The words of L. Ron Hubbard are often contradictory.
And yet, according to his dictates, his words are to be “duplicated and applied exactly without alteration”… even when he says diametrically opposed things.
What defines a Floating Needle — “loose and free” or “rhythmic”? Are you supposed to love your enemies or destroy them? Do you forgive or always even the score? Never evaluate for a pc unless the meter tells you otherwise?
There are literally thousands of these.
I was sent this promotion piece and it was SO contradictory to one of the most well-known things Hubbard wrote that it prompted me to write this.
Here is the effort to sell the basics, using one of Hubbard’s weird quotes. These things are always given “issue authority” as it is simply quoting the words of “Source” and there can be no disputing them. Whether they make sense or not.
And here is the other, more well-known version from Hubbard on how to deal with bullies:
So, which one is right? Walk around behind him and pronounce your love or punch him in the eye?
As any good scientology supervisor would say: “What do your materials state?”
And if you still felt unclear “Is there a misunderstood word or symbol in the materials”?
“No, they are contradictory”
“Find your misunderstood”
“I understand the words, but what they say makes no sense”
“Let me give you a spot check – what does the word “are” mean?” “Flunk — restudy from the beginning.”
On and on ad nauseam.
Persist and you will end up being routed to Ethics. You will be forced to demean yourself and it will cost you cash to escape.
Scientologists pretty quickly learn NEVER to question the words of Hubbard, no matter how idiotic or contradictory they are.
Hm… the “bully loving” quote explains a lot about COB: he attacks people because he wants to be loved. I finally got it, my needle is floating.
“What defines a Floating Needle — “loose and free” or “rhythmic”? ” These words are not contradictory. If you ever saw a real floating needle, you would know. FIND YOUR MU!
I guess when Mike picks up the cans it rock slams so much the meter looks like it has a short circuit, LOL! Need some sec checking?
Looks like we have a new troll! Welcome and say hello to FP. Unless he is in the hole and is unable to “communicate on all dynamics”.
If you don’t have any MUs and still disagree they’re supposed to give you False Data Stripping. I got FDS about something once. I forget what it was for, honestly. And I forget whether or not it helped me. So it probably didn’t.
are: verb. Present indicative plural and 2nd person singular of be.
Now define “present”. Now define “indicative” … and we’re off down the rabbit hole, never to return.
I wonder how evangelical Christians work through contradictions in the Bible. They are told and they profess it is the inerrant word of God. I find when I ask them questions about contradictions, they don’t have answers, they don’t want to go there, they just believe what they’ve been taught. The best example of this is taking one “law” out of Leviticus, and claiming homosexuality is evil but ignoring all the other Leviticus “laws”, like not eating shellfish or not wearing clothes of different materials or executing children if they disrespect their parents. I’m not really sure what happens when they question things, probably a discussion with the pastor to “clear things up”. The brand of Christianity I subscribe to teaches us to use critical thinking when approaching the Bible. Who were the writers, who was their audience, what was going on in their world at the time, etc. We are taught it is good to question, to wrestle with scripture, to disagree with each other, to evolve in our understanding. I don’t believe anyone has all the answers as to why bad things happen or what happens when we die, etc. I have found, however, this is disconcerting to many who want to be told the answers, who want to believe somebody understands the real truth, the real way the universe works, the real reasons for suffering. For these people, it is easier not to question and not to think about the contradictions. I think this is why religions and philosophies and cults that profess to be the one true way, the only way, are attractive because people want to be told the answers to the hard questions. They don’t want to think nobody knows.
“I wonder how evangelical Christians work thru contradictions in the Bible.”
Well, if they’re like my relatives, they don’t ” work thru” anything. They’re idiots.
Hopefully, the ones I know are extreme cases, simply low IQ, and not typical. Hopefully.
Dans, the bible is about two different religions. The old Testament and New are SUPPOSED to have areas of contradiction. Come on, this is th grade level stuff.
The End Phenomenon of any training (or mind-fuck, if you like) by L Ron Hubbard is to make the victim believe both at the same time. Then your mind has truly been taken over.
This has become my favorite quote, that I believe LRH embodied so well.
