Scientology's science fictional origins: thesis from 1981

The recent New Yorker feature on Scientology has focused interest in the religion, but it has been a source of fascination to many for decades. Here is SF writer and museum designer Hugh AD Spencer's Master's Thesis on the role of science fiction in germinating Hubbard's strange faith, entitled "The Transcendental Engineers: The Fictional Origins of a Modern Religion. Hugh says,

From 1979 to 1981 I had a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to research the cultural impacts of science fiction on real-world society. This was a part of my graduate studies at McMaster University's Anthropology programme. What I ended up with was a survey of some SF fan groups that had the potential to emerge as religious or political movements and a history of the early years of what would become the Church of Scientology - from the announcement of Dianetics in a 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine through to the mid-1970s. A lot of the recent discussion about billion-year contracts and accounts of abuse onboard the sea org sounds very familiar to me.
I didn't take on the project because I wanted to "debunk" anybody's beliefs. What I wanted to know was how some ideas take on religious significance - even when they come from seemingly strange places like science fiction magazines, comic books and even TV shows. It doesn't necessarily mean that these ideas and symbols are necessarily "wrong" but it does mean that they have the power to exert tremendous influence on their followers and even on wider society.
Recently McMaster University's Digital Commons posted my thesis The Transcendental Engineers: The Fictional Origins of a Modern Religion online for public viewing. I think this work is useful to people who may be interested in the forces and events that gave us Scientology. Looking back on it, I'm amazed that SSHRC had the foresight to fund research like this back then. I'm also amazed that, while some of this work has dated, most of it is still relevant today.

Update: This post was attacked by an anonymous commenter who sought to discredit Hugh with vicious and ham-fisted lies. See this post for more.

The Transcendental Engineers: The Fictional Origins of a Modern Religion (Thanks, Hugh!)

(Image: Scientology Protest, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from manc's photostream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Lex

My psychiatrist is a scientologist. He is vexed with an internal struggle
Anonymous

So… Daleks are against Scientology?
Anonymous

I have just read a good portion of the thesis. Very interesting!! Dianetics sounds like something that in the beginning could have been a basically helpful and interesting theory/concept by LRon. That then went terribly wrong.

I noticed no mention of Xenu or however it is spelled. Was this a later addition???
Ito Kagehisa

My chiropractor is a scientologist.

(steps back quickly)
Vic333

I don’t think Scientology was a bar bet. The more you learn about Hubbard you find out he took his own bullshit more seriously than anyone. He was a text book example of a fantasy prone personality.
Michael Smith

Personally I think Scientology was Heinlein’s idea. Since the idea came from a discussion between RAH and Hubbard and Hubbard wasn’t a particularly good science fiction writer. Heinlein OTH was a real ideas man.

Also he vigorously defended the Scientologists in Friday and I believe he had a point. How many other religions, big and small, have been responsible for mass murder?
- EeyoreX
  
  “How many other religions, big and small, have been responsible for mass murder?”
  
  That presumably rhetorical question makes no sense whatsoever. Not whithin this context, nor outside it.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Personally I think Scientology was Heinlein’s idea. Since the idea came from a discussion between RAH and Hubbard and Hubbard wasn’t a particularly good science fiction writer.
  
  Well, there’s always the old bar bet story. Of course, some people believe it more than others. Wikipedia’s article on bar bets says this: “It is widely believed that the creation of Scientology was the result of a bar bet between L. Ron Hubbard and Robert A. Heinlein. The story says L. Ron Hubbard dared that he could create a religion all by himself. According to Scientology critic Lindsay this is “definitely not true”, no such bet was ever made, it would have been “uncharacteristic of Heinlein” to make such a bet, and “there’s no supporting evidence”. However, several of Heinlein’s autobiographical pieces, as well as biographical pieces written by his wife, claim repeatedly that the bet did indeed occur.”
  
  Also he vigorously defended the Scientologists in Friday and I believe he had a point.
  
