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What was LRH to You When You were a Scientologist?

Demented Hubbatd

Patron with Honors
I think that lurking Scientologists would like to know what kind of evolution ex-Scientologists went through before they left the cult.

My CoS story is atypical -- at the time of my involvement with Scientology I was an atheist, so I didn't believe in the theta crap, my sole interest was Dianetics. To me Hubbard was the most sophisticated psychologist, kind of Newton of Psychology. My WOG friends were surprised with my assessment of the Hubbard persona, they were calling his religion a "science fiction" religion.

In response to their criticism I would give a long speech comparing Hubbard to Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli was a famous physicist who made a theoretical prediction about the electron spin. Shortly after his prediction the experiments confirm that, when subjected to electromagnetic field, an electron acquires the spin. For his contribution to science Pauli was awarded Nobel Prize. Pauli firmly believed in Numerology, which is pseudoscience, and even tried to introduce it into Physics. However, his attempts failed. I would say to my friends, "Just because Pauli believed in Numerology. he is not to be denied of his contributions to Physics. The same is true about Hubbard -- his irrational belief in the spirits should not be used to evaluate his outstanding research in the field of Psychology."

After I left the cult, I was angry at myself for not asking the Church representatives to show me at least one Dianetics case study. However, psychologically I was unharmed by the cult because I didn't see its founder as a religious figure.
 

pineapple

Silver Meritorious Patron
Even when I was in, I somewhat distrusted Hubbard and was aware that he had a bit of the con man about him. This suspicion largely came from seeing the Tony Hitchman interview*, which I didn't see until after I joined staff. We didn't show it to the public, possibly because even as scngsts we were dimly aware that Hubbard came across a bit shady.

Though I believed in the "tech," I didn't believe something was true just because Hubbard said it, and took refuge in "Nothing in scn is true except for what you yourself have experienced." I see now, though, that this was a trap, as it allowed me to let things go by that I should have examined more carefully.

I realize now that my initial suspicion was true, and Hubbard was a con man -- a highly intelligent, charismatic, and successful one. I know he's supposed to have said he felt he'd failed, but he did pretty well for himself, even if he didn't live to be 200 years old or make all men his slaves.

*wherein Ron famously claims to have hunted with pygmies in the Philippines and slept with Mongolian bandits. Easily found on YouTube if you haven't seen it.
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
I remember once I met someone from a different org to me and he told me that he'd been told that someone had written to a U.S. Government department to ask about Ron's war record and they had confirmed everything that the CofS said about LRH being a war hero.

This made me very happy and I decided I would tell this story to anyone who ever questioned Ron's war record because this was proof that he was a hero.

Looking back at this now I find it amazing that I was so mind-controlled that I considered this story to be proof against criticism of LRH.

Currently I'm reading a book by an ex Jehovah's Witness and it's the same old story. They are not allowed to listen to anyone else, only the official JW organization, because the rest of the world is evil. This is obviously a successful action for mind-control cults.
 

Demented Hubbatd

Patron with Honors
Even after 4 months in Sea Org I still believed in Dianteics, although I saw plenty of SO members wearing glasses and being Clear at the same time. My explanation was contrived, but it made sense to me at that time -- I thought they were declared Clear by mistake, and their auditors were morons who didn't use the shiny Tech properly. Of course, I didn't share my thoughts with the fellow SO staff.

Four months passed by, and I got out of SO. I begun attending Scientology seminars at LA Org. At the seminars I openly criticized Dianetics auditors for their poor training. Surprisingly, my critique was met with warm reception from public Scientologists who were too timid to speak their mind; after the seminars they told me that I was right -- the auditors are disgrace to the Tech. I even met an old-timer who "worked with LRH" He said that LRH was able to cure all illnesses listed in book 1, but modern auditors use something he called Non-standard Tech. The guy was nuts, he also said LRH was Christ, but I ignored that remark.
 

phenomanon

Canyon
I thought he was a Clairvoyant, Like Edgar Cayce. I thought that he did Automatic Writing. I thought he had magic; he cast spells. 1952.
 

pineapple

Silver Meritorious Patron
-- snip --
Four months passed by, and I got out of SO. I begun attending Scientology seminars at LA Org. At the seminars I openly criticized Dianetics auditors for their poor training. Surprisingly, my critique was met with warm reception from public Scientologists who were too timid to speak their mind; after the seminars they told me that I was right -- the auditors are disgrace to the Tech.
-- snip --
They may have been applying a method of handling critics recommended in History of Man: agree with them. This is for when the critic is considered "beyond hope." :)
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
I believed the whole "empty boots" story, or whatever that was. That he was a benevolent, profit-like man that truly cared about all of us, and wanted to help. I saw him as a best friend who I could always trust within the words he wrote. I also really believed he was a physicist--a logical thinker like an engineer, which was how he was able to find the insight (or path) into and up through the OT levels. I basically believed the entire ruse and it took many years for me to un-believe it and accept that he went nuts, or probably was all along. I was also very young when I originally gravitated into Scientology, so I also thought the whole thing was magical. Just put a big dunce cap on me and call it a day.
 

Demented Hubbatd

Patron with Honors
I believed the whole "empty boots" story, or whatever that was. That he was a benevolent, profit-like man that truly cared about all of us, and wanted to help. I saw him as a best friend who I could always trust within the words he wrote. I also really believed he was a physicist--a logical thinker like an engineer, which was how he was able to find the insight (or path) into and up through the OT levels. I basically believed the entire ruse and it took many years for me to un-believe it and accept that he went nuts, or probably was all along. I was also very young when I originally gravitated into Scientology, so I also thought the whole thing was magical. Just put a big dunce cap on me and call it a day.
I also read about Hubbard being a physicist, so I asked my friend, a real physicist, to find some articles written by LRH. As a first step, my friend checked the PhD national registry, and told me that Hubbard's name was not in it. That should have raised a red flag for me. But I thought that the article on Hubbard contained a misprint (Hubbard was not the author of the article), so I ignored the warning.

