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| The term '''thetan''' is used in ] |
The term '''thetan''' is used in ], a term similar to the Christian ] or ]. More exactly, "the person himself, not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as ''you''." <ref>, Church of Scientology International</ref> | ||
| Scientology doctrine states that a human being is a thetan, operating or using a human body. |
Scientology doctrine states that a human being is a thetan, operating or using a human body. The term was introduced by Scientology founder ]. <ref>Hubbard, ''Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary''. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372</ref>. | ||
| The term and concept were introduced by Scientology founder ], who adopted the ] ] (Θ) to represent "the source of life and life itself". <ref>Hubbard, ''Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary''. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372</ref>. Hubbard first spoke of "Theta-beings" - which he later called "thetans" - in a lecture series of March 1952 <ref>Jon Atack, ''A Piece of Blue Sky'', . Lyle Stuart, 1990. ISBN 081840499X</ref> and attributed the coining of the word to his wife ] <ref>Hubbard, ''The Auditor 21, p.1</ref>. | |||
| Hubbard was somewhat inconsistent about the physical properties of a thetan. He defined it as "having no mass, no wave-length, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things." <ref>Hubbard, ''Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary''. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372</ref> However, in a lecture series later published as a book, he claimed that a thetan had a small but measurable amount of mass: | |||
| :"From some experiments conducted about fifteen or twenty years ago--a thetan weighed about 1.5 ounces! Who made these experiments? Well, a doctor made these experiments. He weighed people before and after death, retaining any mass. He weighed the person, bed and all, and he found that the weight dropped at the moment of death about 1.5 ounces and some of them 2 ounces. (Those were heavy thetans.)" <ref>Hubbard, ''The Phoenix Lectures'', p. 147. Bridge Publications, 1982.</ref> | |||
| This appears to be a garbled reference to the the work of Dr. ], who in the early ]s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the ] departed the body upon ]. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material and measurable. He claimed to have measured a loss of mass amounting to three-fourths of an ounce (21.3 grams) on the death of the patient. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any ] merit. . | |||
| == Operating Thetan == | == Operating Thetan == | ||
| {{main|Operating Thetan}} | |||
| According to Scientology doctrine, a spirit can exist whether operating a human body or not. Scientology advertises that they can rehabilitate the human spirit to achieve this degree of freedom, if one undergoes a number of courses. If an individual can operate with or without a body then the term "operating thetan" would apply as it does when an individual is operating a body. The Operating Thetan levels are the upper level courses in Scientology. | |||
| The Church defines "operating thetan" as "knowing and willing cause over ], ], and ], ], ] and ] (])." | |||
| The Church of Scientology makes claims that an individual can exist with or without a body. Scientology claims that people with proper Scientology training can "exteriorize with full perceptics" after completing OT levels, but this claim has yet to be validated by any research. | |||
| == Body thetan == | |||
| {{main|Body thetan}} | |||
| According to the ] philosophy, an individual exists as a spirit (which Scientology calls "thetan") whether motiviating and operating a human body or not. Scientology has stated its purpose to be, "the rehabilitation of the human spirit." In this sense, every human being is an "operating thetan". | |||
| There is also a type of thetan that Hubbard termed the "]". Hubbard claimed that this type of thetan was stuck in, on, or near a persons body due to a nuclear explosion that blew up millions of space aliens in volcanos ~75 million years ago, referred to as the ] incident. However, these type of thetans are considered bad, and the Church requires further courses for people if they want to remove the thousands of disembodied souls of space aliens from their body. This was revealed in Hubbard's own handwriting in Operating Thetan III course materials. | |||
| == Notes == | == Notes == | ||
Revision as of 09:12, 5 March 2006
Template:ScientologySeries The term thetan is used in Scientology, a term similar to the Christian soul or spirit. More exactly, "the person himself, not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you."
Scientology doctrine states that a human being is a thetan, operating or using a human body. The term was introduced by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. .
Operating Thetan
According to the Scientology philosophy, an individual exists as a spirit (which Scientology calls "thetan") whether motiviating and operating a human body or not. Scientology has stated its purpose to be, "the rehabilitation of the human spirit." In this sense, every human being is an "operating thetan".
Notes
- Scientology Glossary of Terms, Church of Scientology International
- Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372