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The Knowing of Knowing: Neo-Gnosticism from the O.T.O. to Scientology

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 gnosis: journal of gnostic studies 4 (2019) 99–116

brill.com/gnos

The Knowing of Knowing

Neo-Gnosticism, from the O.T.O. to Scientology

Hugh B. Urban
Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University
urban.41@osu.edu

Abstract

This article traces the idea of neo-Gnosticism in a series of occult and new
religious movements from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Specifically, the article examines the links between two controversial groups
that both described themselves as modern forms of Gnosticism: first, the
European esoteric group, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and second, the American
new religion, the Church of Scientology. Founded by Theodor Reuss in
Germany in the 1890s, the O.T.O. described itself as a form of “Gnostic Neo-
Christian Templar” religion, with sexual magic as its primary ritual secret. Its
most infamous leader, British occultist Aleister Crowley, also developed a full
scale “Gnostic Mass” for the group. Many elements of the O.T.O. and Crowley’s
work were later picked up by none other than L. Ron Hubbard, the eclectic
founder of Scientology, who also called his new church a “Gnostic religion,”
since it is the “knowing of knowing” (scientia + logos). To conclude, I will dis-
cuss the ways in which these Gnostic and occult elements within Scientology
later became a source of embarrassment for the church and were eventually
either obscured or denied altogether—in effect, obfuscated by still further lay-
ers of secrecy and concealment.

Keywords

occultism – new religious movements – magic – sexuality – modernity

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/2451859X-12340070

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 100 Urban

1 The Gnostic Revival of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth

Centuries

Decades before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices in Egypt, the pe-
riod of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed a wide-
spread revival of interest in gnosticism throughout Europe, England, and the
United States. Bearing as it did the promise of profound secret knowledge and
true understanding of the soul and God, transmitted to a small group of the
elect, gnosticism was a key element in the larger revival of interest in occult-
ism, magic, and esotericism in the modern period. Indeed, well before gnostic
references began to appear in popular novels such as The DaVinci Code and
films such as The Matrix, they had begun to inform the development of some
of the most influential new religious movements of the last 150 years.1
In what follows, I would like to trace the links between two controversial
movements that both described themselves in one way or another as mod-
ern forms of gnosticism: first, the European esoteric group, the Ordo Templi
Orientis (or O.T.O.), and second, the American-based new religion, the Church
of Scientology. Founded by Theodor Reuss at the beginning of the twenti-
eth century, the O.T.O. described itself as a form of “Gnostic Neo-Christian
Templar” religion, with sexual magic as its primary ritual secret.2 Its most infa-
mous leader, British occultist Aleister Crowley, would also develop a full scale
“Gnostic Mass” for the group, while elaborating its rituals and practice of sex-
ual magic.3 Many elements of the O.T.O. and Crowley’s work were later picked
up by none other than L. Ron Hubbard, the eclectic founder of Scientology,
who also called his new church a “Gnostic religion,” since it is the “knowing of
knowing,” which “knows it knows.”4 Finally, to conclude, I will discuss the ways
in which these gnostic and occult elements within Scientology later became a
source of embarrassment for the church and were eventually either obscured
or denied altogether—in effect, obfuscated by still further layers of secrecy and
concealment.

1  See DeConick 2016; Urban 2005.

2  On the O.T.O., see Pasi 2005; Urban 2003; King 1973; König 1993; König 1997.
3  There is now a large body of literature on Crowley. See Urban 2004; Pasi 2014; Bogdan and
Starr 2012; Djurdjevic 2014.
4  Hubbard 1976, 152, 158. See Urban 2010, 70; Urban 2012; Bednarowski 1989.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 101

