The Scientific howlers pronounced by L. Ron Hubbard are so many and varied that if you were to try to select one as the “best” or the “biggest.” you would be hard pressed to choose one. After all, when Hubbard failed the subject of “nuclear physics,” at George Washington University he took his ignorance, tucked it under his arm, and carried it right into Scientology.
Auditing, the response to certain questions posed to the subject by another person is the main practice of Scientology. To evaluate the subject’s response the person being audited will hold on to two metal “cans” attached to a small box known as an “E-Meter” or the “Hubbard electro-psychometer This device was invented in the early 1950’s by Volney Mathison, a chiropractor. From an engineering point of view it is simply a Wheatstone bridge that measures a galvanic skin response to a small amount of electricity passed through the body. There was nothing new in this, plans for similar devices were to be found in the popular pulp “do-it-yourself” magazines of that era as being a sort of primitive lie-detector.
At some point Hubbard discovered that he could make any claim he wanted no matter of foolish, stupid or asinine and his followers would believe it. That is the only way that I can understand how a man who served in the US Navy, sailed boats, ships and yachts, and who was literate enough to have some college even if he didn’t graduate, could make the claim that people have the power to create mass, physical, detectable mass, using only thoughts and “mental powers.” If I am wrong and L. Ron Hubbard honestly believed that it was not only possible to creat matter from “mental energy” then he was not just another charlatan. No, in that case he would be just plain nuts.
FAIR USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS
The book herein being quoted is Understanding the E-Meter by L. Ron Hubbard, Bridge Publications, 1982.
Above. This chart shows it all. By the same line of reasoning you could make your laptop lighter by simply dumping the files.
First the meter, then the salad.
Here Hubbard shows what an auditor can do if he tires of auditing people. Rocks are next.
In Scientology the random swing of an E-Meter needle can land you in the cult prison for months or years. Your whole life can depend on Hubbard’s junk science, but instead of a roll of the dice it is the twitch on a meter. In the end this piece of junk science served on purpose and one purpose only; it lent a certain Scientific air to Scientology making it look like something that was built on hard facts. Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth.
For another take on the E-Meter, this time by a former Scientologist, Mark Plummer, go here. http://www.skeptictank.org/gen2/gen00050.htm
When L. Ron Hubbard unleashed Dianetics upon the unsuspecting world in May of 1950 he claimed that this “New Science of the Mind,” was good for just about anything that was ailing the human condition. By removing painful prior mental conditions known as “engrams,” that were stored in the “reactive mind,” your IQ could be raised, you would never suffer accidents or colds, you could, by the sheer power of your mind remove cancer or other sorts of serious physical conditions. In other words you would be a truly rational person with a mental powerhouse. Before the upper level “Operating Thetan” or “OT” courses were released, this status, that went by the name, “Clear,” was the coveted end result of Dianetics and Scientology. All efforts were directed at being “Clear” as students from all over the world descended up the heretofore undistinguished village of East Grinstead.
But “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” as they say. How did these first “Clears,” courtesy of St. Hill Manor, East Grinstead, England, fare? Did they win Nobel Prizes? Were their lives free of the usual petty problems like divorce, the need for money, possible addiction problems that led to drug addiction and alcoholism? How was their health? Did Clears live a lot longer with their disease free lives than ordinary folk? What about eyesight? Hubbard said they should be able to do away with their glasses as their eye sight would improve from auditing. People with these abilities would certainly stick out, in fact they might be hard to hide with abilities like that. Their positive contribution to society would have been noted and lauded.
So just how did they fare? Here is some research based upon existing lists besides some research on my own. Here are the great products of Scientology. Oh, you had better know what the term “Suppressive Person,” or “SP” means in Scientology. An SP is an anti-social person who hates all that is good and by their very nature are destructive. Hubbard claimed that these types constituted only two-and-a-half percent of the population. A person deemed suppressive would receive a notice printed upon a particular color paper, goldenrod, that would list all of the various crimes against humanity and Scientology that this person committed. Such a notice would be hung on all Scientology bulletin boards. One would think that among the altruistic people taking Scientology courses such a dire finding would be extremely rare.
John McMaster, SHSBC Course Supervisor, deceased, DECLARED SP, FIRST CLEAR.*
John Imburgia, Class VIII auditor, St. Hill, DC, first Buffalo mission, DECLARED SP, Clear #2.
Pam Pearcy, Ad Council, St. Hill. DECLARED SP, Clear #3.
Pat Scrufari, Niagara Falls, Clear #4, out, deceased 2012.
Terry Milner, Deputy GO, US, “Snow White,“ deceased, DECLARED SP, Clear #5.
Anne Greig, St. Hill staff, deceased, Clear #6.
Reg Sharpe, LRH Assistant and personal friend, deceased, DECLARED SP, Clear #7.
