Church of Scientology of London

I'm coming for you. 

Beautiful building, and very friendly, helpful staff.  Large bookstore of Mr. Hubbard's works is very impressive too!

The main recruiting centre for the cult of Scientology in London, the tacky and ostentatious design is a transparent attempt to woo the visitor with Scientology's opulence.. Despite all of L Ron Hubbard and Scientology's claims for "Dianetics", not one single independent scientific study has ever shown any of its claims to be true, or any more than a giant scam designed to exploit money from those unfortunate enough to be seduced by its wild promises of perfect health and "total control over Matter, Energy, Space and Time".

This centre also offers "free introductory stress tests", part of a process called 'auditing', courses of which are offered for varying degrees of money. This is a form of 'psychotherapy' performed by people who are not trained in psychology or counselling, and are not members of any professional psychological or counselling organisation. It involves aspects of hypnotism, social pressure and conditioning, though the church states that it is not psychotherapy. Auditing costs a lot of money. After some years of auditing, at great expense, one might reach an 'advanced level' known as OT III. Here you are told that the cause of your (and everyone's) problems was that the world is full of the souls of space aliens murdered 75 million years ago. The alien galactic ruler Xenu was in charge of Earth and 75 other planets in this part of the galaxy some 75 million years ago and cured overpopulation by paralysing the people of the other planets, flying them to Earth in DC-8 space planes, arranged them round a volcano to murder them with H bombs. These souls of murdered people were gathered up and boxed, taken to cinemas and shown films for several days. The end result was that the souls clustered together and now inhabit people in their thousands. Scientology will help 'clear' you of this, at great expense. Sounds ludicrous? Well it's true. Check it out for yourself.

The book 'Dianetics' is full of unscientific nonsense with no supporting empirical evidence that has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals. The American Psychological Association denounced it as such. The language is deliberately complex to baffle and impress the average reader. Most would consider it unreadable.

The author was actually a science fiction writer, who saw that he could make more money by inventing a new religion - Hubbard stated: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion". Scientology has been exposed by many independent Judges and Governments, and by the press (famously by Time magazine, 1991), most recently in a fraud conviction in France, and as the subject of a parliamentary enquiry in Australia. Scientology or its practices has been banned on and off in many countries and states. However, in order to silence its critics the it issues legal procedings citing copyright infringement against journalists, newpapers and websites that reveal negative information about Scientology.

As for the author, Hubbard the (Australian) Report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology (Victoria) stated that "expert psychiatric witnesses" were of the opinion that Hubbard's writings indicated "symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia of long standing with delusions of grandeur" and came to the conclusion that Hubbard's "sanity was to be gravely doubted." Hubbard claims to have visited Venus, the Van Allen Radiation belt, and heaven (twice). Hubbard wrote the fair game policy - that anyone critical of scientology is fair game for abuse including violence. You can find his sci-fi books on Amazon - and science fiction is exactly what Scientology is. Hubbard claimed to have a Ph.D. from "Sequoia University" - a residential dwelling in Los Angeles which operated through a post office box and delivered mail order doctorates without exams, or attendance... Hubbard had no qualifications in psychology, counselling, psychotherapy, theology, or philosophy.

In short, steer clear unless you have a desire to be parted from your money and quite possibly your family and sanity.

Beautiful Victorian 6-storey building in the City of London which includes a permanent free Dianetics and Scientology exhibition.