2 Neo-Gnostic Templar Christians: “Gnosis” and Tantra in the O.T.O.

Gnostic themes run throughout occult and esoteric movements of the latter
half of the nineteenth century in Europe, England, and the United States—
and particularly after the publication of Charles William King’s widely read
text, The Gnostics and their Remains, in 1864.5 The influence of King’s work can
be seen, for example, in the Theosophical Society—arguably the most impor-
tant esoteric movement of the modern era—which was founded in 1875 by
the enigmatic Russian mystic, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and her American
colleague, Henry Steel Olcott. Blavatsky’s first major work, Isis Unveiled (1877),
makes extensive reference to gnosticism, drawing largely on King’s book; and
later theosophists such as G. R. S. Mead wrote widely on gnosticism, publishing
his own version of the Pistis Sophia in 1896.6 Meanwhile, in Europe, a variety
of modern gnostic movements began to flourish, such as the Église Gnostique,
founded in France in 1890.7
The Ordo Templi Orientis emerged within this larger occult and neo-
gnostic milieu of late nineteenth-century Europe. One of the key inspirations
for the movement was Carl Kellner, an Austrian inventor, industrialist, and
Freemason, who also had an interest in Eastern religions. In the course of his
extensive travels, Kellner claimed, he had come in contact with a Sufi and with
two Hindu Tantrics, who allegedly initiated him into the mysteries of sexual
magic (a practice that would become a central element in the secret rituals of
the O.T.O.).8
The real architect of the order, however, was Theodor Reuss, a German
journalist and Freemason who had experimented with a wide array of occult
organizations before establishing the O.T.O. sometime around 1906.9 During
its early years, the O.T.O. also attracted several members who were involved
with other gnostic-influenced movements, including Rudolf Steiner (then sec-
retary general of the German branch of the Theosophical Society) and Gérard
Encausse (a.k.a. Papus, then a Bishop in the French Église Gnostique).

5  King 1864.
6  See Blavatsky 1997; Mead 1921; Mead 1960; Goodrick-Clarke 2005. On the gnostic elements in
Theosophy, see Godwin 1994. Although it is not discussed in this article, gnostic themes also
appear in early Mormonism (Brooke 1996).
7  See Doinel 2017.
8  On Kellner’s life, see Dvorak 1998; Godwin 1994, 361; Godwin, Chanel, Deveney 1995, 422–28.
For Kellner’s discussion of Indian yoga and sexual magic, see Kellner 1896.
9  On Reuss and the O.T.O., see Koenig 1993, 187–93; Howe and Möller 1978, 28–46; Urban 2005;
Reuss 1912; Reuss 1906.

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 102 Urban

The most infamous figure involved with the early O.T.O.—and arguably the
most important figure in the modern revival of occultism—was the British
poet, mountain climber, and magus, Aleister Crowley. Like Kellner, Crowley
had traveled in India and explored the mysteries of yoga and Tantra; and, like
Kellner, he too claimed to have discovered the deepest secrets of sexual magic.
After meeting Reuss in 1910, Crowley was made head of the O.T.O. in Great
Britain and Ireland and soon authored some of its major rituals and degrees.10
Perhaps most importantly, in 1913, Crowley wrote a full-scale liturgy for
the order—the “Gnostic Mass”—which, in turn, became the primary focus
of the ecclesiastical arm of the O.T.O. called the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica.
According to the 1918 edition of the text, the Mass was said to be “edited from
the Ancient Documents in Assyrian and Greek”—though it was probably de-
rived far more from Crowley’s fertile occult imagination than any actual gnos-
tic text.11 Consisting of five officers—a priest, a priestess, a deacon, and two
acolytes—the Mass culminates in the consecration and consumption of a
“Eucharist” comprised of wine and “cakes of light.” Much of the symbolism of
the Gnostic Mass, we should note, is highly erotic: for example, the priest bears
a sacred lance that is presented to the priestess, who in turn runs her hands up
and down its shaft; the priestess then disrobes completely and declares herself
to be “the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky,” and so on.12
In his own text accompanying the Gnostic Mass in 1917, Reuss explicitly de-
scribed his new movement as a form of “Neo-Gnostic” religion and a revival of
the early gnostic traditions that, he believed, were the true and original form
of Christianity. As he put it, “The Gnostic Templar-Christians (Neo-Christians,
Primitive Christians, Neo-Gnostics) do not seek to found a new religion, but
they only desire to clear away the debris which the reigning pseudo-Christi-
anity of the Church Fathers heaped on the original Christian religion, so that
the true ‘Christos’ doctrine and the religion of the original Christians, the
Christian Gnostics, will once more come into its own.”13 Most importantly, the
Neo-Gnostics “condemn the doctrine of Original Sin,” which in their view is an
oppressive corruption of original Christianity. Still more ambitiously, however,
Reuss also imagined that the neo-Gnostics would usher in a new age and a
new society, one with a new kind of morality based not on guilt and repression
of physical desire but rather on the acceptance and embrace of sexuality as a
divine gift:

