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The Official ESMB Dictionary

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
Back in the day, when I studied Auditing in San Francisco starting at the local Celebrity Center out on California Street a couple blocks further west than Winterland Vomitorium (And it's Standard Tech credentials were impeccably on display. For Instance; e.g., Musician Tom Konstantin was the biggest act that ever played the joint and a copy of the poster for the event was proudly on display in the foyer. The poster billed him as "Tom Konstantin/formerly of the/GRATEFUL DEAD" Not only was his name lower case and the band's upper I know Tom performed on stage with The Dead but I don't know how often or if he was ever a full member of the quintessential hippie agglomeration [hippies have never had their shit together well enough to organize groups and are morally opposed to all organizations anyway especially their own therefore hippies can never group up; the best they can do is agglomerate] the bands name was presented in letters nearly twice the size of their headliner's) Scientologists rarely used any dictionary than The American Heritage Dictionary. CoS never published policy naming the AHD the church's official dictionary. They didn't have to. L. Ron Hubbard in emphasizing the use of dictionaries in training mentioned in passing he thought the AHD to be a good dictionary. "At least they got the definition of dianetics right". The AHD probably wasn't the only dictionary to define dianetics as it is implicit that the word dianetics had been published so often in articles and books that it needed to be defined and granted PROVISIONAL!!! respect as a word by lexicographers. I don't know if it was defined in the OED but off hand I'd bet it was in at least one OED yearbook.

A couple months ago by the outbound 43 line bus stop on Masonic at Haight I found a discarded copy of the third edition of the AHD. I'd have loved to have kept it but I live on the street and must carry all my possessions with me. But I sho' 'nuff did snappy it off the concrete in less than one third of a New York second to see if they still gave Elron his due.

They do.

They tossed him on the scrap heap of History.

He has disappeared like an Orwellian unperson.

I therefore nominate The American Heritage Dictionary as The Official Dictionary of The Ex Scientologist Message Board.
 

F.Bullbait

Oh, a wise guy,eh?
Perhaps we could share an official book...

51LXWjF69pL._SX359_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
The Urban Dictionary has the most accurate definitions when it comes to Scientology.

Here's one of the definitions:

Scientology:
The science of making money. A pseudo-religion set up by a money grabbing black magician/adulterer/corrupt bastard called L. Ron Hubbard.
Scientology will suck your money out of you quicker than Hoover sucks shit.


https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scientology
The Urban Dictionary is a reference work but it is not a literal reference work.

No serious dictionary would ever publish such a definition

Because this definition is not true.

So tell me Pitsy...

My submission is serious. ESMB would be improved by having an official dictionary. Members often post verbatim definitions often without naming the particular dictionary the definition is from. All dictionaries are not equal. Le OED es formidible n'cest pas? And Webster's sucks.

If one dictionary were our official dictionary the semantic standards of ESMB would be anchored in it.

So...

In all seriousness Pitsy what do you think of making the AHD our sine qua non for lechercography?

ALSO...

Anyone?

ALSO...

Anyone care to nominate a different Lexicographer to get the ESMB semantic it's bedrock?
 

JackStraw

Silver Meritorious Patron
If memory serves, Tom was, in fact, a full member of the band, in shows and on a couple early albums.
It's just that when all the Grateful Dead looked into Scn, Tom was most "with" scn. When scn's position on drug use was explained to them, all but Tom abandoned scn and Tom found that incompatible with his new religion, so he left the band.

As for "[hippies have never had their shit together well enough to organize groups and are morally opposed to all organizations anyway especially their own therefore hippies can never group up; the best they can do is agglomerate]" the Dead were organized enough to be successful for about 30 years! Yay!:party:

For your listening pleasure...


Jack
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
Thank you so much JS for the clarification and further information; you told me something I did not know.

Back in the granite hills where I was born, where you now live where the local people have known us Birdwoods for five generations they say "You can always tell a Birdwood but you can't tell him much."

It was my grandfather Otho Rule Burdwood who established our reputation. He was working for the Maine Central Railroad when he moved there after discharge from the Navy during The Great War. He married a local teenage farm girl, Minnie Mabel Ludgate.

Clan Birdwood can trace it's geneaology back to the Domesday Book and over the centuries has produced a long string of sons dubbed into knighthood by Albion's crowned head.

The Ludgates are reputed to be descendants of the Hellenic tribe exiled from Greece about 500 BC that sailed west through The Pillars of Hercules the up the Thames estuary and founded the town which grew into London.

