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Scientology: More than a cult?

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The book Scientology: More Than A Cult? by L. Kin provides the reader with a true insider's look at the world of Scientology. Kin, which is actually an assumed name under which this former Scientologist writes, aims to inform the reader about the philosophical ideology of Scientology as well as the various pitfalls the movement has encountered throughout its history. Although the writer sometimes seems credulous, his book does provide a broad, yet succinct understanding of the basics of Scientology and gives anecdotal evidence that is easy for the reader to understand and associate with. He truly lets the reader form his or her own impressions of the unique "philosophy" of Scientology with relatively little input and narration.
From the get go, this book is jam-packed with information. While this is necessary in order to fully understand the topic, the reader could be easily overwhelmed with the technical jargon of Scientology. Also, the content was greatly condensed, but considering the massive amount of L. Ron Hubbard's (Creator of Scientology) actual writings - approximately eight books, five thousand pages of technical bulletins, and "about two thousand policy letters acting as organizational instructions to the CofS (Church of Scientology) and filling ten volumes of 450 pages each" - I believe that any book on this topic would most certainly exude the same qualities.
"Part One" of the book mainly explores the historical aspect of Scientology. It does a good job of giving the reader the big picture, including several interesting facts such as how Scientology originally started under the name "Dianetics" (which was also the name of Hubbard's first book in the series). It frames the whole Scientologist movement within the historical context of the time period (mainly the 1940s-1980s), and gives insightful commentary on how Hubbard's urgency to write and release his books ("Dianetics", a 400 page book, was written in only 6 weeks) may have been exacerbated by the Cold War. Kin believes that "simply: he wanted to win the race against the atom bomb...A poignant quotation dating from 1952 sums it up: 'My purpose is to bring a barbarism out of the mud it thinks conceived it and to form, here on Earth, a civilization based on human understanding, not violence'" (Kin 19).
Kin progresses from the basic principles of what a "Part One" sub-heading defines as "A New View of Man" to the inner workings of the Church of Scientology. This is where Kin offers the bulk of his personal commentary, but seeing as he is a former member, he is able to offer great insight about how the Church of Scientology started to deviate away from Hubbard's ideology and began to develop into its own separate entity. He explains how one of the essential processes of the Church of Scientology, a process called auditing, dramatically morphed over the years: The "raw man-to-man approach of Book One ("Dianetics") auditing gave way to an unwavering rigidity. Auditing stopped being the solution-finding dialogue between two people and was turned into a ritualistic exercise, an application of rote procedures to all and sundry" (53). It is this kind of insight that truly defines this work of literature - anyone can sum up the history and ideology of Scientology, but only a select few such as L. Kin can offer the reader this unique view of the happenings within the Scientology movement.
"Part Two" of the book expands on the section "A New View of Man". It goes into great detail the process of auditing, the laws and mechanisms of "charge" (a central idea to Scientology, defined as a sort of 'mental tension' which can be eliminated by auditing), bridge theory, the concept of being "Clear" and "OT", the concept of theta (basically 'thought'), game theory, frustration scales, emotional tone scales, the ARC triangle (ARC stands for affinity, reality, and communication), the Scientological definition of postulates, the concept of Mental MEST (Mental Matter, Energy, Space, and Time) and much, much more. I personally found this to be the least interesting if the two main "parts", mainly because Kin had already so eloquently summarized most of the points discussed here back in "Part One". However, I found his descriptions of the ARC triangle and of the frustration scales to be riveting; without this section of the book, I don't think that I would have a full comprehension of the topic at hand, so even though this "part" maybe slightly redundant, it is just as important as the previous "part".
One puzzling problem that I discovered while reading this book is that there are several typos and sometimes Kin utilizes strange syntax, which can detract from the book at times. This really isn't a huge problem, but it signals to me that as a reader, I need to verify the information presented in this book because Kin is an assumed name and even though he claims to have been a member of the Church of Scientology, I have absolutely no proof of his credibility. Looking at the publishing information may give insight as to why there are typos and strange sentence structure in the book - the first printing in 1991 was published by VAP Publishers of Wiesbaden, Germany. I may be completely incorrect about this, but I believe its possible that these problems are originally caused by either translation errors or possibly that the editors aren't primarily English speakers, which would account for both the grammatical errors as well as the strange syntax.
Overall, Kin presents the reader with all of the tools needed to truly understand the mindset behind Scientology. Even though I did catch myself having to reread sentences and passages several times over in order to fully understand them, I definitely give Kin the benefit of the doubt because he tries his hardest to present the extremely technical language of Scientology (when I say extreme, I mean it in every essence of the word) in a way that is understandable for the common individual. I would definitely recommend this work to anyone wishing to understand more about Scientology; it is a great starting point for a person that has never studied Scientology before, and it offers a great amount of insight that will help the reader form a fuller, deeper understanding of Scientology.

This is a great rendition on Scientology. It will provide you with a quick grasp of the history, development and the main tenants of this science. The techniques are explained in great detail. The analogies are very good and convey very well. In contrast, R. L. Hubbard's books are not written in a coherent style. Concepts and techniques are not always fully explained and the author shifts his audience and topics without warning between the reader, the pc and the auditor. This is probably deliberate to create dependence on the CofS. The only books you need to read are Scientology: More than a Cult and Dianetics. If you are going to audit, then read Scientology: A Handbook for Use, by L. Kin.