Understanding valid antecedents of Scientology

[Jachs]

Somewhere Hubbard mentions The Jesuit christians as what he considered the last fine students of the mind ,(before Wundt came along) and he parallels them to a relative of the Scientologist, (called mental masturbation for his listeners for an elitist orgasm)

but i place Hubbards craving for the Jesuit order for their reputation for brutal clandestine covert operations rather than their observations of the mind and spirit, destroying people got hubbard stimulated with BIG Jollys of power.

Jesuit Motto
Regimini militantis Ecclesiae
Latin for "To the Government of the Church Militant"

The Superior General of the Society of Jesus
Father General.
or the Black Pope.(basically COB)


Also possibly St Thomas Aquinus was mentioned by Lafayette as a pre Wundt(Boo Hoo) psychology master to be admired. Why talk about your own theories when you can name drop.

 

[Leon]

Another tactical retreat. It seems to be that whenever you are countered you switch the subject to another point.

I believe that an unexamined life is not worth living as Socrates once said.

And I think that using an unexamined mental technology on oneself is a very dangerous thing.

That is why the antecedents and other current practices are important, as well as how Scientology has evolved and changed from its antecedents.

You look up the derivation of words, don't you?

It sound like this is your argument--ignore what it is--just concentrate on how you feel about it in present time.

The Anabaptist Jacques

Their is no retreating here at all. This is another straw man from you. I stated from my earliest posts on this thread that what m,atters is one's present time approach to it. I have changed nothing.

Also it has nothing to do with how I "feel about it". The appreciation of value in the subject covers a much broader field than mere "feeling".

An "unexamined mental technology"???? I have been examining this subject for over 40 years now, and you call it unexamined? By you maybe but not by me.

Basic Scientology has not changed by much, if at all, over the years. The way it is applied and packaged and presented has changed. But not the fundamentals. he fact you think it has changed over the years shows you don't know the subject.

I still think your responses are weak

 

[Petey C]

..
One of the misconceptions I consider to be too prevalent among many ex's is that everything they ever encountered within scientology is somehow one aggregate and inseparable mass. No doubt many experienced it that way. The church & especially the SO certainly enforce such a viewpoint. Many who share such an attitude spent lengthy periods being indoctrinated deep within the church under the 'tutelage' of the SO.

However, truly nothing could be further from the truth. The materials themselves do not require any such 'all or nothing' attitude. As they themselves are written they lay out the various aspects of scientology tech each in a separate manner. Even the courses are strung together from distinct, individual, and largely unrelated issues.

Mark A. Baker

I know you're not referring to me or my earlier post. But I want to stand up for exes who, like me, reject all of Scientology on principle, regardless of whether bits of it work or not (though there's an argument to be made that much of it doesn't work as claimed).

That aside, I wonder how you differentiate between exes who reject the whole scientology complex (tech, admin, SO, Hubbard, ideal orgs, OT levels, whatever) because they can't differentiate components of scientology and segregate them into workable/unworkable, or good/bad, and those who have the capacity to make nice distinctions but don't care to. In other words, those who can't and those who won't.

I'd also have to dispute what you say about the materials not requiring an "all or nothing" attitude. In my view, they do. The demands Scn makes at first encounter do not seem great: no drugs of any kind, get some sleep, eat. (After paying up, of course.) They seem sensible and certainly not onerous at the beginning of an entry-level course. But they're also deeply rooted in other Scn theories and practices, and violation -- even at the basic entry level -- can bring down the force of HCO on the newcomer. Some poor sap thinks he is just doing a communications course and before too long, he's forced to separate from his family because he's supposedly PTS to them. The choice? All or nothing. And yes, this happened to me in my first two weeks of scientology.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Hubbard changed his mind about the definition of a thetan through the years. Sometimes he was talking about the totally immaterial thing he also labelled "static," and sometimes he was talking about the not-so-immaterial thing involving the body's electronic structure sometimes called the human aura.

We had this conversation three years ago in this post. Maybe you should read it again.

Paul

Excellent point Paul.

This has always caused a lot of questions.
I mean if it came down to a big 'sucking up' of souls in the Rapture, WHAT would be being harvested.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

...
That aside, I wonder how you differentiate between exes who reject the whole scientology complex (tech, admin, SO, Hubbard, ideal orgs, OT levels, whatever) because they can't differentiate components of scientology and segregate them into workable/unworkable, or good/bad, and those who have the capacity to make nice distinctions but don't care to. In other words, those who can't and those who won't.