“When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit
Real, crucial data are needed for how to deal with the psycho-terrorists who participate in fair game: p.i. goons, complicit ex-cops, miss thing and her baby-daddy (left anonymous), door-stalker miss thing anna, “and so on and so forth.”
That would be very useful!
“The Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.” – from Wikipedia.
I think Hubbard substituted “study tech” for the Socratic method when he realized that critical thinking could undermine the delusional certainty he sought to instill in his subjects.
Scientology “study” tech is the antithesis of the Socratic method.
So true Len
Len, great point – Scientology is all about indoctrination in the end, not critical thinking, or science and research, much less actual “freedom,” though of course it disingenuously pretends to offer all those things.
Also, in things such as Hubbard’s supposed “axioms and logics,” there’s not the slightest bit of training in logical fallacies and other flaws or pitfalls of thinking and argumentation. And if there’s anything like actual “implants” it’s the inherent functions of our brains, now best known as cognitive biases, that can result in completely mistaken seeming observations, and which leave people vulnerable to high control groups or cults – but obviously Hubbard had no interest in training people to identify the very traps and human flaws he was exploiting.
If anyone is interested, there’s a great basic reference for those sorts of actual skills, now including cognitive biases as well:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
Tubby’s assertions were indefensible in logical terms. He couldn’t support them in any discussion, much less allow his ‘science’ to stand the test of true science: peer review. His spoutings HAD to be true solely because he declared them; no other solution would get others to TRY the stuff to get the good feelings which were the reason some, including myself, used to convince ourselves that it “worked”. Just because it didn’t obtain the promised result(s) didn’t matter. There was always a reasonable-sounding excuse for the failures, one that invariably led to someone OTHER than Tubby or the techniques he demanded be used.
Study ‘tech’, I’m convinced was designed to punish people who, unlike him, COULD learn in school.
Nothing but contradictions in Hubbard’s Scientology. This “beingness” stuff was originated by Blavatsky in Theosophy. Hubbard probably learned it in his BS sessions in Los Angeles after WWII. It is a confusion with Hindu teachings where “beingness” is supposed to be the ultimate reality. Hubbard got so extreme he believed that you could control anything by “being” it. This is a total distortion of any Eastern religion.
Just like he stole “Start,Change, Stop” from esoteric Hinduism. Hubbard would read something, change it and then declare he was a genius. I concluded that Hubbard’s words NEVER fit together.
Hubbard then gets tough and tries to fight anyone with fists. Another TOTAL contradiction because he declares himself as Buddha, the Buddha’s teacher and a monk named DHARMA who lived 10,000 years before recorded history. More BS. If you look up the “Pali” term it is Dhamma. Hubbard even got that wrong. What a stupid fool. Let him fight all he wants. It got him in trouble.
George, I have to object to any insinuation that Hubbard ever “read something.” After extensive consideration, I can only conclude that it’s all attributable to “BS sessions in Los Angeles after WWII,” whatever preceeded that in the 1930s, plus what others contributed.
I think we might consider him a one-way illiterate, taking no written words in even though he had an extensive output. I’m sure he must have read something along the way, and from time to time, but I have yet to identify any work that he really read and absorbed in its entirety; tellingly, there are no accounts I have ever seen of his reading a book, and I’m not sure he ever cites a book with verbatim quotes.
I can’t find the quote in which his “never had” second wife Sarah says he just wasn’t one to work through a book of someone else’s work, but there’s this, with Sarah reading to him as to a child, and then his picking up more from well-read Sci Fi friends:
“Sara Hubbard told me: “In the late forties I remember reading “Science and Sanity” by Korzybski, and I became very excited. So I began reading aloud to Ron and he became very excited too. He became a big follower of Korzybski… .” “And much of Dianetics relates back to the works of Count Alfred
Korzybski… .” Interview with Sara by Bent Corydon from L.RON HUBBARD, Messiah of Madman?, Bent Corydon
and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. (a.k.a. Ronald DeWolf)
” ‘Bob Heinlein sat down one time and talked for ten whole minutes on the subject of Korzybski to me and it was very clever,’ [Hubbard] later related. ‘I know quite a bit about Korzybski’s works.'” (“Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk – Redux,” by Martin Levinson, PhD, in Etc: A Review of General Semantics, vol.63, number1, January 2006)
And speaking of output, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh gave endless lectures that exceed Hubbard’s output by total word count; once the remaining followers of “Osho” complete a project to transcribe everything, its voluminousness will exceed that of Hubbard, for what it’s worth.
