From: cultxprt@indirect.com (Jeff Jacobsen)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: CofS critique part 7
Date: 25 May 1994 06:29:42 GMT
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                           THE HUBBARD IS BARE        
PART 7
                            by Jeff Jacobsen
                               PO Box 3541
                               Scottsdale, AZ  85271

     copyright 1992 by Jeff Jacobsen
     may be reprinted so long as it is kept in its entirety and not 
     edited.
          
      
     
     
     ALEISTER CROWLEY
     
     
        Hubbard had clear connections to the occult.  Even in the
     first publication of dianetics in "Astounding Science Fiction",
     Hubbard in explaining how he did his "research" into what the
     mind was doing, says he used "automatic writing, speaking and
     clairvoyance"27 to discover what the mind's memory banks were
     doing.  Automatic writing is an occult method of communicating
     with the spirit world, although psychologists consider its
     products to arise from subconscious thoughts of the writer. 
     Whichever is correct, it is hardly a method used by competent
     scientific researchers.
        Hubbard's connection to the occultist Aleister Crowley is
     quite clear and noteworthy.  Crowley called himself the
     Anti-Christ, the Beast of Revelations, and 666.  Russell Miller
     has adequately chronicled Hubbard's connection in 1945 to John W.
     Parsons, who headed Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis chapter in Los
     Angeles.28  Hubbard was an active member in this group for
     several months, and first met his second wife there.  The Church
     of Scientology claims that Hubbard was actually infiltrating this
     group in order to break it up, but the following should suffice
     to dismiss this claim.
        In the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures taped in 1952,
     Hubbard discusses occult magic of the middle ages, and recommends
     a current book - "it's fascinating work in itself, and that's
     work written by Aleister Crowley, the late Aleister Crowley, my
     very good friend."29  The book recommended was The Master
     Therion, (published in London in 1929) later re-released as
     Magick in Theory and Practise.  L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. asserts that
     during the time when the Philadelphia course was given his father
     would read Crowley's works "in preparation for the next day's
     lecture..."30
        There are interesting similarities between Crowley's writings
     and the teachings of Hubbard.  Dianetics' Time Track, in which
     every incident in a person's life is chronologically recorded in
     full in the mind, is quite similar to Crowley's Magical Memory. 
     The Magical Memory is developed over time until "memories of
     childhood reawaken"31 which were previously forgotten, and
     memories of previous incarnations are recalled as well.  Hubbard
     gives examples in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course of several
     people remembering lives earlier on earth, some up to a million
     years ago.  The similarity between the Magical Memory and Time
     Track, then, is that they both can recall every past incident in
     a person's life, they both can recall incidents from past lives,
     and they both must be developed by certain techniques in order to
     make use of them.
        Both Hubbard and Crowley consider it important to have the
     person recall his or her birth.  "Having allowed the mind to
     return for some hundred times to the hour of birth, it should be
     encouraged to endeavour to penetrate beyond that period"32
     (Crowley).  "After twenty runs through birth, the patient
     experienced a recession of all somatics and 'unconsciousness' and
     aberrative content." "Thus there was no inhibition about looking
     earlier than birth for what Dianetics had begun to call
     basic-basic"33  (Hubbard).  
        Both Hubbard and Crowley are avowedly anti-psychiatry. 
     "Official psychoanalysis is therefore committed to upholding a
     fraud... psychoanalysts have misinterpreted life, and announced
     the absurdity that every human being is essentially an
     anti-social, criminal, and insane animal"34 (Crowley).  Hubbard
     considered that psychiatry controlled most of society and was
     struggling to create their own 1984 world.35
        Hubbard36 and Crowley both posit the ability of the person to
     leave his or her body at times.  Crowley states that the way to
     learn to leave your body is to mock up a body like your own in
     front of your physical body.  Eventually you will learn to leave
     your physical body with your "astral body" and travel and view at
     will without physical restrictions.37  Hubbard teaches the same,
     and his method of "exteriorization" is to tell the person to
     "have preclear mock up own body"38, which will send the person
     outside his body.
        Both Crowley39 and Hubbard40 use an equilateral triangle
     pointing up in a circle as one of their group's symbols.  Both
     use Volume 0 instead of Volume 1 to begin enumerating their
     works.  One could go on for quite some time listing the
     similarities between Crowley's and Hubbard's theories and
     writings, but for more the reader is encouraged to look for him
     or herself.
        In Crowley's Organization are several grade levels.  To reach
     the Grade of Adeptus Exemptus "The Adept must prepare and publish
     a thesis setting forth His knowledge of the Universe, and his
     proposals for its welfare and progress.  He will thus be known as
     the leader of a school of thought."41  It is apparent that
     Hubbard has fulfilled this requirement.
     
