Reference: Scientology OT Levels
Executive Summary 2025
The Level of OT VIII brings about the direct realization of Oneness (continuity, consistency and harmony) of knowledge. Knowledge includes the subject of beingness.
L. Ron Hubbard claimed his philosophy to have basis in the Vedas and Buddhism, but, unfortunately, he looked at self as something permanent and individualistic. With his idea of “eternal thetan,” Hubbard established permanent boundaries around “self” making it permanently individualistic. But the ancient religions of Vedas and Buddhism see self as impermanent, changing, and without boundaries.
Hubbard claimed thetan to be the source of life. That is where Hubbard’s philosophy deviates from the ancient knowledge of Vedas and Buddhism.
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Knowledge & Hubbard
The very concept of Scientology is “Knowing How to Know”. From OT TR0 to the level of OT VIII, meditation and contemplation is systemized as the process of auditing for the purpose of knowing. The OT Levels are supposed to directly handle the misconceptions on the subjects of BEINGNESS and KNOWLEDGE.
Hubbard postulates an eternal thetan as the source of life; but according to the Vedic Hymn of Creation there is no identifiable source of life. The ultimate source of life is Unknowable. Please see:
Buddhism presents the doctrine of no soul. Please see:
The Doctrine of No-Soul: Anatta
Hubbard does refer to the Hymn of Creation from Vedas, and also to Buddhism, but he differs from them on the very fundamentals of beingness and the source of life. He admits that in the following writing.
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Comment on Hubbard
Some people tend to dismiss Hubbard completely; but I don’t. In spite of the holes that exist in his research, Hubbard accomplished a lot. He provided a framework that is quite solid, but he committed two fundamental errors.
- The source of the universe are postulates. Hubbard assumed the source of these postulates to be the agreement among eternal thetans. But he didn’t realize that “eternal thetan” is also a postulate. So, the true source of postulates is unknowable as correctly stated in The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda.
- Hubbard summarized the subject of logic brilliantly in The logic of Data Series; but he omitted to state the IDEAL SCENE OF LOGIC. This ideal scene is ONENESS as has been hinted since ancient times, and which has been anthropomorphized into the idea of “One God” or “Supreme being” or “Great All” in religions.
This ideal scene of ONENESS appears in the Scientific Method as CONSISTENCY. At atomic level, this consistency appears as CONTINUITY. At cosmic level, the same consistency takes the form of HARMONY. So, we have
ONENESS = CONTINUITY, CONSISTENCY and HARMONY
Once we account for these two fundamental errors in Hubbard’s work we can see that Hubbard produced the biggest advance in the subject of mind since Freud’s psychoanalysis.
In my view, Hubbard’s work cannot be dismissed lightly. His two great contributions are:
- DIRECTED MEDITATION that basically makes one look at anomalies more closely. This is the best way to describe the process of auditing.
- THE GRADE CHART that make one look at broad anomalies first and then increasingly specific anomalies on a gradient.
These contributions are weakened by the two fundamental errors described above. However, these two errors are taken care of in Postulate Mechanics, one may now proceed with this understanding on OT VIII.
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The OT VIII
The true tech of OT VIII is The logic of Data Series as modified by the concept of Oneness. The violations of oneness appear as anomalies. The anomalies are defined as discontinuity (missing data), inconsistency (contradictory data), and disharmony (arbitrary data).
A person on OT VIII is well on his way to resolve anomalies among the fundamentals of the various systems of knowledge, such as, the different religions, philosophies and sciences. A person evolves to higher states by resolving anomalies.
On OT VIII one continues to resolve anomalies for oneself on the subjects of Beingness and Knowledge.
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Subject Clearing
The vehicle for OT VIII is Subject Clearing, which is an extension of the Study Tech and Data Series. Subject Clearing is the fastest approach to understand a subject. It rapidly handles the fixed ideas and false data weaved throughout all systems of knowledge including Scientology. It is truly knowing how to know. Please see the introduction here.
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Grassroots Scientology
The level of OT VIII comes at the tail end of Scientology Grade Chart, but it is like coming a full circle. One can now start studying Scientology along with other subjects of comparable magnitude, such as, Physics, Hinduism and Buddhism using the subject clearing approach. This will help clear up the fixed ideas present in the subject of Scientology itself.
