Download Bryan Ronald Wilson

Bryan Ronald Wilson
Bryan Ronald Wilson is the Reader Emeritus in Sociology in the University of
Oxford. From 1963 to 1993, he was also a Fellow of All Souls College, and in
1993 was elected an Emeritus Fellow.
For more than forty years, he has conducted research into minority religious
movements in Britain and overseas (in the United States, Ghana, Kenya,
Belgium and Japan, among other places). His work has involved reading the
publications of these movements and, wherever possible, associating with
their members in their meetings, services, and homes. It has also entailed
sustained attention to, and critical appraisal of, the works of other scholars.
He holds the Degrees of B.Sc. (Econ) and Ph.D. of the University of London
and the M.A. of the University of Oxford. In 1984, the University of Oxford
recognized the value of his published work by conferring upon him the
Degree of D.Litt. In 1992, the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium,
awarded him the degree of Doctor Honoris Cauca. In 1994, he was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy.
At various times he has held the following additional appointments:
Commonwealth Fund Fellow (Harkness Foundation) at the University
of California, Berkeley, United States, 1957-8;
Visiting Professor, University of Ghana, 1964;
Fellow of the American Counsel of Learned Societies, at the University
of California, Berkeley, United States, 1966-7;
Research Consultant for the Sociology of Religion to the University of
Padua, Italy, 1968-72;
Visiting Fellow of The Japan Society, 1975;
Visiting Professor, The Catholic university of Louvain, Belgium 1976;
1982; 1986; 1993;
Snider Visiting Professor, University of Toronto, Canada, 1978;
Visiting Professor in the Sociology of Religion, and Consultant for
Religious Studies to the Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, 1980-1;
Scott visiting Fellow, Ormond College, University of Melbourne,
Australia, 1981;
Visiting Professor, University of Queensland, Australia, 1986
Distinguished visiting Professor, University of California, Santa
Barbara, California, U.S.A., 1987;
For the years 1971-5, he was President of the Conference Internationale
de Sociologie Religieuse (the world-wide organization for the discipline);
in 1991 he was elected Honorary President of this organization now renamed as Société internationals de Sociologic des Religions.
Council Member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (U.S.A.)
1977-9;
For several years, European Associate Editor, Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion;
For six years, Joint Editor of The Annual Review of the Social Science of
Religion.
He has lectured on minority religious movements extensively in Britain,
Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan, and the United States, and occasionally
in Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
He has been called as an expert witness on sects in courts in Britain, the
Netherlands, New Zealand and South Africa and has provided evidence on
affidavit for courts in Australia and in France. He has also been called upon to
give expert written evidence on religious movements for the Parliamentary
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Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.
Among other works, he has published nine books devoted in whole or in
part to minority religious movements:
Sects and Society: the Sociology of Three Religious
Groups in Britain, London; Heinemann and Berkeley; University of
California Press, 1961; reprinted, Westport, Conn., U.S.A. ; Greenwood
Press, 1978)
Patterns of Sectarianism (edited) London: Heinemann, 1967
Religious Sects, London Weidenfeld and Nicholson; New York: McGraw
Hill, 1970 (also published in translation in French, German, Spanish,
Swedish and Japanese).
Magic and the Millennium,
York Harper and Row, 1073
London:
Heinemann,
and
New
Contemporary Transformations of Religion, London Oxford University
Press, 1976 (also published in translation in Italian and Japanese)
The Social Impacts of the New Religious Movements (edited) New York
Rose of Sharon Press, 1981
Religion in Sociological Perspective, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1982 (also
published in translation in Italians Japanese translation in preparation)
The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990
A Time to Chant: the Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain, (with K. Dobbelaere)
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994 (Japanese translation in preparation)
He has also contributed more than twenty-five articles on minority religious
movements to edited works and learned journals in Britain, the United
States, Prance, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Japan.
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1.
The Church of Scientology as a new religion. The Church of
Scientology is one of a number of new religious movements which embrace
in certain respects some of the trends evident in contemporary western
society. It employs language which is contemporary, colloquial, and
unmystical; and it presents its dogmas as matters of objective fact. Its
conception of salvation has both a proximate and an ultimate dimension.
The wide appeal that it has commanded among the public of advanced
countries of the western world has made it a focus of attention among
sociologists who specialize in the study of contemporary minority religions,
of whom I am one.
2.
My knowledge of Scientology. I began to read the literature of the
Church of Scientology in 1968, and at one time even projected a study of the
movement. Although I did not finally undertake that work, I continued to
maintain an interest in Scientology and its literature. Since that time, I have
maintained contact with the movement in Britain, visiting the Church's
headquarters at Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, U.K., on several occasions,
and becoming acquainted with scientologists. I have continued to take a
close interest in the development of the religion as one among a number of
contemporary religions that are objects of interest to me as a sociologist. I
have read, among other material of a more ephemeral nature, more than
twenty of the Church's official publications, most of them the writings of the
founder, L. Ron Hubbard. In works that I have written on new religions, I
have referred to scientology on various occasions, and included a short
account of this religion in my book Religious Sects, (London, Weidenfeld and
Now York, McGraw Hill, 1970), and a longer discussion in my more recent
work, The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism, (Oxford: Clarendon Press.
