Scientology Press Office

The Scientology wedding service, performed by a Church minister, is similar in protocol to weddings in other American or European churches, with the bridal procession, the traditional roles of the bride's father and best man, and the time-honored seating of the respective families and friends. The essence of the Scientology wedding service includes the traditional vows of loyalty and devotion. Yet, while a Scientology wedding consists of elements and aims similar to those of other denominations, there are several aspects unique to a Scientology wedding.

Scientology wedding vows are not simply about pledging one's care for the other individual thorough thick and thin, good times and bad, till death do us part. Although that is certainly part of it, the ceremony's concentration is on the very factors that can ensure a successful relationship.

As Scientology is a practical religion, and the information learned in it is for the improvement of conditions in one's life, that focus on practical application toward the objective of ever-improving conditions in one's marriage is reflected in the ceremony itself. To wit, the ceremony's introduction of fundamental principles of the Scientology religion: Every effort is made not only to show the couple support, but also to build upon their agreement for the union with an invitation to friends and family in attendance at the ceremony to contribute to that agreement. That agreement is then reinforced with practical advice for maintaining a strong and lasting marriage through its countless challenges.

Thus, there is a predominant or guiding principle for a Scientology marriage. It's called "ARC" (pronounced "A-R-C"), an acronym for Affinity, Reality and Communication – the component parts of Understanding. As understanding is the keystone of human relations, the ARC Triangle, as it is called, is one of the most fundamental principles of Scientology.

The essentials of understanding are best described in the following essay by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

THE A-R-C TRIANGLE

There are three factors in Scientology which are of the utmost importance in handling life. These three factors answer the questions: How should I talk to people? How can I give new ideas to people? How can I find what people are thinking about? How can I handle my work better?

We call these three factors in Scientology the A-R-C triangle. It is called a triangle because it has three related points. The first of these points is affinity. The second of these points is reality. The third of these points and the most important is communication.

These three factors are related. By affinity we mean emotional response. We mean the feeling of affection or lack of it, of emotion or misemotion^* connected with life. By reality we mean the solid objects, the real things of life. By communication we mean an interchange of ideas between two people. Without affinity there is no reality or communication. Without reality there is no affinity or communication. Without communication there is neither affinity nor reality. Now, these are sweeping statements but are nevertheless very valuable and are true.

Have you ever tried to talk to an angry man? An angry man's communication is at a level of misemotion which repels all people from him. Therefore his communication factor is very low, even though very loud. He is attempting to destroy something or some other person, therefore his reality is very poor. Very likely what he is being angry about apparently is not what has made him mad. An angry man is not truthful. Thus it could be said that his reality, even on the subject he is attempting to voice, is poor.

There must be good affinity (which is to say affection) between two people before they are very real to each other (and reality must here be used as a gradient, with some things being more real than other things). There must be good affinity between two people before they can talk together with any truth or confidence. Before two people can be real to each other there must be some communication between them. They must at least see each other, which is in itself a form of communication. Before two people can feel any affinity for each other they must, to some degree, be real.

These three terms are interdependent one upon the other, and when one drops the other two drop also. When one rises the other two rise also. It is only necessary to improve one corner of this very valuable triangle in Scientology in order to improve the remaining two corners. It is only necessary to improve two corners of the triangle to improve the third.

That with which we agree tends to be more real than that with which we do not agree. There is a definite coordination between agreement and reality. Those things are real which we agree are real. Those things are not real which we agree are not real. On those things upon which we disagree we have very little reality.

How do you talk to a man then? You establish reality by finding something with which you both agree. Then you attempt to maintain as high an affinity level as possible by knowing there is something you can like about him. And you are then able to talk with him. If you do not have the first two conditions it is fairly certain that the third condition will not be present, which is to say, you will not be able to talk to him easily.

Application

This is about the most important data I have ever run across in the field of interpersonal relations.

You can take any group of men working on a project and take one look at the foreman and the men and tell whether or not these people are in communication with one another. If they aren't, they are not working as a coordinated team. They are not in communication, perhaps, because they are not agreed on what they are doing.

All you have to do is take the group, put them together and say, "What are you guys doing?" You don't ask the foreman, you ask the whole group and the foreman, "What are you guys doing?"

One fellow says, "I'm earning forty dollars a week. That's what I am doing." Another one says, "Well, I'm glad to get out of the house every day. The old woman's pretty bothersome." Another one says, "As a matter of fact, I occasionally get to drive the truck over there and I like to drive the truck, and I'll put up with the rest of this stuff. I drive the truck, and I've got to work anyhow." Another man might say, if he were being honest, "I'm staying on this job because I hate this dog that you've got here as a foreman. If I can devote my life to making him miserable, boy, that makes me happy. I really lead him a dog's life, too."

All this time you thought that those men thought they were grading a road. Not one of them thought they were grading a road. You thought they were building a road. Not one of them was building a road; not one of them was even grading.

This crew may be unhappy and inefficient, but you get them together and you say, "Well, you know, someday a lot of cars will go over this road. Maybe they'll wreck themselves occasionally and so forth, but a lot of cars will go over this road. You boys are building a road. It's a pretty hard job, but somebody's got to do it. A lot of people will thank you boys for having built this road. I know you don't care anything about that, but that's really what we are doing around here. Now, I'd like a few suggestions from you people about how we could build this road a little bit better." All of a sudden the whole crew is building a road. Affinity, reality and communication go right up.

The reason this works is that every point on the A-R-C triangle is dependent on the other two, and every two are dependent on one. One can rehabilitate any point on the triangle by rehabilitating any other point on it.

The Scientology religion has grown from one book published in 1950 — Dianetics — to a worldwide religious movement with more than 7,000 churches, missions and groups in 163 countries. It has expanded more in the last five years than in its preceding fifty. In the last year, the number of people entering Scientology churches for their first services increased four-fold internationally.

What makes Scientology the subject of such intense interest?

The appeal of Scientology lies in its effectiveness in providing answers to people throughout the world — real answers, answers that work. Traditionally, all religions lay a path to salvation, but Scientology's emphasis is on its application to life's problems in the here and now — from its use in reviving deteriorating relationships and marriages to ending drug abuse and addiction, from its guidance in raising free-thinking but responsible children to developing a certainty of our own immortality.

^*misemotion: anything that is unpleasant emotion such as antagonism, anger, fear, grief, apathy or death feeling.

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