Questions, questions...

[Udarnik]

In my opinion, it's not even debatable. He believed it completely. He was the first person he ever convinced! If you want evidence, listen to the Class VIII tapes, particularly the ones where he's flipping his lid over others failing to "get it".

I don't konw, Panda, he was a consummate actor.

 

[Panda Termint]

I don't konw, Panda, he was a consummate actor.

He isn't acting in those lectures. I know people who were there and I've listened to the tapes many times. He was flipping out over people failing to apply the tech "standardly". Ask someone like Face or Dart Smohen, he believed in his own schtick. He might not have thought that it applied as equally to him, of course, seeing as he was "the first one in all the long millennia to rise above it" but it remains my firm conviction that he believed in the Universe As Constructed By Ron.

 

[Student of Trinity]

I'm just guessing, of course, never having known the man, but FWIW my guess coincides with Panda's verdict, that Hubbard believed in the Universe Constructed By Ron. I think he seriously talked himself into believing that making things up, for him, really was discovering truth, or even creating truth. I think he built Scientology to a have a sandbox in which he could play God, and he just stayed in his sandbox and closed his eyes to the outside world. He chose to believe that truth was a matter of choosing to believe. And in the end that meant that it was less painful to accept that he had incurable body thetans, than to confront the fact that he was just an old man who had squandered his modest talent in living out his life in a fantasy scam. Like a dream that turns your alarm clock into a fire alarm, his fantasy world could absorb the intrusions from outside reality, and let the dream go on. If something seemed to contradict his theories, then that was just counter-intention making one of his postulates slip. Getting old and facing death like the merest wog just meant that he had one hell of a case of BTs.

"Yes, I realize that I see but a semblance, but so do you, and who is to say which is real?"
"I do not look through magic cusps," said Cugel.
"True." The elder shrugged. "It is a matter I prefer to overlook."

 

[MrNobody]

In my opinion, it's not even debatable. He believed it completely. He was the first person he ever convinced! If you want evidence, listen to the Class VIII tapes, particularly the ones where he's flipping his lid over others failing to "get it".

I think that's a false assumption, Panda. The tapes can only say what he once said, not what he really believed.

I believe: The only belief he's ever had was: "Whatever it takes to part a fool from his money or makes him do what I want, is good enough for me."

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

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

I first came to ESMB to read Dart and Alan's stuff. I then found Phenomenom and Mystic's stuff. Phenomenom and Mystic put down a Mosaic of El Ron of the 'mid '50's to early '60's, Dart and Alan add to the Mosaic from the early '60's to around '70, my Tiles to the Mosaic are from the early '70's to the latter mid '70's, Cowboy's Tiles are from the latter mid '70's to the late '70's. It is a lot of reading, however, for me personally all of these fine Folk's helped my immeasurably in developing "Context", understanding and perspective for my own Tiles of the Mosaic.

One thing that became VERY apparent to me was the "slipping" I observed in El Ron during my years around Hisself was thematic and consistent with what others had observed. Also, El Ron's proclivity to go "Up" and "Down" was there all along and became more acute as Hisself aged.

All of the stuff on this Board posted by folks that knew and interacted with El Ron could be edited into a fascinating and helpful document. I miss all of them participating here but, what they have already put down is of real value, IMO, to folks that want/need to do an in depth look into the world of the real L. Ron Hubbard. I am in their debt.

Any NOOB's and Lurkers that haven't read some of these folks would be quite surprised at the wealth of first hand, meat and potatoes accounts re: El Ron available here on ESMB. Also, there are links in these accounts and on this Board (with a big tip of the hat to Veda) to stuff available elsewhere from others that interacted with El Ron like my contemporaries Kima Douglas, Hana Whitfield, Jim Dincalci, etc. and others before and after our Era that is important & most revelatory. Through these Links I was able to confirm that what I had observed and concluded was corroborated by others I personally knew, respected and remembered with much fondness.

IMO, part of "Breaking the Spell" is unraveling and cutting the "Lacing Strings" of the "Spell Caster's" web...the Myth, Mystique, and multiple and synthetic Personae.

Face

 

[OhMG]

You've lost me, there. I remember the early controversies over gamma ray bursts. Most people thought they were probably extra-galactic,

No. Most astrophysicists thought they were within our galaxy because of the energy output as seen from Earth. This changed in the 80's.

