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Mark 'Marty' Rathbun: The Scientology Sandbox

if you were to take their words for granted you would have to rank Hubbard as one of the more able and intelligent minds of the twentieth century.​

He seems to be saying that's implausible. I'm not sure why.

In my view Hubbard was an extremely intelligent and able person; unfortunately he was also a highly manipulative and completely amoral opportunistic sociopath.

I guess Marty is thinking that those of us who are opposed to Scientology's abuses necessarily think that Hubbard was a stupid person. That's not the case.




The complexity, the breadth, and the duration of Hubbard’s alleged fraudulent scheme would be a virtual impossibility for any mere mortal to accomplish.​

I'm struggling to see why he thinks this.

The scope / complexity / duration of Scientology is smaller than lots of other organisations - e.g. corporations such as IBM, HP, Google, Apple, governments, other religions - and they were all constructed by 'mere mortals'.

If he's saying that the "Hubbard was a con man" argument implies that Hubbard planned every step of the Dianetics/Scientology journey before starting on it, and never put a foot wrong, then that's clearly a straw man argument.

Hubbard made plenty of mistakes, e.g. losing control of Dianetics, and his megalomaniacal vision of Scientology superceding national governments and taking control of the world was obviously and always doomed to failure.

But none of that means that Scientology's abuses don't exist.


So - playing the game of "what's Marty really saying" - I go with this:

"There's no-one but irrational extremists on either side; I'm the only one who's reasonable".



X-Ref: https://whyweprotest.net/threads/mark-marty-rathbun-the-scientology-sandbox.120680/
 

HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
He seems to be saying that's implausible. I'm not sure why.

In my view Hubbard was an extremely intelligent and able person; unfortunately he was also a highly manipulative and completely amoral opportunistic sociopath.

I guess Marty is thinking that those of us who are opposed to Scientology's abuses necessarily think that Hubbard was a stupid person. That's not the case.

I'm struggling to see why he thinks this.

The scope / complexity / duration of Scientology is smaller than lots of other organisations - e.g. corporations such as IBM, HP, Google, Apple, governments, other religions - and they were all constructed by 'mere mortals'.

If he's saying that the "Hubbard was a con man" argument implies that Hubbard planned every step of the Dianetics/Scientology journey before starting on it, and never put a foot wrong, then that's clearly a straw man argument.

Hubbard made plenty of mistakes, e.g. losing control of Dianetics, and his megalomaniacal vision of Scientology superceding national governments and taking control of the world was obviously and always doomed to failure.

But none of that means that Scientology's abuses don't exist.


So - playing the game of "what's Marty really saying" - I go with this:

"There's no-one but irrational extremists on either side; I'm the only one who's reasonable".



LOL

I hate to pick on Marty, but he keeps sermonizing about things which he hasn't yet figured out.

Marty just loves to play "FOLLOW THE LEADER".

He played it dutifully when the COMMODORE was the leader and he followed everything he was told to think & do.

He played it dutifully when the COB was the leader and he followed everything he was told to think & do.

Now, alas, Marty has run out of gurus titles beginning with the letter "C". :giggle:

So, he apparently has decided to be the leader this time.

That leaves everyone else, apparently, as the those who what? Obediently follow everything they are told to think & do?

Um, let me think about that for a while and do a Doubt Formula. I'll get back to you...the answer is no. (short com lag, right? lol)
 

Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
The evidence that scientology and dianetics has always been a fraudulent bait and switch operation is overwhelmingly strong. :yes:

Co$ has since the beginning been selling the states of Clear and OT which they cannot deliver, certainly not in the way these states have been defined by Hubbard himself.

Marty's assertion "They insist that with conscious aforethought he created and operated dianetics and scientology as a fraudulent bait and switch operation..." simply is not true. :no:

Who is "they"? :unsure:

Anyone reading ESMB over a period of time would see that some do believe this and others do not.

In my case - yes, I say that scientology and dianetics HAVE always been a fraudulent bait and switch operation, but with conscious aforethought? While it surely looks like this at times one cannot always know the intention of another, and I don't claim to know Hubbard's intent throughout all the decades he operated this whole thing.

There have been some pretty incredible con men throughout history who successfully defrauded some very intelligent victims. Bernie Madoff being just one of many examples.

It would appear that Marty is still traveling on his voyage of discovery. part of his difficulty appears to me to be that he has not yet come to an adequate understanding of the personality of Hubbard. Psychology and psychiatry have pretty much nailed the type of person Hubbard was and his behavior and actions fit that profile very well. Hubbard fits in the spectrum of Narcissistic/Sociopathic personality.

