Dianetics (#3)

A few additional thoughts about Dianetics will conclude the information on this subject. More than 22 million copies of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard have been sold worldwide in 50 different languages.

Another book that he wrote is titled, Self Analysis; its purpose is “to build self-confidence and reduce stress” (176).

Still another book is: Have You Lived Before This Life? The description of the book reads: “Does man live only one life? The answer lay in mystery, buried until L. Ron Hubbard’s researches unearthed the truth. Actual case histories of people recalling past lives in auditing tell the tale” (177).

Dianetics 55! gives a formula for communication that can help you live a more fulfilling life (178). Then there is the Advanced Scientology Library that includes Scientology 8-8008 (178-79), which discusses your relationship to the physical universe. There are executive books and graduate executive books.

Also available is the Background and Ceremonies of the Church of Scientology (181-82), plus you can obtain nearly 3,000 recorded lectures by L. Ron Hubbard on cassette tape. He died in 1986. Hubbard was arrogant enough to write The Road to Truth, in which he explains “what this road actually is and why it is the only road one MUST travel all the way once begun.” This lecture reveals “the only roads to higher levels of living” (183).

Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10b). This is a bold claim, as is the one found in John 14:6, where our Lord asserted: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The only difference between Jesus and Lafayette Ronald Hubbard is one of evidence. Jesus worked miracles in Jerusalem and throughout Galilee to establish credibility. Hubbard offers only sophistry.

Jesus also taught the Jews: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). He did not prophesy that there would be future prophets with new revelations that would be just as important as His, such as Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, or L. Ron Hubbard. Furthermore, none of them died for our sins or can offer salvation. Only Jesus could and did do that (Heb. 9:12; 10:12).

Only Jesus has arisen from the dead, a fact to which Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and others attest. Muhammad is dead and buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Joseph Smith, Jr. is dead and buried in Nauvoo, Illinois. Ellen G. White is dead and buried in Battle Creek, Michigan. Jesus’ tomb is empty. He arose!

Popularity

Probably no one would have ever heard of Scientology were it not for a few people in Hollywood, who are adherents of the “religion,” such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Isaac Hayes, and Anne Archer. Cruise's wife, Katie Holmes, converted to Scientology prior to their six-year marriage. Reportedly, she is no longer part of it and has kept her daughter away from it, also.

Xenu

Among the advanced teachings of Scientology is the story of Xenu and his Galactic Confederacy. Xenu is introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, 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 and stuck to the bodies of the living. The alien souls continue to do this today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans." The advanced levels of Scientology place considerable emphasis on isolating them and neutralizing their ill effects.

Scientologists have argued that the published accounts of the Xenu story and other colorful teachings are distortions of their practice, presented out of context for the purpose of ridiculing their religion. Journalists and critics of Scientology counter that the Xenu episode is part of a much wider Scientology belief that past lives on other planets are a source of negative influences on the mind and spirit in the present. Some of this lore has been public knowledge for decades.

For instance, Hubbard's 1958 book, Have You Lived Before This Life? contains descriptions of past lives given by individual Scientologists during auditing sessions, including some that are reported to antedate what modern astronomy estimates as the age of the universe. These audits included memories of being “deceived into a love affair” with a robot decked out as “a beautiful red-haired girl," being run over by a Martian bishop driving a steamroller, being transformed into an intergalactic walrus that perished after falling out of a flying saucer, and being "a very happy being who strayed to the planet Nostra 23,064,000,000 years ago," which is 10 billion years more than evolutionary scientists date the universe (everyone knows how they like long time periods).

Even if this part about Xena the Warrior were true, the major flaw is that Scientology does conflict with the Scriptures on Reincarnation, the source of abundant living (Jesus), the true way to happiness (Matt. 5:3-12) the way to truth, realism (Acts 17:30-31), and the fact that righteousness involves practicing holiness and morality (1 Thess. 4:17). Those are prominent omissions.