10  See Urban 2004 and Urban 2005.

11  Crowley 1994. See Crowley 2014.
12  Crowley 2014, 27. See König 1997, 228–38, 242.
13  Reuss 1997, 226–27. See Reuss 1993a.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 103

A new civilization, a new system of morals will arise from the new
Christianity of the Gnostic Templar-Christians … the Church of the gnos-
tic Neo-Christians seeks to found communities, existing on a co-operative
basis, of sinless, i.e. freed from the Nazarene-Christian idea of original
sin, people. For the formation of such gnostic “Christos” communities
only those are suitable who are convinced of the existence of a soul who
enables us to gain resemblance to God … the Gnostic-Catholic Church
is seeking a world-wide community of truly free people, of people liber-
ated from original sin, free from sexual sin. The Gnostics recognize that
humanity’s “resemblance to God” consists in the fact that they are able to
grasp and understand the divinity of the earthly act of procreation as a
parallel of the divine act of original creation.14

Elsewhere, Reuss also suggested that the Gnostic or “primitive Christian” reli-
gion was originally centered on the worship of the phallus as the symbol of di-
vine creative power. In this regard, he believed, the Gnostics shared a common
origin with the vamachara (left hand) Tantrics of India and with other Eastern
esoteric traditions: “The secret teachings of the Gnostics (Primitive Christians)
are identical with the Vamachari rites of the Tantrics … Phallicism is the basis
of all theology and underlies the mythology of all peoples.”15
In keeping with this focus on worship of the phallus, the most important
esoteric rites of the O.T.O. centered on various forms of sexual magic. A prac-
tice that had begun to spread widely in modern esoteric circles since the mid-
nineteenth century, sexual magic drew in part from Hindu Tantric traditions
(at least as translated and interpreted by Western Orientalist scholars) and in
part from American occultists such as Paschal Beverly Randolph and European
esoteric groups such as of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.16 As Crowley
put it, sexual magic is the most powerful form of magic, embodying as it does
the ability to create life itself. When harnessed through magical rites, this su-
preme power can be directed toward any aim that the magus desires: “If this
secret [of sexual magic], which is a scientific secret, were perfectly understood,
as it is not by me after more than twelve years almost constant study and ex-
periment, there would be nothing which the human imagination can conceive
that could not be realized in practice.”17

14  Reuss 1997, 227. See König 1997, 238; Urban 2005, 96–97.
15  Reuss 1993b, 72; Reuss 1906, 33–34. The idea that gnostic ideas are similar to or derived
from Indian traditions was also suggested by King 1864, 16–26 and again by Mead 1960,
54–55.
16  See Urban 2005; Bogdan 2006.
17  Crowley 1969, 767.

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 104 Urban

The O.T.O. also developed a hierarchy of eleven grades of initiation, the

highest of which centered on different forms of sexual magic. Thus, the eighth
degree involved a form of autoerotic magic and the emission of semen outside
the body; the ninth degree involved heterosexual intercourse and the mingling
of male and female sexual fluid; and the eleventh degree involved anal inter-
course (a rite that would have been particularly transgressive at a time when
sodomy was still illegal in many countries and homosexuality was widely be-
lieved to be a criminal pathology).
Now, one question we may want to ask at this point is: where did Reuss
and Crowley derive this idea of Neo-Gnostic sex magic? While it is true that
there are possible sources in some early gnostic materials—here I am thinking
in particular of the Valentinian idea of the “mystery of the bridal chamber”
that April DeConick has so brilliantly elucidated—I am skeptical that Reuss
and Crowley were actually reading these ancient sources.18 Instead, it seems
far more likely that they were drawing upon two non-gnostic sources: the first
is the widespread attack on gnosticism by other Christians, such as Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanius, and others who frequently accused the
gnostics of all manner of sexual promiscuity and demonic magic (including
consumption of sexual fluids as a Eucharistic meal).19 This was later amplified
by Christian attacks on medieval groups such as the Cathars, Bogomils, and
Knights Templar who were likewise accused of an array of sexual perversions.20
Crowley and Reuss, it seems, were simply flipping these anti-gnostic accounts
on their heads, by praising and celebrating the role of sexuality rather than
demonizing and condemning it.
The second likely source for O.T.O. sex magic is Hindu Tantra—or at least
a highly exoticized, eroticized version of Tantra—which was widely published
in British Orientalist literature of the day. Sexual rituals do play a part in left-
hand (vamachara) forms of Hindu Tantra, and in some cases these rites do

