Reading "Messiah or Madman"

[Emma]

I ws lucky enough to find an early copy (the one with the makeshift bookjacket) on ebay and snapped it up.

I sort of read bits and pieces on the net over the years but never thoroughly.

So I am enjoying snuggling up in bed at night and sinking my teeth into this wonderful book.

There are a number of passages that I'd love to throw up for discussion, but I'll start with this one.

This is from Part 1, Chapter 9 - The brainwashing manual

From Brian Ambry's critique on Scientology:

While "white Scientology" (techniques and data which have the po-
tential to assist an individual to become more independent and self-
determined) is promoted by the Church as the Entirety of the subject,
there is also a dark side to Scientology. A dark side which makes indi-
viduals permanently dependent upon the Church, and, instead of self-
determined, "Ron-determined...."

The marriage of potentially liberating methodologies with enslaving
ones, the mixing of truth with lies, and love with hate: that is the
strange story of L. Ron Hubbard and his Church.*

Hubbard was a "user." He used freedom He used goodness. Help-
ing others feel better, understand more, communicate better - this
was all fine, so long as he considered that it increased his power.

He helped others so as to own them; to create gratitude and trust
and give himself authority or "altitude." He set up people to be ma-
nipulated by first assisting them to feel better to have "wins" and so
forth.

There are those who insist that all "gains" and "wins" in Scientology
are delusory - that all the counseling is brainwashing. That's nonsense.
The trap is much more sophisticated than that.

He was a man of many methods.

I felt a literal kick in the guts when I read this.

It explained so much for me.

For the last 6 years I've wondered about the seeming contradiction of Scientology. How you could read something and be blown away by the beauty and simplicity of it, and experience real case gain from the realisations JUST from reading, yet once you left the sanctity of the courseroom, you were confronted with an Organisation of madness.

When "in" Scientology, I used to justify this madness by explaining it away as untrained admin terminals, group bank or something similar. But I slowly began to realise it was more than that, especially after a trip or two uplines for an ethics handling to a SO Org where the insanity was even worse. My excuses just didn't hold water after that.

Reading that passage made so much sense to me. To understand a little better how the trap was laid makes it easier to get out of.

 

[Oingo Boingo]

Hey, Emma...

I'm surprised you haven't read that all the way through yet. I've read it, I think, about 4 or 5 times from end to end online. It's important to me for some reason to know almost exactly where to look in the book's timeline for suff, because there is a LOT of stuff and when you use it to back a point of view, it's smart to be able to land as close to where you need to be as possible.

That aside, you'll find it a riveting read once you get into it cover to cover and you'll find it less "dry" than Piece of Blue Sky, which is, nonetheless, also an excellent read.

Enjoy

 

[lionheart]

It's an excellent critique. Personally I have no data as to how knowingly Ron combined giving people wins in order to increase his power. But he certainly enjoyed getting their gratitude, even going so far as describing himself as mankind's best friend!

The irony is that the wins he gave people were making them more free, less controlled, which is why he wapped those that got too free with SP declares. So he was setting himself up to fail ultimately.

After I got my declare I analysed Scn history from then backwards and noticed an approximately seven-year cycle which went purge, gentler ethics, tech development, purge. I don't have enough post '82 info on the church to know if this cyclic behaviour continued.

Others say he ruthlessly manipulated people, personally I don't know how much he was ever that much in control of himself. Stories abound of his uncontrolled temper, So how knowing his use of people was, I'm not sure about. But it is obvious to conclude that his Grades were "out" and in frantic dramatisation!

The book is a great tool for explaining what happened to us. Enjoy!

 

[Bea Kiddo]

Peace

 

[Emma]

Hey, Emma...

I'm surprised you haven't read that all the way through yet. I've read it, I think, about 4 or 5 times from end to end online. It's important to me for some reason to know almost exactly where to look in the book's timeline for suff, because there is a LOT of stuff and when you use it to back a point of view, it's smart to be able to land as close to where you need to be as possible.

That aside, you'll find it a riveting read once you get into it cover to cover and you'll find it less "dry" than Piece of Blue Sky, which is, nonetheless, also an excellent read.