Nice post. I did not know about his wife.
Interesting! I’m going to have to read Korzybski now. Very curious.
I hope you didn’t quit Scientology merely to swap pole stars, George — switching goals from “Total Freedom” to Satori. The rock edicts are derivative pastiches too — and antiquity is no guarantor of truth. (Knowledge gets smaller, not larger, the farther back in history you look). You owe it to yourself never to forget Japan in the 40’s nor Sri Lanka in the 70’s. Geometrically worse than the piker Hubbard.
Totally cool response. I think consciousness is a liability.
And Glass Robot, I hope the damage did to the subject of spirituality from Hubbard did not cause such a painful betrayal in you that the search for meaning and truth is now perceived as the psychological mental throw back of unlettered rubes.
That would be a pity
Mr J
As usual, LRH is the master at confusing quotes. On top of that, I seriously doubt any story where this man won a physical altercation with anyone! He probably backed down from any possible confrontation and ran away. His “confront and shatter” rhetoric is nothing more than his attempt to paint himself as someone who can strongly hold his own…its a lie- just like his accounts of his military “genius” lol! Everything out of this mans mouth is a bald faced lie. When you tell the truth, you don’t contradict yourself. A born liar always does.
Here’s what I think: It depends on the situation.
I’ve diffused peoples’ anger by staying calm and flowing affinity a few times.
Sometimes, when someone is out of control and yelling and screaming, yelling and screaming back makes it worse and puts him or her totally over the edge.
And as far as punching someone out, well, first, I’m a woman and I don’t do that, and second, getting physical with someone only solves things in films, not in real life.
Instead, making them right where possible and maintaining your own calm, reasonable tone when making one’s can bring the person into a state of being able to discuss it, or at least to calm down enough to be set up to discuss it later.
The person feels safe, you’re not going to attack, etc. So this works.
But not always.
Sometimes you have to match fire with fire. Sometimes the person in front of you won’t listen UNLESS you yell and scream back at them for a while. Then they “respect” you. Of course, they’re idiots but sometimes its necessary to deal with idiots. And if you’re a man, you probably have to, every so often, deal with another man who will only “respect” someone who is ready, willing and able to punch their lights out.
So it depends on the situation. And the person. I’d say keep yourself in control use common sense and your instincts.
But of course, this doesn’t solve the problem of how to follow L.Ron Hubbard – too bad for the Bots trying to work this out 🙂 Thank Xenu I don’t have that problem!
Scientology is situational ethics at their worst, ultimately driven by the end-justifies-the-means extreme utilitarianism of Hubbard’s worldview. It’s the hallmark of totalitarian systems, and the worst sorts of extremism.
Plus Hubbard just wasn’t all that good at keeping his lies and machinations consistent, and he deliberately used confusion technique to keep his followers off balance and unsure. The whole construct of Scientology effectively weeds out people with strong critical reasoning skills and selects for those willing to accept whatever they are told, which is reflected in the membership being increasingly less educated and almost entirely lacking in rigorously trained professionals.
PeaceMaker, the only thing scientology’s “ethics” has in common with real Ethics is the term Tubby used, in an effort to confuse and control his slaves. scn ‘ethics’ was never more than punishment he could invoke whenever he wanted, for any —or no— reason. It, AFAICT, generally included some arbitrary he’d justify somehow; he was SO very good at justifying his actions and failures. So much of the time, staff were punished for doing EXACTLY as he ordered when those actions resulted in some outcome other than he wanted, never mind that a reasoning person would have recognized that those actions would never, could never result in that outcome.
Scientology: an expert creation of false benevolence
Scientology: an actual dangerous poison ☠️
Spot on and well described how “word clearing” is used in an Orwellian manner.
The contradictions are interwoven into the subject of Scientology and the suppression of the attempt to clarify or discuss it leads to accumulated cognitive dissonance*.
