| Xenu | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Galactic Emperor Xenu |
|
First Appearance |
Operating Thetan III (1967) |
|
Original Publisher |
The Church of Scientology |
|
Created by |
L. Ron Hubbard |
Origin[]
Xenu is a religious figure in the Church of Scientology. Scientologists can pay for "Operating Thetan" levels written by their leader (and occasionally deity) L. Ron Hubbard, which detail important cosmological details of the Scientological universe. In the third one, Hubbard details how the "Thetans" (souls) that pass through and reincarnate in humans came to Earth (as they usually when free from a body can create entire universes). Hubbard writes that Xenu was the socialist due to Hubbard's known fascist leanings; he endorsed the Greek fascist military junta and based his Sea Org paramilitary off it. dictator of the Galactic Confederacy (presumably connected to other space confederacies mentioned by Hubbard such as Helatrobus and the Marcab Confederacy), a collection of worlds that included 26 stars and 76 planets. Life in the Galactic Confederacy was extremely similar to that of life circa 1950 or 1960.
When he was going to be deposed from power, he gained the assistance of psychiatrists Hubbard hated psychiatrists because they didn’t like the pseudoscience he presented in Dianetics. to create the evil socialist policy of income tax, and, under the pretence of this policy, rounded up billions of citizens, knocked them out, brought them down to the planet Teegeeack (Earth) and laced them around the bases of volcanos, when they dropped hydrogen bombs to kill all of the citizens. Xenu captured the escaping Thetans and forced them to watch propaganda movies that implanted several ideas into their heads, like religions In OT VIII, Hubbard gives the very religiously-intolerant suggestion that all religions around the world are fake, manufactured by Xenu, and that historically Jesus was a gay pedophile; a hypocritical suggestion for Hubbard, who enjoyed surrounding himself with very young women who did his every wish and the fiction genre of space opera. The only thetans not captured are referred to as body thetans and are said to cause various ailments. The non-body thetans later possessed humans.
The Loyal Officers, a faction of the government, locked Xenu away in "an electronic mountain trap" which he was still trapped in circa 1967 (presumably still alive, making him immortal or extremely long lived). Teegeeack was then abandoned and has not been visited by the Galactic Confederacy to this day, but other alien species sometimes visit it; the Scientologist explanation for UFO encounters. Scientologists cannot progress further along the Operating Thetan levels without believing in this.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- Operating Thetan level (1967)
Notes[]
- While religious texts like Dianetics and the Operating Thetan series can be copyrighted, religious beliefs and characters cannot. Hence, Xenu is a public domain character.
- Also importantly, the Church of Scientology does not want to acknowledge Xenu and is unlikely to sue even if he is copyrighted. They may take legal action if anti-Scientology beliefs are featured in a piece of media but seem to have stopped doing this ever since they started receiving major backlash for it.
- Xenu has been interpreted as a creation myth, and an all-evil Satan figure to contrast Hubbard's messiah figure.