by Stephanie Durden Edwards

Created on: November 17, 2009   Last Updated: November 19, 2009

As churches go, there are general hallmarks that make the various denominations rather similar to one another. Most churches have some root in the Bible. Most churches center around a single shepherd whose job it is to teach, comfort, and see to the religious development of his flock. Dogma in most churches contains aspects of sin and consequence, damnation and redemption.

The Church of Scientology offers a vastly different religious experience. Many people connect The Church of Scientology with some of its more famous members, including Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, as well as Lisa Marie Presley, Kirstie Alley and musician Brandy. Scientology practices have also fallen under scrutiny in the media in recent years when some of the more famous members makes headlines. Tom Cruise brought the church's teachings that reject psychiatry into focus in a Today Show interview with anchor Matt Lauer. Cruise criticized fellow actress Brooke Shields for taking prescription anti-depressants for post partum depression.

Travolta's religious views were recently dragged into focus after losing his sixteen year old son Jett. While the family was still mourning the sad loss, members of the media speculated over the religion's impact on the personal decisions Travolta and wife, actress Kelly Preston had made concerning the care of their son.

What makes the Church of Scientology such an enigma to most? Perhaps it is the religion's unusual focus on aligning the mind correctly in an attempt to heal the rest of the individual. Scientology claims that it is through cleansing and purifying one's mind and body to reach higher forms of mental enlightenment. Scientologists delineate the makeup of a human being as mind, body and Thetan. A Thetan is an immortal spirit, part of the Universal Life Force called Theta. It is through study and practice that one rids themselves of things standing in the way of becoming enlightened.

Scientology claims that it is through trauma in an individual's life, trauma that occurred as far back as before birth, that wrongdoing stems. Wrongdoing is seen as leaving a place of rational thought and aberrant behavior taking its place. Scientologists work through those traumas to rid themselves of irrational thinking. Audits are conducted to work the individual through the trauma and back into right thinking.

Auditors assist the member through a series of exact questions designed to bring the individual into spiritual enlightenment.

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