53 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
53 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
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Full Text COPYRIGHT Psychology Today Magazine 1988
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L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?
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"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous," L. Ron Hubbard told a group of his
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fellow science fiction writers in 1949. "If a man really wants to make a
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million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." Hubbard was
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supposed to have been joking. Five years later he founded the church of
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Scientology, which, at its peak, was reportedly bringing in that million
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dollars--every week.
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L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (Lyle Stuart, $20) by Bent Corydon and L.
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Ron Hubbard Jr. is a fascinating if strident look at the sinister inner
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workings of Scientology. Corydon, once a high-ranking church member, bases
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his book largely on his own harrowing experiences and on interviews with other
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disillusioned ex-Scientologists. His purported coauthor, Hubbard's son,
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appears only as one of the interviewees.
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Scientology had as its foundation Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
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Health, which Hubbard published in 1950. A strange mixture of Freud and
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Buddhism, Dianetics sought to locate traumatic moments or memories of illicit
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acts in the "reactive mind" (subconscious) and transfer them to the conscious
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mind, where they could be rationally evaluated. When all of these "overts"
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were located, the person reached a state of "clear" and became an "operating
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thetan"--living completely in the here and now, able to remember anything that
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had happened in his or her many lives, free of all psychosomatic ills, which
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Hubbard claimed make up 75 percent of all ailments. In order to reach this
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exalted state, of course, one paid through the nose to be counseled by
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Scientology "auditors." Messiah or Madman? is less a coherent account of L.
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Ron Hubbard's life than a catalogue of cultish horrors: the bizzare Sea Org, a
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fleet of Scientology-run ships where "Ron's" word is law, mischievous children
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are locked away in damp cabins and disobedience results in food or sleep
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deprivation; the harrassment and framing of those who seek to leave the church
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or expose its darker side; and Hubbard himself, bigamist and opium addict,
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surrounded by nubile teenage "messengers," plotting to destroy the World
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Federation of Mental Health and to bug and burglarize the Internal Revenue
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Service.
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Corydon conveys a heartfelt belief that Dianetics is a good thing corrupted,
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in the end, by Hubbard's megalomania; there are many in the book who agree
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with him. We good readers are clearly supposed to symphatize with the plight
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of these purer Scientologists. Instead we are left to wonder why it took them
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so long to wake up and smell the coffee.
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The book itself is disjointed, told by too many people in no discernible
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order. Confusing Scientology jargon appears in early chapters, only to be
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explained in later ones. The hysterical tone eventually wears thin.
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Although Hubbard died in 1986, his legacy, the church, lives on. Anyone
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attracted to the slick television ads that still run for Dianetics would be
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well advised to read Messiah or Madman? first.
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