The Dianetics Fiasco

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

"The mind" as opposed to the brain is itself a metaphor. Unless you want to talk about the physical action of chemicals and electrical impulses, you're speaking in metaphors, symbols. Some metaphors help us to understand our motivations and behaviors better, and those are useful -- Freud's ideas are powerful metaphors, Sacks' ideas were as well. Not coincidentally, both are exceptionally good writers.

Some metaphors are weak or absurd, and don't help us understand anything. Hubbard's ideas are lazy and derivative of work he didn't understand, and, not coincidentally, he was a dreadful writer.

There is no "grain of truth" in Dianetics or Scientology. Hubbard was a loquacious idiot with delusions of grandeur.

This is why I urge people who are out of Scientology to read good books: Plato, Montaigne, Freud, anything that's stood the test of time. Not because they're right, or even "workable": that's something Hubbard taught you to expect from philosophical or speculative works, and it's something that every intelligent person knows is a ridiculous expectation. They continue to be read because of the strength and originality of their vision, and the grace with which they communicate it.

A great thinker gives you possibilities, not absolute solutions. Ideas, not techniques. One who does the latter is either intellectually dishonest or fascistic.

It's my conviction that anyone reading the work of a really great writer (in fiction or nonfiction) can only come to see Hubbard for the pathetically inadequate thinker he was. If they can't, they may well be lost causes.

Although I disagree about the mind and the brain being the same thing.

The Anabaptist Jacques

[NCSP]

Although I disagree about the mind and the brain being the same thing.

The Anabaptist Jacques

I didn't mean to imply that. The brain is a physical object; "the mind" is an abstraction whose workings we describe with symbolic language.

Thanks for the applause though! That post was a bit more withering than I intended. I'm generally tolerant of other people's ideas -- I even like kooks. But it baffles me that, 60 years on, we still have disagreements about Dianetics. That book is ridiculous nonsense, full stop. I can see someone being taken in by it as a kid, but for God's sake, it's not even charmingly kooky. It's just garbage. I mean, I understand that it's not reasonable to expect everyone to be widely read, but sometimes I just want to shake people and tell them to read a goddamn book.

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

I didn't mean to imply that. The brain is a physical object; "the mind" is an abstraction whose workings we describe with symbolic language.

Thanks for the applause though! That post was a bit more withering than I intended. I'm generally tolerant of other people's ideas -- I even like kooks. But it baffles me that, 60 years on, we still have disagreements about Dianetics. That book is ridiculous nonsense, full stop. I can see someone being taken in by it as a kid, but for God's sake, it's not even charmingly kooky. It's just garbage. I mean, I understand that it's not reasonable to expect everyone to be widely read, but sometimes I just want to shake people and tell them to read a goddamn book.

Cool.

I was a very uneducated person when I got in Scientology. And I stayed in until I got an education.

Specifically, what made me see through Scientology was reading Plato.

The Anabaptist Jacques

[Jachs]

Cool.

I was a very uneducated person when I got in Scientology. And I stayed in until I got an education.

Specifically, what made me see through Scientology was reading Plato.

The Anabaptist Jacques

Any particular part of Plato that was a defining moment?

[NCSP]

Cool.

I was a very uneducated person when I got in Scientology. And I stayed in until I got an education.

Specifically, what made me see through Scientology was reading Plato.

The Anabaptist Jacques

That makes me so happy! I've thought for a long time that Plato would be ideal in helping someone see through Hubbard. Not so much because of any specific ideas, but just because it's so good. How can someone continue to hold LRH in high regard after reading something so well-argued, gracefully written, and intellectually honest? Hubbard often hides his poor thinking in gibberish. (He's not unique in this.) Plato, though, is crystal clear without sacrificing any of the complexities of what he's writing about. And the dialogues show real thinking in action, not the absolutist dictates of Hubbard. Plato is seduction; Hubbard is rape.

[NoName]

Any particular part of Plato that was a defining moment?

Yeah, I'm interested. Finally a topic I'd be able to explain to my in friend :D

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

Any particular part of Plato that was a defining moment?

Book VI and VII of the Republic.

Book VI is the divided lines, Book VII is the Alleghory of the Cave.

Can you imagine returning to Scientology after that?

The Anabaptist Jacques

[NoName]

Dianetics That book is ridiculous nonsense, full stop. I can see someone being taken in by it as a kid, but for God's sake, it's not even charmingly kooky. It's just garbage.

Even my in friend agreed with me when I called the book tedious, disjointed, and painful to read.



That's the only "Win" I can write up for reading Dianetics.

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

That makes me so happy! I've thought for a long time that Plato would be ideal in helping someone see through Hubbard. Not so much because of any specific ideas, but just because it's so good. How can someone continue to hold LRH in high regard after reading something so well-argued, gracefully written, and intellectually honest? Hubbard often hides his poor thinking in gibberish. (He's not unique in this.) Plato, though, is crystal clear without sacrificing any of the complexities of what he's writing about. And the dialogues show real thinking in action, not the absolutist dictates of Hubbard. Plato is seduction; Hubbard is rape.

Plato has lasted for 2,500 years because of his beauty of thought and style.

The Anabaptist Jacques

[NoName]

Book VI and VII of the Republic.

Book VI is the divided lines, Book VII is the Alleghory of the Cave.

Can you imagine returning to Scientology after that?

The Anabaptist Jacques

I started explaining some very basic things about the divided line. I told him that even if his initial reaction to it is like mine (hard to comprehend, hard to believe) that it's the sort of thing that I couldn't let go of until I started to understand.

I didn't even remember the cave until you brought it up. That's fucking brilliant! I will definitely use that one.

As an aside, read the book (don't watch the movie) Bridge on the River Kwai. And pay particular attention to what the survivor offers as an explanation to the engineer's behavior at the end. The moral of the story is, don't get attached to a bridge built for a wrong reason.

Now who can read that an stay in?

Time to blow up a fucking bridge!