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In Scientology doctrine, space opera was the term used by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to describe extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in past lives. The following descriptions of space opera incidents are seen as nonfiction in the beliefs of Scientology * and has led to Scientology being characterized by some critics and commentators as a UFO religion (Partridge, UFO Religions). Hubbard claimed that the modern-day science fiction genre of space opera is merely an unconscious recollection of real events from millions of years ago. Still, David Miscavige* and other prominent Scientologists have publicly disputed how important space opera incidents are to the religion. Scientology's doctrines famously include the story of Xenu, the ruler of the Galactic Confederacy who brought billions of frozen people to Earth 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs, creating swarms of disembodied alien souls known as Body Thetans. Xenu is only one element of Scientology beliefs in alien civilizations. Such doctrines have existed in Scientology virtually since its beginning•: in the 1950s Hubbard wrote and lectured about civilizations such as Helatrobus, the Espinol Confederacy and Arslycus, and in the 1960s he introduced Xenu's Galactic Confederacy. He described repeated instances of their using brainwashing implants on hapless beings. He also spoke of alien invasions of Earth, such as that carried out around 6235 BC by the Fifth Invader Force, who were "very strange insect-like creatures with unthinkably horrible hands." Scientology and science fiction Often members of the Church will publicly deny the existence of specific space opera doctrines, or attempt to minimize their importance. * However, Scientology has many graduated levels through which one can progress. Many who remain at relatively 'low' levels in the church are unaware of much of the space opera doctrines, which mostly begin at Operating Thetan level three, or "OT III". * Because the secret information imparted to members is to be kept secret from others who have not attained that level, the member must publicly deny its existence when asked. OT III recipients must sign a waiver promising never to reveal its secrets before they are given the manila envelope containing the Xenu knowledge. * It is knowledge so dangerous, members are told, anyone learning this material before he is ready could die. Many members who remain in the Church of Scientology have objected to Scientology being painted as a science fiction fantasy *. Space opera is defined in the Official Scientology and Dianetics Glossary as: "of or relating to time periods … millions of years ago which concerned activities in this and other galaxies. Space opera has space travel, spaceships, spacemen, intergalactic travel, wars, conflicts, other beings, civilizations and societies, and other planets and galaxies. It is not fiction and concerns actual incidents and things that occurred on the whole track. ''in the past''" (Official Scientology and Dianetics Glossary) Particularly during its early years, Scientology had many links with science fiction. Hubbard was originally a pulp science fiction and adventure story writer, his book was first publicised through John W. Campbell's magazine Astounding Science Fiction and many of his early followers were recruited from the science fiction milieu. Indeed, Hubbard returned to science fiction in the 1980s with his books Battlefield Earth and the ten-volume Mission Earth series. Many science-fictional references can be found in Hubbard's Scientology-related works. Scientologists could find themselves living in "robot bodies" in past lives, being killed by "zap guns", living aboard spaceships or flying "space wagons" capable of travelling "a trillion light years per day". ("The Helatrobus Implants") Scientology magazines even now are often illustrated with pictures of spaceships and exploding stars, and some Scientology books published during the 1960s and 1970s depicted science fiction scenes on their dustjackets. Hubbard later dramatised the story of Xenu as a film script, Revolt in the Stars, in the late 1970s, but failed to find a studio willing to buy the work. His novels Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth are not directly related to Scientology, but critics have noted a similarity between some themes of these later novels and Scientology doctrine, particularly "the very strong opposition against 20th century psychology and psychiatry, which is seen as a major source of evil." • Rather than Scientology being based on science fiction, however, Hubbard argued that science fiction was actually an unconscious recollection of real past lives that could be uncovered in detail through Scientology auditing: You say, well, this is science fiction. No. No, no. No. The only part of science fiction they are, is the mistakes the science fiction writers have made while writing about their own past. ("The Helatrobus Implants") Scientologys view of the universe Scientology doctrine holds that the human spirit is manifested as what it terms thetan, a spiritual being roughly corresponding to religious and philosophical