Scientology and Knowledge: The Hidden Sefiroth

Hubbard published various wordings that related Scientology to knowledge and published them in several of his basic books, such as Scientology 8-80, Creation of Human Ability, and Scientology 8-8008. The definitions and descriptions from those and other sources became the technical definition of Scientology, per Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary:

There is an occult meaning of “Knowledge” or “Knowing how to know” which is evident in a study of the Mystical Qabalah. Such study is a basic prerequisite for the A.’. A.’., Aleister Crowley’s training school for magicians.¹ The image to the right includes a “false” or “hidden” sefira called Daäth, which relates to an occult concept called the Abyss.

Aleister Crowley explained Daäth and the Abyss in this way:

For the purpose of studying these Little Essays, it will be sufficient if a bare outline of the Cosmic Theory which they imply be given: but it may be added that, the fuller the comprehension of the Tree of Life which the reader brings to them, the clearer will their thought appear, and the more cogent their conclusions.

(1) Jechidah

This is the quintessential principle of the Soul, that which makes man at the same time identical with every other spark of Godhead, and different (as regards his point-of-view, and the Universe of which it is the centre) from all others. It is a Point, possessing only position; and that position is only definable by reference to co-ordinate exes, to secondary principles, which only pertain to it per accidents, and must be postulated as our conception grows.

(2) Chiah.

This is the Creative Impulse or Will of Jechidah, the energy which demands the formulation of the co-ordinate axes aforesaid, so that Jechidah may obtain self-realisation, a formal understanding of what is implicit in its nature, of its possible qualities.

(3) Neschamah.

This is the faculty of understanding the Word of Chiah. It is the intelligence or intuition of what Jechidah wishes to discover about itself.

These three principles constitute a Trinity; they are one, because they represent the being, and apparatus which will make the manifestation possible, of a God, in manhood. But they are only, so to speak, the mathematical structure of man’s nature. One might compare them with the laws of physics as they are before they are discovered. There are as yet no data by whose examination they may be discerned.

A conscious man, according, cannot possibly know anything of these three principles, although they constitute his essence. It is the work of Initiation to journey inwards to them. See, in the Oath of a Probationer of A.’.A.’. “I pledge myself to discover the nature and powers of my own Being.”

this triune principle being wholly spiritual, all that can be said about it is really negative. And it is complete in itself. Beyond it stretches what is called The Abyss. This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions.

Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions. And the Triune Principle has intended a machine for investigating the Universe; and this machine is the fourth Principle of Man.

(4) Ruach

This may be translated Mind, Spirit, or Intellect: none of these is satisfactory, the connotation varying with every writer. The Ruach is a closely-knitted group of Five Moral and Intellectual principles, concentrated on their core, Tiphareth, the Principle of Harmony, the Human Consciousness and Will of which the four other Sephiroth are (so to speak) the feelers. And these five principles culminate in a sixth, Daäth, Knowledge. But this is not really a principle; it contains in itself the germ of self-contradiction and so of self-destruction. It is a false principle: for as soon as Knowledge is analysed, it breaks up into the irrational dust of the Abyss.

Man’s aspiration to Knowledge is thus simply a false road: it is to spin ropes of sand.²

In Dianetics: The Original Thesis, Hubbard made specific claims about Dianetics in terms of the Abyss:

It is a purpose of Dianetics to pass man across the abyss of irrational, solely reactive thought and enter him upon a new stage of constructive progression to the ultimate goal.

Notes