tayrup70 asked this question on 4/24/2000:

I just read where Dianetics is published in over 50 languages! Wow! How many countries are the services administered? There must be hundreds! Even if only one person in each country became a scientologist a day that would make thousands of scientologists a week. I never knew how fast the movement was spreading!

desertphile gave this response on 4/24/2000:

Greetings. There are 466 churches, missions, and groups worldwide. Membership estimates are generally around from 50,000 to 70,000 world-wide, but it's impossible to say for sure. That would be 150 members per building on average. Most Orgs and Missions are much smaller, but the Headquarters in Clearwater and Los Angeles can boast several hundred--- perhaps as many as 600 or 700. That membership seems to have been decreasing over the last five or six years.

(Note: Those figures do not include the Free Zone.)

What does it matter how many Scientologists there are? Is there a popularity contest going on?

Further reading about Dianetics:

Atack, Jon. A Piece of Blue Sky : Scientology, Dianetics, and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed (New York, NY: Carol Pub. Group, 1990).

Gardner, Martin. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957), chapter 22.

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