Thetan - Thetan in Scientology Doctrine

Thetan in Scientology Doctrine

The term and concept were invented by sci-fi writer and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who adopted the Greek letter theta (Θ) to represent "the source of life and life itself". Hubbard first spoke of "theta-beings" in a lecture series of March 1952. He attributed the coining of the word to his wife Mary Sue. As an essential point of Scientology doctrine, a person's identity and self-awareness come entirely from a "thetan". It is redundant to refer to "a person's thetan," because the person does not exist independently.

Hubbard once defined a thetan as: "... having no mass, no wave-length, no energy, no measurable qualities and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things." In a lecture series later published as a book ("The Phoenix Lectures"), he jokingly pointed to a study that implied that 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 super thetans!)"

Although Hubbard did not name the doctor concerned, there was indeed such an attempt, by Dr. Duncan MacDougall, to measure the weight of dying patients to determine the weight of the soul, although MacDougall's experiments took place about fifty years before Hubbard's lectures, not fifteen or twenty, and are generally not regarded as having any scientific validity.

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. After they originated, thetans generated "points to view" or "dimension points", causing 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.

In the primordial past, according to Scientologist teachings, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure.." The universe is thought to have no independent reality, but to derive its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists. Scientologists believe that thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity. Eventually, they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

Thetans are believed to be reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption" which is analogous to reincarnation. Dell deChant and Danny Jorgensen liken Scientology to Hinduism, in that both ascribe a causal relationship between the experiences of earlier incarnations and one's present life. With each rebirth, the effects of the "MEST" universe (MEST here stands for matter, energy, space, and time) on the thetan are believed to become stronger.

Jon Atack, whose book A Piece of Blue Sky details how he reached Operating Thetan level V before leaving Scientology, describes Hubbard's doctrines about thetans: "Thetans are all-knowing beings, and became bored because there were no surprises. Hubbard asserted that the single most important desire in all beings is to have a "game". To have a "game" it was necessary to "not know" certain things, so certain perceptions were negated ("not-is-ed")." Since 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.

According to Hubbard, an essential part of the thetans' game 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.

According to Scientology, 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, forcing 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.