L. Ron Hubbard was probably the 20th century's most successful pseudoscientist and was certainly the richest, thanks to his establishment of the notorious Scientology "religion". He claimed to be a world-renowned scientist -

"[Scientology] was organized by L. Ron Hubbard, an American, who has many degrees and is very skilled by reason of study... Hubbard was trained in nuclear physics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. before he started his studies about the mind. This explains the mathematical precision of Scientology. Doctor Hubbard has been given many honors for his work in the field of the mind."

[Hubbard, "Scientology - Translator's Edition", Professional Auditor's Bulletin no. 82, 1 May 1956]

Hubbard's first "non-fiction" book (I use the description loosely) was "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health", published in June 1950. It was a bestseller; perhaps significantly, the next most popular book at the time "Dianetics" was published was Immanuel Velikovsky's classic of pseudoscience, "Worlds In Collision".

In "Dianetics", Hubbard proposed a basic principle of biology which remains at the core of Scientology:

"It is fairly well accepted in these times that life in all forms evolved from the basic building blocks, the virus and the cell. Its only relevance to dianetics is that such a proposition works -- and actually that is all we ask of dianetics. There is no point to writing here a past tome on biology and evolution. We can add some chapters to those things, but Charles Darwin did his job well, and the fundamental principles of evolution can be found in his and other works.

The proposition on which dianetics was originally entered was evolution. It was postulated that the cells themselves had the urge to survive and that that urge was common to life. It was further postulated that organisms -- individuals -- were constructed of cells and were in fact aggregations of colonies of cells ...

The first law of dianetics is a statement of the dynamic principle of existence.

THE DYNAMIC PRINCIPLE OF
EXISTENCE IS: SURVIVE!"

[Hubbard, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health"]

"Materialistic science, operating on the premise that man came from mud only ... has presented us at last with the immediate and real threat of man's extinction as a species ... even the unthinking should see the fact that something must be desperately wrong with the teachings of the Lysenkos, the Darwins, and my learned schoolmates, the atomic scientists who have given man at last for his gravespade the atomic bomb ...

Francis Bacon, Newton, and the rest developed ways of thinking about thinking and ways of reasoning about reason which have been of considerable value to Dianetics and without which, indeed, Dianetics could not have been formulated. But Bacon and Newton did not espouse the materialist cause. Their disciples developed the doctrine that man came from mud and that man's destiny was mud."

[Hubbard, "Science of Survival," book 3 page 243, 1975 edition]

"There is no reason to doubt that plankton thinks. Its thinking is not obvious because the organism cannot easily be observed to react to changes in the environment. In 1937 over a period of six weeks, certain experiments were made to demonstrate the thought processes of monocellular organisms. The subjects for the experiment were some slightly mobile bacteria in a drop of water. When cigarette smoke was applied to the drop of water, the bacteria were observed to retreat.

This was repeated a few times, then steam was substituted for the smoke. The same reaction was observed. When the steam was first used, before any smoke had been applied, the bacteria did not respond to it in any way. This is obviously a process of learning - at a microscopic level."

[Hubbard, "Basic Reason - Basic Principles," in the Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin, vol. 2 no. 3, September 1951]

"A monocellular animalcule cannot adjust the environment to itself very well. A monocell is not very mobile; it cannot swallow up a continent or get to the moon or the planets - which same might some day be necessary for survival. It becomes, therefore, very dissatisfied with being a monocell and works its way up to being a sponge. As a sponge it discovers that it is still held down by MEST [Matter, Energy, Space, Time - i.e. the physical world] and cannot control MEST to any degree so it becomes an invertebrate; then it goes up and lies on the beach and becomes a quadruped and then a bird and so on. All this in the interest of controlling MEST."

[Hubbard, "Basic Reason - Basic Principles," in the Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin, vol. 2 no. 3, September 1951]

He also falls into the "Blind Watchmaker" trap which catches out many creationists:

"There are too many data about the development of various species that just do not fit into natural selection. In order to put forth the theory of natural selection, all the data which points to direction and planning in evolution has to be hidden and disregarded. It has long been known to paleontologists that the horn of the rhinoceros cannot be accounted for by natural selection. There are many things in evolution which evolved slowly and smoothly for no apparent reason unless it is admitted that planning and experimentation was going on as a part of the life process."

