Tonight we begin a new series of episodes we are calling “Deep Dives,” where we take a detailed look at specific areas of scientology.
It seemed only appropriate to begin with L. Ron Hubbard — the “Source” of scientology and “Founder” from which everything flows.
There is no way to cover his entire life in a single episode. Or even 5 episodes. We broke this into 2 parts, the first focused on his life and claims up to Dianetics. Even in two episodes we can only touch upon some of the highlights (lowlights?) as there is a great deal to know. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading both Jon Atack’s Piece of Blue Sky and Russell Miller’s Barefaced Messiah. Miller in particular tracked down and spoke to many people involved in Hubbard’s early life. Jon was the source of a great deal of the material for Miller’s book. And in that regard, we were very fortunate to welcome Jon back to help us navigate the maze of lies, half-truths and exaggerations that characterize the life of L. Ron Hubbard.
We mention quite a number of documents in this episode, I have tried to include them all below. If I have missed something, please let me know in the comments.
Let’s Sell These People A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack
Barefaced Messiah by Russell Miller
Hubbard’s 1947 letter to the VA — AFTER he claimed he had cured himself at Oak Knoll Naval hospital, having been “blinded and crippled” by the war (see My Philosophy below).
Here are some of the claims made in Dianetics for the guaranteed cure of diseases. This is the current edition of the book, promoted by scientology to this day:
Hubbard’s grades at George Washington University before he dropped out. 3 F’s including Molecular and Atomic Physics.
The quote about a passionate kiss from Dianetics:
The account of the Shrine Auditorium incident with Sonya Bianca from Barefaced Messiah — the disastrously failed demonstration of one of the first “Clears.” None of the things he claimed in or about Dianetics were true — not then and not today. Any Clear put to this same test would fail. They DO get colds and sick. They are irrational. They don’t have perfect memories. The list goes on.
A collection of racist statements from Hubbard
Without Conscience by Robert Hare
Hubbard’s letter to Forrie Ackerman in 1949 — the unguarded writings of Hubbard give a lot more context to who he really was:
Excerpt of Hubbard’s 1938 letter to his then wife Polly (“Dear Skipper”)
Jon Atack’s paper — Never Believe a Hypnotist
Jon’s new book: Opening Our Minds
Hubbard’s My Philosophy — “crippled and blinded.” Also note, he claims he was “abandoned” by his family. The opposite is true. Miller’s book documents the affairs he was involved in and then his bigamous marriage to Sara Northrup.
Just a very quick comment. Love the podcast but not up to this one yet, I think it’s next in the order but a fun addition for some people might be the episode that Behind the Bastards did on L. Ron Hubbard. Robert Evans also did an episode on Miscaviage I think. Very good show and those episodes in particular were good. He might be a good guest as well as he does a lot of work on Right Wing political groups that are very culty now.
One of the very most important points that Jon Atack brought up in the podcast is that Hubbard was a human predator who was only motivated by selfish and cruel and evil motives.
I think this is one of the hardest things to get across to ex Scientologists, Scientologists, and never ins.
Lots of people simply have a combination of good and evil in themselves and use reverse projection and project their normal trait on everyone else.
Some psychologists have explained that it is a common mistake for a normal or sane person to mistakenly believe everyone is similar to them.
But I am pretty convinced that it’s simply not so.
Martha Stout in her book The Sociopath Next Door described how some people simply don’t experience empathy or compassion or experience these emotions to such a small extent that they don’t significantly impact their behavior.
The book The Empathy Trap Book describes how the human predators aka sociopath can use the empath (highly compassionate person) as a disposable agent to control, dominate, and suppress others. The empath can also use the other “normal” 60% of people.
The book Give and Take by Adam Grant describes how he concluded that the 20% of empathic people are “givers” – they think of how to help others first routinely.
He called the 20% of people who put themselves first and try to take the most possible while giving the least possible back to others “takers” – these are our human predators aka sociopath.
He called the “normal” 60% “matchers” – these people are capable of compassion and empathy but are also likely to conform to group norms and be obedient to authority. They are especially sensitive to being ripped off, they don’t want to have to work harder than others or get less rewards and recognition than others.
The matchers are the same 60% that Stanley Milgram in his research discovered would shock an innocent person up to death if a legitimate authority in person told them it is required and the victim was in another room. This was tested many times by different teams in different countries and decades.
Incidentally, the book Predisposed describes the results of research that found that our 20% of takers aka sociopaths have the same brain activity when dealing with objects as they do when dealing with human beings while the other 80% have different additional areas of their brain becoming active, supporting the idea that they simply don’t react to other people the way that most of us do.
So, if these ideas are accurate (and I think an entire subject of examining and either supporting or debunking these ideas with research and empirical evidence is called for, because these ideas are so important whether they are ultimately supported more or debunked and set aside) we can use the old angel and devil on the shoulder metaphor to explain this.
