The Scientology Comparative Theology Page

The source material used in this document includes:

• HCOBs, HCOPLs, and Lectures (Scientology "scripture") by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology.
• Previously secret Advanced Technology, including the Operating Thetan and New Era Dianetics for OT Series, by Hubbard.
• Various critical texts, including Bare Faced Messiah, Russell Miller.
• Various web pages.
• Internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology articles, various authors.

Introduction

In 1981, the Church of Scientology forwarded the claim to me that they were "an applied religious philosophy" and compatible with Christianity (Scientology continues to make this claim). I accepted it at face value. "Why would they lie about it?", I reasoned, "They're a Church!" I signed up for a couple courses. However, as I read their material, it was clear that a belief in reincarnation was implicit to Hubbard's doctrine of Whole-Track (past lives) auditing, which is a central tenet of Scientology. At that point, I declined to supplant my own religion with Scientology and drifted away from the Church.

More than a decade later, I found Scientology being discussed on the Internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology . I was attracted by wild tales of Scientology's upper level "scriptures" that sounded more like a bad science fiction novel than they did salvation for the soul. Moreover, critics were being harrassed by Scientology's lawyers. The "Church" was threatening to sue people for quoting as little as six lines of their copyrighted scripture! I learned that the "Church" of Scientology prevents people from seeing their Advanced Technology through litigation, both on grounds of copyright infringement and trade secret law. The reason: the "Church" demands hundreds of thousands of dollars to reveal their "spiritual technology". Latest estimates are $365,000 (not a typo!) to advance through OT VIII, their highest level. At these rates, only the idle rich can afford spiritual salvation, Scientology-style.

As I dug deeper into the Advanced Technology and other Upper Level doctrine, I began to find more and more material that confirmed my decision from a decade before. I learned that Hubbard was not only lying about being compatible with Christianity, I read and heard Hubbard denigrating Christianity in the upper level lectures which are safely hidden from public scrutiny. Worse, Hubbard was revealed to be a Satanist, studying under Aleister Crowley, even taking upon himself the name of "The Beast" upon Crowley's death.

For those of you who are saying "OK, so Hubbard was anti-Christian, so what?", my reply is that Hubbard was an equal-opportunity bigot. Hubbard blasphemes the God of Abraham, simultaneously offending Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike. Hubbard says that Islam and Christianity are implants [false memories], as well as claiming that his "Technology" can create equals to Buddha. He takes a broad brush to "religion" in general being guilty of exploiting false memories (which only Hubbard was able to find) in order to control people. So, while there are a preponderance of Christian references on this Web, it is only because my research has been in that direction and that Hubbard blasphemed the God of Abraham most often (which makes those references easiest to find.) If your religion was targeted by Hubbard and you don't see the reference here, send some mail and I would be happy to correct the error.

Scientology is a gnostic [gnosis: to know] system in every sense of the word. The material is doled out on The Gradient at steep prices. Each course is a prerequisite for the next. The church member is compelled to take that next course to secure their spiritual salvation or be condemned to sliding back to a state of degradation. Scientology takes a lifetime to learn; the opportunity cost of such a religious system is a lifetime diverted away from seeking God. Hubbard set up the system as circles within circles, a spiritual treadmill without end. After attaining OT VIII, the Scientologist has come to accept that God not only does not exist, but also believes that God is an implant that must be audited out like any other false memory. In this manner, Scientology binds the minds of its believers, then warehouses their spirits for the remainder of their life. From the Christian point of view, Hubbard's system is evil to the extreme; Scientology is a system of diversions away from God, an accomplishment that Satan would be proud to call his own.

This Web is my response to the bald-faced lies that were told to me in 1981. (Yes, had they told me right up front that they were a Satanic cult, I would have never bothered with this.) It cost me both time and money to find the truth, time that I can never regain. I have a right and duty under the First Amendment of the US Constitution to both practice my religion as well as speak out against the dangers of Scientology. Scientology presents a whitewashed exterior and most Christians, Jews, and Muslims are unaware of the dark interior.

Finally, a note of thanks to all the contributors to alt.religion.scientology which are included here. It has been quite a education. If you happen to be surprised to find your post here and wish it removed, please contact me. I have assumed that a newsgroup post has an implied license to copy.

Doctrine Comparison

Stephen Kent published an essay on Scientology's Relationship With Eastern Religious Traditions in Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1996, page 21.

