L. Ron Hubbard

That's an interesting question. No, it's two questions.

NO, it is not an interesting question.

Watch the South Park episode, wherein Tom Cruise refuses to come out of the closet.

It explains everything.

Yes, he founded the "religion" of scientology.

Who he apparently was, was the sharpest-minded author of cheap, third-rate pulp science fiction who ever lived.

Proof, if proof were needed, than no-one ever went broke by under-estimating the level of intelligence of his target customers.

I have this pet theory (hope) that he has made some bizarre recording Hari Seldon style (see Asimov) that gets played to all the scientologists in a hundred years, where he says "WAKE UP you idiots, I WAS A SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR, not the messiah."

But of course, it will carry on regardless after some rapid rationalization.

Re: L. Ron Hubbard


Yes, he also wrote some pretty entertaining Sci-Fi.



I think he's dead.

Really Ros? I've always been too afriad to read his stuff in case I should one day wake up and find I'm a Scientologist.

This might be an eye opener:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

Actually I liked his books. They were usually simple fast moving stories, very easy to read on a plane trip.

I'm not a big fan of scientology, but I did like Dianetics. If you want to see how an engineering mind deals with psychological issues, read the first chapeter of Dianetics. Just be careful and don't turn into a scientologist

hmmm engineering meets psychology meets religion....

...where angles fear to tread....?

I'll check it out, but I think I'll wear foil on my head just to be sure.

Seen it.

Phoenix - that's a great deal of info. I'm surprised it hasn't been shut down.....

Yep, the auditing is a good technique.

phoenix, learned something i didn't know, that historically scientology was anti-gay. the supposition that Tom Cruise is in the closet makes this all the more intriguing.

L. Ron Hubbard's "auditing" should sound strangely familiar, like a member of AA and their sponsor going through the twelve steps -- the founders of that organization figured it out long before L. Ron Hubbard. Like many good kernels of an idea, this one has been blown out of proportion to its actual worth -- the self-help section of the books stores and libraries are chuck full of these tomes. It's been expanded for one reason only, to make money for the principal founders. It can be practiced with no organization and, in fact, a bio-feedback series of treatments will accomplish the same thing in most people.

I knew L. Ron Hubbard from my days at UCLA when I was a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (who did not want to change their name to the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society even though it was suggested many times) and being involved with many sci-fi conventions around the U.S. He was an author of pulp fiction which, most recently, was made into about as good a film as one could make from this turgid prose, "Battlefield Earth." If most special effects sci-fi extravaganzas are disposable entertainment, this was the disposable literary entertainment of its day.

He was an unabashed womanizer and a cad, one of the early notable homophobes, but that shouldn't stop anyone from believing in his pedestrain hocus-pocus. It didn't stop Tom Cruise, the mental giant of our age.

How do you steam clams?


Make fun of their religion.

http://xenu.net/clam_faq.html

It's a hoot.

P

here's Harlan Ellison's no-punches pulled take on LRH:

http://www.whyaretheydead.net/Sten/www.users.wineasy.se/www.users.wineasy.se/noname/harlan.htm

Yep, I knew Harlan -- he hung around the LA Science Fantasy Society and was always at the conventions. He didn't think much of Hubbard then and his expose of Dianetics is accurate (of course, he was there!)