Hold onto your thetans, folks, because the rumors are true: L. Ron Hubbard has clawed his way back from the great beyond, just as he predicted! But forget those past life regressions he used to charge a fortune for; this time, he’s starring in his own reincarnation flick – a zombie movie, no less!
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Wouldn’t a guy who’s been pushing up daisies for decades be a bit… decomposed for the silver screen?” Fear not, dear readers, for the magic of Hollywood makeup has worked wonders! Apparently, those top-notch makeup artists can reanimate a galactic overlord whose ashes were strewn over the ocean look ready for his close-up.
But here’s the real kicker: Hubbard isn’t the only one making a comeback. He’s brought along a few familiar faces from his alleged past lives. Think ancient warriors, wise sages, and maybe even a disgruntled clam or two (hey, we’re talking Scientology here, anything’s possible).
So grab your popcorn and your e-meter (just in case), because this is one zombified, reincarnation romp you won’t want to miss! And who knows, maybe we’ll even get some exclusive behind-the-scenes gossip on those infamous auditing sessions. Stay tuned, folks!
Mea Culpa, My Fellow Truth-Seekers (and Sci-Fi Fans)
Alright, alright, I confess: I may have gotten a wee bit carried away with that whole L. Ron Hubbard zombie movie extravaganza. Turns out, the only thing he’s been resurrecting lately are old tax returns (allegedly).
While the idea of a zombified galactic overlord battling past-life versions of himself was undeniably tempting, I must admit it was pure fiction … in the spirit of that whole Scientology nonsense. No disgruntled clams, no wise sages, and definitely no auditing sessions on set (though that would make for a fascinating documentary, wouldn’t it?).
So, to all of you who clicked with bated breath, hoping for a juicy scoop on the afterlife according to Hubbard, I sincerely apologize. I promise to stick to more grounded, fact-based reporting in the future.Unless, of course, Tom Cruise decides to ditch Scientology for a career in interpretive dance – then all bets are off.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here, practicing my auditing techniques on my tomato plants. Who knows, maybe they’ll reveal some shocking secrets about their past lives a … prize-winning orchids? Only time (and a whole lot of fertilizer) will tell.
Until next time, keep seeking the truth, my friends – even if it’s not lurking in a B-movie graveyard.
And now, back to our fact-based reporting on L. Ron Hubbard…
The entré for today’s post is a short study in character analysis. The outline for this study comes to us from Martin Gardner (1983–2010), a contemporary of L. Ron Hubbard and well-known for his authorship on the topics of mathematics, science, philosophy of science, theology, and magic. Gardner spent 25 years during his long career as a columnist at Scientific American, which started in 1956 and was a favorite contributor of articles on tricks, puzzles, and science for the Physics Teacher for 12 years.
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton. He was a leading authority on Lewis Carroll; The Annotated Alice, which incorporated the text of Carroll’s two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, MAGIC magazine named him as one of the “100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century”. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books.
Gardner was one of the foremost anti-pseudoscience polemicists of the 20th century. His 1957 book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science is a seminal work of the skeptical movement. In 1976, he joined with fellow skeptics to found CSICOP, an organization promoting scientific inquiry and the use of reason in examining extraordinary claims.
On May 22, one of America’s most interesting minds and engaging writers passed. Martin Gardner possessed a unique combination of literary breadth, rigorous logic, mathematical intuition, and lively, engaging writing.
Gardner is a delightful paradox. Best known as a hard-nosed, card-carrying, take-no-prisoners skeptic, he cleverly and ruthlessly exposed the fakery of faith healing, spoon-bending, alien abducting, mind-palm-tarot-card reading, holocaust denying, and every other imaginable pseudoscience.
Gardner is often referred to as the founder of the modern skeptical movement. Together with the likes of magician James Randi, psychologist Ray Hyman, and others they formed the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. It principally promoted scientific thinking and the application of science and reason to important public issues. The Committee began a publication in 1976, Skeptical Inquirer, for which Gardner was a key contributor.
