Xenu's Boyfriend
Silver Meritorious Patron
I'm not surprised by LRH's death-bed confession in the slightest. It makes perfect sense.
In many ways, in almost all ways, L. Ron Hubbard did fail. He went after psychiatrists after Dianetics because he was pissed that they shut him out of their little club and refused to acknowledge the value of his work. That's when he really created this whole thing about the "psychs". Despite his swashbuckling confidence, he really wanted approval.
LRH wanted to be seen on the world's stage as a genius, a brilliant man, an innovator and someone who moved society forward and made a great contribution. But he wrestled with the demons of his need for absolute power and his greed. I think he had contempt for the Scientologists that followed him ("I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member") which is why he humiliated so many people in the organization and in his private life - he was externalizing his own contempt. Ultimately, he wanted to win a Pulitzer Prize or a Nobel Peace Prize or something that would say he was a great man in the eyes of the world.
But after Scientologists went to prison for infiltrating, burglarizing and wiretapping (he should have gone too) and after he'd been on the run for tax evasion and other crimes on the Apollo, I think he must have known before his death that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Maybe he was drugged and delusional when he said he'd failed, but people say this kind of stuff before they die all the time. Maybe he had a real spiritual vision - unlike the crap he'd been telling/selling people for years, sort of like in the movies where the man finds out the magic potions he's been selling for years as a scam really work when the genie appears. Maybe he saw God.
In other words, he remembered suddenly that it wasn't about the money after all, but that he wanted to be admired, and instead, he was hiding like a wharf rat, dying in private when he should have been feted by society. And, even worse, he wasn't going to be able to turn the church over to another man, or son, who, (as he considered himself to be), was, for all his faults, at least a thinker/writer/intellectual, but to David M, who was at best a vulgarian, not intellectual at all, and was a creation of all that was wrong with Scientology.
LRH failure was that he created David Miscavige, Son of Scientology. (John McCain felt the same way when he unleashed Sarah Palin onto the free world.)
LRH knew he failed because he would never be seen as a real man of the arts, but a snake-oil salesman. He had all the money he wanted in the end, more than he needed, but it wasn't about the money because he couldn't take that with him, and DM ripped him off anyway before he died so he was probably broke anyway.
It was the approval - and not from the people he brainwashed, but from his peers. And it wasn't going to happen. That's what he found out in the end.
His legacy would be considered duplicitous, covert, and ultimately something shameful. And that hurt him deeply.
In many ways, in almost all ways, L. Ron Hubbard did fail. He went after psychiatrists after Dianetics because he was pissed that they shut him out of their little club and refused to acknowledge the value of his work. That's when he really created this whole thing about the "psychs". Despite his swashbuckling confidence, he really wanted approval.
LRH wanted to be seen on the world's stage as a genius, a brilliant man, an innovator and someone who moved society forward and made a great contribution. But he wrestled with the demons of his need for absolute power and his greed. I think he had contempt for the Scientologists that followed him ("I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member") which is why he humiliated so many people in the organization and in his private life - he was externalizing his own contempt. Ultimately, he wanted to win a Pulitzer Prize or a Nobel Peace Prize or something that would say he was a great man in the eyes of the world.
But after Scientologists went to prison for infiltrating, burglarizing and wiretapping (he should have gone too) and after he'd been on the run for tax evasion and other crimes on the Apollo, I think he must have known before his death that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Maybe he was drugged and delusional when he said he'd failed, but people say this kind of stuff before they die all the time. Maybe he had a real spiritual vision - unlike the crap he'd been telling/selling people for years, sort of like in the movies where the man finds out the magic potions he's been selling for years as a scam really work when the genie appears. Maybe he saw God.
In other words, he remembered suddenly that it wasn't about the money after all, but that he wanted to be admired, and instead, he was hiding like a wharf rat, dying in private when he should have been feted by society. And, even worse, he wasn't going to be able to turn the church over to another man, or son, who, (as he considered himself to be), was, for all his faults, at least a thinker/writer/intellectual, but to David M, who was at best a vulgarian, not intellectual at all, and was a creation of all that was wrong with Scientology.
LRH failure was that he created David Miscavige, Son of Scientology. (John McCain felt the same way when he unleashed Sarah Palin onto the free world.)
LRH knew he failed because he would never be seen as a real man of the arts, but a snake-oil salesman. He had all the money he wanted in the end, more than he needed, but it wasn't about the money because he couldn't take that with him, and DM ripped him off anyway before he died so he was probably broke anyway.
It was the approval - and not from the people he brainwashed, but from his peers. And it wasn't going to happen. That's what he found out in the end.
His legacy would be considered duplicitous, covert, and ultimately something shameful. And that hurt him deeply.
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