All hubbard's actions - as is obvious from his earliest writing to his last - were aimed at acquiring recognition of his self acknowledged greatness and of reaping the endless rewards that this greatness should bring to him. EVERYTHING he did revolved around making himself sound and look glorious. When his life did not give him enough material to look glorious - well he just invented endless earlier lives to draw on.

Scientology and Dianetics are the results of ad hoc theorizing by Hubbard. he had a semblance of an idea about Dianetics - hidden memories acting unseen and unknown on the behavior of a person in the present. Not all that original but not a bad small hypothesis. But, for hubbard there were no "small ideas" no " OK hypothesis" everything had to rival the discovery of fire, all his work had to be seen as equaling the sum total of everything done previously in the field of mental health.

When the results did not pan out and the Kwisatch Haderachs failed to pour forth in their multitudes Hubbard did not look to his own assumptions and hypothesis for flaws but to the students and subjects and their failings and then onto mysterious forces that only he could discover and handle. And for the next 35 odd years he "researched" and issued breakthrough after breakthrough, discovering yet one more astonishing reason why his subject never, ever did anything that he had predicted.

The con was in making us, the believers, forget that he had ever said some of the things he said.. It was always on to the next thing.

Hubbard did acquire wealth, he did get adulation but to be honest I think that he resented having to work for it. I guess underneath the crusts of self aggrandizement and humble brag and bluster and bombast he really thought he should just be worshipped for being HIM. Nothing else required.

If there is "genius" involved it is not in the subject itself which is just a tangled mess of invention but in his ability to keep the flock moving forward and never taking the time to evaluate it all.

So if it will make Marty feel better - Hubbard was a genius. He could persuade people to see what he wanted them to see and could persuade them to ignore what he did not want them to see. There have been such people and Hubbard was one of the more capable ones. The ultimate irony is, of course, that the subject, Scientology, does not matter. It could have been investments and returns (like Ponzi or Madoff) diets and nutrition, even politics. Anything that would have created committed believers.

Scientology is the result of a con. Not the con itself. the con is in getting people to believe it.
 
Hubbard fits in the spectrum of Narcissistic/Sociopathic personality.

All hubbard's actions - as is obvious from his earliest writing to his last - were aimed at acquiring recognition of his self acknowledged greatness and of reaping the endless rewards that this greatness should bring to him. EVERYTHING he did revolved around making himself sound and look glorious.

Right.



he had a semblance of an idea about Dianetics - hidden memories acting unseen and unknown on the behavior of a person in the present. Not all that original

Totally unoriginal, in fact. Freud was writing about it in 1896.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind#Freud.27s_view_of_the_unconscious



If there is "genius" involved it is not in the subject itself which is just a tangled mess of invention but in his ability to keep the flock moving forward and never taking the time to evaluate it all.

Exactly. Hubbard was a total genius at salesmanship and flim-flam.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
If you take a low bar for the genius label, like Mensa's "top 2%", then okay: maybe Hubbard was in the top one or two percent of people, for salesmanship. He might have been in the top few percent for prose writing, too. Hubbard had some talents that were well above average.

If by 'genius' you mean someone like Einstein or Mozart, then no way was L. Ron Hubbard a genius. Nothing he did stands out that far. If Rathbun doesn't realize this, then he hasn't yet made it as far out of the sandbox as he thinks he has.
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
It would appear that Marty is still traveling on his voyage of discovery. part of his difficulty appears to me to be that he has not yet come to an adequate understanding of the personality of Hubbard. Psychology and psychiatry have pretty much nailed the type of person Hubbard was and his behavior and actions fit that profile very well. Hubbard fits in the spectrum of Narcissistic/Sociopathic personality.

All hubbard's actions - as is obvious from his earliest writing to his last - were aimed at acquiring recognition of his self acknowledged greatness and of reaping the endless rewards that this greatness should bring to him. EVERYTHING he did revolved around making himself sound and look glorious. When his life did not give him enough material to look glorious - well he just invented endless earlier lives to draw on.

Scientology and Dianetics are the results of ad hoc theorizing by Hubbard. he had a semblance of an idea about Dianetics - hidden memories acting unseen and unknown on the behavior of a person in the present. Not all that original but not a bad small hypothesis. But, for hubbard there were no "small ideas" no " OK hypothesis" everything had to rival the discovery of fire, all his work had to be seen as equaling the sum total of everything done previously in the field of mental health.

When the results did not pan out and the Kwisatch Haderachs failed to pour forth in their multitudes Hubbard did not look to his own assumptions and hypothesis for flaws but to the students and subjects and their failings and then onto mysterious forces that only he could discover and handle. And for the next 35 odd years he "researched" and issued breakthrough after breakthrough, discovering yet one more astonishing reason why his subject never, ever did anything that he had predicted.

