Apparently, only one of the four traditional biblical Gospels relates inarguably that Jesus Christ was God temporarily visiting earth. The book of Luke could and has been interpreted to say that Jesus was an extraordinary man who ascended – or was ascended – from humble beginnings to develop the message that humankind has found so inspiring for 2000 years. Only the Gospel popularly known as that related by John was definitive about Jesus’ other-worldly provenance. As noted by religious scholar and bestselling author Elaine Pagels in her book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas:
“Unlike Luke, who depicts Jesus as a man raised to divine status, John, as does the hymn Paul quotes, pictures him instead as a divine being who descended to earth – temporarily – to take on human form.”
Of course it is understood that all of the Gospels were written up to a century after Jesus strode the earth, all reporting their own interpretations of words Jesus purportedly spoke and deeds he had carried out long before. In the past one-hundred and twenty years, more significant purported Gospels have been discovered – including those of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. Those discoveries have added to the rich diversity of opinions, interpretations, and faiths of Christianity. That includes the idea that Jesus communicated that every human potentially had within themselves the same abilities and divinity as Jesus.
In scientology no such plurality of interpretation is open to the worshipper. That is because scientology’s messiah made it clear himself on more than one occasion that he did not ascend from humble beginnings, or any earthly beginnings at all, to develop a message with which to lift humanity. Instead, scientology’s author L. Ron Hubbard explicitly stated that he descended to earth in human form in order to deliver its people from evil. He was so dead serious about being taken literally – and not interpreted – that he instituted penalties for any interpretation of his words whatsoever that were tantamount to permanent spiritual death. And if that did not shut up the purveyors of interpretations, such heretics were to be mercilessly harassed to the point of personal and familial ruin. He created a corporate structure which directed hundreds of millions of dollars toward etching his words on stainless steel plates, sealing them in titanium capsules and placing them in vaults in deep veins of granite so that those words could never be altered.
One example of those sacred words comes from Ron’s Journal 1968:
“And please for my sake, don’t forget one thing, I am your friend. I am not from this planet. I am trying to do my best to do a job to bring tolerance and humanity to this planet in a very materialistic and often cruel age.”
That was the same year that Hubbard delivered scientology’s most sacred, secret and advanced liturgy – the Class VIII Course. On the course ‘deans of scientology’ were created by learning from Hubbard that humankind could not be brought to ‘respond to reason.’ That is why he commanded the scientology deans that “You are the people the planet obeys. You are the people who own the planet.” Whether any dean of scientology – or the group collectively – ever lived up to those dictates, two things remain scripturally clear (and will remain so apparently forever) from Hubbard’s apex year of discovery. Those are, a) there is only one God in scientology, and b) the adherent will believe it because that God has commanded that it will never be appreciated by appeal to reason.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 