In 1996, the mysterious and secret Advanced Technology appeared on a.r.s., which include the Operating Thetan (a.k.a. "OT") and New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans (a.k.a. "NOTs"). OT III contains part of the "creation story" of Scientology, detailing how an evil galactic space tyrant named Xenu solved an overpopulation problem 75 million years ago by:

• transporting undesirable people to Earth
• placing them in various volcanoes
• blowing them up with H-bombs
• catching the thetans (spirits) with electronic ribbons
• showing them bad movies (a.k.a. the R6 implants) to confuse them.

These spirits went on to inhabit the bodies of primitive apes, being passed from generation to generation to present-day man. OT III and NOTs are about exorcising these spirits. In the words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up. In case you didn't know, Hubbard got his start writing for pulp science fiction magazines.

The Church of Scientology is absolutely rabid about protecting the copyrights and trade secrets of the NOTs. Rather than risk a lawsuit by quoting or discussing more here, the reader is referred to these pages:

• Clambake (Note: link may go down due to Co$ harrassment)
• The NOTs Scholar's Page. (also contains more Clambake links)
• Dennis Erlich explains the Scientology Rites of Exorcism (Also from the NOTs Scholar's Page).

Jon Atack reports on Hubbard and the Occult, with references.

Gnosticism

• Peik Stromsholm's study of Scientology's gnostic roots .
• William Barwell posts a portion of a review of Gnosticism and the New Testament

Reincarnation

• Tilman Hausherr comments on Have You Lived Before This Life?, a Scientology text dealing with the Past Lives doctrine.
• Peik Stromsholm debunks the claim made in Have You Lived Before This Life? that reincarnation was once part of the Christian religion and then removed by a conspiracy of bishops at the Synod of Constantinople. Apparently, this claim is made in other occult texts.

Satanism

• Hubbard refers to his "good friend" Aleister Crowley in The Philadelphia Doctorate Course, Tape #18. Crowley signs himself "The Beast 666".
• Hubbard's Links to Satanism, from Bare-Faced Messiah
• L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. talks about his father's Satanic rituals .
• The Scientology Cross
  • Geoff Lane asks a question about the cross found on the Scientolgy website
  • "Modemac" observes the similarity between Satanist Aliester Crowley's cross and the Scientology cross .
  • Dean Benjamin expands on Modemac.
  • Ashraf Ghebranious links the cross to R6 and Hubbard's intent to use it as a mind control device.

Note: I'm working on more commentary for this section, please be patient.

• Hakan Jarva summarizes anti-Christian and anti-God passages from The Philadelphia Doctorate Course.

• "Somebody somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC found some pieces of R6. And I don't know how they found it, either by watching madmen or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. (draws on a cigarette) The man on the cross. There was no Christ. But the man on the cross is shown as Everyman." The Class VIII [Auditor's] Course, "Krakatoa and Beyond", Oct 3, 1968, aboard the Apollo. Hear it in Hubbard's own words! (624 KB .wav file).

  Commentary:

  • According to Hubbard's OT III cosmology, all of us on Earth were implanted 75 million years ago with false memories which he collective calls "R6". These implants cause us to do all sorts of crazy things, but Hubbard's auditing can break the power of the implants. Here, Hubbard says that Christianity is nothing more than a religious system built on parts of the R6 implants. The behavior of the mentally ill was used as a model for Christianity. Do you know someone in the Roman Catholic Church who might want to know about this?
  • While Hubbard never specifies the "somebody" or the "somewhere", he does specify the time (600 BC). It is difficult to guess what actual event to which he may be referring. If others can make a connection to this date, please contact me; I'm clueless on this one.
  • The death of Christ on the cross was foreshadowed in Psalm 22, which is dated at around 1000 BC during the reign of King David: "(1) My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?...(14) I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast; (15) My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; thou dost lay me in the dust of death. (16) Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet - (17) I can count all my bones - they stare and gloat over me; (18) they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots."
  • After establishing the origins of Christianity upon the ravings of the mentally ill, Hubbard goes on to deny the existence of Christ, saying instead that all men share the implant of the cross, which is part of R6. Thus, according to Hubbard, responding to Christ is simply being under the control of a false memory implant.
  • Hubbard takes a puff of his cigarette before delivering his punchline in an example of showmanship.
  • The highest auditor class is XII, so Class VIII is fairly high. It is my understanding that these auditors typically deliver the clearing and lower OT levels of processing. In any case, Class VIIIs are well-indoctrinated and predisposed to accepting Hubbard's claims without question. These auditors then go on to "counsel" lower-level church members with this "knowledge" of R6 and God.

