No joking - I checked this stuff in encylopedias, as well as Scientology's official website(s)
Last night's episode of South Park tackled the issue of the religion known as "Scientology." The GREAT thing about the episode, however, is that it finally publicly explored the "hidden truth" story that Scientologists so often refuse to talk about publicly. For those of you who are not too savvy on what Scientology even is, let me enlighten you.
As many of you might know, Scientology is an extremely popular religion, followed by numerous celebrities, such as Tom Cruise. Most people also know that Scientology was created in the 50's by L. Ron Hubbard, a very successful science-fiction (FICTION) writer. Basically, Scientology claims to be an alternative to psychology and other religious endeavors, focusing on the power of the individual.
What most of you might NOT know is that about 15 years after starting this popular religion (which borrowed many of it's ceremonies from Hubbard's own experiences with the occult, a la Jack Parsons and Aleister Crawley), L. Ron Hubbard decided to finally reveal the truth behind human existence. Of course, Hubbard tried to keep this revelation secret, save to those members of Scientology who reached level III (OT III) in the religion. Nowadays, full information regarding this great revelation (and reaching OT III) costs about 360,000 dollars.
This is what Scientology claims is the "hidden truth" behind human existence (PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS REAL. SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS):
75 million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, each having on average 178 billion people. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with people "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.
Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of "renegades", he defeated the populace and the "Loyal Officers", a force for good that was opposed to Xenu. Then, with the assistance of psychiatrists (yes, you read right...EVIL PSYCHIATRISTS), he summoned billions of people to paralyze them with injections of alcohol and glycol, under the pretense that they were being called for "income tax inspections." The kidnapped populace was loaded into space planes for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The space planes were exact copies of Douglas DC-8s, "except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't." DC-8s have jet engines, not propellers, although Hubbard may have meant the turbine fans.
When the space planes had reached Teegeeack, the paralyzed people were unloaded and stacked around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were lowered into the volcanoes, and all were detonated simultaneously. Only a few people's physical bodies survived.
The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called thetans, were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for 36 days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data" (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, etcetera". This included all world religions, with Hubbard specifically attributing Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The interior decoration of "all modern theaters" is also said by Hubbard to be due to an unconscious recollection of Xenu's implants.
In addition to implanting new beliefs in the thetans, the images deprived them of their sense of identity. When the thetans left the projection areas, they started to cluster together in groups of a few thousand, having lost the ability to differentiate between each other. Each cluster of thetans gathered into one of the few remaining bodies that survived the explosion. These became what are known as body thetans, which are said to be still clinging to and adversely affecting everyone except those Scientologists who have performed the necessary steps to remove them.
The Loyal Officers finally overthrew Xenu and locked him away in a mountain, where he was imprisoned forever by a force field powered by an eternal battery. (Some have suggested that Xenu is imprisoned on Earth in the Pyrenees, but Hubbard merely refers to "one of these planets" [of the Galactic Confederacy]; he does, however, refer to the Pyrenees as being the site of the last operating "Martian report station", which is probably the source of this particular confusion. Teegeeack/Earth was subsequently abandoned by the Galactic Confederacy and remains a pariah "prison planet" to this day, although it has suffered repeatedly from incursions by alien "Invader Forces" since then.
Within Scientology, the Xenu story is referred to as "The Wall of Fire" or "Incident II". Hubbard attached tremendous importance to it, saying that it constituted "the secrets of a disaster which resulted in the decay of life as we know it in this sector of the galaxy". The broad outlines of the story - that 75 million years ago a great catastrophe happened in this sector of the galaxy which caused profoundly negative effects for everyone since then - are publicly admitted to lower-level Scientologists. However, the details are kept strictly confidential, at least within the Church.
