientology is about money. In Governing Policy Hubbard
wrote:
MAKE MONEY. MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE
SO AS TO MAKE MONEY.
Hubbard was probably one of the, if not the, most successful con men
that ever lived. He was able to convince thousands of people to sell
their homes, liquidate their assets, and give everything they had to
him, in exchange for the questionable commodity of spiritual salvation
for eternal lifetimes to come. And not only did they buy it, but they
bought it fully believing they had made the best of the bargain.
A recent issue of Impact, a Scientology magazine, contains a
revealing list of "Patrons of the Association," a list of 972 people who
have donated money to the International Association of Scientologists.
What is remarkable
about this list is that of the 972 donors listed, 844 had donated more
than $40,000, 99 had donated more than $100,000 and 29 had donated over
$250,000 for a grand total of over 50 million dollars!
That kind of "giving" by parishioners might well be the envy of many
other churches.
It has always been difficult for outsiders to ascertain certain
information about Scientology, because of the secrecy of the
organization about its financial and membership statistics, and the
tendency of the organization to inflate or deflate those statistics to
their advantage.
For example, as far back as 1978, Scientology claimed to have
5,437,000 members internationally. For the past ten years they have been
claiming to have 6 million members around the globe. Yet in an internal
church memo released this year, Scientologists were told that the
membership of the church was twenty five thousand, and they were
exhorted to work to increase that figure by a factor of four so that the
church could have 100,000 members.
Conversely, the church has systematically underreported its income
and assets; however, reports from defecting members have provided some
clues as to Scientology's finances.
In the September 1981 issue of Reader's Digest it was
reported that at that time Scientology was grossing $100 million a year,
a figure substantiated by courtroom testimony a year later in which a
recent defector from Scientology reported that the church was grossing 2
million dollars a week. It was also reported that the church in
Clearwater alone was grossing a million dollars per week, and that the
staff was put on a diet of rice and beans when this quota was not met.
The same court testimony produced the information that at least 100
million dollars had been illegally smuggled out of the country and
stashed in various foreign accounts in Lichtenstein and Luxembourg. And
Forbes magazine in 1986 reported the net worth of the church at
that time as 400 million dollars.
Scientologists, especially those working as "staff," are constantly
under pressure to increase the flow of funds into the organization. An
example of this is what one writer has dubbed "the billion dollar