If we tentatively accept this as plausible, if not absolutely proven, we can say that the old metaphor of the angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, showing a good intent and evil intent is appropriate. This is meant to show the internal drives of the person in an understandable symbolic, not literal way.
We can see that 60% of people have the old devil and angel and they do good sometimes and bad sometimes and they are frankly often too obedient and too conformist, certainly not always, and they can and do often love people. They are as Leonard Mlodinow described in depth in his book Subliminal complicated. The matchers are not easy to explain and certainly can’t be condemned en masse.
The empathic people, the 20% of people who are givers have an angel on each shoulder. This does not mean they are perfect or saints. It means they put others first but they can be mislead by bad information or bad people and they can be weaponized as Jon Atack says and The Empathy Trap Book describes in detail. They are capable of doing evil too, but their good impulses are often stronger.
The 20% we call takers aka human predators have a devil on each shoulder. They are not all violent or sadistic. As Martha Stout pointed out they are defined by not caring about other people. Some don’t have violent impulses and simply won’t lift a finger to help others unless they have a motive. The most violent among them are the kind of people that Doctor Michael Stone described in his book The Anatomy of Evil.
He wrote about serial killers and serial rapists and serial torturers.
One example is Carl Panzram. He reportedly murdered at least twenty two people and committed over a thousand acts of sodomy against boys and men. A thousand.
He hated humanity and sought to kill as many people as possible. His motto was “rape ’em all, rob ’em all, and kill ’em all!” He practiced what he preached and claimed to hate and want to kill the entire human race. His biography includes numerous robbery and subsequent imprisonment incidents, then escape and recapture and was highlighted by his frequent anal rapes of boys and men he could get his hands on.
The point of describing this man is to show that some people have an absence of the good, no conscience or basic human decency.
I wrote extensively on these human predators in the series at Mockingbird’s Nest entitled The Depths of Depravity. I wanted to confront and document the reality of the utter monsters that some human beings truly are.
I want the reality that Ronald Hubbard was such a human being to be well supported by evidence that such people do indeed exist, unequivocally.
I hope this is helpful.
Very helpful. Appreciate your thoughtful and thorough comments.
Thank you. I have a small favor to ask.
I let a typo get by and the word “sime” appears where I intended to type “some”, if this can be corrected I would appreciate it.
I am thrilled that you are digging into Scientology this deep with Jon Atack and hope you guys can adress the issue further and would love an episode with the affirmations covered word for word.
Most people don’t know how truly twisted Hubbard’s mind was or depraved his desires were and I think that actually reading the affirmations verbatim and presenting these as his innermost desires which he prepared for his eyes only as self hypnosis commands exposes him.
I just finished Marty Rathbun ….Memories of a Scientology warrior.
Interesting he chose to put this in his book…
Chapter 22 starts with:
if you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past. If you tell a lie, it becomes part of your future. – Origin uncertain.
And goes on to talk about Scientology legal fight with Armstrong an archivist …this backfired in Scientology’s face….
Starkey’s treatment of Armstrong (at Miscavige’s direction) while Armstrong was working as an archivist and raising such concerns, was echoed in the loud-and-clear message to our present legal team: If you even think there is anything slightly “off” about Ron’s representations about himself, you are by definition disaffected – and if you persist with such thoughts you are an enemy.
So, the following short list of disproved representations and unbecoming historical facts about Ron came into the public record, with only a sort of knee-jerk, hysterical response on our parts: “LRH was never married to Sarah Northrup, his second wife” – in fact he was, bigamously.
“LRH was a war hero” – in fact he was not. “LRH was ‘wounded, blind and crippled’ during World War II” – in fact he was not. “LRH was a nuclear physicist and a civil engineer” – in fact he never was. “LRH never engaged in black magic rituals” – in fact he did, at a branch of Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in Pasadena.
decision to waive a jury trial came back to haunt us. Judge Breckenridge was able to do something no jury had the power to. That was to issue a written decision
Breckenridge decided that while the plaintiffs had made out prima facie cases for conversion and invasion of privacy against the defendant, Armstrong was exonerated because the plaintiffs came to court with unclean hands, and Armstrong was privileged to violate their rights because of his need to defend himself against Scientology threats, and because his actions served the public interest at large.
The written decision was the worst indictment of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology ever published. Breckenridge issued
judicial findings that included the following: In addition to violating and abusing its own members’ civil rights, the organization over the years with its “fair game” doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization is clearly schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar.
when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. Far more significant legally, and deadly to the prospects of an All Clear, were these findings: Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers. He has, of course, chosen to go into “seclusion,” but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons.