Enjoy

Yeah I know it's weird that I hadn't read it.

I read "A Piece of Blue Sky" and "Bare Faced Mesiah" as soon as I was able to when I got out. I borrowed APOBS from the library and read BFM on line.

I've read a bunch of other stuff too, but for some reason I never got to this one, not in full anyhow.

I'm LOVING it. It has to be one of the best I've read. I'm glad I own a copy.

I also managed to snap up "The Mind Benders" by the late Cyril Vosper. I enjoyed the book although it didn't really teach me anything I didn't know. I found it entertaining and a bit sad. I was on staff when Cyril was living in Melbourne and used to put the fear of Xenu into the local OSA crows when he showed up to picket. When he died we lost a great SP in Melbourne.

 

[lionheart]

Lionheart - I would say that the cycle certainly continued many times after 82 (I was there until a couple years ago and that ethics cycle is doing its loops right on time).

It would make sense that the psychotic cycle continued, because those at the top are dramatizing LRH and being him I suppose they can't help having the same self-destructive psychosis. Poor fools!

 

[lionheart]

Yeah I know it's weird that I hadn't read it.

I read "A Piece of Blue Sky" and "Bare Faced Mesiah" as soon as I was able to when I got out. I borrowed APOBS from the library and read BFM on line.

I've read a bunch of other stuff too, but for some reason I never got to this one, not in full anyhow.

I'm LOVING it. It has to be one of the best I've read. I'm glad I own a copy.

I also managed to snap up "The Mind Benders" by the late Cyril Vosper. I enjoyed the book although it didn't really teach me anything I didn't know. I found it entertaining and a bit sad. I was on staff when Cyril was living in Melbourne and used to put the fear of Xenu into the local OSA crows when he showed up to picket. When he died we lost a great SP in Melbourne.

I love the "great SP" description!

I remember in the seventies, around the corner from London Org, there was a bookshop that always had a copy of Mind Benders in its window!

 

[UMike]

Bent Corydon who wrote the book is pretty good pals with our own poster "Programmer Guy" BTW.
For my personal taste it's the only book I enjoyed and read many times other than the Kaufman read below. You picked a winner.

This was the first book in 1972 to publish Clearing and OT material.
It was the coffin nail of the SCN belief system and instrumental in my leaving.
It is now a collectors item as you will see:

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Scient..._bbs_sr_1/105-1963540-8752400?ie=UTF8&s=books

UMike

 

[Romuva]

The one thing is always wanted to know with LRon JR. was how much
he was telling about Sci and LRH was truth.

Personally,it wouldn't surprise me if everything he said was true,I always
wondered if some of what he said was embellished.Maybe some of it
was payback because he was really pissed off at some of the shit COS
did to him.Of course,it could also be total propaganda towards him.
Anything that will stick and grow legs.

but I always felt bad for him.I think he's a survivor.Another throwaway of
a talented ,if not at least intelligent person.Like so many in COS it seems.

 

[UMike]

The one thing is always wanted to know with LRon JR. was how much
he was telling about Sci and LRH was truth.

Personally,it wouldn't surprise me if everything he said was true,I always
wondered if some of what he said was embellished.Maybe some of it
was payback because he was really pissed off at some of the shit COS
did to him.Of course,it could also be total propaganda towards him.
Anything that will stick and grow legs.

but I always felt bad for him.I think he's a survivor.Another throwaway of
a talented ,if not at least intelligent person.Like so many in COS it seems.

Ask Alan--he knew him well.
I think it's ALL affirmitive.
Sifting through all the accounts I've seen over the years--Mixture of truth, bitterness and embellishment as well.
That Penthouse interview remains the most damning/important first hand account about LRH ever published. I re-read it every few years or so...

UMike

 

[Romuva]

Oh, I didn't know Alan knew him Umike.That's cool

I was reading a long page LRon Dewolfe had written on OC .Just
his thoughts on the organization and other ideas.

It just seemed he was being honest and not contriving anything.

