Questions, questions...

[AnonKat]

Just auditing is enough

Udarnik,

I think everyone here would agree that Hubbard was not normal.

He may have been born “not normal.”

Then you throw in all the drugs he did, which nobody who knew him well seems to dispute was the case.

Then you throw in all his wild experiences, and he certainly had a lot of those.

And finally there's what happens to people as they age, whether they were normal to begin with or not. They acquire dementias of various kinds, which we now understand only vaguely. Even “normal” people become “unusual” under those circumstances.

Except for people like Face, who actually observed Hubbard up close and personal and are entitled to their opinions about Hubbard’s mental conditions, I think the rest of us are just circle-jerking when we try to diagnose Hubbard’s mental disorders. Sure, we could list all his personal maladies, but what difference does it make what we collectively name them? The lists of psychological disorders that appear in APA listings continue to be in flux, and IMHO some of those are no more descriptive or distinguishing from one another than horoscopes.

Isn’t it a better use of our efforts to consider the results of his greatest creation, Scientology. After all, someone is best judged by how they influenced others and what they left behind.

 

[Queenmab321]

It's also time-dependent, isn't it? As with Face speculating that Hubbard went Schizo-affective late in life, and my speculation that might have been drug induced, I seem to get different answers from people depending on what point in time they encountered the man.

I think his might have been a progressive disease that started out with him consciously making up BTs like all the other half-baked crap that went into his fiction, and ended with him having been exposed to his own stupid shit so long that when he finally lost his grip on reality he became trapped by his own creations, which he hadn't believed in at first.

Isn't it also possible that a diminished capacity later in life to distinguish fact from fiction may have resulted from his bizarre social circumstance alone? He lived for many years in a little bubble, surrounded by worshipers and sycophants who clung to his every word. This is bound to fuck with your head. One thinks of Nero or of Kurtz from Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

 

[AnonKat]

[video=youtube;rRWUT6ZYNNc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRWUT6ZYNNc[/video]

 

[clamicide]

I never heard of the Gardner book until you posted this and I read over much of the link you gave Udarnik. This is fascinating stuff and brings much to mind which I had forgotten about from when I read over the transcripts of Hubbard's auditing in the early R&D volumes.

I could never fathom how he got away with so much evaluation he put on his preclears, and how "non-standard" Hubbard's own auditing was. He appeared to be making it up as he went along and did things he did not describe anywhere in the materials of Dianetics. Many many times I noticed that he was suggesting things to his preclears which they never would have otherwise originated on their own and it just didn't make any sense to me how he could get away with that.

All I could figure back then is that Hubbard knew best and he must have refined things later and he was using these sessions as research/development. Of course, looking at these reasons now, they sound to me like exactly what they are: a desperate attempt on my part to make sense out of what doesn't make sense. Hubbard was a charlatan and a cheat and it was obvious to anyone from the very beginning if they could look at what he was doing with an objective eye (like Gardner did).

And note that Hubbard's "non-standard" auditing continued throughout his demonstrations for years, including the claptrap he ran in demo lectures on the SHSBC. Throughout his demonstrations, he fails to follow his own "standard tech" procedures, fails to acknowledge the pc's, evaluates for them quite overtly, etc.

OMG, I used to HATE having to listen to the auditing demo tapes. Everything he did, we'd get crammed for if we did it. And as far as the suggestions, that was nuts. I sort of went into a mind fuzz on it, because he'd keep repeating an item he came up with a bunch of times and it'd finally get a read on it. Hell, that just smacks of a protest read per that definition, and the pc would often be unsure and then almost always be totally convinced (well, it wasn't like Hub would have a wrong thing come up, right?) OMFG WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[guanoloco]

I don't know WTF AnonKat is talking about. People on the autistic spectrum tend to miss social cues and say tactless things, but this is a different "confront" from what guanoloco is talking about. Not to mention most also can't focus with distractions, and Hubbard was famous in his younger years for writing in the midst of chaos. Asperger's people tend not to have the social skills to contruct a normal social covering, let alone the elaborate facades Hubbard created. They are not that adept at manipulating people because they don't know what strings to pull, since they don't have those strings themselves.

Here's a relevant passage that pretty much conclusively excludes Hubbard from the Autisic spectrum:

Yes! That captures the pretense perfectly. He's not participatory as in being himself. He's putting on a front in order to manipulate and watching how well the spell is weaving. That's what I think that other guy is trying to convey with the difference in "experiencing" and "confronting" or "fronting".

Perfect example, Udarnik!

 

[Queenmab321]

OMG, I used to HATE having to listen to the auditing demo tapes. Everything he did, we'd get crammed for if we did it. And as far as the suggestions, that was nuts. I sort of went into a mind fuzz on it, because he'd keep repeating an item he came up with a bunch of times and it'd finally get a read on it. Hell, that just smacks of a protest read per that definition, and the pc would often be unsure and then almost always be totally convinced (well, it wasn't like Hub would have a wrong thing come up, right?) OMFG WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?

