Hey, PeaceMaker, thanks for looking that up. You’re right I probably should have done that earlier. I was mostly talking about my impressions about how the usage spread around in my area (N. California) during recent decades. I’d only heard people from BPI-type trainings use the word “havingness,” but it became more common in general New Age culture, mostly (as far as I could tell) spreading from those people “trained as psychics.” Then when I started paying more attention to Scientology, I discovered that they also used that word in the same way. Later I discovered that the founder of BPI was in Scientology briefly during its earliest years (though he also liberally borrowed from the Rosicrucians, Theosophists and Freemasons).

My critique of the effect of the usage and application of the word, especially by BPI and Scientology, still stands, however.

If you go to the OED entry, they shows its use dating back to the 17th century:

havingness
NOUN
rare
1Covetousness, possessiveness.

2The fact or state of having or possessing something.

Origin
Mid 17th century. From having + -ness.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/havingness

It’s always worth checking a bit more deeply – more often than not, Hubbard just got something from somewhere else, and something earlier, and often because someone else brought it to his attention:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=havingness&year_start=1800&year_end=2000

“Havingness” first shows up between 1870 and 1880, around the time of the New Thought movement, Theosophy, etc. – all things from which Hubbard borrowed extensively. It then shows up again around 1930, when, prior to Hubbard, others were starting to rework ideas from the movements at the end of the previous century. It appears to have started out as an attempt to more or less literally translate a German term. Beingness seems to have originated around the same, time, trying to do something similar with Greek and Buddhist words.

As Ava Berner (who, along with her husband Charles, introduced the idea for “study tech”) said, Hubbard never invented much of anything himself, he just relied on others around him to bring him ideas – including ideas from other books and disciplines, as he apparently didn’t have much patience for reading and studying. The more I look into things, and find all these earlier roots for almost everything, the more I think that is largely true.

‘Havingness’ is one of those words unique to Scientology.

It’s not unique to Scientology. I believe it started in Scientology (though Hubbard may have taken it from someone else, as he did with so much else). It spread from there, however. Lewis Bostwick, who founded Berkeley Psychic Institute, borrowed the terms “havingness” and “knowingness” from Scientology, so anyone trained by any of his schools is familiar with those terms. From there it spread to all the New Age groups that borrowed from the BPI model and into the general New Age culture.

“Havingness” always bugged me, because it was so obviously made up to focus people on the prosperity gospel of New Age pseudo-philosophy. It’s hard to find a term for translating it. In BPI, they read a “havingness gauge” so that how much you have is a direct function of this supposed “ability.” This idea warps people’s minds. It drastically distorts any human values they may have had. It makes people incapable of seeing cultural, economic, and political forces, and it robs them of any compassion or understanding for those less fortunate than themselves. All the responsibility is on the individual for not “raising their havingness.” Makes me sick.

Hubbard may have been riffing on “beingness” which I think was used among Buddhists and philosophers before him. I haven’t researched that, though. I just have encountered less toxic, less thought-control versions of “beingness” in other contexts.

0 tomatoes on the rotten tomato scale.
A feat only 17 movies have been able to pull off.
Even Battlefield Earth got 3%
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gotti_2018/
Seems anything related to the few robots who are still left in Scientology is going into full scale dementia.

Minor correction: Lots of Lemmings jumping into the abyss. Past a certain point they aren’t as smart as sheep/sheeple

A straight Google brings up an acceptable definition of havingness as result #1.

Go, Kelly GO! Even if you land a job that has you working just as hard and nearly as long hours, you actually get PAID relative to your skills and production, and they can’t throw you into a gulag for some trivial reason. AND, there actually is a thing called justice, where it’s possible to be found innocent of charges against you. In SCN, you’re always guilty of the charges, no matter what evidence you can produce to the contrary. Was part of a Comm Ev about some “out-2D”. Since all on the panel thought punishing them for behavior we’d each enjoyed before the SO as consenting single adults, we thought to not convict, but the convening authority nixed that. Warped standards, to say the least. nothing that couldpossibly be construed as sexual activity unless you’re married. Even the Puritans weren’t that aberrated. Two marriages later, I believe that getting married without determining that you’re sexually compatible is a foolish undertaking. Reviewing the behaviors of Tubby and Dwarfenführer, each of them would have been RPF’d in a SO that operated on the rule of law. BUT of course, the head honchos are not subject to the rules they lay down. Did Tubby ever not take up with his personal assistant? Dwarfenführer: Where’s your wife? Is her name Lou, or Shelly? What happens if your current lay gets pregnant? OR, are you even capable of causing such due to your stature?[Yup, I’m snippy tonight.]