What do Scientologists do in Society?

Implicit in the Scientology worldview is a mandate to employ the truths of Scientology to uplift Mankind. Consequently, as Scientology grows, so too the humanitarian programs Scientologists support. Those programs now include:

• The world’s largest nongovernmental anti-drug campaign, reaching tens of millions of at-risk youth each year;
• The establishment of drug rehabilitation centers in more than 40 nations;
• The world’s largest nongovernmental human rights public information campaign, broadly promoting the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
• Global education programs bringing the gift of literacy to tens of millions of students in America, Europe, Asia and Africa;
• A Way to Happiness movement spanning 135 nations, uplifting populations and restoring the brotherhood of Man.
• The Scientology Volunteer Minister program bringing emergency relief to more than 10 million people at every major disaster site through the last twenty years.

Additionally, through the Citizens Commission on Human Rights Scientologists have further spotlighted and worked to outlaw the enforced drugging of schoolchildren, the psychiatric brutalities of electric shock and lobotomy, and biological warfare experiments.

Finally, the Church was among the original champions of the Freedom of Information Actand other access laws to protect the public interest and end government human rights abuses.

In conclusion, then, the Church of Scientology and Scientologists work in alignment with the Aims of Scientology and the dream of 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.”

What is the Church of Scientology?

The Church of Scientology was established in 1954. Today its more than 6,000 churches, missions, related organizations, groups and activities span the globe and minister the religion to more than eight million people in 159 countries in over 66 languages.

The rapid emergence of the Scientology religion within the world’s changing spiritual community has led many to ask what kind of religion it is, how it compares with other faiths and in what ways it is different. What is its understanding of a Supreme Being and the spiritual aspects of life which transcend the temporal world? What social and community work is done by Scientology Church members and how do these activities relate to the greater religious purpose of the Scientology belief?

This volume provides answers to these and other such questions about the Scientology religion and its members. In it, leading scholars provide diverse and insightful perspectives into Scientology, resulting in a unique and comprehensive overview of the religion.

The goal of the Scientology religion is to achieve complete certainty of one's spiritual existence, one's relationship to the Supreme Being, and his role in eternity. In this regard, countless authorities have affirmed that Scientology sits squarely within the tradition of the world's major religions.

Tim Bowles: Idealism in Action

As you read this page, untold millions on five continents are attempting to scratch out a subsistence living, many unsuccessfully, deprived of their basic human rights.

A trip to Africa in 2005 changed Tim Bowles’ life.

“When I arrived in Ghana, it was like coming home,” he says. “I knew I had to do something to help.”

Bowles, an attorney specializing in constitutional law, was in Africa to assist with the Youth for Human Rights International World Tour. Decades of gruesome civil wars have decimated wide regions of sub-Sahara Africa. Of the worst 20 countries in the 2004 Human Development Index, 19 are in Africa.

The wars dismantled the infrastructure, displaced entire villages, and destroyed livelihoods. The result: Widespread poverty and disease.

Bowles was so taken with the youth he met in Africa, and so moved by what they had been through, that he decided to take on the challenge personally.

Dedicated to making a real difference, Bowles returned to the continent the following year to launch a unique initiative. In coordination with a corps of young human rights activists he met there in 2005, each eager to bring about reform in his or her country, he developed the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign, under the banner of Youth for Human Rights. The Campaign has grown to provide young African men and women the training and experience they need to play key roles in creating and sustaining just and prosperous societies over the coming crucial decades.

In friendly competition with each other, teams of high school students generate and conduct public awareness campaigns on human rights abuses they select, based on the articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including human trafficking, access to justice and government corruption. They first learn leadership, organizational and communication skills—including public speaking and videography—to present their points of view effectively. In the course of conducting their campaigns through contact with media, a broad range of public and private sector leaders and the general public, the program enables students to become meaningful participants in their respective nation’s social, political and cultural advancement.