[Hubbard, "Basic Reason - Basic Principles," in the Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin, vol. 2 no. 3, September 1951]

The following year, 1952, saw the publication of what many people regard as one of the all-time finest (and certainly one of the funniest) works of pseudoscience, Hubbard's "A History of Man". This very unusual account of human evolution is, amazingly, still in print - it can be ordered from its publishers at http://www.bridgepub.com/descsl22.htm;

the following quotes come from the book's 1968 edition. The book is undeniably one of Hubbard's most bizarre works - which is saying something - and gives the distinct impression that its author was chemically enhanced while writing it. As an Australian government report commented, "To say it is an astonishing document does not adequately convey the peculiar qualities or contents of The History of Man ... For compressed nonsense and fantasy it must surpass anything theretofore written."

The book starts with the modest promise that it is "a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years", a number which subsequently increases to seventy and then seventy-four trillion.

Hubbard sought to explain that the human body was occupied by both an immortal spirit - a thetan - and a "genetic entity", or GE, "located more or less in the centre of the body". The GE carried on through the evolutionary line, "usually on the same planet - in this case, EARTH", whereas the thetan only came to earth about 35,000 years ago to supervise the development of caveman into homo sapiens. Thus the GE was once "an anthropoid in the deep forests of forgotten continents or a mollusc seeking to survive on the shore of some lost sea".

The mollusc - an ancestral clam, to which all sorts of traumatic events occurred - has justly gained celebrity status amongst Scientology's critics. Its traumas make it "a deadly incident but mostly when restimulated on purpose" thanks to "the double-hinge problem" when the clam could not decide which of its hinges to open.

"The hinge epicentres later become the hinges of the human jaw.

Should you desire to confirm this, describe to some uninitiated person the death of a clam without saying what you are describing.

"Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?" (Make a motion with your thumb and forefinger of a rapid opening and closing). The victim may grip his jaws with his hand and feel quite upset. He may even have to have a few teeth pulled: At the very least he will argue as to whether or not the shell stays open at the end or closed. And he will, with no hint of the death aspect of it, talk about the "poor clam" and he will feel quite sad emotionally."

"The clam had an astonishing number of adventures for so minor a creature. It would get things into its shell and be unable to get them out. It would get its shell stuck open and be unable to shut it. And it would come loose from its rocks under the surface of the water and get tossed into the broil of the surf. And it would become deserted by the tide and left to bake under a frying sun, a quite uncomfortable situation which restimulates sometimes in a sunburn."

"By the way, if you cannot take a warning, your discussion of these incidents with the uninitiated in Scientology can produce havoc. Should you describe "the clam" to some one, you may restimulate it in him to the extent of causing severe jaw hinge pain. One such victim, after hearing about a clam death could not use his jaws for three days. Another "had to have" two molars extracted because of the resulting ache. The clam and all these incidents are very much present in the GE and can be restimulated easily. So do not be sadistic with your describing them to people - unless, of course, they belligerently claim that Man has no past memory for his evolution. In that event, describe away. It makes believers over and above enriching your friend the dentist who, indeed, could not exist without these errors and incidents on the evolutionary line!"

Hubbard goes on to describe the biological sequence of evolution.

First, he says, came "the photon converter" - algae and plankton.

Thereafter was "the HELPER", the first single-celled organism; the Jellyfish; the Seaweed, "uprooted and cast shore [sic] by storms, [which] gave Man some of his early experiences with sunlight in the absence of water"; then the Clam; then the Weeper, "originally called "the Grim Weeper" or the Boohoo" of which Hubbard observes: "the plights of THE WEEPER are many and pathetic". Indeed.

By the time the clams had struggled ashore they faced the horror of the Birds (no connection to Hitchcock):

"Occasionally the creatures of the beach, still shell animals, had their troubles with birds which had become so earlier [sic]. Birds of a very crude construction developed a taste for clams. Clams had no adequate defence against them. If a clam opened its shell, the bird would thrust in a beak or a claw. If the clam then closed, the bird would fly up into the air. The clam would let go, drop on a rock and become bird food. If the clam didn't close, it became bird food anyway.

Falling sensations, indecision and other troubles go with the BIRDS."

