Astral Codex Ten

Scientology

5 min read

Scientology

Article

Scientology is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between March 23, 2021 and March 26, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Scientology for 50; probably Judaism will remain when Scientology is relegated to the history books”; “Gold Base is Scientology’s semi-secret headquarters”; “putting it behind (eg) Scientology and Satanism”. It most often appears alongside Trump, Britain, Europe.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: March 23, 2021
  • Last seen: March 26, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Antifragile
March 23, 2021 · Original source
This was also the section with the famous Lindy Effect: if something doesn't have a specific lifespan like humans do, then we should expect older ones to last longer than new ones. For example, people have been reading the Iliad for 2500 years, but Antifragile for only eight years; probably Antifragile will sink out of the popular imagination before the Iliad does. Or: San Marino has been independent for 1500 years, and South Sudan has been independent for nine years; probably San Marino will outlast South Sudan. Judaism has been around for 3000 years and Scientology for 50; probably Judaism will remain when Scientology is relegated to the history books.
Links For November 2023
December 01, 2023 · Original source
20: Gold Base is Scientology’s semi-secret headquarters in Riverside County, California. “According to some former members of Scientology, conditions within Gold Base are harsh, with staff members receiving sporadic paychecks of $50 at most, working seven days a week, and being subjected to punishments for failing to meet work quotas. Media reports have stated that around 100 people a year try to escape from the base but most are soon retrieved by ‘pursuit teams’…Captured escapees are said to have been subjected to isolation, interrogation and punishment after being brought back to the compound.”
Inline links: Gold Base
Links For January 2024
January 18, 2024 · Original source
11: Poll: AI accelerationism (“e/acc”) has a negative 51% net favorability with the general public, putting it behind (eg) Scientology and Satanism. There’s no shame in this. But there is a little shame in how the e/accs are surprised and trying to nitpick the result. There could be a certain amount of coolness cred in wanting to sacrifice humanity to the Void Gods - but not if you get all huffy when you learn this doesn’t play well in Peoria.
Inline links: has a negative 51% net favorability with the general public, are surprised and trying to nitpick, the result
Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity
November 12, 2024 · Original source
Imagine taking a time machine to the year 2300 AD, and everyone is Scientologist. The United States is >99% Scientologist. So is Latin America and most of Europe. The Middle East follows some heretical pseudo-Scientology that thinks L Ron Hubbard was a great prophet, but maybe not the greatest prophet.
This can only begin to capture how surprised the early Imperial Romans would be to learn of the triumph of Christianity. At least Scientology has a lot of money and a cut-throat recruitment arm! At least they fight back when you persecute them! At least they seem to be in the game!
Stark kind of tries to account for this. He says that religions spread through the social graph, so the friendlier you are, the better you do. But also, you want your religion to be a tight-knit community, and you definitely don’t want your members making so many heathen friends that they deconvert. Different religions find different places along the tradeoff curve. Classic cults (like Scientology) restrict members’ external connections, successfully gaining tight-knit-ness and protecting themselves against deconversion at the cost of curtailing their growth opportunities. Social movements like environmentalism are diffuse enough that everyone knows an environmentalist, but so loose-knit that they’re barely even a movement at all, and environmentalists frequently forget about the cause and go do something else. Somehow early Christianity (and Mormonism) found the exact sweet spot.
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk
March 26, 2025 · Original source
As always, I thought of the perfect framing just after I’d sent it out. The perfect framing is - where did Scientology come from? How did a 1940s sci-fi writer found a religion? Part of the answer is that 1940s sci-fi fandom was a really fertile place, where all of these novel mythemes about aliens, psychics, and lost civilizations were hitting a naive population certain that there must be something beyond the world they knew. This made them easy prey not just for grifters like Hubbard, but also for random schizophrenics who could write about their hallucinations convincingly.