Gnostic Afterlifestyles of the Rich & Famous

As with so much of so-called "New Age" spiritualism, Scientology draws heavily from Gnostic conceptions of the afterlife.  The recent spat of new coverage resulting from the tragic death of John Travolta's teenage son spawned quite of bit of writing about Scientology's teachings on death and the afterlife.  I've long contended that the typical religious person is just as confused about their own beliefs as the average Baptist would be about the teachings of the Zoroastrians.  In an attempt to clarify Scientology teachings on death and the afterlife, MSNBC reporter Courtney Hazlett shared the following official release from the Church of Scientology:

“In Scientology, we believe that you have lived before and that you will live again. The spirit, which is you, is immortal and you are not your body. You as an individual are an immortal spiritual being and simply put, you have lived before and will live again, lifetime after lifetime. In Scientology, these past existences are simply referred to as past lives.”

This Scientology doctrine might just as well have come from Origen, an early Christian Bishop (185 - 254 CE).  Clear evidence exists to support that reincarnation was a central them of those we now call Gnostic Christians.  Of course, increasingly accepted scholarship indicates that many if not most early "Christians" held such "Gnostic" beliefs about the afterlife and that the idea that folks either went to Heaven or Hell upon their physical death was not a majority belief until the 4th century after the Christianity became the official state religion of Rome.  Before Origen, Plato promoted the concept of reincarnation  as well as developing the philosophical constructs upon which became the fountainhead for numerous Gnostic doctrines.  Even St. Augustine, perhaps the pre-eminent Orthodox Christian theologian of all, seems to hold out for the possibility of reincarnation as a possible alternative afterlifestyle.

My personal brand of neo-gnosticism simply holds that no one knows what happens to a human being's essence at the time of their physical death.  At least I certainly don't know what happens when we die.  Having issued that caveat, I strongly suggest that the metaphor of reincarnation would be a superior belief to the final judgment eschatology of both Orthodox Christianity and Orthodox Islam.

I present the following evidence for Reincarnation being a better afterlifestyle than Final Judgment by pointing again to the official doctrine the Church of Scientology regarding their funeral services:

“The Scientology funeral service celebrates the life of the person who has departed his body. Friends and family have the opportunity to say goodbye, to acknowledge and thank the person for what he or she has done in this lifetime, and to wish them well as they move on to their next lifetime. The service is a reaffirmation of the knowledge that we are immortal spiritual beings.”

Did you catch that last part -- "a reaffirmation of the knowledge that we are immortal spiritual beings"?  Isn't it interesting that when you pull away the imaginative nomenclature of L. Ron Hubbard (or Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy, for that matter), what you are left with are these basic Gnostic concepts that human beings are spiritual beings having a human experience?

Even literary cult figure Philip K. Dick, in the novel VALIS, offers his own version of Gnosticism as Item #29 of his Tractates Cryptica Scriptura:

"We did not fall because of a moral error; we fell because of an intellectual error: that of taking the phenomenal world as real. Therefore we are morally innocent. It is the Empire in its various disguised polyforms which tells us we have sinned.”

Gnosticism itself, as we can clearly see, continues to be reincarnated by new generations of thinkers, writers and self-proclaimed prophets.  As we can also see, there really isn't very much new under the sun other than the creative narratives of Hubbard's thetans, Smith's magic seeing-stones and the brilliant reinterpretations of honest fiction writers like Philip K. Dick.  Whether it's reincarnation or salvation, human beings have an insatiable desire to know the answers to questions we obviously can't answer.

As for this Gneo-Gnostic Christian Universalist, I'll take the literary prose of Dick over the prophetic deceptions of ego-inflated cult leaders for my personal eschatology.  So, here's P.K. Dick's Item #44 of the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura to take us out of this post, even if we are spiritual beings trapped in physical flesh:

"Since the universe is actually composed of information, then it can be said that information will save us. This is the saving gnosis which the Gnostics sought. There is no other road to salvation."

On your own "road to salvation", I pray that this information might help a little!

Also, I shouldn't close this post until I say that my heart goes out to the Travoltas and to all those who were close to Jett Travolta -- may he return again to this world in whatever from is most pleasing to his Spirit!