One can then go through the Grade Chart of Scientology using the subject clearing approach. Here one uses mindfulness in place of a mechanical device (E-meter). We may refer to it as Grassroots Scientology. It can be applied rapidly to oneself by a Scientologist, or a person new to Scientology alike, with great benefits. Please see,
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Comments
LRH’s 1955 Lectures of “The Rehabilitation of the Power of Choice” sum up a lot! Of Particular importance is the idea of Separateness versus Oneness presented there.
Dallas
Sounds interesting.
LRH said, “You may think that you are ‘One with the Great All,’ but I assure you that I am not.
These ideas of discreteness vs oneness seem to be alike in that they are both postulates (decisions) as Vinaire would say, and then the frame of reference depends upon one’s point-of-view at the time of saying it, as I would say. They are – can be – are not equally true. 🙂
For me, I am not quite an “animist” – religiously – in the same way that I am not quite a “Libertarian” – politically – but I do see the common thread of consciousness in everything. I can be one-with-all, or I can not be, and it may depend on the conversation that we are having to pick out the appropriate context.
Scn’s “Dynamics of Life” is an organizational scheme to categorize the various collumns (dynamics) of life. It is useful, we only need to remain mindful that it is an abstraction. As Alfred Korzybski said, “The map is not the territory.”
Regardless of the context (frame of reference) I see consciousness as the inceptor of all; However, I do not anthropomorphize any of these things, sometimes not even people. 🙂
There is no such thing as “One with Great All” so, like you, I am not either.
Korzybski, in this video stated the following:
The world is not an illusion. It’s whatever it is except what we abstract from it. We are sort of a mirror, and we mirror only inside us in our nervous system what is going on outside of our nervous system. The correct expression is that we are dealing with abstracton of some order.
You see an apple… you made the apple alright. What exists there is only a process going on. We abstract out of it the apple we see. This applies to all abstraction. The abstractions do not mean that it means nothing. Except it’s the human mirroring of the process which is going on, if we want it or not.
Now this is a very, very important point.to realize that the world is not an illusion. That the world simply happens to be an abstraction.
There is only a process of ABSTRACTION going on. The nervous system creates reality through this process of abstraction.
It is this process of ABSTRACTION that leads to the discovery of postulates. What I call ONENESS starts with establishing consistency among all postulates.
On OTVIII:
Picture a Sierpinski triangle. For me, this is one of many metaphors for the OT levels and the entire Bridge to Total Freedom. One minces oneself into littler and littler pieces, supposedly refining away one’s anomalies.
On each OT level, one walks half the distance to the goal, thus never arriving regardless of the years that one dedicates to this discipline. It is a grift, and what one finds at the bottom of that postulated abyss is just one more version of oneself. Auditing entities is an infinite recursion and regression. It is the opposite direction, away from whole, healthy consciousness and oneness.
When Vinaire says that the self begins with a postulate, he is correct. He is correct about many things having to do with this philosophy of self.
For me, I am pleased with my current understanding of self and of consciousness. I did the entire Scientology Bridge and learned some things. Hubbard said that the final thing audited out would be Scientology. Would I have learned as much by way of another path? I suppose so, but maybe not the same things. Plus I do not have the privilege of walking another path. Nevertheless, I do not regret the adventurous life that I have chosen. It was offered and I took it.
In this OP, OT VIII has been updated by aligning it with the ancient knowledge of Vedas and Buddhism, so this is not the version of OT VIII used in Scientology that deals with body thetans.
This version of OT VIII uses the technology of Subject Clearing and deals with anomalies instead of body thetans. An ex-Scientologist should not confuse an anomaly with a body thetan. A body thetan is essentially a body sensation.
The statement, “One minces oneself into littler and littler pieces, supposedly refining away one’s anomalies,” tells me that one does not understand how the concept of anomaly is applied in Subject Clearing. Nowhere in Subject Clearing does one “refines away anomalies into littler and littler pieces.”
