Archive for October 16th, 2007
The Relationship Between Scientology and Other Religions
by Mr. Fumio Sawada
The Eighth Holder of the Secrets of Yu-itsu Shinto
Introduction
This writer is Japanese, and this paper is about the similarities and differences of the Scientology religion with other religions of the world. This paper will also take a special interest in the similarities and differences from a Japanese perspective and thus will be comparing Scientology to Japanese religions.
The term religion in Japan means to teach the origin, teach the source of the origin. That is the Japanese definition, but may not correspond to the Western definition. For this study we shall use the Japanese definition. For the purpose of Japanese law one can add that to be a religion the religious organization must also disseminate the teachings, perform religious ceremonies and train parishioners. Scientology does all these as outlined below.
It is said in a 31-syllable Japanese poem called a “Waka” that there are many paths at the foot of the mountain, but the view of the moon is the same at the peak. This is an old poem and predates Christianity’s arrival in Japan. Mostly it refers to the two main religions of Japan, Shinto and Buddhism, where it was said that you end up the same no matter which sect you belonged to. The point being made was, why quarrel? But more importantly, when there are so many similarities among religions, why concentrate on differences?
The Scientology religion is relatively unknown in Japan, although many libraries contain Scientology books written not only by the founder, L. Ron Hubbard, but also by the Church of Scientology itself. Having read 30 books on the subject, this writer feels that any person wishing to know more on the subject is well-advised to read these books.
What Is Scientology?
The origins of Scientology date back to the 1930s when L. Ron Hubbard, the American who was to become the founder of Scientology, travelled the East and asked himself why man was living such a miserable life. No one had been able to answer his questions, when, as a young man, he had asked where man came from and where man was going.
In 1950, Mr. Hubbard wrote a book on a subject he called Dianetics (“through mind”), which was his early research into the mind. The book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was very popular and soon became a bestseller, and has sold more than 17 million copies. As the Dianetics movement grew and the research expanded from the mind into the spirit, another subject was born—Scientology—and the first Church was founded in 1954 in the United States. Dianetics first entered Japan shortly after that, but the first formal Scientology missionary expansion into Japan occurred in 1962, making this the actual starting point of Scientology’s history in Japan. On 10 September 1962 the first official lecture on Scientology was given to a packed auditorium.
The word “Scientology” comes from the Latin scio, meaning “Knowing—in the fullest sense of the word,” and the Greek logos, which means “to study.”
In the book Scientology—The Fundamentals of Thought, Mr. Hubbard explains that the subject is actually descended from the roots of psychology, but that we must understand that it is not descended from current psychology, but rather the older psychology as was taught in the religions of the world before the spiritual essence of the study was removed in the last century.
Psychology means literally “the study of the spirit.” Psychology of today has lost this meaning and no longer studies or recognizes the spirit as a bona fide field of study. In this sense Scientology is very different, as it does study the spirit, as most great religions of the world do.
Religions generally accept that the human spirit is related to the great “life-force” of this universe. However, the word “spirit” is difficult to define. Some would argue that the spirit is in fact the human mind. But in Scientology the term “spirit” would mean “oneself” and it means much more than just the mind. In one Japanese Shinto religion, Seichi-no-Ie, it is expressed as what would be translated into “the child of God.” It would correspond to the Japanese words “hime” or “hiko.” In Scientology, Mr. Hubbard coined the word thetan, from the Greek for spirit, as no other existing word could fully describe it.
The concept of coining new words to explain new concepts that have no existing words is not new to religion. In Japan, Master Kobodaishi, the founder of Shingon (a very old and traditional, large esoteric Buddhist sect) coined many words that needed to be developed so that the religion could be practiced.
Yet at the same time there is no new word for God coined in Scientology. Though the framework of God may not be part of the Scientology study, and members may have their own ideas of what this term is or is not, the words used for it are “the Supreme Being,” the “infinite,” “the allness of all,” “the author of the universe,” and of course “God.”
Unlike some other religions, Scientology has no particular dogma about the concept of God, but rather allows the person to develop his own understanding of how he fits into the universe and the nature of things. From there faith may follow. Thus Scientology students not only appear to come from all walks of life and nationalities, but from very diverse religious backgrounds. Being a member of more than one religion is very common in Japan and the East. In this tradition, some Japanese students of Scientology also do not give up their other religions, but from what this writer can understand, have used their study of Scientology to strengthen their previous religious commitment and faith in God. This is slightly similar in concept to what is practiced in the relatively new Shinto religion, Seico-no-Ie, which also has followers coming from Buddhist, Christian and other faiths.
Scientology and its Interrelation With Other Religions
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Scientology has an obvious similarity with Buddhism. So much so that Mr. Hubbard once asked the question of Buddhist leaders in Asia if it were possible that he was the Metteya who had been prophesied by Buddha. Buddha, Guatama Siddhartha, had told his followers when he was about to die that in the future a Buddha would come to complete the job he had begun, and that he was to be known as Metteya. If Mr. Hubbard is to complete the humane intentions of the great Siddhartha, only time will tell. It is not the purpose of this paper to answer the question that Mr. Hubbard raised. However, the fulfilling of prophesies is another similarity to other religions, great and small.
The first book that this writer read was Scientology—The Fundamentals of Thought. In reading this book, this writer immediately thought of how similar the contents were to Shinto religions. Specifically there is the understanding that life is but an apparency, and that the physical world is actually the apparent world, there to be seen by the senses. This is very similar to the teachings of the founder of Seicho-no-Ie, Master Masaharu Taniguchi. (Master Taniguchi was one of the four people to write down the Story Of The Universe for Holy Master Onisaburo Deguchi of Oomoto, another Shinto religion of Japan.) Both Oomoto and Seicho-no-Ie are relatively recent in Japanese history with Oomoto beginning at the end of the last century and Seicho-no-Ie beginning in the 1920s.