• "The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked up some little fragments of R6." Class 8 Course, Lecture 10, Oct 3, 1968

  Commentary:

  • "Dramatizations" are the actions that people perform in response to their engrams or false memories. Hubbard's theory of R6 includes the command "to forget" and Hubbard is claiming that parts of R6 occasionally surface. The Roman Catholic Church apparently saw these and invented Christianity. Note that Hubbard's time line is incorrect; Christianity preceeded the Church of Rome. Of course, the Churches in Greece and other parts of Asia Minor also escape Hubbard's attention. Choosing the Church of Rome as the progenitor of Christianity is like saying clams were the progenitors of human beings (which Hubbard also happened to claim in History of Man).
  • This reference is quite close to the previous reference and could be another interpretation of the same passage. However, the mention of the Roman Catholic Church by name makes this sentence appear to be unique and therefore genuine.

• "Also the Christian Church used [and uses] implanting [with a squirrel version of the 7s']. These gangsters were the Nicomidians from lower Egypt who were chased out for criminal practices [Implanting officials]. They took over the Niocene Creed just before the year zero, invented Christ [who comes from the crucifixion in R6 75 million years ago] and implanted their way to 'power'. The original Nicomidians date about 600 BC and people who were Christ date at 75 million years ago." - L. Ron Hubbard, Resistive Cases, Former Therapy, HCOB 25 Nov 1971 (?), also quoted by Bent Corydon in L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?, 1992.

  Commentary:

  • I have not found this passage in Messiah or Madman, so I do not know the Scientology scripture from which it is taken. I have only one unsure reference to HCOB 25 Nov 71.
  • The 7s refers to a Scientology auditing process.
  • Implanting refers to the insertion of false memories into people's minds, implying that the Christian Church exerts mind control over its followers. While it may be true that some cults with Christian backgrounds use mind control, it is untrue that the Christian Church in general and as a matter of doctrine uses mind control. In typical fashion, Hubbard accuses others of his own crimes; Scientology uses a subtle form of mind control (I prefer the term "thought shaping") to keep their adherents in line. Bob Penny, former member, wrote an essay on Social Control in Scientology, which is found in the FACTNet archive.
  • I cannot fathom how the Christian Church could "take over" the Nicene Creed, since the Creed is a formulation of Christian dogma and did not exist before Christianity. The Nicene Creed was a result of the First Council of Nicea, in 325 AD. Hubbard misstates both the time and place in this case.
  • There is not a "year zero" in the commonly used BC/AD or BCE/ACE (Before/After Christian Era) systems commonly used for such numbering. The sequence goes: 3 BC, 2 BC, 1 BC, 1 AD, 2 AD, 3 AD, ...
  • Again, Hubbard asserts that Christ never existed and is part of R6, the bad movies that were shown to everyone on Earth 75 million years ago.

• Heaven is a false memory. A short article about The Helatrobus Implants.

• "You will find the cross as a symbol all over the universe, and the CHRIST LEGEND as an implant in preclears a million years ago.", Professional Auditors Bulletins, vol. 2, p. 26 , copyright 1954.

  Commentary:

  • Here, Hubbard claims that the cross is a common symbol. Taken with Hubbard's teaching of Past Lives, the implication is that the cross is just part of the baggage we carry around in our Reactive Mind. Thus, it's appearance in Christianity is spurious. This is at odds with the historical record; this form of execution is documented outside of Christianity.
  • Again Hubbard asserts that Christ is a myth, a false memory.
  • The Professional Auditor's Bulletins are a primary source of information for Scientology Auditors or spiritual counsellors. This information is not publicly available.

• "Neither Lord Buddha nor Jesus Christ were OTs according to evidence. They were just a shade above clear". Certainty magazine, Vol 5 #10.

  Commentary:

  • OTs are Scientology's highest spiritual level, and Clears are at the next lowest spiritual level. Scientology "technology" transforms people into Clears by the tens of thousands, all of whom are spiritual equals to Jesus Christ, whom Christians hold to be God incarnate on Earth. Thus, Scientology is creating God.

  • While I must admit a lack of understanding with respect to Buddhism, the implication that Scientology is producing hundreds of Buddha every year is extraordinary. If there are Buddhists who would like to explain this statement in the context of their religion, I'd be happy to listen.

• "Christianity and a million other -anities have struggled with this problem [the identity between theta (spirit) and mest (the material world)] and the result is a pot-pouri of answers, none of which reconcile the problem." (History of Man, p.39)

• " Love, if you have ever noticed, does not much care where it sites on the tone-scale as we find a young man deeply in love starving himself to death (a characteristic of apathy) and a young girl in love in dreamy enthusiasm which makes her bloom. We find love used in Christianity about twelve feet below 0.0 [death] and in New York precisely at 2.5 on the tone scale." Professional Auditor's Bulletin No. 8, "Viewpoint Processing, p. 50 in _PABs_ Book 1, May 1953 to April 1954.