conceptions of the soul, which is immortal and theoretically immensely powerful, but is currently imprisoned in mortal human bodies and unable to reach its full potential. Thetans are credited with having created the universe trillions of years ago and with having the potential for "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time": the ability to operate free of the encumbrances of the material universe. However, over the "trillennia", thetans have been repeatedly subjected to the depredations of beings in the material or "MEST" universe. In the ongoing conflict between "theta" (good) and "entheta" (bad), material beings have captured, tortured and brainwashed thetans to make them more tractable. Xenu's galactic genocide was the most famous example of such methods but was not by any means the only such incident related in Scientology doctrine. According to Hubbard, there have been many other such incidents, and alien involvement in Earth's affairs is still ongoing. The result is that thetans today are severely "aberrated" by billions of years of mistreatment in past lives, causing mental and physical problems such as illness, insanity and war. The only way to resolve this is said to be through Scientology's "auditing" or counselling methods. During Scientology auditing sessions, the Scientologist confronts and handles a series of past lives and key incidents which they may have experienced. Hubbard described many key incidents on the "whole track" ("the moment to moment record of a person’s existence in this universe in picture and impression form" *) in his writings and lectures. He also gave details of various alien civilizations, their roles and their histories — most of which seem to have involved the mass brainwashing of thetans with "implants" (false memories). Scientologists and space opera Some aspects of Scientology space opera are revealed only in higher-level Scientology courses. For instance, the story of Xenu is part of the Operating Thetan level III course, which requires an extensive (and expensive) preparatory series of courses. Only high-level Scientologists are given access to such "Advanced Technology" materials. This has not always been the case, as the Church of Scientology was initially quite open about its beliefs in space opera. Some "advanced" material was withdrawn from public circulation from the late 1960s onwards (although old copies can still be found in some public library collections, due to the Church's energetic policy of book donations). Much Scientology space opera is nonetheless still accessible to "ordinary" Scientologists and in materials which are readily available to the general public. The Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary (ISBN 0-88404-037-2) contains many definitions for extraterrestrial civilizations and brainwashing incidents, and many of L. Ron Hubbard's publicly available works contain extensive references to space opera. Within Scientology, internal magazines often publicize aspects of space opera to entry-level "preclear" Scientologists. For instance, International Scientology News issue 3 contains an advertisement for volume 10 of Hubbard's Research and Discovery Series (ISBN 0-88404-218-9), which says in part: Your mind is completely UNPREPARED for what is about to HAPPEN to your REALITY ... Volume 10: The Infinite Potential of Theta is unsurpassed: Nowhere will you find more knowledge about the mysterious ENTITIES, also known as theta bodies, those inhabitants of every human being that talk to him, and lead him astray. Nowhere are you likely to find more concentrated data about the BETWEEN LIVES AREAS and LRH's eye-popping discovery of BODIES IN PAWN. Do YOU have a body in pawn? Read Volume 10, for once you know ALL about it, you won't have to worry about nightmares, inexplicable somatics, disturbing visio images of cylindrical tanks, bodies floating in green fluid ... (International Scientology News issue 3, 1997; formatting as per original) It is not clear to what degree the typical Scientologist personally shares the official belief in "space opera", though the above advertisement features in an "entry-level" publication. The views of a number of individual Scientologists were recorded in the 1960 book Have You Lived Before This Life? (ISBN 0-88404-958-2). It describes "past life" episodes as recounted by 43 Scientologists undergoing Scientology auditing during a conference in London in 1958 *. The participants in the conference reported having lived past lives including the following: Non-Scientologists and space opera
