Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Jun 28, 2008 19:24:18 GMT -5
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Jun 28, 2008 19:54:13 GMT -5
Beliefs See also: Scientology bibliography Main article: Scientology beliefs and practices
Scientology's beliefs and related techniques comprise 18 basic books,[30] and 3,000 recorded lectures.[31] There is no single Scientology book that is the equivalent of the Bible or the Qur'an, but the study of Scientology is achieved through the chronological study of its basic books and lectures.[32]
Scientology describes itself as "the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life,"[33] and "encompasses all aspects of life from the point of view of the spirit" — including "auditing"[34] and training in morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management.[35]
Prime among Scientology's beliefs is "that man is a spiritual being whose existence spans more than one life and who is endowed with abilities well beyond those which he normally considers he possesses."[36] Scientology believes man to be basically good, that his experiences have led him into evil, that he errs because he seeks to solve his problems by considering only his own point of view, and that man can improve to the degree he preserves his spiritual integrity and remains honest and decent.[37] According to the Church, the ultimate goal is: "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights."[38]
The Church of Scientology declares that the goal of Scientology is to achieve "certainty of one’s spiritual existence and [of] one’s relationship to the Supreme Being,"[39] and says that Scientology's tenets are not a matter of faith but of testable practice: "That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true."[40]
The exact nature of all of existence is said to be stated in Hubbard's Scientology and Dianetics Axioms.
Other beliefs of Scientology are:[41]
* A person is an immortal spiritual being (termed a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body. * The thetan has lived through many past lives and will continue to live beyond the death of the body. * Through the Scientology process of "auditing," people can free themselves of traumatic incidents, ethical transgressions and bad decisions which are said to collectively restrict the person from reaching the state of "Clear" and "Operating Thetan." Each state is said to represent the recovery of native spiritual abilities and to confer mental and physical benefits. * A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness. * Psychiatry and psychology are destructive and abusive practices.[42]
Members study Scientology and receive auditing sessions to advance from a status of preclear to Operating Thetan.[43][44]
The Bridge to Total Freedom
Scientology practices (called "Technology" or "Tech" in Scientology jargon) are structured in sequential levels, reflecting Hubbard's belief that rehabilitation takes place on a "gradient", that is, easier steps are taken first and only then greater complexities are handled; for example, the negative effects of drugs must be addressed before other issues can be successfully tackled. Scientologists follow a sequence of courses that culminate in esoteric, advanced strata. This is described as a passage along "the Bridge to Total Freedom," or simply "the Bridge," in which each step promises a little more personal freedom in some particular area of life. Hubbard first developed the basic axioms then he went into experimentation and finally, he developed the therapy and proof of application by means of a self described "spiritual Technology". As he says, ..."One might here use an analogy of bridge engineering".[45] The Bridge is the Classification Gradation and Awareness Chart.[46]
Scientologists believe that man is composed of three distinguishable parts: mind, body and spirit.[47]
The thetan (spirit) is described in Scientology as having no mass, no wavelength, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit, then, is not a thing. It is the creator of things —1956, Professional Auditor's Bulletin 85[48]
The spirit, represented with the Greek letter 'theta' (θ),[49] is the true form of man and can exist exterior to and/or independent from a body.[50] The mind in Scientology is described as a bank of mental image pictures[51] that give the spirit experience and knowledge and that store the spirit’s "postulates." Scientologists subdivide the mind[52] into the analytical or conscious mind, which is "totally accessible to the spirit,"[53] and the reactive or subconscious mind, which "unknowingly affects the spirit" and is said to operate "on an irrational, stimulus-response basis."[54] Scientology describes the physical body as "a carbon-oxygen machine" of which the spirit is the engineer. Illnesses and injuries to the body are said to be relieved through the use of "assists."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Beliefs
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Jun 28, 2008 19:56:29 GMT -5
Past lives, "Secret" Levels and Extraterrestrial beings
See also: Operating Thetan and Space opera in Scientology doctrine
In Dianetics, Hubbard proposed that the cause of "aberrations" in a human mind was an accumulation of pain and unconscious memories of traumatic incidents, some of which predated the life of the human. He extended this view further in Scientology, declaring that "thetans" have existed for tens of trillions of years (several orders of magnitude greater than what mainstream science generally estimates the age of the universe to be). During that time, Hubbard says, they have been exposed to a vast number of traumatic incidents, and have made a great many decisions that influence their present state. Hubbard's 1958 book Have You Lived Before This Life contains descriptions of past lives given by individual Scientologists during auditing sessions. According to an early lecture of Hubbard's, it is, as a practical matter, both impossible and undesirable to recall each and every such event from such vast stretches of time.[72] As a result, Hubbard's three-decade development of Scientology focused on addressing only "key factors."