Alan Walter, US, mission holder, (deceased) DECLARED SP, Clear #8.
Philip Quirino, LRH Comm, DECLARED SP, Clear #9.
Leon Steinberg, former Exec Council WW, class XII, DECLARED SP, Clear #10.
John McCoy, Saint Hill staff, still in, Clear #11.
Ray Thacker, Saint Hill staff, deceased, Clear #12.
Otis Halliday, US, deceased, Clear #13.
Ralph Pearcy, St. Hill staff, out of Scientology. deceased, Clear #14.
Jennifer Edmonds, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #15.
George Galpin, St. Hill staff, still in, (Deceased 2002) Clear #16.
J.J Delance, Technical Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #17.
Bernie Green, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #18.
Jim Crawley, UK, probably out, Clear #19.
Tony Dunleavy, Clearing Course Supervisor. DECLARED SP, Clear #20.
Gareth McCoy, Dissem Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #21.
Joan Thomas, St. Hill staff, deceased? Clear #22.
Julia Galpin, St, Hill staff, DECLARED SP, Clear #23.
Dalene Regenas, St. Hill, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, (Deceased) Clear #24.
Otto Roos, Ad Council. DECLARED SP, One of the original LRH trained Class XII. Clear #25.
Felice Green, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #26.
John Lawrence, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #28.
Connie Broadbent, Dir Accounts. DECLARED SP, Clear #29.
Craig Lipsitz, Qual Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #30.
Marilynn Routsong, HCO Staff, deceased. DECLARED SP, Clear #31.
Fred Hare, St. Hill staff, still in, Clear #32.
Ellen Carder, American, went to St. Hill for cancer treatment, sued Hubbard. DECLARED SP, Clear #33.
Peggy Bankston, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #34.
Brian Livingston, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #35.
Joan de Veulle, deceased, London staff, Clear #36.
Haskell Cooke, St. Hill, Gold, out, deceased, Clear #37.
Chris Weideman, South Africa, still in, Clear #38.
Virginia Downsborough, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #39.
Joe Van Staden, Treasury Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #40.
Sheena Fairchild, Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, deceased, Clear #41.
Myra Elliott, Hawaii staff, deceased? Clear #42.
Yvonne Gillham, St. Hill staff, deceased, Clear #43.
Pete Peterman, Hawaii staff, unknown, probably out, Clear #44.
Scott Leland, Class VIII, St. Hill Staff, original Sea Org project, suicide, DECLARED SP, Clear #45.
Helen Hancock, New Jersey, deceased? Clear #46.
Helen pollen, Qual Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #47.
John Elliott, Hawaii staff, still in, Clear #48.
Fred Fairchild, Tech Staff St. Hill, now in the US, still in? Clear #49.
Dorothy Knight, Dissem Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #50.
David Gaiman, UK, deceaced, Clear #51.
Peter Goodwin, Portsmouth, “Racket Exposed” Auditor 1968, DECLARED SP, Clear #52.
Anton James, St. Hill Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #53.
Jenny Parkhouse, St. Hill, Treasury Staff. Personal Friend of LRH. DECLARED SP, Clear #54.
Herbie Parkhouse, Org Exec Sec. DECLARED SP, (Deceased) Clear #55
Judy Gray, St. Hill Tech Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #56.
Cal Wigney, St. Hill, Div 6 Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #57.
Mary Long, St. Hill, Div 6 Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #58.
Chester Halliday, US, deceased, Clear #59.
Hana Eltringham, (Whitfield) high-ranking SO member, DECLARED SP, Clear #60.
Bill Robertson, St. Hill Staff and LA. DECLARED SP, deceased, Clear #61.
Linda Nussbaum, Exec Staff. DECLARED SP, Clear #62.
Peter Imburgia, Buffalo, DECLARED SP, Clear #63.
Marie Oaks, LA staff, deceased, Clear #64.
Mildred Mathews, Sydney staff, deceased, Clear #65.
Marguerite Wirick, San Diego staff, Out of Scientology, Clear #66.
Joan Davis, St. Hill Staff, unknown, Clear #67.
Beth Fordyce, Detroit staff, DECLARED SP, Clear #68.
Ron Pook, St. Hill Interne, still in. Clear #69.
Wal Wilkinson, Adelaide staff, deceased, Clear #70.
Allan Ferguson, Detroit staff, DECLARED SP, Clear #71.
Hank Laarhuis, St. Hill Staff, Netherlands, Clear #72.
Robin Lindsell, Tech Staff. Class XII. DECLARED SP, Clear #73.
Claire Louwrens, Cape Town staff, still in, Clear #74.
Penny Khaled, St. Hill staff, still in? Clear #75.
Helen Whitney, St. Hill staff, deceased, Clear #76.
