SCI
page 1 / 7
ot3 summary
---
title: "Fishman Declaration — ot3-summary"
source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/Declaration/ot3-summary.html
retrieved: 2026-06-28
---
## OT III Course, summary and comments
In OT 3,
'''
OPERATING THETAN
Section Three
'''
Hubbard explains his cosmology and the ins & outs of 'body thetans'. I will try to summarize it, because my lawyer, after having finally having seen evidence handed over to him on behalf of RTC, has advised me that including the full text is at this time against my interests. So be it. I therefore will give you this summary, interspersed with comments. Your comments are kindly invited. Please correct any errors and tell me about any information that I may have missed. Page numbers refer to the version of OT 3 as given in the Fishman Affidavit.
The following portion of OT 3 is quoted in full in Margery Wakefield's book The Road to Xenu, chapter 13, and I believe all of it has been quoted in other books and articles as well. It provides a nice context for my summary and comments:
'''
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger
stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very
space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet,
178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to
be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the
principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones
were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to
Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading
data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people)
captured him after six years of battle and put him in an
electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone.
The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length
and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never
recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc)
anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been
dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is
approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running
on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be
careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow
around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did
and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one
ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but
only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or
to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I.
It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.
You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some
large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.
Good luck.
'''
(p. 76-77) Well, lots of things to dissect and discuss here, and perhaps even more things that need some elucidation before we can even begin to understand what Hubbard says in this rather strange and condensed tidbit.
But before we start, I believe it may be useful to first explain some more about Scientology's basic beliefs; otherwise it's difficult to make head or tails of the quote.
Jon Atack, who once was a member of Scientology and who has in fact completed OT 3 before he became a very effective critic of the cult, has provided us with a very useful analysis, OT 3 rewritten for beginners. Here's what Jon says:
Scientologists believe that they have reincarnated from before the beginning of time. They believe that many interplanetary civilizations have existed. Hubbard restyled the spirit the "thetan". Before the beginning of time, thetans existed, separate from one another (thetans were not created; they have existed for all time and indeed precede the creation of time). With the creation of energy and matter, thetans have gradually become trapped. The principal method of entrapment is through "implanting", where the thetan is hypnotised and given positive suggestions which limit its powers. This process, according to Hubbard has been going on in this universe for four quadrillion years (4,000,000,000,000,000, rather than the mere 8-20,000,000 held by astrophysicists). However, this is just one universe in a series of several.
Scientology seeks to return the thetan's power by stripping away implants and using drills to heighten extrasensory perception and ability. The goal of these procedures is an "operating thetan" - a being who can act independently of his physical body, and can cause physical events to occur through sheer force of will. The "operating thetan" would be capable of dismissing illness and psychological disorder in others at will.