This is a little off topic, but I think our general tendency to attribute weight and authority to the assertions of the group to which we happen to belong can be a very dangerous frailty. It cries out for a more concerted effort to include in school curriculums a greater emphasis on critical thinking.

"When they were burning John Huss," writes Camus, "a gentle little old lady came carrying her fagot to add it to the pile."

 

[dchoiceisalwaysrs]

THIS is the debate I want to get at. It sheds a lot of light on his mental state to know if he actually believed this crap or not. Arguments pro and con would be appreciated.

It has been years, but I found a fair number of nuggets of insight into Elron's actions and methods of operating when I read some of The Compleat ABERREE issues published from 1954 thru 1965. http://www.aberree.com/

Another of the old timers who occasionaly contributes to this board, phenomanon spent some personal time with and around L Ron. Perhaps she would be willing to give her views.

 

[AnonKat]

It has been years, but I found a fair number of nuggets of insight into Elron's actions and methods of operating when I read some of The Compleat ABERREE issues published from 1954 thru 1965. http://www.aberree.com/

Another of the old timers who occasionaly contributes to this board, phenomanon spent some personal time with and around L Ron. Perhaps she would be willing to give her views.

http://www.aberree.com/ OW GAWD I posted them way back on here

Thank you I lost that shit, now I can repost it

 

[Orglodyte]

THIS is the debate I want to get at. It sheds a lot of light on his mental state to know if he actually believed this crap or not. Arguments pro and con would be appreciated.

One argument pro, for me, is the dust covers of the 50's basic books. The images are odd and have little or nothing to do with the contents of the book. There are white helmets and uniforms and snakes and boxes and planes -- symbology that was mysterious to me when in.

The story I have read many times is that these covers, and the Dianetics volcano, were designed to restimulate the OTIII incident and subliminally compel people to buy the book.

For me, this argues heavily that Ron believed in the truth of the OTIII incident. How could the images restimulate someone if the incident were not real and they had never heard of it?

I can come up with one possible con argument: it was a way to deepen the deception with those who did know about OTIII. But all the stories I have heard make it seem as though Ron genuinely believed the covers would restimulate raw public.

 

[AnonKat]

One argument pro, for me, is the dust covers of the 50's basic books. The images are odd and have little or nothing to do with the contents of the book. There are white helmets and uniforms and snakes and boxes and planes -- symbology that was mysterious to me when in.

The story I have read many times is that these covers, and the Dianetics volcano, were designed to restimulate the OTIII incident and subliminally compel people to buy the book.

For me, this argues heavily that Ron believed in the truth of the OTIII incident. How could the images restimulate someone if the incident were not real and they had never heard of it?

I can come up with one possible con argument: it was a way to deepen the deception with those who did know about OTIII. But all the stories I have heard make it seem as though Ron genuinely believed the covers would restimulate raw public.

Ron wrote Science Fiction

 

[kate8024]

snakes and ... planes -- symbology that was mysterious to me when in

Ah this symbolism was sort of a precognition of this:
[video=youtube;amYzBQMT4VI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amYzBQMT4VI[/video]

 

[Udarnik]

Udarnik,

I think everyone here would agree that Hubbard was not normal.

He may have been born “not normal.”

Then you throw in all the drugs he did, which nobody who knew him well seems to dispute was the case.

Then you throw in all his wild experiences, and he certainly had a lot of those.

And finally there's what happens to people as they age, whether they were normal to begin with or not. They acquire dementias of various kinds, which we now understand only vaguely. Even “normal” people become “unusual” under those circumstances.

Except for people like Face, who actually observed Hubbard up close and personal and are entitled to their opinions about Hubbard’s mental conditions, I think the rest of us are just circle-jerking when we try to diagnose Hubbard’s mental disorders. Sure, we could list all his personal maladies, but what difference does it make what we collectively name them? The lists of psychological disorders that appear in APA listings continue to be in flux, and IMHO some of those are no more descriptive or distinguishing from one another than horoscopes.

Isn’t it a better use of our efforts to consider the results of his greatest creation, Scientology. After all, someone is best judged by how they influenced others and what they left behind.

I'm not sure it's a better use of time to consider Scientology, for a couple of reasons (not that considering Scientology is not a worthwhile activity which I am wont to do myself here on occasion...).

First, considering the man and his pathology might help people understand how they related to it, and in some ways help people escape the lingering tendrils of thought control more quickly.

But second, and most important in my mind, is the idea that I argued with Adam about when he said that neurobiology and psychiatry are as precise as physics. They aren't. Nothing in those sciences can compare with the precision required to shoot a several ton container almost 400,000 miles and have it land on the precise spot on the moon that was intended, and then recover the people who did that.

