Claire's theory on where L Ron Hubbard truly went wrong

[HelluvaHoax!]

RonnieLand is kinda like DisneyLand.

Big amusement park with lots of rides.

Main difference is at Disneyland, when you are waiting in line they have those little signs that tell you how long the wait is. For example:

"20 MINUTES FROM THIS POINT"

At RonnieLand there are no signs.

Because they don't know how long it takes.

Because nobody ever made it to the ride yet.

And instead of a smiling Mickey Mouse, they have scary implanted aliens that will kill you.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. They charge you by how long you wait in the line.

It's kind of depressing, actually.

[Leon]

No. In this instance it takes two to tango. Scio is not just a printed road map to be followed without thought, or with a blind and trusting faith in its outcome. It is a route on which the traveller goes only as far as he understands what he is dealing with, and no further. This needs to be understood fully.

Put another way, to the degree that he places his full trust for a happy outcome into the hands of another - and he thereby denies his own self - to that degree an inadequate or negative outcome is guarranteed.

Of course the subject has booby traps in it. So has life. You need to be sussed emough to spot themin both instances.

[HelluvaHoax!]

No. In this instance it takes two to tango. Scio is not just a printed road map to be followed without thought, or with a blind and trusting faith in its outcome. It is a route on which the traveller goes only as far as he understands what he is dealing with, and no further. This needs to be understood fully.
Put another way, to the degree that he places his full trust for a happy outcome into the hands of another - and he thereby denies his own self - to that degree an inadequate or negative outcome is guaranteed. Of course the subject has booby traps in it. So has life. You need to be sussed emough to spot themin both instances.

After considerable professional experience with Scientology, I have concluded....

1) It is not a route. Because a route has a destination. If nobody (including Hubbard) ever arrived at the theoretical destination, then the "route" is just a line drawn on a piece of paper with a picture of treasure at the end of it. (see Grade Chart)

2) One of the best booby traps is convincing people it's a real map with booby traps--so paying customers don't get discouraged when nobody finds the treasure. They just think they hit a booby trap and pick themselves up and try again.

[Dukat]

My thoughts aren't sophisticated as those above. Breaking it down or deconstructing it all to basic principles, I see it like this: an ugly nerdy guy who was moved around alot as a child, didn't have friends and totally took advantage of folks who started to listen.

It was a crazy time and while others created hula-hoops and Jiffy popcorn, the drop-out's ego exploded. He sure led the life of a lazy and stoopid person, making up gibberish about radiation and getting the little kids to do his dirty work. Nothing like an older person talking about life's wonders with the kiddies half his age. Selfish. Lazy. Liar. IMHO, of course!

[LongTimeGone]

The main problem I've seen with Dianetics is that it's not been used enough. It was released in 1950 and by 1951 it had disappeared. It finally came back in the '60's.

In 1978, the grade chart was revised putting Dianetics after the grades. Big mistake.

Forbidding Dianetics on Clears and OT's was an error. I've actually heard that people wanted to "unattest" to Clear so they could get more Dianetics.

But the biggest problem was using Dianetics to address the problems of the body only. The thetan has a time track also, and while a thetan doesn't have physical pain, it certainly does have attitudes and emotions. Any incident containing a "moment of shock" is a candidate for engram running. And no, a physical pain engram does not always have to underly it.

As for LRH himself, he tried to expand the C of S too fast. Anybody who even walked near an org's doors was pressured into buying more and buying it now. Many were ARC-broken by these crush sell techniques, including, I'm sure, many people on this BBS.

He sincerely believed that the world, if allowed to run its course, would just get worse and worse until we would all end up slaves in a fascist society. If we weren't killed first by the atomic war. Unless of course the C of S could stop it in time.

To expand fast, you need lots of money. He was always looking for ways to bring in more. The fastest way to do that is by "rip offs" of one kind or another. And it works. In the short term. Until people wise up.

He let the church be taken over. He had technology for detecting "plants", but it failed because the people who were supposed to be administering the checks were themselves plants.

He ended up in a "bubble", much the same as what America's President Obama talks about. He limited his contacts to a small number of insider staff, who controlled his comm lines and filtered what went in and out.

He failed to create "sub-heroes", people who would be recognized as real important (although, of course, less imortant than himself) and who would provide a clear line of succession.

Those of us who still believe in the basic purpose of Scientology will carry on. Somehow. Those who don't can say nothing or natter or whatever they wish. That's your right.

Helena

Just because YOU believe in it, doesn't mean you are right to accuse those of us who oppose Scientology as nattering.

LTG

[Voltaire's Child]

What Hubbard intended is really beside the point. Our individual experiences of Scio are determined by what we intend with the subject.

