Reposted: From: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: (repost) Burroughs on Scientology, part 1 Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 23:22:52 -0400 Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. Lines: 192 NNTP-Posting-Host: dial1-14.cybercom.net William S. Burroughs (author of _Naked Lunch_, _Nova Express_, _The Ticket that Exploded_, etc.) took Scientology's Clearing Course at Saint Hill Manor in 1968 and was initially very enthusiastic about it. Burroughs even wrote a series of articles praising and promoting Scientology in _Mayfair_ magazine in during 1968 or 1969. By 1970, though, Burroughs was thoroughly disillusioned. Here's an excerpt from "Burroughs on Scientology", from the Los Angeles Free Press, March 6, 1970. (This article was reprinted in the small-press book _Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology_, Expanded Media Editions, Bonn, Germany, 1985, ISBN #3-88030-011-9.) In the following excerpt, any "..." ellipses are as shown in the original text. I have marked my own ellipses with the word "[snip]". I've also added some extra paragraph breaks to make this easier to read on a computer screen; the original text has huge run-on paragraphs. (After reading this, you might conclude that W.S. Burroughs was the original Free Zoner!) --- Beginning of excerpt ---- Some of the techniques [of Scientology] are highly valuable and warrant further study and experimentation. The E Meter is a useful device...(many variations of this instrument are possible). On the other hand I am in flat disagreement with the organizational policy. Organizational policy can only impede the advancement of knowledge. There is a basic incompatibility between any organization and freedom of thought. Suppose Newton had founded a Church of Newtonian Physics and refused to show his formula to anyone who doubted the tenets of Newtonian Physics? All organizations create organizational necessities. It is precisely organizational necessities that have prevented Scientology from obtaining the serious consideration merited by the importance of Mr. Hubbard's discoveries. Scientologists are not prepared to accept intelligent and sometimes critical evaluation. They demand unquestioning acceptance. Mr. Hubbard's overtly fascist utterances (China is the real threat to world peace, Scientology is protecting the home, the church, the family, decent morals...positively no wife swapping. It's a dirty Communist trick... national boundaries, the concepts of RIGHT and WRONG against evil free thinking psychiatrist) can hardly recommend him to the militant students. Certainly it is time for the Scientologists to come out in plain English on one side or the other, if they expect the trust and support of young people. Which side are you on Hubbard, which side are you on? [snipping long section comparing Scientology's anti-psychiatric propaganda in _Freedom Scientology_ magazine #11 to German Nazi anti-semitic publications of the 1930s] We can read and appreciate Ezra Pound's poetry without sharing his political views. Can we make a similar distinction between Mr. Hubbard's publically [sic] expressed opinions and the technology and practice of Scientology? No, we cannot. A separation between Mr. Hubbard's work and his opinions is ruled out by Mr. Hubbard's grandiose claims...`Galaxy upon galaxy billions of light years away have no bridge no route to freedom...Scientology is the one and only road to total freedom and total power...Scientology has the answers to all the problems of the universe including the method of solution'...When the Founder, Controller and Guardian of the `road to total freedom' starts spouting John Birch talk, his road is called in question and we have every right to ask precisely what his `method of solution' is. If Mr. Hubbard were content to be a technician who has made some important discoveris [sic] we could afford to ignore his personal opinions. When he sets himself up as the savior of all possible universes we cannot. The shoddy presentation, the reactionary opinions, the preposterous claims, the atrocious writing are so immediately repellent that few intelligent people can be persuaded that Scientology is worth a second glance. And should anyone wish to make an objective evaluation, he would find it difficult to do so owing to the structure of the Scientology Organization. To begin with, the techniques actually in use are not described in Mr. Hubbard's books. To learn these techniques one must take courses at a Scientology Center. And one does not simply pay the tuition, obtain the materials and study. Oh no. One must JOIN> One must `sign up for the duration of the universe'...(Sea Org members are required to sign a billion year contract)...The advanced courses are not only unpublished but `confidential', and any student revealing this material is subject to expulsion and exclusion from further training. In order to gain access to the materials of the Clearing House, I had to undergo a series of Security Checks (at my own expense of course) carried out on a lie detector...