Part of the problem is that physics can isolate and dissect its objects of study. It's not ethical to do that to humans, so we need every available piece of data we can get, most especially on outliers such as Hubbard, to more quickly and accurately construct a more precise science of mental health.

And finally, closely related to the second point, is that if we want, in a free society where we by choice let a lot of sketchy shit go on, to prevent this in the future, we need to see the warning signs early, which requires accurate historical documentation. It is for this reason I read everything I can get my hands on about the early lives of people such as Hubbard, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. It is also why I habitually refer to the latter two by their real names, and not their constructed persona of Stalin and Lenin, to remind me to never take things at face value.

I have other reasons as well, but those are the main three.

 

[clamicide]

This is a little off topic, but I think our general tendency to attribute weight and authority to the assertions of the group to which we happen to belong can be a very dangerous frailty. It cries out for a more concerted effort to include in school curriculums a greater emphasis on critical thinking.

"When they were burning John Huss," writes Camus, "a gentle little old lady came carrying her fagot to add it to the pile."

Yep, I was a little bummed that I myself strayed off-topic, but that just hit me with a blinding ferocity. And, I was always the chick who questioned everything. My teachers were flummoxed, my mom started down a road which left her leaving Catholicism because of the questions I asked, and even during my break-time from formal cultdom I homeschooled my kids because I was so fed up with formal education. Still blows my mind I was that babbling little cult-idiot.

We now return you to this fascinating thread (no sarcasm intended; I'm really enjoying it).

 

[Udarnik]

Threadjacking

Yep, I was a little bummed that I myself strayed off-topic, but that just hit me with a blinding ferocity. And, I was always the chick who questioned everything. My teachers were flummoxed, my mom started down a road which left her leaving Catholicism because of the questions I asked, and even during my break-time from formal cultdom I homeschooled my kids because I was so fed up with formal education. Still blows my mind I was that babbling little cult-idiot.

We now return you to this fascinating thread (no sarcasm intended; I'm really enjoying it).

I come from a very different Internet culture than this one (one kinda famous for OPs derailing their own threads), and I am a known serial multi-tasker, in that I don't do more than one thing at once - that makes for sloppy mistakes, but I will do several different things in rapid succession in order to rest certain parts of my brain. I used to love swithcing off every half hour in college between studying Russian and doing math - helped keep me using time wisely without burning out.

So without further blathering, let me say:

THREAD DERAILS ARE WELCOME ON THIS THREAD.

So long as they aren't ad hominems, or about stupid shit. I'll let people know what constitutes the latter, but I haven't seen it yet. The best conversations are unstuctured.

I can keep track of the various sub-threads without much problem, and if it becomes an issue down the line, we can separate them with headers that we can mutually agree on.

 

[clamicide]

Re: Threadjacking

I come from a very different Internet culture than this one (one kinda famous for OPs derailing their own threads), and I am a known serial multi-tasker, in that I don't do more than one thing at once - that makes for sloppy mistakes, but I will do several different things in rapid succession in order to rest certain parts of my brain. I used to love swithcing off every half hour in college between studying Russian and doing math - helped keep me using time wisely without burning out.

So without further blathering, let me say:

THREAD DERAILS ARE WELCOME ON THIS THREAD.

So long as they aren't ad hominems, or about stupid shit. I'll let people know what constitutes the latter, but I haven't seen it yet. The best conversations are unstuctured.

I can keep track of the various sub-threads without much problem, and if it becomes an issue down the line, we can separate them with headers that we can mutually agree on.

OK, so I just TOTALLY want to talk about BUNNIES!!!!

omg, I just couldn't resist.... all those unhandled evil perps?

Yeah, I feel the same way about derails, but there just has been some weird drama on this board about folks derailing threads... maybe some "dramatization of keeping in TR3 and TR4?"

Seriously, I've seen weird stuff that almost goes into blood battles on various forums, but I've never quite seen this one play out like it has on this board. Where the HELL is my "bitch please!" emoticon?

 

[aegerprimo]

One argument pro, for me, is the dust covers of the 50's basic books. The images are odd and have little or nothing to do with the contents of the book. There are white helmets and uniforms and snakes and boxes and planes -- symbology that was mysterious to me when in.

The story I have read many times is that these covers, and the Dianetics volcano, were designed to restimulate the OTIII incident and subliminally compel people to buy the book.

For me, this argues heavily that Ron believed in the truth of the OTIII incident. How could the images restimulate someone if the incident were not real and they had never heard of it?

I can come up with one possible con argument: it was a way to deepen the deception with those who did know about OTIII. But all the stories I have heard make it seem as though Ron genuinely believed the covers would restimulate raw public.