In Buddhism, this same idea of the “apparency of life” is expressed as “Shiki soku, Ku soku ze shiki” which means simply that anything that can be perceived with the five senses is simply nothingness or empty. The Buddhists also maintain that the universes of man are only manifestations of the mind. Of course Buddhism also has a much deeper meaning, as does Scientology.
Other explanations about life and the mind are also comparable to some Shinto beliefs, such as that the memories of experience are recorded in a film-like memory, each frame duplicating the events for the person. This again has similarities to Seicho-no-Ie. But one term in Scientology that was of great interest is the term theta. In Yui Itsu Shinto, what could be a corresponding term means “The Great Life Force of the Universe.” It is also in common with Hakke Shinto, which had been in charge of religious services for the Imperial Household until the time of the Meiji Restoration. This same concept then became the basis of newer Shinto religions such as Mahikari, which boomed after the war.
The concept of a person having lived before is old and fully accepted by Eastern religions. Scientology theory and practice is based around this concept, that one is a spiritual being which Mr. Hubbard has called a thetan, and that one can recall his past lives, and that as a spiritual being his actions of his past determine his situation in the present. There are more than 180,000 religious bodies in Japan, and I would expect that this concept is shared by most of them in one way or another. Of course this concept dates back not only to the time of Buddha, but also to the Veda, the source of the great Indian religions.
Scientology Practice–Auditing
The central practice of Scientology is called auditing, from Latin audire, which means to listen. The person answering questions put to him by the auditor (“one who listens”) brings about for himself a senior state of mind and spirit, and a curing of bodily psychosomatic ills. This is very much in common with some of the newer Shinto religions that come from the Yui-Itsu Shinto line which dates back 1,400 years in Japan.
Scientology thought began with Mr. Hubbard’s early research in the 1930s, which is the same time the newer Shinto religions were searching for a means of applicable religious practice to heal the spirit. Auditing began in the USA in 1950, when Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published. In this book Mr. Hubbard outlines how one can attain the state known as Clear—free from what is referred to as the reactive mind. It could be compared to the state of “Satori” or even “Naikan” in Buddhism. In some Shinto religions, where a person meditates on his experiences of childhood or his past lives, under a teacher’s direction, to self-reflect on the way he is now. Auditing, which also can be described as a reflection on one’s past, be it childhood or past lives, can also bring about the same reflection and understanding of one’s current state in life.
How to conduct auditing is learned by a person who studies in Scientology study rooms called academies and course rooms. There, under the guidance of a supervisor, the student reads and practices the techniques of auditing. Auditing is the practice whereby this trained auditor has a person who is not Clear answer questions about his past. The person receiving this auditing is called the “preclear,” as he is not yet Clear. As the preclear answers the questions put to him by the auditor, he experiences relief of stress, a betterment and peace of mind, and general spiritual well-being. The training time to become a proficient auditor will vary but it can take from months to years depending on the level of proficiency and exactitude the auditor is striving to achieve.
In the Oomoto religion, the practice of “Naikan” is still practiced and rehabilitates juvenile delinquents, resulting in regional governmental commendation for the practice. Again comparable, Scientology has juvenile rehabilitation programs operating in many parts of the world. Of course Naikan and auditing have similarities, but are also fundamentally different. This is an example, however, showing two religions approaching the same problem from two different cultures and arriving at answers that have obvious similarities. With auditing, one would tell the auditor in minute detail of what he had found troubling him in life from his past, where with “Naikan” one would reflect for himself under a teacher’s tutelage. The end result for both is betterment in spiritual behaviour and a resurgence of ethical conduct.
In the practice of Seicho-no-Ie, called “Sin-So-Kan,” a person is trained to confront himself through his past. This also has a similarity with auditing. In both practices one has to confront his own past.
Scientology has a graded path to enlightenment which is called the Bridge to Total Freedom. The result of travelling this Bridge, by being audited and learning how to audit, is not only great enlightenment but also a spiritual beingness comparable to “Chin-Kon-Ki-Shin,” the great secret of Shinto, which means “to appease the spirit of man so that he can return to a God-like state.” This is very similar in concept. This has been practiced by various Shinto religions, including Hakke Shinto, which was founded in 1025 A.D.
One cannot reach any other decision than that Scientology is a religion. It has more similarities to Japanese religions than Western religions, and for this reason it may be misunderstood in the West for not being similar to the other mainstream religions. But, nevertheless, it is an international religion. very similar to religions in Japan that have adherents numbering 20 million.
Making people better with the natural spiritual healing arts is not a lost practice in Japanese religions, as it is for some other religions. Religions such as Seicho-no-Ie, Sekai-Kyusei-kyo, Shinto-tenkokyo, Ananai-kyo and others are all interested in practices in Japan that bring out the state of Chin-kon-Kishin. The number of followers number 20 million. Though their techniques may be different, their purposes and goals have a direct similarity to the Scientology practice of auditing and having its members move up the Bridge to Total Freedom, grade by grade.
In other major world religions, too, such a state is not without description. In Islam, there is the term “Imam Zamam” which means a person so enlightened that he can fully perceive all the seven meanings of the Holy Koran.
In the Christian confessional one also has to confront one’s past. Again this is similar to Scientology, which also offers confessional procedure. A person has to look back into his past, confront another person with it—the auditor—and confess. The result is the same for both faiths—a betterment of the spirit and a resurgence in life.
