Anonymous asked this question on 4/18/2000:

Who is "Xenu" and why do I hear so much about him/her?

honorarykid gave this response on 4/18/2000:

Xenu is a character invented by the founder of Scientology, L.

Ron Hubbard. The character Xenu plays an important role in the upper level training of Scientologists who are seeking to become Operating Thetans (OTs).

First, a little background. According to the Church of Scientology (CoS), OTs are individuals who have advanced in their Scientology coursework, to the point where they have learned to master vast, magical mental powers. An OT, according to the CoS can manipulate matter, energy, space and time through sheer force of will. He or she is free to travel about the universe at will, leaving the body behind, temporarily or permanently. OTs can allegedly move objects via telekinesis and travel through time. OTs are God-like in their abilities, according to the CoS.

But to become OT, Scientologists must first attain "Clear"

status. Then they pass through what Hubbard called "the wall of fire" which is taught at level OT3 (level 3 out of 8).

The wall of fire is where Scientologists finally learn the "real" causes of all their earthly and spiritual problems. They learn that what they were told about engrams as they studied Dianetics, was not actually true. They learn that the real causes of our problems are that our bodies are infested with body thetans (BTs), which are said to be the confused, disembodied spirits of hundreds or thousands of other people.

Of course, to become a fully functioning OT, one must audit out these BTs, send them packing, as it were. And for that, you need to buy BT removal auditing from (yup, you guessed it) the CoS.

But let's get back to Xenu. These BT spirits that Scientology says are stuck to us, became disembodied, confused, and stuck, allegedly because of Xenu. Some 75 million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of the local Galactic Federation (which, as everyone knows, encompasses the planet Earth, called Teegeeack back then).

Xenu was an evil ruler, according to Hubbard. Xenu also had an overpopulation problem in the many planets of his political realm. So he rounded up the excess population, froze the people in glycol, transported them to Teegeeack in rocket ships that looked like the commercial DC-8 jetliners [prop aircraft] flying back when Hubbard wrote level.

Curiously, Hubbard does not say how many years it took these rockets to cross interstellar space, nor how they carried enough fuel to accererate and deccelerate. He completely finessed those issues.

Anyway, Xenu then placed the frozen people into volcanic craters on Earth (Hubbard specifically mentioned Hawaii and Las Palmas volcanoes, which geologists will tell you did not exist 75 million years ago) and then detonated nuclear bombs over their heads, killing their meat bodies, vaporizing them completely, and freeing the spirit beings that were within.

If all that were not bad enough, Xenu then allegedly trapped all the free floating Thetans with some sort of electronic ribbon traps. After all, these Thetans were OT. They could travel back to their home planets before the DC-8s got back.

Xenu didn't want them back. He had to confuse them, make them too confused and stupid to want to go back. So, Hubbard says that Xenu next brainwashed and implanted false memories into the trapped Thetans. He did this by forcing them to watch movies, in the same manner that the young droogie was brainwashed by the authorities in the book "A Clockwork Orange."

Be assured that I'm not kidding here. This is really what the "Wall of Fire" teaches.

Please bear with me, we're almost done.

A quick side bar: Hubbard alleges that the entire religion of Christianity comes about due to one of these implanted false memories, which Hubbard called "R6." In R6, the ribbon trapped thetans were shown films of crucifixtions. Hubbard taught that the effects of the R6 implant on today's society is to make us feel irrationally sympathetic to Christ's crucifixion, and makes us predisposed to become Christians. Hubbard clearly implies that Xenu's brainwashing of people to be sympathetic toward a crucified Chirst is really just a manupulation and control process, and by implication, Hubbard probably felt that in being a Christian, one is not free of Xenu's devious plans to keep all the Thetans of this planet subjegated. In effect, the R6 lesson teaches that only Scientology can help all the poor, brainwashed, deluded Christians.

For the record, I am not a Christian. If I were, this teaching would really offend. But even as a secular person, I am offended by the lies told in Scientology's marketing hype, which claim that Scientology is fully compatible with Christianity. Scientology, at the upper levels, is decidedly hostile toward Christianity, and in fact, to all other organized religions as well.

Also, keep in mind that these bizarre Xenu and implant teachings are taught ONLY to those at the upper levels. They are not generally known by lower level adherants. I've seen Scientologists who have not yet advanced to the OT3 level deny that Scientology would ever teach stuff this goofy sounding. I just smile to myself.

But I digress. To finish up the story of Xenu, according to Hubbard, some "good" people, or "loyal officers," as Hubbard called them, within the Galactic Federation, finally realized that Xenu was a bad dude. They mounted a coup-d'etat, deposed him, stripped him of his position and threw him into an electronic mountain prison, somewhere in our Galaxy, where he remains to this day.

Luckily for us, Hubbard came along in the 1950s and "discovered" what really happened. He "discovered" the "fact"

that we all have been implanted by Xenu with R6, R2, and other false brainwashing implants. Hubbard then selflessly designed a program, Scientology, which will free us (for only a small fee) from these delusions.

Aren't we so very fortunate to have such a man in our corner?

Hip Hip Hurrah! Hip Hip Hurrah! ;-)

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