The Franklin Files

Omega · Guru

RE: The Thule Society II

Omega · Guru

When The Blood Ritual was mentioned during the Armstrong trial in 1984, Scientology's lawyer asserted that it was an invokation of an Egyptian goddess of love (041). Hathor is indeed popularly seen as a winged and spotted cow which feeds humanity. However, there is an important lesson about Scientology in the practice of magicians. The teachings of magic are considered by many practictioners to be powerful and potentially dangerous and therefore have to be kept secret. One of the easiest ways to conceal the true meaning of a teaching is to reverse it. By magicians Hathor is also seen as an aspect of Sekmet, the avenging lioness. One authority on ritual magic has revealed the identity of Hathor as "the destroyer of man." (042) The important lesson is that Scientology has both a public and a hidden agenda. Publicly it is a Church, privately as the record of convictions shows, it is an Intelligence agency. Many public Hubbard works speak of helping people. In his largely secret Fair Game teachings, however, Hubbard is outspoken in his attack upon either critics of himself or of his work. For example, in What is Greatness? Hubbard says "The hardest task one can have is to continue to love one's fellows despite all reasons he should not. And the true sign of sanity and greatness is so to continue." In one statement of the Fair Game Law, however, Hubbard said that opponents "May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed" (043). Of practitioners unlicensed by him Hubbard said "Harass these persons in any possible way" (044). Nor did he exclude the possibility of murder against those who opposed him (045). The harassment of critics, may explain the dearth of academic research into Scientology. Hubbard's use of contradiction to captivate and redirect his followers is worthy of a separate study (046), but it has its roots in his study of magic. Perhaps he related his "Dianetics" also to Janus, the two-faced god whose name is sometimes spelled "Dianus".

Omega · Guru

While Hubbard was supposedly researching his Dianetics in the late 1940s, he was in fact engaging in magical rituals, and trying out hypnosis both on himself and others. During the 1984 Armstrong trial, extracts from Hubbard's voluminous self-hypnotic affirmations were read into the record. The statements, hundreds of pages of them, are written in red ink and Hubbard frequently drew pictures of the male genitalia alongside the text (047). Among his suggestions to himself we find: "Men are my slaves", "Elemental Spirits are my slaves" and "You can be merciless whenever your will is crossed and you have every right to be merciless" (048).

Black magic is distinguished from white in the desire of the practitioner to bring harm. "Maleficium" is the traditional word for such magic. The "Suppressive Person declare" and the "Fair Game Law" speak reams in terms of Hubbard's intent.

Scientology is a neo-gnostic system, which is to say that it teaches the attainment of insight through a series of stages. These stages are called by Scientologists "the Bridge to Total Freedom". The Bridge currently consists of some 27 levels. These levels might be compared to the initiations of magical systems. While the stages appear dissimilar to those of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, it is worth noting that both systems consist of stages, that both have secret levels and that both are numbered with Roman numerals. Hubbard also shared with Crowley a numbering system which begins at 0 rather than 1.

The Scientology Bridge has as its end the creation of an "Operating Thetan". Hubbard used the word "thetan" to identify the self, the spirit which is the person. He claimed that the word derived from an earlier Greek usage of the letter theta for "spirit" (049). I have been unable to find such a usage, but can comment that the theta symbol is central to the Crowley system where it is found as an aspect of the sign used for Babalon. To Crowley, the theta sign represented the essential principle of his system - thelema or the will. (050)

Omega · Guru

By "Operating Thetan", Hubbard meant an individual or "thetan" able to "operate" freely from the physical body, able to cause effects at a distance by will alone In Hubbard's words "a thetan exterior who can have but doesn't have to have a body in order to control or operate thought, life, matter, energy, space and time" (051). Hubbard used the term "intention" rather than "will" (052), but the goal of Scientology is clearly the same as that of the Crowley system. The Scientologist wishes to be able to control events and the minds of others by intention. This seems to be exactly what Crowley called "thelema". In a 1952 lecture, Hubbard recommended a book which he called "The Master Therion" (053). This was in fact one of Crowley's "magical" names. I have been advised by an officer of one of the Ordo Templi Orientis groups that the reference is most likely to Crowley's magnum opus Magick in Theory and Practice. In that work, Crowley gave this definition "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will" (054). So the aim of both Crowley and Hubbard seems to have been the same.

As a recovering Scientologist, I must raise an ethical objection to the desire to control the minds of others without their consent. This is the purpose of many Scientology procedures (055), and can be seen either as deliberate "mind control" or as the black magician's contempt of others. Scientology is a curious hybrid of magic and psychology. After all, Hubbard boasted "we can brainwash faster than the Russians - 20 seconds to total amnesia" (056).

At the centre of Crowley's teaching is the notion that we can each control our own destiny: "Postulate: Any required Change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner through the proper medium to the proper object" (057); further "Every intentional act is a Magical Act" (058); "Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postulate have not been fulfilled" (059). Hubbard taught that everything is down to the intention of the individual. He called such intentions "postulates". The victim of any negative event is said to have "pulled it in". Hubbard taught a contempt for "victims" and regarded sympathy as a low emotional condition (060). As Crowley put it "Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers ... He may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will" (061).

Omega · Guru

Hubbard was to employ or parallel so many of Crowley's ideas and approaches that it is impossible, especially with Hubbard's references to Crowley, to avoid comparison. For example, in his Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard laid much emphasis on the recollection of birth. Crowley had earlier insisted that the magician must recall his birth (062). Crowley spoke of "A equals A" (063), where Hubbard, again in Dianetics spoke of "A equals A equals A". Both men were noisy in their contempt for psychotherapists (064). Both Hubbard and Crowley spoke of "past lives" rather than "reincarnation" (065). Indeed, the notion of past lives and their recollection is essential to both systems, as Crowley wrote "There is no more important task than the exploration of one's previous incarnations" (066). Scientology and Dianetics also rely upon the supposed recollection of previous incarnations. Crowley called this the "magical memory" (067).

Hubbard gave as the fundamental axiom of his system "Life is basically a static. A Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time." (068) Crowley was more succinct, calling the self "nothing" (069). Hubbard was to say that even an "Operating Thetan" could not "operate" alone, and Crowley said "Even in Magick we cannot get on without the help of others" (070).

The first essential teaching of Scientology is that "reality is basically agreement" (071) or "reality is the agreed-upon apparency of existence" (072), which Crowley expressed as "The universe is a projection of ourselves; an image as unreal as that of our faces in the mirror ... not to be altered save as we alter ourselves" (073). The controlling power of thought, or will, is evident in both systems, Crowley has it "we can never affect anything outside ourselves save only as it is also within us. (074)"

Both men believed that truth is unobtainable in the material world. Crowley expressed it thus "There is no such thing as truth in the perceptible universe" (075). Hubbard said "The ultimate truth ... has no mass, meaning, mobility, no wavelength, no time, no location in space, no space." (076)

Hubbard's concept of the "thetan exterior" - operating apart from the body is found in Crowley's "interior body of the Magician" which can "pass through 'matter'" (077). Both systems seek to get the spirit "out of the body" (078).