Another essential to understanding Hubbard is what Mike Rinder pointed out which I call the Rosetta Stone of Scientology.
The affirmations of Ronald Hubbard.
I ended up reading about then seriously studying hypnosis to understand the foundation of Dianetics and Scientology.
Affirmations as Hubbard used them are private self hypnosis commands. He reportedly said these to himself or listened to a recording of them over and over for years. These were meant to be for his eyes only.
Perhaps no closer look inside his mind is possible.
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-psychiatric-view-with-comments-on.html
I just finished the latest podcast and have some things to add.
For everyone who doesn’t know who I am I was in Scientology for twenty five years, got out in 2014 and Jon Atack was kind enough to help me and referred me to many articles and a couple dozen books that I have read since leaving Scientology as well as answering my questions in a couple hundred emails.
I wanted to point out a tape Hubbard made in 1952 as part of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures that has several minutes at the end in which he lays out how you would create a cult, then he executed this with Scientology.
I think the tape is worth listening to for anyone who wishes to understand Scientology.
It’s been said that in the very earliest years of Dianetics and Scientology Ron Hubbard wasn’t as good at hiding his intentions as he would later become. I examined the transcripts of several tapes Hubbard made in the early fifties and some from the sixties as well. I found the tape from the Philadelphia Doctorate Course numbered 39 that described the games maker actually outlined how he created Scientology in extreme detail.
Here’s a group of quotes from that tape that describes this with a commentary afterword.
“The MEST universe would have you believe this is the only game there is anyplace in the whole of anything. That’s not true! Not even vaguely true.
Games are going on with all kinds of rules, terrific interest levels and so forth. All right, I’m going to read off for you this paper just so we’ve got it on the tape. How many minutes we got? – five minutes. That’s plenty.
“The aberration above time is ‘there must be a game’. Now there’s a postulate up there, ‘there must be a game’ and there’s an interest level and therefore it enters into a flow. And ‘there must be a game’ and ‘there must not be a game’. So you have the Un-maker of Games quite as important as the Maker of Games.”
Now we get “The rules of games are as follows: Limitations on self and others, obedience to rules, unconsciousness of rules to add reality” – we pretend the rules are real.
“ARC with others to play. Pain as a penalty which will be obeyed” – you have to have a penalty that will be obeyed. Otherwise, nobody will stick with the rules.
“Agreement to rules and penalties is necessary to continue a game.” And boy, are they! “Deterioration of a game until no game” – cycle of action shows you the whole game is an object with no action.
You know, the… the… the wienie finally becomes everything there is, and there is no action even to get the wienie.
“Work is admission of inability to play” – if you have to work, you can’t play, obvious. They really yap about that here.
“A game of complexity and levels” – the Tone Scale is such a game. It’s just a map of MEST universe games.
“Peculiarity or liability of a maker of game, people attempting to play the game of Maker of Games” – it’s a game itself. Your big capitalista or commissar will do that.
“The game called Maker of Games results in No Game. And the game called Unmaking Games results in a game. 8008.”
“There’s a game called freedom,” which is what you’re playing right at this minute. ”
And Games contain trickery and misdirection to win” – your 180 degree vector of Have and Agree. ”
The prize of winning is making a new game” – what do you know? “Or permitting a new game to be made or making it possible for a new game to be played.” Those are all prizes, and that’s all the prizes there are. ”
“The necessity” – oh, of course, there’s these gimmicks, these wienies and so forth. But everybody just knows that they’re spurious as hell. Uh… „The necessity to have a new game coded before one ends the old game.” Otherwise, everyone becomes a maker of games with no game.
Now, “The value of pieces. Ownership of pieces may be also the ownership of players. And the difference between players and pieces, and the difficulty of pieces becoming players”
boy, when a piece becomes a player, there’s really a hell of an upset in the game; it’ll just blow. Oh, the quarterback walks out of the football game and all of a sudden starts to run the whole football game, and nobody can tell him “No.” That football game’s dead.
Now… so you’ve got to hide the rules from the pieces, otherwise this is going to happen.
“Now the caste system of game consist of this: The Maker of Games, he has no rules, he runs by no rules.
The player of the games, rules known but he obeys them. And the assistant players merely obey the players. And the pieces obey rules as dictated by players, but they don’t know the rules.”
And then, what do you know. There’s broken pieces, and they aren’t even in the game, but they’re still in the game.
And they’re in a terrible maybe: “Am I in the game or am I not in the game?” Now, “How to make a piece. This is how to make a piece: First, deny there is a game. Second, hide the rules from them. Three, give them all penalties and no wins. Four, remove all goals” –
all goals. “Enforce them… their playing. Inhibit their enjoying. Make them look like but forbid their being like players”
– look like God but uh… you can’t be God.
