Scientology, a controversial new religious movement founded by L. Ron Hubbard. Many
might not know that Hubbard defined Aleister Crowley as “My very good friend” in 1953 and
was also well acquainted with Jack Parsons, an American disciple of our “beloved” Beast. So,
this begs the question… has Scientology been influenced by Aleister Crowley?
Guess you’ve got to stay tuned to find out!
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Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I am a PhD
and a Religious Studies Scholar and this is your online resource for the academic study
of Magick, Paganism, Esotericism, Shamanism and all things occult.
In this episode, we will talk about the possible influence that
Aleister Crowley played on Hubbard’s religious movement of Scientology.
As Hugh B. Urban explains, very few other new religious movements have been objects of as
many controversies, misunderstandings, and media attention as Scientology. It has also attracted
high-profile patrons, such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise, and has been attacked by government
agencies, anti-cult groups, and the media as a deceptive organization and a brainwashing cult.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, its founder, has been defined in various ways:
as the man who “solved the riddle of the human mind” -by the Church of Scientology,
as “a mental case” - by the FBI, and as “hopelessly insane” - by his former wife
…ouch! Unclear and not well understood is the alleged role of magic and the occult in Hubbard’s
early works. We know that he was involved in several rituals practised by John Whiteside,
better known as Jack Parsons, an American disciple of Crowley who’s recently received more attention
thanks to the TV show ‘Strange Angel’, inspired by Parsons’ story. There have also been critics
of the religious movement who have hinted at a possible influence from Crowley. L. Ron Hubbard
Jr. – son of the founder of Scientology - indicated that Hubbard was “deeply involved
in the occult” and that he saw himself as the modern successor to the Great Beast.
Other former members and critics of the church, such as Jon Atack,
have also alleged that Crowley’s magic lies at the secret core of Scientology. That said,
the Church of Scientology refused any connection between Crowley’s magic and Hubbard’s religious
ideas. While it acknowledges that Hubbard did have some involvement with Parsons’ magical group,
the church claims that Hubbard was in fact working for military intelligence to shut
down Parsons’ occult operations. It’s worth noting that both John Symonds and the London
Sunday Times were forced to pay sums in settlement after suggesting that there
might be a connection between Crowley’s magic and the principles of Scientology.
There are even scholars of new religions, such as Roy Wallis and J. Gordon Melton,
who have essentially rejected Hubbard’s connection to Crowley, arguing that ‘there is no evidence
that Hubbard’s system of Scientology owes any great debt to that of Crowley’.
So, it’s important to clarify that the argument I’m presenting in this video
is the one offered by Hugh B. Urban in the referenced study. As always,
I encourage viewers to expand on the topics I cover and do their own research. Scholars
such as Robert S. Ellwood and Wade Clark Roof have noted that the 1950s American landscape,
in which Hubbard founded his new church, could be seen as a thriving and rapidly
growing “spiritual marketplace.” And Hubbard was one of the most creative, experimental,
and eclectic new dealers in this marketplace, being a creative recycler of cultural products
that he brought together in a symbolic and religious ensemble. In Hubbard’s religious
bricolage, occult elements drawn from Crowley were indeed one important element, but neither more nor
less important than the many other elements drawn from pop psychology, Eastern religions,
science fiction, and a host of other goods available in the 1950s spiritual marketplace.
Let’s now have a look at these liaison points that might suggest,
at least to some degree, Crowley’s influence on Hubbard’s system.
Hubbard mentions Crowley by name only twice in any of his Scientology lectures, calling him his “very
good friend”— even though the two actually never met. These references to Crowley occur in a series
of lectures delivered in December 1952 known as the “Philadelphia Doctorate Course,” which contain
some of the most important early Scientology views of the thetan and its unlimited potential.
Hubbard clarifies here that he sees a continuity between Crowley’s magical ritual and the
techniques of Scientology. Both are defined as practical techniques involving a specific “cycle
of action” aimed at producing the desired intended effect. Hubbard explains that Crowley’s ritual
magic was effective for realizing the spirit’s potential, at least for its time and place, but
now Scientology is accomplishing the same power of the spirit with new, more contemporary, and
“scientific” techniques. Also, in this lecture, Hubbard discusses the thetan or true spiritual
identity of the individual, explaining that it has unlimited potential and ability. In the cosmology
of Hubbard’s Scientology, as it developed in the early 1950s, the thetan is ultimately a
“godlike” entity that does not yet realize its own powers but can be freed to accomplish its infinite
possibilities. The aim of Scientology auditing is, then, to liberate the thetan from its entrapment
in the material universe and to restore its original ability to create and control its
own universes. We can see here parallels between Hubbard’s view of the thetan and Crowley’s idea
that “every man and woman is a star” and that the ultimate goal of magical practice is to
realize one’s own godlike ability to subjugate the whole Universe to one’s individual Will.