“You have MUs” (Misunderstood Words) is used to shut up, to introvert and to nullify a person’s questionings. It was also used by Hubbard to crush any form of criticism or exposure. And to further enforce it, there is Hubbard’s Orwellian ‘ethics’ system.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
I often argued with course supervisors on this crap. I never won. It has to be the #EpiphanyOfTheMoment
#ThankfulIAmOUT
Sarita, of COURSE you never won. The way he set things up, there was no way to actually use REASON; only blind obedience to his dictates, no matter how illogical or poorly expressed. That saved him from actually having his rubbish examined, which would have blown the whole scam.
I spent months full time training at an org back in my early years. The Nazi-like supervisor would give me checkouts and antagonistically flunk me if I paused a micro second in giving the meaning of a word. I was real green at the time and totally believed everything Blubbard wrote. And so I succumbed to the increasingly depressing attacks on my knowledge and skill the supervisor hit me with 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, After 4 months the org kicked me off course but never returned the money I’d paid. I felt I must be a degraded being (like Blubbard would profess) so never attacked and sought a refund. I know the truth today and am happy to have escaped this cult finally.
So Sorry Glenn.
It seems pretty clear that no matter if you give the right answer or not, it’s still going to be wrong. How else can they keep the money flowing. This cult sets people up for failure. There’s not right answer, even if in the real world it would be right, in cult-world it has to be wrong to keep people in line and keep them pouring in more money, to fail again and pour in more money.
10 hours a day 7 days a week! My gosh I don’t know how you survived 4 months.
Getting kicked off course probably turned out to be the kindest thing they could do to you even though kindness sure wasn’t their intention. Jokes on them I guess. Little did they ever dream that it would result in happiness for you.
Thanks Peggy.
Yes, kindness surely was never demonstrated in that time.
To be completely honest I have to tell you in my proceeding/first year I did learn a few things that actually worked. The ARC triangle; the TRs and ethics formulas. Quite impressive experiences. And all achieved by myself alone. Those achievements pushed me to believe all Blubbard wrote was spot on and worked. But for sure his “study tech” was a disaster, as my experience proved. The door out opened a crack and got ever wider afterwards.
You have any similar experiences in your time in?
Glenn
Glenn, what you experienced was “baked into” scientology; It’s all YOUR fault, not Tubby’s or his creation’s, and once we GOT that idea firmly implanted in our psyches, he and his works were safe from any critical examination, which he couldn’t have withstood, as it was BS from the get-go and only got worse as he progressed.
jere lull,
I understand and agree. I’ve read KSW and all the other palaver Blubbard wrote that kept me/us “in” for so long.
Critical examination? In my final year I decided to run a “test”. I got auditing on the Grade that promised “the ability to spot the source of problems and make them vanish”. I kept on that level and refused to stop until that exact result was truly obtained. Sadly, or maybe not surprisingly, that result was never accomplished despite delivery over maybe 75 hours at the mecca of tech perfection with an auditor who’d won “auditor of the year” awards a few times. Went through the level many times and finally gave up and fabricated a bogus success story and falsely attested just so I could cut the money bleeding and get the fuck out. I left knowing I’d never get what is promised.
I had a few Supervisors like that, Glenn. They were awful. I also had some good ones who really cared and would stay in communication with affinity. The bad ones, though…ugh. They thought they were so…what’s the word…they were so righteous about KSW, so full of themselves, so obnoxious and almost pleased to make me wrong. I never learned anything in their courserooms. I’m sorry you experienced that, Glenn.
Thanks for the input Aquamarine. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one who suffered under bad supervisors.
The story I told was my first course room experience. On my last one (which ran for 2 years) had 2 supervisors and gladly one was nice and used good ARC. His cohort was a complete dole who I would often find dosing off even while standing. He was full time staff (the other was only part time) so I am sure he was very sleep deprived. I sometimes get up and walk by and nudge him awake.
After 2 years on the course (4-5 nights a week) one Wednesday evening while I was on the last section of the course the Sr C/S offered to twin up and get me through it all. This was quite unusual considering her position and training level but I accepted. As it turned out her intent was solely to get “a completion” (because the next day was Thurs 2 pm) and this became obvious when toward the end of the night and I hadn’t finished she told me to go to the examiner and attest and if I had any doubts or reservations I had completed just come to her and she’d work me through them whenever. I left that org forever.
Very glad you had some good experiences on course. Wish I had too, but nope. The truth is I only had marvelous and life changing wins and gains applying the tech to myself. And never in some stupid org.
