Scientologists actually put out this foolishness — the saddest part is that they BELIEVE this is true.
Like Battlefield Earth telling the story of psych influence on earth, Mission Earth, the 10-volume soft-core porn sci-fi monstrosity is seen by scientologists as Hubbard’s commentary on the state of planet earth and his views on sexual perversion and orientation, banking, the media, PR Firms and a whole lot more. Including how to solve pollution on earth — simple, just dream up a spore that eats pollution. Hey presto!
Frankly, though scientology HATES being labelled a “sci-fi” religion, Hubbard’s latter sci-fi reads little differently than his scientology “technology” — a glance at the “Pain and Sex” HCOB from the same time period distills his rambling sci-fi ME porn into unchangeable scientology “truths.” His story of Xenu and the Galactic Federation are like the Psychlos in BE and the little grey men in spaceships (bankers) in ME. The line between the two genres is VERY indistinct. But no scientologist will ever admit this publicly — they even put a little tag on their post #satire they can point to if need be. But as any ex-scientologist will confirm, this is precisely what they think, though these are discussions heard only within the 4 walls of the prison of belief.
The way to end pollution is to clear the planet. Seems kinda obvious, right? 😉
Clear the planet of the belief in Scientology as anything other than a very absurd aspect of human culture!
The greatest good for the greatest number of fanatics.
Well, he did clear some the planet of pollution by kicking the bucket and freeing the atmosphere of his cyclone level hot air and rotted teeth and smoke infected breath.
Scientology gives fiction a bad name. That group is a killjoy and introverts any pleasure.
The one thing they do best is kill innocence – sigh…
…” Including how to solve pollution on earth — simple, just dream up a spore that eats pollution. Hey presto!” If we’re talking about the carbon Dioxide situation… this “spore” already exists….. it’s called TREES! for other types, i’m sure MANY already have a means to “clear it up”, et al, and/or just blast that shtuff (add ‘h’ on purpose), to space.
Also, wasn’t Mission Earth 10 volumes, not 20? I remember how it was always referred to as a “decalogy”.
While the story (ME), may have had roots in SCN or vice versa, I found it quite entertaining to read (but then again, i’m usually a sucker for 1st person type stories, Jumper, House of Night series…. etc).
Battlefield Earth on the other hand…. was dreary until almost 3/4 of the way through the book (for me anyway), and only really got “exciting” 3/4 in. So, IMO it coulda been MUCH shorter (LOL).
But yes, i’m aware of the similarities.
Also, given that a “satire” is poking fun at so-called truth, it *could* be that this “spore” already exists (maybe), and it’s being “satired” as such…? well, all things are usually up for debate though. 🤷♂️
Yes, 10 Vols. My typo…
What biology says about spores:
1) They are metabolically in active.
So they don’t have to “eat”anything to survive.
2) They also may contain significant amounts of mycotoxins. Diseases associated with inhalation of fungal spores include toxic pneumonitis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, tremors, chronic fatigue syndrome, kidney failure, and cancer.
So, it would probably be a bad idea to put spores into the air. …If we did we might have to call in “The Inter-galactic Mold Abatement Company” to save our planet. 🙃
Judging from the photo, they don’t even know the difference between pollution and altocumulus clouds.
Mike, didn’t Scn at one point create a group called Earth Org? I seem to remember that being mentioned at an event many years ago. Just another PR move that didn’t pay off.
Will they get rid of the dead satellites and space junk? Oh, I see, not their purpose, more subjective like the OT levels. You’ve just gotta believe and it will work. Pass.
I think it is very unfortunate to lump all Scientologists into one basket like this.
When BE first came out, I was still on staff and a full blown Scientologist. Of course, I read BE right away.
I actually found it to be a real page turner and read the whole thing in a few days.
After finishing the book, I rethought the whole thing. I think BE works quite well as a juvenile Sci-Fi action story. It didn’t break much new ground – the story line is very similar to HG Wells’ War of the World, published almost 100 years earlier. In contrast, some of Hubbard’s earlier work was quite innovative. I am mainly thinking Final Blackout, Fear and Typewriter in the Sky here. This was all rather disappointing, in retrospect.
