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- Scientology is suspected or alleged by some observers of being inspired by, or sharing elements with, a number of esoteric or occult systems. 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founder L. Ron Hubbard claimed to have had a near-death experience in 1938 that inspired him to write Excalibur, an unpublished manuscript based on the revelations from the experience.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 briefly involved with and defrauded Jack Parsons, 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 the Church. He argues further that the occult elements are combined with concepts in Eastern religions, science fiction, popular psychology and Hubbard's own thoughts, while confirming that there is one element that is related to the occult in the religion. (en)
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| rdfs:comment
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- Scientology is suspected or alleged by some observers of being inspired by, or sharing elements with, a number of esoteric or occult systems. 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founder L. Ron Hubbard claimed to have had a near-death experience in 1938 that inspired him to write Excalibur, an unpublished manuscript based on the revelations from the experience.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 briefly involved with and defrauded Jack Parsons, 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. (en)
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