| NOMBRE DE SCIENTOLOGUES | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endroit | Nombre revendiqué | Chiffre réel | ||
| Canada | 15,000 à 20,000 (2010) | 1,525 (Statistiques Canada, 2001) | ||
| Québec | 1,000 (2007) | 300 (Statistiques Canada, 2001) | ||
| Ville de Québec | 350 (2008) | 20 (Statistiques Canada, 2001) | ||
| États-Unis | 3,500,000 (2007) | 25,000 (ARIS, 2008) | ||
| Angleterre et
Pays de Galles
| 118,000 (2004) | 1,781 (Recensement de 2001) | ||
| Irlande | 500 (2009) | Moins de 400 (2008) | ||
| Australie | 250,000 (2009) | 2,500 (Recensement de 2006) | ||
How can we account for this 100:1 disparity? The Church’s president, Heber Jentzsch, let slip on a radio programme in 1992 that the Church of Scientology claims as a member every single person who has ever taken even an introductory Scientology course since the Church was founded in 1954. Even leaving aside all those “members” who must now be dead, is this really membership? But ten million makes the Church of Scientology sound a great deal more significant than 100,000.Ainsi, dans la logique scientologue, avoir acheté La Dianétique en 1972 - et l'avoir jeté aux poubelles aussitôt - fait de vous un scientologue à vie.
As social psychologist Carol Tavris told me, “Every therapy produces enthusiastic testimonials because of the justification-of-effort effect. Anyone who invests time and money and effort in a therapy will say it helped. Scientology might have helped Isaac Hayes, just as psychoanalysis and bungee jumping might have helped others, but that doesn’t mean the intervention was the reason. To know if there is anything special about Scientology, you need to do controlled studies—randomly assigning people to Scientology or a control group (or a different therapy) for the same problem.” To my knowledge, no such study has been conducted. The real science behind Scientology seems to be an understanding of the very human need, as social animals, to be part of a supportive group—and the willingness of people to pay handsomely for it.
