Mark 'Marty' Rathbun: The Scientology Sandbox

[Student of Trinity]

I agree that evil genius may go under-appreciated as genius because people want genius to be good. But I think I took this into account. I'm not denigrating Hubbard's talents just because he used them for ill.

The range of human accomplishment is immense. Most people only ever make the local paper in their obituary. Some people are still household names after thousands of years. So a term like 'genius' can be very misleading. Does it mean one-in-fifty? That's pretty exceptional, after all. But then what term shall we use for people who are one-in-fifty-million?

I work in physics, and I like to read history, so when I think of 'genius', I think of people like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Julius Caesar, Otto von Bismarck. I really can't consider the successful creation of a modest-sized and short-lived cult to be on a par with achievements — for good or ill — like theirs.

Some number of notches down from that, though, sure: Hubbard was exceptional. Most people couldn't launch even a tiny cult. Hubbard had an unusual knack for it, undoubtedly. He also picked a good era to work in. He was in the right place at the right time.

As I've said, I take the same sort of view of Hubbard's writing: exceptional, but only at a low level. I think he could write sentences and short paragraphs better than most people; I think he was mediocre at best, however, and awful at worst, in comparison to other professional writers.

 

[Udarnik]

I agree that evil genius may go under-appreciated as genius because people want genius to be good. But I think I took this into account. I'm not denigrating Hubbard's talents just because he used them for ill.

The range of human accomplishment is immense. Most people only ever make the local paper in their obituary. Some people are still household names after thousands of years. So a term like 'genius' can be very misleading. Does it mean one-in-fifty? That's pretty exceptional, after all. But then what term shall we use for people who are one-in-fifty-million?

I work in physics, and I like to read history, so when I think of 'genius', I think of people like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Julius Caesar, Otto von Bismarck. I really can't consider the successful creation of a modest-sized and short-lived cult to be on a par with achievements — for good or ill — like theirs.

Some number of notches down from that, though, sure: Hubbard was exceptional. Most people couldn't launch even a tiny cult. Hubbard had an unusual knack for it, undoubtedly. He also picked a good era to work in. He was in the right place at the right time.

As I've said, I take the same sort of view of Hubbard's writing: exceptional, but only at a low level. I think he could write sentences and short paragraphs better than most people; I think he was mediocre at best, however, and awful at worst, in comparison to other professional writers.

Hubbard's writing was not even exceptional within the sub-group of writers he inhabited. What was exceptional, was his ability to rapidly produce mediocre stories that met the minimal standards of the pulp magazines at a rate that was truly prodigious. That talent does not a genius make, and his genius was certainly not in the written word - although that was the one academic area he achieved any sort of competence in.

But I think you are not evaluating the complexity of the Co$ - the number of traps and counter traps set up - deliberately so - in his system. It takes longer to disentangle from the Co$ than practically any other cult. I think you're discounting Hubbard's genius because it does not fit into the academic mold. He saw farther than pretty much any cult leader in history in the number of elements in his cult, and in the ancillary business and legal shields he used to construct his edifice. From a certain perspective, the Co$ is a work of art.

 

[Gib]

The Factors are IMO his greatest piece of writing. Some of he ideas were put forth
earlier by Crowley who took them from earlier texts

http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/01/page03.htm

Here is Crowleys idea.

http://www.corax.com/tarot/index.html?naples-arrangement

thanks for links Terril.

I'm familiar with Hubbards Factors http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/01/page04.htm

It seems to me, now, that points 8,9 & 10 are just statements, with no explanation by Hubbard. You know, the hardest outpoint to find is the missing.

8 And thus there is light.
9 And thus there is energy.
10 And thus there is life.

I have not read too much of the second link, so I will.

 

[Gib]

This re-write appears at the beginning of the book 'Scientology 8-8008', which features a long and impressive list of great thinkers, sans the name of Crowley. The prestigious names were placed there, not because Hubbard seriously studied their works, but because they gave credibility and gravitas to Hubbard. More manipulation.

Totally agree, and in addition, is not this Hubbards use of Rhetoric, namely Ethos:

Ethos: The Appeal to the Speaker’s or Writer’s Character or Reputation

If you wish to persuade, you need to establish credibility and authority with your audience. A man may have the most logical and well-thought-out argument, but if his audience doesn’t think he’s trustworthy or even worth listening to, all his reasoning will be for naught.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/12/21/classical-rhetoric-101-the-three-means-of-persuasion/

The problem with Rhetoric, is that it can be used for good or bad. And Hubbard figured that one out.

