Clearing the Planet: The Adoption of the Teachings of L. Ron Hubbard by Louis Farrakhan, and its Significance for the Eschatology of the Nation of Islam
[Thesis]
Jacob Michael King
Khan, Ruqayya
The Claremont Graduate University
2014
72
Committee members: Mason, Patrick
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-12821-5
M.A.
School of Religion
The Claremont Graduate University
2014
The adoption of the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam has been treated in the press with a mixture of scorn and incredulity. But members of the Nation of Islam have made tremendous personal sacrifices (and the Church of Scientology has cut steep discounts) to bring Hubbard's religious technology into NOI mosques. After a brief history of this most unusual merger, this essay will argue that Dianetic Auditing represents a new and vital sacrament for Black Muslims, in that it performs a renewal of their eschatology. This is accomplished in two ways: (1) it provides a life-line of salvation to willing whites, in Farrakhan's words, to 'free them of the mind that Yakub gave them,' and (2) it further awakens believers to 'Knowledge of Self,' readying blacks for their Divine mission as rulers of the earth upon the return of Allah (in the person of Master Fard Muhammad). The speeches of the Honorable Minister and the testimony of individual Muslims will be sourced to establish the significance, both personal and apocalyptic, of this self-conscious syncretism.
Religion; Philosophy; Islamic Studies
Philosophy, religion and theology;Social sciences;Farrakhan, louis;Islam;Malcolm x;Mother wheel;Muhammad, elijah;Nation of islam;Scientology