“To make a piece continue to be a piece, permit it to associate only with pieces and deny the existence of players.”
Never let the pieces find out that there are players. Now out of these you’re going to get games.
Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process.
But remember, that up at the top of it there is a big postulate, “There must be a game.
“ Therefore if you want to regain the Spirit of Play, people have got to unmake postulates they’ve made all along, saying, “There mustn’t be a game. There mustn’t be a game. It can’t be a game. Don’t play with me. I mustn’t be played with. Life is serious. This isn’t a game. We’re playing for keeps. I’ll never get out of this,”
and so forth. In other words, the postulates which they’ve made to convince themselves that these are the rules and the only rules that can be played, and these that I’ve just read off to you.
I’m going to have this typed and you can figure it out more or less as you want to. I could, of course, give you even further rundown on this, if you wanted me to, but it takes… takes a little while to do so. It’s actually the backbone of what we are doing. But let’s take a break. ” Ronald Hubbard 1952 (TAPE ENDS)
It has the blueprint for a cult. Make rules, hide them. Use claims that are 180 degrees from the truth.
He foreshadowed his later claims that life is serious.
He foreshadowed his statement that we’re playing for keeps or his claim that we’re playing for blood, the stakes are earth.
“We must come to orderly cause-point on every post. We must, we must, we must.
We’re playing for blood. The stake is Earth. If we don’t make it nobody will. We’re the sole agency in existence today that can forestall the erasure of all civilization or bring a new better one. If we aren’t willing to be hanged for our mistakes we’ll surely fry for them.”
(HCO PL 22 May 1959 Issue II CENTRAL ORGANIZATION EFFICIENCY)
Hubbard required “obedience to rules, unconsciousness of rules to add reality“ – we pretend the rules are real.”
He demanded extreme obedience. He used contradictions and deep layers of complex and compartmentalized doctrine for different caste levels so no one but he knew the rules. They were unknowable to everyone else.
By having the rules be unknown they couldn’t be analyzed and rejected.
It’s like how in 1984 ALL laws have been cancelled. This makes it so the government CAN’T break the law as there is no law to break. The government can legally do ANYTHING to ANYONE. So too do Hubbard’s hidden rules let him do anything to anyone.
Agreement to rules and penalties is something Margaret Singer noted in her six conditions for a thought reform program. Cults use a system of rewards and penalties. Hubbard certainly learned this from his participation in and study of occult practices.
“Scientology is the only game in the universe where everybody wins.
We respect the other fellow whatever his status and give him his right to win the biggest prize of all, himself or herself. That prize is won by dedicated, exact application of Scientology and full support of our mission in our organization and the public.
Organized, we can each one win the biggest prize that can be offered – a full recovery of self.
There is no greater game in the universe than Scientology, for it is the only game in which everybody wins. And that places it far above all other games and makes it the game of games where everybody gets the ultimate prize of self . . .”
(HCO PL 18 April 1965 Issue I CONTESTS AND PRIZES)
The weinie is everything statement is similar to the eventual blind obedience to Scientology. It goes from a tool to a way of life. It goes from optional servant to inescapable master. You just do things FOR Scientology.
Hubbard sought to escape work with his game. He wanted to have the pirates and bums attitude that life should just give him what he desired.
Like in his reference to pirates and bums in the first lecture in the PDC series.
If people believe in magic they can believe in a source of magic and Hubbard was only too happy to lie to claim both. He wanted it to seem detrimental to not have magical thinking and beneficial and logical to have magical thinking.
“Well, he was able to take a very grand view of all this at first. Then later on when it became serious to him . . . And you know—you know, the way to get ahead in the world is “Work hard” and “Save your money,” and be respectful, respectful and polite, and willing, and very agreeable to your superiors. This is the old formula, and yet it’s dismaying to go around and find the (quote) “captains of industry” and find out that they’re a whole bunch of pirates and bums. They were never respectful to anybody. It’s just incredible! Yet there they sit in command of large works and industries. And these fellows, they didn’t save their money. They don’t save their money. They are not cautious with their investments. They buy the doggonest things. They get into the worst possible scrapes and trouble, and seem to keep right on going and getting right out of them again.” Ron Hubbard
He suggested the magical thinker wins and the other kind loses in life as a rule.
“And you sit around and say, “Well, that fellow’s going to come to grief sooner or later.” And after you’ve said that for about forty years, why, you get a little apathetic about it but you just know that right will triumph in the end. Of course the end of that track is MEST. Well, the fellow who hopes this, by the way, is already pretty well on that track and he’ll be MEST before the other fellow will, because the other fellow can still bend the MEST universe around and he doesn’t have to agree with it too much.”
Ron Hubbard
Hubbard intentionally made complexity to control people. He made the tone scale to map how he alone would persuade people with a series of lies about emotions. It’s entirely a fabrication from other plagiarized ideas.
