The Church of Scientology

An in depth analysis of the church of scientology

to see if it meets the criterion of what is a
discourse community and the problems that arise
within the community.

Johnathon Diaz
7/24/2014





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Discourse communities are a community where a group of people come together to discuss a
certain topic whether it be about religion, philosophy, and/or politics. For a community to be considered
a discourse community it must follow a certain criteria. It has a broadly agreed set of common public
goals. Has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.it uses participatory mechanisms
primarily to provide information and feedback. It utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in
the communicative furtherance of its aims.in addition to owning genres a discourse community has
acquired a specific lexis. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable
degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise. (Swales ,1990,221) and it must meet to what
porters criteria which means it must have intertextuality (Porter,1986,397), which is the building of
knowledge based off others work. With these criteria we have that which creates a discourse
community. Scientology is a discourse community for they meet this criterion.
Scientology has a written out set of public goals it is called the creed of scientology it is a set of
rules and goals that govern their religion.
1. To keep Scientologists, the public and the press accurately informed
concerning Scientology, the world of mental health and society.
2. To use the best I know of Scientology to the best of my ability to help
my family, friends, groups and the world.
3. To refuse to accept for processing and to refuse to accept money
from any preclear or group I feel I cannot honestly help.
4. To decry and do all I can to abolish any and all abuses against life and
Mankind.
5. To expose and help abolish any and all physically damaging practices
in the field of mental health.
6. To help clean up and keep clean the field of mental health. ( Church
of Scientology, 2014, code of Scientology)
They have a public set of goals that they want the followers to abide by, Thus they abide by the
first criterion of a discourse community according to Swales. They have a broad public set of goals that
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they send out in the community. How they go about doing this is through a website and auditing course
that is where they share the goals with its members and out to anyone who wants to join. Again they
are in line with the first criterion of a discourse community.
They have a way of communication amongst its members; one way they do this is they have
churches in which they meet to discuss their beliefs and go through rituals like all religions, They have
books written by the founder of their religion L.Ron Hubbard. They have D.V.D.s, they have Audio
lectures, and they have in person lectures.
With these personal lectures it is a way to give information and feedback amongst the prefects.
The lecturers are there to represent L.Ron Hubbard because after Hubbard would go on book tours,
according to Jeanne of the Church of Scientology. In these lectures in the experience of this author that
it is entirely open forum. They are open forum and they have discussions with the people attending the
lectures. The people who are attending also do communicate and discuss with a certain expertise about
the knowledge that is being shared by the lecturer.
The concept of intertextuality (Porter, 2014,397) is present within the church of scientology
(Porter, 2014,397). The Church of Scientology is built on the concept of Dianetics by Hubbard which is
entirely apart from the church of scientology lore. It was made before the church was officially formed.
It is an outside source that was integrated into the church of scientology. With the book of Dianetics it
itself uses outside sources in order to conduct the research into Dianetics. Dianetics is the belief of the
soul doing things to the body, and to the mind. ( Church of Scientology, 2014, What is
Dianetics?)(Hubbard,1960)
The Genres that incorporate the Church of Scientology are based off the texts. The difference
between the lectures and the books are immensely different. They are different because the lectures
given by the lecturers and the lectures given by L.Ron Hubbard are completely different. That is because
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none of us are the same we have different interpretations of the research. Such genres include the
topics of the books such as Dianetics, the fundamentals of knowledge , and the countless other self help
books written by Hubbard.
Problems arise in all discourse communities though, they can get cocky in their own beliefs, and
they sometimes dont even critically review their own beliefs. Problems arise in all communities in order
for communities to survive they must address the issues in order to become better overall. If a
community does not evolve it will eventually die out. The Puritans, for example, could not fix the issue
of acquiring wealth, with dealing with Christian Church principles of charity, and in the end they
eventually died out. With the Church of Scientology their problem is they do not think there is a problem
within their community. From an outsiders perspective, they are radical conservatives, which is quite
distasteful to most of the general public.
In the interview, that I conducted with the community members of El Paso,(j Sinclair, personal
communication, July 23, 2014) it was stated that the problem is an outside force . They thought nothing
of the problems within their own community but they thought the problem was with people in general.
It is a problem because in order for any idea or any belief system to be continuous they need to evolve
their beliefs to conform with an ever changing view within society.
Ideas are meant to evolve along with the changing views of society. This is how ideas stay alive
in society, the ideas that are able to evolve along with people stay in the discussion and are more
accepted amongst the community, and if they do not confirm to the confines of society then they end
up dying out. This is the issue with more conservative beliefs, they are so strongly held that, they view
the world around them as what is wrong in their community when it is really their own community and
the problems that arises in them which is wrong.
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For them to survive the Church of Scientology must address the problems within their own community.
In order to fix the problem is that they have a more moderate view instead of a highly conservative view
of their religion. They need to be able to moderate the craziness and express a more moderate view of
their beliefs like most religions have. In the analyses of the community there are no moderates. They
believe really strongly and that is their own downfall.
Moderation is key for any type of belief to appeal to the general public. This is the dynamics of
America itself, they are ideologically conservative but fundamentally liberal. Sometimes it can be
appealing, in the real world though, it is not a working way to get the public on board. Ways they can fix
this is have better public relations with the broad public.
In order for scientology to grow they need to realize that they do in turn have problems within
their own community. They need to come up with good ideas to appeal to a broad public. A good idea to
address this would be to tone down the conservative beliefs and come with a more moderate view of
their own beliefs. It would be more appealing as it is in most religions if they toned down the
conservatism.
The church of scientology as proven above is a discourse community. They meet the criterion of
both Swales and porter. They have a broad set of goals, they have a method of communication to
communicate amongst its members, they use participatory methods of communicating and having
feedback amongst its members, it has a numerous amounts of genre and text, they have intertextuality
within its own knowledge which is pulled from other sources, and it is an open forum where the people
who are there learn how to speak as scientologist.
In order for the Church of scientology to survive it must do some introspective thinking about its
own issues. It is the process that most discourse communities must do in order to survive and be
appealing to the general public. They will grow if they address the issues within its own community. The
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radical conservatism is the turnoff with most people who are outside of the community looking in. so
thus; this is the major problem within the community of The Church of Scientology.
















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Works Cited.
Hubbard, L. (n.d.). What is Dianetics?. What is Dianetics?. Retrieved July 24, 2014, from
http://www.scientology.org/faq/background-and-basic-principles/what-is-dianetics.html
Hubbard, L. R. (1950). Dianetics. Los Angeles, Calif.: American St. Hill Organization.
Swales, J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. Writing about Writing (). Boston, Massachusetts
: Cambridge University .
Porter, J. (1986). Intertextuality and the Discourse Community . Writing about Writing (). : Rhetoric
Review.