This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Terryeo (talk | contribs) at 14:05, 6 March 2006 (removed the "garbled reference" statement which is OR, removed the redundant operating and body thetan sections.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 14:05, 6 March 2006 by Terryeo (talk | contribs) (removed the "garbled reference" statement which is OR, removed the redundant operating and body thetan sections.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Template:ScientologySeries The term thetan is used in Scientology to mean something roughly synonymous with spirit or soul. 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 and concept were introduced by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who adopted the Greek letter theta (Θ) to represent "the source of life and life itself". . Hubbard first spoke of "Theta-beings" - which he later called "thetans" - in a lecture series of March 1952 and attributed the coining of the word to his wife Mary Sue .
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." 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.)"
Notes
- Scientology Glossary of Terms, Church of Scientology International
- Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372
- Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, chapter 4. Lyle Stuart, 1990. ISBN 081840499X
- Hubbard, The Auditor 21, p.1
- Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Bridge Publications, June 1975. ISBN 0884040372
- Hubbard, The Phoenix Lectures, p. 147. Bridge Publications, 1982.