Scientology had a giddy and playful air in the mid-seventies. It was seen as a cool, boutique religion, aimed especially toward the needs of artists and entertainers. The counterculture was still thriving, and Scientology both was a part of it and stood apart from it.
Anyone interested in Scientology I highly recommend Tory Magoo's videos on YouTube. She was a high ranking member of the organization for decades and has really piercing and fascinating insight into how it all works. She talks about the techniques used to maintain control, and how the language guides members towards agreement with the beliefs. One thing I found really fascinating in her videos was the explanation of what they call "Study Tech". When someone expresses doubt about a teaching, they are instructed to research, to an extreme degree, the etymology of the words in the text. This distracts the person from rational evaluation and disagreement and convinces them that it's their own failure, that they misunderstand the text rather than the text simply not making sense. They also use acronyms for everything which is a common tactic for halting thought - you no longer hear the meaning of the words but only hear a symbol, like "SP", which strikes you unconsciously and bypasses the usual language and reasoning circuits. Before founding Scientology, Hubbard had studied occultism where using letters as a subconscious symbol system is a key technique for affecting one's mind.