Commander: One thing to consider is that Hubbard's mental state may have influenced what you regard as the benign portion of his teachings, requiring a thorough review of that portion of his teachings also.
__________
Below is a sampling of some pages from the many pages of letters sent by L. Ron Hubbard to the FBI during the 1950s. I've seen the photocopies of these letters, and the 2nd and 3rd pages down are missing a paragraph and two lines which were, for some reason, not scanned. I have filled in the missing paragraph and two lines.
The content of these letters ranges from attempts to identify people as Comminists, to "explanations" for various things, and an apparent attempt to persuade the FBI to persuade the IRS to not investigate Hubbard and his finances lest Hubbard accept a Soviet offer to fly to Russia and work "for very high fees," etc., to just plain bizarre ramblings.
The letters in their entirety can be accessed if one is curious, but these pages happen to be handy on the Net.
The first letter lists Sara Northup Hubbard, reporting her as a suspected communist.
"
In the greatest spirit of friendship and camaraderie it seem that I can go to Russia as an advisor or a consultant and have my own laboratories and receive very high fees. And it's all so easy because it's already been ascertained that I could get my passport extended for Russia and all I had to do was go to Paris and there a Russian plane would pick me up and that would be that.
"
Indeed that would be that.
"
I suppose when the Russian-inclined 'friend' finds that...
A page from another letter of the time period:
Part of a letter from September 1955. Note the reference to LSD.
__________
A few weeks later in September 1955, Hubbard also told Scientologists about the covert use of LSD - the "insanity drug" - to undermine and discredit Scientology. Note the duplicity.
From the 'Professional Auditors Bulletin' of 30 September 1955:
"
I could tell you about long strings of psychotics run in on the Foundation and the Association, sent in to us by psychiatrists who then, using LSD and pain-drug-hypnosis, spun them and told everyone that Dianetics and Scientology drove people insane. I could tell you about the strange politics and ambitions of psychiatry, so well covered in the book Psychopolitics [Hubbard's hoax 'Russian textbook on Pyscho-Politics', which he had just secretly authored and was soon to be published]
, and give you a proper riddle as to why we, a small group, the only ANGLO-SAXON DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIELD OF THE MIND AND SPIRIT [sic], have been subjected to so much attack and finance... But I am not telling you stories or being dramatic. I am inviting your cooperation in your own future security..."
As for dealing with those whose behavior became erratic or an embarrassment after Scientology processing, Hubbard wrote, in the same 'PAB':
"
You'll find the family physician or psychiatrist was called in midway in processing... You'll find there is a vested interest somewhere in the insanity of the person. An so testify that you suspect it. We will have on hand lots of literature on LSD..."
Sixteen years later, Hubbard would write a similar statement, although this one doesn't mention LSD and is more to the point. It has the simple title 'Confidential', and is dated 29 June 1971:
"
Policy is that we assign any case or upset in Scientology to past damage and interference with the person by medicine or psychiatry. They were sent into us after medicine or psychiatry had already destroyed them. We cannot be blamed for psychiatric or medical failures."
__________
"
He [Hubbard]
stayed up most of the night with a bottle of rum, which was empty in the morning, and he dictated the whole book, 'Science of Survival', onto little green discs on a recording machine..."
Richard DeMille, interviewed by Russell Miller:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/interviews/demille.htm
__________
According to John Sanborn who was a witness to Hubbard abducting Alexis in 1951, "
Hubbard considered Lexi [Alexis] as a pawn in the game, something he could deny Sara."
Sara holds the distinction of having signed the first coerced "retraction" statement (1951) in Scientology's history:
I, Sara Northup Hubbard, do hereby state that the things that I have said about L. Ron Hubbard in courts and public prints have been grossly exaggerated or entirely false. I have not at any time believed otherwise than that L. Ron Hubbard was a fine and brilliant man..."
