Church of Scientology | Prevention Resource Center


The thetan (spirit) uses its mind as a control system between itself and the physical universe. The mind is not the brain. The brain is part of the body and does not determine intelligence. It can be likened to a switchboard. If one said that a telephone switchboard was the intelligence of the corporation it served, this would be like saying the brain was the intelligence of the person. It is just not true. The brain is simply a conduit that, like a telephone wire, carries messages.

The mind accumulates recordings of thoughts, conclusions, decisions, observations and perceptions of a thetan throughout its existence. The thetan uses its mind in the handling of life and the physical universe. The body (including the brain) is the thetan’s communication center. It is a physical object, not the being itself.

The thetan is the source of all creation and life itself. It becomes fully apparent for the first time in Man’s experience that the spirit is immortal and possessed of capabilities well in excess of those hitherto predicted.

The exteriorization of the thetan from its body accomplishes the realization of goals envisioned but rarely, if ever, obtained in spiritualism, mysticism and such fields.

Recognition of the thetan makes gains in ability and awareness possible—improvements that are not attainable in any practice that considers Man to be only a body and thus entirely subject to physical universe limitations.

Psychology, for instance, had worked itself into a dead end. Having no concept of the existence of an animating factor to life, it had degenerated into a practice devoted solely to the creation of an effect on living forms.

In Scientology, however, the thetan itself is directly addressed. Such an approach to improvement accomplishes increased spiritual freedom, intelligence and ability for the individual and clarifies any part of life.