That's true insofar as it relates to a person's practice of Scn as ideology and methodology. But to me, it is relevant to see where Scn went off the rails because we are still picking up the pieces. People are coming here virtually every day with their stories to tell. There are court cases and investigations right now.

[Leon]

That's fine HH. Have it your way.

[Voltaire's Child]

We don't all have the same ideas about this, but that's normal and healthy.

I tend to doubt very much that Hubbard didn't have anything going for him and that's why he created Scn. He came from a good family, had money and education. I think that he had enough going for him that if he hadn't created Dianetics and Scn, that if he'd wanted to, he could have done a lot of other things. He also seems to have never had any problems making friends or getting laid, either.

I do think that he was speaking the truth when he said he'd been working on trying to create something like this for many lifetimes. But then again, I believe that people live many lifetimes, or, as I like to put it, one infinite lifetime with the occasional change of body. Or, at least, I think he believed that he'd been working on this stuff for multiple lifetimes. There's a lot of continuity and tie ins with Dianetics and Scn and there's far more material- which is consistent with other material that he wrote or gave lectures on that would be needed just to start a cult. Many successful cults have been created with far less ideology in back of them.

Remember those Advance Magazine articles about various philosophies? They always ended with, here's what they missed and now you have that with Scientology and L Ron Hubbard did this and that, etc. I think that's where he was coming from. I think he thought he could find all the pitfalls in other ologies and isolate all the good stuff and put together something. Now, having said that, I also think that he didn't succeed in many respects. I think he came up with some clever stuff but I honestly can't say that I think that if a person studied Buddhism instead, that they'd make less progress than if they'd done Scn. I mention Buddhism because that was clearly one of the things Hubbard thought he could extrapolate from. That and early psychoanalysis with a goodly dollop of occultism.

I think that even if one happens to be an indie or FZ Scn'ist who is doing well with that and is happy, that it still IS relevant to discuss where Hubbard went wrong. As I said, we're still picking up the pieces today. People are leaving and telling horrific stories. Well, given the fact that so many things have gone wrong in the cult, isn't it a good idea to discuss why? And in doing so, shouldn't we go back to the beginning of the thing? It started with Hubbard. So I think discussion of Hubbard is quite relevant. That doesn't take away from anyone's good experiences with auditing or whatnot, but you know, with so many problems, it behooves us to see what could be behind them.

[Infinite]

I could give you a map, drawn up by a mad man, that was intended to get you lost or, at very least, had no means of getting you were you intended to go. YOU could look at that map and say, "Fantastic, this map is so beautiful. It's got a great legend and it's totally true to size. The proportions are so accurate, the landscape so detailed, only a genius could have crafted this map. I know I can use this map to get where I want to go because MY intentions are good."

I'm sorry. I've heard that argument so many times. "He left us this body of work and who cares what his intentions were, it's what we do with it that counts."

What if, no matter how good YOUR intentions are, the subject is thoroughly booby trapped? I believe there has been plenty of compelling evidence, on this board, that points to that as a very distinct probability.

[Freeminds]

He sincerely believed that the world, if allowed to run its course, would just get worse and worse until we would all end up slaves in a fascist society. If we weren't killed first by the atomic war. Unless of course the C of S could stop it in time.

It's funny, really, but you can spend decades slogging away on the Scientology treadmill and never really perceive the nature of the organization, nor learn the truth about its founder. Or you can do an undirected reading spree on the Internet for a couple of weeks, for free, and discover far more, verifiable truths. The smalltime frauds. The failings as a leader/explorer. The college course he dropped out of. The disastrous war record. The dabblings with satanism. The abandonment of his first family, and bigamy. The bogus "health science" that had to become a religion. Being declared Persona non-Grata in England, and found guilty in absentia in France. The repeated betrayal and purging of high-ranking Scns he perceived as rivals. Human rights abuses in the Sea Org. The infiltration of the US government (Operation Snow White). Fair game and Operation PC Freakout... Did Hubbard ever do anything to distinguish himself as a useful member of the human race? The next example I discover will be the first.

Ron Hubbard sincerely believed virtually nothing. He didn't even believe sincerely in his own greatness, and his failings gnawed away at him. But that's another story. If you're still in denial about LRH, that's your problem.

Regarding the "ending up slaves in a fascist society" thing, you need to understand that Ron wasn't against slavery or fascism at all: he appears to have wanted a totalitarian regime... with the whole world in the grip of Scientology. ("Clear the planet.")

Did you ever read poor old George Orwell's uh.. 1984? Yes, yes, that's wonderful. That would be, could be, the palest imagined shadow of what a world would be like under the rule of the secret use of Scientology with no remedy in existence."

- L. Ron Hubbard, Philadelphia Doctorate Course Tape 20

Heluvahoax:
Loved the Disneyland rides analogy. In fact, I think I might have to pass that on to a few remaining Scientology victims that I know. Hope that's OK?