But how could extra-galactic gamma ray bursts falsify the rest energy formula? Gamma rays have rest mass zero.

You misunderstand the subject. It is the energy required to produce them when distance is taken into account (the amount of energy we can observe, inverse square law is your friend here). The amount of energy exceeds the formula even if an entire star's mass were used. Hence, the outcry about the discovery that they extra-galactic.

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

He isn't acting in those lectures. I know people who were there and I've listened to the tapes many times. He was flipping out over people failing to apply the tech "standardly". Ask someone like Face or Dart Smohen, he believed in his own schtick. He might not have thought that it applied as equally to him, of course, seeing as he was "the first one in all the long millennia to rise above it" but it remains my firm conviction that he believed in the Universe As Constructed By Ron.

YES!

I'm just guessing, of course, never having known the man, but FWIW my guess coincides with Panda's verdict, that Hubbard believed in the Universe Constructed By Ron. I think he seriously talked himself into believing that making things up, for him, really was discovering truth, or even creating truth. I think he built Scientology to a have a sandbox in which he could play God, and he just stayed in his sandbox and closed his eyes to the outside world. He chose to believe that truth was a matter of choosing to believe. And in the end that meant that it was less painful to accept that he had incurable body thetans, than to confront the fact that he was just an old man who had squandered his modest talent in living out his life in a fantasy scam. Like a dream that turns your alarm clock into a fire alarm, his fantasy world could absorb the intrusions from outside reality, and let the dream go on. If something seemed to contradict his theories, then that was just counter-intention making one of his postulates slip. Getting old and facing death like the merest wog just meant that he had one hell of a case of BTs.

YES!

El Ron, IMO, believed a boatload of Hisself's own BS. It is also my opinion that El Ron knew there were "holes" in the "Tech", that it wasn't what it was cracked up to be and Hisself was the "Only One" that fully Groked what was "really" going on in the Universe. El Ron painted Hisself into a corner by his lies, crimes and greed and, once in that corner, pined and whined for Hisself's "Rosebuds".

It is important, IMO, to understand that El Ron was NOT the sole "Source" of the "Tech"...far from it; that El Ron's grasp of the Hisself "Tech" copyrighted was not what Hisself was represented to others and inferior to that of a number of others; that El Ron was more focused on owning, marketing and controlling the "Tech" than on improving, perfecting and making the "Tech" broadly and universally available.

Face

 

[AnonKat]

I don't know that there is much of a debate necessary about whether Hubbard believed that BTs were a valid construct. We've got the testimony of Hubbard's late-in-life caretaker Steve (Sarge) Pfauth, who told both Larry Wright and Marty Rathbun that Hubbard begged Pfauth to jerry-rig an e-meter that would knock the BTs off of him and kill him, since he was desperate to rid himself of BTs that he couldn't seem to get shed of with auditing.

Whether Hubbard's belief in BTs proves that he was "delusional" is, of course, still debatable, depending on what assumptions the debaters bring to the fight.

TG1

Remember he got a stroke in 1975 and maybe more after that, and maybe he got alzheimer too

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

Remember he got a stroke in 1975 and maybe more after that, and maybe he got alzheimer too

El Ron did NOT have a stroke in '75...Hisself had a heart attack...I was there and have written about that before on ESMB and the fact that it was a Heart problem and not a Brain problem is corroborated by others that were there...including Hiself's personal Nurse, Kima...and in documents from the Hospital Hisself was at in Willemstad, Curacao.


http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?30305-Ron-the-Sickie-(1975)&p=770971&viewfull=1#post770971

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...he-Apollo-1973&p=437241&viewfull=1#post437241

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...he-Apollo-1973&p=437745&viewfull=1#post437745


Please don't personalize the following AnonKat...I think you're swell and like your stuff and appreciate what you bring to ESMB...but I continually see Posts referencing El Ron's "Stroke" in '75 and with all the eye witness accounts and documents available to the contrary I just can't figure out why.

Face

 

[aegerprimo]

.
.
I sometimes think Hubbard both believed and didn't believe a lot of his stuff, simultaneously. We are so used to thinking that believing and not believing are mutually exclusive, and that's how seems to be.....but I think hubbard could make shit up and not believe it somehow because it was just a social behaviour/manipulation etc, but also get caught up in it. If you are delusional, be careful of what you try to delude others with; I suppose that's how it goes.

