Xenu

Xenu ( ZEE-noo), also called Xemu, is a figure in the Church of Scientology's confidential upper-level teachings, where he appears in material known as Operating Thetan level III (OT III). The Xenu narrative forms part of their space opera teachings about ancient extraterrestrial civilizations, catastrophic events in the distant past, and their continuing effects on the spiritual condition of humanity. These materials are treated as trade secrets and are normally disclosed only to Scientologists who have completed extensive preparatory coursework. According to the OT III account, Xenu was an extraterrestrial ruler of a galactic confederacy who, tens of millions of years ago, transported billions of beings to Earth (then called Teegeeack), placed them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. The disembodied spirits of the victims, called thetans, are said to have become attached to surviving bodies as "body thetans", contributing to spiritual and psychological difficulties in the present day. Scientology teaches that these entities can be identified and released through specialized procedures at the upper Operating Thetan levels. The Church of Scientology regards the OT III material as confidential, and instructs members not to reveal or discuss it with those who have not reached the appropriate level. Church officials have often declined to address the Xenu topic in public or have minimized its relevance, while maintaining that the material can only be properly understood in the context of the full Scientology training path. Despite these restrictions, the Xenu narrative has become widely known through court cases, leaks of internal documents, and reporting by journalists and former members, and it has played a significant role in controversies over Scientology's use of copyright and trade-secret law. Since its disclosure, the Xenu story has attracted sustained attention from scholars, critics, and the media. Academic writers have examined it as a central myth within Scientology, relating it to science-fiction motifs, UFO religions, modern creation narratives, and cosmologies. The story has also been frequently referenced and satirized in television, film, and other media, where it has become one of the most widely recognized elements of Scientology's upper-level teachings.

Summary

The story of Xenu is covered in OT III, part of Scientology's confidential upper levels taught only to advanced members who have undergone many hours of auditing and reached the state of Clear followed by Operating Thetan levels OT I and OT II. It is described in more detail in the accompanying confidential "Assists" lecture of October 3, 1968, and is dramatized in Revolt in the Stars, a screen-story in novelistic form written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1977. Hubbard wrote that Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago, which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as "Teegeeack". The planets were overpopulated, containing an average population of 178 billion. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with aliens "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth. Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of psychiatrists, he gathered billions of his citizens under the pretense of income tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The appearance of these spacecraft would later be subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being that "the DC8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't". When they had reached Teegeeack, the paralyzed citizens were off-loaded, and placed around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes and detonated simultaneously, killing all but a few aliens. Hubbard described the scene in his film script, Revolt in the Stars:

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