Robert Heinlein, A Stranger in a Strange Land, and Ron Hubbard

[Mimsey Borogrove]

So. What the heck? I am wondering to what extent Heinlein influenced Hubbard or vice versa. See, I just listened to Heinlein's book a Stranger in a Strange Land book on audio book while driving, and many points in the book struck me as Scientology. The mental gains resulting in a healthy body, the ability to leave one’s body, the utopian group. My biggest criticism of Bob's work is it seems like a daydream to me. Especially his later books. And the free love bit, well, seemed unreal. But as the book progressed I began to appreciate him as a writer more and more. The further I went the more parallels between his fiction and my understanding of Scientology ( the version I hooked up with in the late sixties ) became apparent.

I began to wonder - who influenced whom?

Cut to: I read a bit about R.A. Heinlein on wikipedia, and discover, he was married 3 x, his 3rd wife was a muse of sorts, he knew Campbell, odds and ends about his life.

Segue!

So, now I am listening to L. Wright's wonderful book about Scientology on CD as I am driving home from work, And what do I hear? Hubbard had an affair with Heinlein's wife (which one, I don't know). And this is on the heels of his hooking up with Sara which made Parsons see red. Oh, sorry. Was Robert A. putting his free love theories to the test? Wright has Parsons getting pretty jealous. One wonders.

Randy Ron. A side of him I never knew.

But, back to my point - which came first, Heinlein's ideas or Hubbard’s?

Mimsey

 

[Caroline]

So. What the heck? I am wondering to what extent Heinlein influenced Hubbard or vice versa. See, I just listened to Heinlein's book a Stranger in a Strange Land book on audio book while driving, and many points in the book struck me as Scientology. The mental gains resulting in a healthy body, the ability to leave one’s body, the utopian group. My biggest criticism of Bob's work is it seems like a daydream to me. Especially his later books. And the free love bit, well, seemed unreal. But as the book progressed I began to appreciate him as a writer more and more. The further I went the more parallels between his fiction and my understanding of Scientology ( the version I hooked up with in the late sixties ) became apparent.

I began to wonder - who influenced whom?

Cut to: I read a bit about R.A. Heinlein on wikipedia, and discover, he was married 3 x, his 3rd wife was a muse of sorts, he knew Campbell, odds and ends about his life.

Segue!

So, now I am listening to L. Wright's wonderful book about Scientology on CD as I am driving home from work, And what do I hear? Hubbard had an affair with Heinlein's wife (which one, I don't know). And this is on the heels of his hooking up with Sara which made Parsons see red. Oh, sorry. Was Robert A. putting his free love theories to the test? Wright has Parsons getting pretty jealous. One wonders.

Randy Ron. A side of him I never knew.

But, back to my point - which came first, Heinlein's ideas or Hubbard’s?

Mimsey

Interesting topic, thanks. There's some work on Hubbard, Heinlein, and his wife Leslyn in this OCMB thread.

 

[JackStraw]

The "Stranger in a Strange Land" characters included the "fair witness" which may have influenced or been influenced by "obnosis" drills:

What color is that house? "White... on this side" as she dove into the pool.

Jack

 

[Leon]

LRH crops up in various places in Heinlein's works. You'll find odd references to a red haired guy and other oblique hints.

And also the slight hint of kinkiness to his sex preferences. Heinlein's I mean. These are all regular features.

 

[R6Basic]

Also, lead character decides he needs to start a religion to help the world become a better place.

I have read Stranger in a Strange Land at least twice so but do not know if I fully grok the book.

 

[Lurker5]

Wow, I read this long before knowing anything about scno/co$, in fact was still at home in school, jr-high? or high? school . . .? Can't exactly recall. When it first came out (paperback). My dad was big sci fi fan (me too). Loved it, though even at the time I had same thoughts as Mimsey. Now I am shocked to hear of these connections/similarities to lrh/scno/co$. Holy crap . . . But I am happy to say, I out-grew my crush on the Michael character in this book. Thank God, or I might have really fallen for scno (but not lrh, ick) . . . Yikes.

Edit: Looked it up, I was in jr high !

 

[JackStraw]

LRH crops up in various places in Heinlein's works. You'll find odd references to a red haired guy and other oblique hints.

And also the slight hint of kinkiness to his sex preferences. Heinlein's I mean. These are all regular features.

I found myself put off by Heinlein's seeming (unseemly) interest in incest in his "adult" books. Time Enough For Love, etc.
The "juvenile" books were great, but the others were-twisted. I didn't like them. In some ways, a great author, in others, a damn pervert.