Hubbard claimed to be the first to map a precise route through the Wall of Fire, "probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years". He first publicly announced his "breakthrough" in Ron's Journal 67 (RJ67), a tape Hubbard recorded on 20 September, 1967 to be sent to all members of the Church. According to Hubbard, his research was achieved at the cost of a broken back, knee and arm. OT III contains a warning that the R6 implant is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it."
OT III also deals with Incident I, set four quadrillion years ago (considerably longer than current scientific consensus holds the age of the universe to be). In Incident I, the unsuspecting thetan was subjected to a loud snapping noise followed by a flood of luminescence, then saw a chariot followed by a trumpeting cherub. After a loud set of snaps, the thetan was overwhelmed by darkness. This is described as the implant offering the gateway to this universe, meaning that these traumatic memories are what separates thetans from their static (natural, godlike) state.
Hubbard uses the existence of body thetans to explain many of the physical and mental ailments of humanity which, he says, prevent people from achieving their highest spiritual levels. OT III tells the student to remove the body thetans by bringing them to awareness of themselves as individual beings: "One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I." The student is directed to find a cluster of body thetans, address it "telepathically" as a cluster and take first the cluster then each individual member of the cluster through Incident II, then Incident I if needed. Hubbard warns that this is a painstaking procedure, and OT levels IV to VII continue the long process of dealing with one's body thetans.
Believe it or not, for some strange reason, the Church avoids making mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story's confidentiality, including legal action on the grounds of both copyright and trade secrecy. Despite this, much material on Xenu has leaked to the public.
Well, it's quite a lovely little story and I can totally see how Tom Cruise can believe in that. So, basically the ultimate belief of Scientology is that you are possessed by the spirits of aliens murdered 75 million years ago by "Xenu" and you have to exorcise these spirits.
Oh, by the way, let's not forget that this entire religion was just MADE UP by a science fiction writer who PUBLICALLY stated in a 1980 issue of Reader's Digest, "If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." Also, fellow science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers) stated that scientology was based on a bet between the two authors...a claim never denied by Hubbard, but vehemently condemned by the Church of Scientology.
Oh, and on a final note...what pisses me off MAYBE more than anything about Scientology (more than the brainwashing, even) is the official symbol of Scientology....
Yeah...it's a cross. Nice one, you Scien-fucks.
As many of you might know, Scientology is an extremely popular religion, followed by numerous celebrities, such as Tom Cruise. Most people also know that Scientology was created in the 50's by L. Ron Hubbard, a very successful science-fiction (FICTION) writer. Basically, Scientology claims to be an alternative to psychology and other religious endeavors, focusing on the power of the individual.
What most of you might NOT know is that about 15 years after starting this popular religion (which borrowed many of it's ceremonies from Hubbard's own experiences with the occult, a la Jack Parsons and Aleister Crawley), L. Ron Hubbard decided to finally reveal the truth behind human existence. Of course, Hubbard tried to keep this revelation secret, save to those members of Scientology who reached level III (OT III) in the religion. Nowadays, full information regarding this great revelation (and reaching OT III) costs about 360,000 dollars.
This is what Scientology claims is the "hidden truth" behind human existence (PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS REAL. SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS):
75 million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, each having on average 178 billion people. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with people "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.
Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of "renegades", he defeated the populace and the "Loyal Officers", a force for good that was opposed to Xenu. Then, with the assistance of psychiatrists (yes, you read right...EVIL PSYCHIATRISTS), he summoned billions of people to paralyze them with injections of alcohol and glycol, under the pretense that they were being called for "income tax inspections." The kidnapped populace was loaded into space planes for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The space planes were exact copies of Douglas DC-8s, "except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't." DC-8s have jet engines, not propellers, although Hubbard may have meant the turbine fans.
When the space planes had reached Teegeeack, the paralyzed people were unloaded and stacked around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were lowered into the volcanoes, and all were detonated simultaneously. Only a few people's physical bodies survived.
The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called thetans, were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for 36 days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data" (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, etcetera". This included all world religions, with Hubbard specifically attributing Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The interior decoration of "all modern theaters" is also said by Hubbard to be due to an unconscious recollection of Xenu's implants.