The con was in making us, the believers, forget that he had ever said some of the things he said.. It was always on to the next thing.

Hubbard did acquire wealth, he did get adulation but to be honest I think that he resented having to work for it. I guess underneath the crusts of self aggrandizement and humble brag and bluster and bombast he really thought he should just be worshipped for being HIM. Nothing else required.

If there is "genius" involved it is not in the subject itself which is just a tangled mess of invention but in his ability to keep the flock moving forward and never taking the time to evaluate it all.

So if it will make Marty feel better - Hubbard was a genius. He could persuade people to see what he wanted them to see and could persuade them to ignore what he did not want them to see. There have been such people and Hubbard was one of the more capable ones. The ultimate irony is, of course, that the subject, Scientology, does not matter. It could have been investments and returns (like Ponzi or Madoff) diets and nutrition, even politics. Anything that would have created committed believers.

Scientology is the result of a con. Not the con itself. the con is in getting people to believe it.

I was going to write something brilliant along these lines, but you beat me to it. LOL! Seriously, good stuff, thanks!
 

George Layton

Silver Meritorious Patron
If you find yourself reading something and don't use it as a yardstick of compare to scientology, are you then over scientology?
 

Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
If you take a low bar for the genius label, like Mensa's "top 2%", then okay: maybe Hubbard was in the top one or two percent of people, for salesmanship. He might have been in the top few percent for prose writing, too. Hubbard had some talents that were well above average.

If by 'genius' you mean someone like Einstein or Mozart, then no way was L. Ron Hubbard a genius. Nothing he did stands out that far. If Rathbun doesn't realize this, then he hasn't yet made it as far out of the sandbox as he thinks he has.

Sorry SoT I disagree with you. Genius is, admittedly , an ill-defined term so comparing claims is going to be an even more futile endeavor. As it is down to opinion then we agree to disagree. Hubbard's "gift" may not be as nice as Mozart's or Einstein but that doesn't lessen it. Fischer was a chess genius and an utter prick along with it, doesn't lessen the genius.
 

AngeloV

Gold Meritorious Patron
There is really nothing that lofty or extreme about simply sticking you hands in your (empty) pockets and walking away, realizing a liar is just a liar.

The vast majority of people who eventually become scientologists make a subtle but very important, life-changing decision. That decision is that hubbard doesn't lie; that everything he says or writes is true. In my opinion, this is the exact moment that the cult's hook is firmly set in one's mind. In most cases I think, that decision is made subconsciously.

Over the years since being out of scientology, I have read HCOBs and HCOPLs and have listened to recorded lectures. Almost without exception, I can easily pick out a lie, half-truth or false conclusion. Hubbard lied continuously. Some of his lies were subtle and others were enormous.

It was very difficult for me to acknowledge to myself that I had made that decision and because of it, I allowed myself to be duped. I spent my time and hard earned money on nonsense.

The longer someone has been in the cult, the more lies that person accepts as truth...because hubbard doesn't lie.

It appears that Marty has realized that SOME of what hubbard wrote or uttered was a lie. What he has not allowed himself to acknowledge is the sheer number of lies, deceptions and false conclusions he has accepted and still does accept as true.

It's the peeling of the onion. But I don't think he will ever acknowledge how completely and utterly he was duped over decades of his life. This is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.
 
.
.

Utter contempt for people
organised as a business plan
put into action to make a LOT of money
and satisfy megalomaniac desires
with fatefully gigantic amounts of good luck
to make up for blundering blockheaded
insane stupidity
= genius.
 

Peter Soderqvist

Patron with Honors
L. Ron Hubbard was an unintelligent conman because he could only dupe less than 1% of a population!
Once upon a time I was a fool, but not anymore!
 

Churchill

Gold Meritorious Patron
It would appear that Marty is still traveling on his voyage of discovery. part of his difficulty appears to me to be that he has not yet come to an adequate understanding of the personality of Hubbard. Psychology and psychiatry have pretty much nailed the type of person Hubbard was and his behavior and actions fit that profile very well. Hubbard fits in the spectrum of Narcissistic/Sociopathic personality.

All hubbard's actions - as is obvious from his earliest writing to his last - were aimed at acquiring recognition of his self acknowledged greatness and of reaping the endless rewards that this greatness should bring to him. EVERYTHING he did revolved around making himself sound and look glorious. When his life did not give him enough material to look glorious - well he just invented endless earlier lives to draw on.