In 1952, Gardner published “In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present.” It’s all in there … Flat and hollow — Monsters of doom — The Forteans — Flying saucers — Zig-zag-and-swirl— Down with Einstein! — Sir Isaac Babson — Dowsing rods and doodlebugs — Under the microscope— Geology versus Genesis — Lysenkoism— Apologists for hate — Atlantis and Lemuria — The Great Pyramid — Medical cults — Medical quacks — Food faddists — Throw away your glasses! — Eccentric sexual theories — Orgonomy — Dianetics — General semantics, etc. — From bumps to handwriting — ESP and PK — Bridley Murphy and other matters. It would be later republished as “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.” (the 2nd Edition is available as a PDF download here)
Central to the theme of Gardner’s book is his character study of those who are the purveyors of pseudosciences and cult beliefs … the “cranks,” as described in Wikipedia.
I’ll take “FAMOUS CRANKS” for $500, Alex.
Gardner says that cranks have two common characteristics. The first “and most important” is that they work in almost total isolation from the scientific community. Gardner defines the community as an efficient network of communication within scientific fields, together with a co-operative process of testing new theories. This process allows for apparently bizarre theories to be published — such as Einstein’s theory of relativity, which initially met with considerable opposition; it was never dismissed as the work of a crackpot, and it soon met with almost universal acceptance. But the crank “stands entirely outside the closely integrated channels through which new ideas are introduced and evaluated. He does not send his findings to the recognized journals or, if he does, they are rejected for reasons which in the vast majority of cases are excellent.
The following character analysis is so accurate, it could easily be uploaded to L. Ron Hubbard’s LinkedIn account if he had one. The primary trait of the crank (which also contributes to his or her isolation) is the tendency to paranoia. There are five ways in which this tendency is likely to be manifested.
1.The pseudo-scientist considers himself a genius. 2. He regards other researchers as stupid, dishonest or both. 3. He believes there is a campaign against his ideas, a campaign comparable to the persecution of Galileo or Pasteur. He may attribute his “persecution” to a conspiracy by a scientific “masonry” who are unwilling to admit anyone to their inner sanctum without appropriate initiation. 4.Instead of side-stepping the mainstream, the pseudo-scientist attacks it head-on: The most revered scientist is Einstein so Gardner writes that Einstein is the most likely establishment figure to be attacked. 5.He has a tendency to use complex jargon, often making up words and phrases. Gardner compares this to the way that schizophrenics talk in what psychiatrists call “neologisms”, “words which have meaning to the patient, but sound like Jabberwocky to everyone else.”
These psychological traits are in varying degrees demonstrated throughout the remaining chapters of the book, in which Gardner examines particular “fads” he labels pseudo-scientific. His writing became the source book from which many later studies of pseudo-science were taken.
The icing on the cake for this post is Gardner’s review of Russell Miller’s “Bare-Faced Messiah,” published in 1987. He does little meandering in the first paragraph before lowering the hammer on L. Ron Hubbard…
Hubbard was a deeply disturbed man— a pathological liar who steadily deteriorated from a charming rogue into a paranoid egomaniac “unable to distinguish”, as Miller puts it, “between fact and his own fantastic fiction”.
And now Gardner trades in his roofing hammer for a jackhammer…
Almost everything Ron ever said about himself was false.He was never a swashbuckling explorer or distinguished naval officer. Although he claimed to be a physicist, his knowledge of science was negligible. His father, a lieutenant-commander in the US Navy, had hoped his son would pursue a similar career, but near-sightedness kept Ron out of Annapolis. His only education was in the engineering school of George Washington University where he dropped out after two years of dismal grades.
Gardner closes with every cult researcher’s nagging question about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology…
How could a man this crazy have lived to 74 without being committed?
How could a science-fiction cult, with such preposterous doctrines and evil morals, continue to flourish?
DIANETICS (from a Greek word meaning thought) is a new science of the mind discovered by Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, a popular writer of science fiction. According to the opening sentences of his first book on the subject, “The Creation of dianetics is a milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch…. The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration has been discovered and skills have been developed for their invariable cure.”
That word “invariable” is not a typographical mistake. “Dianetics is an exact science,” Hubbard writes, “and its application is on the order of, but simpler than, engineering. Its axioms should not be confused with theories since they demonstrably exist as natural laws hitherto undiscovered.” Dianetic therapy operates with mathematical precision. It never fails.
Dianetics is a book of impressive thickness, written in a repetitious, immature style. Hubbard claims he wrote it in three weeks. This is believable because most of his writing is done at lightning speed. (For a while, he used a special electric IBM typewriter with extra keys for common words like “and,” “the,” and “but.” The paper was on a roll to avoid the interruption of changing sheets.) Nothing in the book remotely resembles a scientific report.