This brings us full circle again to the prophecy of Buddha, who predicted that one day Metteya would liberate man from what is holding him back. In Japan, the Metteya prophecy is different from those of the Pali. Here the prophecy is not so much that a person will necessarily return, but rather that man could have a way of returning to the spiritual state as prophesied. Many religions in Japan have been waiting for such events to evolve, both Buddhist and Shinto. Scientology does have a means of raising man’s spiritual ability. Japan is a country where religions place an accent on the raising of one’s spiritual ability. From a Japanese point of view, Scientology is indeed a similar religion to others already here.
Ceremonies
Religion would not be complete without ceremonies, and Scientology has a book called Background and Ceremonies, used by ministers of Scientology Churches for funeral services, wedding services and for welcoming newborns into the world, to mention but a few of the Scientology services. In the West, Sunday services are also performed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, one cannot reach any other decision than that Scientology is a religion. It has more similarities to Japanese religions than Western religions, and for this reason it may be misunderstood in the West for not being similar to the other mainstream religions. But, nevertheless, it is an international religion, very similar to religions in Japan that have adherents numbering 20 million.
I would also like to introduce the esteemed academic religious scholar and Emeritus Fellow of Oxford University of England, Bryan Ronald Wilson. He has written a very detailed study of Scientology, and for further details on Scientology from a Western scholastic point of view, I highly recommend this study for further reading.
Fumio Sawada
About the Author
Fumio Sawada is the eighth holder of the secrets of Yu-itsu Shinto, the oldest religion in Japan. Yu-itsu Shinto means The Way of One God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The first holder of the Yu-itsu Shinto secret, or Tamanoya secrets, as they can also be called, was Shoto-ku Taishi (Crown Prince of Shotoku) of 1440 years ago. The second holder of the secrets was Emperor Tenmu of 712, who also wrote Kojiki, the first written historical record of Japan. The third holder of the secrets was the founder of the Shugendo religion.
Mr. Sawada was once director of Sophia University, one of Japan’s most distinguished universities. He is Chairman of the Christian Democratic Party of Japan. He has been accorded the venerated Islamic title of Haji, having completed a pilgrimage to Mecca. He is president of the Ahlut-Bait (A.S.) Center in Japan. His eldest son is currently studying Islam in Iran, while his second son is studying in the Vatican.
Add comment October 16, 2007
Proof That Man is Basically Good
The following is exerpted from L. Ron Hubbard’s article of 1980 entitled, Ethics, Justice and the Dynamics.
“Years ago I discovered and proved that man is basically good. This means that the basic personality and the basic intentions of the individual, toward himself and others, are good.
“When a person finds himself committing too many harmful acts against the dynamics, he becomes his own executioner. This gives us the proof that man is basically good. When he finds himself committing too many evils, then, causatively, unconsciously or unwittingly, man puts ethics in on himself by destroying himself; and he does himself in without assistance from anybody else.
“This is why the criminal leaves clues on the scene, why people develop strange incapacitating illnesses and why they cause themselves accidents and even decide to have an accident. When they violate their own ethics, they begin to decay. They do this all on their own, without anybody else doing anything.
“The criminal who leaves clues behind is doing so in hopes that someone will come along to stop him from continuing to harm others. He is basically good and does not want to harm others; and in the absence of an ability to stop himself outright, he attempts to put ethics in on himself by getting thrown in prison where he will no longer be able to commit crimes.
“Similarly, the person who incapacitates himself with illness or gets himself in an accident is putting ethics in on himself by lessening his ability to harm and maybe even by totally removing himself from the environment that he has been harming. When he has evil intentions, when he is being “intentionally evil,” he still has an urge to also stop himself. He seeks to suppress them, and when he cannot do so directly, he does so indirectly. Evil, illness and decay often go hand in hand.
“Man is basically good. He is basically well-intentioned. He does not want to harm himself or others. When an individual does harm the dynamics, he will destroy himself in an effort to save those dynamics.
“This can be proven and has been proven in innumerable cases. It is this fact which evidences that man is basically good.”
Read the entire article below:
Ethics, Justice and the Dynamics
by L. Ron Hubbard
Presuming, as put forth in Scientology, that man is essentially an immortal spirit with experience well beyond a single lifetime, we all possess an infinite ability to survive. Yet how well we survive, L. Ron Hubbard explains, that is dependent upon ethics. In summary of this truly monumental view of ethics as the means by which we may flourish forever, comes his 1980, “Ethics, Justice and the Dynamics.”
The photographs appearing below, were all taken by Ron in 1961 while touring the Acropolis, Athens, Greece.
The Dynamics
Survival is accomplished on eight routes which are known as the dynamics.
The first dynamic is the urge toward survival as self.
The second dynamic is the urge toward survival through sex, both the act and the production and raising of children.
The third dynamic is the urge toward survival through groups – social, racial, political.
The fourth dynamic is the urge toward survival through the species – mankind.
The fifth dynamic is the urge toward survival through animals.
The sixth dynamic is the urge toward survival through the matter, energy, space and time of the physical universe.
The seventh dynamic is the urge toward survival through spirits.
The eighth dynamic is the urge toward survival through a Supreme Being.
An individual seeks survival on one or all of these dynamics and fails when he abandons a dynamic as a survival route. For instance, one who has abandoned all routes to survival except self, the first dynamic, is in a desperate state.
The individual who says, “I can live alone” is very interesting. He can’t live without lichen and moss. They create soil so that vegetables can grow. He can’t live without a lot of odds and ends like, for instance, trees to make firewood. That is a life form and he has to be interdependent with this life form. Most important, he is interdependent with the physical universe as he would sure play the devil surviving as a human organism if he didn’t have an earth to walk on.