Vern Gale, Interning for DC, deceased, Clear #77.
Wally Collis, Aukland, NZ, still in, Clear #78.
Joy Walter, Dallas, Tx, out since 1982, Clear #79.
Margaret Gormley, South Africa, DECLARED SP, Clear #80.
David Ziff, St. Hill Staff, still in, Clear #81.
Dick Moor, London staff, DECLARED SP, Clear #82.
Leila Flanagan, Houston, TX, DECLARED SP, Clear #83.
Pat Flanagan, Houston, TX, DECLARED SP, Clear #84.
Betty Halliday, Houston, TX, still in, Clear #85.
Ray Kemp, St. Hill, CA, early LRH supporter, deceased, DECLARED SP, Clear #86.
Val Wigney, Saint Hill Intern. DECLARED SP, Clear #87.
Tom Koon, CA, out of Scientology, Clear #88.
Douglas Shrewsbury, Seattle? Status unknown, Clear #89.
Helen Kitchin, San Diego, unknown, Clear #90.
Peter Khaled, St. Hill staff, still in, Clear #91.
Ellen Arnold, London Staff, DECLARED SP, Clear #92.
Jim Watson, Hawaii, DECLARED SP, Clear #93.
Mark Jones, London staff, DECLARED SP, deceased, Clear #94.
Douglas Hancock, status unknown, Clear #95.
Mary Edwards, St. Hill, still in, Clear #96.
Norma Maier, Hawaii, deceased, Clear #97.
Linda Munk, Toronto, out of Scientology, Clear #98.
Bert Rossouw, St. Hill, out of Scientology, Clear #99.
Dave Hunter, St. Hill, still in, Clear #100.
So, out of the first hundred “Clears” an astonishing number, 52, were vile enemies of humanity. So Saith the Great L. Ron Hubbard. Nor is there any record of extreme longevity in this group. Granted, these clears were made a good many years ago, yet the ones who have passed on were, if anything, on the younger side of mortality expectations. It also looks like these important people were bypassed by fame and fortune. There are no great captains of industry here, or great artists or thinkers or scientists of any sort. All in all in is a pretty tame bunch considering what was expected of them.
To read more on Dianetics, Clears and early Scientology read Jeff Jacobsen’s “The Hubbard is Bare.”
For more on SPs go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person
* Hubbard’s first attempt at producing a Clear was a ghastly failure. This from the Wikipedia,
“There are several conflicting accounts of who first attained the state of Clear, and under what circumstances. In August 1950, amidst the success of Dianetics, Hubbard held a demonstration in Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium where he presented a young woman called Sonya Bianca (a pseudonym) to a large audience including many reporters and photographers as ‘the world’s first Clear.’ However, despite Hubbard’s claim that she had “full and perfect recall of every moment of her life”, Bianca proved unable to answer questions from the audience testing her memory and analytical abilities, including the question of the color of Hubbard’s tie.”
The above picture is from “The Auditor,” #35, 1967. This is a sample of how L. Ron Hubbard treated people who fell out of favor with him. They were to be harmed in any possible way. If they were ever to receive Scientology they would get a process, R-2 45. that would either drive them insane or kill them. In other words murder was ok. So next time some Hubbard bot tells you what a wonderful man he was just show them this.
Not every evil thing can be blamed on David Miscavige. He is a lot like his mentor.
The following excerpts are from chapter One, “A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed.” By John Atack,
“Novelists often elaborate their own mundane experience into fictional adventures. Hubbard did not confine his creativity to his fictional work. He reconstructed his entire past, exaggerating his background to fashion a hero, a superhero even. Although Hubbard wrote many imaginative stories, his own past became his most elaborate work of fiction.
Hubbard’s works are peppered with references to his achievements. He often broke off when lecturing to relate an anecdote about his wartime experience or his Hollywood career. Even before he generated a following he would tell tall stories to anyone who cared to listen. He stretched his tales to the ridiculous, claiming he broke broncos at the age of three and a half, for example. Most Scientologists believe these tales. Few have bothered to compare the anecdotes or the many and varied biographical sketches published by Hubbard’s Church, so the many discrepancies pass largely unnoticed. The pattern of Hubbard’s reconstructed past is the translation of the actual, sometimes mediocre, sometimes sordid, reality into a stirring tale of heroic deeds.
Even critics of Scientology occasionally swallow part of the myth. Paulette Cooper, in her penetrating exposé of Scientology, assured her readers, quite erroneously, that Hubbard was “severely injured in the war… and in fact was in a lifeboat for many days, badly injuring his body and his eyes in the hot Pacific sun.”
But Hubbard’s accounts are not the only source of information. By the summer of 1984, the fabric of his heroic career had been badly torn, largely through the work of two men: Michael Shannon and Gerald Armstrong.