“The many remarkably bright young people with whom I have worked since 2005 are determined not to fall into the patterns of hatred to which many of their elders succumbed,” says Bowles.

Over the past six years, Bowles and his team of Youth for Human Rights program directors in Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone—and more recently Togo and Ethiopia—have trained nearly 700 youth in more than 150 schools, formed over 300 local human rights groups, and educated some 15,000 high school and junior high school students on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their own responsibility in seeing that these rights are honored.

Bowles’ original decision to enter law followed a trip to India in 1973 where he first confronted the plight of the millions who live in poverty, deprived of human rights. He studied and practiced constitutional law to ensure the rights of others, including his church, were protected.

“I saw law as a helping profession,” says Bowles, “one that would provide knowledge and skills to help improve social conditions and advance worthy causes.”

The African Human Rights Leadership Campaign brings him full circle with this original purpose, as it is a means to improve the lives of millions. By empowering this and future generations with an understanding of their rights and responsibilities, the Campaign seeks to bring peace and prosperity in regions torn by hatred.

In the video From the Ruins: African Human Rights Leadership, Boersen Hinneh, Youth for Human Rights program director for Liberia, expresses the core concept of the program: “It’s about teaching young people about their basic human rights and responsibilities. And that is the key issue—responsibility. When young people have been exposed to so much violence I think there is a need that they learn their basic rights and responsibilities so that when they get older they will know how to treat their fellow citizens, their fellow man, equally.”

A Scientologist since 1975, Bowles says Scientology has enabled him to envision and pursue this purpose.

“I have gained the ability and willingness to confront and deal effectively with enormous challenges,” he says. “It has helped me conceive of doing seemingly impossible things and actually do them. Scientology, by its philosophical foundations, its tools, and the examples it sets through members’ actions, is an inspiration, a support and a means to my achieving my role in civilization’s advance.”

To learn more about what Scientologists are doing to create a better world, watch "Meet a Scientologist" videos at www.Scientology.org.

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The popular “Meet a Scientologist“ profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.

A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own YouTube Video Channel. The Official Scientology YouTube Channel has now been viewed by millions of visitors.

ANTI-DRUG A DRUG EDUCATION AND PREVENTION CAMPAIGN ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Every 12 seconds another school-age child experiments with illicit drugs for the first time—a grim reminder of just how pervasive drug abuse is among young people.

To combat this epidemic, the Church of Scientology sponsors the largest nongovernmental anti-drug information and prevention campaign on Earth. It has been conclusively proven that when young people are provided with the truth about drugs—factual information on what drugs are and what they do—usage rates drop commensurately. By statistical survey, the Drug-Free World Campaign has thus far prevented some 500,000 young people from recreational drug use…or worse.

There is still, however, much more to be done. Thus, the Church of Scientology offers its publications (which neither contain nor advocate any Scientology beliefs) to like-minded anti-drug coalitions, government institutions, civic groups and schools. These materials include The Truth About Drugs series of 13 educational booklets—covering the major “drugs of choice” and presented in a straightforward manner to educate young people on their actual effects.

There is also a study guide, activities manual and an educator’s classroom kit. These provide teachers, law enforcement and community groups with effective tools to educate youth and enable them to make correct decisions about drugs.

Finally, there is the newly released 90-minute documentary to accompany and complement The Truth About Drugs series of booklets. Each film chapter offers an in-depth look at an individual drug, as told by those who survived addiction.

In all, the Drug-Free World Campaign represents an enormous stride toward raising a generation who will remain free from the ravages of drug abuse.

SUPERBIKE LEGEND KEITH CODE, FREEDOM AT 160 MPH

| GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA • FEBRUARY 20, 2011 |

A name synonymous with success and speed, racing instructor and Superbike School founder Keith Code takes pride in the champions he’s trained and the lives he’s saved from drug abuse and addiction. His profile is one of 200 “Meet a Scientologist” videos available on the Scientology website at www.Scientology.org.

