What Scientology teaches
The thetan: you are a spirit
Scientology teaches that a person is a thetan, an immortal spiritual being who has lived many lives and has forgotten its own power.
The teaching
Hubbard taught that the real person is the thetan, a spiritual being distinct from the mind and body. Thetans are immortal, have lived through countless lifetimes, and in Hubbard's account originally had vast abilities, including a share in creating the physical universe, before becoming entangled in it.
Scientology's goal is for the thetan to regain awareness of itself and its abilities.
Beside the Bible
The Bible agrees that we are more than bodies. But it says God formed man from the dust and breathed life into him: we are made, not makers. Each person is known and formed by God for one life, and our dignity comes from bearing his image, not from a forgotten godhood.
7Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7 (WEB) · context
27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27 (WEB) · context
13For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. 15My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.
Psalms 139:13-16 (WEB) · context
24Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
Isaiah 44:24 (WEB) · context
Sources
- Scientology source L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology 8-8008 (1952); Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought (1956).