The dynamics mean, simply, how many forms of survival are there. The number of dynamics merely adds up to the number of fields or entities a man has to be in cooperation with to get along.
The individual is trying to survive, one way or the other, on all these dynamics at once. No solution is an optimum solution unless it takes into account all the dynamics influenced by it and gives each one its optimum solution. That sounds complicated, but it means if you and Bill were in business together and you tried to do a solution that gave you all the benefit and didn’t give Bill any, you would find that it would not work out. It is fundamental in these dynamics that every time you get a solution where the other dynamics aren’t taken into account, where their interests aren’t taken into account, you get a general failure.
As soon as you knock out one of these dynamics on a human being and say, “For this individual, this dynamic cannot possibly exist,” you get trouble, because they all get knocked out. They come down to the same level, in other words. If you cut out half of one dynamic, you have cut out half of the rest of the dynamics. This package of dynamics is very vital to the survival of an individual.
The Dynamics
Every being has an infinite ability to survive. How well he accomplishes this is dependent on how well he uses ethics on his dynamics.
Ethics technology exists for the individual.
It exists to give the individual a way to increase his survival and thus free himself from the dwindling spiral of the current culture.
The whole subject of ethics is one which, with the society in its current state, has become almost lost.
Ethics actually consists of rationality toward the highest level of survival for the individual, the future race, the group, mankind and the other dynamics taken up collectively.
Ethics are reason.
Man’s greatest weapon is his reason.
The highest ethic level would be long-term survival concepts with minimal destruction, along all of the dynamics.
An optimum solution to any problem would be that solution which brought the greatest benefits to the greatest number of dynamics. The poorest solution would be that solution which brought the greatest harm to the most number of dynamics.
Activities which brought minimal survival to a lesser number of dynamics and damaged the survival of a greater number of dynamics could not be considered rational activities.
One of the reasons that this society is dying and so forth is that it’s gone too far out-ethics. Reasonable conduct and optimum solutions have ceased to be used to such an extent that the society is on the way out.
By out-ethics we mean an action or situation in which an individual is involved, or something the individual does, which is contrary to the ideals, best interests and survival of his dynamics.
For a man to develop a weapon capable of destroying all life on this planet (as has been done with atomic weapons and certain drugs designed by the US Army) and place it in the hands of the criminally insane politicians is obviously not a survival act.
For the government to actively invite and create inflation to a point where a depression is a real threat to the individuals of this society is a nonsurvival action to say the least. This gets so batty that in one of the South Pacific societies infanticide became a ruling passion. There was a limited supply of food and they wanted to keep down the birthrate. They began using abortion, and if this didn’t work, they killed the children. Their second dynamic folded up. That society has almost disappeared.
These are acts calculated to be destructive and harmful to the survival of the people of the society.
Ethics are the actions an individual takes on himself in order to accomplish optimum survival for himself and others on all dynamics. Ethical actions are survival actions. Without a use of ethics we will not survive.
We know that the dynamic principle of existence is Survive! At first glance that may seem too basic. It may seem too simple. When one thinks of survival, one is apt to make the error of thinking in terms of “barest necessity.” That is not survival. Survival is a graduated scale with infinity or immortality at the top and death and pain at the bottom.
Good and Evil, Right and Wrong
Years ago I discovered and proved that man is basically good. This means that the basic personality and the basic intentions of the individual, toward himself and others, are good.
When a person finds himself committing too many harmful acts against the dynamics, he becomes his own executioner. This gives us the proof that man is basically good. When he finds himself committing too many evils, then, causatively, unconsciously or unwittingly, man puts ethics in on himself by destroying himself; and he does himself in without assistance from anybody else.
This is why the criminal leaves clues on the scene, why people develop strange incapacitating illnesses and why they cause themselves accidents and even decide to have an accident. When they violate their own ethics, they begin to decay. They do this all on their own, without anybody else doing anything.
The criminal who leaves clues behind is doing so in hopes that someone will come along to stop him from continuing to harm others. He is basically good and does not want to harm others; and in the absence of an ability to stop himself outright, he attempts to put ethics in on himself by getting thrown in prison where he will no longer be able to commit crimes.
Similarly, the person who incapacitates himself with illness or gets himself in an accident is putting ethics in on himself by lessening his ability to harm and maybe even by totally removing himself from the environment that he has been harming. When he has evil intentions, when he is being “intentionally evil,” he still has an urge to also stop himself. He seeks to suppress them, and when he cannot do so directly, he does so indirectly. Evil, illness and decay often go hand in hand.
Man is basically good. He is basically well-intentioned. He does not want to harm himself or others. When an individual does harm the dynamics, he will destroy himself in an effort to save those dynamics.
This can be proven and has been proven in innumerable cases. It is this fact which evidences that man is basically good.
On this basis we have the concepts of right and wrong.
When we speak of ethics, we are talking about right and wrong conduct. We are talking about good and evil.
Good can be considered to be a constructive survival action. It happens that no construction can take place without some small destruction, just as the tenement must be torn down to make room for the new apartment building.
To be good, something must contribute to the individual, to his family, his children, his group, mankind or life. To be good, a thing must contain construction which outweighs the destruction it contains. A new cure which saves a hundred lives and kills one is an acceptable cure.
Good is survival. Good is being more right than one is wrong. Good is being more successful than one is unsuccessful, along constructive lines.
Things are good which complement the survival of the individual, his family, children, group, mankind, life and MEST [the physical universe. A word coined from the initial letters of Matter, Energy, Space and Time].