I also think it is possible for all of us normal people to believe and not believe something simultaneously. AFAIN this is not talked about much, but it may be a bit like memory, where we used to have ideas about how memory worked that are now being shown to be not at all accurate.

I think that with hubbard's wild make-it-up-as-you-go-along style, he just threw in stuff that he was "working on"/chewing over, with stuff he actually believed, with add ons that he would have considered pure fiction, motivated by his need to be an entertainer/manipulator etc. He did not give a shit which box he pulled stuff out of or how he threw them together. That was the mad part....maybe not autistic, but possibly with some misunderstanding about why other people do NOT do that.

I have a friend offline who did a lot of this stuff when I first knew him.
He doesnt do it much at all now, at least, not with me. But he is a manipulator rather than an up front negotiator.

Maybe believing is similar to having faith. Reminds me of George Carlin's take on religion, "...there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day..." Check out his full take on religion for lotsa lulz - George Carlin on Religion.

 

[Student of Trinity]

No. Most astrophysicists thought they were within our galaxy because of the energy output as seen from Earth. This changed in the 80's.

Oh, maybe. I only really talked to a couple of astrophysicists about it at the time, since I was working in a theoretical astrophysics group, though I myself was in its sideline on quantum stuff. I remember one of the stellar astrophysics bigshots arguing vigorously with some visitor either for or against extragalactic sources; I forget which side he was on, but my impression was formed that the question was quite up for debate. The energy output argument didn't seem decisive, since lots of quasars were already known to be sitting way out there, shining steadily, with energy outputs that outshone whole galaxies. Moreover, it was well known that astrophysical objects from pulsars to active galactic nuclei could pump out radiation in narrow beams, rather than uniformly in all directions. So it was always plausible that a GRB could represent some kind of tightly directed blast, with total luminosity that was enormous, but much less than you would infer if you guessed that the same energy had gone out into all directions.

You misunderstand the subject. It is the energy required to produce them when distance is taken into account (the amount of energy we can observe, inverse square law is your friend here). The amount of energy exceeds the formula even if an entire star's mass were used. Hence, the outcry about the discovery that they extra-galactic.

No, if you assume that the blast is a narrow beam then you're well within the total energy of a big supernova. Anyway, it would be bizarre, crackpot thinking to reject relativity just because GRBs seemed to be too big to be stars. The obvious first thing to suspect, instead of that, would be that they're some new kind of exploding thing, much bigger than the average star. Relativity has been tested so much, after all, and we have nothing like as much data as to what kind of very rare, very big explosions might have been possible, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

 

[aegerprimo]

Questioning everything is too hard. I don't think it's uncommon for a radical skeptic to just get fed up with the misery of never being able to rely on anything, and abruptly settle on something — even something ridiculous — just to escape from the helplessness of total doubt. Like a kid who takes his piggy bank savings to the fair and is so careful about spending it wisely that he keeps it until the fair is about to close, and then suddenly spends it all on a big Micky Mouse balloon that he doesn't even like, because it's the best shot he's got left at having some fun at the fair, instead of just counting pennies and talking himself out of fun. Or maybe like a sailor who doesn't want to trust any leaky vessel, and winds up clutching driftwood when he's too tired to swim. Anyway, I think I can understand how former skeptics can become the most blindly dogmatic. They don't know how to be just a bit critical, and revise things bit by bit, because they've never done that; all they know is total belief and total doubt. If their experience was that doubt was misery and belief was relief, they'll be really reluctant to go back to doubt. So they can't be even critical a bit.

Hubbard's notion of the 'stable datum' is a rehash of a long-familiar truth. You need to take some things for granted. Faith really is a virtue: it helps you get things done, to be able to act on an assumption even though it's not proven.

Science is not about rejecting all assumptions, or doubting everything. Not at all; on the contrary, science needs a lot of infrastructure, both material and theoretical. You can't discard any of that lightly. But what science does do, that humans don't do naturally, is to keep on questioning things a little bit, all the time. Keep on poking and probing, even when things seem to be solid and sound. Otto Neurath framed this principle as an analogy: science is like a ship that is constantly under repair even though it is at sea. You simply stand on the part of the ship that seems most solid, and from there you try to replace the part that seems worst. The plank you stood on then may well be replaced itself, eventually, but that's all right. As long as it held up long enough, to give you a place to stand to repair something else, without everything sinking, then it was good enough for the time.