In addition to implanting new beliefs in the thetans, the images deprived them of their sense of identity. When the thetans left the projection areas, they started to cluster together in groups of a few thousand, having lost the ability to differentiate between each other. Each cluster of thetans gathered into one of the few remaining bodies that survived the explosion. These became what are known as body thetans, which are said to be still clinging to and adversely affecting everyone except those Scientologists who have performed the necessary steps to remove them.
The Loyal Officers finally overthrew Xenu and locked him away in a mountain, where he was imprisoned forever by a force field powered by an eternal battery. (Some have suggested that Xenu is imprisoned on Earth in the Pyrenees, but Hubbard merely refers to "one of these planets" [of the Galactic Confederacy]; he does, however, refer to the Pyrenees as being the site of the last operating "Martian report station", which is probably the source of this particular confusion. Teegeeack/Earth was subsequently abandoned by the Galactic Confederacy and remains a pariah "prison planet" to this day, although it has suffered repeatedly from incursions by alien "Invader Forces" since then.
Within Scientology, the Xenu story is referred to as "The Wall of Fire" or "Incident II". Hubbard attached tremendous importance to it, saying that it constituted "the secrets of a disaster which resulted in the decay of life as we know it in this sector of the galaxy". The broad outlines of the story - that 75 million years ago a great catastrophe happened in this sector of the galaxy which caused profoundly negative effects for everyone since then - are publicly admitted to lower-level Scientologists. However, the details are kept strictly confidential, at least within the Church.
Hubbard claimed to be the first to map a precise route through the Wall of Fire, "probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years". He first publicly announced his "breakthrough" in Ron's Journal 67 (RJ67), a tape Hubbard recorded on 20 September, 1967 to be sent to all members of the Church. According to Hubbard, his research was achieved at the cost of a broken back, knee and arm. OT III contains a warning that the R6 implant is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it."
OT III also deals with Incident I, set four quadrillion years ago (considerably longer than current scientific consensus holds the age of the universe to be). In Incident I, the unsuspecting thetan was subjected to a loud snapping noise followed by a flood of luminescence, then saw a chariot followed by a trumpeting cherub. After a loud set of snaps, the thetan was overwhelmed by darkness. This is described as the implant offering the gateway to this universe, meaning that these traumatic memories are what separates thetans from their static (natural, godlike) state.
Hubbard uses the existence of body thetans to explain many of the physical and mental ailments of humanity which, he says, prevent people from achieving their highest spiritual levels. OT III tells the student to remove the body thetans by bringing them to awareness of themselves as individual beings: "One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I." The student is directed to find a cluster of body thetans, address it "telepathically" as a cluster and take first the cluster then each individual member of the cluster through Incident II, then Incident I if needed. Hubbard warns that this is a painstaking procedure, and OT levels IV to VII continue the long process of dealing with one's body thetans.
Believe it or not, for some strange reason, the Church avoids making mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story's confidentiality, including legal action on the grounds of both copyright and trade secrecy. Despite this, much material on Xenu has leaked to the public.
Well, it's quite a lovely little story and I can totally see how Tom Cruise can believe in that. So, basically the ultimate belief of Scientology is that you are possessed by the spirits of aliens murdered 75 million years ago by "Xenu" and you have to exorcise these spirits.
Oh, by the way, let's not forget that this entire religion was just MADE UP by a science fiction writer who PUBLICALLY stated in a 1980 issue of Reader's Digest, "If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." Also, fellow science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers) stated that scientology was based on a bet between the two authors...a claim never denied by Hubbard, but vehemently condemned by the Church of Scientology.
Oh, and on a final note...what pisses me off MAYBE more than anything about Scientology (more than the brainwashing, even) is the official symbol of Scientology....
Yeah...it's a cross. Nice one, you Scien-fucks.