Scientologys history of the universe Alien civilizations Hubbard said that the following "alien civilizations" exist(ed): Arslycus Arslycus (pronounced "ars-LYE-cus") was an ancient civilization located in space, rather than on a planet, as this was at a time when "nobody had invented planets yet." Hubbard described it as being notorious for its mind-numbingly tedious jobs, putting thetans to work for "ten thousand lives in Arslycus, on the average", spent doing nothing better than polishing bricks. The civilization was ultimately destroyed when "one of these slaves suddenly got the big idea of mass" and Arslycus "broke to pieces and scattered around in that particular part of the sky as being of too great a mass to sustain itself". This was, apparently, "about the point where you got the law of gravity coming in strongly. And after that the law of gravity began to affect itself on the universe more and more and more and more and you started to get all kinds of suns and planets and the most fantastic array of things." (Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures, 1 December 1952) Espinol Confederacy The Espinol Confederacy is a lesser but apparently still extant alien civilization, said by Hubbard to have lasted "something on the order of a few hundred thousand years." ("The ITSA Line") It used to control Earth's Solar System, which was "Sun 12" of the "Espinol United Stars" (formal name: "Espinol United Stars, or the Espinol United Moons, Planets, and Asteroids: This Quarter of the Universe is Ours"). The Espinols abandoned the Solar System in AD 1150, "when a group on Mars was finally abolished and vanished", and since then have used the system as a dumping ground for convicts. ("The Free Being") Galactic Confederacy Main article: Galactic Confederacy The Galactic Confederacy was the political unit formerly ruled by the tyrant Xenu. It ruled a broad swath of the galaxy, and lasted for "eighty trillion years". ("The ITSA Line") 75 million years ago, at the time of Xenu's mass murder, the Galactic Confederacy comprised 26 stars and 76 planets, including Earth (then called Teegeeack). Its inhabitants "were walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute. And the cars they drove looked exactly the same and the trains they ran looked the same and the boats they had looked the same. Circa 1950, 1960." ("Assists") Modern civilization closely resembles that of the Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago because of an unconscious re-enactment of Xenu's "R6 implants". The Church of Scientology consciously models itself on aspects of the Galactic Confederacy. The Sea Org, an elite grouping within the Church of Scientology, has a laurel wreath logo said by Hubbard to be based on the symbol of the "Loyal Officers", an anti-Xenu faction within the Galactic Confederacy. Each of the leaves on the laurel wreath is said to represent one of the Galactic Confederacy's stars. According to the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, "the Sea Org symbol, adopted and used as the symbol of a Galactic Confederacy far back in the history of this sector, derives much of its power and authority from that association." Helatrobus Main article: Helatrobus Helatrobus was a now-extinct "interplanetary nation" which was only a "little pipsqueak government, didn't amount to very much." It was distinguished by "gold crosses on their planes, like the American Red Cross or something of the sort." ("State of OT") Despite their outwardly friendly aspect, the Helatrobans were responsible for a particularly vicious set of implants, the "Heaven Implants", which were given some 43 trillion years ago. They were also responsible for implanting the Gorilla Goals. Invader Forces
Marcab Confederacy The Marcab Confederacy is said to be one of the most powerful galactic civilizations still active. He describes it as: various planets united into a very vast civilization which has come forward up through the last 200,000 years, formed out of the fragments of earlier civilizations. In the last 10,000 years they have gone on with a sort of decadent kicked-in-the-head civilization that contains automobiles, business suits, fedora hats, telephones, spaceships — a civilization which looks almost an exact duplicate but is worse off than the current US civilization. The capital of the Confederacy is said to be "one of the tail stars of the Big Dipper", probably Alkaid, a star 108 light years distant from Earth. The Marcabians used to rule Earth at some point in the past but lost control of it due to "losses in war and other things". The Marcabians had an oppressive political system: "if a person was considered to be in contempt of court or anything like that, he was simply fried since there was a curtain of radioactive material which went clear across the front of the bench anywhere that a witness or anybody would stand, and so on." ("History and development of processes: question and answer period") They invented income tax as a means of punishment, with the death penalty imposed for making even the slightest mistake in returns — "one comma wrong and it's 'dead forever'." The Marcabians also appear to have been distinctly socialistic, having "had plan balanced economies" (presumably some form of planned economy). ("E-Meter Actions, Errors in Auditing") They were also keen on motor racing and every once in a while Scientologists undergoing auditing "will run into memories of race tracks and race-track drivers". Hubbard described this in some detail in a 1960 lecture: They had turbine-generated cars that went about 275 miles an hour (443 km/h). They ran with a high whine. I notice they've just now invented the motor again. And they had tracks that were booby-trapped with atom bombs, and they had side bypasses. The tracks were mined, and the grandstands were leaded-paned. The tracks were deliberately designed to be as dangerous as possible, with "a mountain that you went