OK, hold on to your hat!
This is cobbled together from several answers to similar questions in the past:
Let's start with a scientology sub-study, dianetics:
The really short version is:
Past events create current problems.
Examining the past events promotes understanding of why one (over)reacts to various current environmental stressors.
Understanding and propertly evaluating decisions made under pain and stress relieves the knee jerk reactions to current situations and frees one up to respond rationally.
The decisions build up on each other, and tracing back the chain of similar events and finding and evaluating the earliest one puts things in their proper perspective.
It takes an outside person to talk with to keep one on track to finding the earliest event, as the events themselves contain painful experiences and unconciousness that can easily cause one to quit before they reach the begining of the problem.
That's really just about all there is to it.
It goes a bit further in that one can have ALL the painful experiences moved into the light of day and be freed up from their influence.
This is the state of "Clear" - a name derived from clearing a calculator of all the previous answers before starting a new calculation.
A second answer:
Scientology grew out of Dianetics. Dianetics is a form of psychotherapy (although they would never call it that!) based on the belief that current ills are caused by past trauma, and traumatic incidents build on earlier similar incidents.
It works pretty well.
Fairly early on, Dianetics ran into a major problem: going back on a chain of incidents to an earlier similar incident often ended up with events that clearly didn't happen during this lifetime.
Now what? Either they are imaginary incidents, or they are real.
Insisting that they were imaginary caused most clients to relapse, lose any gains they may have derived by talking about these incidents. This clearly isn't in the best interests of either the client or the practitioner.
OK, so they must (!) be real. From accepting this premise it is immediately obvious that something survives this mortal coil. Scientology evolved to address the needs of this spiritual being, which Hubbard and The Church call a 'Thetan' a name derived from the Greek letter theta, an early symbol for life (For a while the Earth Day crowd was using theta for everything- much to the amusement of scientology true believers)
Scientology has any number of 'processes' designed to increase a thetan's spiritual ability. The lower level processes do provide some degree of improvement, notably in one's ability to perceive what is actually there, rather than just seeing what one expects to see. There is also an notable increase in ability to just 'be there' comfortably, even in situations that used to cause significant distress.
HOWEVER, Scientology is also an organization, with a strong survival instinct, and a very paranoid view of any outsiders.
Upper levels of scientology tend more and more towards making one dependent on the church, and actually blind one to some of the discontinuities in what the church says as opposed to what the church does.
The church used to have a 'Fair Game Policy' that stated that any former member of the church who bad mouthed it was fair game for any attack, legal or otherwise.
That policy has been rescinded as a policy but not as a practice.
Scientology will viciously attack anyone who publicly says anything bad about them. The have what? Hundreds of millions? Billions? to put anyone's life under an electron microscope one sliver at a time, and tie them up in legal battles for centuries, if need be.
And people wonder why the Hollywood press is sooooo quiet???
And a third answer:
More seriously, there are a lot of workable techniques for improving one's abilities to just be there, and relieving upsets from the past. Some of the administrative policies are very effective. The "study tech" is pretty good.
Hubbard spent quite a bit of time exploring other practices for things that worked. "Discovered" them, and organized them in an eclectic system that has something for everyone.
He tried very hard to take personal credit for everything he borrowed from elsewhere, and wanted to be known as "Source" for all "the Tech" to the exclusion of all other entities.
Finally a fourth answer:
Man is basically good. Evil happens because old unexamined memories of traumatic incidents and the related decisions are stored in the "reactive mind" and they kick in on a subconscious level and force people to respond in ways not appropriate to the current environment.
By reliving these events and examining them in session the old unexamined decisions are re-evaluated and placed in context, where they can be used -or not- by the "analytical mind" to make rational decisions about how to relate to the present situation.
When ALL the traumatic events one has ever experienced are are examined and refiled appropriately the person has attained the state of "Clear".
That's Dianetics.
Scientology grew out of Dianetics, as it was found most people when being asked to find earlier related traumatic incidents (more recent incidents owe their power to the older incidents they are built on) they found things that clearly didn't happen in their current lifetime.
Now what? Denying the client's truth that these events happened made them worse. Accept them at face value, and the client gets better.
The conclusion must be that they are real.
Therefore, Man is an immortal spiritual being, and that puts Scientology's ball firmly in the religion court.
Dianetics concerns itself with reducing/eliminating disabilities.
Scientology concerns itself with increasing/creating abilities.
At lower levels, where most practitioners are, this is simple drills to increase ones skills at observing what is going on around them, being comfortable in stressful interpersonal situations, techniques for improved learning, etc.
I can honestly recommend all these lower levels to most anyone.
BUT, the upper levels (OT-III and above) are pernicious at best.
This is where the inner circle gets exposed to the big secrets, all that Xenu stuff and other entities stuck to the body.
99% of the scientologist you are apt to meet are blissfully ignorant of what happens on the upper levels, they just have a vague idea that there are really bad things that happened on the "time track" and they require very special exacting and expensive handling.
The people you meet have seen and tasted the bait, the lower level stuff that actually did make positive changes in their lives. They are in a supportive community that shares a dream of a planet without war insanity and crime, a "Clear Planet".
For the most part, by the time someone gets to the trap part, they have bought into it's importances, and continue running it despite its result of leaving them less able to relate to the real world. They convince themselves that they are becoming more spiritual, and less interested in the mundane.
Sorry that it doesn't read easier, I just don't want to re edit and retype the whole thing!
"Fairly early on, Dianetics ran into a major problem: going back on a chain of incidents to an earlier similar incident often ended up with events that clearly didn't happen during this lifetime.
Now what? Either they are imaginary incidents, or they are real.
Insisting that they were imaginary caused most clients to relapse, lose any gains they may have derived by talking about these incidents. This clearly isn't in the best interests of either the client or the practitioner.
OK, so they must (!) be real. From accepting this premise it is immediately obvious that something survives this mortal coil. Scientology evolved to address the needs of this spiritual being, which Hubbard and The Church call a 'Thetan' a name derived from the Greek letter theta, an early symbol for life (For a while the Earth Day crowd was using theta for everything- much to the amusement of scientology true believers)"
Maybe. Or maybe Hubbard wanted people to think that they were delving into past lives as part of his attempt to turn Scientology into a religion. After all, I believe that belief in past lives is one of the reasons why Scientology is considered a religion. BTW, is belief in relincarnation compulsory in Scientology? I've heard that it wasn't
That being the case, do you have any opinion as to whether the recent John Travolta homosexual trysts scandals were actually some form of control from Clearwater for perceived rebellion (perhaps in the wake of the death of his mentally impaired son, who was supposedly "treated" by Scientology practitioners as he was dying) rather than based on some degree of truth?
Beyond that: would a "clear" actually engage in homosexual behavior? Did you hear any policy or theory of homosexuality in the organization?
Placemark.