In September 1950, just four months after Dianetics was first published, Hubbard went touring the US to promote this science fiction classic. The lecture contains surprising honesty from Hubbard; the recording of these lectures are amusing as it doesn’t contain the sychophantic hyenas who usually howl on cue to his unfunny jokes. This following piece about Hubbard’s personal education comes from his September 23rd 1950 lecture, Introduction to Dianetics.

I was brought back [from Asia] by my father very summarily from my wanderings, [as] I had neglected to go to high school. As a matter of fact, practically the last formal school I attended was here - that is to say where somebody patted me on the back and gave me a certificate and said “you’re it” - was Grant School in Oakland. My father brought me back and he said I had to go to university so he sent me down to a prep school down in Virginia, and I studied for about four months, and took the New York Board of Regents, and got into George Washington University. I think that the Registrar must have been blind that day or had a sonic shut-off, but, [no laughter] uh, ahem, he let me in. I, uh, they regretted it from there on, because I never seemed to stay with the curriculum. Uh, I took my mathematics, uh, I didn’t know arithmetic, but I learned calculus very easily. Uh, when it came to studying to be an engineer, I’m afraid that Artie Johnson down at George Washington University right now would hear my name and throw up his hands in slight horror. At last, they said “well after all you’re not going to practice engineering, we might as well pass you on a few of these courses.” [Laughs to self; no one else laughs.] This was a great relief to me, since my father was bound and determined that the only measure of excellence was “A”. My only measure of excellence was whether or not I learned anything about what I wanted to know….

Now, old Professor Brown was teaching for the first time in the United States “Atomic and Molecular Phenomenon”, now that’s very much of an ear-cracking subject, we didn’t even have a textbook, we had nothing there but the old rules and so forth that Halley had laid down. People were still talking- they’d say, they wouldn’t say “Einstein.” they would say “Eiiinstein!?” [silence.]

Uh, the people were pretty much impressed with Atomic and Molecular Phenomenon. I took the course, and uh, of course, flunked it. But uh, the uh point is, that uh, the atomic and molecular phenomenon might possibly give us some sort of a clue to life force. After all, we were studying rock-bottom energy. What was energy? What could it do?

Ah, for instance, occasionally in class somebody might hazard the fact that somebody someday might split an atom. Well this was unheard of, but they called these people “wild radicals”.

In just as much a radical way, I was trying to find out “what the fluid flow along the nerve channels? What is the memory storage device of human cells? Or of any cells? Can they remember? Obviously they must remember, but how do they?”

Thusly, from an understanding of atomic and molecular phenomenon that resulted in him flunking the course (his admission), Hubbard developed the concept of engrams on which Dianetics is based.

Science of Survival ($35, Bridge Publications), page 96:

Women, by the way, reaching this level of the tone scale, may propitiate by offering sex and are very easy to seduce.

Same book, pages 132-133:

If a woman, she may offer herself freely to the auditor, disregarding her position in life, her husband, the future she may blast by doing so, the fate of any children she may have, or any other consideration. Woe betide the luckless male auditing such a case who involves himself with this bundle of destruction, since as she would betray another so she will betray him; as she will be dishonest with another so she will be dishonest with the auditor. The dishonesty will extend not only to treachery and betrayal, wherein she may freely surrender to the auditor and then go directly to the police to have him arrested for seduction, and wherein she may promise the greatest secrecy around any liaison and yet strew all about evidence of that liaison, but she will also be dishonest when being run and will, for no other reason than to confuse the picture, deliver up the most twisted and perverted scenes of her own life. Raised amid riches, she will represent herself as having been a pauper. Raised a pauper, she will represent herself as a princess. She will normally have pride in her ability to act, and will commonly writhe and moan and weep over some incident that she quite consciously knows to be imaginary.

First of all: yes, the Daily Source is less “daily” as it is “as often as I can”, which tends to be about 5.5 days out of 7.  Sorry. :(

Second of all: Homo Novis, Scientology’s ubermensch.  From A History of Man ($25, Bridge Publications):

This Homo Novis is limited in his self-determinism by all the economic and social restrictions of an aberrated society. He is not free of food, clothing or shelter. He dies when you get him too cold, he perishes when the oxygen content drops too low. He is living in a tolerance band which keeps him cramped to the face of one second-rate planet in a tenth-rate system, prey to all the ill will that blows. Is this being free or self-determined ? Maybe he is good enough to overlord his fellows into a security for himself never before possible. But that is his only real route towards security. He must fight and command for his three squares, he must use police protection in order to keep himself free of bullet holes and bumper marks. Compared to a Homo Sapiens, Homo Novis is very high and godlike. Compared to a truly self-determined being, Homo Novis is an ant ready to die under anybody’s mis-step.

So by reading Dianetics and reaching the state of Clear, you become a separate species from Homo Sapiens.  Completely incapable of escaping injury any more than a Homo Sapien, a Homo Novis is nonetheless better - “very high and godlike” - than an ordinary human.  In practice, no difference; but in the minds of an powerful authoritarian regime, the implications are very, very dangerous.

In the Jason Beghe interview, he references Theta Traps.  Here’s Hubbard’s description of Theta Traps from the sci-fi classic A History of Man:

THETA TRAPS: There is no subject more interesting than that of THETA TRAPS. It is of vast interest to any invader. It is of vaster interest to your preclear. How can you trap a thetan? By curiosity, by giving him awards and prizes (of an implant), by retractor screens, by mock-ups, by ornate buildings which he will enter unsuspectingly only to be electroniced down; by many such means the thetan is reduced from KNOWING to a colonist, a slave, a MEST body.