In July 1975, on a muggy evening in Portland, Oregon, Michael Shannon stood waiting for a bus. A young man approached him, and asked if he wanted to attend a free lecture. Shannon went along, thinking that at least the lecture room would be air-conditioned (it was not). He listened to a short, plausible talk about “Affinity, Reality and Communication,” and after a brief sales pitch signed up for the “Communication Course.”
Many Scientologists’ stories begin this way. Shannon’s soon took a different turn. The next day he decided he did not want to do the Communication Course and, after a “brief but rather heated discussion,” managed to get his money back. He kept and read the copy of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health which kindled his curiosity, not for Dianetics, but for its originator.
I started buying books. Lots of books. There was a second hand bookstore a few blocks away and they were cheaper, and I discovered they had books by other writers that were about Scientology – I happened on the hard-to-find Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper. Now I was fascinated, and started collecting everything I could get my eager hands on – magazine articles, newspaper clippings, government files, anything.
By 1979, Shannon had spent $4,000 on his project and had collected “a mountain of material which included some flies that no one else had bothered to get copies of – for example, the log books of the Navy ships that Hubbard had served on, and his father’s Navy service file.” Shannon intended to write an exposé of Hubbard.
After failing to find a publisher, Shannon sent the most significant material to a few concerned individuals and ducked out of sight, fearful of reprisals. Five years later, he was still in hiding and my efforts to contact him failed. The hundred pages Shannon sent out included copies of some of Hubbard’s naval and college records, as well as responses to Shannon’s many letters inquiring into Hubbard’s expeditions and other alleged exploits.
The “Shannon documents” also found their way to Gerald Armstrong. Armstrong had been a dedicated Sea Org member for nearly ten years when he began a “biography project” authorized by Hubbard. Much of the immense archive collected by Armstrong consisted of Hubbard’s own papers, not the forgeries that Hubbard claimed had been created by government agencies to discredit Scientology. The archive largely confirmed Shannon’s material. Armstrong and Shannon reached the same eventual destination from opposed starting points.”
This is taken from Shannon’s preface in Hubbard’s biography.
“In many of the dozens of books published by the Church of Scientology (COS) over the years, there is included, as in many books, some ‘information about the author’. In the case of the COS books, this ranges from a couple of lines on the inside of the dust jacket, to the elaborate 16 page spread in “What is Scientology” in which the life of their founder is depicted in reproductions of a series of oil paintings, with accompanying text.
All of these, when put together, tell of a man who, descended from royalty grew up in the wilds of Montana, became the youngest Eagle Scout in America traveled throughout the world as a teenager, graduated from college with a degree in civil engineering, earned his masters license to command ocean going vessels, was the leader of a number of expeditions to various areas of the world, was a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, was highly decorated, and a real life hero in the U.S. Navy in WWII, wrote and had published fifteen million words, and spent years and years researching the composition and destiny of man
And did all this before his 35th birthday.
Shannon begins then to chop up each of these lies and exaggerations with the sharp knife of truth. Here are a couple of favorites of mine.
Ron the scholar and nuclear scientist. A straight “A: student? Hardly. See for yourself.
For the year 1931-1932, the second semester.
Integral Calculus D
English, Short Stories B
Physics, electricity
and magnetism D
Nuclear Physics F
How about “Ron the war-hero?” Hubbard puffed himself up with vain glory and told tales about how his combat experiences and how he healed himself from wounds; this healing was to be an important part of Dianetecs at a later date. It would be incorrect to say that Hubbard never fired a gun or smelled the reek of powder. But alas, the target was an island belonging to Mexico. His wounds? An ulcer and eye inflammation. He collected a ten percent disability payment for the rest of his life.
Here is what the navy thought of Hubbard: “On July 7 a fitness report on Hubbard was written by Rear Admiral Braisted, Commander Fleet Operational Training Command, Pacific. In the “Remarks” section, the Rear Admiral said: “Consider this officer lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation. He acts without forethought as to probable results. He is believed to have been sincere in his efforts to make his ship efficient and ready. Not considered qualified for command or promotion at this time. Recommend duty on a large vessel where he can be properly supervised.”
In Australia they didn’t think much of Hubbard either, ” “By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, he became the source of much trouble. This, however, was made possible by the representative of the U.S. Army at Brisbane …. This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think that he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.”
This continues on and on in Shannon’s biography. Lie after lie is exposed. Later researchers would expand his work but he had the honor of being the first one. This had a big effect on Scientology although to this day they still retail some of the lies to their unwary victims.
For the rest of the Shannon papers go here: http://www.lermanet.com/shannon/
Here is a link to, “A Piece of Blue Sky.” http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/apobs/contents.htm
Here is a look at some of Hubbard’s followers, this is his legacy.
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