He said the game you are playing now is called freedom. It’s an Orwellian reversal. It’s slavery.
“And Games contain trickery and misdirection to win“ – your 180 degree vector of Have and Agree. ”
Hubbard admitted his game contained trickery and misdirection to win. He used 180 degree reversals in his lies, projection and his Orwellian reversals. He called things their opposites. His bridge to total freedom was a route to slavery. He called his hypnotic illusions truth revealed. He called a method of adding guided imagination to create false memories a method to merely listen and guide.
He called adding a cult identity clearing. He called obliterating independent, critical, linear and rational thought through high authority indoctrination study technology. He called removing the morals of a person ethics technology. He said auditing un-hypnotizes people.
His prize of making a new game is the illusion of a future as a free immortal spiritual being he claims Scientology prepares one to participate in. It’s a very generous empty promise of a counterfeit dream.
“The necessity“ – oh, of course, there’s these gimmicks, these wienies and so forth. But everybody just knows that they’re spurious as hell. Uh… “The necessity to have a new game coded before one ends the old game.” Otherwise, everyone becomes a maker of games with no game.”
He had several references on necessity levels. He had hundreds on the deadly serious nature of Scientology. When he spoke of having the new game coded it’s a sneaky method of persuasion. People think they are temporarily giving up freedom but it becomes permanent. A world without criminals, war or insanity is a very difficult goal.
“The necessity – “oh, of course, there’s these gimmicks, these wienies and so forth. But everybody just knows that they’re spurious as hell. Uh… “The necessity to have a new game coded before one ends the old game.” Otherwise, everyone becomes a maker of games with no game.
Now, “The value of pieces. Ownership of pieces may be also the ownership of players. And the difference between players and pieces, and the difficulty of pieces becoming players”
boy, when a piece becomes a player, there’s really a hell of an upset in the game; it’ll just blow. Oh, the quarterback walks out of the football game and all of a sudden starts to run the whole football game, and nobody can tell him “No.” That football game’s dead.
Now… so you’ve got to hide the rules from the pieces, otherwise this is going to happen.”
This quote really sums up why he hid EVERYTHING he really wanted. With his affirmations it becomes clear. Scientology was meant to make slaves for Hubbard that didn’t suspect it for a second.
Next is the plan to have Hubbard be the games maker and his highest assistants like Nibs be players, until Nibs left him.
Hubbard went on:
“Now the caste system of game consist of this: The Maker of Games, he has no rules, he runs by no rules.
The player of the games, rules known but he obeys them. And the assistant players merely obey the players. And the pieces obey rules as dictated by players, but they don’t know the rules.”
And then, what do you know. There’s broken pieces, and they aren’t even in the game, but they’re still in the game.
And they’re in a terrible maybe: “Am I in the game or am I not in the game?” Now, “How to make a piece. This is how to make a piece: First, deny there is a game. Second, hide the rules from them. Three, give them all penalties and no wins. Four, remove all goals“ –
all goals. “Enforce them… their playing. Inhibit their enjoying. Make them look like but forbid their being like players”
– look like God but uh… you can’t be God.
“To make a piece continue to be a piece, permit it to associate only with pieces and deny the existence of players.”
Never let the pieces find out that there are players. Now out of these you’re going to get games.”
“Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process.
But remember, that up at the top of it there is a big postulate, “There must be a game. ” Ron Hubbard
Hubbard had a few trusted lieutenants but over time stopped trusting anyone. He became paranoid and the only player of games. High level Scientology Sea Org members were pieces. Hubbard lied to Mary Sue and his closest advisors over time.
Hubbard made pieces out of Scientology cult members by pretending there were no players. The players were people Hubbard stole ideas from. Hubbard pretended to be the only source of Dianetics and Scientology. It’s always been a lie. Hubbard would excommunicate people who exposed him as having other people contribute to Scientology. He consistently used ideas from others but clamped down hard on it by the advent of KSW.
He used harsh ethics and the RPF to make broken pieces out of Sea Org members.
He went on:
“Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process.”
Ron Hubbard
His process had many forms but added up to addressing the factors he laid out and run meaning use guided imagination aka hypnosis to change the decisions people make, the decisions they recalled making and the decisions they will make. Hubbard greatly expanded this over time to include any creative processes he can think of. That included the metered auditing taken from Volney Mathison’s guided imagery therapy, the objectives taken from hypnosis and occult practices, the study tech taken from a combination of hypnosis, loaded language and psychology and even administrative technology and ethics technology too.
Hubbard continued:
But remember, that up at the top of it there is a big postulate, “There must be a game.”
