L Ron Hubbard, the sci-fi writer behind theories of pain and evil
SCIENTOLOGY was the brainchild of science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard and was born out of his theories on the workings of the human mind.
Leaders say pain and evil are caused by experiences from past lives, but can be cured by cleansing therapy sessions.
The ultimate goal is "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights".
A number of well-defined levels of membership can be reached by taking a Scientology-approved course which can cost thousands of pounds.
Among its most unlikely elements are the claims of followers who say they have been taken back 76 billion years, when an overlord named Xenu murdered the population of the galaxy by coaxing them to Earth, imprisoning them in volcanoes and blowing them up with hydrogen bombs.
In 1958, Hubbard published Have You Lived Before? - a book which chronicled the experiences of scientologists in past lives.
These included memories of being "deceived into a love affair with a robot decked out as a beautiful red-haired girl", being run over by a Martian bishop driving a steamroller and being transformed into an intergalactic walrus that fell out of a flying saucer.