Jack

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

The whole "thou art God" business strikes me as the 7th dynamic sort of a concept. It is amazing what you pick up on a second read - and what I like/hate about audio books is that you can't skip ahead - you get to hear every word, no matter how cringe worthy. Now I admit, this was written around 1960, but still, dear, the dialogue - aiiyiee. Oh wait. I take that back. I saw some of Two Broke Girls my wife was watching the other night. Yeowch!

Share the water,

Mimsey

 

[Commander Birdsong]

today's scifi don't have the same soul
just gimme that ole time grok and roll

 

[Don Crom 3rd mo can]

today's scifi don't have the same soul
just gimme that ole time grok and roll

C- Ya DC

 

[Caroline]

Cut to: I read a bit about R.A. Heinlein on wikipedia, and discover, he was married 3 x, his 3rd wife was a muse of sorts, he knew Campbell, odds and ends about his life.

Segue!

So, now I am listening to L. Wright's wonderful book about Scientology on CD as I am driving home from work, And what do I hear? Hubbard had an affair with Heinlein's wife (which one, I don't know). And this is on the heels of his hooking up with Sara which made Parsons see red. Oh, sorry. Was Robert A. putting his free love theories to the test? Wright has Parsons getting pretty jealous. One wonders.

Heinlein's third wife was Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfield. RAH and Ginny started their affair while RAH was still married to Leslyn. (Patterson, Wm. (2010) Robert Heinlein: In Dialog with his century (p. 424). I noticed the use of "muse" in Ginny's 2003 obituary, but I have not seen where Robert called her that.

Hubbard's extramarital sequence was Leslyn, while Hubbard was doing his "Princeton post-graduate" stint, and then Sara in Pasadena.

Leslyn was just as liberal and modern as Robert--in some ways, even more so. [27] She even practiced witchcraft--"white witchcraft," in the old pagan tradition of northern Europe, though she didn't (so far as Robert knew) belong to an actual coven. The essence of The Craft is secrecy--and that was about all Heinlein knew about that subject. Heinlein himself had never any strong calling in that direction--and a strong calling is utterly necessary for practical magic working. His own reading had run to hermetic symbolical philosophy--Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism. Interesting intellectually--but it didn't do anything for him, except to provide interesting story materials. . . Taking up pagan witchery might have been as much a rejection of her mother's Theosophy as of Christianity: you are tied to anything you feel strongly enough about to have to reject.

Leslyn's commitment to sexual freedom was just as strong as his in the theoretical sense. That was the whole basis of their friendship, courtship, marriage. When you came right down to it she had gone directly from Cal Laning's bed to his, and they had begun as they meant to continue. They had both had extramarital affairs--a few--in the six years since they had gotten married. [28]

Patterson, William H. (2010). Robert A. Heinlein : in dialogue with his century (1st ed.). New York: Tor.

As discussed earlier in this thread, Hubbard wrote about his affair with the wife of his "writer friend" in Princeton during WWII. Earlier too, I suggested that the writer and wife could have been Heinlein and Leslyn. William H. Patterson confirms this in Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue with his Century (pp. 369-370).

Robert and Leslyn Heinlein met Hubbard in New York in the spring of 1940, at a dinner party at the apartment of John Arwine, friend and Annapolis classmate of Robert Heinlein. (Patterson, 2010). Lieut. (jg) Robert A. Heinlein, U.S. Navy retired, provided the Bureau of Navigation a temporary address (as of 18 May 1940) care of John Arwine, 9 West 32nd Street, New York City, New York. (Heinlein archives: ANNA201A-09) Hubbard had an apartment in New York at the time, (BFM chapter 5) and brought Vida Jameson as a date to the Heinleins' party. According to Heinlein, other party guests included John W. Campbell and his wife Dona, Sprague de Camp and his wife Catherine, and Willy Ley. (Heinlein archives: CORR220-3)

The source Patterson cites for the Hubbard-Leslyn affair is a "Virginia Heinlein, taped interview." Patterson apparently didn't ask Virginia where the affair occurred, or she didn't know. Consequently Patterson surmised that "the most likely time" and place were October 1945 in Murrieta, California. The Heinleins were staying at the Murietta Hot Springs Hotel while waiting for a tenant to vacate their house at 8777 Lookout Mountain Avenue, in Hollywood.

