This book - Scientology: The Fundamentals Of Thought is excellent beginning book on Scientology.                     HOW DID SCIENTOLOGY START? Scientology started as a movement in 1950 when its founder published a book called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Dianetics is a study of how the mind works and what is it about the mind that adversely affects a person. Dianetics is about the mind that resides within the cells of the body. This mind does not hold memories but rather recordings, and they can, depending on content, compel a person to do things he does not want to otherwise do when under pressure. For example, who has ever hurt a person one loved when upset? All the human race has. These recordings come about when a person is unconscious and in pain. Mostly they come about when the body is building itself during pregnancy, or during surgery, illness or when drugged. The subject of Dianetics explains how a person transfers the mental images from the cells of the body - which is called the REACTIVE MIND in Dianetics - to the ANALYTICAL MIND. When done, the reactive mind has no further damaging control over the person. The end result is a mental state called CLEAR. The research was by the founder of Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard. After 1950 however, his work was not over. While there were soon hundreds of groups around the world using Dianetics, there were calls to see if there were higher states of being that could be attained. And there were higher states, and a new subject name was given to this study and this was Scientology. Dianetics was first defined as through-mind. Scientology was first defined as study-of-knowledge. Mr. Hubbard's research found that man was not just a life-force that resided within the body, but that he had major memory banks, and that these memory banks went back long before he was born, yes, well into previous lifetimes, and that Scientology could also exteriorize the life-force from the body, at will. With Scientology a person could develop very spiritual abilities. He could exteriorize from his body. That is Scientology. And, there was more. But for the moment, this is enough to give a good answer to the above question. Check out the related sites. But more importantly, borrow or buy a book on the subject, and read it. Make up your own mind once informed.