     GNOSTICISM
     
        First, an explanation of what gnosticism is.  It is an old
     religious philosophy with Platonic roots.  Basically, gnostics
     believe that we as humans are "outsiders" to this material
     universe.  Our immortal godlike souls were trapped here in a body
     by evil forces, and we are reincarnated continually, while our
     true spiritual identities are clouded from our memory.  It is our
     task to discover the hidden knowledge, or gnosis, that will allow
     us to escape this evil material world of illusion and return to
     our rightful place.  We keep reincarnating until we learn how to
     escape.
     
            The world seems to be 'the epitome of evil'.  Because it 
         is alien to their true nature, human beings must renounce it 
         and flee from it in order to be able to return to their 
         heavenly home.  To achieve this aim they must possess Gnosis, 
         be reborn in their true nature, and be baptized in the cup of 
         knowledge into which the divine intellect has been poured. 42
     
        Salvation begins with a messenger from beyond bringing the
     necessary knowledge to mankind, but this knowledge is given only
     to those deemed worthy, and even then one must follow certain
     steps in order to arrive at the ultimate Truths.  The individual
     must struggle to earn and then incorporate the secret knowledge
     needed to return to his rightful place.
        There is a need for someone to bring this gnosis or knowledge
     to mankind:
     
         It follows that this divine reality cannot be known through 
         the ordinary faculties of the mind.  Illumination, revelation, 
         the intervention of a celestial mediator is required.  He 
         descends from above to call the Gnostic, to rouse him from 
         earthly sleep and drunkenness, to take him back to his divine 
         homeland.43
     
        While on this earth, man is plagued by many difficulties which
     lessen his real abilities and being.  One problem to us all is
     that within each of our bodies is a plethora of spirits or souls,
     causing us harm:
     
            A hierarchy of demons, servile and ready, is continually at
         work in everyone's body, transformed into a remorseless inferno
         in miniature.44
     
        Mankind is also cursed with forgetfulness of his true home and
     true composition, being blinded by this material world.
        As with Christianity today, there were many sects of
     gnosticism.  The most famous gnostics were those that took the
     basic ideas of Christianity and mixed them into their own
     otherworldly theories.  One of the most dangerous enemies of the
     early church were the Christian gnostic movement, for it greatly
     distorted the essential message of Christ and his followers while
     using similar terminology.  The early church fathers, such as
     Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, spent much of their time
     speaking out against gnosticism.
        Scientology, however, embraces gnosticism.  Its doctrines are
     gnostic, and it uses gnostic writings to support its own ideas. 
     For example, "Advance!" issue 93 has an article entitled "The
     Surprising Christian Tradition of Reincarnation", which relies
     heavily on gnostic writings such as the Pistis Sophia (the best
     known of the surviving gnostic writings) to support its
     viewpoint.  Scientology is clearly gnostic, by its own admission
     and by the similarities to its own and gnostic teachings.  Once
     again, ideas Hubbard declares to be new and discovered by him,
     are shown to be derived from old and widespread teachings in
     existence long before he came along.
        Hubbard claimed to be the sole source of the hidden knowledge
     needed to escape these earthly bonds.  "The mystery of this
     universe... has been, as far as its track is concerned,
     completely occluded.  No one has ever been able to make any
     breakthrough and come off with it and know what happened... I
     finally was able to make a breakthrough which brought people
     through the zone safely."45
        When Hubbard died in 1986, it was announced that he had left
     this "MEST" (the acronym of Matter, Space, Time, and Energy)
     universe to continue his work and research.  In other words, he
     had obtained the gnosis needed to break the bonds to this
     material illusory plane and travel to other worlds or dimensions
     at will.46
        Hubbard was the sole source for the technology Scientologists
     need to break free from this MEST universe.  "Nobody else -
     NOBODY - ever discovered it."47  He is thus the gnostic
     "celestial mediator" empowered to bring mankind the knowledge
     needed to bring us back home.
        Another obvious connection to gnosticism is in the upper level
     of training known as Operating Thetan III, or "The Wall of Fire." 
     It is at this level that the Scientologist first is taught that
     many of his problems are caused by other souls attached to his
     soul.  These souls are detached and sent on their way through the
     course training.  The goal of OTIII is to rid the individual of
     hundreds of "Body Thetans", or other souls attached to the main
     dominant individual.  No one is even allowed to see OTIII
     material until he has completed the previous courses leading up
     to OTIII.48  This material is carefully guarded and treated as a
     great important mystery to be imparted only to those proven
     worthy.
        These great "discoveries" of Hubbard actually were taught as
     far back as 300 AD:

