Sixty years ago, a man named Lafayette Ronald Hubbard founded a religion that, to this day, has caused much controversy. With 500,000 members in 8,000 churches spread across 164 countries, the church has grown slowly but surely since its formation. (Scientology.) The religion is based on a novel by Hubbard called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. They believe that about 75 million years ago, an evil alien warlord named Xenu banished 13.5 trillion aliens to Earth, and the souls of those aliens have attached themselves to humans ever since. (Rowley) While this may seem rather ridiculous, there are a fair number of people who are members of the church and wholeheartedly believe every word that is said to them. According to Hubbard, an energy in his "spiritual universe", called Theta, created the physical universe. He states that souls, called thetans, are all parts of the spiritual universe. These thetans inhabit human bodies, and when their human body dies, they simply move on to a different one. Hubbard states that an engram is a bad thought or feeling and that engrams from previous lives are the cause of physical and mental illnesses in current lives. The only way to eliminate these engrams, according to this ridiculous theory, is to undergo a series of “tests” called auditing. The more times a Scientologist undergoes auditing, the higher the level he or she can reach. When he reaches the level of "Operating Thetan", he is believed to be able to send his thetan out of the physical body to control matter, energy, space, time, thought and life. (The Beliefs and Teachings of Scientology) The ultimate goal of Scientology is called “The Bridge to Total Freedom”. ... middle of paper ... work, which would collect telephone complaints in relation to cults for one reason or another and Scientology has acquired more complaints than any other organization. However suspicious, Scientology later took over the network and now runs it. Coincidentally there are no more complaints related to Scientology. (Behar) As Michael Shermer said: “In my opinion, if Scientology is not a cult, then nothing is a cult and the word has no meaning.” (Is Scientology a cult?) After seeing countless evidence piled up against this so-called "church", it still has many unfortunate followers. The deceptive nature of Scientology is problematic for society and must be stopped as soon as possible. It's simply a dangerous, greedy, illogical cult that just wants to get more money and doesn't care who they have to hurt to get it. Scientology must be stopped.