Underground Exiles

Leviticus 20.1-5 is the final text I’ll ask you to consider:

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Anyone of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who give any of his children ot Molech shall surely be put to death.  The people of the land shall stone him with stones.  I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name.  And if they people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I myself will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech.”

Lest there be any confusion, “giving” a child to Molech was not some form of indentured servitude.  Leviticus 18.21 makes it explicitly clear that God is talking about child sacrifice, the heathen ritual of offering live babies as burnt offerings to pagan gods.  After reading this passage does it seem like God has much patience for this barbaric practice?

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More likely than not, this post is going to get me in trouble with the elders in charge of H20, as well as an ex-girlfriend, and various other groups of people.

I was recently told that if I would just be a little more meek, my sermons would go down easier. A couple of weeks before that, I was given practically the same advice.

I was raised Southern Baptist, with this image of

“gentle Jesus, meek and mild,”

to quote the old hymn by Charles Wesley. Then I grew up and read the New Testament for myself, and it seemed like Jesus really enjoyed screwing with religious people.

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So here’s a quick comparison between Christianity and Scientology:

1. “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” - Jesus, Matthew 5.38-39
2. “An enemy… may be injured by any means or tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” - L. Ron Hubbard, Penalties for Lower Conditions, HCO PL 18 Oct 67
3. “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” - Jesus Christ, Matthew 5.37
4. “Handling truth is a touchy business … Tell an acceptable truth.” - L. Ron Hubbard, The Missing Ingredient, 13 August 1970.

Maybe it’s pointless for me to attempt a point by point comparison of the Bible with Hubbard’s blasphemous views on the subject. The shocking differences are all too obvious. It’s difficult to resist the temptation, when Scientology publications state that “you can be a Christian and a Scientologist at the same time”.

Hubbard became interested in a type of lie detector called the “electropsychometer” that he believed would yield better results in auditing. He obtained a franchise for this device, which he renamed the Hubbard Electrometer, or E-meter. He began calling patients “pre-clears” and “within six weeks had created a new subject apparently out of thin air.”¹

Hubbard called his new subject Scientology and in introducing it, he claimed to have discovered the human soul. Whereas Dianetics had addressed the body, Scientology involved freeing souls (which Hubbard called “thetans”) from supposed entrapment in the physical or material world and restoring their alleged supernatural powers.

Hubbard established a headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, awarded himself the degree of D.Scn. (Doctor of Scientology) and in May 1952 incorporated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International under the personal control of himself and his third wife, Mary Sue. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association continued its opposition to Dianetics, as well as its new baby, Scientology.

In 1953 Hubbard regained control of Dianetics after a protracted legal battle and incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering. In 1954 he incorporated the Church of Scientology of California, which became the mother church. In 1956 the church was granted US federal tax-exempt status.

In 1957, passing himself off as a nuclear physicist, Hubbard gave a series of lectures in London on “nuclear radiation and health,” promoting a vitamin compound which he claimed cured both “radiation sickness” and cancer. Also that year the CIA began a file on him.

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1. Jon Atack. “The Total Freedom Trap: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard,” Chapter 10. Online article: http://tinyurl.com/245dd [↩]

The man to your left is Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology in 1954. There is a lot of backdrop to this story, so I’ll only hit the high points.

He had dropped out of college with failing grades. Although he would later claim a distinguished wartime naval career, Hubbard in fact never saw combat and left the US Navy petitioning the Veterans Administration for psychiatric care. Two bigamous marriages would be failures. He did find some success writing “pulp” or science fiction, but as he said in the late 1940s:

“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”¹

Hubbard took up ritual magic, the occult and hypnosis, giving demonstrations of hypnosis in 1948 and also writing to his literary agent about a therapy system he was working on that had tremendous promotional and sales potential.² Hubbard came up with Dianetics by piece-mealing together Freudian theories, Buddhist concepts and elements of other philosophies and practices. He published Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health in 1950.

In Dianetic practice the “patient,” working with a partner called an “auditor” recalls past painful experiences in reverse chronological sequence, supposedly erasing their negative effects and attaining a state called “clear,” allegedly free from all ills.³ The auditor carefully records any intimate revelations, including sexual or criminal activities and marital or family troubles; these records are kept on file.

Hubbard represented Dianetics as a mental health therapy. He strongly asserted that it was scientifically based and developed through meticulous research, and his use of the word “patient” suggests that he anticipated acceptance of Dianetics by the medical profession. But he never produced copies of any research protocol. Dianetics was opposed immediately by the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, the latter recommending that its members limit use of Dianetic techniques to investigation only, until Hubbard’s claimed results could be corroborated.⁴

The public, however, made the book a bestseller, and it seemed that Hubbard’s ship had come in. He created the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation to promulgate his theories and techniques.

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1. Eugene M. Methvin, “Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult,” READER’S DIGEST, May 1980. [↩]
2. Jon Atack. “The Total Freedom Trap: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard,” Chapter 9. Online article: http://tinyurl.com/245dd [↩]
3. L. Ron Hubbard. DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH. (Los Angeles, Bridge Publications, original copyright 1950, edition 1992., pp. 13-14). [↩]
4. Lucy Freeman. “Psychologists act against Dianetics,” The New York Times, September 9, 1950 [↩]