Scientology and Dianetics are the results of ad hoc theorizing by Hubbard. he had a semblance of an idea about Dianetics - hidden memories acting unseen and unknown on the behavior of a person in the present. Not all that original but not a bad small hypothesis. But, for hubbard there were no "small ideas" no " OK hypothesis" everything had to rival the discovery of fire, all his work had to be seen as equaling the sum total of everything done previously in the field of mental health.

When the results did not pan out and the Kwisatch Haderachs failed to pour forth in their multitudes Hubbard did not look to his own assumptions and hypothesis for flaws but to the students and subjects and their failings and then onto mysterious forces that only he could discover and handle. And for the next 35 odd years he "researched" and issued breakthrough after breakthrough, discovering yet one more astonishing reason why his subject never, ever did anything that he had predicted.

The con was in making us, the believers, forget that he had ever said some of the things he said.. It was always on to the next thing.

Hubbard did acquire wealth, he did get adulation but to be honest I think that he resented having to work for it. I guess underneath the crusts of self aggrandizement and humble brag and bluster and bombast he really thought he should just be worshipped for being HIM. Nothing else required.

If there is "genius" involved it is not in the subject itself which is just a tangled mess of invention but in his ability to keep the flock moving forward and never taking the time to evaluate it all.

So if it will make Marty feel better - Hubbard was a genius. He could persuade people to see what he wanted them to see and could persuade them to ignore what he did not want them to see. There have been such people and Hubbard was one of the more capable ones. The ultimate irony is, of course, that the subject, Scientology, does not matter. It could have been investments and returns (like Ponzi or Madoff) diets and nutrition, even politics. Anything that would have created committed believers.

Scientology is the result of a con. Not the con itself. the con is in getting people to believe it.




You make an excellent point. Hubbard's genius was that he could persuade otherwise intelligent people to repeatedly "give it another chance" because we
hadn't applied it correctly.

Once we bought into that premise, he had us.

Nowadays it seems that Scientology uses much less "carrot" and a lot more "stick."
 

Lermanet_com

Gold Meritorious Patron
Sorry SoT I disagree with you. Genius is, admittedly , an ill-defined term so comparing claims is going to be an even more futile endeavor. As it is down to opinion then we agree to disagree. Hubbard's "gift" may not be as nice as Mozart's or Einstein but that doesn't lessen it. Fischer was a chess genius and an utter prick along with it, doesn't lessen the genius.

I believe there is a distinctive sort of "brilliance" involved here

[video=youtube;91wuk_mWEYQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wuk_mWEYQ[/video]

"In their paper, "Construct Validity of Psychopathy in a Community Sample... Salekin, Trobst, and Krioukova write "Psychopathy as originally conceived by Cleckley (1941) is not limited to engagement in illegal activities, but rather encompasses such personality characteristics as manipulativeness, insincerity, egocentricity , and lack of guilt - characteristics clearly present in criminals but also in spouses, parents, bosses, attorneys and politicians, and CEOs, to name but a few. (bursten. 1973; Stewart, 1991)...As such. psychopathy may be characterized...as involving a tendency towards dominance and coldness. Wiggens (1995) in summarizing numerous previous findings..indicates such persons are prone to anger and irritation and are willing to exploit others. They are arrogant, manipulative, cynical, exhibitionistic, sensation-seeking, Machiavellian, vindictive and out for their own gain. With respect to their patterns of social exchange (Foa & Foa, 1974), they attribute love and status to themselves, seeing themselves as highly worthy and important, but prescribe neither love nor status to others, seeing them as unworthy and insignificant. " Page 89, Political Ponerology, footnote
 

Churchill

Gold Meritorious Patron
I believe there is a distinctive sort of "brilliance" involved here

[video=youtube;91wuk_mWEYQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91wuk_mWEYQ[/video]

"In their paper, "Construct Validity of Psychopathy in a Community Sample... Salekin, Trobst, and Krioukova write "Psychopathy as originally conceived by Cleckley (1941) is not limited to engagement in illegal activities, but rather encompasses such personality characteristics as manipulativeness, insincerity, egocentricity , and lack of guilt - characteristics clearly present in criminals but also in spouses, parents, bosses, attorneys and politicians, and CEOs, to name but a few. (bursten. 1973; Stewart, 1991)...As such. psychopathy may be characterized...as involving a tendency towards dominance and coldness. Wiggens (1995) in summarizing numerous previous findings..indicates such persons are prone to anger and irritation and are willing to exploit others. They are arrogant, manipulative, cynical, exhibitionistic, sensation-seeking, Machiavellian, vindictive and out for their own gain. With respect to their patterns of social exchange (Foa & Foa, 1974), they attribute love and status to themselves, seeing themselves as highly worthy and important, but prescribe neither love nor status to others, seeing them as unworthy and insignificant. " Page 89, Political Ponerology, footnote


www.pathocracy.net This is from YOUR source

With your "sources", it always ends with the JEWS, Arnie.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Really?