up to the top of and fell off", and death was commonplace. This, however, was not a problem, as Marcabian medicine was so good that nobody ever died permanently. According to author Russell Miller, Hubbard liked to reminisce to his followers about "how he was a race-car driver in the Marcab civilization". One of the people who accompanied him aboard his private fleet in the late 1960s described Hubbard's stories of life with the Marcabians: LRH said he was a race driver called the Green Dragon who set a speed record before he was killed in an accident. He came back in another lifetime as the Red Devil and beat his own record, then came back and did it again as the Blue Streak. Finally he realized all he was doing was breaking his own records and it was no game any more. Hubbard describes exactly this in his lecture "Create and Confront", telling how he went through multiple lives as a Marcabian racing driver with names like The Green Rocket, The Red Comet, The Silver Streak, The Gold Bomb, and so on. Hubbard stated that the Marcab Confederacy was now using Earth as a "prison planet". When a person dies or "drops the body", as Scientologists put it, his thetan is pulled into a Marcab-established "implant station" or "report station". The idea that Earth is a "prison planet", maintained by "entheta beings" or Targs who dumped their enemies on Earth, was first put forward in a 1952 lecture, "Electropsychometric Scouting: Battle of the Universes". A steady flow of flying saucers is said to be still dropping off more entheta beings. The report area for most has been Mars. Some women report to stations elsewhere in the Solar System. There are occasional incidents about Earth report stations. The report stations are protected by screens. The last report station on Earth was established in the Pyrenees. The thetans are brainwashed and sent back to Earth, where they find a new body to inhabit. Only Scientologists who have reached the level of "Operating Thetan" are said to be able to avoid this fate. Other alien civilizations Hubbard mentions a number of other alien civilizations in his writings, though he does not go into any detail about them. These include the "Three-and-a-half Invaders, ... the Psi Galaxy, Galaxy 82." ("The Story of a Static") According to the official Church of Scientology notes accompanying the lectures in which he alluded to them, these were "made up" (presumably for humorous effect), contrasting with the supposedly real invader forces and civilizations cited above. Key incidents In his writings and lectures, Hubbard describes many key incidents said to have occurred to thetans during the past few trillion years. Generally speaking, these followed a consistent pattern. A hostile alien civilization would capture free thetans and brainwash them with implants designed to confuse them or otherwise render them more amenable to control. Instances of implantation are termed incidents, while the subject of the implants are often termed goals. In a specific incident, a thetan would be implanted with two or more opposing objectives (e.g. "to be", "not to be") which, being opposed, cause the thetan great confusion. The memory of the implanting then becomes obscured or is deliberately deleted. This confusion is said to linger for trillions of years and causes unresolved psychological problems in the present day. According to Hubbard, only Scientology methods can resolve the burdens left by such traumas. Aircraft Door Goals The Aircraft Door Goals were implanted between 315 trillion years ago and 216 trillion years ago aboard the fuselage of an aircraft, with the thetan held motionless in front of the aircraft door. Hubbard writes that "the goal items were laid in with explosions". The specific goals given in this implant were variants of the command "to create." ("Routine 3N: Line Plots", HCOB 14 July 1963) Bear Goals The Bear Goals were very similar to the Gorilla Goals (see below) with the same set of goals, except that "instead of a mechanical gorilla a mechanical or live bear was used, and the motion was even more violent." They were implanted by "a group called, I think, "The Brothers of the Bear" and were the ancestors of the Hoipolloi." ("Routine 3N: Line Plots", HCOB 14 July 1963) Black Thetan Goals The Black Thetan Goals, also known as the Glade Implants, were implanted between "390 trillion trillion years to 370 trillion trillion years ago". According to Hubbard, they were "in a glade surrounded by the stone heads of "black thetans" who spat white energy at the trapped thetan". The goals included such things as "To End, To be Dead, To be Asleep" and so on. Body Builder Incident The Body Builder Incident took place around 50 million years ago. The thetan was forced to "fight again with his attention units" and was "generally tailored into a body." (Scientology: A History of Man) Bodies in pawn Bodies in pawn result from an ancient "very gruesome experience" in which a fellow is grabbed, hypnotized, shoved into an electronic field, and then told he is somewhere else. And so he departs – most of him – and goes to the new location while still being under control of the implanters. He picks up a MEST physical body in the new location and starts living a life there, while still