  Commentary:

  • See the Scientology Tone Scale

• "It is all very well to idealise poverty and associate wisdom with begging bowls, or virtue with low estate. However, those who have done this (Buddhists, Christians, Communists and other fanatics) have dead ended or are dead ending.", HCOPL 21 Jan 1965

• Andrew Milne forwards the claim that Scientology is compatible with Christianity. Mr. Milne is a paid public relations person for the Church of Scientology, an editor and contributor to Scientology's Freedom magazine.
• The Church of Scientology rebuts Mr. Milne in their statement to the IRS.
• Rogue Agent rebuts Mr. Milne
• Rogue Agent rebuts again. Note: Rogue Agent posted anonymously to a.r.s. to avoid harrassment by the Church of Scientology. Rogue was later silenced by the Church when they attempted to "out" him, but missed their target and began harrassing innocent bystanders. These rebuttals were never refuted by Mr. Milne. Rogue, you old Suppressive, I know you're still out there <g>. This web page is dedicated to you.
• Jeff Jacobsen rebuts Milne.
• Dennis Erlich adds this insight. Note: Dennis Erlich, OT7, is a defrocked minister whose credentials include overseeing the remedial training ("cramming") of auditors at Flag, Scientology's premier training facility. Dennis had his house invaded and personal possessions seized by Scientology for alleged copyright violations. His vitriol toward the Church and its paid agents is understandable in this context.
• Steve Whitlach' personal story.
• Steve Fishman suggests that Scientology audits out belief in God.
• Keith Cochran finds that Scientologists are ethically bound to reject Christianity after certification.
• Joel Hanes finds some more incompatible doctrine from the Scientology scriptures.
• Dennis Erlich finds an LRH rant in Scientology 8-8008

Religious Practice

• A comparison of Scientology and Christianity by Peik Stromsholm, et.al.
• Demonic possession in Scientology, by Dennis Erlich.
• An essay on Hubbard's Views on Christianity, by Joe Harrington, ex-Scientologist.
• Hubbard's own words on Christianity and the soul. [113KB streaming Real Audio] [113KB Real Audio] [text]

The conversion of Scientology from a secular self-help group to a full-blown religion literally happened overnight. It all came together in response to various problems Hubbard was having with his brainchild:

• Tax Problems
  • There were numerous IRS audits over Scientology's interesting accounting system.
  • Reluctance of some of Scientology adherents to part with large amounts of after-tax income.
• FDA scrutiny over Hubbard's ill-conceived medical claims for Scientology, a "scientific technology".
• Poor image of Scientology as a cult. Religion has a positive public relations value.
• The First Amendment guarantees of religious freedom. It is much more egregious to persecute a religion than it is to speak out against a quack therapy. The former may be a Hate Crime, the latter is good citizenship.

Some disagree with Hubbard that Scientology is a religion

• The Swiss government refuses to hear a case by a Scientologist claiming religious discrimination.
• The German government considers Scientology to be a business, subject to taxation and regulation. The German government also lists "Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg [sic], and Spain, as well as Israel and Mexico".
• The Greek government raided and shut down KEPHE, the Athens Scientology mission.
• "When I look through the ceremonies and the affidavits, I am left with the feeling that there is nothing in it of reverence for God or a deity, but simply instruction in a philosophy. There may be belief in a spirit of man, but there is no belief in a spirit of God. This is borne out by the opening words of the book of ceremonies. It states:

  'In a Scientology Church Service we do not use prayers, attitudes of piety, or threats of damnation. We use the facts, the truths, the understandings that have been discovered in the science of Scientology.'

  Lord Denning MR, Court of Appeal, England, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th July 1970.
• Hubbard himself claims Scientology is not a religion. "Society, thirsting for more control of more people substitutes religion for the spirit, the body for the soul, an identity for the individual and science and data for truth. In this direction lies insanity, increasing slavery, less knowingness, greater scarcity and less society. Scientology has opened the gates to a better World. IT IS NOT A PSYCHO-THERAPY NOR A RELIGION [emphasis added]. It is a body of knowledge which, when properly used, gives freedom and truth to the individual." The Creation of Human Ability, June 1953. Editions as late as 1971 contain this passage as well.

• Dennis Erlich comments on the transformation of Scientology from an alternative therapy into religion.
  • Dennis answers some followup questions
• "Warrior", an ex-Scientologist (Sea Org) comments on the business (and not religious) perspective of Scientology.
• Margery Wakefield describes the transformation in Road to Xenu.
• Arnie Lerma (to be added)
• The Skeptic's Refuge reviews The Rediscovery of the Human Soul
• Diane Richardson offers her perspective

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