18  See DeConick 2008 43: “For the Valentinians, sex seems to have been understood as a
delightful and sacred experience at the same time, when the souls of the parents mingled
with the heavenly powers, resulting in the conception of a spiritually superior child, one
that would be morally inclined and redeemable.”
19  According to Irenaeus: “the power which resides in the (female) periods and in the
semen, they say, is the soul which we collect and eat” (quoted in Rudolph 1983, 249–50).
Meanwhile, Epiphanius, Pan., 26.4–8 (Holl 1915–1933) wrote an elaborate description of a
gnostic sect in Egypt that engaged in all manner of sexual perversion: “They serve up lav-
ish helpings of wine and meat…. When they have had their drink and filled their veins …
they give themselves over to passion…. The man and woman take the man’s sperm in
their hands and stand looking up to heaven…. And so they eat it, partaking of their own
shame.”
20  See Urban 2005, 21–34; Rudolph 1983, 249–50; Lambert 1998; Frankfurter 2008.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 105

involve highly transgressive practices such as oral consumption of sexual flu-

ids.21 Tantra as a whole, however, was wildly exaggerated and sensationalized
by nineteenth-century Orientalist scholars, whose vivid accounts of Tantric
debauchery no doubt fueled the imaginations of authors such as Reuss and
Crowley.22

3 The Babalon Working: Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard in 1940s

California

But whatever its origins, by the mid-twentieth century, the influence of the
O.T.O. had also spread to the United States, and a chapter called the Agape
Lodge was opened in Southern California in 1935. The most infamous member
of the California group was John Whiteside (“Jack”) Parsons, a rocket scien-
tist and magician whom some have dubbed the “James Dean of the occult.”23
Parsons, it seems, was determined to put some of Aleister Crowley’s most radi-
cal ideas into practice and so, in 1946, undertook a series of rituals called the
Babalon Working. Based in part on Crowley’s 1917 novel, Moonchild, the ritu-
als were recorded in detailed diaries kept by Parsons during this period. The
stated aim of the Working was first to find a woman who would serve as his
“Lady Babalon” and partner in sexual rituals (rituals based in part on Crowley’s
Gnostic Mass and on O.T.O. sex magic); the partner would in turn become im-
pregnated and give birth to a “magical child” who would be the messiah of a
new age.24
Parsons’s cohort in these magical rites was none other than the young
L. Ron Hubbard. A hugely prolific author of science fiction and fantasy stories,
Hubbard had just returned from service in the Navy during WWII and quick-
ly became close friends with Parsons. Indeed, Hubbard even served as the
“scribe” in Parsons’s secret rites, channeling the voice of Lady Babalon herself
from the ethereal plane. According to Parsons’s diaries, Hubbard became the
vessel for Babalon, speaking as the beautiful but terrible being who is “flame of

21  On Tantric sexual techniques and the consumption of fluids, see White 2002; Urban 2011.
22  On Orientalist views of Tantra, Urban 2003; Urban 2005. A somewhat less exoticized ac-
count of Tantra was also available in the early twentieth century through the works of
John Woodroffe, a.k.a., Arthur Avalone. See Woodroffe 1918.
23  On Parsons and the Babalon Working, see Urban 2012; Bogdan 2016; Pendle 2006; Carter
2005; Parsons 1946.
24  See Crowley 1971; Parsons 1946; Urban 2012; Bogdan 2016.

