Understanding Scientology’s Philosophy – An Outsider’s Perspective

I’ve always felt the need to learn about every religion I can understand; until a few years ago, that idea just included Western religions, but I’ve been able to break out of that shell with explorations into Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism. I should also explain that, while many people believe that religion and philosophy are separate entities, I believe they should be studied in conjunction, because the former informs the latter. A person’s mystic dealings (religion) will certainly inform their values; but someone without religion will appear to be more reasonable, since no religion informs their values. Indeed, religion often defies reason by denying everyday facts or logic, while philosophy demands proof and explanation. I am certainly an illogical person, and will admit that there is a mystical side to my philosophy. But this does not make religion invalid, though it should be acknowledged as the more illogical of the two.

That being said, scientology is a religion. It is, by nature, illogical. Its claims are just as logical as a beast rising out of the sea with seven heads, ten horns, and ten crowns on each horn, and proceeding to rule for forty-two months. That’s from the book of Revelation in the Bible. So I will stipulate, for now, that attempting to achieve higher Operating Thetan levels is not less reasonable than my culture’s traditional religion of Christianity.

Now, I could choose to discuss certain aspects of Scientology which make it sound absolutely ridiculous; simply dropping words like ‘Xenu’ and ‘thetan’ causes some people to giggle. Or I could highlight organizations like Narconon which seem to be doing much more harm than good. But each religion has within it a general philosophy, or thought process, that can be understood and agreed upon by people of many different faiths. So, in the spirit of active positivism, I attempted to find one scientology book in the Baylor library that made good sense, and I was successful. I chose the most philosophical-sounding one, The Fundamentals of Thought (1956), by L. Ron Hubbard (creator of scientology), and read its entire text.

My first shock was that no American reading this book would stop at any point and say that his philosophy is unreasonable. The premises Hubbard lays out are entirely acceptable ideas in our culture. He also writes clearly and with the literary sense of a fiction writer (as indeed he was), who actively goads the reader to finish the book. He explains all his ideas in wonderfully explicit language, using very few metaphors, giving the reader several different examples to understand his concepts. His theses slowly merge as each chapter progresses, and the book ends with astonishingly reasonable conclusions. He was certainly a gifted writer.

In the introduction, the editor quotes Hubbard in this way: “To a Scientologist, the real barbarism of Earth is stupidity. Only in the black muck of ignorance can the irrational conflicts of ideologies germinate.” I can easily see how lack of knowledge of a subject causes anger toward that subject. For example, I see the conflict between me and scientific facts – my ignorance of it makes me hate it. There is no reason to hate the field or the people in the field, but I do, simply because I am not skilled in that field. This corresponds to religious animosity, too. I have detested religions, only to learn that truly their ideas are not so crazy; and I know I’m not the only one. Knowledge will almost always build bridges of tolerance between religions. The only proof I will offer is that our world is much more tolerant between religions than it previously has been, which I attribute to greater access to educational material.

Hubbard’s philosophical ideas compare well with other philosophical thinkers. I’ll take a few of what I think are his main ideas one at a time:

1. He separates reality from actuality. He says, “reality is the way things appear,” and, “to do anything about reality, one must search into and discover what underlies the apparency.” Actuality, he says, is “that which exists despite all apparencies.” This statement brings to mind Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus, who stated that, “Human beings are deceived about the knowledge of things that are apparent.”

2. Hubbard says, “The actual cycle of action is as follows: create, create-create-create, create-counter-create, no creation, nothingness…more basically, this cycle of action contains nothing but creation.” Again, we’re drawn back to the philosopher Heraclitus, who said, “I see nothing other than becoming.” Heraclitus presumed everything to be in a constant state of flux, and Hubbard similarly (though not precisely) claims every action that occurs is a creation of some sort. Hubbard even develops his “cycle of action” theory to account for nothingness: he says that that which is destroyed is nothing. But what is destroyed is simply “created against.” It cannot stop existing, it can only be created into something else. (It is also important to note that Hubbard states that he who constantly creates is realizing his life’s full potential.)

3. Hubbard imagines an “A-R-C triangle“, an understanding of which he says brings a “greater understanding of life” and human relationships. This triangle consists of Affinity, Reality, and Communication. He says communication is “more important than the other two,” because “communication is the solvent for all things. It dissolves all things.” He goes on to explain that the thetan (by which he means soul) learns only through communication; this is a seemingly simple idea, but I believe the philosophers known as Sophists would have concurred with Hubbard here. Sophists believed that the art of rhetoric (convincing through speech) and virtue were the two primary goals of life. This may be a poorly drawn connection, but I think Hubbard implies that what the mind has learned through communication leads to the ability to solve problems, which could be defined as a virtue – or that communication leads to understanding life.

4. Finally, and most importantly, Hubbard attempts to explain life. There is not one purpose to life, he theorizes, because life is a game. Because we immersed inside the game, he says, we cannot take it lightly; we cannot see the pieces, the board, or, for that matter, the borders of the board. But if we were to step outside, we would see the pieces (what we are), the board (all that is), and that which controls the game: two opposing purposes (reminds me slightly of Heraclitean multiplicity). As it is, we can only imagine our own purpose in life, because we cannot see the purposes that control us. We believe our purposes are a Supreme Being’s purpose; but they are not, they are only our own purposes, devised in our own heads. This reminds me of Xenophanes’ claim that gods are distinctly anthropomorphic.

So then, to live life to our greatest potentials, we must not try to see the whole universe (because we cannot), but try to identify our own universes. Hubbard insists there are three universes: the physical universe (“spaces, stars, suns, land, sea, air and living forms”), someone else’s universe (“which may or may not be agreed upon by his associates”), and one’s own universe (“the creation of knowledge”). Hubbard says that gaining others’ knowledge (learning) is contrary to creation, thus contrary to the “cycle of action” he laid out earlier. Only creating knowledge for ourselves will help us learn how to play the game of life, he claims.

“Life is a game. A game consists of freedom, barriers, and purposes. This is a scientific fact, not merely an observation. Freedom exists among barriers. A totality of barriers and a totality of freedom alike are no-game conditions. Each is similarly cruel. Each is similarly purposeless…There is freedom amongst barriers. If the barriers are known and the freedoms are known, there can be life, living, happiness.”

I certainly agree with this statement, and indeed, with many of his statements. I feel chastised for thinking that Scientology has no redeeming qualities; rather, Hubbard is a good model for demonstrating philosophical rationality within religion. Seeing rationality among contrasting viewpoints is just one step on the path to ultimate tolerance.

Please remember that I have analyzed only one of L. Ron Hubbard’s philosophical writings. The ideas pertain to and mesh well with Scientology, but cannot possibly be expected to represent the whole worldview of Scientology.