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In Scientology, the concept of thetan is similar to the concept of spirit or soul found in other belief systems.

Thetans have been described in the Church of Scientology in a number of ways:

• A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul."
• "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body."
• "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things."
• A thetan is "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."

Thetan in Scientology doctrine

Scientology doctrine states that a human being is a thetan, operating or using a human body. A distinction is made between the individual thetan, his mind and the body he operates. A thetan is said to operate the body via the mind.

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, at one point defined a thetan 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 ("The Phoenix Lectures"), he pointed to a study that implied 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.)"

Thetan from other people

According to Hubbard's son Ronald DeWolf (born L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.), his father stated that thetans are immortal and perpetual, having willed themselves into existence at some point several trillion years ago. After they originated, thetans generated "points to view," or "dimension points" which caused space to come into existence. They agreed that other thetans' dimension points existed, thus bringing into existence the entire universe. All matter, energy, space and time exists solely because thetans agree that it exists.

Jon Atack in A Piece of Blue Sky states that Hubbard meant:

Thetans are all-knowing beings, and became bored because there were no surprises. Hubbard asserted that the single most important desire in all beings is to have a "game." To have a "game" it was necessary to "not know" certain things, so certain perceptions were negated ("not-is-ed"). More and more perception and knowledge had to be abandoned as time passed, and some Thetans started the "game" of creating traps for other Thetans. Believing it possible to harm others, Thetans learned contrition, and punished themselves for their own "harmful" acts. An ongoing part of this self-imposed punishment is dwindling perception.

One of the Church of Scientology's stated goals is "the rehabilitation of the human spirit," by which it means the restoration of the thetan's original abilities. Hubbard claims that thetans are able to change reality through "postulates" - decisions made by the individual about the nature of the reality around them. Some thetans are said to have (mis)used this ability to "implant" others with hypnotic suggestions, and forced other thetans to "cluster" around bodies (hence body thetans). This sort of directed control is referred to as "other-determinism". Scientology seeks to undo it and return the thetan to "self-determinism," where he can control himself and his environment. The eventual goal is to achieve "pan-determinism" where he acts for the good of all.

Operating Thetan

According to Scientology doctrine, a thetan exists whether operating a human body or not. Scientology advertises itself as being able to "rehabilitate" the thetan of a practictioner to a state where the individual can operate with or without a body. The term "operating thetan" would then apply as it does when an individual is operating a body. The Operating Thetan (OT) levels are the upper level courses in Scientology.

The Church defines "operating thetan" as "knowing and willing cause over life, thought, and matter, energy, space and time (MEST)."

The Church of Scientology states as a point of doctrine that an individual exists with or without a body. Scientology claims that people with proper Scientology training can "exteriorize with full perceptics" (leave the body in spirit form) after completing OT levels, but this claim has yet to be validated by any research.

Body thetan

There is also a type of thetan that Hubbard termed the "body thetan". 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 Xenu 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

1. Official Glossary of Scientology & Dianetics Terms
2. ^ Hubbard (1975). Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Bridge Publications. p. 432. ISBN 0884040372. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. ^ Hubbard (1975). Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Bridge Publications. ISBN 0884040372. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
4. Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, chapter 3.4. Lyle Stuart, 1990. ISBN 081840499X
5. Hubbard, The Auditor 21, p.1
6. Hubbard, The Phoenix Lectures, p. 147. Bridge Publications, 1982 ISBN 08840040062. Hubbard appears to be referring to the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who in the early 1900s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. 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 scientific merit. .
7. PBS Late Night interview with Ron DeWolf
8. [http://shroom.dv8.org/filez/writings/scientology-report.txt Hopkins, Joseph M. Is L. Ron Hubbard Dead? Christianity Today, February 18, 1983 p31]
9. Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, chapter 9.2
10. L. Ron Hubbard's Congress Lectures: Glossary, "OT", Bridge Publications Inc.
11. Church of Scientology, Scientology Beliefs, accessed 03/28/06

• Scientology beliefs and practices