  Did he? I thought his mention of Scientologists had them involved in a three-way brawl with Hare Krishnas and the “Angels of the Lord” at an airport. The best thing he says about them there is that they were “clean and neat” and “fought with discipline.” Seems like he was just having a laugh at his old pal Ron’s expense.
  
  Heinlein OTH was a real ideas man.
  
  Well, to quote one of the henchmen in Time Bandits, “But he created you, Evil One!”
Anonymous

What you haven’t mentioned was that McMaster threw out his thesis because it didn’t stand up under scrutiny and he had no attribution to any official source or accepted authority. It’s a very old story. Most of the newspapers that ran the story focused more on Spencer’s thesis as a joke than in attacking the religion. Associated Press even called Spencer the 20th century’s answer to Glenn Beck.

I’ve learned to take any attack on the religion with a pinch of salt, as have most peoople.

Wouldn’t it be better news if you followed the other media outlet’s stories about ex-Anonymous members joining Scientology after wallking in and asking, “What do you do here?”
- Anonymous
  
  Wouldn’t it be better news if you followed the other media outlet’s stories about ex-Anonymous members joining Scientology after wallking in and asking, “What do you do here?”
  
  I don’t understand this sentence. Which is the other media outlet? What does it mean to be ex-anonymous? How do you walk into scientology?
  
  As for your first sentence, though, it really does look like there was nothing wrong with this thesis; McMaster has it in its digital commons, and no alternate thesis by Spencer seems to be offered. How do you come by a mistaken claim like that innocently?
  
  Of course, I’ve learned to take attacks on people who have looked at scientology critically with a grain of salt, as have most people.
  - lovelystrangeness
    
    To clarify, Anon is referring to people who have once identified as part of 4chan /b/’s “Anonymous” activist group, but no longer do, hence “ex-Anonymous”. “Walking in” means walking in to a Scientology center and taking a personality test or somesuch. As to the other media outlet, I couldn’t say. A link to an article would be nice.
- zENithFisHstiX
  
  Louanne? Did you forget your password again?
- robulus
  
  “I’ve learned to take any attack on the religion with a pinch of salt, as have most peoople.”
  
  I’m not sure that’s 100% accurate.
- wrybread
  
  The only thing that could have made all these postings about Scientology any more interesting is this posting from the supposed “Anonymous”, which nicely illustrates all that is terrifying and baffling about Scientology.
  
  Scientology must be a very insular world if their best spokespeople are so fantastically ham fisted.
  
  Also, Anonymous, you might want to read up on the Streisand Effect.
- adonai
  
  Nice try, astroturfer. Back to your Centre.
Anonymous

Religion is mostly just a veiled pyramid scheme, really it should be illegal.

That is all.
Gilbert Wham

This looks intriguing – I’m going to have to read it. I wonder how much of this applies to other modern belief systems. i.e. conspiracy theories; which I hold to be more virulent, faster-mutating versions of religious memes (has anyone noticed the intriguing way in which the previously right-wing/survivalist NWO trope has bled over to the new-agey conspiracy folklore? These things are fucking scary. Don’t get infected).
Anonymous

My best buddy once asked a question that I feel is one of the best “What ifs” ever asked.
What if originally the Bible had been checked out at the first library and when returned accidentally placed on the religion shelf as opposed to fiction where it originated? And thenceforth was thought to be a book of faith.
- Anonymous
  
  Couldn’t happen. The first library predates the bible.
Eschatologist

Bless the Maker and His water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for His people.
mdh

if dalek-human hybrids are involved then Scientology just got a lot more intriguing.
- BookGuy
  
  If a futuristic-looking garbage can waves its eyestalk at you while talking about “personality tests” in an electronic-tinged monotone, I suggest you keep walking.
PapayaSF

I once met the late writer L. Sprague de Camp at a science fiction convention and asked him about Hubbard. They had known one another since the 1930s (IIRC). He said that in the years before the Dianetics article, Hubbard was known for proclaiming that “the way to get rich is to start a religion.”
Anonymous

In the ’70′s I heard, from someone who had been Hubbard’s neighbor in Arizona, that Scientology was the result of a bet, as in, ‘I’ll bet you I can create a religion”
Nadreck

Jack Williamson told the following story about all this at a WindyCon.

