Scientology's Science Fiction Story

I like classic science fiction stories. I know the science in them is outdated, and that can be amusing sometimes, but I like the way the foreign contexts throw the moral of the stories into sharp relief. Of course I also realise I am reading fiction. Here's a science fiction story in which the fiction part seems to have been lost on some people...

Scientology is based on the belief that 75 million years ago an evil intergalactic ruler named Xenu was concerned about the mass over-population of the universe. Consequently he massacred the populations of 76 planets, froze them, and transported them to earth. On earth he put them into volcanoes and exploded them with atom bombs. However their souls or spirits - called Thetans - were blown apart and left to hover about looking for new bodies to inhabit. Thetans can move into and out of bodies at will, and now inhabit human beings. A Thetan is thus the Scientologists term for the spirit of a person.

But there's more...
Thetans have been compulsively recording intergalactic history for several quadrillion years. Each time a Thetan inhabits a new person they bring with them all the history they have recorded. This means a person has all the memories of previous lifetimes - including lives on other planets and in other galaxies. During the course of these lifetimes evil forces implant people with engrams (motivations to hurt others), or overts (undisclosed actions). In order to become a "Clear", that is one clear of implants, a person needs to be "audited" until they reach the stage of a Top Level Operating Thetan. Auditing involves being connected to a slightly modified lie detector and being asked questions while an auditor takes notes.

A Top Level Operating Thetan is considered to be a spiritually liberated person who is no longer trapped by past life memories or implants. Such people are said to have the ability to make things disappear using the power of their minds. Scientology calls this "as-isness".

Where did these ideas come from?

Scientology was founded by L.Ron Hubbard. In his extremely well-researched book The Bare Faced Messiah Ron Miller outlines Hubbard's life and beliefs. Hubbard was a pulp fiction writer in the 1930s who then turned to also writing science fiction. He published a story in Astounding Science Fiction in 1938 entitled The Dangerous Dimension - a tale of using the power of the mind to achieve teleportation. He also wrote an unsuccessful novel called Excalibur, based on the concept that survival explains all human behaviour. Hubbard said this book would have a greater impact on people than the Bible. He continued to write science fiction and received some acclaim from within the genre. However in the 1940s he met up with a scientist named Jack Parsons, moved into his large home, and became a serious practitioner of satanism and hypnosis. The pair later fell out over money and Hubbard moved on.

In 1950 he published Dianetics - which he called "a science of the mind". Noted psychologist Rollo May dismissed it as a mixture of psychotherapy and hypnosis. However it gained popularity until serious conclusions began to be drawn about both Hubbard and his claims - including that of the FBI who stated on file that Hubbard was "a mental case". The Dianetics Foundation filed for bankruptcy in 1952. Hubbard then invented his cosmology and the idea that people needed to be "audited" to become "operating Thetans". In 1954 he began the Church of Scientology in California. He decided to call it a church as he observed the success of Billy Graham's evangelistic crusades and the rising popularity of Christianity at that time. In 1963 Hubbard claimed he had visited heaven twice - 42 and 43 trillion years ago - and that it had a bank, bistro and newspapers. In 1965 the Australian Board of Inquiry into Scientology concluded that Hubbard's personality strongly indicated paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur, and gravely doubted his sanity.

The 1970s were the declining years as Hubbard went into hiding due to being wanted by the FBI for master-minding the burglary of government offices and theft of government documents - an operation he dubbed "Snow White". He was continually in hiding and disappeared in 1980. His death from a stroke was reported in 1986. Perhaps the greatest science fiction claim Hubbard ever made was that he could "as-is" an atom bomb - that he could make it disappear just by thinking about it.

The true story...

Scientology is obviously a mixture of science fiction and the occult. One of the main concerns about Scientology is the type of mind control that is exerted over its adherents. "Auditors" take on a powerful role, "exposing" motives and intentions and "undisclosed actions" that a person has no awareness of. This has the effect of another person taking on the role of being some-one's conscience. Many people over the years have reported how fearful they were as Scientologists, because they wondered if they had unwittingly thought something they shouldn't have, or were being influenced by memories they didn't know they had. The mind control is further consolidated by the use of hypnotic techniques - repetitive words and actions a person must perform in order to reprogram themselves. Added to all this are the claims of evil beings implanting people without their knowledge. Scientology never explains the origin of these beings, or the origin of Xenu, the intergalactic warlord so central to their dogma.

One of the most useful tools for looking at a belief system is to look at the founder or originator. We have seen that Hubbard was not only engaged in occultic practices directly opposed to biblical teaching, but there were also serious concerns about his mental stability. Hubbard himself tried to demote the importance of God by stating that "Jesus Christ was not an operating Thetan according to the evidence". This is true as there is no such thing as an operating Thetan. Scientology is yet another cultic belief system that promises secret knowledge. For a price. The higher one progresses in Scientology, the greater the finacial cost involved. At the highest level the cost is reportedly US$360,000. This is in stark contrast to the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ - which is freely given. Scientology also promotes a jumbled form of reincarnation and removes personal responsibility to God. Adherents try to please their "auditor" and the church, both of which become central and consuming in their lives. The promised pay-off is increased power - over one's health, success, other people, and objects. It is mind control dressed up in pseudo-technical language. It is science fiction.

The most comprehensive and well-researched set of resources explaining and exposing Scientology on-line is here at Operation Clambake.