(`Do you have any doubts about Scientology? Do you have any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard? Do you know any Communists personally? - No one asked whether I knew any CIA men personally - Are you connected to a _Suppressive Person?_ ... A Suppressive Person is anyone in disagreement with Scientology...Are you here for any other reason than what you say you are? Do you consider these security measures unnecessary? ETC for twenty three hours)...You have to swear and _believe_ on some level that the organizational policy is correct and that the materials are as Mr. Hubbard says they are before you can see them. It's like a physicist saying `you can't see my formula unless you first agree that they are correct sight unseen.' The practice of Security Checks has been discontinued. However, anyone expressing doubts about Scientology would find himself excluded from the advanced courses. And the practice of assigning `Conditions' is still in effect. These conditions, `Non-existence', `Liability', `Treason', `Doubt', are assigned for misdemeanors and crimes against Scientology. A student assigned to an advanced condition must wear a dirty grey rag around his arm, may not bathe, shave or change his clothes, must remain on the premises, must perform manual work, deliver a `paralyzing blow to the enemy', admit his errors and petition every member of the center for forgiveness. Does Mr. Hubbard seriously expect mature scientists, artists, and professional men who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields to submit to this prep school nonsense? Furthermore, whole categories of people are automatically excluded from training and processing and may never see Mr. Hubbard's confidential materials. Suppressive Persons, that is anyone who has ever publically [sic] attacked Scientology together with all their families and connections. Anyone `sitting in judgment on Scientology'. Anyone who has come to find out `if Scientology works'. No one who has used cannabis within the last six weeks or LSD within the last 3 months may be processed. Such are the unique difficulties encountered by anyone who wishes to inform himself on the subject of Scientology. As to my personal evaluation, after six months of study: I would not be writing this article unless I was convinced that Scientology is worth serious consideration. I feel that i have benefited greatly from Scientology processing. In an earlier article in Mayfair I said that Scientology can do more in ten hours than psychoanalysis can do in ten years. For what this is worth I still think so. Scientology is incomparably more precise and efficient than any method of psychotherapy now in use. But unfortunately, Scientology has duplicated some of the basic errors of conventional psychotherapy. Any abberation [sic] that effects the human mind must have a three dimensional coordinate point in the human nervous system. Otherwise it could not producer an effect anymore than a television or radio broadcast could be seen or heard without a receiving set. When Western psychiatrists turned away from Pavlov's lead and postulated Super Egos, Ids and Complexes without locating these entities in the human nervous system they foundered in mystical abstractions. And where, for that matter, is Mr. Hubbard's Reactive Mind? (When I suggested that the Reactive Mind must be located in the hypothalamus my suggestion fell on unresponsive ears. Mr. Hubbard is not interested in suggestions. He states flatly that he has never known any suggestion from a student to contain the slightest value.) [snip] To summarize my personal impression: I feel that Scientology has scratched some surfaces and turned up some leads. Experimentation and research carried out by workers in the fields of electronics, virology, cybernetics, biology, and operant conditioning could result in revolutionary advances. Mr. Hubbard says that the mere sight of his confidential materials would make any WOG -- (His revealing term to designate those unversed in Scientology) -- violently sick. I can claim some experience and skill in the scrivener's trade, but I could not undertake to write a few words guaranteed to make any appreciable number of readers physically sick. So, if this claim is justified, it is certainly a matter for investigation. I am sure that volunteers in abundance would step forward. Who would pass up an opportunity to read such potent prose? A head ache or a cold or the loss of the last supper is a small price to pay. This is not a frivolous suggestion. If words can make people vomit how are these particular words effecting the vomiting centers in the hypothalamus? Or is this claim put forward to give his followers a feeling of importance and to justify rather substantial fees? Only an actual test can give us the answer. If the Scientologists persist in a self-imposed isolation and in withholding their materials from those best qualified to evaluate and use them, they may well find themselves bypassed. Mr. Hubbard says he wants recognition for his discoveries. Well, let him then show his confidential materials free of charge and without any restrictions to qualified workers in other fields. He