Yeah ,it's strange with alot of these people.It seems they are so much
like Dissidents and detractors of other groups.

but yeah,I had a packet of old news articles sent to me about Ron Dewolfe plus the
penthouse interview.The Penthouse interview is very compelling.

I forgot about this part,scary if that part was true but it doesn't surprise me



Hubbard: Two of the people we were involved with in the late fifties in England were Errol Flynn and a man who was high up in the Labor Party at the time. My father and Errol Flynn were very similar. They were only interested in money, sex, booze, and drugs. At that time, in the late fifties, Flynn was pretty much of a burned-out hulk. But he was involved in smuggling deals with my father: gold from the Mediterranean, and some drugs --mostly cocaine. They were both just a little larger than life. I had to admire my father from one standpoint. As I've said, he was a down-and-out, broke science-fiction writer, and then he writes one book of science-fiction and convinces the world it's true. He sells it to millions of people and gets billions of dollars and everyone thinks he's some sort of deity. He was really bigger than life. Flynn was like that, too. You could say many negative things about the two of them, but they did as they pleased and lived as they pleased. It was always fun to sit there at dinner and listen to these two guys rap. Wild people. Errol Flynn was like my father also in that he would do anything for money. He would take anything to bed --boys, girls, Fifty-year-old women, ten-year-old boys, Flynn and my father had insatiable appetites. Tons of mistresses. They lived very high on the hog.


Penthouse: And what about this Labor Party official?


Hubbard: He was a double agent for the KGB and for the British intelligence agency. He was also a raging homosexual. He wanted my father to use his black-magic, soul-cracking, brainwashing techniques on young boys. He wanted these boys as his own sexual slaves. He wanted to use my father's techniques to crack people's heads open because he was very influential in and around the British government --plus he was selling information to the Russians. And so was my father.


Penthouse: Your father was selling information to the Soviets?


Hubbard: Yes. That's where my father got the money to buy St. Hill Manor in East Grinstead, Sussex, which is the English headquarters of Scientology today.


Penthouse: What information did your father have to sell the Soviet government?

Hubbard: He didn't do any spying himself. What he normally did was allow these strange little people to go into the offices and into his home at odd hours of the night. He told me that he was allowing the KGB to go through our files, and that he was charging £40,000 for it. This was the money he used for the purchase of St. Hill Manor.


Penthouse: Do you know any specific information that the KGB got from your father that might have been harmful to security?


Hubbard: The plans for an infrared heat-seeking missile in the early fifties. They obtained the information by extensive auditing of the guy who was one of the head engineers. There were great infiltrations clear to this day. There has always been an inordinate interest on the part of Scientology in military and government personnel. There's no way for me to prove it sitting here, but I believe that the KGB trained East German agents who came via Denmark to London to the United States who were, supposedly, Scientologists. They made very good Scientologists. They were very well trained.


Maybe it's not strange,I understand it better than I think I do,perhaps

 

[UMike]

Alan was an early researcher and developer of the tech--Clear #8.
You will want to read this:

HTH

UMike

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=33

 

[Romuva]

UMike thanks for the link.

I like Alan,he's a cool guy.I didn't realize who he was.


I didn't know LRH had a great -grandson who is also a critic.I'd liked to
e-mail and thank him .It was his grandfather's book that for the most part
got me out of COS.but it's all the long time ex's here that put it into
perspective.

 

[Oingo Boingo]

Hey, Rom...

It's been ages since I've read the Penthouse article. However, this part don't surprise me in the least:

The plans for an infrared heat-seeking missile in the early fifties. They obtained the information by extensive auditing of the guy who was one of the head engineers.

Given the whole "overts/withholds" thing = BAD, it's small wonder that Hubbard was able to pry the secrets out of these guys, cause remember, withhold = secret and you weren't allowed to have those when you audited. They had to be pulled.

It makes one wonder though, what advancement they got out of that session... Might have taken a while, but could have eventually resulted in the AA-11 "Aphid" air-to-air missile or the AS-10 "Karen" surface-to-air as well...