Back in the Hugo Gernsback days, Hubbard was sort of a short-order cook for Gernsback’s various publications. Hubbard was staying in his boat somewhere around Manhattan at the time. If somebody didn’t get their stuff in the mail on time (or the Post Office lost something) Hugo would ring up Hubbard at the last minute and say “Ron! I need 15 pages by tomorrow morning! Can you do it!” Hubbard would always say “Sure thing!” and crank it out.

I’ve read some of it. It wasn’t particularly worse than any of the stuff it was filling in for except that sometimes Hubbard would forget to put any articles in the sentences.

After a while they decided that they really should let him write stuff for an issue a month or so in the future instead of just using him for the rush-rush stuff. One of the things he turned out was a story about these guys taking over a planet with an invented religion. At some annual party (possibly an Ur-Worldcon) that Gernsback had for all his authors they all went out on Hubbards boat for a spin around the harbour. Hubbard provided the background music on his guitar.

Everyone was complimenting him on the invented religion story and someone, possibly Henry Kuttner although Williamson couldn’t exactly remember, said something along the lines of “Wow, Ron. That was a really scary story. The way you wrote it I could just picture something like that happening in the real world!”

Hubbard got a funny look on his face and said “Yeah, it could; couldn’t it!?”

The rest is history.
Deidzoeb

I wish PK Dick’s religion described in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? had become popular instead of Hubbard’s crap.
- bjacques
  
  Or psychotic writer, media mogul and losing 2008 presidential candidate Anton “Tony” Kreuzer.
  
  DREAM.
- buddy66
  
  Or Bokononism.
Anonymous

The first post from Anon isn’t terribly accurate. McMaster University did accept my thesis and I was awarded a Master Degree and the positive reaction to the work was partly one of the reason I was awarded additional scholarship funding to continue my graduate studies at the University of Toronto. And think about it folks, if McMaster had rejected the thesis they wouldn’t be posting it now on their digital commons. I don’t think any newspaper has run a story on my thesis. I’d be interested to know they have. I wasn’t aware that I’d been compared to Glen Beck. How fascinating and irrelevant.

My supervisors and I made very sure that all the findings in the thesis were attributable and referenced from published and reliable sources. One of the best resources I used was Roy Wallis’ book “The Road to Total Freedom” which is a well-written and balanced account of Scientology’s history. The book also contains a critique of Wallis’ research by a Scientologist — which seemed to me to be a reasoned way of accommodating the twodifferent perspectives.

This work was not written as an attack on Scientology or any religious belief system. There’s a big difference between an attack and study and analysis. One activity usually leads to greater tolerance and understanding. One activity does not.
- irksome
  
  I’m pretty sure that any “study and analysis” of Scientology would be perceived as an attack.
  
  Here’s my Scientology story: When I first moved to the big city (Boston) from NH in ’82, I must have been seen as an easy mark; every cultist and religious nut would approach me on the street. The Krishna’s were cool, I even went to their dogma/dinner a couple of times. The Xians I could engage in reasonable discussion and hold my own (thanks, Mom); the JWs and 7th Day-ers I simply avoided.
  
  But this I did several times and I’m not sorry; a well-dressed Scientologist would approach with a clipboard and ask if I wanted to take a “Personality Test”. I would calmly lean forward, get right in his/her face, scream as loud as I could and turn and run. Good clean fun and I encouraged many friends to do the same.
Joseph Hertzlinger

Can’t we have other SF-based religions?

Asimov said it, I believe it, and that settles it!

Now bow down three times in the direction of Cape Canaveral and say “THERE IS NO GOD BUT TECHNOLOGY AND ROBERT HEINLEIN IS ITS PROPHET!”

We shall pray for the coming of the Singularity and though it tarry we shall remain faithful.
Anonymous

Equally as interesting is function of myth and fantasy in older more established myths..

magic underpants and thetans are almost transparently bullshit, their origins are so easy to trace, but what does that hint about the origins of the Bible amongst other ‘sacred’ texts?