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 106 Urban

life, power of darkness, destroys with a glance, she may take thy soul. She feeds
upon the death of men Beautiful—Horrible.”25
Parsons actually claimed that these rites had been successful and that his
Lady Babalon had indeed appeared to him in the form of a young woman
named Marjorie Cameron. Although apparently unaware that she was serving
as the vehicle of Babalon in secret sex rituals, Cameron did engage in a pas-
sionate relationship with Parsons and later married him.
The magical partnership between Parsons, Cameron, and Hubbard was not,
however, very long-lived. The aged Crowley himself had sent warnings about
the whole affair, expressing his incredulity at the “idiocy of these goats” and
suggesting that Hubbard was probably playing Parsons for a fool. Sure enough,
as Crowley had predicted, Hubbard eventually ran off with both Parsons’s for-
mer girlfriend, Sara Northrup, and with much of Parsons’s personal savings—
over $20,000—which they had invested in a dubious business scheme. Parsons,
meanwhile, never fulfilled his occult ambitions but instead accidentally blew
himself up while experimenting with explosives in his laboratory. Still today,
however, he is remembered in popular culture as a kind of icon of the twenti-
eth-century occult underground.26

4 A “Gnostic Religion:” Gnosticism, Sci-Fi, and Other Themes in Early

Scientology

Shortly after parting ways with Jack Parsons, however, Hubbard would go on
to found his own new movement and eventually his own new religion. This
began with the hugely popular form of self-help therapy called Dianetics in
1950 and then was followed by the foundation of an explicitly “religious” orga-
nization called the Church of Scientology in 1953. As I have argued elsewhere,
Hubbard’s early Church of Scientology was an incredibly eclectic synthesis
of many different religious, philosophical, psychological, and science fiction
sources; and Crowley’s work was one of the many elements that fed into this
rich and wide-ranging mélange.27 In a series of lectures in 1952, Hubbard even
referred to Crowley as “my very good friend,” (despite noting his reputation as
the “Beast 666”) and went on to compare Crowley’s magic with the techniques

25  Parsons 1946; Urban 2012; Bogdan 2016.

26  Urban 2012; Bogdan 2016; Pendle 2006; Carter 2005.
27  See Urban 2012; Urban 2010.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 107

of Scientology.28 More than one observer has also noted that Scientology’s key
symbol—the 8-pointed cross—bears a striking resemblance to the rose cross
lamen that adorns the back of Crowley’s famous Tarot card deck. And finally,
the key term for the Spirit or soul in Scientology is the thetan—symbolized by
the Greek letter theta—which is also the central symbol in the O.T.O.’s sigil of
Babalon and the first letter in Crowley’s key term Thelema, meaning Will.29 All
of this is not to say that Crowley and the O.T.O. are the only or most important
influences on early Scientology, but rather that they are among the many, many
elements that were later fused in Hubbard’s rich and eclectic imagination.
Like Reuss before him, Hubbard repeatedly described his new movement as
a kind of “Gnostic religion” or “Gnostic faith.” Derived from Latin scientia and
Greek logos, Scientology as he defines it is literally the “knowing of knowing.”
As he wrote in 1955,

Scientology is the science of knowing how to know answers…. This sci-

ence is formed in the tradition of 10,000 years of religious philosophy and
considers itself a culmination of the search that began with the Veda,
Tao, Buddhism, Christianity and other religions. Scientology is a Gnostic
faith in that it knows it knows.30

Through knowledge, which puts a person on the road to total freedom, an in-
dividual progresses in seeing issues more clearly. In this sense, it is a gnostic
religion.31
It is worth noting that one of the primary dictionaries used in the train-
ing of Scientologists during the early 1960s—a text called the Saint Hill Special
Briefing Course Master Glossary—also includes an entry on “the Gnostics.” Here
gnostics are defined as “members of any of certain sects of early Christians
who claimed to have superior knowledge of spiritual matters, and whose

28  Hubbard 2001, 185, 188; see Urban 2012. As Hubbard put it, “Now a magician—going back
to cause and effect and Aleister’s work—a magician postulates what his goal will be be-
fore he starts to accomplish what he’s doing…. And the magician was very ritualistic and
he would very carefully postulate that effect he was trying to achieve;” Scientology is then
presented as a “cycle of action,” working along similar principles but now aimed at a new
goal, which is to unleash the unlimited potential of the human spirit (Hubbard 2001,
186). Later in 1970, Scientology’s Advance! Magazine compared Scientology techniques to
magic: “with the definition of magic, we are right back into realm of theta ability. L. Ron
Hubbard has revealed the ultimate statement about a thetan’s abilities in the first two
axioms of Scientology” (Advance! 1970, 20).
29  See Urban 2012.
30  Hubbard 1976.
31  Hubbard 1976, 152, 158.