___________
Letter from Ron Hubbard to 2nd wife Sara, from 1951 (...and, for any rosy cheeked Independent Scientologists out there
, no, Hubbard was not in a Cuban Military Hospital, was not about to be transferred to the States as a classified scientist immune from interference of all kinds, was not paralyzed, did not have trouble moving and was not going blind, and no, the Army and Navy did not have it. For an account of this time, suggest consulting the Richard DeMille interview by Russell Miller.):
"Dear Sara -
"I have been in a Cuban Military Hospital and I am being transferred to the States next week as a classified scientist immune from interference of all kinds though I will be hospitalized probably for a long time. Alexis is getting excellent care. I see here every day. She is all I have to live for. My wits never gave way under all you did and let them do but my body didn't stand up. My right side is paralyzed and getting more so. I have trouble moving and I am going blind. I hope my heart lasts.
"I may live a long time and again I may not. But Dianetics will last 10,000 years for the Army and Navy have it now. But I wanted to be well and strong and I can barely move now."My will is all changed. Alexis will get a fortune unless she goes to you as she would then get nothing.
"Get away from bad companions.
"Hope to see you once more.
"Goodbye - I love you.
"Ron."
_________
Also in 1951, 1st wife Polly wrote this letter to Hubbard's 2nd wife, Sara (From court records):
"Sara-
"If I can help in any way, I'd like to - You must get Alexis [Hubbard's daughter by Sara] in your custody - Ron is not normal. I had hoped that you could straighten him out. Your charges probably sound fantastic to the average person - but I've been through it - the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits you charge - twelve years of it. I haven't asked for anything, but with all the money rolling in from 'Dianetics' I had hoped to get enough for plastic surgery for Kay's [Ron Jr.'s younger sister] birthmark - Please believe I do want you to get Alexis."
__________
From L. Ron Hubbard's 1946 self-Affirmations:
"...
You are a master... Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are a master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. You cannot now accumulate karma for you are a master adept. Your voice is low and compelling to them. Singing to them, for you sing like a master, destroys their will to resist... "
__________
Old timer John Sanborn, editor of many of Hubbard's early books, said this during a 1986 interview:
"
Early on (before the divorce)
he [Hubbard]
made this stupid attempt to get Sara brainwashed so she'd do what he said. He kept her sitting up in a chair, denying her sleep, trying to use Black Dianetic principles on her, repeating over and over again whatever he wanted her to do. Things like, 'Be his wife, have a family that looks good, not have a divorce'."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpHhJKeTYxI
_________
In 1952, Scientology's founder invented a past and a future for Scientologists. He made it trillions of years in both directions. He first experimented with inventing a past for Scientologists in his Benzedrine-inspired text 'History of Man', originally titled 'What to Audit'.
Around that same time, Hubbard tested other ideas, such as that a person's reaction to Scientology (or to him), would place that person on the "Tone Scale," with a disapproving reaction placing the person
low on the scale. Those low on the "Tone Scale" - not being "sane" - were to have no credibility, and "no rights of any kind."
Hubbard also tested the idea of using meters as truth detectors. Does anyone doubt that showman and hypnotist Hubbard, when using an early Mathison e-meter, one which projected its needle movements on a wall or screen for all to see, did not notice when many in the crowd oohed and aahed at the display of a reaction?
Yet, it was premature for the implementation of these ideas on the still small, fragile and tentative membership. That would need to wait for a decade, as would Hubbard's implementation of most of the ideas outlined in the enigmatic "Russian Textbook on Psycho-politics."
In the mean time, Hubbard surrounded himself with those excited about his much advertised vision of a better world, and of the full releasing of human potential. Hubbard liked to write and he liked to lecture, and he had a knack as a practical psychologist.
He drew on the ideas and innovations of the most creative of those around him, and drew on his own knowledge of abreaction therapy, Korzybski's General Semantics, and Aleister Crowley's Magic(k). He re-worked the (four 'letters' - ingredients - of the) Kabbalistic 'tetragrammaton', and it became his 'Four Conditions of Existence'. He rewrote Crowley's 'Naples Arrangement' and it became his 'The Factors'. He borrowed Crowley's idea of a multiplicity of infinite minds and further excited Scientologists with that notion. None of these were original with Crowley, who was as much a relay point as was Hubbard.