Given what many have endured as a result of their involvements with the church it is hardly surprising that some prefer to abandon the subject completely. Simply put, anyone is free to make his own choices in life, whether with regard scientology or other matters. How they go about making those choices though, often provides illumination into their thought processes.

... I'd also have to dispute what you say about the materials not requiring an "all or nothing" attitude. In my view, they do. The demands Scn makes at first encounter do not seem great: no drugs of any kind, get some sleep, eat. (After paying up, of course.) They seem sensible and certainly not onerous at the beginning of an entry-level course. But they're also deeply rooted in other Scn theories and practices, and violation -- even at the basic entry level -- can bring down the force of HCO on the newcomer. Some poor sap thinks he is just doing a communications course and before too long, he's forced to separate from his family because he's supposedly PTS to them. The choice? All or nothing. And yes, this happened to me in my first two weeks of scientology.

Your objection is still principally about the way the organization sought to enforce compliance with its own standards. It is not about the nature of the scientology materials themselves.

I don't dispute at all that the organization seeks to create an attitude that the works of hubbard constitute a unified whole. Orthodoxies by their very nature seek to enforce their chosen dogmas. The maintenance of their influence, power, and existence is seen as dependent upon uniform acceptance of common dogma. Hence the role that heresy has played as the bete noire of orthodoxy.

The Co$ organization is clearly a cult intent on propagating itself through the enforcement of a common attitude towards its chosen dogma among all its members. Hubbard was a gas bag intent on his own self-promotion. Most of what he had to say throughout his active career dealt with his view of an organization led by himself. It had little to do with the subject of the auditing tech of scientology.

On any given tape there may be ~ ten minutes or less of actual tech talk along with ~50 minutes of opinion, hyperbole, and self-promotion. The policy letters, of whatsoever stripe, all deal with how ron's church must be run, primarily in his interest. The tech letters deal with the various aspects of the tech, and they do so separately. Similarly, the books are structured in a similar fashion. Hubbard never succeeded at writing a comprehensive technical review of the subject of scientology. Simply put, he couldn't. He lacked the analytical skills necessary.

As stated previously, the tech itself was not designed, developed, or delineated as a composite whole. As such, it is a mistake to view the subject as a composite whole, although that is certainly how many, if not most, were taught to think of it. From my view, that approach didn't prove to be particularly beneficial to those who embraced it over the course of their exposure to the subject, which is another excellent reason not to advocate such an approach.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Veda]

Oh shut up

-snip-

Your and your associate's primary purpose of this MB is to promote Scientology. Usually it's promoted manipulatively. The last thing someone considering leaving Scientology or having recently left Scientology needs, is more slippery phony manipulative promotion of Scientology. Yet there it is. And there's nothing that can be done about it. It violates no rules as there are no rules against being dishonest or manipulative.

Hey, maybe you guys should write a Success Story.

 

[Petey C]

...

Your objection is still principally about the way the organization sought to enforce compliance with its own standards. It is not about the nature of the scientology materials themselves.

I don't dispute at all that the organization seeks to create an attitude that the works of hubbard constitute a unified whole. Orthodoxies by their very nature seek to enforce their chosen dogmas. The maintenance of their influence, power, and existence is seen as dependent upon uniform acceptance of common dogma. Hence the role that heresy has played as the bete noire of orthodoxy.

...
As stated previously, the tech itself was not designed, developed, or delineated as a composite whole. As such, it is a mistake to view the subject as a composite whole, although that is certainly how many, if not most, were taught to think of it. From my view, that approach didn't prove to be particularly beneficial to those who embraced it over the course of their exposure to the subject, which is another excellent reason not to advocate such an approach.


Mark A. Baker

That's a very subtle argument but ultimately, I don't share your view. To my mind the standards to be enforced do not exist outside of the materials. In some domains, they are the materials. The organisation itself is, in a way, "the materials" -- in this case, all scientological organisational behaviour is derived directly by and generated from the "admin tech".

I'm not arguing that scientology "tech" (sorry, I can't accept that it's a technology) was conceived of holistically, that it exists as an integrated whole. That's a given, and some of the posts earlier in this thread have been provocative, interesting and enlightening.

