I think the Cult of $cn is a short-term effort, but Hubbard’s ideas on auditing, management, and education at least will probably stand the test of time. I’m speaking strictly from a written perspective and not how people choose to interpret those words or are forced to interpret them.

There’s at least one bad way to get out of the Cult: feet-first. Requiescat Lisae McPhersonae in pace.

Hasn’t had that effect on me. Then again, I studied Study Tech with a non-Scientologist twin for non-Scientology (law) purposes. It helped me to understand what I was reading. It did NOT cut down on my laziness. It’s instilled in me the habit of being a compulsive dictionary user and modeller. I’d always been taught at school to first try deriving the meaning of the word from its etymology (mastoid, say, from Greek mastos, breast, oideia, similarity to), then to guess from context, and then a dictionary at last resort. Bad idea, Hubbard says. I think he’s right; I’ve used “evince” many times inappropriately to mean to bring out or develop something intangible from someone (to evince* love from his mother, for instance)

I did use a dictionary occasionally in my youth, usually a dinky vest pocket dictionary, but while convalescing from a very bad injury, I was given a folder by a lawyer friend (not a Scnist) containing a graffitied copy of LRH’s Student Hat Course. It was the original, not the Basic Study Manual, and was pretty specific to learning how to audit, but my friend said it applied to more or less anything and he got a pretty big boost out of it.

So I tried it. I found a friend with whom to twin and we worked through it in a couple of weeks. The Student Hat worked for me. I’ve become a compulsive dictionary user and clay modeller. I more or less have a tab open in my browser permanently for Johnson’s Dictionary, one for the Oxford, and one for Roget’s.

I “got into” Hubbard more seriously after watching “Stranger Than Fiction” in class, learning that it was based on LRH’s “Typewriter in the Sky”, then reading it. I can think for myself and, knowing that Scientology to-day is a nasty cult, I stay away from it. But this being true didn’t turn me off Hubbard as a writer or even as the author of dianetics (which he spelled with a lowercase d and applied the usual English suffixes, as in dianetically or non-dianetic—interesting, as that and other things he said lead me to believe he intended to put it into the public domain).

A lot of Hubbard’s writings in their original form, as I believe he intended them to be read, are available for free download on the Internet. I do not buy any book originating from Bridge Publications, because I don’t want a penny going into that *ahem* Miscarriage person’s pocket. He’s holding his wife hostage (out-2D), and he’s /c/overtly hostile (apparently the overtness gets worse the nearer one draws to him) to the Kafkaesque cloud of shell organisations he leads (out-3D) and to mankind in general (out-4D). He’s thrown MEST-y things around with a particular love of chairs (out-6D). By all accounts, he refuses to get audited or any other form of abreactive therapy(!) Hubbard had an auditor and saw him often, so why doesn’t Miscavige practice what Hubbard preached?

Anyway, I practice self-analysis as well and get occasional light audits from a few people I trust. I view dianetics more or less as a form of psychotherapy; just like there is Freudian psycho-analysis and Jungian analytic psychology, there’s also Hubbardian dianetic clearing and Gerbodeian traumatic incident reduction. It’s worked for me. The way out really does seem to be the way through. As for Hubbardian self-analysis, even though my long-term memory was always pretty good, practicing the exercises improved it. I can’t be fabricating it all, because I’ve asked friends and others a few questions about the events and most of what I’ve remembered with the aid of self-analysis tricks I’ve had corroborated.

Hubbard is a good fiction and self-help (and help-others, because you can’t audit yourself!) author. Just don’t drink the Flavor-Aid.

Alpha radiation? Yes indeedy! A newspaper would do it. Beta radiation? Sure, if you folded it over once or twice. Gamma radiation? Hell no. Since alpha radiation does cause quite a lot of damage, radiation burns and skin cancer particularly, you CAN protect yourself to a degree from stuff like enriched uranium just by wearing clothes or holding it in a newspaper (you’ll see scientists handling the stuff wearing gloves and not much else). Nuclear explosions? Not so much.

I’ll pray for you all know that you are not going to be alone.
God bless
Tirsa Doppieri – Mickels

OhioBuckeye – “I didn’t follow that advice and just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary.” Great!! That made me smile and laugh at the same time. Know-it-all priests, gurus and cult leaders! – lol Thanks for sharing!