On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 18:38:13 GMT, "Greymere"

<greymere@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> I recently read Dianetics out of curiosity; I had seen the commercials on
> TV and saw the book one day in my travels. Having recently finished reading
> my last unread book and unable to find anything else interesting there I
> picked it up. Having finished the book I was still a bit curious and so
> thought I'd look here to see what people were discussing. Instead of the
> rational discourse, personal experiences and helpful advise I expected I
> find only the incoherent ramblings of people who apparently need some sort
> of therapy much worse than I do. I was not, and am not seeking religious
> direction in my life. I feel I am fully competent in my ability to run my
> own life. I was merely curious about peoples experience with Dianetic
> Auditing/Therapy/Clearing...oh well, I have other things that interest me.

"Dianetics" was originally published as science fiction in the pulp magazine "Amazing Science Fiction" (or was it "Astounding Sciwence Fiction?" I forget). It was therefore not meant by Hubbard to be taken seriously. Only when several thousand gillible, none-too-bright individuals had written to the publisher of the science fiction magazine demanding more, did Hubbard take advantage of the gross ignorance and gullibility of his readers. The magazine editor asked Hubbard to expand the "Dianetics" fiction into book length; Hubbard agreed, then told some of his associates "Just wait a month; I'm gonna be rich!"

Hubbard locked himself in his room, and two or three weeks later (depending on which Hubbard family member doing the recalling of the event) Hubbard emerged with the book "Dianetics." He had made up the whole sorry mess out of his imagination, using trxracts from popular psychiatry and popular psychology then in vogue.

"Dianetics" is filled mostly with Hubbard's sado-masochistic fantasies about brutalized and humiliating women. If one looks at what Hubbard wrote in "Dianetics" with one's critical thinking abilities functioning, one will see the seeds of his psychopathic behavior, expressed fully in later life, taking sprout.

It appears to take a very desperate, uncritical, emotionally damaged individual to accept "Dianetics" as factual or workable.

When I read it fifteen or twenty years ago, I recognized it as the ravings of a psychotic madman; my study of Hubbard and Scientology, years later, confirmed that observation completely.

Why do people accept "Dianetics" as worthy of consideration?

Because ignorance is the default human condition--- one must be taught how to think properly. Also, people tend to believe that which is emotionally comforting, even when the evidence is radically contrary to that belief.

> -Rick

---- "You hit him pretty hard, pa." -- Mark McCane "Well he was pretty big, son." -- Lucas McCane

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