1990). I have maintained my academic interest in the movement for the last
twenty-six years.
3.
Esoteric elements in Scientology. Whilst most of the teachings and
rituals of most religions are exoteric, some religions, Christian and nonChristian, embrace both exoteric and esoteric aspects. The teachings of
Scientology may be divided into those met forth in a widely circulated
exoteric literature, which is concerned principally with offering practical
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assistance to people to cope with their problems of communication,
relationships, and the maintenance of intelligent, rational, and positive
orientations to life, and teachings which are expounded in a restricted corpus
of what may be called esoteric literature. This esoteric literature is made
available only to advanced students of scientology. It presents the
metaphysics of the religion. It sets out the theory of the theta (primal thought
or spirit); its deterioration by becoming involved in the material universe of
matter, energy, space and time in the process of past lives; and indicates the
way in which man can acquire – strictly said, re-gain – supernatural abilities.
It is in this literature that the elements of the belief-system of Scientology are
presented, and these ideas are couched in terms closer to theories current in
other religious movements than are those aspects presented in the exoteric
literature of the movement.
4.
Esoteric aspects of Christianity. Within the Christian gospel there are
intimations of secret or undisclosed teachings which are suitable only for
those well-advanced in the faith. Jesus told his disciples, "I have many
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John 16:12), and
Paul distinguished between strong meat for seasoned believers and milk
for babes (I Corinthians 3:1-3), and this theme was reiterated by the writer
of the epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 5:12-14).
5.
Gnosticisn. The Gnostic tradition in Christianity, which appears in the
lot and 2nd centuries, and which has been described by one authority as a
"world-wide movement" (in the then known world), arose in the belief in the
validity of esoteric teachings and an esoteric literature. Various sects arose,
some claiming a secret tradition of special knowledge derived from the
apostles and the secret Sayings of Jesus. Typically, "spiritual man", who were
held to have received a divine spark of spiritual substance, might, by the
application of the gnosis (knowledge) and appropriate rites, be rescued from
the evil material environment. Thus, knowledge was held to have redemptive
power, liberating the soul from cosmic forces. The secret teachings of the
Gnostics maintained that this material world was not the creation of God, but
of an inferior demiurge; man in his true nature was akin to the divine, a spark
of heavenly light entrapped in a material body. Whilst Gnosticism was
subsequently anathematized by the Christian fathers, it is conceded that lot
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Century Christianity was at least partly gnostic in spirit and belief.
6.
Contemporary “gnostic” sects. The gnostic tradition has persisted in
Christendom, and a number of quasi-religious bodies, such as the
Rosicrucians of the 17th Century and their various off-shoots, such as
Freemasonry, have, within a broadly religious and spiritual context,
maintained a body of esoteric teachings and practices. A more recent and
more explicitly religious example, one of various so-called New Thought
movements, is Christian Science, which alongside exoteric literature also
maintains a tradition of esoteric instruction. The general teachings are
augmented for those who seek to become advanced students, or who wish to
undertake the profession of Christian Science practitioner, by a system of
class-instruction from a teacher recognized by The Mother Church in Boston,
Massachusetts. The material used in these classes is strictly confidential.
Teachers normally forbid students to take notes or to burn any notes that are
used. Whilst Christian scientists are taught to regard the textbook, Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures by the founder of the Church, Mary
Baker Eddy, as containing a full statement of truth, none the lose, the tradition
of special additional instruction itself goes back to Mrs. Eddy's own practice.
There are also in circulation and use among Christian Scientists, certain
prayers and protective utterances (protective, that is, from the baleful
influences of "malicious animal magnetism") which are highly regarded but
which are not part of the exoteric literature.
7.
Reserved teachings and practices. Apart from the exoteric elements in
gnostic sects, some other Christian groups engage in rituals and cultivate
teachings which are not immediately made available to non-members. The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints admits to its special ritual
ceremonies only those Mormons who are in good standing and who receive
a permit from their bishop, which indicates, inter alia, that they have been
fulfilling their commitment to tithe ten per cent of their earnings to the
church; no others are allowed to attend these ritual occasions. Closer to the
Protestant mainstream, some Pentecostalist sects disclose the full
significance of their teaching and practice of "the gifts of the Spirit" only at
designated services and not at those evangelistic meetings designed to
attract a non-Pentecostal public. Whilst the teachings relative to the gifts,
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which are the raison d'etre of separate Pentecostal sects, are by no means
secret, many pastors consider it inappropriate to confront outsiders and
potential converts with these distinctive doctrines and practices at the outset
of their acquaintance with the movement. The Pauline principle prevails of
reserving "strong meat" for those more advanced in faith.
