Spiritualism vs Scientology?

Question

Are these 2 religions the same thing? I am having trouble seeing the differences?

any help will be greatly appriciated ( its for my religions class)

Answer 1

Spiritualism:1. The belief that the dead communiacte with the living. 2. Any philosophy, doctrine, or religion emphasing the spiritual rather than the material.
Definition #2 obviously applies. However this is a general catagory.
You can definitely say that Scientology is a spiritual religion, but
that doesn't really tell you what it is. It just puts it into a general catagory. It doesn't make it the same as the general, or any other specific examples in the catagory of spiritualism.
Here is a factual description of what it is specifically which may help you with your religion class:
Scientology is an applied religious philosophy. When I say "applied" I mean you actually use it in your life to change or improve existing conditions. It is a very practical religion.
All religions if you learn about them have a basic philosphy, but they also have certain dogma, rituals and observances, and a certain faith or belief is required. There is nothing wrong with this, but Scientology is not that kind of religion. It does not intrude on anyones faiths of beliefs in the area of God , the Supreme Being, or the Infinite. This area is left totally up to the indivdual. It does not conflict.
You can have no specific religious beliefs and still benefit from it.
And it is only true for you according to your own observation and experience with it.
It is also not a messianic religion. This means there is no worship of messiahs in Scientology.
The dictionary definition that applies:
Religion: The spiritual or emotional attitude of one who recognises the existence of superhuman power or powers.

The most basic principle of Scientology is that YOU are your own immortal soul, that this is not a "thing" you HAVE but what YOU actually are.
The whole purpose of Scientology is to increase an individual's understanding and awareness of himself. and life and thereby his native abilities .
When you do this the sphere and zone of his positive influence increases and moves outward into his life, his family ,his friends, his groups and mankind which he is part of.

How this result is achieved is the "technology" of Scientology, which was developed by L.Ron Hubbard after his extensive research and the discoveries he made, about the human spirit. The basic religious philosophy and knowledge of Scientology is very old, going back 10,000 years at least to the Veda or Vedic Hymns from the East. L. Ron Hubbard researched and made new discoveries about the human spirit. He developed technology from these discoveries to apply to increase spiritual awareness and ability.
He completed his research before his death in 1986 and left all of his results and copyrights
to the Church of Scientology along with most of his considerable personal estate, when he died.

He published a book in 1951 to communicate the basic principles he discovered called: " Scientology The Fundementals of Thought"
There are currently over 10 million Scientologists in more than 163 countries world wide. However we are a new religion, only 53 years old.
The true story of Scientology as a religion goes like this:
1. A philosopher developes a philosophy about life and death.
2. People find it interesting.
3. People find it works.
4. People pass it along to others.
5. It grows.

This is just an overview.
L. Ron Hubbard explained fully the theology and technologies of Scientology in more than 500,000 pages of writings, including dozens of books and over 2,000 tape-recorded public lectures.

Answer 2

Religion is defined as that which deals with the supernatural (God, Supreme Being, Creator, the spirit or the soul). Theology is another subject entirely and means "study of God(s)" Since Scientology is about you as a spiritual being, it is very much a religion. Spiritualism means that which deals with the spirit.

Answer 3

Spiritualism is a broad term which can mean just about anything.

Scientology is arguably not a religion. Scientologists call it "an applied religious philosophy" but Scientology teaches no theology. It is more of a psycho-babel self improvement regime.

Answer 4

Well, the biggest difference I notice right away is that, in Spiritualism, we live one mortal life and then ascend to a higher spiritual plane. According to Scientology, humans are really "Thetans", eternal beings that survive the body and mind. Basically they believe in reincarnation, that we reside in several bodies but since the bodies are only "houses" for our true selves, we don't actually die when our bodies die.

Answer 5

http://www.xenu.net/
contains all the information you need about scientology, which is a BUSINESS, not a religion, and has nothing to do with spiritualism.

It's an evil cult designed to make money and nothing else . Its effects on believers are destructive.

Read "the road to xenu" - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/ - an account of a girl who escaped scientology after 12 years!

The cult's core belief - no, I am not kidding here!

"The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 5,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck."

Answer 6

from what little i know of both religions, spiritualism believes in spirits that control the universe and you, and scientology believes that alians will come to earth and share technology or something like that

Answer 7

It seems like you have a drastic misunderstanding of what Scientology is. Try wikipedia or google.

Answer 8

Scientology is just opinion and so is spiritualism. No valid govorning bodies named these areas in question.