Thetan
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In Scientology, the concept of thetan is similar to the concept of spirit or soul found in other belief systems.
Thetans have been described in the Church of Scientology in a number of ways:
- A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul."<ref >Official Glossary of Scientology & Dianetics Terms</ref>
- "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body."<ref name="DSTD 432">Template:Cite book</ref>
- "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things."<ref name="DSTD 432"/>
- A thetan is "the person himself -- not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you." <ref name="DSTD 432"/>
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Thetan in Scientology doctrine
The term and concept were introduced by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who adopted the Greek letter theta (Θ) to represent "the source of life and life itself". <ref>Science of Survival, L. Ron Hubbard pg.3 pub. Publications Organization ISBN 0884040011</ref> Hubbard first spoke of "theta-beings" in a lecture series of March 1952 <ref>Scientology: Milestone One, L. Ron Hubbard pub. Golden Era Productions. Audio lectures with transcripts</ref> and attributed the coining of the word to his wife Mary Sue <ref>Hubbard, The Auditor 21, p.1</ref>.
Hubbard, at one point defined a thetan as "having no mass, no wave-length, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things." <ref name="DSTD 432"/> However, in a lecture series later published as a book ("The Phoenix Lectures"), he pointed to a study that implied a thetan manifests a small but measurable amount of mass:
- "From some experiments conducted about fifteen or twenty years ago--a thetan weighed about 1.5 ounces! Who made these experiments? Well, a doctor made these experiments. He weighed people before and after death, retaining any mass. He weighed the person, bed and all, and he found that the weight dropped at the moment of death about 1.5 ounces and some of them 2 ounces. (Those were heavy thetans.)" <ref>Hubbard, The Phoenix Lectures, p. 147. Bridge Publications, 1982 ISBN 08840040062. Hubbard appears to be referring to the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who in the early 1900s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material and measurable. He claimed to have measured a loss of mass amounting to three-fourths of an ounce (21.3 grams) on the death of the patient. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any scientific merit. [1].</ref>
According to Hubbard's son Ronald DeWolf (born L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.), his father stated that thetans are immortal and perpetual, having willed themselves into existence at some point several trillion years ago.<ref>PBS Late Night interview with Ron DeWolf</ref><ref>[http://shroom.dv8.org/filez/writings/scientology-report.txt Hopkins, Joseph M. Is L. Ron Hubbard Dead? Christianity Today, February 18, 1983 p31]</ref> After they originated, thetans generated "points to view," or "dimension points" which caused space to come into existence. They agreed that other thetans' dimension points existed, thus bringing into existence the entire universe. All matter, energy, space and time exists solely because thetans agree that it exists.
According to Scientology researcher Jon Atack, thetans are also said to be omnicogniscent, which caused them to become bored because they could never learn anything new or be surprised; that Hubbard claimed that the single most important desire in all beings is to have a "game", for which it was necessary to "not know" certain things (in order for the results to be unpredictable and surprising). As thetans knew everything, this required them to abandon or suppress perceptions and knowledge. Over time, the loss of perception accumulated and certain thetans began to cause harm to others. MEST (physical) beings also sought to "trap" thetans in order to control them. Thetans came to learn contrition, punishing themselves for their own "harmful" acts.<ref name=APoBS>Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, chapter 9.2</ref>
An essential part of the thetans' game, according to Hubbard was the "conquest" of matter, energy, space and time by the life force, theta. This has produced multiple universes which have ended and begun in succession, each new one being more solid and entrapping than the last. The thetans have by now become so enmeshed in the physical universe that many have identified themselves totally with it, forgetting their quadrillions of years of existence and their original godly powers.<ref name=APoBS/>
Nonetheless, thetan powers are said to remain potent and restorable. One of the Church of Scientology's stated goals is "the rehabilitation of the human spirit," by which it means the restoration of the thetan's original abilities. Hubbard claims that thetans are able to change reality through "postulates" - decisions made by the individual about the nature of the reality around them. Some thetans are said to have (mis)used this ability to "implant" others with hypnotic suggestions, and forced other thetans to "cluster" around bodies (hence body thetans). This sort of directed control is referred to as "other-determinism". Scientology seeks to undo it and return the thetan to "self-determinism," where he can control himself and his environment. The eventual goal is to achieve "pan-determinism" where he acts for the good of all.
Operating Thetan
According to Scientology doctrine, a thetan exists whether operating a human body or not. Scientology advertises itself as being able to "rehabilitate" the thetan of a practictioner to a state where the individual can operate with or without a body. The term "operating thetan" would then apply as it does when an individual is operating a body. The Operating Thetan (OT) levels are the upper level courses in Scientology.
The Church defines "operating thetan" as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, and matter, energy, space and time (MEST)." <ref>L. Ron Hubbard's Congress Lectures: Glossary, "OT", Bridge Publications Inc.</ref>
The Church of Scientology states as a point of doctrine that an individual exists with or without a body.<ref>Church of Scientology, Scientology Beliefs, accessed 03/28/06</ref> Scientology claims that people with proper Scientology training can "exteriorize with full perceptics" (leave the body in spirit form) after completing OT levels, but this claim has yet to be validated by any research.
Body thetan
There is also a type of thetan that Hubbard termed the "body thetan". Hubbard claimed that this type of thetan was stuck in, on, or near a persons body due to a nuclear explosion that blew up millions of space aliens in volcanos ~75 million years ago, referred to as the Xenu incident. However, these type of thetans are considered bad, and the Church requires further courses for people if they want to remove the thousands of disembodied souls of space aliens from their body. This was revealed in Hubbard's own handwriting in Operating Thetan III course materials.
Notes
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