But you haven't answered my question and I'm genuinely interested: can you distinguish between those of us who can but will not, or those who cannot therefore will not, distinguish between the workable and unworkable bits of scientology?

 

[Dulloldfart]

Excellent point Paul.

This has always caused a lot of questions.
I mean if it came down to a big 'sucking up' of souls in the Rapture, WHAT would be being harvested.

I am assuming that question is similar to what is left of a person after his meat body crumbles to dust, shall we say.

My main reference points come from the works of Michael Newton and Barbara Brennan. Newton says that a human being includes both a one-life mind that matures and dies along with the body, and the immortal soul. That soul bit in a human is part, roughly half, of the individual's spiritual essence, his soul energy, which permanently resides in the spirit world "up there."

In Brennan's more analytical terminology, the human being includes (1) the body; (2) the aura levels, seven of which she details but says there are more; (3) the hara parts; (4) the "core star" part. I've described these elsewhere on ESMB. So the question then becomes, what's left after body death and return to "up there"?

It would have to include the core star part. It wouldn't have to include any of the aura parts really, as they are all concerned with nourishing and operating with a human body with that specific structure, and Brennan says that the aura is generated from the hara level anyway. Similarly, the parts of the hara level relate to human life on Earth (the line into the molten core of the earth; the tan tien point near the navel; the "soul seat" just above the heart; and the "ID point" three feet above the head which seems to connect the person on Earth to his personal higher self — the remaining soul essence he split off from — in the spirit world) and these hara level parts are not needed purely in the spirit world.

So I think that by the time the dust has settled after the transition from Earthly life to, er, Heavenly life, all that one totes around up there — all that one is — is the core star part, the individualised divine essence. Newton talks about souls appearing as bright lights of different colours, and being able to appear with any form, such as displaying themselves to newly-dead friends in the guise of their Earthly appearance in order to comfort or reassure the individual, so that would seem to me to confirm my reasoning here.

The core star part would contain the potential of generating all the other parts as needed. If one ended up living a life on another planet, with a different body form, then I imagine the hara level would be constituted similarly to one on Earth, but the aura levels would be based on the appropriate body structure. Just like a dog has its own aura structure.

Paul

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Your and your associate's primary purpose of this MB is to promote Scientology. Usually it's promoted manipulatively. The last thing someone considering leaving Scientology or having recently left Scientology needs, is more slippery phony manipulative promotion of Scientology. Yet there it is. And there's nothing that can be done about it. It violates no rules as there are no rules against being dishonest or manipulative.

Hey, maybe you guys should write a Success Story.

Lol ... can I write one?

SUCCESS!​

I have finally realised why most Indies and Freezoners are a complete and utter pain in the arse!

They are not even pretending to be 'saving the planet' and they are certainly not having to tolerate the disgusting treatment that cofs staff are having to cope with on a daily basis.

Even in the cofs professional PC's were considered lower than low (except when they were being relieved of their money) and non-staff scientologists were sneered at (behind their backs) by the long suffering staff.

ESMB has become 'home' for the cofs rejects that are either walking talking CASES or are in the BUSINESS of auditing them and a couple are here telling everyone how clever they are because they stole the tek and changed it a bit (guru wannabees).

I didn't like the concentration on case that some had when I was in the cofs, I preferred the nuts and bolts kind of scientologist who was genuinely of the belief that they were doing something of real value (delusional as that was) but here on an EX site we are surrounded by Indies that are nothing more than prattling professional PC's ... and they don't even keep their casey waffling to themselves!

Wow! The room seems brighter ... thanks Tubs.

​

 

[Veda]

-snip-

Hubbard never succeeded at writing a comprehensive technical review of the subject of scientology. Simply put, he couldn't.

-snip-

Of course he could have. He chose not to.

Scientology is a secretive doctrine that places on display selected pieces of itself in a misleading fashion.

One of its main means of defense is that it cannot be pinned down, and is ever elusive, with the relentless determination of a carnival hustler playing a shell game.

A comprehensive technical review would destroy Scientology. Any practical instruction by Hubbard constitutes Scientology "tech," and a comprehensive examination of that would reveal a mix of psychologist, hypnotist, con man, and vengeful paranoid.