says he has the road to freedom. Others have been a long time on that road. At the Edinberg [sic] Writer's Conference in 1952 Alex Troochi coined the phrase `astronauts of inner space'. Let him show his confidential materials to the astronauts of inner space: Alex Troochi, Brion Ysin, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, to anthropologists like Castendeda [sic] and shamans like Don Juan. Let him show his material to mathematicians, computor [sic] programmers, biologists and virologists, to students of language like Marshall McLuhan and Noam Chomsky. Let him show his material to those who have fought for freedom in the streets, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Charmichael [sic], Abbie Hoffman, Dick Gregory, to the veterans of Chicago and Paris and Mexico City. Above all, young people have a right to see his materials. So let him set up a center and give his processing and materials free of charge and without restrictions of any kind to anyone under the age of 35. If he has what he says he has, the results should be cataclysmic. --- End of excerpt ---- There's more where this came from. Watch for future posts with the subject line "Burroughs on Scientology". -- Ron Newman rnewman@cybercom.net Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html ||||| From: Reposter Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Burroughs on Scientology, part 2 Date: 19 Feb 2002 20:53:50 -0800 Organization: Newsguy News Service [http://newsguy.com] Lines: 134 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: p-670.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Direct Read News 2.91 Path: news2.lightlink.com!news.lightlink.com!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub2.home.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn Xref: news2.lightlink.com alt.religion.scientology:1435359 Reposted: From: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: (repost) Burroughs on Scientology, part 2 Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 23:22:35 -0400 Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. Lines: 122 NNTP-Posting-Host: dial1-14.cybercom.net This is my second in a series of quotations from articles that William S. Burroughs wrote concerning Scientology. As I mentioned in my last message, Burroughs took Scientology's Clearing Course at Saint Hill Manor in 1968 and was initially very enthusiastic about it. He even wrote a series of articles praising and promoting Scientology in _Mayfair_ magazine in during 1968 or 1969. His entrancement did not last; by March 1970 he was attacking Scientology in the pages of the Los Angeles Free Press. Here is an excerpt from an article that Burroughs published in _Rolling Stone_ magazine on November 9, 1972. It is supposedly a book review of Robert Kaufman's _Inside Scientology_, but mostly it's a stream-of-consciousness telling of Burroughs' *own* experience inside Scientology. (This article was reprinted in the small-press book _Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology_, Expanded Media Editions, Bonn, Germany, 1985, ISBN #3-88030-011-9.) In the following excerpt, any "..." ellipses are as shown in the original text. --- Beginning of excerpt ---- But the whole subject of Scientology has been made virtually inaccessible by the conditions to which one must submit in order to study it. To give you an idea what life at St. Hill was like, I shared a cottage with seven Scientologists and the young female members at breakfast come on with cognitions and thinly disguised sexual dreams about L. RON HUBBARD like young nuns dreaming about Christ, and this one girl who always held us up and one car to pile seven Scientologists into it, five minutes to make St. Hill five miles away or we will be late for our classes and you know what that means, if it happens twice a dirty gray rag around a tidy little arm -- barrelling down a narrow road 65 miles per hour they are two stupid to be scared RON will take care of us they think just made it on time the rack with coats stacked four deep keeps falling down shabby rooms with charts and bulletins and pictures of RON on the wall like some dreary public school. My "twin' as they call them the one who works with you on the E-Meter drills is a nice middle-aged woman from California. I would judge she's buried three husbands $250,000 per coffin. She's got a high tone arm and I can't get it down can't get reads on the Dating Drill. Fear stirs in my stomach. This could mean Review and some horrible Condition. The supervisor paces around. He stops behind a young girl. "I am putting you in a Condition of Liability for Out Tech," he tells her. She goes out weeping to Ethics. Now he is standing behind my chair. "You're in a condition of _Danger_," he tells me. "_That's it!" barks a sulky Sea Org lieutenant standing in the doorway with the Public Ethics Officer. The one I call the Pig Woman. "Everybody line up for a Sec Check." When my turn comes I pick up the cans. "Do you consider St. Hill a safe environment?" "Yes, of course I do." "There's a read here. What do you consider this could mean?" "Well we are surrounded by _suppressives_. It frightens me to think of those devils all around us." I was learning. I remember someone named Polly Stathis who, with eight other high criminals, showed the clearing course to a _psychiatrist_. RON put out a Fair Game Order on them in The Auditor newspaper. No amnesty may ever cover them. Any Sea Org member contacting them is to run R-2-45. If they ever appear in any Org they are to be run on reverse processes. (Reverse processes according to RON can drive someone insane.) They may be tricked, lied to, or destroyed. _They are fair game_. I remember a young Zen Hippie thrown out of the cottage in the middle of the night for saying he preferred Zen to Scientology. I remember a bulletin that anybody who is discovered through auditing to be smoking pot will be turned over to the authorities . . . ("What kind of fink outfit is this?" . . . I hastily suppressed the thought.) I remember one weekend after a few drinks confiding certain doubts about Scientology to a supposed friend. "They'll wring it out of me on the next Sec Check," he sobbed . . . "Why don't you go straight to Ethics and make a clean breast of it?" I remember some grim old biddy dragging me into a broom closet (all the auditing rooms were full, as usual) and asking me on the E-Meter: "Do you have any unkind thoughts about L. RON HUBBARD . . . That reads . . . What do you consider this could mean?" "He's so beautiful he dazzles me. I can't help resenting it sometimes . . ." In the words of Celine . . . "All this time I felt my self-respect slipping away from me and finally completely gone. As it were, officially removed. . ." Like an anthropologist who has, after unspeakable indignities, penetrated a savage tribe I was determined to hang on and get the big medicine if I had to fuck the sacred crocodile. I was lining up what allies I could muster and even had my boy in Ethics. I had, as they say, unmocked the Pig Woman. But I was ordered for a Joberg because I rock-slammed on the question, "What would have to happen before Scientology worked on everybody?" (I could not confront it.) --- End of excerpt ---- There's more where this came from. Watch for future posts with the subject line "Burroughs on Scientology". -- Ron Newman rnewman@cybercom.net Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html ||||| From: Reposter Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Burroughs on Scientology, part 3 Date: 19 Feb 2002 20:55:12 -0800 Organization: Newsguy News Service [http://newsguy.com] Lines: 185 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: p-729.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Direct Read News 2.91 Path: news2.lightlink.com!news.lightlink.com!gail.ripco.com!newspeer2.tds.net!204.94.211.44.MISMATCH!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!drn Xref: news2.lightlink.com alt.religion.scientology:1435360 Reposted: From: rnewman@cybercom.net (Ron Newman) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: (repost) Burroughs on Scientology, part 3 Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 23:23:01 -0400 Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. Lines: 173 NNTP-Posting-Host: dial1-14.cybercom.net This is my third in a series of quotations from articles that William S. Burroughs wrote concerning Scientology. It continues an excerpt from an article that Burroughs published in _Rolling Stone_ magazine on November 9, 1972. It is supposedly a book review of Robert Kaufman's _Inside Scientology_, but mostly it's a stream-of-consciousness telling of Burroughs' *own* experience inside Scientology. (This article was reprinted in the small-press book _Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology_, Expanded Media Editions, Bonn, Germany, 1985, ISBN #3-88030-011-9.) In the following excerpt, any "..." ellipses are as shown in the original text. Where I omit text, I have inserted a bracketed "[snip]" --------------- The Joberg which is published for the first time in _Inside Scientology_ consists of 104 questions about every criminal activity you could conceive of. "Have you ever kept a baby farm?" Each question has to be cleaned and this Joberg took three weeks because there were so many students up for a Joberg and so few review auditors. Three weeks sitting in a small waiting room on straight-back chairs reading science fiction you learn to be wary of the fink with a big smile who sidles up to you and asks, "What do you think of the new attestation order?" "I'm sure RON knows what he is doing." And it's a good think to scream out as if you just couldn't contain yourself, "_Thank you Ron!