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Incorporations


Origin of Issue:

There is no evidence that Hubbard’s system of Scientology owes any great debt to that of Crowley, Parsons or the O.T.O. Indeed none of the four members of Crowley’s order whom I have contacted in England and America has been able to confirm any significant points of similarity. The only apparent similarities are those which are common to a number of systems of magical and occult practice – for example, the belief that the individual has supernatural abilities such as telepathy, teleportation, and telekinesis, which can be achieved or regained through mental and spiritual exercises. In the case of many magical and occult systems these practices and their goals have been absorbed from Yoga.

Wallis, R. (1976). The Road To Total Freedom, Columbia University Press.

Crowley wrote about his two part system of Magick and Yoga in a letter to Cara Soror:

First of all then, my system can be divided into two parts.  Apparently diametrically opposed, but at the end converging, the one helping the other until the final method of progress partakes equally of both elements.

For convenience I shall call the first method Magick, and the second method Yoga.  The opposition between these is very plain for the direction of Magick is wholly outward, that of Yoga wholly inward.

Crowley, A., (n.d.) Magick Without Tears. hermetic.com. Retrieved 30 May 2010 from http://hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/mwt_83.html.

Jon Atack researched the issue of Scientology’s occult debt and wrote extensively about it. From Hubbard and the Occult:

Scientology seems to be a hybrid of science-fiction and magic. Hubbard’s reflection on philosophy seem to derive largely from Will Durant‘s Story of Philosophy (13) and the works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley is surely the most famous black magician of the twentieth-century. It is impossible to arrive at an understanding of Scientology without taking into account its creator’s extensive involvement with magic. The trail has been so well obscured in the past that even such a scholar as Professor Gordon Melton has been deceived into the opinion that Hubbard was not a practitioner of ritual magic and that Scientology is not related to magical beliefs and practices. In the book A Piece of Blue Sky, I explored these connections in detail. The revelations surrounding Hubbard’s private papers in the 1984 Armstrong case in California makes any denial of the connections fatuous. The significances of these connections is of course open to discussion.

The chapter in A Piece of Blue Sky that describes Hubbard’s involvement with the ideas of magic is called His Magical Career. I hope I shall be excused for relying upon it. I shall also here describe further research, and comment particularly upon Hubbard’s use of magical symbols, and the inescapable view that many of the beliefs and practices of Scientology are a reformation of ritual magic (14).

(13) See particularly the chapters on Bergson and Spencer.
(14) See also Jacobsen‘s The Hubbard is Bare and Bent Corydon‘s L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? Corydon relied upon excellent research by Brian Ambry but also upon L. Ron Hubbard jnr, whose credibility is questionable. See also L. Ron Hubbard, jnr, A Look Into Scientology or 1/10 of 1% of Scientology, manuscript, 1972.

LashTal Message board discussion: L. Ron Hubbard and Thelema

Incorporations

Dianetics: The Original Thesis

The Adeptus Exemptus Thesis

Eshelman, J. A. (2000). The Mystical & Magical System of the A...A... The Spiritual System of Aleister Crowley & George Cecil Jones Step-by-Step. Los Angeles, The College of Thelema.

The Factors

Science of Survival

The Scientology snake and double triangle symbolScientology symbol

The Scientology cross symbol

Theta

Theta

The Time Track and Magical Memory

Scientology Training

The Training Lion

The Training Lion

Alice in Wonderland

  • Through the Looking Glass:
    Relates Hubbard’s incorporation of Lewis Carroll’s fiction in Scientology training with Crowley’s usage of the same occult text.
  • Aleister Crowley introduced his essay on religions with a parody on Through the Looking Glass: The Sword of Song (pdf)
  • Hubbard talked about a confusion technique in this lecture.
  • Related: Dear Alice

Scientology Dissemination

The Bridge

The Sea Org

The Golden Age of Administration

Babalon symbolism in Scientology

Ref:  The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley
XI Lust and Babalon