8.
Esotericism in non-Christian Religions: Judaism. Religious mysticism
is a natural location for esoteric teaching, and the Jewish mystic tradition, the
Kabbala (Cabala), exemplifies this. Jewish mysticism can be traced back to at
least the lot Century, when eschatological, messianic, and apocalyptic
influences were strong. Closed circles formed among the pupils of Rabbi
Johanan ben Zakkai, and mystical studies, Pardee, covered the literal,
allegorical, and mystical methods of biblical interpretation. The study of the
Kabbala ("tradition") was open only to adepts who underwent rigorous
mystical discipline, seeking to behold the divine presence and to learn the
secrets of creation and the time of the coming of the messiah. Kabbalistic
teachings of En Soph, the hidden god, spread among Jews in Europe from the
9th to the 13th century, reaching a climax in the appearance of a book of
mysteries, the Zohar. Although the Zohar was published in 1558-60, with
subsequent translations, its mystical content remains fully accessible only to
adepts and this, despite the popularization of mystical teachings and rituals
in the doctrines of Hasidism in eighteenth century Europe.
9.
Esotericism in non-Christian Religions: Buddhism. Although the
Gautama Buddha is depicted in Pali Buddhism as taking pride in the fact that
he kept nothing hidden in so far as knowledge conducive to salvation was
concerned, some schools of Buddhism, conspicuously Tantric Buddhism and,
in Japan, Shingon, evolved esoteric teachings. k central idea of the Tantric
school is the distinction between the initiated and uninitiated, and
correspondingly between esoteric and exoteric teachings. In Tantricism, the
really efficacious methods of salvation are not available from books, but they
are taught by a spiritual instructor—a guru. The guru stands in the place of
the Buddha and translates the secrets and mysteries of doctrine. He gathers
around him initiates, and outsiders are regarded as lacking the special
knowledge for salvation. Without ritual initiation one cannot begin spiritual
training, or learn the use of sacred mantras, dance gestures, and occult rituals
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for the control of the mind and the body that is necessary to attain salvation.
The system of meditation is a graduated sequence of learning through which
the practitioner eventually acquires the facility of becoming one with a deity.
Tantric ideas informed the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism, which
teaches exclusively esoteric doctrines, using mantras and for that reason
being known as the vehicle of the True Words. Enlightenment is attainable
only by esoteric rituals and by chanting secret mantras, the meanings of
which are transmitted by masters to disciples and not revealed to ordinary
followers. Exoteric teachings are regarded as inferior, since only secret
teachings reveal the heart of the cosmos and enable the believer to draw on
higher power. The founder of this school, Robo Daishi, (774-935) developed a
philosophy which ranked all the then known religions on a ten-point scale,
with esoteric Buddhism as the pinnacle.
10.
Esotericism as an educational principle. The concept of the esoteric in
religion may, in a democratic age, evoke unwarranted assumptions
concerning the content of undisclosed teachings. In practice, religious systems
which maintain a distinction between freely published and reserved doctrines
conform to a broad educational principle of not exposing to advanced ideas
those who have not yet demonstrated their mastery of elementary principles.
The distinction seeks to avoid the circumstance in which those new in faith
acquire ill-digested ideas before they have mastered the necessary groundwork to perceive them properly and to accord them appropriate respect.
Scientology operates according to an analogous principle. The practice of
auditing in designed to help the person being audited (the pre-clear) to cope
with past traumatic experiences. initially, a pre-clear is concerned with his
current day-to-day problems, but beyond such issues he is gradually led to
search for and confront causes of distress and inadequacy which go back to
his early life. Once the problems arising in this lifetime are confronted, the
amnesia which has shrouded recollection of untoward events in previous
lifetimes is lifted. Scientologists believe that the lifetimes of the thetan go back
millions of years, and that, in the course of that time, various incidents
inducing totally baleful effects may have occurred as the thetan became
injured by becoming entrapped by the material universe. Before the
individual has learned to confront his own more recent traumatic experiences,
he is unable to cope with items such as these. Even to allude to them might be
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profoundly disturbing. while to the outsider, reference to episodes occurring
so far back in time might appear wholly arcane, to introduce them
prematurely to the Scientology student, before he is ready to review them,
would be profoundly upsetting and disruptive of his progress in attaining the
enlightened consciousness towards which all his endeavours are directed. In
consequence of the graduated nature of this system of learning and therapy,
Scientologists feel it to be not only justified but imperative that they reserve
their advanced materials to the use only of those who can benefit from them.
Given this day, 26th of November, 1994, in Oxford, England
(signed)
Bryan Ronald Wilson
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