Yes. It's an applied religious philosophy that started with Dianetics in 1950, which was and is a self help thing that has the goal of reviewing past incidents to resolve the traumas and decision therein. In 1953, the founder, Hubbard, intro'd the spiritual element into Scientology and created the Church of Scientology. In the 60s he got deeply into space opera and also created a religious order where people work 7 days a week, every week, lead an institutional lifestyle and who sign billion year contracts. The conditions there are disgusting. He was getting quite power mad by this point. He continued to create new Scientology processes (counselling routines) by which a person could become (my wording) self actualized and tap their inner potential. He borrowed a lot of his ideas (and then adapted them) from Hinduism, Buddhism and occultism- though most Church of Scn members don't know about that last one and those who do know about it don't want to mention it. Bad PR, you see. Hubbard died in the early 80s and a coup was staged by the current church chairman of the board, David Miscavige, a very controversial and toxic person. Over the years, the church of Scn has become more and more toxic and cultlike. They exert a lot of control over members' lives and the deeper the person immerses him or herself into the church, the more this escalates. People have actually been barred from leaving and have been coerced into having abortions they did not want. This is mainly true of church Sea Org staff- which are the ones who sign the contract I mentioned earlier. Not all church staff are Sea Org but it's not so hot for other staff, either. There is a movement to offer Scientology services outside the church of Scientology. I know many who are active in that. They do not have the church's blessing- they are harassed, in fact, by the church. But it is a fact that not all Scientologists are members of the Church of Scientology. Some people like the ideas and don't want to ditch them just because they found out that the church was/is as toxic as it has become. Though it is a fact that most people who leave the church do end up ditching the ideology, as well. I know lots of folks who did that, too.