The spirit or soul unit, called the "thetan" according to Hubbard's terminology, can be compared to similar soul conceptions that became famous during the formation of esoteric movements: The Western strands of Theosophy and Esotericism had already introduced Indian style, "atman"-like concepts of the soul to Western spiritual seekers, and this concept of the soul was enlarged by UFO-related prophets and groups from the early 1950s onward in an inter-planetary style—so-called "star seeds" or "walk-ins" from outer space. Earth is a garden, where these spiritual implants were supposed to grow, to mature, in order to be eligible for further evolution into higher realms. I cannot go into the fascinating details of UFOlogical anthropologies, but I simply want to draw attention to the fact that Hubbard's idea of the person and its role in interstellar history is very, very close to other UFOlogical spiritual movements in the 1950s and later.
25
This UFOlogical connection is explicitly apparent in the foundation myth of Scientology's "Operating Thetan" (OT) anthropology. According to the secret doctrines of Scientology—which are nowadays far from arcane, as information about court trials and other disclosures by former members appear in hundreds of pages on the Internet—there once was a fierce intergalactic ruler named Xenu, who brought millions of thetans to this Earth (which back then carried the name "Teegeack"), and that is how their (i.e., our) life started in this region of the universe ("sector nine"). Amazingly, this story, which forms the central core myth in OT level III initiation teachings,
26 was rewritten by Hubbard as a mere science fiction novel in the late 1970s. As such, it carries the title
Revolt in the Stars, and it has so far not been officially published. Copies of the manuscript circulate every now and then on the Internet. It is an amazing piece and trustworthy in terms of Hubbard's authorship—according to style, phrasing, and content.
27 This oscillation between the production of mythic core
stories and mere fantasy tales is also a characteristic typical of modern esoteric traditions: Helena P. Blavatsky, for example, wrote fantasy tales beside her theosophical disclosures,
28 and Charles Hoy Fort's alternative, anomalistic science in his Book of the Damned (and the three follow-up volumes)
29 inspired fantasy authors like H. P. Lovecraft as well as esoteric seekers. Erich von Daniken, working along Charles Fort's lines, also oscillates between fantasy and fringe historiography/archaeology, and his "Ancient Astronaut" stories have often been often reabsorbed by esoteric and UFO-believing groups.
30 The framework story in Hubbard's
Revolt in the Stars does, by the way, include the idea of a time capsule in the vein of the Ancient Astronauts' scheme.
31
But Scientologists always feel uneasy when compared with or related to UFO-believing groups, especially because many critics dismiss Hubbard for his pulp fiction and science fiction involvements. Far more prestigious for Scientology is the reference to Buddhism mentioned in many publications by Hubbard, as well as in contemporary Scientology books.
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25. For example, "Mrs. Keech" and "Mr. Armstrong" (pseudonyms), of the millennial UFO group in the famous sociopsychological study When Prophecy Fails (1956), had both been involved in Dianetics and Scientology prior to their commitment to this esoteric movement.
26. Robert Kaufman, Inside Scientology (London: Olympia Press, 1972) was among the first (if not the first) to publish a disclosure of this mythic story. Nowadays, even copies of Hubbard's handwritten sheets containing this story are circulating on the Internet.
27. It contains Hubbard's typical imagery of women, an evil psychiatrist, on the other hand "loyal officers," and the usual Star Wars scenario inside a "Galactic Confederation." Compared to other published fictional writings by Hubbard, it appears very genuine. (Probably due to legal reasons, no existing copy could be located via Web searches at the moment.) The story contains the struggle between the intergalactic ruler Xenu and the "loyal officers" who, in the end, manage to overthrow his despotic rule after he murdered all disobedient subjects on the "extermination site" earth by bombing them on volcanoes (cf. esp. chapter 14).
28. Cf. Marco Frenschkowski, "Okkultismus und Phantastik: eine Studie zu ihrem verhaltnis am Beispiel der Helena Petrovna Blavatsky," in: Das Schwarze Geheimnis. Magazinfur unheimliche Literatur 4 (1999): 53-104. Or, take Heinlein's science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land," which in turn inspired the formation of a neo-pagan movement calling itself actually "Church of all Worlds," like the neo-Martian religion in the novel. One could go on to the Star Trek culture, to Heaven's Gate, and the Raelians.
29. Charles Hoy Fort, The Book of the Damned (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1919); the books to follow were New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932). There are several hypertext editions of the books available on the Internet: for example, see http://www.sacred-texts.com/fort (only books 1 and 2), or http://www.resologist.net/ (damnei.htm, landsei.htm, loei.htm and talentei.htm), prepared by a "Fortean" student.
30. Cf. my article " 'Ancient Astronaut' Narrations—A Popular Discourse on Our Religious Past," available online in Marburg Journal of Religion 11, 2006; http://web.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr/; for a slightly revised printed version see Fabula 48 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2007), 205-228.
31. The framework story is located in our time: a strange object ("it might be something from outer space, it might be some archaeological wonder") is found on a U.S. beach, and after investigation it turns out to be a "time capsule" ("seventy-five million years old") containing an audiovisual record of the Xenu story. After listening to the record, the president of the United States denies its existence, pretending it was "just scrap metal."
Grűschloess, A. (2009). Scientology A New Age Religion. In J. R. Lewis (Ed.), Scientology. New York: Oxford University Press.