Doesn't that prove him delusional to think that the images would subliminally restimulate other people? For example; 75 million years ago the volcanos in Hawaii, etc. did not exist or were under water. Nicely put together at Operation Clambake - A Scientific Scrutiny of OT 3.

 

[TG1]

I'm not sure it's a better use of time to consider Scientology, for a couple of reasons (not that considering Scientology is not a worthwhile activity which I am wont to do myself here on occasion...).

First, considering the man and his pathology might help people understand how they related to it, and in some ways help people escape the lingering tendrils of thought control more quickly.

But second, and most important in my mind, is the idea that I argued with Adam about when he said that neurobiology and psychiatry are as precise as physics. They aren't. Nothing in those sciences can compare with the precision required to shoot a several ton container almost 400,000 miles and have it land on the precise spot on the moon that was intended, and then recover the people who did that.

Part of the problem is that physics can isolate and dissect its objects of study. It's not ethical to do that to humans, so we need every available piece of data we can get, most especially on outliers such as Hubbard, to more quickly and accurately construct a more precise science of mental health.

And finally, closely related to the second point, is that if we want, in a free society where we by choice let a lot of sketchy shit go on, to prevent this in the future, we need to see the warning signs early, which requires accurate historical documentation. It is for this reason I read everything I can get my hands on about the early lives of people such as Hubbard, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. It is also why I habitually refer to the latter two by their real names, and not their constructed persona of Stalin and Lenin, to remind me to never take things at face value.

I have other reasons as well, but those are the main three.

Those are three good reasons to study cults and mental slavery.

Despite the tremendous respect I have for ESMB members, I don't think a thread of this generation of ESMB is likely to convene the right group to crowd-source wisdom about the pathology of someone only a handful of people at ESMB ever met who died nearly 30 years ago. Entertaining, maybe. Interesting, perhaps. But likely to produce insights valid for posterity? No.

Nonetheless, there's a huge amount of knowledge built into ESMB’s knowledge base if you are willing to dig for it, as you did when studying any new subject. The knowledge you seek won’t be summoned in real time in a random thread. Instead, the stories told in older ESMB threads in conversations led by Face, Cowboy, Phenomenon, Mystic, Dart Smohen, Alan Walters and several others, many of whom were on staff at the Founding Church of the District of Columbia (FCDC), are very much on point.

That’s as close as ESMB can bring you to the Hubbard you want to understand.

Edit: I'm sure others will disagree with me, but that's the beauty of a message board. You get to hear different viewpoints.

TG1

 

[Gib]

Doesn't that prove him delusional to think that the images would subliminally restimulate other people? For example; 75 million years ago the volcanos in Hawaii, etc. did not exist or were under water. Nicely put together at Operation Clambake - A Scientific Scrutiny of OT 3.

Well you know the cover for the modern in PT dianetics book is the volcano. I had always wondered what that meant.

I did this new full blown objectives co-audit at my local org just last year and before, it was a year long cycle doing it part time. I did from 2011 to 2012. Doing all the processes, why on some of them we had to walk around, so we got to go all over the org. We couldn't go outside, since there were protesters there often, so as not to enturbulate us (LOL).

Anyways, my twin and I would always go into the bookstore to run some of the processes. And during this I would always wonder (silently to myself) the significance of the exploding volcano of the DMSMH book.

So, here I am in later 2012 and reading about OT3 (me being only Grade 0) and I now get the significance of the exploding volcano. So I connect dots you know, and I go to myself what a bunch of BS. I never got restimulated, jeepers, what a bunch of horse shit.

 

[guanoloco]

One argument pro, for me, is the dust covers of the 50's basic books. The images are odd and have little or nothing to do with the contents of the book. There are white helmets and uniforms and snakes and boxes and planes -- symbology that was mysterious to me when in.

The story I have read many times is that these covers, and the Dianetics volcano, were designed to restimulate the OTIII incident and subliminally compel people to buy the book.

For me, this argues heavily that Ron believed in the truth of the OTIII incident. How could the images restimulate someone if the incident were not real and they had never heard of it?

I can come up with one possible con argument: it was a way to deepen the deception with those who did know about OTIII. But all the stories I have heard make it seem as though Ron genuinely believed the covers would restimulate raw public.

Does anyone remember the War Is Over event? During that presentation Miscavige talked about the preposterous "lie" that L. Ron mailed snakes, in boxes, to his enemies.

You guys remember that?

I've been trying to get a digital copy of that event to no avail. If anyone has a VHS PM me and I'll put it on a DVD.

 

[Udarnik]

Does anyone remember the War Is Over event? During that presentation Miscavige talked about the preposterous "lie" that L. Ron mailed snakes, in boxes, to his enemies.

You guys remember that?

I've been trying to get a digital copy of that event to no avail. If anyone has a VHS PM me and I'll put it on a DVD.

Now THAT is how to derail a thread. WTF are you talking about? Please, please explain, I never heard this one...