SCIENTOLOGY AND MAGIC

The reason he feels ill at ease about them is that quite a number of practical session problems - in particular with regard to the solo, or "advanced", levels - stem from such wishes of the public as cannot be satisfied within the scope of scientology. It's not that scientology was failing there - it's simply not on its line! There ought to be a clear statement about this at some point, so we take the opportunity now.

Some may be disappointed to hear that scientology - as mentioned in the previous section - "isn't as far as that yet". They may say: "These OTs don't even manage to knock tables about or read the future, which is as easy as child's play for any ordinary poltergeist or, respectively, any halfway decent medium. So why should one bother with it?" Well, wait a moment When Hubbard talks about Theta Clear and Cleared Theta Clear, he is following other goals than those the adept of a magic circle would be envisioning. Many a frustrated "OT" would have been well advised to join a secret esoteric society instead of doing the solo-levels. This is because scientology and magic have two distinctly different aims, if not fundamentally different ethical principles. (Hubbard, who had intimate knowledge of the sex-magic of the then world-famous magician Aleister Crowley, was undoubtedly aware of this.)

Magic teaches "siddhis", as the Hindus call it, meaning the powers of the sorcerer. Amongst them you find healing by the touch of one's hand, instant healing, healing and killing over a distance, fire walking, runing spikes through one's tongue whilst in trance, reading the future e.g. in a crystal ball, conveying definite messages telepathically (e.g. for the secret services), astral walking, levitating and many other feats. These things can be learned. Esoteric knowledge has always been guarded by priests and been taught in temples since there were people on this planet; up to this day there are mystery schools in existence. In order to acquire these forms of OT-ness, one does not have to have crossed any scientological bridges or be Clear or OT in the sense of Hubbard.

Performances of this character nevertheless count as THE criteria amongst some scientologists, to judge the "maturity" of an OT by. Someone who cannot levitate is no OT, and that's it on that! Much as such feats may appear to be criteria to certain people, they are in fact not. This is because of the above-mentioned difference between scientology and magic. In scientology one works towards DISSOLVING ridges and entities of what-ever kind. In magic however one strives to CREATE new entities, and to command about and USE already existing ones. Whether one is dealing with black or white magic is a matter of the underlying evil or, respectively, good intention; it is not a matter of the technique being used. Whoever can heal someone by prayers can just as well kill him the same way, no problem [23]. Consequently Scientology cannot be compared to white or black magic. The task of the auditor consists of rehabilitating the self-determinism of a being and of eliminating the aberrating influences of mental masses and energies on the thetan. In order to achieve this, the auditor does not send the annoying masses, ridges and entities back to their creator with the intention to destroy him by means of the destruction postulates contained in the attacking entity (a possible defense in the case of death prayers), no, he dissolves, erases, as-ises them. Their effect, no matter when it was calculated to come off, is thereby cancelled.

The auditor is pan-determined and impartial. He does not restore peace by throwing the bomb back where it came from, but by discharging all ammunition and drawing it out of circulation. He audits games conditions below 2.0 on the tone scale, the kind characterized by the hardened self-determinism called "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth", he wishes to create positive games conditions in the form of optimum solutions, ideally even pan-determined no-games conditions. Scientology therefore addresses itself to the dissolving of unwanted conditions; black magic, in contrast, to the solidification, the clustering of black masses and their employment in the control of beings; white magic concentrates on the use of entities in order to achieve good effects.

The aim of scientology, in a word, is: "More ethics!" Optimum solutions on as many dynamics as possible; in particular on the higher ones. Pre-Clear and solo auditor both strive to create order and conditions worth living in, be it privately, within the framework of society, or on the subtle level of entities and theta-quanta. "More ethics! is the motto, not the mastering of spiritual circus tricks, not the accumulation of personal power by magical mystery forces. Scientology is an attempt to advance towards a fundamental understanding of existence, and responsibility for it, as opposed to development of power merely to manipulate what already exists. There is the possibility of evil. Instead of using it or fighting it, one ought to grow above it.

How, under these circumstances, could one as a scientologist possibly demonstrate one's OT-ness? One would rather excel through the absence of such tricks! In the case of mental attacks one would show untouchability and lack of aggressivness; one would put the blame on the correct source - more likely than not even on oneself. One would stay unnoticed. A maxim could be tailored from this: the more someone controls his life and the less attention he draws, the bigger and wider he plays and the more innocuous he stay, the more he is OT. This thought places scientology in direct line with Buddhism and Taoism. There, the chief characteristic of the sage is that he does NOT leave any traces.

Someone might object that Hubbard is propagating precisely the thin condemned above, when he talks of Theta Clear and Cleared Theta Clear. Yes and No. The emphasis is not quite in the same place. It is quite up to the OT to decide if he works white or black magic, i.e. creates theta-quanta and sends them about for his own use. Whoever wishes to create effects on a spiritual level in the manner of magicians cannot but work with theta-quanta. However, an OT - if he were to follow the tenets of scientology ethics - would dissolve them all after use! This is of paramount importance in this context. This makes the difference. And below it all there is his continuous intention to disentangle each and every circumstance not in keeping with an optimum solution.

Which takes us back to the subject of postulates: whose postulates created the unwanted circumstances? Working on it from this angle means all by itself that one would contribute to the senior product of an ethical order. That one would approach the area of "superhuman feats" in the process would certainly be a nice side product worth following up - but it would never stand in the focus of one's purposes.

As a summary we might say that a person intent on the attainment of magical effects should attend the pertinent schools, because scientology, being merely interested in the increase of ethics, could be a disappointment for him. Nevertheless, it would not be a bad thing at all if Clears and OTs consulted precisely these schools of magic on order to enhance their general spiritual education! Partly because such knowledge has been used powerfully in the past to entrap and cause harm, partly because, in order to achieve an ethical order, one has to have a full working knowledge of what dangers exist. To reduce the field of para-scientology in size by increased research and inter-disciplinary comparison, is yet another task for the future. (And quite in keeping with the "Code of a Scientologist" [1].)