If and when david miscavige goes down, believe you mean, the next one to step in as head of the crippled church will claim that david miscavige was not applying Keeping Scientology Working. Things in this church are read and understood according to whatever the church or its leader wants its members to “understand.”
I think Miscavige knows that whoever comes after him, is going to start to blame him for everything that has gone wrong, or isn’t working. So I expect he will hold on to his position of power until the bitter end, and never step down willingly, for a variety of reasons including that.
Whoever succeeds Miscavige may even have the problem of not holding him responsible for too much of the state of Scientology, lest they admit that that the CofS has been run by a flaming SP for more than half its history, and is actually in the direst of shape. Though if we’re really lucky, the person in control will be someone like a court-appointed receiver who doesn’t care about ideological niceties.
Another reason I doubt Miscavige would leave voluntarily, is that he has to fear that a new leader and successor regime could even come after him to settle scores, as totalitarian regimes often do. Stalin did that with Trotsky, who was bludgeoned to death in exile in Mexico by one of multiple hit teams converging on him, involving not only professional agents but ideological true believers (like Scientology’s “squirrel busters”) sent ensure he paid the final price.
PeaceMaker, I don ‘t believe that the “squirrel busters” were true believers, mostly hired guns, from what I remember, not that it matters too horribly much. The intimidation technique worked to the extent it did, and there were sufficient layers of misdirection involved that Davey-Boy was legally isolated from any consequences.
Interesting the Stalin analogy, much like Scientologists photoshopped (before photoshop existed) pictures of LRH with his son and second wife to have them taken out (or was it his first? He was married three times), back in the day, Stalin removed Trotsky from images along side Lenin.
Mary, do you think after miscaviage there will be a replacement? I think the end of scientology is not too far away, and sad as it is when it does end and it will I think it will be like families returning home after WW2, people will not know what to do and there will be a myriad of counselling required, As a Brit I was never introduced to this horrid ideology but I am angry at the way governments turn the other cheek when confronted with this cult, I hope you get re-connected with your son soon and I pray for all those whose families have been shattered.
warm regard Smudge – Australia
💖💖💖
Thank you
More proof (not that more was needed) that old Hubtard was madder than a hatter.
Hubbard was so full of it. I guess his Indian blood brothers couldn’t help him so his grandfather taught him “lumberjack fighting” a crude form of judo. Now that makes sense, not. As a six year old ( a first grader ) he pulverized the 2nd grader and the next oldest. The O’connell kids fled. It stands to reason the the oldest O’connell who is in high school would be afraid of a 1rst grader. Beyond ridiculous, not to mention him climbing a 9 foot fence, lleaping on a 6th grader and when the dust cleared the neighborhood was safe for all the other kids. His BS was never ending.
Right? I was laughing out loud when I read that part. Hubbard trying to paint himself as the hero who saved all the kids in the neighborhood (and even kids who lived a mile away!) from bullies is just beyond ridiculous. His storyline is so far fetched that it’s amazing anyone believed it.
Hubbard wanted so desperately to be admired and beloved. He had no qualms whatsoever in making up bullsh*t to attain it.
That “lumberjack” tale never DID ring true to me. Now that a few investigators have proven its many lies and inconsistencies several times over, it can’t be taken as anything resembling any reality in any universe other than his own narcissistic mind where he’s a superhero who could shame Superman.
“Don’t dream it… Be it.” Sorry, Dr. Frankenfurter shouldn’t be associated with LRH. The doctor is far more honorable. But it popped into my head.
On another note, wth is “knck, knck, knck”?
I think it is a reference to the three stooges. The sound they made when flicking each other on the head.
I think it may be the sound that Curly Joe sometimes made. It’s been a while since I’ve watched the Three Stooges though. Just a thought.
Peggy,
Yes, Curly would often utter a snickering “knck, knck, knck” as sarcasm. Suspect that’s just what Blubbard was doing in that piece.
Where’s Larry, Moe & Curly Joe?
Good question. I think they are there, just using different names and the personalities do match. It’s diabolical I tell ya!
“knck, knck, knck”
Doesn’t make any sense, AFAICT. I always substituted “knock” for knck and it sorta worked. My spell-checker agrees that that’s a reasonable guess.