All theta traps have one thing in common: they use electronic force to knock the thetan into forgetting, into unknowingness, into effect. Their purpose is to rid the area of those nuisances, the thetans who cannot be policed, and gain personnel—always the former, not always the latter.

The thetan feels himself, in some traps, being drawn up to a post. He fights it with his force. It cannot be successfully fought. He succumbs. A day or a hundred years later, he is picked off and elsewise used.

A thetan can sustain many implants of this character without becoming obsessed about having a body. But he becomes obsessed very easily about having facsimiles.

exOT8Michael posted a link on Enturbulation today to an old usenet post about all those who have invaded Teegeeack during the whole track.  I’m taking the lazy route by copy/pasting some of it - namely, the bit from Philadelphia Doctorate Course 43 where Hubbard talks about some otherkin.

You’ve got the GEs coming along and they fit into about five racial streams, and then… then you’ve got about… then you’ve got all these thetans….

All right, you take your Snake Man. Just as far as processing is concerned, there’s nothing easier. Where this becomes interesting is in terms of behavior. And you don’t care about that either. Your Snake Man’s going around… he’s very quiet. He wants you to prove everything. Prove, prove, prove, prove. And if there’s any gadget made under the sun which is mechanical that will restimulate an incident which he finds, he’s bound to find it and turn it out – somehow or other. Or make some preclear test it. Prove, prove, prove, prove….

Well, his main idea is, is he will protect snakes. He’ll… he’ll – create snakes like mad, but he wouldn’t destroy any.

Another [invader species is] the Cat People. God knows where the Cat People came from. Lord! Lord! Lord! These people are sure lost. Most of them are mad as hatters. And they have huge, huge, often slanted… they… they’ll take the GE and they will change the GE’s eyes to large and slanted; they’ll make the GE grow very thin. And the eyes will be big and quite often uh… uh… very feline. And they’re lost. They don’t know where they are. And they kinda look like cats. And they’ll talk to you about catbirds from some place or another.

Found this gem this morning.  Here’s my transcription:

INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST TRAINING ROUTINE - TR L

Purpose: To train the student to give a false statement with good TR-1. To train the student to outflow false data effectively.

Position: Same as TR-1.

Commands: Part 1 “Tell me a lie”. Command given by coach. Part 2 interview type 2 WC by coach.

Training Stress: In part 1 coach gives command, student originates a falsehood. Coach flunks for out TR 1 or TR D.  In part 2 coach asks questions of the sudent on his background or a subject.  Sudent gives untrue data of a plausible sort that the student backs up with further explanatory data upon the coach further questions. The coach flunks for out TR 0 and TR 1, and for student fumbling on question answers.  The student should be coached on a gradient until he/she can lie facily.

Short example:

Coach: Where do you come from?

Student: I come from the Housewives Committee on Drug Abuse.

Coach: But you said earlier that you were single.

Student: Well, actually I was married but am divorced.  I have 2 kids in the suburbs where I am a housewife, in fact I’m a member of the P.T.A.

Coach: What down is it that you live in?

Student: West Brighton.

Coach: But there is no public school in West Brighton.

Student: I know, I send my children to school in Brighton, and that’s where I’m a P.T.A. member.

Coach: Oh, and who is the Chairman there?

etc.

Yes, the “L” in “TR L” does indeed stand for “Lie”.  This is a “religion” that trains its adherents to lie.

I’ll repeat that in italics:

This is a “religion” that trains its adherents to lie.

Hubbard discusses his views of race in The Fundamentals of Thought:

Unlike yellow and brown people, the white does not usually believe he can get attention from matter or objects. The yellow and brown believe for the most part (and it is all a matter of consideration) that rocks, trees, walls, etc., can give them attention. The white man seldom believes this and so is likely to become anxious about people. Thus the white saves people, prevents famine, flood, disease and revolution for people as the only purveyors of attention are scarce. The white goes further. He often believes he can get attention only from whites and that yellow and brown peoples’ attention is worthless. Thus the yellow and brown races are not very progressive, but, by and large, saner. And the white race is progressive but more frantic. The yellow and brown races do not understand white concern for “bad conditions” since what are a few million dead men? There are plenty of identities and there is plenty of attention, they think. The white can’t understand them. Nor can they understand the white.

LRH hated women, especially mothers. Whatever old mother Hubbard did to him to make this hatred so engramatic we’ll never know, but his misogyny is on full display in Dianetics: The Original Thesis.

Engrams are apparently encoded whenever a person is knocked unconscious. So how can a person who has never been knocked unconscious (such as myself) have engrams? It’s WOMEN! Namely, mothers. Engrams are forced upon their poor children (such as you!) by near constant attempts to destroy the fetus gestating inside. (more…)

In Jason Beghe’s 2-hour interview, he makes reference to “1.1″ (”one-one”). This is a reference to Hubbard’s Tone Scale, his arbitrary numerical assignment to various behaviours, with 1.1 being a level of “covert hostility”. Jason Beghe referred to David Miscavige as a 1.1. What’s a 1.1 according to Hubbard? (more…)

While the 2007 reissue of Dianetics may have morphed Zulus into primitives, homosexuals are still considered perverts. As far as I’m aware, the psychiatric community in 2007 doesn’t consider homosexuality to be a perversion; Scientology does, citing two sources who died in 1902 and 1939.

Image from Amazon.com’s Search Inside feature.