It's pretty scary that what was, for all intents and purposes, a mediocre sci-fi writer could have possibly held that much sway, especially at a time when the "Red Menace" was the ultimate boogyman.

Of course, this is not to mention the hypocrisy of Hubbard rolling over on his partners when he thought they did him wrong by decrying them as Communists (or Nazis) to the FBI.

 

[Romuva]

Hey OB,yeah it would make sense that they would get that information
out of those sessions.Whether top scientists and engineers with
security clearances were being audited is another matter.Who knows?

And in the end was there enough proof to show that LRH what do anything
for money,so to speak?

 

[Oingo Boingo]

Hey OB,yeah it would make sense that they would get that information
out of those sessions.Whether top scientists and engineers with
security clearances were being audited is another matter.Who knows?

And in the end was there enough proof to show that LRH what do anything for money,so to speak?

Heh.. Funny way of putting it, but yeah, even near the end of his life, LRH had an insatiable need for money and power. I think it was Vaughn Young who was present after one of the final strokes LRH had when he was hiding out in his Bluebird motor home. According to him, LRH would ask to see one of his suitcases filled with money and nod approvingly. Word has it he liked jewels and stocks/bonds too.

Earlier though, he openly admitted to this love for money and power outright. It kind of shocked RVY too. Additionally, in his auditing sessions, Hubbard allegedly had massive Overts/withholds on money and power issues as well, so yeah, I'd say there's evidence aplenty of it.

In the end, Hubbard died alone. By that I don't mean physically alone, he certainly had enough vultures around him waiting to pick the corpse of Scientology after his death, but in the end, the only thing that gave him comfort and solace was the hard, cold cash, not the people around him.

 

[Romuva]

Well the one thing I see with Scientology is the level of enticements and
so called incentives.

They seem like they do this alot with their P.I.'s (it's alot of the same shit
the KGB used to do supposedly) basically give us info and we'll make things
good for you.A good informant has alot of incentive.After a while you'll
have the best team working for you,I'm sure.Take a guy like Ingram
he was a cop? right?...even better.scumbag with a badge for hire.


and I'm sure over the years they have refined that.A Scientologist P.I.
or lawyer is optimum...Auditing is better than money..ect.

so it had to of started somewhere.What better place than "source".

I think one thing Ron Dewolfe probably was right about was his family
having a history of Rouges and scoundrels.

That's probably alot of what his father was.A manipulative B.S. artist so
he could appeal to those types that wanted to work for him...P.I.'s
,lawyers ..ect..

It just seems to make sense

 

[programmer_guy]

Bent Corydon who wrote the book is pretty good pals with our own poster "Programmer Guy" BTW.

Noooo! Please don't think that. This is not true. I did not talk to Bent one-on-one very many times AND those few times were fairly brief. I haven't seen him since I left about 30 years ago (I left in Spring 1976 to return to college).

For my personal taste it's the only book I enjoyed and read many times other than the Kaufman read below. You picked a winner.

It wasn't the only tell-all SCN exposé book that I liked BUT it is my favorite. As I have said - I am biased because I was at the Riverside Mission and I liked Bent (and Mary too).

Best regards

 

[programmer_guy]

I remember Bent mentioning in his book when Hubbard moved into Riverside County and how his (Bent's) life was then "meddled with".

This was really the beginning of the end to the Riverside Mission.

I'll review this later and post some more.

When the mission was being destroyed by CofS, some staff moved elsewhere: to Buenaventura mission - Jim Hamre, Tom & Kathy; to Palo Alto mission - Rodney & Joanie, Stricklands, Greniers, Loretta, (Frank Walker?), and more. (I wonder if Roger Coy moved to Palo Alto - he was the drummer for both bands.)

 

[programmer_guy]

When I went to visit Tory last February (a year ago) I was hoping that Bent would be there. No luck.

It was still interesting. Several people from ARS were there (I will not name them as Tory asked us not to do that)... only two of us from OCMB.

In person, Tory is a lovable person. I walked into the front door and headed straight to find her (found her in the kitchen) and said, "Hi, I'm programmer guy." She smiled and opened her arms for a big hug - that's the way she is. I like Tory.