         "For many spirits dwell in it [the body] and do not permit it 
         to be pure; each of them brings to fruition its own works, 
         and they treat it abusively by means of unseemly desires.  
         To me it seems that the heart suffers in much the same way 
         as an inn: for it has holes and trenches dug in it and is 
         often filled with filth by men who live there licentiously 
         and have no regard for the place because it belongs to 
         another."49
     
        Although this sounds almost identical to ideas in OTIII, it is
     in fact a quote from Valentinus, one of the most famous early
     Christian gnostics, writing around 300 AD.  Valentinus taught
     that there was more than one spirit within an individual, causing
     difficulties for the "host" or main soul of the individual.  The
     gnostic Basilides also taught in a similar vein that man
     "preserves the appearance of a wooden horse, according to the
     poetic myth, embracing as he does in one body a host of such
     different spirits."50
        The above is similar to the New Testament idea of demons in
     that demons are "outsiders" from the main inhabitant of the body
     and are problematic to the host.  Gnostics, however, seem to feel
     that it is the normal human condition to have these other souls,
     whereas Christianity considers this a rare aberration.
        Another gnostic idea, that this is a world of illusion, is in
     Scientology doctrine as well.  Scientology teaches that this
     universe we live in is the MEST (matter, energy, space, time)
     universe that exists solely because the non-MEST beings known as
     thetans decided to agree to bind themselves to the rules and laws
     that we see operating here, such as gravity and the speed of
     light: "a Thetan may postulate a material or mental condition and
     subsequently consider that he cannot escape that condition, and
     succumb to the resulting illusion of entrapment within it."51 
     Theta beings (Hubbard's name for the soul) lived here on earth by
     dwelling in a human body.  Humans, that is, the living body,
     existed without the theta being before the thetans were trapped
     in this material universe.  Theta beings are "trapped" into human
     bodies by trickery and forget their true nature:
     
        Your preclear was basically good, happy, ethical and aesthetic
     before the contagion of the MEST universe got him.  Then, still a
     thetan, he wasn't very good but he was still trusting and
     ethical.  Finally, when he had a body - well, look around.52
     
        Scientology then shares the gnostic idea that mankind is
     separate from the physical universe and is trapped against his
     will here.
        As gnosticism is a secret knowledge, Scientology hides its
     upper level or OT level teachings under a strict veil of secrecy. 
     When I visited the Los Angeles "Big Blue Building" of
     Scientology, I was invited to listen to some OT VIII's speak via
     satellite from the "Free Winds" ship where OT VIII is exclusively
     taught.  An OT VII on board said that the OT VIII material is in
     a locked case, and the only way to open the case is to enter a
     certain locked room and pass the case under a laser beam there. 
     Scientologists are taught that if they hear the teachings of OT
     III before they have taken the necessary previous courses, they
     will catch pneumonia and die.
        Early gnostics also used various methods to hide their
     teachings.  The initiations were so secret that today we can only
     piece parts of them together.  The writings of many gnostics were
     purposely vague and incomprehensible, so only the initiated could
     understand them.
        The goal of dianetics and Scientology is to return the Theta
     being to its inherent abilities (i.e. freeing it from the laws of
     this universe) and remove it from its need to have a body.  The
     sole source for accomplishing this is the technology of L. Ron
     Hubbard, celestial mediator of the gnostic Church of Scientology. 
     