There were clearly some Scientology ideas thrown in here but I did not spend much time thinking that through. To me, it was just a piece of fiction.
As for ME, I forced myself to get through the first book and pulled the plug on the others. I thought it was an atrocious piece of writing with horrible stereotyped one-dimensional characters and a dull story line. The one amusing thing about the book was that Hubbard thought he had to explain what “satire” is. I never got to the “spores”, but had I done so I would not have taken it seriously.
I know plenty of others who thought the same about ME as I did.
Scientologists are not all cast in the same mold, any more than are Catholics, Sunni Moslems or Hindus, and no doubt, the belief sets of those at the higher-levels of the Sea Org tend to be far more extreme than those of public members at Class-V Orgs.
Fair comment, though the mindset of those left in scientology is FAR more regimented today than it was back in the 80’s. Independent thought is not acceptable. Thus, those who remain are pretty much guaranteed to follow the party line blindly.
Funny thing is, though Hubbard wrote much pulp fiction: cowboy, gangster, frontier; none of it was S.F. until he met Joseph Campbell.
He didn’t even want to write S.F. Most accounts state that Campbell had to talk him into trying it.
Strange that it became such a central part of his self-perception.
Also, not to detract from his several enjoyable short S.F. stories, he never wrote any space opera *at all* until his two poor but mammoth efforts long after having set up Scientology. Suppose he must have spent a lot of time reading E.E. ‘Doc.’ Smith from the forties (late thirties?) on. As the giant egotist that he was, one would wonder if he even read any of his friend, Robert Heinlein’s, few space opera efforts.
I suppose that I post often enough here that I should set up a log-in and avatar, instead of just directly pasting on the required fields.
I think you mean John W Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction. Joseph Campbell was another dude altogether.
Sure, I know that they are different people, realised it immediately after my earlier post.
Since posting here isn’t convenient, and self-correction isn’t possible, left it as it was, knowing the high probability of a correction, as you have provided.
Firstly, thank you. Forgot that in initial reply.
Although I’ll never make the same mistake again, and normally wouldn’t, the two Campbell’s have interesting congruences. The major reason for John W. supporting Dianetics in the first place was that it seemed to support the idea of psychic superpowers.
He pretty much insisted that writers for his magazines use that as a plot point.
Joe Campbell wrote on ideas of mythic archetypes .
Where they really came into confluence was Herbert’s Dune.
John W.’s ideas of psychic superpowers meet Joseph’s ideas of heroic myth. Always find that funny, especially since Herbert’s initial publisher for Dune wasn’t a fiction publisher at all (road guides and similar). They just took a chance on it.
Psychlos and BTs are very needy of love.
Beware of recent visitors to France and nearby places. They have a huge outbreak even now of insectoid body thetans.
These evil body thetans are called bedbugs, and even NOTS tech can’t clear you of them!
Bodylesses Thetans got no Wieners
I wonder if these spores also work on all the tens of thousands of colorful balloons released into the atmosphere for every uselessly inaugurated ideal org, or on all the thousands of hubbard lecture sets that were produced but never sold, just sitting in some basement, waiting to be burned sooner or later.
If the spores are setting out new spores, or space ghosts can splitt them self and eat worthless bodys to clean the atmosphere?
Nonsence or a joke?
I had read BE up to page thirty.
You didn’t miss anything by not reading it. They made a movie out of it with Travolta, which was considered one of the worst things ever made. Moreover, it was only the first part. Because of its resounding failure, they never dared to mention the second part.
After Ron described the handsome Johnny in such detail in Battlefield Earth and only briefly mentioned his girlfriend, I didn’t want to read any further and deliberately skipped the film.
I saw the film “Logan’s Run” as a child.
I also saw Minority Report.
And I see how both fantasies were realized.
It’s terrible, but somehow also impressive.
Understood. We don’t know what future will bring to us but I personally don’t give any attention to it. Otherwise I start making my silly”mental movies”.
What I do now only counts if I’m here aware of it. The rest will usually fall in that line. Stay well.