For many in our modern world, the word “rhetoric” has a pejorative meaning. They see rhetoric as the manipulation of truth or associate it with an overly fastidious concern with how things are said over what is said

 

[Type4_PTS]

thanks for links Terril.

I'm familiar with Hubbards Factors http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/01/page04.htm

It seems to me, now, that points 8,9 & 10 are just statements, with no explanation by Hubbard. You know, the hardest outpoint to find is the missing.

8 And thus there is light.
9 And thus there is energy.
10 And thus there is life.
11 L. Ron Hubbard arrived. Thus there is bullshit.

I have not read too much of the second link, so I will.

I took the liberty of filling in the missing factor which I discovered during my years of "research".

 

[Elronius of Marcabia]

Hubbard's re-write of Aleister Crowley has been used for over 60 years to awe vulnerable "raw meat" and lead them into the labyrinth of Scientology. Manipulation.

This re-write appears at the beginning of the book 'Scientology 8-8008', which features a long and impressive list of great thinkers, sans the name of Crowley. The prestigious names were placed there, not because Hubbard seriously studied their works, but because they gave credibility and gravitas to Hubbard. More manipulation.

'The Factors' ends with the pompous and incredibly insincere words, "Humbly tendered as a gift to Man by L. Ron Hubbard..." Yet more manipulation.


Hubbard's borrowings from Crowley have been examined in detail, publicly, for the better part of thirty years. For anyone curious, the below snippet of a post links to the rambling 'The Sole Source Myth' thread, which contains many links, including to other threads:

What kind of dickhead writes that sort of thing ? a very special kind with gold braid and a very funny hat, but also used in
a lot of hustles to evoke the Nemesis effect, remember Tom Cruise in Color of Money, the idea is distract your opponent from
playing pool and wanting get your hands around the assholes neck !!

Arrogance and hubris are great bait

I hustled a little pool in my mispent youth you don't have to be great at pool just good at playing the player.
and of course an amoral attitude like "Life is a Game" so that taking down the "mark" for his food and rent money
and shoes for his kids leaves you with no sense of having wronged the fella or yourself.

It helps to degrade the person with terms like "mark" or "wog" or "homosap"

Old hustle but it still works.

 

[Student of Trinity]

But I think you are not evaluating the complexity of the Co$ - the number of traps and counter traps set up - deliberately so - in his system. It takes longer to disentangle from the Co$ than practically any other cult. I think you're discounting Hubbard's genius because it does not fit into the academic mold. He saw farther than pretty much any cult leader in history in the number of elements in his cult, and in the ancillary business and legal shields he used to construct his edifice. From a certain perspective, the Co$ is a work of art.

Ehh, maybe. The big thing I'm always aware I'm missing, in evaluating Scientology, is personal experience of the 'auditing high'. My working theory is that this is the real active ingredient in the cult — the cocaine in the cola, so to speak. I think I'm open to any evidence or argument against this working theory; so far, though, I haven't noticed any such evidence or argument. If anybody has posted to the effect, "What? No — that's not really so important," then I've missed it.

Apart from that, I just don't see anything so subtle or brilliant in Scn. Would any of it really hold people without that cool feeling of insightfulness from auditing?

Maybe I've managed to miss lots of important stuff in my time watching Scientology, but my impression at this point is still that it's a whole lot of pretty slapdash mumbo-jumbo wrapped around two simple things: the promise of superhuman powers; and the apparent evidence, in the form of the auditing high, that you are indeed on the road to those powers, and they'll come Real Soon. People get hooked by those two things, and the rest of it all is just a jumble of excuses graciously provided by the management for the benefit of patrons who want to kid themselves.

Attributing genius to Hubbard, for luring people so well with all his clever traps, seems to me like admiring the flair of a motel owner who lures in so many hourly customers with his tasteful interior design. His customers aren't really there for his carpets. His business is successful, in a modest way, but it doesn't take a genius to run his kind of business.

 

[Gib]

Ehh, maybe. The big thing I'm always aware I'm missing, in evaluating Scientology, is personal experience of the 'auditing high'. My working theory is that this is the real active ingredient in the cult — the cocaine in the cola, so to speak. I think I'm open to any evidence or argument against this working theory; so far, though, I haven't noticed any such evidence or argument. If anybody has posted to the effect, "What? No — that's not really so important," then I've missed it.