        Parenthetically, one can clearly see from above that these
     teachings clash with Christian thinking today.  While
     Scientologists claim that "in Scientology there is no attempt to
     change another's beliefs or to persuade the person away from his
     own religious practice,"53 in reality there is an incongruity of
     beliefs that must fall either to the side of Scientology or
     Christianity.  They are not compatible.  Scientology is gnostic,
     which has been seen from almost the beginning of Christianity to
     be a great threat to correct Christian dogma (see the Ante-Nicene
     Fathers writings, for example), and it requires the belief in
     reincarnation, which is foreign to Christian thought.  Elsewhere
     I write about Hubbard's connection to Aleister Crowley, "my very
     good friend," who called himself the anti-christ and taught
     accordingly.  Hubbard generously borrowed ideas from and admired
     the writings of Crowley.  Obviously, Scientology's claim that
     their ideas will not interfere with a person's Christian beliefs
     is absurd.
     
     
     
     27 L. Ron Hubbard, "Dianetics: Evolution of a Science", 
     Astounding Science Fiction May 1950 p.66
     28 BARE-FACED MESSIAH pp.112-130
     29 L. Ron Hubbard, "Conditions of Space/Time/Energy" Philadelphia
     Doctorate Course cassette tape #18  5212C05
     30 L. RON HUBBARD, MESSIAH OR MADMAN? p.305
     31 Aleister Crowley, MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (NY: Dover
     Publications, Inc., 1976) p.51 (originally published 1929,
     London)
     32 MAGICK, p.419.
     33 DIANETICS, p. 171 and 172.
     34 MAGICK, p. xxiv
     35 L. Ron Hubbard, "What Your Donations Buy", church pamphlet
     36 DIANETICS pp. 340f.
     37 MAGICK pp. 146-7
     38 L. Ron Hubbard, THE CREATION OF HUMAN ABILITY, (Sussex,
     England: The Department of Publications Worldwide, 1954)  p.226f
     39 Francis X. King, MIND AND MAGIC (London: Dorling Kindersley
     Ltd., 1991) p.100. see photograph.
     40 see for example the bookends of Hubbard's Research and
     Discovery series.
     41 MAGICK p.236
     42 Giovanni Filoramo, GNOSTICISM, (Cambridge, MASS:Basil
     Blackwell, 1990) p.9
     43 GNOSTICISM, p.40
     44 GNOSTICISM, p.92
     45 " Advance!" issue 93, p.16
     46 International Scientology News, issue 8, p. 3.
     47 International Scientology News issue 8 p.7
     48 The material has been released publicly in court cases. 
     Scientologists refuse to read it, however, until they reach the
     proper level of training.  They believe they will die if reading
     it unprepared.
     49 GNOSTICISM, p.98
     50 The Ante-Nicene Fathers (WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
     Grand Rapids MI) reprinted February 1983.  Volume 2, p.372.
     51 L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENTOLOGY: A WORLD RELIGION EMERGES IN THE
     SPACE AGE,
     (Church of Scientology Information Service, Department of
     Archives, date and location not listed) p.23
     52 L. Ron Hubbard, A HISTORY OF MAN (Sussex, England; Department
     of Publications Worldwide, 1961), p.55
     53 Staff of Church of Scientology, WHAT IS SCIENTOLOGY?
     (Kingsport Press, Inc., 1978) p.199
     
     

--
cultxprt@indirect.com
Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ  85271      Here I stand - I can do no more.



