Inspired by this question (though I’m not sure why it was in GD…)
Essentially, what are the eschatological beliefs or teachings in Dianetics? I’m looking for factual answers, not ones that involve the IRS or OSHA or the American Psychiatric Association - I’m interested in how Scientologists describe the end of things. Does it end in a bang or a wimper? Is there an afterlife? Do thetans play into things somehow?
p.s. Yay! My first Scientology thread!
(sigh)
There isn’t really an endgame in $cientology, though the endgame on Earth theoretically is getting everybody on Earth to a state of “Clear.”
Thetans … where do we begin … first, you are a Thetan. Unless you’re “Clear”, AKA an “Operating Thetan”, you’ve got a bunch of other thetans ("Body Thetans) “stuck” to you, not unlike psychic ticks or chiggers or such.
From whence come these thetans? They are the victims of Xenu, who brought to Earth surplus population, and killed them, using explodey volcanoes. But Xenu captured the souls of the victims, using chips and EM fields, and then “programmed” them in virtual theatres … They then wandered (and continue to wander) the Earth, attaching themselves to the animal life of Earth.
The idea of $cientology is that individuals are freed of their body thetans, and of their programming (remember those chips?), and at some point, sufficiently advanced individuals (such as LRH, PBUH :rolleyes: ) can then elect to “release themselves from their bodies” and move on up … to that great big apartment … in the sky.
Until then, the thetans recycle through different bodies, reliving the events caused by Xenu, their programming, and sundry other existential insults and traumas.
[Alf] Well, look it up! [/Alf]
You are a thetan.
???
Profit!
It is no secret that L. Ron Hubbars said a few years before his original Dianetics article (or articles, I think there were more than one) that if you really wanted to make money you should start a religion. I didn’t know that when I read the original article in Astounding (now Analog) Science Fiction. I (around 14 years old) was underwhelmed, but the editor, John Campbell fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I think that later on he had second thoughts, but by that time Scientology was founded. Too bad, he wasn’t a bad sci-fi writer.
Endgame? Obviously to make Hubbard wealthy. It did too. Now he is dead, but it has momentum of its own. Like any even moderately successful religion.