The Thetan and Your Life as a Clam

Scientologists like to claim that they “proved, for the first time, that man was a spiritual being, not an animal.”i

I too believe that we are spiritual beings, but I don’t know what they cite as evidence – what scientific, tangible, quantifiable, verifiable evidence they have of the spirit, the soul, - or in Scientologist terms – the Thetan. I’ve read a fair number of their books now, and I see the claim, “we’ve proven it” many, many times. But I’ve not seen the proof, just the repeated claim that they have the evidence.

In fact, in the book Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought, Hubbard details the where and when of this exciting discovery:

Probably the greatest discovery of Scientology and its most forceful contribution to the knowledge of mankind has been the isolation, description and handling of the human spirit, accomplished in July 1952 in Phoenix Arizona. I established along scientific rather than religious or humanitarian lines that the thing which is the person, the personality, is separable from the body and the mind at will and without causing bodily death or mental derangement. ii(Italics added. jc)

Can you imagine that? He isolated and measured or quantified or inspected the soul. He even “handled” it. I’ll bet my Thetan is sorta’ squishy.

This event is not, however, mentioned in the list of “Important Dates in Scientology” found in text-book styled What is Scientology? In this list June 1952 has Hubbard giving lectures in Phoenix Arizona concerning the subject of “effort and energy.” And then in July of 1952 “Scientology: A History of Man book is published.”iii It says nothing about the astonishing discovery of scientific evidence for the human soul.

Oh well, maybe it wasn’t that important.

A History of Man claims to provide “a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years...iv" In it Hubbard traces the immortal, omniscient and omnipotent Thetan through the entire history of the universe, and even before.

According to Hubbard, before the universe existed, there were Thetans who concocted a universe for their own amusement, but became enmeshed in this universe and forgot their omnis (omnipotence and omniscience). They forgot that they were ‘gods’. As I said before: this is Gnosticism.

It seems that these Thetans (which you and I are are, we’ve just forgotten) inhabited countless, innumerable bodies though these trillions of years, including many pre-historic life-forms. Ever feel like a dinosaur? That’s because you were one in a previous life.

And in all these multitudinous lives, the Thetans accumulated Engrams – painful experiences that were stored in the eternal memory and now cause everything from arthritis and allergies to cancer, schizophrenia, and behavioral ills like murder and drug abuse…

The Thetans accumulated many of these engrams during their time as clams. The clam’s main problem – and he had many problems– was one of opening and closing the hinge of his shell. This hinge, according to Hubbard, eventually evolved into the bones of the human jaw, and if you were to be so indiscrete as to discuss the clam and his difficulty with his hinges with somebody not yet familiar with the tenants of Scientolgy, you could reawaken their engrams and cause them pain.

…your discussion of these incidents with the uninitiated in Scientology can cause havoc. Should you describe the “clam” to someone, you may restimulate it in him to the extent of causing severe jaw pain. One such victim, after hearing about a clam death, could not use his jaws for three days.

The book continues tracing the Thetan through the millennia – as other assorted animals, as cavemen, and eventually into their lives as humans. Volcanoes come into the story quite frequently v and lots of Thetans were eaten.

But eventually humans evolved, and here we are, you and I with our immortal, invisible Thetans and I’m kinda’ hungry for some clam chowder now.

***

i What is Scientology? Bridge Publications Inc, Los Angeles CA, 1993. page 641


ii Hubbard, L. Ron, Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought, Bridge Publications Inc, Los Angeles CA, 1988 (originally 1963) page 63.

iii What is Scientology? Page 776

iv Sixty trillion years would be roughly 4,300 times the general scientific consensus on the age of the universe. Don’t let science get in your way, though. Hubbard never did.

v Volcanoes are a big part of Scientology – note the volcano on the cover of Dianetics. Xenu used a volcano to obliterate billions of Thetans, but that’s a story for another blog post.