Hubbard, indeed, could have resumed his affair with Leslyn at that time. Hubbard is very clear in his Admissions, however, that the affair took place in Philadelphia, during the 3 months Hubbard was in Princeton. Since Hubbard is specific, Virginia Heinlein didn't specify, and Patterson speculates, it can be reasonably concluded that the affair was in Philadelphia.

OCMB: Hubbard and Heinlein

 

[Leon]

'Do what thou wilt' is the whole of the law. The only law.

 

[Panda Termint]

The best Hubbard reference by Heinlein, IMO, is in the closing chapters of his book Number Of The Beast.
L Ron O'Leemy! That one is a classic!

L. Ron O'Leemy
Claiming to be an agent of the InterSpace Patrol, he tried to arrest Zebadiah Carter at the Interuniverse Society conference. Hilda Burroughs thwarted him and discovered that he was a Black Hat. He tried to escape via Bifrost, but it dissolved and he tumbled to an unknown destination.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

Heinlein's third wife was Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfield. RAH and Ginny started their affair while RAH was still married to Leslyn. (Patterson, Wm. (2010) Robert Heinlein: In Dialog with his century (p. 424). I noticed the use of "muse" in Ginny's 2003 obituary, but I have not seen where Robert called her that.

Hubbard's extramarital sequence was Leslyn, while Hubbard was doing his "Princeton post-graduate" stint, and then Sara in Pasadena.

This just in from Wikipedia....

Heinlein and his second wife divorced in 1947, and on October 21 of the following year he married Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld, to whom he would remain married until his death forty years later. Shortly thereafter, the Heinlein couple moved to Colorado, but in 1965 her health was affected by the altitude. They moved to Santa Cruz, California while constructing a new residence in the adjacent Bonny Doon, California.[16] The unique circular California house, which, like their Colorado house, he designed with Virginia, and built himself, is on Bonny Doon Road

37°3′31.72″N 122°9′30.46″W.

Ginny undoubtedly served as a model for many of his intelligent, fiercely independent female characters.[17][18] In 1953–1954, the Heinleins voyaged around the world (mostly via ocean liner and cargo liner), which Heinlein described in Tramp Royale, and which also provided background material for science fiction novels set aboard spaceships on long voyages, such as Podkayne of Mars and Friday. Ginny acted as the first reader of his manuscripts, and she was reputed to be a better engineer than Heinlein himself.[19] Isaac Asimov believed that Heinlein made a swing to the right politically at the same time he married Ginny. Tramp Royale contains two lengthy apologias for the McCarthy hearings. The couple formed the small "Patrick Henry League" in 1958; and they worked in the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign.[11]

I can see how a being a celeb gave him access to various women, and the ease of having affairs. I wonder how much of this theme of free love was a justifier for his personal affairs. As the wanton sexualituy expanded, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, which it did in the form of a fit of jealousy by Ben over Gillian. This theme annoyed me more in some of his later books than this one.

The title "Stranger in a strange land" is taken from Exodus 2:22 "And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land".[15][16]

Mimsey

 

[guanoloco]

This is from the BEFORE YOU DO SCIENTOLOGY.COM Discussion thread:


Here's some interesting affairs and possible homosexual conduct with Robert Heinlein and L. Ronnio...you read that here first:

In none of the scant correspondence of Leslyn (Heinlein) Mocabee does she refer to her own affairs, though in some rather unbalanced poison-pen letters written after a series of strokes in 1952 (the correspondence with Frederik Pohl is in his papers in the Red Bank, New Jersey, archive), she accuses Robert of sexual infidelities frequent and ongoing. In another context, Robert told Virginia Heinlein of just one affair of Leslyn's - with L. Ron Hubbard (Virginia Heinlein, taped interview by author, First Series, Tape 2 [September 2000]). Forrest J. Ackerman recalls his shock at Leslyn's accusation that Robert had a sexual affair with Hubbard - not completely impossible (as Heinlein implied in an essay Expanded Universe that he had experimented widely with both drugs and unorthodox sexual practices) but improbable. As Ackerman went on to say, "Both of them were such womanizers that they wouldn't have any time for the same sex! I don't know if she was hallucinating, or what." Forrest J. Ackerman, interview by Robert James, June 9, 2000.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

Both of them were such womanizers that they wouldn't have any time for the same sex! I don't know if she was hallucinating, or what." Forrest J. Ackerman, interview by Robert James, June 9, 2000

L. Wright goes into some detail of Hubbards womanizing in his book, plus the business of his reading some incantination while Parsons was trying to father a moon calf. I kind of suspected Heinlein was of the same ilk, given his treatment of sex in his books. I guess they both were in power on the 2nd dynamic, what with all of the power changes from one woman to the next....