Apart from that, I just don't see anything so subtle or brilliant in Scn. Would any of it really hold people without that cool feeling of insightfulness from auditing?

Maybe I've managed to miss lots of important stuff in my time watching Scientology, but my impression at this point is still that it's a whole lot of pretty slapdash mumbo-jumbo wrapped around two simple things: the promise of superhuman powers; and the apparent evidence, in the form of the auditing high, that you are indeed on the road to those powers, and they'll come Real Soon. People get hooked by those two things, and the rest of it all is just a jumble of excuses graciously provided by the management for the benefit of patrons who want to kid themselves.

Attributing genius to Hubbard, for luring people so well with all his clever traps, seems to me like admiring the flair of a motel owner who lures in so many hourly customers with his tasteful interior design. His customers aren't really there for his carpets. His business is successful, in a modest way, but it doesn't take a genius to run his kind of business.

I think you explain it well.

As far as the auditing high goes, I'm sure you have experienced them.

Were you ever stuck in some problem, and couldn't figure it out after many tries, and then one day you figured it out and said to yourself "Oh, I get it" and you became quite happy as a result?

Or just realized something in your life, and you became quite happy?

or after 4 years of hard study, and you got your PhD and you became quite happy.

That's the auditing high.

 

[strativarius]

I think you explain it well.

As far as the auditing high goes, I'm sure you have experienced them.

Were you ever stuck in some problem, and couldn't figure it out after many tries, and then one day you figured it out and said to yourself "Oh, I get it" and you became quite happy as a result?

Or just realized something in your life, and you became quite happy?

or after 4 years of hard study, and you got your PhD and you became quite happy.

That's the auditing high.

Others might disagree, but I don't think he's (S of T) missing all that much. Lower-grade processing, where one deals with 'down to earth' issues like communication, upsets etc might engender a cathartic result, a feeling of relief, of a load being taken off one's mind.

Likewise, after being asked to compile a list of 'people who really pissed you off' for example, and subsequently being told by the auditor (with a big 'encouraging' smile on his/her face) that name #4 on the list is the person that 'really pissed you off' can give rise to a feeling of well-being, a sort of confirmation that 'yes, I was right all along, so and so WAS a real c**t'.

How much one can delude oneself that ridding oneself of imaginary space-cooties (I just love that expression) is making one feel good I can't say, because I stopped at OT I.

I'm sure there's a lot of self-delusion that goes with 'having great gains from auditing'. There's a temporary feeling of exhilaration, (possibly more self-induced than for any other reason), then you're rushed off to the examiner while your needle's still floating, and next day you're back in review. Doh!

And there's the fear of NOT having great gains from auditing for a start of course, and we all know what that means.

 

[Gib]

Others might disagree, but I don't think he's (S of T) missing all that much. Lower-grade processing, where one deals with 'down to earth' issues like communication, upsets etc might engender a cathartic result, a feeling of relief, of a load being taken off one's mind.

Likewise, after being asked to compile a list of 'people who really pissed you off' for example, and subsequently being told by the auditor (with a big 'encouraging' smile on his/her face) that name #4 on the list is the person that 'really pissed you off' can give rise to a feeling of well-being, a sort of confirmation that 'yes, I was right all along, so and so WAS a real c**t'.

How much one can delude oneself that ridding oneself of imaginary space-cooties (I just love that expression) is making one feel good I can't say, because I stopped at OT I.

I'm sure there's a lot of self-delusion that goes with 'having great gains from auditing'. There's a temporary feeling of exhilaration, (possibly more self-induced than for any other reason), then you're rushed off to the examiner while your needle's still floating, and next day you're back in review. Doh!

And there's the fear of NOT having great gains from auditing for a start of course, and we all know what that means.

I totally agree, but I never said SOT was missing anything. SOT said he/she was "missing" the experience of the auditing high in his evaluation of scientology. So I just tried to give him examples of what the experience would feel like. I'm not saying to SOT that he should go out and get auditing because he's missing out on the "auditing high".

For example, like this morning, when I read Type4-PTS reply comment to me, above. Type4-PTS got me laughing, I'm still laughing at his comment. That's an "auditing high".

For example, when I got the Debbie Cook email, I was ecstatic. Finally somebody of status in the COS agreed with my views of the IAS donations being BS.

Or reading the Apollo treat, the Pandora's box tread, Face's tread ----------all these were "auditing highs" for me. It was finally, I got to hear from first hand accounts of the BS artist Hubbard was.