"slow and easily attacked and he had bad times falling out of trees when hit by snakes, falling off cliffs when attacked by baboons. And the sloth was trying to THINK. The most pitiful painful efforts at thinking are found in this series.

THE SLOTH is a chain of incidents and misadventures, mostly showing up fear of snakes and of falling."

"The PILTDOWN contains freakish acts of strange "logic," of demonstrating dangerous [sic] on one's fellows, of eating one's wife and other somewhat illogical activities. The PILTDOWN teeth were ENORMOUS and he was quite careless as to whom and what he bit and often very much surprised at the resulting damage."

"Marital malaction [sic] often goes back to the CAVEMAN. Any condition of interpersonal relationships can be found in this area.

Jealousy and overt acts around it, strangling, smashing in heads with rocks, quarrels about homes, tribal rebukes, pack instincts can be found in THE CAVEMAN."

By the 1960s, Hubbard had moved even further away from conventional science. Although he had previously supported Darwinism, in June 1963 he solemnly informed his followers he had discovered that Darwin's theory of evolution was the product of an alien mental implant (Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lecture 274, "Levels of Case") created by Helatrobus, "an interplanetary nation. A little pip squeak government [which] didn't amount to very much". According to Hubbard, "There is an implant, four galaxies over, that taught you that you came from apes.

The whole Darwinian theory is implanted there in about a day." (Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lecture 281, "The Free Being"). In another lecture he describes the "Darwin Implants" in detail:

"The Darwinian theory, which probably influenced Pavlov to the greatest degree, is just an implant. That is an implant from man to mud. And it starts out oddly enough with the goal, "to persist" ...

And then they show you your arrival, which you... See, actually they have you in a cell for a while, so they show you being in the cell, and then show you arriving in the room to be implanted. Got that? So you've actually - if you were conscious when you went in the room, it - you've got now two arrivals in the same room, see? And then they show you - complete with pictures, not unlike a modern motion-picture screen, they show you all that has happened to you, very briefly; they give you background on how mean you are, and then they show you getting implanted ...

Now, this incident - this incident, now with a wheel dating device which gives you a series of numbers that gives you - gives you the time of these events, shows you being implanted, shows you finished implanting, shows you leaving - being pushed out of the implant room, even shows you a couple of your fellow crew members, or something like that, there, who are tied up ready to be put into the room, shows you being put aboard a spaceship, shows you being taken to another planet, shows you being dumped in the sea, and shows you start from the sea and become seaweed and become this - and to work up stage by stage - giving the millions of years which elapse on each step, see? And you go on and on up the line, each step, each step, each step on an evolutionary channel, and you run all the way through on these evolutionary channels.

And then they push you out through that exact corridor, past the exact two dummies that are tied up, to the exact spaceship, put you in the exact capsule, drop you into that exact sea, and expect you to make some seaweed and go on up the beach ...

But, the idea - that's very finite. That's a very short time ago.

That's only a couple of hundred million years ago. A lot of characters around here got this, most of them become scientists. That actually is the sole foundation of the Darwinian theory. That's the lot.

Evolution: there's no such thing.

Bodies don't evolve. They deteriorate, but they don't evolve. You can trace all kinds of reasons how they evolve, and why they evolve, and you can figure it all out, but the truth of the matter is when you get horses on a planet, somebody came along and mocked up [created] some horses! Now they also mocked up these horses with the capability of growing hair or not growing hair. You've got adjustment factors, but not evolution factors. So you confuse the adjustment factors and prove the whole theory of evolution. And now you know man came from mud, and you can write a book like Pavlov and get the whole world poisoned. You see how this one goes?"

[Hubbard, "Errors in Time", lecture of 18 July 1963]

"the theory that man is an animal who arose as a result of a spontaneous accident from a "sea of ammonia," and by the stages of development called "evolution," arrived at the proud estate (social status; rank) of a two-legged wog. The "man-from-mud" theory was taken by scientists from Egyptian demonology (study of demons) and foisted off (imposed by fraud) on man as "modern thought." "

[from Hubbard, "Scientology, A New Slant On Life" - last reprinted 1998]

-- | Chris Owen - chriso@OISPAMNOlutefisk.demon.co.uk | |---------------------------------------------------------------| | THE TRUTH ABOUT L. RON HUBBARD AND THE UNITED STATES NAVY | | http://www.ronthewarhero.org |

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