I recently compared Scientology founder and former director L. Ron Hubbard’s OT III scripture, which he wrote in 1967 in the Canaries, with his novella Revolt in the Stars, which he wrote in 1977 while hiding out in Sparks, Nevada.
Both writings contain a number of identical “facts,” and both inarguably tell the Xenu story, which Hubbard got certifiably indoctrinated Scientologists to implant in themselves. Once Scientologists make it up their “bridge to total freedom” as far as “advanced level” OT III, they “run” themselves through Hubbard’s Xenu story hundreds or even thousands of times. The Scientologists’ implanting certainly goes on much longer on average than 36 days, which was the duration Hubbard said in scripture that Xenu implanted his victims.
Hubbard installed in Scientologists, as part of the implant, the delusion that they’re running their “body thetans” through the Xenu story, and that their BTs are scanning through or reliving the story’s incidents. It’s obvious, however, that it’s the Scientologists themselves that are spending all the time making the story “realer” and “realer,” and more solid.
Body thetans, Scientologists learn as part of their group implant, are “spirits” or “beings” that the Xenu story happened to 75 million years ago, and which now infest and comprise human body parts.
Hubbard also got his implanted Scientologists to get other people to implant themselves, and charged them all, implanters and the implantees, enormous sums of money for the implant.
Before auto-implanting the Xenu story, which Scientologists do with an array of Hubbard’s instructions, procedures and techniques, they implant themselves with his instruction that the story is scientifically researched and completely factual, the exact time, place, form and event.
The Scientologists implant Hubbard’s instruction that the Xenu story is common to their BTs, which, because of that story, cause the Scientologists’ unOTness, their humanness, and their other problems or non-optimum conditions. The Scientologists also implant Hubbard’s instruction that they must follow his implanting sequences and procedures in order to eliminate these problems and unwanted humanoid conditions.
Serendipitously, I just reread Hubbard’s science fiction novella Seven Steps to the Arbiter, which was originally published as The Kingslayer, copyright 1949 by Fantasy Publishing Co., Inc., and discovered a clear connection to the same Xenu story.
The hero in Seven Steps, Christopher (Kit) Randolph Kellan, is, like the hero in many of Hubbard’s stories, Ron himself, a red or golden haired man with superhuman abilities and intelligence, and, of course, superhuman charm and success with a superbeautiful babe. Adding the letter “e,” Hubbard had Kit go to the same high school Hubbard had gone to, although Kit graduated 2030 years later. Perhaps even more amazingly, Seven Steps had, in 1949, what Hubbard’s cult of Scientology is now universally lampooned 60 years later for having, a dwarf.
“From which school did you receive your master of theoretical engineering philosophy?” said Lapham.
“College of Nuclear Physics, Martian University,” said Kit.
“Hmm,” said Lapham. “You are certain.”
“Of course I am. My sheepskin was stolen but Mars should be able to send the record.”
“We have heard from Mars,” said the dwarf, pulling out a light-thin letter. “They state that whereas you may have been a student there, no record is available in their files.”
Kit started to speak hotly and then snatched at his temper and controlled it. He had argued once too often, that was why he was here.
“You finished high school right here in Washington, D.C.,” said the dwarf, “but we have no further record. In 3960 you were given high school examinations at Woodwarde Prep of this city and passed them it says with honors…”
While Hubbard was always a chubby, soft endomorph, of course, Kit was, as Hubbard’s heroes almost always were, a broad shouldered, hard bodied, athletic mesomorph.
By six o’clock Kit was stripped to the waist, his splendid torso agleam with sweat, his gold hair burning like a torch and his eyes bright with inspiration through the mask of grease.
Hubbard’s hero Rawl, who vanquished Xenu, the Supreme Ruler of the Galactic Confederation, and his renegades, and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is, was also a mesomorphic marvel.
Rawl was smiling good-naturedly. He was a tall, athletic man, handsome in a blunt sort of way. He wore the plain khaki trousers, blouse and cap of a Loyal Officer.
The Announcer stood on tiptoe to see better over his mikes. “Rawl, the Loyal Officer in charge of Earth. Rawl, Speaker of the Congress! You have heard his name connected with every great deed and decency!”
What positively links Seven Steps to the Xenu story, however, are the stars.
Hubbard identifies the twenty-one member stars in Xenu’s Galactic Confederation as Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Vega, Capella, Arcturus, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar, Beta Centauri, Altair, Betelgeuse, Acrux, Aldebaran, Pollux, Spica, Antares, Fomalhaut, Deneb, Regulus and Sol.