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 108 Urban

unifying
principle was that salvation was to be sought through knowledge

rather than faith, ritual or good works.”32
This emphasis on spiritual liberation
through knowledge or gnosis rather than faith is a recurring theme throughout
Hubbard’s writings from the 1950s–1970s, and one way that he distinguished
his church from mainstream Christianity (of which he was generally critical
and often quite dismissive).33
One of the most telling Scientology documents is a text first written by
Hubbard in 1955 but then reprinted and circulated in 1978. The late 1970s were,
we should note, a time of intense legal dispute between the church and the
IRS over Scientology’s claim to tax-exempt status as a “religious” organization.
Here, Hubbard cautions his fellow Scientologists to be careful about how they
present themselves publicly, particularly to Christian clergy. While the latter
base their “religion” purely on faith, Scientologists base theirs on genuine gno-
sis or knowledge, because Scientology actually derives from an older and more
authentic religious source:

In addressing persons professionally interested in the ministry, we have

another interesting problem in public presentation. We should not en-
gage in religious discussions. In the first place, as Scientologists, we are
Gnostics, which is to say we know what we know. People in the ministry
ordinarily suppose that knowingness and knowledge are elsewhere resi-
dent than in themselves. They believe in belief and substitute belief for
wisdom. This makes Scientology no less a religion, but makes it a religion
with an older tradition and puts it on an intellectual plane.34

While both the O.T.O. and Scientology described themselves as forms of gnos-
tic religion, there are, however, important differences as well as continuities
between the two. Perhaps most notably, as I mentioned earlier, the central ritu-
al secret of the O.T.O. centered on acts of sexual magic and the divine, creative
power of sexual fluids. There is nothing like this in Scientology, and, on the
whole, the church’s attitude toward sexuality is fairly conservative (Hubbard
himself, for example, was intensely suspicious of homosexuality and other
forms of “deviance”).35 As Carole Cusack has recently shown in her study of
Scientology and sex, one of the primary uses of sexuality in the church has been

32  Saint Hill Manor n.d., 888.

33  See Urban 2010, 57–58.
34  Hubbard 1978.
35  This is particularly clear in the “Security Checks” Hubbard introduced in the early 1960s
to weed out potential subversives from the church; many of the questions focused on
homosexuality and perversion. See Hubbard 1961; Urban 2010, 107.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 109

for the control of its members—which seems in many ways the very opposite
of the liberated, transgressive sexuality championed by Reuss and Crowley.36
In his lectures of the 1950s and 60s, Hubbard also articulated an elaborate
cosmology, metaphysics, and esoteric hierarchy that is a complex mixture
of various esoteric currents (including gnosticism) and his own fertile Sci-Fi
imagination. Our true identity, Hubbard tells us, is the thetan or Spirit, which
is originally an eternal, infinite, and omnipotent being. Before coming to this
universe, in fact, each of us had our own “universes,” in which we each enjoyed
supreme, godlike power. As David Bromley explains Hubbard’s early cosmol-
ogy, “In the beginning theta was separate from the physical universe. Theta had
no energy or mass, time or location; it was simply energy…. At one time thetans
were godlike, celestial entities, possessed of their own distinctive individuality
and created and controlled their own ‘Home Universes’.”37
At some point roughly 60 trillion years ago, however, we all became en-
trapped in this present universe of Matter, Energy, Space, and Time (or MEST),
with planet Earth as one of its lowest, most dismal locales—what he calls a
“dumping ground” and “prison.”38
The goal of Scientology training (called “auditing”) is therefore to free the
thetan from its entrapment in the material world and so reawaken its unlim-
ited potential. As Hubbard defined, it, Scientology is simply “knowledge and
its application in the conquest of the material universe.”39 Through the pro-
cess of auditing, we can ascend the “bridge to total freedom”—the roadmap
of the Scientology path—which will progressively restore our original godlike
power. Like the O.T.O., Scientology is organized in a complex hierarchy of lev-
els, the highest of which become increasingly esoteric (and increasingly costly,
we should note, some running into tens of thousands of dollars). As we rise
through the bridge, we uncover more and more of our identity as spiritual be-
ings and achieve the state called “Operating Thetan”—that is, a Spirit that is in-
creasingly free of the bonds of the MEST universe and ultimately able to wield
an array of superhuman powers. Indeed, the fully realized Operating Thetan
is said to have godlike powers, including the ability to “exteriorize” or travel
at will outside the physical body, to manipulate the MEST universe, and ulti-
mately even to create its own universe. As Hubbard put it in lectures from 1952
and 1954, “[The Operating Thetan is] a person who is able to create his own
universe, or living in the MEST universe, is able to create illusions perceivable