And the attempt to throw Hubbard under the bus and make him irrelevant to the doctrine of Scientology is another in a series of desperate PR damage control moves.

In short, Scientologists cannot be honest about Scientology, for to do so would destroy the subject.

 

[Jachs]

What i see is this, sometime when certain pro tech guys are "agreeing" that Hubbard was a sociopath, its false empty words , like pass the butter , yes Hubbard was a sociopath , he was a crook , yes yes, but its like they dont really believe that, its hollow words, and for all the effort , its still naturally comes across that it doesnt matter how many people are dying, or maimed,in fear because its not impacting them, that in itself is a form of disconnection from reality.

 

[Dulloldfart]

What i see is this, sometime when certain pro tech guys <snip>

What do you mean by "pro tech" here? I find parts of Scn useful, but wouldn't recommend a new person gets into it at all, and never audit myself using straight Scn. I certainly think Hubbard was a liar and con-man through and through.

Do you consider me "pro tech"?

Paul

 

[Ulduz]

The idea that the conditioned response/reflex could be targeted to discover chains of incidents creating that response/reflex can be directly related to the idea of dogs salivating at a bell, or whatever other conditioning is applied. That concept was Pavlov's. It is not true that psychology/psychologists ignored Korzybski. In fact, modern Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy directly credits Korzybski with their foundational concepts. Albert Ellis, founder of REBT, was a student of General Semantics, and it permeates his work quite obviously.

Psychoanalysis has been essentially dismissed, in favor of modern theories and methods, but that doesn't mean there was no value in it. There are 12 or 13 different schools of psychoanalysis, some of which are quite operational to this day, and recognized by the APA as quite valid, though most people, today, are training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, etc. All of these methods represent big steps forward, but would be completely dishonest to deny their debt to Freud, Jung, Korzybski, Pavlov, Maslow and numerous others.

Scientology is a whole system. As a whole system, it is an utter failure as a psychotherapy, as most of its policy and activity undermine any possible benefit from the parts that are effective and humanitarian. The results of Scientology are more money in the hands of the Church and ruined lives. The reason people give so much time and money to the Church, though, is because of the effectiveness of some parts, used as bait, though they do not lead to the claimed results. It is worthwhile to study the antecedents, because they point the lights on the parts that are worthwhile, and on what could form the basis of a very valid school of thought on the matter, regardless of Hubbard's misuse of them.

You correctly described Pavlov’s achievements. However, they have nothing to do with LRH’s works. There is nothing in Scientology that even remotely resembles the theory of reflexes.
Do you believe that an infant knows that his father is physically stronger than his mother? I do not think so. Obviously, the infant does not seek his father’s protection because he does not even know who his father is. But that totally destroys Freud’s idea of the causes of homosexuality and the desire of a female to have sex with her father. It took me only couple of sentences to destroy Freud’s psychoanalysis. I can do even more damage to Freud’s theories if I wanted to.
Apparently, there is some value in Korzybski’s works, and I do not dismiss them offhand. But the one I was referring to deals with engrams, and this idea was rejected by his contemporary psychologists.
The other names you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, and I know nothing about their contribution to science.
The only valid method in Scientology that I have found so far is to run the fear of death to extreme in order to get rid of it. Of course, LRH did not invent this technique by himself, he “borrowed” it from the works of the Chicago school of psychologists.

 

[Ulduz]

The idea that the conditioned response/reflex could be targeted to discover chains of incidents creating that response/reflex can be directly related to the idea of dogs salivating at a bell, or whatever other conditioning is applied. That concept was Pavlov's. It is not true that psychology/psychologists ignored Korzybski. In fact, modern Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy directly credits Korzybski with their foundational concepts. Albert Ellis, founder of REBT, was a student of General Semantics, and it permeates his work quite obviously.

Psychoanalysis has been essentially dismissed, in favor of modern theories and methods, but that doesn't mean there was no value in it. There are 12 or 13 different schools of psychoanalysis, some of which are quite operational to this day, and recognized by the APA as quite valid, though most people, today, are training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, etc. All of these methods represent big steps forward, but would be completely dishonest to deny their debt to Freud, Jung, Korzybski, Pavlov, Maslow and numerous others.

