Scientology describes itself as a church of science, a self-improvement movement and personal development society that offers understanding of your true spiritual nature, your relationship with yourself, your family, mankind and all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being. Others would describe scientology as a money sucking, brainwashing cult of sci-fi lunatics.
The Church of Scientology is famous for its celebrity followers. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, the late Isaac Hayes, Beck and Elizabeth Moss have all been or are currently scientologists. You would think these actors and musicians must be reasonably smart people, but the Church of Scientology has some mind-bogglingly bizarre beliefs.
Despite the grand aspirations and high-profile members, scientologists are intensely secretive about what goes on behind the doors and their aggressive defence of the church indicates a thorough and effective campaign of brainwashing indoctrination. There are many enlightening documentaries about the CoS:
Going Clear presents a history of the church and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. It examines how celebrities become seduced, and interviews ex-members about the abuse and exploitation they experienced.
My Scientology Movie is a documentary by Louis Theroux. Louis teams up with former senior church official Mark Rathbun to create dramatic reconstructions of violent incidents within the church witnessed by Rathbun. The church retaliated by putting Louis and his film crew under surveillance, leading to camera-wielding carpark confrontations.
Scientologists at War also features Rathbun, scientology's highest-level defector. Rathbun describes taking on the IRS, becoming tax exempt in the US and dodging a billion-dollar tax bill before defecting from the church and being harassed, stalked, and his home besieged by scientology squirrel busters.
And of course, the most discerning social commentators of all, South Park.
The church would never get as much attention without Tom Cruise and John Travolta. They courted these superstars thinking their high profiles would attract more members. But they must have known they would also attract unwanted media attention and public ridicule.
The church is notoriously secretive and paranoid about their public profile. They don’t want anyone digging and have tried their best to cover up the scientology origin story conjured from the creative mind of their founder, L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron was a prolific writer of pulp science fiction and fantasy novels. From 1930 to 1940, L. Ron produced hundreds of short stories and novels of adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mysteries, westerns, romance, and science fiction.
L. Ron’s philosophy was published in 1950 in a book called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and later refined into the practices of the CoS, established in 1953. In the 1970s, L. Ron and CoS executives tried to infiltrate the U.S. government, resulting in L. Ron and several executives being convicted and imprisoned for multiple offences. L. Ron died in 1986 and the CoS leadership was passed on to David Miscavige who has been investigated by the FBI for human trafficking, slavery, child abuse, forced labour, kidnapping, stalking, libel, slander, invasion of privacy, sexual assault of children and rape. He is also good friends with Tom Cruise.
There are eight levels of hierarchy within the church. Operating Thetan levels 1-8. When you get to OT8 you will have godlike control over matter, energy, space and time. Attaining each level is an investment of time and money. You begin with an E-meter auditing process, then you must attain the state of Clear before you start OT1 which costs USD$128 thousand, then $33k to reach OT3, and $130k to reach OT 8. It can cost over $400k in total to move through the OT levels but you will achieve states of godliness, the Bridge to Total Freedom.
The hardcore believers join Sea Org, L. Ron’s space navy. L. Ron bought three cruise ships in the 1960’s that became floating off-grid churches. Sea Org members make a lifetime commitment to scientology and have free accommodation in communal berthing rooms and a small weekly allowance. Sea Org members adhere to strict codes of discipline. No sex, and at least 100 hours of work per week. Several former members have compared Sea Org to a paramilitary group and apparently small children from scientology families are forced to work on the boats in extremely inhumane conditions.
When you get to OT3, you are ready to learn about Xenu. Xenu is an ancient alien galactic overlord. The CoS believes that intelligent life exists throughout the universe and has for millions of years. This information is only available to high-ranking scientologists, once their minds have been properly prepared.
75 million years ago, Xenu was the head of the Galactic Federation, a group of 76 prosperous planets in a neighbouring galaxy that has existed for 20 million years. These planets were suffering from a plague of overpopulation. 180 billion beings per planet, but thankfully galactic overlord Xenu had a solution to this problem. He gathered up hundreds of billions of expendable aliens from all over the galaxy, killed them, froze them and transported their frozen corpses to Earth, which was called Teegeeack, in spaceships that looked like DC8’s. The corpses were dumped into volcanoes, which were then destroyed by Xenu using nuclear bombs.