Yet, unlike Crowley, Hubbard would eventually incorporate the methods of psychological warfare into his system, and use those methods, not only on his perceived enemies, but on his own followers.
And when - in the mid 1960s - Hubbard unleashed, mostly covertly, his psychological warfare tactics on Scientologists, he also returned to fully utilizing those ideas he had briefly tested more than a decade earlier.
__________
Hubbard was red baiting and flag waving during his 1950s smear campaigns, using "Russians" and "Communists" as the main emotional "buttons."
During the 1950s, and much of the 1960s, the "public" "hated" communists, so Hubbard made a point of being vehemently and publicly anti-communist, and sought to identify his perceived enemies as communists or communist sympathizers.
However, Hubbard could vary his approach if it seemed advantageous to do so. He even briefly, in the mid 1960s, after Senator McCarthy and "McCarthyism" had fallen into public disfavor, instructed that Scientology be identified as anti-Capitalist.
In a 6 October 1965 (broadly circulated) 'Executive Letter' Hubbard announced, "
McCarthyism has many faces. It is still abroad today."
And in another (non public) issue, 'Enquiry Rumor UK' of 9 February 1966, Hubbard (privately) explained:
"
Couple the words psychiatry with Capitalism - allege that psychiatry is the Capitalist's tool. A Conservative opened the attack in the UK and found the Press beating the drum for us."
When this approach did not prove effective, Hubbard quickly resumed his prior long standing tactic of calling his enemies "communists." After all, many people were still anti-Communist, even if "McCartyism" had become unpopular.
Then, there was another shift. By 1971, with the USA Vietnam war becoming increasing unpopular, and Scientology's membership, and potential membership, becoming younger, Hubbard switched to calling his enemies fascists and Nazis.
_________
L. Ron Hubbard explained how to use propaganda (to push the "hate" and "love" "buttons") in 'Battle Tactics' of 16 February 1969:
"The only safe public opinion to head for is they love us and are in a frenzy of hate against the enemy, that means standard wartime propaganda is what one is doing... Know the mores of your public opinion, what they hate. That's the enemy. What they love. That's you."
And another piece of Scientology tech, from Hubbard's 'Black Propaganda' of 12 January 1972:
"The objective is to be identified as attackers of popularly considered evils. This declassifies us from former labels. It reclassifies our attackers as evil people."
_________
The purpose for posting this information is to provide a more complete picture of Scientology, Hubbard, and Hubbard's mind.
It's interesting that Scientologists usually don't want to know the information presented here. It "enturbulates" them and shakes their "stable data" (or "datums" as Scientologists like to put it).
The information presented is not meant to devalue or nullify every aspect of Scientology. IMO, there are some positives in Scientology and, without these positives, Scientology would not be much of a trap.
So, fully describing Scientology requires the description of both those (mostly common sense) positives, and also the other less pleasant, and often disturbing, parts of Scientology.
__________
Another thread that may be helpful - the Best of 'The Sole Source Myth' thread:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?29298-Best-of-the-Sole-Source-Myth-thread.
To see the original thread, started by Jerryf25, click the horizontal arrows in the second post.
One drawback of this thread is that it is top heavy with references to the occult, but lacks content on Hubbard's exploitation of the abreactive - getting something off your chest: catharsis - process.
Catharsis, of course, by itself, in a non-manipulative environment, can often be beneficial.
More content on catharsis, Freud, etc., would be welcome.
It's been found that recognizing the actual earlier sources for Scientology - and the extent of Hubbard's "borrowings" - can be helpful for freeing a person from Scientology's grip.
Most of the above linked thread examines the positives of Scientology. It is mostly the positives that are used to lure and to trap.