Scientology is a whole system. As a whole system, it is an utter failure as a psychotherapy, as most of its policy and activity undermine any possible benefit from the parts that are effective and humanitarian. The results of Scientology are more money in the hands of the Church and ruined lives. The reason people give so much time and money to the Church, though, is because of the effectiveness of some parts, used as bait, though they do not lead to the claimed results. It is worthwhile to study the antecedents, because they point the lights on the parts that are worthwhile, and on what could form the basis of a very valid school of thought on the matter, regardless of Hubbard's misuse of them.

You correctly described Pavlov’s achievements. However, they have nothing to do with LRH’s works. There is nothing in Scientology that even remotely resembles the theory of reflexes.
Do you believe that an infant knows that his father is physically stronger than his mother? I do not think so. Obviously, the infant does not seek his father’s protection because he does not even know who his father is. But that totally destroys Freud’s idea of the causes of homosexuality and the desire of a female to have sex with her father. It took me only couple of sentences to destroy Freud’s psychoanalysis. I can do even more damage to Freud’s theories if I wanted to.
Apparently, there is some value in Korzybski’s works, and I do not dismiss them offhand. But the one I was referring to deals with engrams, and this idea was rejected by his contemporary psychologists.
The other names you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, and I know nothing about their contribution to science.
The only valid method in Scientology that I have found so far is to run the fear of death to extreme in order to get rid of it. Of course, LRH did not invent this technique by himself, he “borrowed” it from the works of the Chicago school of psychologists.

 

[Jachs]

What do you mean by "pro tech" here? I find parts of Scn useful, but wouldn't recommend a new person gets into it at all, and never audit myself using straight Scn. I certainly think Hubbard was a liar and con-man through and through.

Do you consider me "pro tech"?

Paul

No not you Paul, i know you see value on certain techniques, i could say im still pro certain Scn techniques, but you at least can acknowledge sincerely the carnage misery and mind bending that Hubbards system can and has caused ,as we have seen on this board.

What im talking about is someone giving empty and saying its empathy just to appease.

 

[Veda]

I would agree.

If Paul is pro-tech, then so am I pro-tech.

But I doubt if the outside the CoS Scientologists think of me as pro-tech.

 

[Mystic]

Yes, but aren't we all that way?

The Anabaptist Jacques

There are many "we". Some of them think they are an "all".

 

[chuckbeatty]

Rant:

According to Terril park Hubbard was a genius. I disagree.....snip.....



Question #2: Does the tech work?

I don't believe it does.Even if Scientologits have wins, that doesn't prove anything, IMO. I believe it's a mix of placebo and autosuggestion, that's why those wins usually tend to be fleeting.
....snip.....

There is no doubt that Hubbard started Dianetics to make money ......snip....



[/] Rant

1) Agreed, he's NO genius. More the case of the PT Barnum "Sucker born every day." Hubbard was so ebulliently prolific and hype style, Martin Gardner's "Fads and Fallacies", the early chapters where he summarizes the characteristics of "crank" pseudo-science "geniuses", Hubbard clearly falls into the crank "genius" category, and only "genius" in the minds of those who were NOT capable of seeing through the hype and positive suggestions placebo effects.

2) Harriet Whitehead, I've quoted her on ARS, from her book on Scientology, "Renunciaton and Reformulation", Chapter 3, is about how even in psychotherapy history, when patients offered up fantastic past lives confabulations, the patients showed case progress if the therapist basically followed good therapist demeanor and didn't challenge the confabulations of the patient. This is a very important issue, and is in the same ballpark as the placebo benefit of ALL "alternative" practices,
http://tinyurl.com/3fsklkj

Harriet Whitehead in her "Renunciation and Reformulation", chapter 3,
shows the connection from Freud and Jung, up to Scientology's
"Dianetics".

On Hubbard starting Dianetics for money, somewhat his motive, but also once it was going, he had a going thing, it was his baby, and he stuck with it and at least on paper, and in his own actions, he demonstrated his commitment to the movement if one honestly looks at ALL of his final years behavior, namely his traffic to Author Services Inc, his intentions for the "Archives Project" (Church of Spiritual Technology's underground vault sites where over 100 million dollars were spent putting Hubbard's Scientology legacy of writings and lectures into "imperishable" form, stainless steel etched plates of his works, and special disks of his recorded lectures, special archival paperbound books, etc, and possibly some of his own "stash" of diamonds and jewels, I speculate). Hubbard's tech training films contain some long term statements to the most faithful, for instance the Class 6 course tech film, "Why TRs" where Hubbard, narrated by the late Isaac Hayes who starts at a galactic observer floating on a high tech space platform with a telescope allowing Isaac to peer into far away planets and observe decayed space civilizations, where Isaac narrates that the Class 6 students might someday find themselves living, as the "only" Scientologist, and therefor the Class 6 students should really absorb Hubbard's basic tech spiritual ideas, in order to get Scientology going on those future decayed civilization planets.