According to Hubbard, some past traumas may have been deliberately inflicted in the form of "implants" used by extraterrestrial dictatorships such as Helatrobus to brainwash and control the population. Hubbard's lectures and writings include a wide variety of accounts of complex extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described by Hubbard as "space opera." There is a huge Church of Spiritual Technology symbol carved into the ground at Scientology's Trementina Base that is visible from the air.[73] Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby wrote, "Former Scientologists familiar with Hubbard’s teachings on reincarnation say the symbol marks a 'return point' so loyal staff members know where they can find the founder’s works when they travel here in the future from other places in the universe."[74]
Scientologists who have achieved the State of Clear may continue onto the Upper or OT (Operating Thetan) Levels. These levels are available by invitation only after a review of the candidate's character, ethics and contribution to the aims of Scientology.[75] Individuals who have read these materials may not disclose what they contain without jeopardizing their standing in the Church.[75] Presently, there are eight such levels, OT I to VIII.[76] Church management has promised to release a ninth OT level once certain expansion goals are met.[77] The OT VIII designation is only granted at sea, on the Scientology ship, the Freewinds, which was established to provide a "safe, aesthetic, distraction-free environment" for this purpose.[78]
The organization says that it enforces confidentiality. Excerpts and descriptions of these materials were published online by a former member in 1995 and then circulated in mainstream media.[75] This occurred after the teachings were submitted as evidence in court cases involving Scientology, thus becoming a matter of public record.[79][80] In the previously confidential OT levels, Hubbard explains how to reverse the effects of past-life trauma patterns that supposedly extend millions of years into the past.[79]
Among these advanced teachings, one episode revealed to those who reach OT level III is the story of Xenu (sometimes Xemu), introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy." According to this story, 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living and continue to do this today. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and advanced-level Scientologists place considerable emphasis on isolating these alien souls and neutralizing their ill effects.[81]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Past_lives.2C_.22Secret.22_Levels_and_Extraterrestrial_beings
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Aug 13, 2008 9:46:29 GMT -5
Where do Scientologists go when they die?
slate.com — The actual details of how rebirth occurs is not fully understood by Scientology outsiders, but some core beliefs are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the "meat bodies" we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death. More… (Arts & Culture)
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explainer: Answers to your questions about the news. The Afterlife for ScientologistsWhat will happen to Isaac Hayes' legendary soul?
By Nina Shen Rastogi Posted Monday, Aug. 11, 2008, at 7:13 PM ET
Singer Isaac Hayes died on Sunday at the age of 65. Besides being a sex symbol, a soul-music legend, and a beloved voice-over artist, Hayes was also a dedicated Scientologist. According to his religious beliefs, what happens to Hayes now that he's passed away?
His soul will be "born again into the flesh of another body," as the Scientology Press Office's FAQ puts it. The actual details of how that rebirth occurs are not fully understood by church outsiders, but some core beliefs of Scientology are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the "meat bodies" we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death. (Members of the elite church cadre known as Sea Org, for example, sign contracts that pledge a billion years of service throughout successive lives.)
When a body dies, its thetan forgets the details of the former life, though painful and traumatic images known as engrams remain rooted in its unconscious. In order to move up the path of spiritual progression—known as the Bridge to Total Freedom—one must eradicate these psychic scars, which cause a person to act fearfully and irrationally. Once a Scientologist has purged them through the counseling process known as auditing, he or she is said to be "clear."
According to an avowed Scientology antagonist who claims, on her Web site, to present factual information typically omitted from church press materials, the official Scientology publication Celebrity announced that Hayes attained "clear" status around 2002, though it is not known whether he progressed onto the highest parts of the Bridge, the "operating thetan" levels. Details about what happens in these advanced stages remain closely guarded Scientology secrets, but at the very end of the process, thetans are supposed to gain power over the physical world; consequently, according to founder L. Ron Hubbard, they "feel no need of bodies," ending the cycle of birth and death and becoming pure, incorporeal souls.
If Hayes had progressed high enough on the Bridge, he might have begun preparing for his next life in the final days of this one. According to former Sea Org member Chuck Beatty, some upper-level operating thetans are said to possess the ability to choose their next set of birth parents.
In a widely reprinted 1990 Los Angeles Times article, Hubbard was quoted (apparently from a lecture given in the 1950s) describing how, after death, a thetan is carried to a "landing station" on Venus, where it is "programmed with lies," put in a capsule, and then "dumped" back on Earth, where it wanders in search of a baby to inhabit. Yet according to Laurie Hamilton, who says she has been a Scientologist since 1968, adherents are "free to accept or discard" such stories so long as they embrace the "methods and practices" of Scientology. One of the church's official Web sites stresses that a belief in past lives is not mandatory dogma but, rather, a personal truth that most Scientologists come to as they go through auditing.
The Web site also stresses that Scientologists do not believe in "reincarnation." Unlike religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, in which reincarnation functions as a kind of justice system—i.e., an individual's behavior in one life determines the caliber of the next—rebirth in Scientology is a more mechanical process. Hubbard described it as "simply living time after time, getting a new body, eventually losing it and getting a new one."
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Chuck Beatty, Stephen Kent of the University of Alberta, and Hugh Urban of Ohio State University. Thanks also to reader Mark Allender for asking the question.
www.slate.com/
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Aug 13, 2008 22:50:35 GMT -5
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