Etymology and Earlier Usage
The word Scientology is a pairing of the Latin word scientia ("knowledge", "skill"), which comes from the verb scīre ("to know"), and the Greek λόγος lógos ("word" or "account ").
Scientology, as coined by L. Ron Hubbard, comes from the Latin scio, which means "knowing, in the fullest meaning of the word" and the Greek word logos, which means "study of". Scientology is further defined as "the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes, and other life."
In 1901, Allen Upward coined Scientology "as a disparaging term, to indicate a blind, unthinking acceptance of scientific doctrine" according to the Internet Sacred Text Archive as quoted in the preface to Forgotten Books' recent edition of Upward's book, The New Word: On the meaning of the word Idealist. Continuing to quote, the publisher writes "I'm not aware of any evidence that Hubbard knew of this fairly obscure book."
In 1934, philosopher Anastasius Nordenholz published a book that used the term to mean "science of science". It is also uncertain whether Hubbard was aware of this prior usage of the word.
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