According to Osho, Scientology is a pseudo-religion—'utter bullshit'—that hypnotizes people by exploiting science’s prestige, gadgets, and advertising. It reduces spirituality to measurable mind-states, while real religion is dehypnosis: dropping ideologies, going beyond mind and measurement into silent, innocent interiority. He says it harms minds and thrives in the modern gap left by discredited old religions.
He says Scientology is fake and hypnotic; real spirituality is waking up from all such ideas and finding quiet inside, not chasing gadgets or 'scientific' proofs.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF SCIENTOLOGY? Aida, it is fantastic...I mean bullshit, utter bullshit! Be aware of such stupid things. They move in the world in the name of science because science has credit, so any kind of stupidity can pretend to be scientific. And people are very much impressed by words: 'scientology'. People are very much impressed by shining gadgets, instruments.... Man is so unaware and unconscious of himself that he falls a victim to anything! You just need to propagate it, advertise it -- and our century has the most efficient media to advertise, to propagate things. Scientology is nothing but a kind of hypnosis -- it can hypnotize you. And real religion is just the opposite: it is dehypnosis. You are already hypnotized, you don't need any scientology anymore.
Osho, is this also a science? Science—the supreme science! But ordinarily, in relation to religion, it is understood to be belief, faith. In my view, that is a misunderstanding. To me, religion too is another kind of knowing. And whatever principles religion has have issued from someone’s knowing, not from someone’s belief. Therefore my constant emphasis is: do not believe—try to know; and the day you know, believe that day. The acceptance that comes through knowing is called shraddha—trust; and the acceptance that comes without knowing is called belief. Shraddha is the ultimate state of knowi
Therefore, when I have said, “Do not believe in transmigration, do not believe in reincarnation,” it does not mean I am saying that transmigration does not exist. It also does not mean I am saying that reincarnation does not exist. I am saying only this: once you believe, the search stops. Try to know. And knowing happens only when right doubt is present. If you assume the opposite, even then doubt disappears. If I assume that there is no reincarnation, the search stops. If I assume that there is reincarnation, the search stops. Search is in suspension. I know neither that it is, nor that it is not. So I set out to find what is, so that I may know it. I take a religious person to be the deepest of inquirers; there is no search deeper than that. But those whom we ordinarily call religious, I do not…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, CAN SCIENCE ITSELF BE RELIGIOUS? There is no God, so we don't have to be worried about proving the existence of God. Nobody has been able to prove it. Thousands of theologians and philosophers wasted their life in proving the existence of God. Strange -- even his existence is not proved, and you are searching for somebody whose existence has not been proved in thousands of years. You are praying to somebody who is not even a hypothesis. We don't have any God. We don't have any heaven and hell. We don't have our sannyasins walking on water and.... So there is no way to have a dispute with us. We are simply inquirers going deeper into our silence, into our joy, into our blessings -- which are our birthright. Now, joy needs no proof. Or do you think it needs any proof?
Osho, how would you like your bold experiment to be under scientific scrutiny? Also, is there any particular method of meditation useful for treatment of a particular type of mental illness?
Science HAS ITS OWN LIMITATIONS. I am ready, I can invite scientists to come here to watch what is happening. They are welcome. But they will not be able to know the real thing that is happening here. They will only be able to know the body of it, they will miss the soul -- their very methodology prevents it. Just like if you ask the scientist, "Please watch this roseflower, it is so beautiful" -- he can analyse the roseflower, he can reduce it to its constituents. He can tell you how much water is in it, and how much colour and how much perfume, and how much earth and how much air. He can tell you everything that comes within HIS vision, that which he can catch hold of by his methodology. But his methodology is limited. He will not be able to catch hold of the beauty…
Osho, are you against all the religions? What is their most fundamental mistake?
We have come very late; there was nobody present as an eyewitness. And there is no way for us to separate ourselves completely from existence and become just an observer. We live, we breathe, we exist with existence -- we cannot separate ourselves from it. The moment we are separate, we are dead. And without being separate, just a watcher, with no involvement, with no attachment, you cannot know the ultimate mystery; hence it is impossible. There will remain something always unknowable. Yes, it can be felt, but it cannot be known. Perhaps it can be experienced in different ways -- not like knowledge. You fall in love -- can you say you know love? It seems to be a totally different phenomenon. You feel it. If you try to know it, perhaps it will evaporate in your hands. You cannot reduce it to knowing. You cannot make it an…