I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
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"Thought is the subject matter of Scientology. It is considered a kind of<br />
'energy' which is not part of the physical universe. It controls energy, but it<br />
321<br />
has no wavelength. It uses matter, but it has no mass..." Although Hubbard's<br />
aesthetic and language couch his ideas in a more avowedly scientific mantle<br />
than that used in traditional magical circles, it takes no great stretch of the<br />
imagination to see that he is describing the basic principles of magic. One of<br />
the objectives Scientologists seek to achieve through their mental mastery of<br />
this energy separate from the physical universe is to follow a course of<br />
graded initiation that supposedly leads to becoming an Operating <strong>The</strong>tan, the<br />
highest grade of Scientology, derived from the Greek letter <strong>The</strong>ta. This is a<br />
spiritual being who can communicate, see and act free of the restrictions of<br />
the physical body – much like the bodhisattvas, unknown superiors and<br />
Secret Chiefs of Eastern and Western magical tradition. Some early<br />
adherents of Hubbard considered him to be the Western spiritual teacher<br />
presaged by Madame Blavatsky in her work, and he himself made several<br />
broad hints that he was actually the foretold red-haired reincarnation of the<br />
Buddha known as Meitreya, which indicates the presence of left-hand path<br />
self-deification in the Hubbardite cosmology Hubbard's emphasis on the<br />
importance of past-life recall in his training is firmly in line with the<br />
importance both Crowley and Parsons placed on the cultivation of such<br />
memories as a means of discovering one's True Will.<br />
In the very early days of Scientology, Hubbard at least<br />
acknowledged familiarity with Crowleyan magick, referring in one of his<br />
Philadelphia Doctorate Courses in 1952, to "a fascinating work ... a trifle<br />
wild in spots..." that he attributes to "the late Aleister Crowley – my very<br />
good friend." In 1957, in <strong>The</strong> Professional Auditor's Bulletin, Hubbard wrote<br />
that "I have been very fortunate in my life to know quite a few real geniuses<br />
... One chap by the way, who gave us solid fuel rockets ... and all the rest of<br />
this rocketry panorama ... <strong>The</strong> late Jack Parsons..." Even such oblique<br />
references to Hubbard's sex-magical past as these were soon abandoned as he<br />
sought more respectable status. Interestingly, between 1949—1950, even as<br />
sophisticated a mystically inclined intellectual as Crowley's old friend<br />
Aldous Huxley was provided with personal Dia<strong>net</strong>ics training from Hubbard,<br />
which attests to the seriousness with which his methods were at first<br />
received. <strong>The</strong> many interesting points of comparison between Hubbard's<br />
Scientology and Crowley's Magick are deserving of further study, for in<br />
many ways Scientology can be considered the most successful organizational<br />
offshoot of the Great Beast's work, having achieved a world standing and<br />
impact the various O.T.Os and other Crowleyan derivatives have not been<br />
able to command. But in regard to left-hand path sex magic and the cult of<br />
the Scarlet Woman, Scientology does not teach any form of erotic initiation<br />
as part of its official curriculum.<br />
However, there have been some indications that Hubbard himself<br />
continued to privately pursue the Babalon current he had evoked so<br />
322<br />
powerfully during his ill-fated collaboration with Parsons and Cameron. It<br />
must be said that since Hubbard left behind no known account of continuing<br />
work with sex magic, that these elusive traces, suggestive though they are,<br />
cannot be conclusively proven. <strong>The</strong> most compelling evidence for Hubbard's<br />
application of a form of left-hand path sex magic after his parting with<br />
Parsons was revealed by his own son, L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. (also known as<br />
Ronald DeWolf. Hubbard, Jr., whose stepmother for five years was Sara<br />
Northrup, was privy to his father's private side during the early days of<br />
Scientology in the 1950s, and was himself a Scientologist until he left his<br />
father's Church in 1959. According to Hubbard Jr., his father confided in him<br />
the belief that he was the successor to the Beast prophesied in a coded<br />
passage in Crowley's <strong>The</strong> Book <strong>Of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Law. In Hubbard Jr's 1985 brief