“Therefore if you want to regain the Spirit of Play, people have got to unmake postulates they’ve made all along, saying, “There mustn’t be a game. There mustn’t be a game. It can’t be a game. Don’t play with me. I mustn’t be played with. Life is serious. This isn’t a game. We’re playing for keeps. I’ll never get out of this,”
“and so forth. In other words, the postulates which they’ve made to convince themselves that these are the rules and the only rules that can be played, and these that I’ve just read off to you.” Ron Hubbard
He told people they needed to regain the spirit of play. He put games at 22.0 on his tone scale so people thought they needed a spirit of play.
He of course said it’s a deadly serious activity and not some minor game we are playing in Scientology. He said we play for keeps.
Here’s the heart of it In other words, the postulates which they’ve made to convince themselves that these are the rules and the only rules that can be played, and these that I’ve just read off to you.Ron Hubbard
He wanted to change your decisions so you would see his rules as the only rules that can be played. In other words his reality is the only truth and if it includes obedience to him, well that’s now your belief too. Hubbard wins the minds of men. That’s the game.
The ideas expressed here find their way all through Dianetics and Scientology.
Hubbard said “His spirit of play is sensation of play and is not just energy. It’s a tremendous sensation. A guy has practically lost it if he’s here on Earth at all .” On the PDC lectures too.
A vast amount of the ideas and quotes in Scientology in particular Keeping Scientology Working Series one are echoes of the ideas expressed here back in 1952.
O/T
I recently saw a portion of a video in which Marc and Claire Headley discussed a lawsuit they brought against the cult. They lost that lawsuit although many people may believe it was more of a victory than a loss. The court awarded the cult costs – $42,000 as I recall – but the Headleys just wrote a check in that amount and gave it to the cult rather than agree to some harsh conditions the cult had tried to impose on them.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I saw that video or what it was called. It may have been on one episode from the AE TV series: Scamology and the Aftermath. However, I have thoroughly searched both episodes featuring the Headleys to no avail as well as several other episodes. It may have been one of the following four films that were made about the cult:
BBC Secrets of Scientology, Scientology & Me 2015, Merchants of Fear, Going Clear 2015
I can’t find it anywhere. I’ve tried to use Google to search for it – also to no avail.
By the way, I also tried searching through the Village Voice’s article, “The Top 25 People Crippling Scientology”. Marc Headley is one of those 25 people and the page written about him is wonderful. Here is a link for anyone who may be interested.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/08/26/the-top-25-people-crippling-scientology-no-16-marc-headley/
Does anyone here recall seeing the video for which I am searching? If so, could you possibly point me in the right direction? I would very much appreciate any help you can give me.
OK. I found it. For anyone who may be interested, it was in Season 2 Episode 11 – The Aftermath of the Aftermath. It was about 25% of the way through that episode.
The amount was $46,000 and they said that 500 people contributed and the amount was fully repaid to the Headleys.
I found it by searching for Marc Headley on IMDB.
Not sure where I got this:
Truth is like a surgery.
It hurts but cures. Lie is
like a pain killer. It gives
instant relief but has
side effects forever.
That’s really beautiful and on-spot, I like it!
O/T. Frank Report: International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Compares NXIVM and Scientology
Paul Serran
June 21, 2021
https://frankreport.com/2021/06/21/international-journal-of-coercion-abuse-and-manipulation-compares-nxivm-and-scientology/
/
I wanted to thank you guys and Jon Atack for coming on the podcast again. It was such a pleasant surprise; I just thought it was going to be you and Leah. Anyway, it’s always a pleasure to hear Jon talk of his discoveries and his take.
As a callow youth (I am 63 this week) raised in the catholic church, the merging of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ was seductive. What science didn’t know, it was hellbent on finding out, and there was (is) lots we didn’t know.
A ‘new’ church, that accepts, infact promotes science? Beware of snake oil, even though the ‘church’ was on Yonge Street (downtown Toronto). I took me a long time to sort out that it was, like all religions, a grift. New promised factual and scrutinisable, open to enquiry, but, alas, no. Not unlike our more modern churches (Mormons, Seventh Day, Jehovah, et cetera) it is a closed club, intended to take take not give, to dictgate, not reason.
Pardon me for being partisan, but I thought Marxists were dishonest.
Huh?
Marxists have a reputation for being dishonest. How many Marxists have actually read the works of Marx? How many Scientologists have actually read the works of L. Ron Hubbard? (Damn, I’m being partisan, again.)
Old saying Cult is an obsession of Mad man.
They are byproduct of an era like cold war. The era is over , stakeholder gone , they look for support.
Mad men needs others to be mad like them , as a first step of support.
It’s an start of decay process.
They can not go against Change , which started them now bringing them to logical ending.