36  Cusack 2016.

37  Bromley 2009, 91.
38  Urban 2010, 75–76. See Hubbard 2007b, 282.
39  Hubbard 2007c, 370.

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 110 Urban

by others at will, to handle MEST universe objects without mechanical means

and to have and feel no need of bodies or the MEST universe.”40 Indeed, the
Operating thetan “would be able to be anywhere as a finite point or be any-
where as a generalized area … He could be anything at will.”41
Indeed, the powers of the fully realized Operating Thetan are ultimately
godlike—even more “godlike” than those of the so-called “god” who created
this inferior MEST universe in which we are currently and mistakenly en-
meshed. As Hubbard put it, “What passed for God for the MEST universe was
not the goddest God there was by an awful long ways…. Whoever made that
MEST universe … was a usurper of one’s own universe. And this has … sold the
individual out of his ability to make a universe.”42
It seems unlikely that Hubbard had any deep or extensive knowledge of early
gnosticism or the contents of any of the gnostic Gospels—except as indirectly
transmitted through second, third, and fourth-hand sources such as Blavatsky,
Mead, and Crowley. Because I am not myself a scholar of early gnosticism, I
will leave it to more qualified readers to determine whether and to what degree
Hubbard’s metaphysics overlaps with gnostic ideas of the soul, God, and after-
life. Here, I will simply note that Hubbard’s view of the immortal, divine thetan
trapped in the material world bears more than a passing resemblance to early
gnostic beliefs that the human being contains a divine spark hidden within
itself.43 Moreover, Hubbard’s critique of the so-called god of the MEST uni-
verse recalls gnostic ideas that the creator of this universe is not the “true” God
but merely an ignorant or evil demiurge.44 Finally, in gnostic fashion, Hubbard

40  Hubbard 2006, 175.

41  Hubbard 2007a, 373.
42  Hubbard 2001, 14.
43  On the gnostic idea of the human being containing a divine spark and returning to the
transcendental world, see DeConick 2016, 11: “because they experienced complete unity
with the transcendent God in their initiations, these people were convinced that humans
have an innate spiritual nature that is an extension of this transcendence. It is the divine
embodied in each of us, the transcendent God immanent within the human. They called
this spark of God the pneuma or spirit. It is our permanent immortal aspect.” Hubbard
could easily have taken this idea from King (1864) or Mead (1960, 334).
44  According to Antti Marjanen, the two defining characteristics of Gnosticism are that
there is or are “(an) evil or ignorant world creator(s) separate from the highest divinity”
and that “the human soul or spirit originates form a transcendental world and, having be-
come aware of that, has the potential of returning there after life in this world” (2010, 24;
see Brakke 2012, 24). On the idea of the ignorant demiurge, see also DeConick 2016, 167. As
Elaine Pagels notes, “the one whom most Christians naively worship as creator, God and
Father is, in reality, only the image of the true God … what Clement and Ignatius mistak-
enly ascribe to God actually applies only to the creator. Valentinus … uses the Greek term
for ‘creator’ (demiurgos), suggesting that he is a lesser being who serves as the instrument

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 The Knowing of Knowing 111

claimed to possess the secret knowledge—the knowing of knowing itself—that

would lead the soul to full recovery of its innate divinity.
Again, however, I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that these
occult and gnostic elements are the only or most important influences in the
early formation of Scientology. Rather, I am simply noting that they are among
the many influences at work in Hubbard’s fertile imagination, woven togeth-
er with an array of other religious and cultural threads, such as elements of
Freudian psychoanalysis, fragments of Hinduism and Buddhism, and a heavy
dose of science fiction (or what Hubbard called “space opera”).45 As a whole,
Hubbard’s work is best understood not so much as a unified, coherent system
but rather as a wildly eclectic bricolage, pieced together from the many spiri-
tual ideas that were circulating freely in the rich foment of post-World War II
America.

