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THE HISTORY OF SCIENTOLOGY’S EXPANSION
In this respect, L. Ron Hubbard’s technology has taken an even greater prominence in areas long plagued by ethnic discord. Nineteen ninety-seven brought the opening of a new Scientology mission in Memphis, Tennessee, through which its sponsors resolved to bridge racial differences in that city. From newly liberated southern African nations to feuding Balkan States to the teething democracies of former Soviet republics to Latin American communities in the firing line of violent drug lords, the expansion of Dianetics and Scientology represents a constant, growing voice for tolerance and sanity among people, no matter their seemingly unresolvable conflicts.
Nineteen ninety-seven represented a major leap in worldwide recognition of this and other truths about Scientology. In June, the Church of Scientology launched an historic international crusade to expose and dismantle the long-ingrained false premises upon which the walls of conflict are built. Some of the most destructive thinking of the late twentieth century – commonly accepted and seldom inspected lies perpetrated throughout society, such as “You’re just a piece of meat,” “Man is a stimulus-response animal,” “IQ can’t be improved” and “People can’t change” —were exposed on television, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and bus-shelter posters and on an expanded Scientology Web site on the Internet. Through this crusade, L. Ron Hubbard’s workable solutions to life’s problems were brought to the homes of millions of people each day – first in North America, then expanding to Europe – in the form of the broad release of his basic books and a new introductory Personal Efficiency Course.
By 1997, Scientology was available in more than 120 countries. And at the Flag Land Base alone, more than 1 million auditing sessions were provided. And every five minutes of every day, a new person started his first service in a Scientology mission.
But however great the numbers become – the new preclears and auditors sitting down for their first session, the new readers picking up their first copies of Dianetics – the story of Scientology expansion is still a simple one: Having discovered that L. Ron Hubbard’s technology works, people make it known to others.
 
More statistical facts about Scientology
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