In 1948 Hubbard ended up at a psychiatric hospital, after that letter pleading to the VA for help and then a subsequent arrest, under circumstances that remain unclear, but which may well have involved veterans’ support services or his family trying to get him help:
“Beginning in June 1948, the nationally-syndicated wire service United Press ran a story on an American Legion-sponsored psychiatric ward in Savannah, Georgia which sought to keep mentally-ill war veterans out of jail.[46] That summer, Hubbard was arrested by the San Louis Obispo sheriff on a charge of petty theft for passing a fraudulent check.[47]
In late 1948, Hubbard and his second wife Sara moved from California to Savannah, Georgia, where he would later claim to have “worked” as a “volunteer” in the psychiatric clinic, where he claimed he “processed an awful lot of Negroes””
> https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Scientology_and_psychiatry
Typically for Hubbard’s weasel-wording, his having volunteered services to (other?) patients can be parsed as possible if not even likely spin on his having been there as a patient himself, rather than an outside volunteer.
Mike, is there anything from the Jack Parsons era on Hubbard? I don’t know that I’ve heard anyone talk about that. Did Hubbard ever mention it in his writings?
Is there a reason the podcast is no longer available on youtube? That was my only way of hearing it
Same here plus I had utube subscription so was without added utube ads.
I’m thinking iHeart removed it. They own it and have that right.
Try watching free on the link here or at Tony’s if you are in US.
After I read “Bare-Faced Messiah” I was left with a question. How did L. Ron Hubbard become the lying slime we all know. The closest I can guess is his aunts spoiled him rotten. And I do mean ROTTEN. Not that he reciprocated the feelings.
They may have contributed to his loathing of women and especially mother figures.
Will you mention the affirmations in the next part? Always makes me chuckle when I see them shared on a large platform
The total end of Hubbard in my own mind reached a conclusion after I listened to his famous “Universes Tape” and traced his belief in Entities from 1952. Hubbard was insane and the tape with Mary Sue proves it. Reading most of the ADVANCE magazines over again also helped in tracing Hubbard. In reality he was a very simple minded Occultist. He learned how to make a fortune with his exorcisms on solo NOTS. But the ADVANCE magazines, which he did not write but supervised,show Hubbard’s total ignorance. Hubbard believed that Gautama Buddha was creating ninja soldier like beings to help Hubbard take over the universe. Hubbard’s theory of entities actually fit King Solomon’s descriptions. Hubbard’s attempts to unify all religion under Scientology as proclaimed on OT VIII was another total lie and failure. It has been almost thirty three years since I left the Freewinds never to return to Scientology. The con-game ended with OT VIII and Hubbard as the anti-Christ.
I believe the word megalomaniac would legitimately apply to L. Ron Hubbard.
Operating Megalomaniac.
With the Hubbard stepladder being really unfortunately a stepladder to follow L. Ron Hubbard into his megalomania.
The “One Was Stubborn” short story of 1940 has as part of its plot a guru cult leader who successfully “helps” earth people achieve a God like status, able to create for themselves their own new universes as Gods of their own new universes, created by them.
Hubbard really truly to me, in hindsight was a megalomaniac, and Scientology’s fraudulent stepladder of psycho-pseudo-therapy and exorcism are steps to follow into Hubbard’s megalomania.
Great comment, Chuck. I was thinking along similar lines with the word ego. When I was in Scientology, I followed Hubbard and my ego was out of line. I thought I was God and ruled the universe. Miscavige is nothing bu a totally self centered megalomaniac. That short story really fits in. Hubbard helping others to God status.
I had very good jobs with lots of money but Hubbard took all of it and put me in a strange situation. I was a poor megalomaniac for a while until I shook him completely.
I tried to achieve a balance and it worked better than Hubbard;s crazy ideas.
Brilliant.
This is so valuable.
Thank you.
Having worked with Hubbard up close and personal, I can verify he was eager to show off his advanced intellect, fearful his lies would come out, and absolutely brilliant at bullshitting himself.
Hana,
Do you think the word megalomaniac legitimately applies to L. Ron Hubbard?
Not being a licensed mental health professional, I am writing from my experiences with Hubbard. Clearly, Hubbard was megalomanic.
Thanks. As just a citizen, it seems to me also, with all Hubbard’s “messiah” surveying he called to be done, to see if it would even fly to self label himself a “messiah.”
Someday, all of the private final despatches and orders of Hubbard’s will be public, and then all the Author Services Inc traffic, and that final traffic like the traffic Nancy Many refers to when LRH ordered the “messiah” surveying for instance, there really is so much of raw Hubbard writings and orders, going back to the “One Was Stubborn” 1940 story, where in that short fiction story, an earth guru cult leader was successful in elevating almost all of earth’s population into enlightenment where each human gained bodiless God like power to start their own universes at will following the enlightenment procedure that the fictional guru cult leader got them all to engage in.
