Biography

Donald A. Westbrook (1985-) received his Ph.D. in Religion from Claremont Graduate University in 2015. His dissertation on the history of Scientology was produced with logistical assistance from the Church of Scientology International in Los Angeles and based on formal and informal interviews with dozens of Scientologists across the United States, with the largest number conducted in the Greater Los Angeles Area. As of August 2015, Westbrook has completed ethnographic fieldwork on Scientology in Los Angeles, CA; San Jose, CA; Clearwater, FL; Tampa, FL; New York, NY; Washington, DC; Phoenix, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; Salt Lake City, UT; Florence, KY; Boston, MA; Portland, OR; Bay Head, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; and London and East Grinstead (England). His Scientology monograph is forthcoming and he has written numerous articles and book chapters on the subjects of new religious movements (NRMs) and Middle Eastern Christianity. He has lectured on these topics at universities in the United States, England, Scotland, Belgium, and Estonia, and as of 2015 is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Church History at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA). Westbrook received an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary (2009) and B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley (2006), where he studied as a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholar.

Brief History of Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology traces its founding to Los Angeles (1954), where it was incorporated on the basis of the religious philosophy of writer L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986). Scientology’s intellectual antecedent was Dianetics, which enjoyed grassroots and popular success in the early 1950s as a result of Hubbard’s Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950). The earliest Dianetics centers and Scientology churches of the 1950s were incorporated in the United States, for instance in Elizabeth and Camden, NJ (1953) in addition to Los Angeles, CA (1954). However, by the late 1950s, the church had a significant and growing international presence, in part due to Hubbard’s travels and lectures abroad and the relocation of international Scientology headquarters to London and then East Grinstead (England). By 1967, the locus of Scientology operations shifted again when Hubbard created the Sea Organization (Sea Org), the church’s fraternal order and most senior management body, originally based on ships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In 1975 Hubbard and the founding members of the Sea Org returned to the United States, eventually settling in Clearwater, FL, now home to the second-largest concentration of Scientologists in the world (after the Greater Los Angeles Area). Until his death in 1986, Hubbard continued to develop and systematize the theology and practices of Scientology. After his passing, the administration and oversight of the church has carried on through a number of ecclesiastical entities established in the early 1980s. The most prominent of these is the Religious Technology Center (RTC), which holds the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology and is responsible for the pure and orthodox application of the religion. The head of RTC, and the ecclesiastical leader of Scientology, is David Miscavige (1960-), a second-generation Scientologist who worked with Hubbard and has held numerous other senior positions within the Sea Org.

Source: Donald A. Westbrook, Ph.D.