The definition of anomaly is as follows:
An anomaly is a violation of reality. It is characterized by
Anomaly must be understood as stated above. I just want to point out that the statement, “One minces oneself into littler and littler pieces, supposedly refining away one’s anomalies,” by Chris Thompson is his misinterpretation.
Yes, now I understand that you’ve meant to redefine OTVIII. That may be a mistake as OTVIII is a coined term by Hubbard and already has a certain definition.
I see that what you are describing about is more similar to what I am doing now on my blog; Nevertheless, having done OTVIII, discontinuities, inconsistencies, and disharmonies were not part of that level. Possibly it should be.
It seems that rehabilitating Scientology is an awful lot of work for I’m not sure what result is hoped for.
How can I help? It seems we are having a misunderstanding so I have re-read our conversation above.
Possibly, when you read, LRH said, “You may think that you are ‘One with the Great All,’ but I assure you that I am not.”
Maybe you think that I wrote that YOU think that you are one with the Great All, but that is not what I think.
Maybe you think that I wrote that, “I assure you that I am not.”
But no, that was Hubbard’s comment, not mine. I do not think that I am not One with the Great All. I do not think this at all.
Maybe you think that I was conflating oneness with one with the great all in order to tease you, but I was not. I do not think you should be teased about such a large work that you have put so much of yourself into. No. I respect and esteem you highly.
That is all. 🙂
Chris, I am going to take up many points that you have brought up, one by one, in the following posts. These are fundamental points and need to be addressed with full attention.
People tend to dismiss Hubbard completely But I don’t. In spite of the holes that exist in his research, Hubbard accomplished a lot. He provided a framework that is quite solid, but he committed two fundamental errors.
This ideal scene of ONENESS appears in the scientific method as CONSISTENCY. At atomic level, this consistency appears as CONTINUITY. At cosmic level, the same consistency takes the form of HARMONY. So, we have
ONENESS = CONTINUITY, CONSISTENCY and HARMONY
Once we account for these two fundamental errors in Hubbard’s work we can see that Hubbard produced the biggest advance in the subject of mind since Freud’s psychoanalysis.
In my view, Hubbard’s work cannot be dismissed lightly. His two great contributions are:
These contributions are, however, weakened by the two fundamental errors described above.
Chris quoted LRH: “You may think that you are ‘One with the Great All,’ but I assure you that I am not.”
The confusion arose because the end of quote was missing.
But the point I was making is that there is no such thing as a “Great All” into which the “individuality “I” merges, because both “Great All” and “I” are postulates.
There is only the assimilation of all postulates. Such assimilation establishes continuity, continuity and harmony among all postulates. This is the process of ABSTRACTION that Korzybski talked about (see above).
It is an error to anthropomorphize ONENESS as “Great All.”
Chris stated: “These ideas of discreteness vs oneness seem to be alike in that they are both postulates (decisions) as Vinaire would say, and then the frame of reference depends upon one’s point-of-view at the time of saying it, as I would say. They are – can be – are not equally true. 🙂”
The point I am making is that concepts, such as, “frame of reference.” “one’s point of view,” “the time of saying it,” etc., are all postulates. Assimilation of postulates into oneness goes much deeper than the human logic we employ.
This is the incompleteness of human logic that sends us astray.
Chris stated: “One minces oneself into littler and littler pieces, supposedly refining away one’s anomalies.”
I had dismissed the above statement earlier as a misinterpretaion by Chris. Let me attend to it once more a bit more carefully this time.
An anomaly is a violation of oneness. Oneness is never absolute.
Buddha declared.
DEFINITION: Absolute means, “Viewed independently; not comparative or relative; ultimate; intrinsic.”
This means there are always going to be anomalies. There is always going to be resolution of anomalies. Therefore, there is always going to be evolution. Evolution is infinite.
This does not mean that anomalies are not resolved and, instead, they are minced into littler pieces.
While deliberately rejecting and denying the concept of oneness, Hubbard yet came up with the idea that anomalous physical sensations (somatics-LRH use) were the result of the accretion of entities (body thetans-LRH coined) into a conglomerate of degradation which one (the one paying the money-my term) could and should apprise oneself of and tell them to “shoo!”