0 to infinity, Hubbard’s obsession with getting all humans to follow him going 0 to infinity.
I guess it’s just so obvious to regular people, what Hubbard was pulling.
I forever thankyou Hana and it’s so great you offer your thoughts publicly so freely.
Hana,
Succinct and cuttingly accurate. Thanks
Thank you for your comment, Hana. It helps me to see him in a more realistic way. I can understand that he was eager to show off his intellect and fearful that his lies would come out. In general he did bullshit himself. Can you give a few examples?
There are many, most occurring when Hubbard opened his mouth and spoke. When Hubbard was on stage with his first clear, Sonya Bianca, whom he touted as having ‘full and perfect recall of every moment of her life.’ Hubbard made the mistake of inviting questions from the audience and publicly torpedoed his claim. Another occurred when Hubbard visited Rhodesia. Invited to address the Bulawayo Rotary Club, he delivered a rambling, hectoring speech to assembled businessmen on how they should run their country, businesses, and lives. A few days later, he received news that he had to leave the country. Hope this helps.
Thanks, it helps a great deal. I see the point. I do recall a book I read where the author said that Hubbard also did not prepare for his public talks.
Honesty, integrity, compassion, kindness, dependability were all qualities that Hubbard did not possess. His “research” was all stuff he made up. The above picture says it all.
“Honesty, integrity, compassion, kindness, dependability were all qualities that Hubbard did not possess”, and he didn’t WANT them, because he classed them as weaknesses.
‘Only the tigers survive.’
His research was truly all stuff he made up.
The origin of the infamous Introspection Rundown is discussed at minute 36 in the YT video from Jon Atack and Mike Rinder “Mike Rinder’s first months on Hubbard’s flagship Apollo” from February, 2021. Hubbard’s “research” was locking an electrician named Bruce Welch into a cabin on the Apollo for a couple of weeks until he calmed down from incessant shouting, and stopped acting in a violent manner, which was perceived by Hubbard as a psychotic break with reality, a mental breakdown in the language of the day. Mike was one of two people stationed outside that locked cabin door for 12 hours per day. With a person inside the cabin shouting at all hours, Mike’s job was to insure the hallway outside was kept quiet.
After two weeks of confinement, Mr. Welch calmed down. He was quickly offloaded to an airport and sent back home to the US, where his trail ends. That series of events was enough for Hubbard to write up the Introspection Rundown, then quickly announce it as the end of the world’s need for psychiatry – because Hubbard’s ‘research’ had created a simple cure for psychosis.
Hubbard published the Rundown within a few months. It eventually came to be used for Lisa McPherson, who likely would be alive today had Hubbard not created the Introspection Rundown out of one small series of events, and had the idiots at Flag not taken her out of a genuine hospital and confined her to a hotel room, attended by unqualified people performing unproven “therapy” and allowing her physical condition to deteriorate to the point of death.
Thus this early event on the Apollo, verified by a person present in the flesh, shows the actual nature of all Hubbard’s so-called research. He would become aware of a single event, create in his own mind the causes of it, and institute some sort of “tech” which he also made up using his imagination. If the eventual outcome suited him it would be written up as some sort of rundown or therapy or technical breakthrough, promoted by Hubbard until something came along which disproved it, then Hubbard would retrench and revise his ‘tech’ to accommodate the newest results.
Hubbard made a life creating nonsense out of his imagination. It was only a small stretch from creating a character in his pulp fiction to creating everything that constituted Dianetics and later Scientology. People were duped by him at every turn.
To find out how some very normal people of good intelligence and good sense were duped (and many were not duped) into Scientology and Dianetics read Jon Atack’s article (above) about Hubbard and hypnotism.
AA, don’t forget that often others performed Hubbard’s ‘research’ and he just took credit for it; the RPF was created by Ken Urquhart on the ship, and the ideas for “study tech” came from the Berners. In an interview Ava Berner said Hubbard did almost nothing, Scientology largely came from the circle of people around him – which included his second and third wives.
The only hope Scientology has of trapping and controlling people these days is to get their agreement not to research the subject on the internet. The extreme lies and Hubbard con job have been FULLY exposed. The pretty buildings of Scientology are empty (and getting emptier) for a very good reason.
Yes. And it makes my heart sing.
But I do find it interesting that it still affects me to hear the degree with which Hubbard lied or some new lie I didn’t know about, such as came up in this interview. The onion is still peeling. It’s never too late or too early to inform someone out or in this cult about the lies.
A scientologist might appear to not care and may not, but coupled with some other information (or lie) that comes to him/her/them later in their careers in this cult, might be the deciding factor that help them leave and begin their recovery and their openness to knowing the truth.
Hubbard blinded his minions with the word ‘science’. And there was nothing ‘sciency’ about it. Just snake oil sales techniques and bald faced lies.