At the time of writing, the dianetics craze seems to have burned itself out as quickly as it caught fire, and Hubbard himself has become embroiled in a welter of personal troubles. In 1951, his third wife, twenty-five-year-old Sara Northrup Hubbard, sued him for divorce. She called him a “paranoid schizophrenic,” accused him of torturing her while she was pregnant, and stated that medical advisers had concluded Hubbard was “hopelessly insane.”
In February, 1952, the Dianetic Foundation in Wichita went bankrupt. It was later purchased from the bankruptcy court by a Wichita businessman who refuses to have anything to do with Hubbard. At the moment, the founder of dianetics is living in Phoenix, Arizona. From there the Hubbard Association of Scientologists (“scientology” is a new Hubbardian term, meaning the “science of knowledge”) is mailing out literature fulminating against the Wichita group, hawking Hubbard’s latest books, publishing a periodical called Scientology, and selling a Summary Course in Dianetics and Scientology, complete with tape recordings, for $382.50. The Hubbard College Graduate School, in Phoenix, charges a registration fee of $25.00 and offers a degree of Bachelor of Scientology.
A recent letter from Hubbard asked for donations of $25 to help pay his living expenses, establish free dianetic schools “across America,” and a few other little projects he has in mind. In return, donors are to be given membership in a new dianetic organization called “The Golds.”
John Campbell, Jr., who had been introduced to dianetics many years earlier when Hubbard began treating him for sinusitis, and who in turn introduced dianetics to the world, has likewise been divorced. He married Dr. Winter’s sister.
And he still has his sinusitis.
And yet … Scientology by some miracle of irony has survived the test of time.
In conclusion, the longevity of Scientology is not a testament to its validity as a religion, but rather a stark reminder of the potential misuse of our cherished First Amendment rights. While freedom of expression is a cornerstone of our democracy, it should not be a shield for fraudulent activities. The evidence suggests that Scientology, with its documented history of deception and manipulation, has exploited this protection for financial gain.
It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff. The beliefs of Scientology, no matter how outlandish, deserve the same protection as any other faith under the First Amendment. However, the organization calling itself the “Church of Scientology” does not. It’s a corporate entity that has allegedly engaged in a pattern of criminal behavior, and it’s time it was held accountable.
The systematic dismantling of the Church of Scientology is not an attack on religious freedom, but a defense of it. It’s a necessary step to ensure that our laws are not weaponized to protect those who exploit faith for personal gain. It’s time to stop the con and start the conversation about what constitutes a legitimate religion in the 21st century.
The hard questions should continue to be asked.
Unfortunately, you won’t get to do that once you’re “inside.”
There is a church website named “WhatIsScientology.org.” It stands as a monument to galactic-level irony because this is the last question you get to ask inside the cult before your fruitless journey “Up The Bridge to Total Freedom.”
The entré for today’s post is a short study in character analysis. The outline for this study comes to us from Martin Gardner (1983–2010), a contemporary of L. Ron Hubbard and well-known for his authorship on the topics of mathematics, science, philosophy of science, theology, and magic. Gardner spent 25 years during his long career as a columnist at Scientific American, which started in 1956 and was a favorite contributor of articles on tricks, puzzles, and science for the Physics Teacher for 12 years.On May 22, one of America’s most interesting minds and engaging writers passed. Martin Gardner possessed a unique combination of literary breadth, rigorous logic, mathematical intuition, and lively, engaging writing.
In 1952, Gardner published “In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present.” It’s all in there … Flat and hollow — Monsters of doom — The Forteans — Flying saucers — Zig-zag-and-swirl — Down with Einstein! — Sir Isaac Babson — Dowsing rods and doodlebugs — Under the microscope — Geology versus Genesis — Lysenkoism — Apologists for hate — Atlantis and Lemuria — The Great Pyramid — Medical cults — Medical quacks — Food faddists — Throw away your glasses! — Eccentric sexual theories — Orgonomy — Dianetics — General semantics, etc. — From bumps to handwriting — ESP and PK — Bridley Murphy and other matters. It would be later republished as “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.” (the 2nd Edition is available as a PDF download here)