Hubbard likely derived the term thetan - Θ - from the Greek letter theta to refer to the immortal
spiritual self, a concept that had at least some influence from Crowley. Theta is the first letter
of Crowley’s central law of Thelema—centred around the divine power of the individual will—as well as
the first letter of his pseudonym Therion—under which Magick, the key text cited by Hubbard—was
written. Also, the theta is present in Crowleian symbolism, such as in the sigil of Babalon,
and - as explained in the Book of Lies, the Greek letter theta Θ was first written as,
and represented the astrological symbol of the sun. The sun or theta is also the key
symbol of the union of the Lingam and Yoni the Hindu terms for male and female sexual organs,
symbolizing the divine creative union. Hubbard initially promoted his new Church of
Scientology as a “religious” organization in 1954 through a newsletter titled ‘The Golden Dawn,’
probably named after the Hermetic order. Possibly borrowed from Crowley and the Golden Dawn was also
Hubbard’s choice of an eight-pointed cross as the key symbol for his new church, even though he gave
it a very different theological explanation. Interesting to notice that Scientology’s early
followers had some kind of involvement with esoteric traditions. Therefore, a movement that
included elements of Golden Dawn/Crowley-style occultism mixed with Eastern religions and depth
psychology would have been attractive to such an audience as the power of the Thetan entails the
ability to alter, manipulate, or transform the known universe. Similar to Crowley’s
OTO, Scientology got organized into a series of increasingly esoteric - and increasingly expensive
- levels called Operating Thetan or OT, beginning with one’s achievement of the Clear state.
The whole Scientology process is defined by Hubbard as the Bridge to Total Freedom and
includes fifteen OT grades; even though only eight of these seem to have been completed by Hubbard
before his death. The more the Scientologist advances the more they learn new secrets about the
history of the universe and the true nature of the thetan while manifesting more of its powers. So,
as Urban argues, even if Hubbard chose to explain his movement with the language of “science” rather
than “magic,” the goal of Scientology is essentially the same as that of Thelema:
To develop the limitless power of the self and to use the power to manipulate, transform, and
eventually transcend the limits of the physical universe. Hubbard’s “self-determinism” sounds
also close to Crowley’s “do what thou wilt”: As they both share the belief in the infinite power
of the individual will and its total freedom from external constraints and limitations.
To sum it up, it seems clear that Hubbard had direct involvement in
Parsons’s OTO rituals and that there is a significant amount of Crowley’s
influence in the early Scientology beliefs and practices of the 1950s.
Hubbard shared Crowley’s belief in the unlimited potential of the individual self, they both
employed techniques for the exteriorization of the spirit from the physical body and shared
a similar goal of realizing the infinite, godlike power of the individual self. Now,
we also need to acknowledge that there are also fundamental differences between
Crowley’s magical practice and Hubbard’s early Scientology movement. Crowley’s magic is clearly
a product of the late-Victorian era and the tradition of nineteenth-century esotericism,
while Scientology is undoubtedly a product of mid-twentieth-century America and fascinations
with science and technology. Crowley’s work does represent one important influence in
Hubbard’s complex system—but only one influence, which – Urban explains - was
both mediated through Hubbard’s own creative religious imagination and combined with a vast
array of other religious, scientific, psychological, and literary influences.
In his early Dianetics practice, we can see – for instance - the significant influence of Freud,
Jung, Adler, and Rank – just to name a few. And let’s not forget the influence derived
from popular self-help books such as Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking. Then,
we can clearly see, in Hubbard’s early Scientology lectures, the influence played by new scientific
ideas and the fascination with new technologies. For instance, the use of the E-meter as well as
the impact of Asian religions such as Buddhism and the Hindu traditions, in the belief, for instance,
in reincarnation and how the supernatural powers of the thetan are conceptualized.
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