Scientology is in part derived from, and shares elements with, a number of esoteric or occult systems. The extent of the influence of specific occult belief systems on Scientology is a subject of debate amongst scholars.
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard claimed to have had a near-death experience in 1938 that inspired him to write Excalibur, an unpublished manuscript based on the revelations from the experience. In 1945–46, Hubbard was involved with and defrauded Jack Parsons,: 125–128 an American rocketry pioneer who was also a devoted Thelemite and member of the Agape Lodge of Aleister Crowley's magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis, in Pasadena, California. In 1950, Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and in 1953 he organized the Church of Scientology.
Hugh B. Urban, a scholar on religion who has written much about Scientology, writes that while some writers, such as Jon Atack, assert that Crowley's ideas on magic are at the core of Scientology, others, including Roy Wallis and J. Gordon Melton, have dismissed the connection between occultism and...
?? Humpleupagus ??
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.