_" whenever you pass an Ethics Officer or a Sea Org member. We who considered ourselves politicals kept apart from common criminals and fuckups. That one is guilty of drunken auditing besides which she is the the worst old bore this side of California. The Public Ethics Officer prowls in and out. "I hear some of you guys have been discussing your cases and _nattering_." One of the politicals, who has been in the movement since 1945 [sic] and seen all the old comrades get the axe, tells me he is there to prove that RON has betrayed the revolution. This dangerous confidence unnerves me completely. Even to hear such a statement compromises one beyond redemption. Lunch break. The canteen is filthy the sandwiches soggy. The soft drink machine is in a Condition of Liability for being broken. Cart it off to Ethics. Several violators, dirty and unshaven with gray rags around their arms, petition for signatures so they can get back in and spend some more money. "William Burroughs, report to Ethics." They want me to disconnect from Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin, a character in my own writing. Well, he was getting old in any case. So back to the Joberg.... "Have you ever hidden a body?" "Of course not." "There's a read here, what do you consider this could mean?" Sharp and clear on screen I see myself hiding a body in some ancient Near Eastern alley the smell of the alley and the feel of another time. "I think it's Whole Track." "In this life have you ever hidden a body?" "No." "That is clean." These film glimpses will occur in auditing. I don't say you are remembering another life but you are remembering something. A writer always gets his pound of flesh and a number of scenes later used in _The Wild Boys_ were remembered on the E-Meter. Later I was able to obtain the same results through self-auditing. After the Joberg and two more reviews, all of which were obligatory and carried out at my expense, I finally arrived at the Advanced Org in Edinburgh for the clearing course. A hulking CIA type gave my a final Sec Check. "Have you ever known any Communists personally?" "Oh yes, lots of them and CIA men too..." "Are you withholding anything?" "I don't think so." "_That reads._" Finally I had to confess the truth. "I have made magic against RON." "What made you do it?" "Suppressives, of course. They wanted to keep me from RON." "Your needle is floating." The Clearing Course consists of a series of contradictory propositions and running this material does give a certain immunity to contradictory commands. So when someone says... "Creating me to be a spirit to be a God destroying you to be a body to be an animal..." You just look at him and say..."I'm floating." Scientology is a model control system, a state in fact with its own courts, police, rewards, and penalties. It is based on a tight ingroup like the CIA, Islam, the Mormons, etc. Inside are the Rights with the Truth. Outside are the Commies, the Infidels, the Unfaithful, the Suppressives. Rarely has this formula been expressed with such consummate effrontery, like you go into a store to buy suit the clerk puts you in a Condition of Doubt, you work all night in the stock room and go around with a gray rag around your arm and petition the entire store to let you back in so you can buy something. How doe Hubbard do it? With the E-Meter of course. The E-Meter is among other things a reliable lie detector in expert hands. The CIA also uses lie detectors and runs Security Checks on all personnel. With this simple device any organization can become a God from whom no thought or action can be hidden. The E-Meter is also a biofeedback device, and since it passes a small voltage through the brain and the repetitive commands of auditing direct attention to certain brain areas, it is a form of electric brain stimulation. This may account for the valid pictures and films that do sometimes occur in auditing. [snip: Burroughs speculates on whether auditing can be done telepathically] So when RON puts out an Enemy Order on someone, he is directing the hatred of every Scientologist against that person. This may actually cause damage. Will leave the reader to infer whether this magic is strong enough to materialize anonymous letters to the police which recently resulted in the seizure of 30,000 books of Mr. Girodias' Olympia Press edition of [sic: did he mean "in" ?] a London warehouse, to write other letters cutting off Mr. Girodias' phone supposedly at his request, and the disappearance of manuscripts from burglarized premises. Others who have opposed or deserted Scientology report similar incidents. It is time for Wogs to unite against such tactics. The publication of this book is an important step in this direction. [Note: Olympia Press was the publisher of Robert Kaufman's _Inside Scientology_, the book that Burroughs is reviewing in this article.] Mr. Kaufman concludes... "There are of course no grades or levels except in the mind of the Scientologist; the grades and levels are simply RON's test of a pre-clear's credulities; they guide him into progressively deeper hypnotic states. What the pre-clear is run on is largely coincidental and is not what moves the needle; rather it is the thinly disguised suggestions which flow from a determined and persuasive auditor making the needle respond like a dog wagging its tail at hearing a kind word." It must be acknowledged that Hubbard has developed a technique for doing this that warrants the study of non-Scientologists. He has in fact developed a system of biofeedback brain control based on the E-Meter. -- Ron Newman rnewman@cybercom.net Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html