having a living body somewhere else. The implanters can keep his original body alive indefinitely, and control the thetan through it. If the thetan tries to flee, the hypnotizers simply cause pain to the original body, still alive in a vat of fluid, and he is immediately recalled. That's a BODY IN PAWN. It's a second body you may have, living somewhere else, right in present time. But the second body is not under YOUR direct control. They can apparently cause major problems for people undergoing medical operations, as "pain, an anaesthetic or a serious accident cause him to change to the other area with a shocking impact on the other body. The other body quite commonly dies or is deranged by the sudden impact." This gives the patient a repressed feeling of having died and leaves him "very, very badly disturbed." (Scientology: A History of Man) Bubble Gum Incident The Bubble Gum Incident was an important early incident "where you are hit with a motion and finally develop an obsession about motion". It was the first incident on the "time track" which included words. ("Technique 88 and the Whole Track Part I") Gorilla Goals
Heaven Implants The Heaven Implants were given "43,891,832,611,177 years, 344 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds from 10:02½ PM Daylight Greenwich Time May 9, 1963." They comprised two series of views of Heaven, the first of which was quite positive: Hubbard compares Heaven to "Busch Gardens in Pasadena". In the second series, Heaven had become a lot shabbier: The place is shabby. The vegetation is gone. The pillars are scruffy. The saints have vanished. So have the Angels. A sign on one (the left as you "enter") says "This is Heaven". The right has a sign "Hell" with an arrow and inside the grounds one can see the excavations like archaeological diggings with raw terraces, that lead to "Hell". Hubbard reported that he had encountered no "devils or satans". Heaven was, however, not quite as conventionally depicted, and took the form of a town which "consisted of a trolley bus, some building fronts, sidewalks, train tracks, a boarding house, a bistro in a basement where there is a "bulletin board" well lighted, and a BANK BUILDING." Hubbard described how the second series of Heaven implants depicts: a passenger getting on the trolley bus, a "workman" halfway down the first stairs of To Forget "eating lunch" and in To Be in Heaven a gardener or electrician adjusting an implant box behind a hedge and periodically leaping up and screaming. After being ridiculed in the Anderson Report (an Australian public inquiry into Scientology), this bulletin was withdrawn from circulation. Helatrobus Implants
Incident I Incident I is set four quadrillion years ago and provides a cosmological explanation of the origin of all universes. 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 opening the gateway to this universe, meaning that these traumatic memories are what separates thetans from their static (natural, godlike) state. The incident is described in Operating Thetan level III (OT III), written in 1967. Invisible Picture Goals The Invisible Picture Goals were implanted by an early race of alien implanters some time between "110,000 trillion trillion years ago or earlier to 390 trillion trillion years ago". They comprised brainwashing of captive thetans by showing them pictures of diametrically opposed goals such as "Wake, Never Wake, Sleep, Never Sleep", as well as invisible pictures to confuse the thetan. The other pictures would "consist usually of a scene of a cave, a railway, an airplane, a view of a sun and planets". ("Routine 3N, Line Plots", HCOB July 14 1963) Obscene Dog Incident In the "Assists" lecture of October 3, 1968, Hubbard described a surreal cosmological event said to take place shortly after Incident I (the creation of the universe): "There's the incident called "The Obscene Dog" with it's just a little bit later than Incident One. And sometimes actually by running it, why you can get the PC into Incident One. The Obscene Dog was a sort of a brass dog in a sitting position and anybody who got around to the front of the dog got caught in some electronic current and passed through the dog to the dogs rear end and spat out. Thetans didn't like this." * R6 Implants
Train Goals Devised by the Marcab Invasion Force and implemented between "hundreds of years ago to hundreds of thousands of years ago", the Train Goals were a series of implants given in a huge train station. The thetan was put into "a railway carriage quite like a British railway coach with compartments" and subjected to a barrage of "white energy". During the implant sequence: a face may come up and say "You still here? Get out. Get off this train. We hate you." And from the speakers "This happened to you yesterday, tomorrow, now. This is your departure point, keep coming back. You'll be meeting all your friends here. When you're killed and dead keep coming back. You haven't a chance to get away. You've got to report in. This happened to you days ago, weeks ago, years ago. You don't know when this happened to you. We hate you. Get out. Don't ever come back." Notes Lectures by Hubbard HCO Bulletins Books | |||||||||||||||||
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