Acts are good which are more beneficial than destructive along these dynamics.
Evil is the opposite of good, and is anything which is destructive more than it is constructive along any of the various dynamics. A thing which does more destruction than construction is evil from the viewpoint of the individual, the future race, group, species, life or MEST that it destroys.
When an act is more destructive than constructive, it is evil. It is out-ethics. When an act assists succumbing more than it assists survival, it is an evil act in the proportion that it destroys.
Good, bluntly, is survival. Ethical conduct is survival. Evil conduct is nonsurvival.
Construction is good when it promotes survival. Construction is evil when it inhibits survival. Destruction is good when it enhances survival.
An act or conclusion is as right as it promotes the survival of the individual, future race, group, mankind or life by making the conclusion. To be entirely right would be to survive to infinity.
An act or conclusion is wrong to the degree that it is nonsurvival to the individual, future race, group, species or life responsible for doing the act or making the conclusion. The most wrong a person can be on the first dynamic is dead.
The individual or group which is, on the average, more right than wrong (since these terms are not absolutes, by far) should survive. An individual who, on the average, is more wrong than right will succumb.
While there could be no absolute right or absolute wrong, a right action would depend upon its assisting the survival of the dynamics immediately concerned; a wrong action would impede the survival of the dynamics concerned.
Let us look at how these concepts of right and wrong fit into our current society.
This is a dying society. Ethics have gone so far out and are so little understood that this culture is headed for succumb at a dangerous rate.
A person is not going to come alive, this society is not going to survive, unless ethics technology is gotten hold of and applied.
When we look at Vietnam, inflation, the oil crisis, corruption of government, war, crime, insanity, drugs, sexual promiscuity, etc., we are looking at a culture on the way out. This is a direct result of individuals failing to apply ethics to their dynamics.
It actually starts with individual ethics.
Dishonest conduct is nonsurvival. Anything is unreasonable or evil which brings about the destruction of individuals, groups, or inhibits the future of the race.
The keeping of one’s word, when it has been sacredly pledged, is an act of survival, since one is then trusted, but only so long as he keeps his word.
To the weak, to the cowardly, to the reprehensibly irrational, dishonesty and underhanded dealings, the harming of others and the blighting of their hopes seem to be the only way of conducting life.
Unethical conduct is actually the conduct of destruction and fear. Lies are told because one is afraid of the consequences should one tell the truth. Destructive acts are usually done out of fear. Thus, the liar is inevitably a coward and the coward inevitably a liar.
The sexually promiscuous woman, the man who breaks faith with his friend, the covetous pervert are all dealing in such nonsurvival terms that degradation and unhappiness are part and parcel of their existence.
It probably seems quite normal and perfectly all right to some to live in a highly degraded society full of criminals, drugs, war and insanity, where we are in constant threat of the total annihilation of life on this planet.
Well, let me say that this is not normal and it is not necessary. It is possible for individuals to lead happy productive lives without having to worry about whether or not they are going to be robbed if they walk outside their door or whether Russia is going to declare war on the United States. It is a matter of ethics. It is simply a matter of individuals applying ethics to their lives and having their dynamics in communication and surviving.
Morals
Now, we have ethics as survival. But what of such things as morals, ideals, love? Don’t these things go above “mere survival”? No, they do not.
Romantic novels and television teach us that the hero always wins and that good always triumphs. But it appears that the hero doesn’t always win and that good does not always triumph. On a shorter view we can see villainy triumphing all about us. The truth of the matter is that the villainy is sooner or later going to lose. One cannot go through life victimizing one’s fellow beings and wind up anything but trapped — the victim himself.
However, one doesn’t observe this in the common course of life. One sees the villains succeeding everywhere, evidently amassing money, cutting their brother’s throat, receiving the fruits of the courts and coming to rule over men.
Without looking at the final consequence of this, which is there just as certainly as the sun rises and sets, one begins to believe that evil triumphs whereas one has been taught that only good triumphs. This can cause the person himself to have a failure and can actually cause his downfall.
As for ideals, as for honesty, as for one’s love of one’s fellow man, one cannot find good survival for one or for many where these things are absent.
The criminal does not survive well. The average criminal spends the majority of his adult years caged like some wild beast and guarded from escape by the guns of good marksmen.
A man who is known to be honest is awarded survival — good jobs, good friends. And the man who has his ideals, no matter how thoroughly he may be persuaded to desert them, survives well only so long as he is true to those ideals.
Have you ever seen a doctor who, for the sake of personal gain, begins to secretly attend criminals or peddle dope? That doctor does not survive long after his ideals are laid aside.
Ideals, morals, ethics, all fall within this understanding of survival. One survives so long as he is true to himself, his family, his friends, the laws of the universe. When he fails in any respect, his survival is cut down.
In the modern dictionary we find that ethics are defined as “morals” and morals are defined as “ethics.” These two words are not interchangeable.
Morals should be defined as a code of good conduct laid down out of the experience of the race to serve as a uniform yardstick for the conduct of individuals and groups.
Morals are actually laws.
The origin of a moral code comes about when it is discovered through actual experience that some act is more nonsurvival than prosurvival. The prohibition of this act then enters into the customs of the people and may eventually become a law.
In the absence of extended reasoning powers, moral codes, so long as they provide better survival for their group, are a vital and necessary part of any culture.
Morals, however, become burdensome and protested against when they become outmoded. And although a revolt against morals may have as its stated target the fact that the code no longer is as applicable as it once was, revolts against moral codes generally occur because individuals of the group or the group itself has gone out-ethics to a point where it wishes to practice license against these moral codes, not because the codes themselves are unreasonable.