5 The Occlusion of the Occult in the History of Scientology

To conclude, I would like to briefly discuss the legacy of these gnostic elements
in the O.T.O. and Scientology in the twenty-first century. Both movements are
still with us this today, though the former is extremely small, esoteric, and un-
known to most non-initiates, while the latter is one of the wealthiest, most liti-
gious, and most controversial new religions of the last hundred years. Indeed,
as George Pendle notes in his biography of Jack Parsons, Hubbard appears to
have succeeded where Crowley’s O.T.O. never had, at least in terms of sheer
size, numbers, and wealth:

It is hard to ignore the similarities between Crowley’s Thelema and

Hubbard’s Scientology…. Both preach that man is an immortal spiritual
being, that his capabilities are unlimited … while Thelema was born of
the Old World, however, Scientology was distinctly a product of the New.
The O.T.O. arouse out of the Victorian fascination with mysticism, magic
and the secret societies of Europe. Scientology was a product of the twen-
tieth century’s childlike trust in scientific knowledge…. While Crowley
struggled throughout his life to popularize the O.T.O., the Church of

of the higher powers” (1989, 37). Again, Hubbard could easily have derived this idea from
sources like King (1864) or Mead (1960, 348–349).
45  See Urban 2017a; Raine 2014.

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 112 Urban

Scientology became hugely successful…. It is, in short, everything he had

wanted the O.T.O. to be.46

As part of its rise to mainstream success, however, Scientology has had to re-
peatedly downplay, deny, or completely reject these occult and gnostic influ-
ences in its development—and above all the links to Crowley and the O.T.O.
Already in 1969, the London Sunday Times published an exposé of Scientology
entitled “The Odd Beginning of Ron Hubbard’s Career,” which traced his ties
to Crowley and the sex magic escapades of the Babalon Working. Remarkably
enough, the Church of Scientology opted not to deny this account but instead
confirmed that all of this really did happen. In a response published in the
same paper shortly after the article, the church claimed that Hubbard had ac-
tually been sent in as an undercover agent working for the U.S. military in
order to infiltrate and “break up black magic in America.” This he successfully
did, the church stated, by rescuing the girl (Parsons’s erstwhile girlfriend, Sara)
and shutting down this occult operation.47
Despite this explanation, accusations of links to occultism, black magic,
and other embarrassments would continue to plague Scientology for the next
fifty years. Beginning in the 1990s, many of Scientology’s most esoteric mate-
rials from the advanced Operating Thetan levels began to be leaked first to
the media and then onto the Internet. Dutch journalist Karen Spaink would
publish a version of the most controversial Operating Thetan documents—
Operating Thetan Level VIII—which identifies Hubbard himself as the
“Antichrist” whose mission on earth was nothing less than to derail the second
coming of Jesus (though I should note that the authenticity of this text has
been disputed).48 And in 2005, the American TV satire South Park aired an
episode on Scientology that revealed and ridiculed some of the most esoteric
cosmological ideas from Operating Thetan level III.49
Today, in its promotional materials and websites, Scientology largely down-
plays the esoteric Operating Thetan materials and instead focuses on the far
more exoteric aspects of the church—for example, its Volunteer Ministers
who help with disaster relief, its positive benefits for family and relationships,
its potential to enhance careers and business, or its school reading and drug

46  Pendle 2006, 273.

47  Church of Scientology 1969.
48  For a full discussion of this strange text, see Urban 2017b, 13–36. The document identifies
Hubbard as both the future Buddha Maitreya and the Antichrist. The current Church of
Scientology claims that it is a forgery, and the present version of Operating Thetan VIII is
completely different. The original document can be found at Spaink 2005.
49  South Park 2005.

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 The Knowing of Knowing 113

rehabilitation programs.50 As such, the gnostic influences within Scientology

have been progressively covered over and obfuscated—in short, subjected to a
new kind of esotericism, a new concealment of powerful but dangerous secret
knowledge.

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