Expert: Laurie Hamilton - 2/8/2006

Question
Laurie, what place does Hubbard's "space opera" stories have in Scientology?  I'm talking about the "mythic cosmology" of Xenu, the Marcab Confederacy and the 4th and 5th Invader Forces, the R6 implant, the Martian implant station, Hubbard's journey up to the Van Allen Belt, living past lives in robot bodies, flying "space wagons" capable of travelling a trillion light years per day, and all the rest of this science fiction that Hubbard told his followers was real.  For example, in Hubbard's "Between Lives Implants" lecture of 23 JUL 1963, he said that he was on Venus and almost got run down by a freight locomotive there.  Do Scientologists take this all seriously, or as a joke?

Answer
Scientologists take everything "theoretical" in Scientology as Ron intended them to - as subject to discussion, skepticism, debate or outright rejection if the individual sees fit.  The "freight train on Venus" remark was clearly a joke, as evidence by the roar of laughter from the audience right after he said it.  On the whole, "space opera" stories are curious or entertaining, or even "ho-hum."  They are not worshiped or clung to with awe, nodded about sagaciously, or made the subject of significant glances with "ahhhh, you see?" undertones, and do not enter into how Scientologists live, or how they practice Scientology.  Hearing such things from time to time does tend to be part of an atmosphere wherein the idea of past lives stretching back over several millennia is readily accepted.

There are some space opera "background stories" on why cerain auditing processes are done, or why they are done the way they are, but one is free to accept or discard these background stories, so long as one understands the rationale and DOES the processes EXACTLY as laid out.  Scientology methods and practice are not up for debate.  They are to be followed without getting "creative."

Most Scientologists, though not all, (not one of my brothers, for instance) have had at least some contact with a past life memory.  As a result, they are quite serious and sincere about the subject of past lives.  While we do not discuss our auditing sessions or our cases, it is clear that many Scientologists have "space opera" memories of their own, quite independent of anything Ron might have said.  It was the fact that preclears being audited began to remember such incidents that brought the subject up for general discussion in Scientology in the first place.  For the most part, these are not considered as contemporary reality, but relegated to the distant past, possibly even "before" this iteration of "the universe."

I personally, as a Scientologist since '68, seldom think of past lives, and never of space opera, unless watching or reading space opera stuff (Star Wars, what-have-you).

ALL this subject matter is only relevant to the degree is it relevant to a particular person at a particular time.  It is indicative of the fact that we do not consider ourselves limited to a single existence, nor to conventional notions of the nature of the universe.  We are free to imagine or believe in whatever subjective realities we will.  This may seem at odds with the fact that Scientologists on the whole are very grounded and intensely practical people, but hey - so are lots of Christians, and they believe the universe is only a few thousand years old, and that some guy physically rose from the dead and physically rose to heaven.  And they think Heaven and Hell are as real as Chicago.  Some sincerely believe that a priest praying over wine and wafers literally turns it into the actual blood and body of Christ - which they then EAT, for cryin' out loud!

So, Scientology mythos and cosmology is internally consistent with our view of the nature of existence, and many of us kind of take it for granted.  Being Scientologists, however, and in keeping with Ron's admonitions regarding Personal Integrity, we don't have to believe a word of it.