If a moral code were thoroughly reasonable, it could, at the same time, be considered thoroughly ethical. But only at this highest level could the two be called the same.
The ultimate in reason is the ultimate in survival.
Ethical conduct includes the adherence to the moral codes of the society in which we live.
When an individual fails to apply ethics to himself and fails to follow the morals of the group, justice enters in.
It is not realized generally that the criminal is not only antisocial but is also antiself.
A person who is out-ethics, who has his dynamics out of communication, is a potential or active criminal in that crimes against the prosurvival actions of others are continually perpetrated. Crime might be defined as the reduction of the survival level along any one of the eight dynamics.
Justice is used when the individual’s own out-ethics and destructive behavior begin to impinge too heavily on others.
In a society run by criminals and controlled by incompetent police, the citizens reactively identify any justice action or symbol with oppression.
But we have a society full of people who do not apply ethics to themselves, and in the absence of true ethics one cannot live with others and life becomes miserable. Therefore we have justice, which was developed to protect the innocent and decent.
Justice
When an individual fails to apply ethics to himself and follow the moral codes, the society takes justice action against him.
Justice, although it unfortunately cannot be trusted in the hands of man, has as its basic intention and purpose the survival and welfare of those it serves. Justice, however, would not be needed when you have individuals who are sufficiently sane and in-ethics that they do not attempt to blunt others’ survival.
Justice would be used until a person’s own ethics render him fit company for his fellows.
Ethics, Justice and Your Survival
In the past the subject of ethics has not really been mentioned very much. Justice was however. Justice systems have long been used as a substitute for ethics systems. But when you try to substitute ethics for justice, you get into trouble.
Man has not had an actual workable way of applying ethics to himself. The subjects of ethics and justice have been terribly aberrated.
We now have the technology of ethics and justice straightened out. This is the only road out on the subject that man has.
People have been trying to put ethics in on themselves for eons without knowing how. Ethics evolved with the individual’s attempts at continued survival.
When a person does something which is out-ethics (harms his and others’ survival), he tries to right this wrong. Usually he just winds up caving himself in. (Caved-in means mental and/or physical collapse to the extent that the individual cannot function causatively.)
They cave themselves in because, in an
effort to restrain themselves and stop themselves from committing more harmful acts, they start withdrawing and withholding themselves from the area they have harmed. A person who does this becomes less and less able to influence his dynamics and thus becomes a victim of them.
It is noted here that one must have done to other dynamics those things which other dynamics now seem to have the power to do to him. Therefore, he is in a position to be injured and he loses control. He can become, in fact, a zero of influence and a vacuum for trouble.
This comes about because the person does not have the basic technology of ethics. It has never been explained to him. No one ever told him how he could get out of the hole he’s gotten himself into. This technology has remained utterly unknown.
So he has gone down the chute.
Ethics is one of the primary tools a person uses to dig himself out with.
Whether he knows how to or not, every person will try to dig himself out. It doesn’t matter who he is or what he’s done, he’s going to be trying to put ethics in on himself, one way or the other.
Even with Hitler and Napoleon there were attempts at self-restraint. It’s interesting in looking at the lives of these people how thoroughly they worked at self-destruction. The self-destruction is their attempt at applying ethics to themselves. They worked at this self-destruction on several dynamics. They can’t put ethics in on themselves; they can’t restrain themselves from doing these harmful acts, so they punish themselves. They realize they are criminals and cave themselves in.
All beings are basically good and are attempting to survive as best they can. They are attempting to put ethics in on their dynamics.
Ethics and justice were developed and exist to aid an individual in his urge towards survival. They exist to keep the dynamics in communication. The technology of ethics is the actual technology of survival.
An individual’s dynamics will be in communication to the degree that he is applying ethics to his life. If one knows and applies ethics technology to his life, he can keep the dynamics in communication and continuously increase his survival.
That is why ethics exists, so that we can survive like we want to survive, by having our dynamics in communication.
Ethics are not to be confused with justice. Justice is used only after a failure of the individual to use ethics on himself. With personal ethics in across the dynamics, third dynamic justice disappears as a primary concern. That’s where you get a world without crime.
A man who steals from his employer has his third dynamic out of communication with his first dynamic. He is headed for a prison sentence, or unemployment at best, which is not what one would call optimum survival on the first and second dynamic (not to mention the rest of them). He probably believes he is enhancing his survival by stealing, yet if he knew the technology of ethics he would realize he is harming himself as well as others and will only end up further down the chute.
The man who lies, the woman who cheats on her husband, the teenager who takes drugs, the politician who is involved in dishonest dealings, all are cutting their own throats. They are harming their own survival by having their dynamics out
of communication and not applying ethics to
their lives.
It may come as a surprise to you, but a clean heart and clean hands are the only way to achieve happiness and survival. The criminal will never make it unless he reforms; the liar will never be happy or satisfied with himself until he begins dealing in truth.
The optimum solution to any problem presented by life would be that which leads to increased survival on the majority of the dynamics.
Thus we see that a knowledge of ethics is necessary to survival.
The knowledge and application of ethics is the way out of the trap of degradation and pain.
We can, each and every one of us, achieve happiness and optimum survival for ourselves and others by using ethics technology.
What Happens if the Dynamics Go Out-Ethics
It is important to remember that these dynamics comprise life. They do not operate singly without interaction with the other dynamics.
Life is a group effort. None survive alone.
If one dynamic goes out-ethics, it goes out of communication with (to a greater or lesser degree) the other dynamics. In order to remain in communication, the dynamics must remain in-ethics.
