Sea Org - Background

Background

J. Gordon Melton writes that Scientology is an esoteric Gnostic system based on the belief that the self, or thetan, is trapped in what it calls MEST, matter, energy, space and time. Scientology aims to restore the thetan to a state of "total freedom" from MEST through long courses of study and auditing, which rid the thetan of "engrams," recordings of distressing experiences from this and previous lives. The first significant aim of this training is the state of "Clear." Hubbard developed higher levels of training in the Sea Org, enabling the subject to live as an Operating Thetan (OT). An OT is said by the church to be able to experience the self outside the constraints of the body, a process Scientologists call "exteriorization."

According to Hubbard, and Scientology's creation myth, much of the galaxy was ruled tens of millions of years ago by the Galactic Confederacy, comprising 26 stars and 76 planets, including Earth, then known as Teegeeack. The confederacy was controlled by a tyrant named Xenu, who sent people from other planets to Earth because of over-crowding. Their souls attached themselves in clusters to human bodies, so that each person on Earth became a collection of entities, rather than a single personality. Part of the mission of Scientology is to rid people of these extra entities, known as body thetans. Religious scholar Hugh Urban writes that the Sea Org resembles a group within the Galactic Confederacy known as the "Loyal Officers" who overthrew Xenu.

Hubbard wrote that he formed the Sea Org to help Operating Thetans push through what he called the "Wall of Fire" (OT III, the training level that reveals the creation myth), in isolation from anything that might distract them. Stephen A. Kent (2001) argues that at least part of the reason for the establishment of the Sea Org was that the Church of Scientology's practices encountered resistance from the American Food and Drug Administration and the IRS, and from the governments of Australia, the UK and Rhodesia. Sailing on the high seas meant the church could escape their attention.