Usually if you try to tell a Birdwood something you will discover we already know it or we won't invalidate you for saying but we will show you why what you said is false, obsolete, inaccurate, so-and-so's pernicious propaganda, unchristlike, foolish, treasonous, unprofitable, incorrect, immoral, an exercise in bad etiquette, immoral and or WRONG!!!
 

phenomanon

Canyon
Usually if you try to tell a Birdwood something you will discover we already know it or we won't invalidate you for saying but we will show you why what you said is false, obsolete, inaccurate, so-and-so's pernicious propaganda, unchristlike, foolish, treasonous, unprofitable, incorrect, immoral, an exercise in bad etiquette, immoral and or WRONG!!!
( some snipped)
that sounds just like my Husband.
 

cakemaker

Patron Meritorious
Back in the day, when I studied Auditing in San Francisco starting at the local Celebrity Center out on California Street a couple blocks further west than Winterland Vomitorium (And it's Standard Tech credentials were impeccably on display. For Instance; e.g., Musician Tom Konstantin was the biggest act that ever played the joint and a copy of the poster for the event was proudly on display in the foyer. The poster billed him as "Tom Konstantin/formerly of the/GRATEFUL DEAD" Not only was his name lower case and the band's upper I know Tom performed on stage with The Dead but I don't know how often or if he was ever a full member of the quintessential hippie agglomeration [hippies have never had their shit together well enough to organize groups and are morally opposed to all organizations anyway especially their own therefore hippies can never group up; the best they can do is agglomerate] the bands name was presented in letters nearly twice the size of their headliner's) Scientologists rarely used any dictionary than The American Heritage Dictionary. CoS never published policy naming the AHD the church's official dictionary. They didn't have to. L. Ron Hubbard in emphasizing the use of dictionaries in training mentioned in passing he thought the AHD to be a good dictionary. "At least they got the definition of dianetics right". The AHD probably wasn't the only dictionary to define dianetics as it is implicit that the word dianetics had been published so often in articles and books that it needed to be defined and granted PROVISIONAL!!! respect as a word by lexicographers. I don't know if it was defined in the OED but off hand I'd bet it was in at least one OED yearbook.
Here's a blurb about Tom Constanten,

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/07/constanten-on-constanten.html

"I got into Scientology through drugs, and got out of it the same way. With some of the more powerful psychedelics, there were places you could hope to remain...and, so Scientology portrayed it, by means of clearing out a lot of unnecessary garbage from your head, you could arrive at a state like that. What I found out, especially from the times I got dosed on the road, was that yes, Scientology really worked wonders with my head - I wouldn't have stayed as long with them, otherwise. Except it really enhanced the drug experience."
"It made me a non-participant in the chemical sacraments of the time, and that offended Owsley greatly... I tried not to proselytize, but I'm sure there's a certain amount you can't resist, and that I regret. It probably must have rubbed some people the wrong way."
(However, the Dead actually played a Scientology benefit concert - the "Bobby Ace and His Cards from the Bottom of the Deck" show on 6/11/69, where they played what seems to have been a mainly acoustic/country show with John Dawson and David Nelson - who were then about to form the New Riders - and possibly Peter Grant. Garcia may well have been on pedal-steel. One can only imagine what TC sounded like in that context!)

Also wasn't the Celebrity Center on Taraval and run by Ray Mithoff's brother Bob?

There was an issue at one time that listed 'LRH approved dictionaries'. I think the AHD was dropped from that list (1981?)
 

JackStraw

Silver Meritorious Patron
There was an issue at one time that listed 'LRH approved dictionaries'. I think the AHD was dropped from that list (1981?)
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Thanks for the info re TC! That was news to me.

Re the AHD, as I recall, the AHD was never an approved dictionary for a perfectly reasonable (in a good way ;-) ), well, reason.

The AHD in question was the College Edition, and it was infamous for having words in definitions that were rarer, obscurer or as or more advanced than the word you were attempting to define. In a scn courseroom, this led to longer and longer word chains and were contrary to getting quickly back on course.

Of course, me, being the contrarian that I am, and a logophile (lover of words) I liked it for that exact reason. It pulled me towards a larger vocabulary. Added benefit: it drove course supes nuts!

Jack
 

programmer_guy

True Ex-Scientologist
For abridged dictionaries, I like the American Heritage Dictionary as it is easy to understand.
For unabridged dictionaries, I like the Random House Dictionary.
The horrible dictionary is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
 

JackStraw

Silver Meritorious Patron
For abridged dictionaries, I like the American Heritage Dictionary as it is easy to understand.
For unabridged dictionaries, I like the Random House Dictionary.
The horrible dictionary is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Good points. I would add that the unabridged AHD, the BIG one (as of a year or two ago) is pretty awesome, too!

Jack
 

DagwoodGum

Squirreling Dervish
Good points. I would add that the unabridged AHD, the BIG one (as of a year or two ago) is pretty awesome, too!

Jack
I much prefer to Google the word in question and just upload into my consciousness the definition that best serves my purpose which is simply being able to read, hear and speak the word properly in the context that I experienced it in.
To do extraneous reading of all the possible definitions and use them all in sentences just dev-t's me from the article or book I'm reading.
That's why I can read and skim over stuff without slipping into any aneten and without losing the flow of what I've been reading. Aneten and somatics should not descend upon anyone simply because they find themselves confronted by an unknown word or symbol of any kind and Hubbard was just trying to generate a need for all of his study tech with exaggerations regarding what horrors one signs up for by disregarding his fatherly advice.
People are not nearly at effect they way Hubbard portrayed us, words are not cause, they can at most symbolize it.
 
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