Bonus Sample: Scientology’s Sci-Fi Religion

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

Spirituality, Social Sciences, Religion & Spirituality, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, start a religion.” With those words, prolific sci-fi pulp fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard prophesied the course of his life’s work. The 1950s saw the emergence of UFO- and alien channeling-based spiritual groups, as postmodern religious syncretism transformed supposedly ancient angels and demons into benevolent and/or terrifying aliens. No iteration of this fantasy has been more financially fruitful, culturally impactful, controversial, or bizarre than Hubbard’s brainchild: Scientology. In the latest episode of Roots of Conspirituality, Julian digs into the fascinating backstory of this prolific author, revered as prophetic by thousands, pursued as a fraud by the IRS for decades, described as a cult leader by church escapees, and called an abusive madman by his ex-wives. Allegedly… The religion is a complex blend of self-help psychology, elaborate pseudoscience, high-demand paranoia, and alien mythology that, at its height, commanded 100,000 members—and is still valued at roughly $2 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, the event starts now.
0:07.0	Hello.
0:10.0	My name is David Miscavage.
0:15.0	At 2,000 hours Friday, the 24th of January, AD 36, 36 Elron Hubbard discarded the body he had used in
0:25.3	this lifetime for 74 years 10 months and 11 days the body he had used to facilitate
0:33.1	his existence in this mess universe had ceased to be useful and in fact had become an impediment
0:40.3	to the work he now must do outside of its confines. We felt it was important as Scientologists
0:46.3	that you were to first to become aware of this fact.
0:48.3	That was David Miscavich's first public appearance as he was beginning to step into the role of being the new head of
0:56.0	Scientology. Elron Hubbard had died two weeks previous. His body was found in a small motorhome
1:03.9	tucked in behind the stables on a ranch in the town of Creston, close to San Luis Obispo in California,
1:09.8	which is almost an exact halfway point between L.A. and San Francisco.
1:15.0	This was in 1986, but noticed that Muscovage right there just referred to the year as AD 36. Did you catch that?
1:24.3	The AD stands for, no, no, it stands for after Dianetics. And the idiosyncratic year
1:31.4	that he's referring to there is calculated by counting from the year 1950 as zero. And that's
1:37.6	when Hubbard's seminal text was published. So AD 36 means 36 years after Dianetics was published.
1:45.0	Here's a little more from his speech.
1:46.9	As Scientologists, we know more than anyone that we are not bodies.
1:52.1	We have bodies.
1:54.3	And our current existences in our current bodies are but one in a million that we have lived and will live LRH in fact used this
2:03.2	lifetime in the body we knew to accomplish what no man has ever accomplished
2:09.2	he unlocked the mysteries of life and gave us the tools so that we could
	...

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