Having trained more than 150,000 motorbike riders over the last 35 years, racing instructor Keith Code has virtually defined “skill” in motorbike racing. His video on Scientology.org captures the speed and excitement of his work.

Code has authored numerous books on motorbike racing, and his Superbike Schools, now operating in 13 countries, have helped more than 50 students become national and world champions.

Racing bikes since he was 16, there was a point Code nearly gave up the sport—and everything else for that matter.

“It was the 1960s. I abused drugs for six years. By 1968, that landed me in the hospital. It was time for a change,” says Code.

He knew it was either drugs or his dream—and, likely, his life. It was one thing to make the decision and another thing to make it stick. He didn’t expect it to be easy to pull it off.

“A friend of mine was into Scientology,” he says. “I could see he was getting things together. I certainly needed help and thought maybe this could do the trick.”

Code took the Scientology Communication Course.

“It was probably the first time I had been aware of my surroundings in about five years,” he says. “The course opened up a crack in an otherwise-closed door to my aspirations and dreams.”

Continuing his studies and Scientology spiritual counseling, his dreams kept coming true. Personally, professionally, in every aspect of his life—Scientology helped him attain a level of energy, vitality and awareness far beyond the chemical “high” he had sought from drugs.

Code got back into racing and winning again.

Then, while taking a course at his Church in the technology of study, he came upon something that gave his life new direction. L. Ron Hubbard had isolated the barriers to learning any subject. Code could use this technology to help people understand the basics of motorcycle riding. Hubbard had also broken down the subject of study into simple parts. Why not do the same for the subject Code knew best?

In 1976, Code began training motorbike riders with new motorbike riding and racing techniques he had developed. It worked. He retired from superbike racing in 1979 to devote himself to this new career.

Having nearly lost everything through his own abuse of heroin and other drugs in the 1960s before finding Scientology, Code has championed another field as well. Active for more than 40 years in drug prevention and education, he is a role model to those he meets and trains on a personal basis, and as the spokesperson for Foundation for a Drug-Free World, a drug education and prevention initiative supported by the Church of Scientology and a host of other groups and organizations internationally.

At the top of a field he adores, and married to his soul mate, Judy, for the last 40 years, the Glendale, California-based motorbike mentor lives the life of his dreams. Through Scientology, Code has accomplished, in fact, the freedom and joy of living that motorbikes symbolized for him when he began riding half a century ago.

View the Keith Code video at Scientology.org.

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The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.

A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own official YouTube Video Channel, which has now been viewed by millions of visitors.

THE HEALING TOUCH OF BYRON YAN

Finding happiness was a struggle for Byron Yan—until he found Scientology. His profile is one of 200 “Meet a Scientologist” videos available on the Scientology website atwww.Scientology.org.

The grin on Byron Yan’s face in his “Meet a Scientologist” video on www.Scientology.orgmakes it hard to believe he used to feel depressed. But happiness was a struggle—until he found Scientology.

Despite a highly rewarding career as a Shiatsu practitioner—a traditional hands-on therapy that originated in Japan—Yan was not a happy man. He entered the field to help others, but the help he really needed eluded him.

Yan’s first inkling that Scientology could offer a solution was the change he saw in a friend—a colleague who seemed more stable and calm after he enrolled on a course at the Church of Scientology of Johannesburg, South Africa.

“I got the idea I may have found something I could use as well,” Yan says.

He then learned that another fellow South African was training as a Dianetics auditor—a spiritual counselor, from Latin audire, “to hear or listen.” This friend offered him a Dianetics session, and Yan agreed.

“He helped me with the most upsetting incident in my life—the death of a family member,” says the 29-year-old. ”It was really hard to confront, but he got me through it and that session changed my life. Before, I couldn’t think about the incident without enormous grief. Through Dianetics I gained relief.”

The results of this auditing have impacted his entire life.

“Things are much easier,” he says. “I don’t have the baggage and upsets I used to have. Life just flows. Scientology has certainly changed my life.”

Watch Byron’s video at www.Scientology.org.