Let us take the example of a woman who has totally withdrawn from the third dynamic. She won’t have anything to do with any groups or the people of her town. She has no friends. She stays locked in her house all day thinking (with some misguided idea of independence or individuality) that she is surviving better on her first dynamic. Actually she is quite unhappy and lonely and lives in fear of other human beings. To ease her misery and boredom, she begins to take sedatives and tranquilizers which she becomes addicted to and then starts drinking alcohol as well.
She is busy “solving” her dilemma with further destructive actions. You can see how she has driven her first, second and third dynamics out of communication. She is actively destroying her survival on her dynamics. These actions are out-ethics in the extreme, and it would not be surprising if she eventually killed herself with the deadly combination of sedatives and alcohol.
Or let us take the man who is committing destructive acts on the job. These acts need not be large; they can be as simple as showing up late for work, not doing as professional a job on each product as he is capable of, damaging equipment or hiding things from his employer. He does not have to be overtly engaged in the total destruction of the company to know that he is committing harmful acts.
Now, this man finds himself sliding more and more out-ethics as time goes along. He feels he must hide more and more and he does not know how to stop this downward spiral. Very likely it never even occurred to him that he could stop it. He is lacking the technology of ethics. He probably doesn’t realize that his actions are driving his dynamics out of communication.
This may affect his other dynamics in various ways. He will probably be a bit miserable, and since he is basically good, he will feel guilt. He goes home at night and his wife says cheerily, “How was your day?” and he cringes a little and feels worse. He starts drinking to numb the misery. He is out of communication with his family. He is out of communication on his job. His performance at work worsens. He begins to neglect himself and his belongings. He no longer gets joy out of life. His happy and satisfying life slips away from him. Because he does not know and apply ethics technology to his life and his dynamics, the situation goes quite out of his control. He has unwittingly become the effect of his own out-ethics. Unless he gets his life straightened out by using ethics, he will undoubtedly die a
miserable man.
Now I ask you, what kind of life is that? Unfortunately, it is all too common in our current times.
A person cannot go out-ethics on a dynamic without it having disastrous consequences on his other dynamics.
It is really quite tragic, the tragedy being compounded by the fact that it is so unnecessary. If man only knew the simple technology of ethics, he could achieve for himself the self-respect, personal satisfaction and success that he only believes himself capable of dreaming of, not attaining.
Man is seeking survival. Survival is measured in pleasure. That means, to most men, happiness, self-respect, the personal satisfaction of a job well done and success. A man may have money, he may have a lot of personal belongings, etc., but he will not be happy unless he actually has his ethics in and knows he came by these things honestly. These rich political and financial criminals are not happy; they may be envied by the common man for their wealth, but they are very unhappy people who more often than not come to grief eventually through drug or alcohol addiction, suicide or some other means of self-destruction.
Let us look at the all-too-common current occurrence of out-ethics on the second dynamic. This is generally thought to be perfectly acceptable behavior.
It is easy to see how second dynamic out-ethics affects the other dynamics.
Let us say we have a young woman who is somewhat happily married and decides to have an affair with her boss, who happens to be a good friend of her husband. This is quite obviously out-ethics, as well as against the law, although an amazing number of people would find this sort of behavior acceptable or mildly objectionable
at most.
This is quite a destructive act, however.
She will suffer from guilt; she will feel deceitful and unhappy because she knows she has committed a bad act against her husband. Her relationship with him will certainly suffer and since her boss is experiencing much the same thing in his home, she and her boss will begin to feel bad towards each other, as they begin to target each other for their misfortune. Their dynamics end up quite messed up and out of communication. She will feel unhappy on her first dynamic as she has abandoned her own moral code. Her second dynamic will be out of communication and she may even begin to find fault with and dislike her husband. The situation at work is strained as she is now out of communication with her boss and her fellow workers. Her boss has ruined his relationship and friendship with her husband. She is so embroiled in these three dynamics that they go totally out of communication with her fourth, fifth and sixth dynamics. This is all the result of ethics going out on a single dynamic.
The repercussions spread insidiously to all the dynamics.
Our survival is assured only by our knowledge and application of ethics to our dynamics in order to keep them in communication.
Through ethics we can achieve survival and happiness for ourselves and for planet Earth.
L. Ron Hubbard
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Salvation with Scientology
SALVATION
Scientology’s path to spiritual salvation differs from that taken by religions of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In part, this is due to Mr. Hubbard’s discovery of the thetan’s immortality and its separateness from the mind and the body. This fact aligns Scientology much more to Eastern traditions of religious thought in many ways, including their concepts of salvation.
Jews and Christians believe the soul lives only once, and Christians believe that upon death the soul is resurrected as a spiritual body in heaven or hell. Like the Buddhist, the Hindu, and even some early Christians, Scientologists believe that the thetan assumes many bodies through its repeated contacts with the physical universe.
Scientologists also believe that the thetan, and therefore man, is basically good. In contrast, Jews and Christians follow the Old Testament teaching that man has two intrinsic impulses—one good and the other evil—that are constantly competing, just as the perceived cosmic struggle between God and Satan.
According to this Judeo-Christian framework, man’s plight is to overcome his evil side. Jewish theology states he can do this by observing the finely crafted rules of the Torah. Christian theology teaches he must, at minimum, accept Christ’s resurrection as a matter of faith. In either case, the promise of salvation is not realized until death.
Salvation in the Scientology religion is much different and much more immediate. In the tradition of certain Eastern religions, Scientology teaches that salvation is attained through increasing one’s spiritual awareness. The complete salvation of the thetan, called “Total Freedom” in Scientology, is attainable through the practice of Scientology religious services.