The synopsis sounds like space-opera science fiction, and not even particularly good sci-fi but remember lots of people believe this story, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta.  The billions of aliens that were murdered, frozen, dumped into a volcano on Teegeeack, then vapourised by Xenu were a bit pissed. It probably wasn’t their fault that overpopulation was such a problem in the Galactic Federation. They were made to pay, but their souls survived.
According to CoS, every living thing in the Universe possesses an immortal soul known as a thetan, which passes from body to body and life to life through reincarnation. Thetan’s can’t be destroyed even by nuclear explosion. Xenu thought his nukes would annihilate the alien thetan souls, but the explosions actually released them. Xenu was not Galactic overlord for nothing, and he anticipated this strange turn of events, hoovered up all the thetans with a soul-sucking helicopter and spent a few million years brainwashing them with false faiths, before getting bored and forgetting about them.
The thetans eventually escaped and floated about ancient Earth like wayward deranged ghosts. Eventually, us humans evolved, and the alien thetans decided we would make excellent hosts for their jaded souls, so they attached themselves and intertwined their ancient, traumatised consciousness with our own evolving human thetans.
CoS teaches us that each thetan is inherently good and gifted with unlimited capabilities but these alien thetans had a harrowing time and had developed a few issues over the millennia suffering under Xenu’s draconian thumb.Â
When you attain OT3, you will understand that every human has their own attached alien thetan or multiple thetans that can manifest in different ways, undesirable personality traits like selfishness, arrogance and egotism. Some humans have more of these unhealthy thetans than others.
Thetans can also manifest as bad habits like smoking, drinking and overeating but luckily for us, scientologists can purify people with thousands of dollars worth of auditing, until we attain a state of Clear. Good for us, and good for scientology finances because you can never be completely Clear. Your physical form will always be inhabited by body thetans. Clusters of these ancient, executed alien souls with their annoying issues.
Thetans could be seen as metaphors and scientologists are not the only ones that try to name and compartmentalize an undesirable habit in order to get rid of it. Exorcisms work the same way. Your cigarette addiction is not because your body craves nicotine, and your fingers need something to do, but because you are possessed by an evil smoking demon thetan that compels you to inhale. Exorcise the demon, audit the thetan from your soul and you will be cured.
I guess it works for some people, but it means we don’t have to take individual responsibility, there is always some outside influence to blame for your bad habits, or your abrasive personality. Scientologists are highly critical of the entire psychiatry profession, which they view as a tool of repression and even have their own anti-psychiatry lobbying organization.
Anyway, back to outer space. The Galactic Federation got increasingly annoyed with Xenu, who does sound like an egomaniac asshole, and they rebelled against his tyrannical rule. The war lasted for six years before Xenu was finally captured and imprisoned in an electric mountain on an unnamed desert planet where he still lives today. Biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to escape.
Scientologists are not made aware of Xenu until they reach OT3. Those who have not reached OT3 avoid any literature or South Park episodes that refer to Xenu. They consider it too dangerous for the unqualified. Those who have reached OT3 often publicly deny the existence of the Xenu story because they consider it too dangerous for the public, or possibly because they know it would make Cat-Women of the Moon look like hard investigative journalism.
The CoS has effectively admitted the Xenu story by attempting to sue those who publish Xenu-related literature. In order to claim copyright on a piece of writing, they have to admit that the material does actually exist and that they wrote it.
Reports of the size of the church are varied. The CoS claims to have 12 million devotees, 11 thousand churches in 167 countries. Independent estimates are roughly 55 thousand globally. The CoS makes most of its money by charging believers for its teachings. Their estimated worth is $11 billion, and they own opulent churches in Rome, Malmo, Milan, Dallas, Nashville, and Washington and a vast portfolio of properties including a 55-acre college in England. They own over 50 hotels and office buildings on the Florida coast and five cruise ships.
Do scientologists really believe the Xenu story? Or do they believe in the giant pyramid scheme. I wonder if the attraction is simply one of superiority, secret knowledge, power and profit for the chosen ones. Scientologists consider themselves part of an epic battle, fighting on behalf of humanity against the dark forces of psychiatry. I suppose the Xenu story is just as plausible as a bored God that creates a universe in seven days for his own amusement, there are hundreds of millions that believe that fantasy.
The CoS has been described by governments, parliaments, scholars, judges and lawyers as a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business. Just a small-time Catholic Church then.