Or reading HH's comments here on esmb, all are "auditing highs".

Or other posters that tell truthful hidden things in the COS.

Jeepers, I think I've had more "auditing highs" from reading here and other blogs than I got from "auditing" itself.

PS: Yes, I do want somebody to experience the gains I have had since leaving the COS.

 

[strativarius]

I totally agree, but I never said SOT was missing anything. SOT said he/she was "missing" the experience of the auditing high in his evaluation of scientology. So I just tried to give him examples of what the experience would feel like. I'm not saying to SOT that he should go out and get auditing because he's missing out on the "auditing high".

For example, like this morning, when I read Type4-PTS reply comment to me, above. Type4-PTS got me laughing, I'm still laughing at his comment. That's an "auditing high".

For example, when I got the Debbie Cook email, I was ecstatic. Finally somebody of status in the COS agreed with my views of the IAS donations being BS.

Or reading the Apollo treat, the Pandora's box tread, Face's tread ----------all these were "auditing highs" for me. It was finally, I got to hear from first hand accounts of the BS artist Hubbard was.

Or reading HH's comments here on esmb, all are "auditing highs".

Or other posters that tell truthful hidden things in the COS.

Jeepers, I think I've had more "auditing highs" from reading here and other blogs than I got from "auditing" itself.

PS: Yes, I do want somebody to experience the gains I have had since leaving the COS.

Yes, S of T himself said he was missing something, and that is what I was referring to also.

 

[Teanntás]

No way. For me he's a terrible writer. Like, bottom few percent. His writing makes me want to curl up and die. It's so bad it makes me flinch.

His prose is to the written word what Battlefield Earth is to the world of film.

(Or were you joking?)



On the 'was he a genius?' issue, I think it only makes sense to compare him to other con-men. Like P. T. Barnum or that guy who forged all the cheques in Catch Me If You Can. Because otherwise you're comparing apples with oranges. But he was certainly very talented at manipulation and deception.

One aspect of his genius (IMO) was persuading many of his readers that if they didn't understand his prose then it was because they weren't as clever or as well-informed as him - rather than it simply being because he was a bad writer who was talking nonsense. He was good at presenting himself as an authority.

If it's that easy then why don't more people do it? There's no shortage of fraudsters in the world.

"A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...-death-knell-David-Cameron.html#ixzz3GQNY1L1Q
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[fishypants]

So the confessional aspect of auditing gives rise to a kind of cathartic euphoria?

It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has participated in Scientology 'auditing' and also in other forms of confession (whether secular e.g. psychoanalysis or religious e.g. Catholic confessional): do they give rise to the same feeling that you got from 'early wins' in auditing?

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

--snipped--

But I think you are not evaluating the complexity of the Co$ - the number of traps and counter traps set up - deliberately so - in his system. It takes longer to disentangle from the Co$ than practically any other cult. I think you're discounting Hubbard's genius because it does not fit into the academic mold. He saw farther than pretty much any cult leader in history in the number of elements in his cult, and in the ancillary business and legal shields he used to construct his edifice. From a certain perspective, the Co$ is a work of art.

Fascinating concept. Worthy of its own thread.

The first one that immediately comes to mind is the fairly recent mutation a fair number of Scientologists underwent in the form of "Indie Scientologist".

Well, they they were, happily in the COS having huge wins about their "Total Freedom"--when, suddenly they found something even better. Apparently Indie Scientology offered them "Even Free-er Total Freedom".LOL. Because, they would appear with regularity on the front page of Marty Rathbun's website in a grand showing of their newfound freedom from Scientology's traps & counter traps by doing what?

By doing what Ron said and writing up their "Doubt Formula".

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Ludicrous. They are leaving the COS and committing the "High Crime" of stating it publicly. That alone (aside from joining a "Suppressive" squirrel group and a host of other "Criminal" charges) is a little act which by itself would have caused L. Ron Hubbard to Declare, Disconnect, Fair Game and condemn them to destruction or death. Yet, they are doing what Ron would do, applying his tech and "Formulas".

Now that's what I call a LOYAL officer! LOL.

L. RON HUBBARD
Hey, some out ethics Scientologists tried to blow
so I murdered them with my .45 caliber. Now I notice that
you are out ethics too, but my gun is out of ammo.

LOYAL OFFICER
No problem, Ron, I'll apply KSW and run down to the
ammo store right now to pick some up for you. ​