Mimsey

 

[Caroline]

I can see how a being a celeb gave him access to various women, and the ease of having affairs. I wonder how much of this theme of free love was a justifier for his personal affairs. As the wanton sexualituy expanded, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, which it did in the form of a fit of jealousy by Ben over Gillian. This theme annoyed me more in some of his later books than this one.

The title "Stranger in a strange land" is taken from Exodus 2:22 "And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land".[15][16]

Mimsey

Adam Rostoker (1959-1997) argued that Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land as an "allegorical recapitulation of Thelema" and linked Stranger to the Babalon Working through the words of Parsons' "scribe," L. Ron Hubbard.

In 1961 Robert Anson Heinlein published a novel about a young Martian named Valentine Michael Smith. The book, Stranger in a Strange Land (Stranger), burst from its modest initial reception in science fiction circles to become one of the most influential works of the 20th century. Its concepts molded the critical thinking of many important social movements and paved the way for that astonishing period of social, religious, and sexual reclamation that is misleadingly dubbed "the 60s."[1] Arriving, as it did, at a nadir of American free thought and at a peak of media censorship, Stranger's publication was a minor miracle and its later mainstream success has always been considered a first class fluke. It became the first science novel to penetrate public consciousness since the days of Verne and Wells and initiated an unprecedented era of respectability for science fiction that opened the door for the Star Trek, 2001 and Star Wars. Stranger also marked a radical departure of form, not only for the author, but for American thought and expression in general. Stranger was the quintessence that transformed the nation's repressively conformist, post-war paranoia into the overtly sensual, erudite, cynical optimism that epitomized the years preceding the Reagan administration.

[...]

This recalls Heinlein's link with Parsons. As a part of the Babalon Working, Parsons 'received' a short 'book' entitled Liber 49 or The Book of Babalon. Parsons claims it was the fourth chapter to Liber Legis, a claim which made him less than popular with Crowley and the OTO. Regardless of this claim, it is a powerful text that deals mostly with the coming of the Thelemic heir. There are two parts in particular that stand out after reading Stranger. The first is part of the channeled instructions to Parsons for the ritual -- it advises him to clear his mind in preparation: "Consult no book but thine own mind. Thou art god. Behave at this altar as one god before another." [101] It is interesting to note that these words were mouthed, not by Parsons, but by his Scribe, L. Ron Hubbard, who was close friends with Heinlein at about the same time the latter was working on his first shot at Stranger. The other Babalon Working quote which stands out, and there are many quotes which are not so overt, comes from Liber 49 which Parsons channeled alone out in the desert -- e.g., sans Hubbard: "37 For I am BABALON, and she my daughter, unique, and there shall be no other women like her. 38. In My Name shall she have all power, and all men and excellent things, and kings and captains and the secret ones at her command. 39. The first servants are chosen in secret, by my force in her - a captain, a lawyer, an agitator, a rebel - I shall provide." (Italics added)
______________
[1] Most of "the 60s" as a popular movement didn't even start until around '65 and didn't really end until well after Nixon got re-elected in '72. The most active period occurred between 1968-74 and in fact, most of "the '60s" are still happening. Referring to "the 60s" quarantines a radical, ongoing, whole systems transition and reduces it to a mere historical fad.

[101] The Collected Works of Jack Parsons, OTO, NY from the "First Ritual of the Book of Babalon".

Adam Walks Between Worlds (Adam Rostoker) (1993). Whence Came the Stranger: Tracking the Metapattern of Stranger in a Strange Land. Retrieved on 18 January 2011 from http://firehead.org/~pturing/occult/grok/thelema.htm. Also at http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_002/stranger.htm

In Sex and Rockets, John Carter mentioned Adam Rostoker in relation to the Heinlein/Parsons controversy.

Much has been made of a connection between Robert Heinlein and Parsons, and it has been said that Heinlein was the first person to whom Parsons introduced his second wife, Cameron. Parsons is also thought to have corresponded with Heinlein after his leaving Hollywood; unfortunately, Mrs. Heinlein destroyed all of her husband’s correspondence from the period before they were married. However, Mrs. Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp have maintained that Heinlein did not know Parsons, although Cameron asserted their meeting occurred and was later covered up. Claims that Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was influenced by Parsons and thelema are left to the reader’s judgement.