I think Neurath's is a great analogy. Being a scientist is like being a sailor in those circumstances. You know that your ship has things wrong with it, but you're not quite sure where. You don't decide that some parts are perfect, and never question them, and throw everything else over the side. You try to decide which parts seem best, and you use them as working assumptions, while you work on the parts that seem worst. You keep doing that; you never panic but you never rest. Eventually you may replace the entire ship, even many times over. But you do it a bit at a time. You might get your feet a bit wet but you never have to swim.

That's the kind of thinking that neither total fanatics nor total skeptics seem to know. It's not easy, because you never get to sit back and believe your boat is perfect; but it's not misery, either. You've always got a boat.

Well said Student of Trinity! Your metaphor "...science is like a ship that is constantly under repair even though it is at sea. You simply stand on the part of the ship that seems most solid, and from there you try to replace the part that seems worst..." is like Hubbard's notion of "cope and organize".

 

[TG1]

Questioning everything is too hard. I don't think it's uncommon for a radical skeptic to just get fed up with the misery of never being able to rely on anything, and abruptly settle on something — even something ridiculous — just to escape from the helplessness of total doubt. Like a kid who takes his piggy bank savings to the fair and is so careful about spending it wisely that he keeps it until the fair is about to close, and then suddenly spends it all on a big Micky Mouse balloon that he doesn't even like, because it's the best shot he's got left at having some fun at the fair, instead of just counting pennies and talking himself out of fun. Or maybe like a sailor who doesn't want to trust any leaky vessel, and winds up clutching driftwood when he's too tired to swim. Anyway, I think I can understand how former skeptics can become the most blindly dogmatic. They don't know how to be just a bit critical, and revise things bit by bit, because they've never done that; all they know is total belief and total doubt. If their experience was that doubt was misery and belief was relief, they'll be really reluctant to go back to doubt. So they can't be even critical a bit.

Hubbard's notion of the 'stable datum' is a rehash of a long-familiar truth. You need to take some things for granted. Faith really is a virtue: it helps you get things done, to be able to act on an assumption even though it's not proven.

Science is not about rejecting all assumptions, or doubting everything. Not at all; on the contrary, science needs a lot of infrastructure, both material and theoretical. You can't discard any of that lightly. But what science does do, that humans don't do naturally, is to keep on questioning things a little bit, all the time. Keep on poking and probing, even when things seem to be solid and sound. Otto Neurath framed this principle as an analogy: science is like a ship that is constantly under repair even though it is at sea. You simply stand on the part of the ship that seems most solid, and from there you try to replace the part that seems worst. The plank you stood on then may well be replaced itself, eventually, but that's all right. As long as it held up long enough, to give you a place to stand to repair something else, without everything sinking, then it was good enough for the time.

I think Neurath's is a great analogy. Being a scientist is like being a sailor in those circumstances. You know that your ship has things wrong with it, but you're not quite sure where. You don't decide that some parts are perfect, and never question them, and throw everything else over the side. You try to decide which parts seem best, and you use them as working assumptions, while you work on the parts that seem worst. You keep doing that; you never panic but you never rest. Eventually you may replace the entire ship, even many times over. But you do it a bit at a time. You might get your feet a bit wet but you never have to swim.

That's the kind of thinking that neither total fanatics nor total skeptics seem to know. It's not easy, because you never get to sit back and believe your boat is perfect; but it's not misery, either. You've always got a boat.

Trinity,

When I read elegance like yours above, I fantasize that you're retired from your science-y gig and are an Episcopalian deacon who gets to offer up sermons like this one to the congregation when your rector goes on vacation. In the meantime, you're practicing on us here.

I've said it before, but I really appreciate your contributions.

TG1

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

Trinity,

When I read elegance like yours above, I fantasize that you're retired from your science-y gig and are an Episcopalian deacon who gets to offer up sermons like this one to the congregation when your rector goes on vacation. In the meantime, you're practicing on us here.

I've said it before, but I really appreciate your contributions.

TG1

 

[aegerprimo]

El Ron did NOT have a stroke in '75...Hisself had a heart attack...I was there and have written about that before on ESMB and the fact that it was a Heart problem and not a Brain problem is corroborated by others that were there...including Hiself's personal Nurse, Kima...and in documents from the Hospital Hisself was at in Willemstad, Curacao.