One has to take into consideration Hubbard's "Writers of the Future" private writings which Author Services and Galaxy Press carry out the yearly awards ceremony for.

One has to look at the LRH traffic to INCOMM (the computer in house sub organization) which are very science fictionesque.

Hubbard's pulp writings, particularly the "spiritual" ones, my favorite "One Was Stubborn" is absolutely something expert researchers of Hubbard's whole life mindset, and trying to discern honestly what was ON his mind, and what to say in honesty about ALL of his whole life's "work".

The average critic of Scientology usually shallowly finds the worst about Hubbard, and leaves it at that. Wisely so, in my opinion.

But the sweeping condemnations I find superficial. They satisfy only in conversations with people who aren't going to waste the time, and well they shouldn't.

But for the expert encyclopedic and fully accurate overall summation of Hubbard, one SHOULD look at ALL of his writings, to a sufficient degree to keep all of the major points in one's mind when one summarizes what Scientology is.

I'm still trying to work out the best paragraph sized summary of the movement.

Hubbard all his life was sciencefictionesque and in his significant final writings, both to INCOMM and to ASI (Author Services Inc), he wrote both the fantastic "true" space background stories to brag to the INCOMM top leaders how they needed to set up a computer system like the one used millions of years ago in past successful galactic space civilizations, and he laid out how that system SHOULD work, and he braggingly laid out how to improve on that old space computer system (the infamous "Chug" advices to INCOMM). AND in his "Writers of the Future" orders to ASI, LRH mainly, and I think he can be commended, for ordering the "Writers of the Future/Illustrators of the Future" contests be run by ASI, and Galaxy helps with that today. It's a return to the science fiction roots that made him famous in the science fiction world in the first place. He ordered, and ASI still executes his orders on helping new writers and illustrators of the fantasy and science fiction and speculative fiction genres.

I agree with Arthur C. Clarke who said, I paraphrase, that Hubbard was quite a good writer, but he went crazy and caused a lot of other people to go crazy.

I agree with Heinlein, who in letters to LRH tried to get Ron to go back to sci fi and stop the Dianetics nonsense. I think Heinlein did have influence on LRH's life, and I wish Danny Sherman and Miscavige would give Lawrence Wright access to LRH's personal letters to Heinlein and to the other sci writers Hubbard was friends with, and to all of Hubbard's private letters to others also.

Link to the quote I paraphrased from Arthur C. Clarke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43YakGYQYGc



I remember when I was at ASI, from 1992-1995, Hugh Wilhere always had
to jump around the widely scathing opinions that the great Science
Fiction writers held for LRH.

Ray Bradbury refused to set foot in Scientology buildings, although I
witnessed him make a few exceptions, I briefly talked to him inside
the ASI building. I was temporarily holding Receptionist and he only came in to ask where the party was being held, which was at another building and he left to join that party.

I think LRH did well to promote Science Fiction through his "Writers
of the Future" project, but that it's gaudy how LRH did so. He
rather should have been the private donor to a foundation that had NO
connections to Scientology run the "Writers of the Future" rather than
have ASI do it each year, but ASI hasn't been too bad in keeping
Scientology OUT of the "Writers of the Future" events, I attended 3 or
4 years of those events, and we ASI staffers would NOT discuss
Scientology, nor flog LRH's "properties" (meaning his books, etc) to
the attendees of the events. The exchange back to LRH for him
footing the bill for the "Writers of the Future" events each year, is
just the hype of how successful LRH was.

But the greatest Sci Fi people were loathe to give LRH too much
credit, since that obviously leads into the Scientology dissemination.


In a similar vein, it is VERY important to hear this Robin Williams
interview with Harlan Ellison when Harlan discusses Lester Del Ray:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9AGVARpqdk

this last clip to me, explains how LRH got the idea to even choose the
religion route!