As one’s spiritual awareness grows through practicing Scientology, so does his ability to determine his own answers and solutions about life, the spirit and eternity, and to know them with absolute certainty. Ultimately, the individual is aware of himself as a spirit, independent of the flesh, and that he will survive with memory and identity intact.
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What is the Scientology Thetan?
THE THETAN
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A man is composed of three parts: A body, a mind and the individual himself—the spiritual being or thetan. | |
For all that Dianetics resolved, the actual nature of the spiritual being was still unknown, even though it was apparent from the beginning that this was a question which would one day need resolution. The breakthrough from Dianetics to Scientology came in the autumn of 1951, after L. Ron Hubbard observed many people practicing Dianetics and found a commonality of experience and phenomena which were of a profoundly spiritual nature—contact with past-life experiences. After carefully reviewing all relevant research data, Mr. Hubbard isolated the answer: Man had been misled by the idea that he had a soul. In fact, man is a spiritual being, who has a mind and a body. The spirit is the source of all that is good, decent and creative in the world: it is the individual being himself. With this discovery, Mr. Hubbard founded the religion of Scientology, for he had moved firmly into the field traditionally belonging to religion—the realm of the human spirit.
Awareness of the human spirit has existed as a universal ingredient of almost every religion in every culture. However, each defined the spiritual essence of man differently. Terms such as “spirit” and “soul” were encumbered by centuries of various meanings. A new word was needed. Mr. Hubbard adopted the Greek letter theta ( * ), which he had assigned in 1950 to represent the transcendent “life force.” By adding an “n,” the word “thetan” thus described the individual unit of “life force”—the spiritual being—which is the person.
THETA AND MEST
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In the Scientology view, as expressed in the Axioms and the Factors, if there was a “spark” that brought a first primeval brew of chemicals to life, that spark was not the mest energy of electricity, mindlessly contributing some “lucky” voltage, but the volitional, spiritual element of theta taking an elemental step in the creation and conquest of mest. | |
In more general terms, the term theta describes the life force which animates all living things. This life force is separate from, but acts upon, the physical universe, which consists of matter, energy, space and time (called “MEST” in Scientology). Scientology is built on a series of fundamental truths called the Axioms, which define theta and MEST and describe how the two interrelate to form life as we know it. The Axioms comprise the fundamental elements of the beliefs of the Scientology religion. (See Appendix 1.)
First published in 1954, the Axioms of Scientology present this doctrinal foundation with a definition of theta as a “life static” which has no mass, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to influence and change its environment and achieve total knowingness.
CREATION
Scientology holds that it is the action of this non-material life static, playing upon the kinetic of the physical universe, which results in the manifestation of life. All living organisms are composed of matter and energy existing in space and time, animated by theta.
To a Scientologist, life is thus neither accidental nor purposeless, and the answers to questions of creation and evolution are found in Scientology. Materialists have sought to explain life as a spontaneous accident and evolution as a haphazard process of “natural selection.” But these theories never ruled out that additional factors may be merely using such processes as evolution.
Most of the world’s religions express some view of the creation of the world. Some religious traditions, such as Hindu and Buddhist, see the universe as essentially eternal, without beginning or end in the stream of time as we perceive it. The first books of the Bible contain an account of the creation of the universe which some Christian faiths hold to be allegorical and some hold to be an expression of literal fact. Other religious traditions have other views, but each attempts to explain this ultimate question of where we came from and how it occurred. In Scientology, this view flows from the theory of theta creating MEST; in fact, it could be said that the creation of the universe is an inseparable part of that theory. The origins of theta and the creation of the physical universe set forth in Scientology are described in The Factors, written by Mr. Hubbard in 1954.
In the Scientology view, as expressed in the Axioms and the Factors, if there was a “spark” that brought a first primeval brew of chemicals to life, that spark was not the MEST energy of electricity, mindlessly contributing some “lucky” voltage, but the volitional, spiritual element of theta taking an elemental step in the creation and conquest of MEST.
Just as the combination of theta and MEST produces life, their separation is synonymous with death of the organism. The human body, like all life forms, follows a cycle of birth, growth and survival, and ultimately death. The thetan, however—the individualized “unit” of life energy which is the person—is not of the universe of matter, energy, space and time and thus does not cease to exist when the body dies. It is immortal.
As Mr. Hubbard observed, “A Scientologist, before he has gone very far, begins to realize the nature of the universe. He realizes this didn’t all just occur spontaneously one fine day out of some scientific formula, and he realizes there must have been an Author to all of these things. And he also realizes, oddly enough, in his own participation.”
SPIRITUAL ENTRAPMENT
BY MEST
The creation and animation of life forms is part of the process by which theta accomplishes its goal in the physical universe, which is the conquest of MEST—expressed in some religions as a conflict between order and chaos. This goal is made necessary by the fact that the physical universe—MEST—tends to encumber the thetan and cause it to act contrary to its true spiritual nature.
Although Scientologists hold that the immortal thetan is intrinsically good, Scientology posits that he has lost his spiritual identity and operates at a small fraction of his natural ability. It is this loss of spiritual identity that causes man to be unhappy or to act irrationally and with evil intent, even though he is inherently good and highly ethical.
This “fall from perfection” is not due to Satan’s intervention or man’s natural evil impulses, as Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious theology maintains. Rather, Scientology postulates that it is caused by the thetan’s own experiences, whether in current or prior lives. As these experiences accumulate over time, they cause the thetan to become enmeshed with the material universe.
It is through Scientology’s central religious practices, that the thetan is able to extricate himself from this entrapment. This is analogous to the concept of salvation found in other religions.
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