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?30305-Ron-the-Sickie-(1975)&p=770971&viewfull=1#post770971

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...he-Apollo-1973&p=437241&viewfull=1#post437241

Please don't personalize the following AnonKat...I think you're swell and like your stuff and appreciate what you bring to ESMB...but I continually see Posts referencing El Ron's "Stroke" in '75 and with all the eye witness accounts and documents available to the contrary I just can't figure out why.

Face

I read the posts... Per the documentation, it was a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot in the pulmonary artery of the lungs. A stroke is caused by a blood clot in an artery in the brain. A heart attack is caused by a blood clot in the coronary artery of the heart (the coronary artery supplies blood nourishment to the tissues of the heart itself.) All three conditions are blood clots in arteries, and would require treatment with an anticoagulant medication.

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

I read the posts... Per the documentation, it was a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot in the pulmonary artery of the lungs. A stroke is caused by a blood clot in an artery in the brain. A heart attack is caused by a blood clot in the coronary artery of the heart (the coronary artery supplies blood nourishment to the tissues of the heart itself.) All three conditions are blood clots in arteries, and would require treatment with an anticoagulant medication.

Thank you. I appreciate you're correcting me and your explanation. For some silly reason I keep saying "Heart Attack" even though I've read the documents and was told the final diagnosis by Kima when Hisself was in the hospital. My main point is that it was not El Ron's brain that was stricken.

Edit: I guess that when Cariotaki initially told me Kima thought Hisself was having a Heart Attack it just "stuck" in my memory.

Face

 

[DartSmohen]

Thank you. I appreciate you're correcting me and your explanation. For some silly reason I keep saying "Heart Attack" even though I've read the documents and was told the final diagnosis by Kima when Hisself was in the hospital. My main point is that it was not El Ron's brain that was stricken.

Edit: I guess that when Cariotaki initially told me Kima thought Hisself was having a Heart Attack it just "stuck" in my memory.

Face

Just out of interest, when Hubbard had his pleura infection he sent a mission over to the UK to contact Dr Stephen Davies for medication. Stephen, quite rightly refused to prescribe more than the minimum quantity of tablets as he was unable to examine the patient directly and the mission were not prepared to divulge where the patent was or take him to conduct a physical examination.

Knowing Stephen, he would probably told Hubbard "You are fat, stop smoking and loose weight". All the sycophants and arse-kissers who spent their entire time sucking up to the "Commodore" would have shrieked in horror.

 

[OhMG]

The energy output argument didn't seem decisive, since lots of quasars were already known to be sitting way out there, shining steadily, with energy outputs that outshone whole galaxies.

The energy output has been a hot topic since NSA 1st discovered them in the 60's. The narrow beam is one idea. However since it is untestable it isn't a theory yet.

 

[AnonKat]

thank you, I must be confused with later events

El Ron did NOT have a stroke in '75...Hisself had a heart attack...I was there and have written about that before on ESMB and the fact that it was a Heart problem and not a Brain problem is corroborated by others that were there...including Hiself's personal Nurse, Kima...and in documents from the Hospital Hisself was at in Willemstad, Curacao.


http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?30305-Ron-the-Sickie-(1975)&p=770971&viewfull=1#post770971

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...he-Apollo-1973&p=437241&viewfull=1#post437241

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...he-Apollo-1973&p=437745&viewfull=1#post437745


Please don't personalize the following AnonKat...I think you're swell and like your stuff and appreciate what you bring to ESMB...but I continually see Posts referencing El Ron's "Stroke" in '75 and with all the eye witness accounts and documents available to the contrary I just can't figure out why.

Face

 

[aegerprimo]

Thank you. I appreciate you're correcting me and your explanation. For some silly reason I keep saying "Heart Attack" even though I've read the documents and was told the final diagnosis by Kima when Hisself was in the hospital. My main point is that it was not El Ron's brain that was stricken.

Edit: I guess that when Cariotaki initially told me Kima thought Hisself was having a Heart Attack it just "stuck" in my memory.

Face

I'm sure an easy mistake to make. Pulmonary embolism and heart attack would have similar signs and symptoms (chest pain and pressure, shortness of breath, dizziness...). So if he was clutching his chest in pain, it could've been immediately assumed he was having a heart attack.