You know what? Fuck You, and

Fuck your anti Semitism.

And Fuck ESMB.

I am gone from this message Board.
 
He might have been in the top few percent for prose writing, too.

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.

L. Ron Hubbard was an unintelligent conman because he could only dupe less than 1% of a population!

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

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
The vast majority of people who eventually become scientologists make a subtle but very important, life-changing decision. That decision is that hubbard doesn't lie; that everything he says or writes is true. In my opinion, this is the exact moment that the cult's hook is firmly set in one's mind. In most cases I think, that decision is made subconsciously.

Over the years since being out of scientology, I have read HCOBs and HCOPLs and have listened to recorded lectures. Almost without exception, I can easily pick out a lie, half-truth or false conclusion. Hubbard lied continuously. Some of his lies were subtle and others were enormous.

It was very difficult for me to acknowledge to myself that I had made that decision and because of it, I allowed myself to be duped. I spent my time and hard earned money on nonsense.

The longer someone has been in the cult, the more lies that person accepts as truth...because hubbard doesn't lie.

It appears that Marty has realized that SOME of what hubbard wrote or uttered was a lie. What he has not allowed himself to acknowledge is the sheer number of lies, deceptions and false conclusions he has accepted and still does accept as true.

It's the peeling of the onion. But I don't think he will ever acknowledge how completely and utterly he was duped over decades of his life. This is a very, very bitter pill to swallow.

I think this is true for most. I had a slightly different view, however. I never assumed that Hubbard was God or was right about everything. What I bought, which was the hook FOR ME, was that he was right about enough things that there was hope for improvement. It was the HOPE that was the hook. He was really good at selling hope.

The thing that sucks is that as people progressed into OT and became more and more slave-like, they PRETENDED they were doing great, which made people lower on the scam THINK that there was still hope. But just having hope actually does give most people enough of a boost that when they are young and idealistic, that is almost all they need to carry on and do pretty well in life. As old age sets in, however, is when the disillusionment can really hit home. That is when it becomes very clear there is NO clear and NO OT. They either wake up and realize that, or they start looking for the SP that is dragging them down.

If the latter, they end up like Hubs, old, paranoid, pretty sad.
 

prosecco

Patron Meritorious
LOL

I hate to pick on Marty, but he keeps sermonizing about things which he hasn't yet figured out.

Marty just loves to play "FOLLOW THE LEADER".

He played it dutifully when the COMMODORE was the leader and he followed everything he was told to think & do.

He played it dutifully when the COB was the leader and he followed everything he was told to think & do.

Now, alas, Marty has run out of gurus titles beginning with the letter "C". :giggle:

So, he apparently has decided to be the leader this time.

That leaves everyone else, apparently, as the those who what? Obediently follow everything they are told to think & do?

Um, let me think about that for a while and do a Doubt Formula. I'll get back to you...the answer is no. (short com lag, right? lol)

I think you're right about follow the leader. I mean why have a moderated blog rather than debate it out on ESMB. But also there is the cynical side, his blog as a platform for his books.

Not sure it's a reflection of me or not, but I read his latest blog and got that screaming inside my head feeling I used to get when reading Hubbard.
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
Marty is a marathon runner who pauses at each mile of the race to make bold new illuminating pronouncements about the nature of the course. Each "R-Factor" is different than the preceding.

Thus Marty pauses often--yet never pauses to consider that there are runners well ahead of him. Curiously, he always believes himself to be crossing each mile marker first.


Great analogy. I could never quite put my finger on why so much of what he says annoys me. I think you nailed it.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
For me [Hubbard is] 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?)

Actually I've only ever read Hubbard in short excerpts. His plots never appealed to me. I never saw the gold in the so-called Golden Age of sci-fi. Lame ideas that were boring or dumb, for the most part, laced with quite a lot of 1930's attitudes that seem really stupid today.

But sentence-by-sentence, I do think Hubbard was a competent writer. He is (nearly?) always grammatical, and he pulls it off in a range of registers, from formal to colloquial. At least when he's at his best, he has a fair-to-middling ear for felicitous phrases.

Not many people can do that. So what I meant was that if you grabbed a hundred people at random off the street, Hubbard could probably write better prose than all but a few of them. I didn't mean that Hubbard was in the top few percent of professional writers. Heck no; he might well even be in the bottom few percent among them.
 
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