Mimsey Borogrove
Crusader
I think Hubbard was at heart, a scam artist. His ethics were in the toilet when he started Dianetics. He was a philanderer, he conned people, such as Parsons, and largely had no bounds when taking people's money from them. A narcissist, and a hypnotist, he fell into the self help business with Dianetics and made his first real money. But his personal life was a shambles, what with the bigamy, running off with Alexa to Cuba etc. bankrupting Dianetics etc.
Somewhere in the early 50's he has a "big key out" possibly during the dentist near death experience he claims to have had. Unfortunately, he changed or embellished that story so that it is unreliable. This fascination with making up stories about himself has lead to untold confusion to understanding who he really was. It was after this he wrote the axioms etc. I feel, that these were a result of whatever OOB awareness he had. You read of similar stuff all the time when people were revived after a near death experience. Or it could be a hallucination brought on by the nitrous oxide the used to knock him out to do the dental work. :confused2:
The scn. axioms, factors etc. have a different feel to them from the rest of his writing. The concepts have a quantum mechanics feel to them - the idea of a timeless awareness that lives outside of the material universe creating the universe of 3 dimensions containing time is quantumesque in nature, and also a sort of very old Buddistic theme. So, he could have plagiarized either or both themes and molded them into the axioms, since quantum physics was around since the 30's.
It is hard to know the genesis of them in any event.
However, if we consider he did have this sudden transcendental awareness, whether drug fueled or actual, it didn't last. He reverted to his scam artist money grubbing ways. But now it was different. He believed. And, more importantly, he was stuck in a win. And wanted to regain that state once again.
There are many indicators in his writing or tapes such as the 2d worm that found a 3d post sticking out of his world, that he woke up after the dental procedure in a different location in his head, saying how he "rose above the bank" etc., that indicates it may have happened, that he may have had this awareness shift. Or he simply was a gifted con man who knew which buttons to push.
He was conflicted between his relentless pursuit of fame and money, his belief he had found a technology of the mind and his vicious attempts to preserve it, to keep his followers paying for it by isolating them from criticism, and his inability to regain his earlier keyed out state, when others were getting big wins, such as when he was at Saint Hill.
In the end, one thing stands out - who spends much of his waking life like he did, auditing himself daily, in pursuit of a higher state if he had not had this big awareness shift? Why would he state he had failed at the end of his life?
Anyway, it is my theory for what it's worth. If you can contribute to or correct it, please do so. Check out the article on William James I linked below - he had a similar story to Hubbards.
Mimsey
From Wiki re: Nitrous Oxide
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/
Somewhere in the early 50's he has a "big key out" possibly during the dentist near death experience he claims to have had. Unfortunately, he changed or embellished that story so that it is unreliable. This fascination with making up stories about himself has lead to untold confusion to understanding who he really was. It was after this he wrote the axioms etc. I feel, that these were a result of whatever OOB awareness he had. You read of similar stuff all the time when people were revived after a near death experience. Or it could be a hallucination brought on by the nitrous oxide the used to knock him out to do the dental work. :confused2:
The scn. axioms, factors etc. have a different feel to them from the rest of his writing. The concepts have a quantum mechanics feel to them - the idea of a timeless awareness that lives outside of the material universe creating the universe of 3 dimensions containing time is quantumesque in nature, and also a sort of very old Buddistic theme. So, he could have plagiarized either or both themes and molded them into the axioms, since quantum physics was around since the 30's.
It is hard to know the genesis of them in any event.
However, if we consider he did have this sudden transcendental awareness, whether drug fueled or actual, it didn't last. He reverted to his scam artist money grubbing ways. But now it was different. He believed. And, more importantly, he was stuck in a win. And wanted to regain that state once again.
There are many indicators in his writing or tapes such as the 2d worm that found a 3d post sticking out of his world, that he woke up after the dental procedure in a different location in his head, saying how he "rose above the bank" etc., that indicates it may have happened, that he may have had this awareness shift. Or he simply was a gifted con man who knew which buttons to push.
He was conflicted between his relentless pursuit of fame and money, his belief he had found a technology of the mind and his vicious attempts to preserve it, to keep his followers paying for it by isolating them from criticism, and his inability to regain his earlier keyed out state, when others were getting big wins, such as when he was at Saint Hill.
In the end, one thing stands out - who spends much of his waking life like he did, auditing himself daily, in pursuit of a higher state if he had not had this big awareness shift? Why would he state he had failed at the end of his life?
Anyway, it is my theory for what it's worth. If you can contribute to or correct it, please do so. Check out the article on William James I linked below - he had a similar story to Hubbards.
Mimsey
From Wiki re: Nitrous Oxide
Altered states of consciousness[edit]
The effects of inhaling sub-anaesthetic doses of Nitrous Oxide have been known to vary, based on several factors, including settings and individual differences,[40][41] however, from his discussion, Jay (2008)[42] suggests that it has been reliably known to induce the following states and sensations:
Intoxication
Euphoria/Dysphoria
Spatial Disorientation
Temporal Disorientation
Reduced pain sensitivity
A minority of users also will present with uncontrolled vocalisations and muscular spasms. These effects generally disappear minutes after removal of the nitrous oxide source.[42]
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/
more at linkThe Nitrous Oxide Philosopher
Do drugs make religious experience possible? They did for James and for other philosopher-mystics of his day. James's experiments with psychoactive drugs raise difficult questions about belief and its conditions... ...William James, the American psychologist and philosopher...
The psychedelia of the 1960s was foreshadowed by events in the waning years of the nineteenth century. This first American psychedelic movement began with an anonymous article published in 1874 in The Atlantic Monthly. The article, which was in fact written by James, reviewed The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy, a pamphlet arguing that the secrets of religion and philosophy were to be found in the rush of nitrous oxide intoxication. Inspired by this thought, James experimented with the drug, experiencing extraordinary revelations that he immediately committed to paper...
...This experience, which in James's words involved "the strongest emotion" he had ever had, remained with him throughout his life. In 1882 he first described his experiments with the drug; in 1898 he published an article titled "Consciousness Under Nitrous Oxide" in the Psychological Review ; in 1902 he recounted the experience in his greatest work, The Varieties of Religious Experience ; and in 1910, in the last essay he completed, he implied that nitrous oxide had had an abiding influence on his thinking...
...James's experiences with nitrous oxide helped to crystallize some of the major tenets of his philosophy. His writings emphasize, for instance, the notion of pluralism, according to which "to the very last, there are various 'points of view' which the philosopher must distinguish in discussing the world." Nitrous oxide had revealed in the most dramatic way possible the existence of alternate points of view. Which was the "real" William James--the drug-addled visionary who spouted meaningless mystical drivel, or the sober, unmystical psychologist whose researches brought him international fame? James's philosophy was based on the thought that the good life--for society and, by extension, for an individual as well--involves a plurality of perspectives, of which the mystical and the scientific are only two. Equally important to the mature Jamesian outlook was the thought that religious experiences are psychologically real--powerful and palpable events that can have important long-term consequences whether the beliefs to which they give rise are true or not . Drugs helped James to understand what religious belief was like from the inside. When he took nitrous oxide, he was for all intents and purposes a religious mystic. ("Thought deeper than speech!" he wrote while on the drug. "Oh my God, oh God, oh God!") Nitrous oxide was the passport that allowed James to see religion from the believer's perspective, traveling between the worlds of science and faith.
Last edited: