Terry (from Dick Fojut)...
Scientology is way off topic. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with the HE, so I'll try to make this as brief(?) as I can and then drop the subject - as we should also be doing with the criticisms of Mormonism. But, since other members have possibly gone to the Scientology URLs and read parts, I think I should comment...
Understand that I quit Scientology in 1960, disillusioned and also "bothered" by the different "direction" Hubbard had begun to shift to in the LATE 1950s and early 1960s - and over private disgust of apparent nasty actions we heard were being carried out by new people running the national organization. Hubbard was still responsible of course.
Also, my wife and I had come to a conviction that the assurances of Hubbard of GREAT BENEFITS from Scientology "processing" were GREATLY EXAGGERATED. "Expanded" consciousness could be achieved through other avenues without devoting the enormous time and expense that Scientology had come to require. I'm not a promoter of current Scientology, but I cannot dismiss my past memories of good achieved from it in the 1950s. And I remain convinced that Psychiatrists and clinical Psychologists (with a few exception I have read about) are way off base about the mind and Beingness. And their common "mental therapies" given to the generally sick people they usually work with, are very poor and get poor results. Any well trained Scientologist (or earlier Dianetics) 1950s practitioner, achieved real and superior improvements with similar disturbed people. But, by 1955 (I was happy to find) that Scientology had shifted away from working with mentally disturbed people, to concentrate instead on "making the able more able." "The creation of human ability." Helping already able (normal) people improve themselves, leaving the sick minds once more exclusively to the Psychiatrists and clinical Psychologists
Terry, about the Scientology URL material you provided... I read all the approximately 60 pages printed off.. I'm also an alternate history "buff." You don't know me. There's no reason to give any credence to what I write. But here are my opinions about the incredibly ugly material I just finished reading...
Some of the negative claims about L. Ron Hubbard's past involvement with Crowley, drugs, "black magic," etc., his exaggerations about his early life, even his overnight "invention" of Dianetics "session" examples for his first book, may be true. I have no knowledge one way or other. But I was very familiar with Scientology during the 1950s (apparently the major period most discussed in all the material).
In my opinion, the majority of the other material I read is FALSE.
The writer, Lawrence Wollersheim (or Jon "Atack"?, says he is a "recovering Scientologist." Bunk. The guy writing the "Hubbard and The Occult" paper reveals himself as pitifully unfamiliar and ignorant. What he knows appears to have come from a few (very few) books and tapes. He appears to me to have gotten his material mostly from OTHER detracting authors' books (about Scientology books and tapes) that he has selectively extracted from. To me, his clumsy unfamiliarity shows up on every page. An outside book "expert." I don't know, but It is also possible he may have paid a big bundle for personal Scientology processing sessions in the past, didn't get the results he wanted and is determined to punish "the bastards" who "robbed him" of his money. This is a bitter writer.
The 2nd, shorter ("bravely" unsigned) paper, "Ron the Nut," with a few POSSIBLE(?) true accusations is a cesspool of rumors, written with cesspool words by a truly hate filled writer with a cesspool mind. I give more credence to Wollersheim.
Both the authors draw from L. Ron Hubbard Jr ("Nibs") in his incredible 1983 Penthouse interview. I'm incredulous about the things "Nibs" said about his father AND about Scientology itself! How even a bitter, disowned and outcast son could pour out that kind of venom, surprised me. To get a big check from Penthouse, did he decide he had to give them a BIG story? I was particularly disgusted with what he said about Scientology in the 1950s and specifically during the time I was at the Washington headquarters in 1955. Terry, "Nibs" (his nickname) is LYING! So many lies I have trouble remembering. A few....
"Nibs" said Scientology and Scientology techniques is built around SEX, SEX, SEX.. That's a total lie. "Nibs" has invented it. Go through Scientology books published during those same years you won't find anything like that. Sex was just another normal body function like eating and breathing and given no more importance in general auditing techniques. In fact, I cannot recall ANY auditing questions (or "commands") that contained anything even mentioning "Sex" during the 1950s. Unless some person being "processed" went out of their way telling his "auditor he had some big Sex problem, it was irrelevant If "Nibs" father was so hung up on SEX why wasn't it shown in auditing "processes," classes, books, tapes and Professional Bulletins, all of which Hubbard personally wrote or said? It wasn't. "Nibs" claim it was, is his fantasy. Because I know "Nibs" is lying about this, I am led to suspect he's lying about MUCH of what else he told the Penthouse interviewer. What else may be TRUE, I do not know..
He also claimed NO (trained) member dare quit Scientology, especially from classes "Nibs" taught. (I was unaware :Nibs" taught any classes, but possibly he did later). They would be hunted down, threatened, smeared, even beaten or worse, according to "Nibs." My wife and I officially quit in 1960, and sent headquarters insulting letters telling them why. We were never harassed. Never approached and never talked to. Just kept on the damned advertising MAILING LIST for the rest of our lives it looks like! We have friends, longtime former Scientologists who also eventually quit. and they were NEVER bothered. Just ignored. So, from my knowledge and theirs, "Nibs" again, was LYING to the interviewer.
"Nibs" also claimed HE originated much of the processing techniques and training during the 1950s, and was running the organization and trained thousands. That's pure paranoia; "delusion of grandeur," if he really believes that! As Hubbard Sr., in England during 1995 especially, came up with new thoughts and techniques each day, he would phone or send them as quickly as possible to headquarters instructors (whom I knew), not to his son. Though "Nibs" may have made some speeches somewhere, sometime, I can't recall ANY speeches, books, papers, tapes, etc., coming from "Nibs." People respected him as Hubbard's son, but I knew no one who thought "Nibs" was a thinker or had the mental qualities of his father. Just Hubbard's son "hanging around."
"Nibs" and the writers of the other papers made a big thing of Hubbard making Scientology a "religion." (Not with himself as some "Jesus" like leader. That's another ridiculous invention by "Nibs." Had my wife and I gotten that impression, we would have quit a lot sooner). SURE, he registered Scientology as a "religion." Yes, that bothered people like me, brought up as a Catholic in my childhood, whose image of a "religion" required a regular Priest or Pastor. But , remember this; Scientology, from its start had been constantly harassed by Government agents, the FDA, IRS, FBI, and the Washington headquarters was raided several times by "swat" like teams, taking away stacks of files to look for "evidence." What "evidence?" Anything to help them make charges of "PRACTICING MEDICINE WITH A LICENSE," as giving processing "therapy" was considered by the AMA and the Psychiatry and Psychology organizations. Dianetics first, then Scientology were COMPETITION. The FDA and other government agencies cooperated. Individual Scientologists were being similarly harassed, even arrested across the country in the early 1950s. Scientology was their enemy. Theyve done similarly to practitioners of "alternative medicine."
Part of that continuing harassment came from a regular succession of books, magazine and newspaper stories smearing Hubbard and Scientology as a worthless con game, full of crooked "practitioners." Some of that material provided source material for "Ron the Nut" and "Hubbard and the Occult." I'm not saying all of it is false. Parts may have truth in them. What parts? Who can be sure?
So when Hubbard Sr. registered Scientology as a religion, it WAS (though never stated so in print) to PROTECT it and the members from the government. We all realized this and went along. But, Scientology dealt with the SPIRIT, the BEING of man, which made it as legitimate to be called a "Church," as other minor "churches" you are all familiar with. But what Scientology DIDN"T get was a religious TAX DEDUCTION status. The government denied that.
But Scientology has TAX DEDUCTION status NOW. And government agencies no longer raid, harass and arrest. WHY? After "Nibs" sex-addict father died and the surrounding group of clever lawyers got control of Hubbard's many millions ("Nibs" lost his court bid to get some of it), and the MOSSAD now looked on Scientology as a useful asset, a "miracle" happened! Our IRS, persuaded by Israeli spokesmen that Scientology was now run by "better" people, awarded them religious tax deduction status. Wake up folks, that one country has much more influence over our government than the Scottish Masonic Order.
Tens of thousands of people are in present day Scientology and must be getting something beneficial from the current techniques. But if they are doing SEX, SEX, SEX and being subjected to heavy SATANIC mind control, even being murdered as "Nibs" would like us to believe, I have no opinion.
But about "Nibs" claims about such things in the 1950s - when he and I were in the 1955 Washington headquarters at the same time - he is simply NOT telling the full truth.
- Dick. Now lets drop the damned subject. Just not worth discussing. I put Scientology aside over 40 years ago and would like to leave it there.