In Seven Steps, Hubbard identifies the Six Nations that the Arbiter, the head of the Galactic Arbitration Council, rules as Terra, Centauri, Vega, Sirius, Procyon and Aldeberan.
Kit scratched his gold hair and looked at the dead man. Kit’s nose was stubbed, and wrinkled when he was worried. “I haven’t called you a renegade. … Oh! Perhaps you belong to a group that wants to undermine the Six Nations, or…”
“Ah, yes. Terra, Centauri, Vega, Sirius, Procyon and Aldeberan. Henry! I say, how’s that. Remember every single one of the six nations…”
Hubbard also mentions Spica in Seven Steps, although not as one of the Six Nations.
Ralph Hilton wrote in his entry in the 1999 ARS Literati $10,000 Challenge:
The film script “Revolt in the Stars” was intended to reveal these events to the current populace of Earth in a way that would send them into Scientology in droves. The script states that the stars of the Galactic Federation were:
“Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Vega, Capella, Arcturus, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar, Beta Centauri, Altair, Betelgeuse, Acrux, Aldebaran, Pollux, Spica, Antares, Fomalhaut, Deneb, Regulus and Sol”
The “Hamlyn Guide to Astronomy” by David Baker in 1978 lists the 20 brightest stars from Earth as:
“Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar, Betelgeuse, Beta Centauri, Altair, Aldebaran, Acrux, Antares, Spica, Fomalhaut, Pollux, Deneb, Beta Crucis”
[…] The distances of these stars from Earth vary widely – a developing federation would surely choose stars closer together rather than those brightest from Earth. I find the conclusion almost inevitable that his list of stars came not from whole track recall but a brief study of an astronomy book.
http://www.holysmoke.org/minton/arslc/hilton.htm
I couldn’t obtain a copy of Hamlyn’s Guide, but plenty of other writers, or astronomers, and even astrologers, have listed the same twenty brightest stars, as seen from Teegeeack, and in essentially the same order Hubbard listed the twenty stars that, along with Sol, formed the Galactic Federation.
http://www.wegryn.com/sci/speaking/Stars.htm
It’s generally agreed that there’s something like 1022 to 1024 stars in the Universe. esa.int/esaSC/SEM75BS1VED_index_0.html That’s between 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or between ten sextillion and a septillion stars.
I’ll let some else do the math who knows how to multiply by all kinds of zeros better than I can. I have concluded, however, that the odds of Hubbard coming up with his list of the stars in his Galactic Federation through his own scientific research are only slightly better than the odds of him coming up with the rest of Scientology scripture or “tech” through scientific research.
For implanted Scientologists, of course, the fact that Hubbard’s star list in the Xenu story matches the brightest-stars-as-seen-from-earth list, is proof of the unbelievable accuracy of his whole track recall.
Hubbard’s last sea assignment during World War II was Navigating Officer on the USS Algol, an attack cargo ship. He later claimed that his adventures on the Algol were reported as those of the title character in the movie Mr. Roberts, which was pure BS; but he really was a navigator, and trained in celestial navigation. He’d sailed before the war, in fact really did sail the Inland Passage from Puget Sound to Alaska, so was competent in celestial navigation from that period.
All the stars Hubbard said comprised the Six Nations in Seven Steps can be found on the list of 57 or 58 navigational stars. wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigational_stars
Centauri from Seven Steps could be Alpha Centauri, which is listed as navigational star Rigil Kentaurus, or Beta Centauri, listed as navigational star Hadar, or both stars. Wikipedia says: “Most of these stars are a subset of the list of brightest stars and are defined by convention and nautical tradition.”
I think that when Hubbard wrote Seven Steps in the 1940’s, he pulled the stars in his Six Nations, plus Spica (the ear of corn), out of his celestial navigation knowledge. He started the OT III scripture with the words, “The head of the Galactic Confederation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here).” He didn’t name them. In Revolt, he said that there were 21 stars, with the same 76 planets. As quoted above, he also lists the GC’s stars in Revolt, in pretty well the same order as everyone else lists the twenty brightest stars as seen from earth.
I think that his stars list is the biggest clue, and admission, he provided everyone that he was scamming them. He dramatized what he called the “criminal mind” intent on being found out. Probably no one in the sf community called him on his celestial nav ripoff in 1949. Nobody called him really on the Xenu story and its “larger stars visible from here.” He had to write Revolt and match the 20 Brightest Stars list to let everyone know, far, far beyond any reasonable doubt that it was all fiction. And if there were any facts, like the stars, they were simply cynically and shamelessly stolen.