Shortly after that I heard from a public Scientologist that Hubbard was the incarnation of Buddha. Unfortunately, he didn't know where the data came from. he told me that he heard it from his friend. Thus I missed the second red flag -- I thought that this Buddha thing was just a silly rumor not based on Hubbard's words.
 

EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
I did not ever believe the Buddha thing. I read a lot of Zen before I got in. Yes, I was 12. Call me a nutty child, but I slightly pulled away from Scientology from 16-19 when I wasn't quite finished with experimenting with drugs. In any case, the "rumor" comes from Hymn of Asia, a kind of poetic text he wrote that is not a Scientology book, but it was written within its time frame. In it, he really alludes to being the incarnate of Buddha, citing that this person would come to have light red hair and fair skin (which I have never once heard of). This whole thing sort of pissed me off. It reminded me of a lot I had problems with growing up as a Jew in a country of Christians, or rather, being submerged into Bible classes, camps, etc., then having to learn the Torah too. I'd have legitimate questions about which and what prophecies were supposed to be fulfilled by a messiah and get ridiculous unreal answers--answers that seemed just as far fetched as Scientology, in all honesty. We exes are seen as "nut jobs" for believing in some of the things we did, yet it's okay to believe in all the wacky stories of the Bible in a literal manner.

Anyway, Hubbard always claimed to be a man and nothing more, then he implies being Buddha? I was turned off.
 
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strativarius

Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
I believed the whole "empty boots" story, or whatever that was. That he was a benevolent, profit-like man that truly cared about all of us, and wanted to help. I saw him as a best friend who I could always trust within the words he wrote. <snip>
A 'profit-like man'. Yes EZL, you've got that absolutely spot-on!
 

Operating DB

Truman Show Dropout
I regarded hubbard as the man with all the answers. I was 20 and incredibly naive. I was looking for something and considered getting into TM as that was in vogue in 1975. I looked up a high school buddy who was enrolled in the university in the city I had just moved to and he turned me onto diametrics and in a nanosecond I was hooked. It helped that three other high school buddies got into it as well. Nothing like trusting your friends! I really fell for the marketing hype that Dianology was the answer to all of my ills. It was the perfect storm - all these factors were aligned to suck me in. I was so convinced by its hype that not all the red flags in the world could pull me away from it. I was that hopeful. When the shite hit the fan with the Mission Holders debacle in 1982-3 I finally started questioning things. I blamed it all on the mysterious influences of bad upper management but I still believed in the hubs. Shortly after my escape from cult in 1985 it took only one book (Messiah or Madman) to unravel it all and I soon came to the conclusion that hubbard was the incarnation of all that is evil.
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
Shortly after my escape from cult in 1985 it took only one book (Messiah or Madman) to unravel it all and I soon came to the conclusion that hubbard was the incarnation of all that is evil.
Wow, I consider you very lucky, and smart! It took a lot more books and therapy for me.
 

Demented Hubbatd

Patron with Honors
. Shortly after my escape from cult in 1985 it took only one book (Messiah or Madman) to unravel it all and I soon came to the conclusion that hubbard was the incarnation of all that is evil.
I read this book after I became disillusioned with Scientology. But I used it to pull two my friends of out the cult. Once they finished reading the book, they were Scientologists no more.
 

Demented Hubbatd

Patron with Honors
The LA Org seminars were kind of fun. Here is an example:

The topic of this seminar was an LRH book, The Creation of Human Ability. I thought the book was about Dianetics, but it wasn't. For about 40 minutes I was hearing nonsense about mocking up planets, stars and other objects, and was slowly falling asleep. Then the speaker begun talking about prefect duplicates of objects.

"When such duplicate is made, both the duplicate and the original object disappear, " said the speaker. Smart Alec asked him, "Have you made a perfect copy of an object?" "I tried but was not successful. However, the object, which was a bottle, became dim, as LRH predicted," said the speaker
"What if a copy is not perfect: will it stay?" I said. "Yes, it will stay," said the speaker.

"Here is the solution to all CoS problems. The best gold is produced in India, the purest one is 22 karate high. Now, if you make an imperfect copy of 22 karate golden bar, you will get 20 karate golden bar, which is very good, most stores in the US sell 14 karate gold," I said.
"I never thought of that. I think, you're right," said the speaker.

"They already do that in Big Blue, although not with the gold but with the diamonds, " said a short and freckled man. "Where?" said the speaker.
"In the Big Blue basement," said the shorty. "I've been in the basement when I was in Sea Org. There is a Xerox copy machine there, two RPF rooms and ASHO cabinets with files, nothing more," I said.

"The corridor with the files has the door at its end, did you see it?" said the shorty. "Yes, but there is big door lock on it," I said.
"The lock is for the show. There is a large room behind the door, there are 20 highly qualified Scientologists there who make imperfect copies of Sough African diamonds," said the shorty.

"Why none of us has heard about this enterprise?" said the speaker. "They work in deep secrecy. If the rumor gets out that CoS are making artificial diamonds, their price would go down dramatically," said the shorty.

"I am going to buy that book. I'm going to do it right now because the book store will be closed in 25 minutes," said Smart Alec, and headed to the exit, majority of the seminar participants followed her.
 
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