A startling and little-known example of Crowley’s endur-inginfluence is the Church of Scientology, founded in 1954by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, one of the mainshapers of New Age thought. Hubbard had met Crowley atthe latter’s Los Angeles temple in 1945. Hubbard’s son hasrevealed that his father claimed to be Crowley’s successor:Hubbard told him that Scientology was born on the day thatCrowley died. The drills used by Scientologists to cleanseand clarify the mind are evidently a reinterpretation ofCrowley’s singular fusion of Asian meditation with Satanicritualism, which sharpens the all-conquering will. The guid-ingpremise of Hubbard’s mega-bestseller, Dianetics: TheModern Science of Mental Health (1950), is that moralityand spirituality can be scientifically analyzed and man-aged—as if guilt and remorse, in the Crowley way, are merebaggage to be jettisoned. Scientology, which attracts celebri-tieslike John Travolta and Tom Cruise, has been pursued bythe irs for its tax-exempt status as a religion. Scientology’sreligiosity can be detected in its theory of reincarnation: the“process” allegedly eradicates negative thoughts and experi-ences predating our life in the womb.