Lester Del Ray was a boy preacher/evangelist turned Sci Fi writer.

Harlan explains Lester is the one that said "Start a religion..."

"Ron cobbled up Dianetcs......and it took off...."

Hubbard thus took this idea, and ultimately made his money in the
religion business. And with Writers of the Future, he is giving back, at least.

Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke's views should always be included, in talking about L. Ron Hubbard, and I wish to hell Hubbard's private letters would be published someday.

 

[Veda]

1)

-snip-

I think he can be commended, for ordering the "Writers of the Future/Illustrators of the Future" contests be run by ASI, and Galaxy helps with that today.

-snip-

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mr8Dsrs8L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

'L. Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future' is one of several - funded by Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard fan clubs. Another one is 'Friends of L. Ron Hubbard' http://cltampa.com/dailyloaf/archiv...ize-clean-ybor-event-on-world-environment-day.

This quote is from 'Brainwashing Manual Parallels' under 'Front Groups':

"One area where Hubbard's name is publicized, with the pretense of being separate from Scientology, is in the world of science fiction literature. While there are non-Scientologists who enjoy some of Hubbard's early fiction works, they too often think of Scientology as a bizarre departure from an otherwise respectable writing career. Scientology cannot use these people. It becomes necessary, therefore, to produce people who 1) adore all of Hubbard's fiction writings, 2) claim to have no connection to Scientology, 3) and have not a single 'critical' thing to say about it, making such comments as, 'I know nothing about Scientology, I'm an Episcopalian'. Hubbard's fiction writings (available through the front group called 'Author Services') will be found to have a number of quietly catered to admirers; often these are aspiring authors hoping to receive sizable cash awards, and to be included in the 'L. Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future' short story anthologies. One such admirer was invited by 'Author Services' to the premier of the movie 'Battlefield Earth' in Los Angeles in May of 2000. As described in the Riverside California, 'Press Enterprise':

"He walked on the red carpet down the center of Hollywood Boulevard and even shook hands with John Travolta. And even though some movie critics had panned the film, [he] had no complaints."

 

[uniquemand]

You correctly described Pavlov’s achievements. However, they have nothing to do with LRH’s works. There is nothing in Scientology that even remotely resembles the theory of reflexes.

I'm talking about Pavlov's theory of conditioned reflexes/responses, not native instinctual reflexes/responses. "Engrams", "secondaries", "locks", any acquired response, other than conscious learning, would fit the definition of conditioned response.

Do you believe that an infant knows that his father is physically stronger than his mother? I do not think so. Obviously, the infant does not seek his father’s protection because he does not even know who his father is. But that totally destroys Freud’s idea of the causes of homosexuality and the desire of a female to have sex with her father. It took me only couple of sentences to destroy Freud’s psychoanalysis. I can do even more damage to Freud’s theories if I wanted to.

Please, do. It's true that Freud had a lot of ideas that were idiosyncratic, strange, and/or flat wrong. He also had some that were not. Freud's major contributions weren't "Oedipus Complexes" or "Penis Envy". His contributions were sequential regression, abreaction, hysteria (which was a generalization, but still helpful in understanding psychogenic illness, whether mental or physical), transference, resistance, ego defenses, and probably more I'm forgetting right now.

Apparently, there is some value in Korzybski’s works, and I do not dismiss them offhand. But the one I was referring to deals with engrams, and this idea was rejected by his contemporary psychologists.

I'm not sure you're correct about this. At any rate, his contemporary psychologists were Freudians and Jungians, for the most part. Why would you accept their judgment, if you find them to be knuckleheads following disproved theories? The term "engram" in General Semantics did not have the same meaning it had in Dianetics, nor was the "engram" central to Korzybski's message. The keynote of Korzybski's work was and remains "semantic reactions".

The other names you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, and I know nothing about their contribution to science.
The only valid method in Scientology that I have found so far is to run the fear of death to extreme in order to get rid of it. Of course, LRH did not invent this technique by himself, he “borrowed” it from the works of the Chicago school of psychologists.

I certainly don't claim that Scientology is a valid psychotherapy. I do claim that elements of it are useful as valid psychotherapeutic tools, and that these were developed by others (his antecedents), with the exception of a few, such as "end phenomena", "flows", and others I have previously specified.