An essay in Rapid Eye#3 entitled “Whence Came the Stranger” seems to document a definite relationship between Heinlein and Parsons. In (his essay, Adam Rostoker Wrote, “Parsons and Heinlein were quite close friends. They may have met at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Fan Club [Science Fantasy Society], which maintained a reading room . . . [They] were certainly seen there together.” In a footnote he related that Marjorie Cameron, Parsons’ second wife, was the source of this information: "Heinlein was the first person Parsons ever introduced her to. She didn’t care for Heinlein too much; he was 'too slick, too Hollywood. But Jack and he were good friends.'" Adam Rostoker is the same "Adam Walks-Between-Worlds" of the Church of All Worlds which was inspired by Heinlein’ s Stranger in a Strange Land. He may have published a similar article in that organization’s Green Egg magazine.

Williamson documents science writer and member of the German Rocket Society Willy Ley’s occasional presence at meetings of the Mañana Literary Society, an informal science fiction discussion group which met at Heinlein’s house, so Parsons may have met his old correspondent there—assuming he was in fact a part of Heinlein’s circle.

Carter, John. (1999). Sex and Rockets The Occult World of Jack Parsons. Venice, California: Feral House.

I don't know why L. Sprague de Camp would maintain that Heinlein did not know Parsons. De Camp and Heinlein corresponded in 1949 to arrange a 20 July meeting between de Camp and Parsons. [Heinlein archives CORR306-08]

Patterson wrote that Heinlein and Parsons met through their mutual interest in rocketry, apparently following a November 1939 LA Times article about Parsons, Frank Molina and Ed Forman, shortly after Parsons had a paper on powder rocket fuels published in Astronautics. Both men were members of the American Rocket Society (p. 345). It's reported that Heinlein joined while aboard the USS Lexington. (Ref. History of AIAA.) According to Patterson, Heinlein reported to the USS Lexington on 23 June 1929 and received orders to transfer to the USS Roper on 20 June 1932 (pp. 110, 156).

Also, Heinlein attended a performance of the Gnostic Mass at the Parsonage, and saved the program and a paperbound copy of Crowley's Book of the Law "for future reference." (p. 374). (Wikipedia: Liber XV Gnostic Mass.) (Patterson didn't give a date.)

According to Patterson's Robert A. Heinlein In Dialog With His Century, Hubbard and Jack Parsons met in April 1945, at Heinlein's suggestion. (pp. 339, 345).

 

[Commander Birdsong]

SIASL is a book very much in the pudding

in electric koolaid acid test (no. i have never drunk koolaid with my lsd) the wolfeman menions the presence of SIASL at la honda and the pranksters grokking. several communes formed in the sixties around the book and though grok never made the OED it was common parlance in the hipster movement

in fact it is a wealthy word for those who seek greater awareness; it stretches the concept of understanding. word clearing diminshes misunderstanding and the not understanding of words and thus lessens the barriers to grokking the materials but though this may help one get to the threshhold you must tep through on your own

for instance, in 1986 i went to an M's-redsox game at the kingdome sitting in centerfield just to the leftfield side of staightaway. in the fifth or sixth with the M's up a run the hose had runners on first and third and the starter was pulled as marty barrett came to the plate. i grokked not just the situation on the field but the starter in the dugout. if the runner on first scores and seattle never ties he gets the loss even though he left with a lead. i had him in my sights and as the hurler released the ball tone 40 TR-1 at barrett i said "hurt him" (gaargh, i used to be such a sweet guy but i'm an awful narsty schadenfreude prick sometimes) barrett swung and tagged it on a straight line centered dead on my nose. the ball didn't even seem to move but just hang in space and swell in size. then it started first to drift slowly to my right then faster and struck the astroturf in the and skipped to the wall. both runners scored, barrett to third with a triple, seattle never recovered and the poor starter caught the L

so ya wanna get the marrow of OT stuff ya gotta grok

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

grok may not be in the OED but it is in the webster's and encarta. I guess the OED will include it when Dr. Mahmoud finishes the martian /english dictionary.

By the way - Wiki asserts it's there. Maybe it is confidential - eyes only?

Like many influential works of literature, Stranger made a contribution to the English language: specifically, the word "grok". In Heinlein's invented Martian language, "grok" literally means "to drink" and figuratively means "to comprehend", "to love", and "to be one with". One dictionary description was "To understand thoroughly through having empathy with". This word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans, hippies, and computer hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary among others.

Mimsey

 

[Leon]

I thought it came from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, another of Heinlein's books. It's where I first came across it - an excellent book of his written in a style of a sort of futuristic English language. Fascinating. Well worth reading.