This is what I meant when I wrote that Hubbard cut up one’s “self” into smaller and smaller pieces. The process of doing so takes years, it is fractal as a mathematical presumption, it is recursive, and it is definitely never-ending and routinely results in dying a wasting-death because of not addressing objective reasons why one’s body needs maintenance. No one has ever offered to demonstrate external spiritual abilities (OT-LRH term) to an affirmative result. Nevertheless, “true-belief” in humans – connected to ego – is something of a personal super-power. One becomes a legend in one’s own mind, at best.
When a Scientologist has given everything that he has and everything that he owns to the Church of Scientology, and once he has become infirm, he is then denied access to Church of Scientology properties so as to avoid them having a possibly negative health event on Church property and risking it reflecting darkly – “black PR” (LRH term) on the Church. These longtime dedicated acolytes of the Church are declared “illegal PCs” (LRH coined) and denied access to further services since that grift was always a sham and there is nothing else to get. No one is saved. Having completed many Church courses in both tech and administration, and having completed the auditing side of the Bridge, I write confidently.
For me, Oneness is a cogent concept that I find useful and have described similarly in my research as the “Cosmic Background Field of Understanding,” or CBFU for short. This is physics terminology which I have coined. The world in which I live is a designed and engineered. In light of this opinion, I and am going down a scientific road of research and rigorous proofs and a lot less hand-waving to demonstrate. I am today what LRH would call a WOG (his term) but once again, in that appraisal, he would be mistaken.
I did a research on OT III, and this is what I found:
I hope you understand what I mean by anomalies. An anomaly is a violation of oneness.
Hubbard had a crashing MU on the concept of self. He was fixated on his individuality. He disagreed with how Buddhism looked at individuality.
Chris stated, “but I do see the common thread of consciousness in everything.”
It is important to understand what CONSCIOUSNESS means in terms of physics. The following are my postulates woven into a theory:
This is how I am approaching the subject of life and its consciousness.
I received the following query from Shaily Shalini on messenger. I am posting it here since it is part of the discussion above:
I shall be answering this query in continuation with the responses to Chris above.
Shaily asked, “Where did Scientology deviated on the concept of Veda of oneness?”
Scientology starts with the concept of STATIC. So that is a good place to look at for the deviation from Oneness concept of the Vedas.
The essence of life is a form having inherent motion. Even light has inherent motion, and electron too. Both light and electron are, therefore, elementary forms of life. As life starts to evolve its inherent motion starts to become increasingly complex and self-animated.
THETA actually represents the resultant vector at any moment of the complex inherent motion of a life organism. Its inherent tendency is to optimize motion towards greater continuity, consistency and harmony.
So, Scientology deviates from Oneness concept of the Vedas by postulating THETA as a spiritual agent with anthropomorphic properties, which is independent of life organisms.
Shaily said, “Having read our religious scriptures and comparing it with Scientology throughout my life, I would like to have a reference which has disharmony of this concept of my own clarity.”
All the references are there and, most probably, you have studied them also. The problem lies in failing to spot anomalies. If a person has anomalies in his or her own thinking, you can provide all possible references and the person still won’t get what he/she wants to know.
This is where subject clearing comes in. As it is stated in the OP:
Also see,
https://vinaire.me/2023/07/18/the-level-of-otviii/#comment-213675
I read and reread Scientology materials in order to spot anomalies. And it helps me spot anomalies in my own viewpoint. Subject Clearing approach has assisted me greatly in this goal to understand the fundamentals.
you dont speak clearly. lrh comunication is understandable by anybody
Thank you. I didn’t know that. I am sorry that you are having trouble understanding.
Vinaire is too kind to you “anonymous.”
In order to discuss, you should have the good manners to show yourself and speak simply and plainly. I would not have printed your ad hominem. Just write what you think should be corrected or made more clear. We are all friends on here, but that comment is not one a friend would make.
Thanks Chris.
The problem is that many people have not had the opportunity to develop their own viewpoint. The school system does not encourage such opportunities. It rather discourages them.
The most important thing is to help people develop their own viewpoint and not just absorb Hubbard’s viewpoint or my viewpoint.
To develop one’s own viewpoint one needs to learn subject clearing; but to learn subject clearing one need’s one’s own viewpoint. This a catch-22.