On Sun, 20 Oct 2002 13:48:39 -0700, "Phineas Fogg" <dont@kneejerk.com> wrote:
>I would like to read what other ARS regulars, Scns and nonScns alike,
>have to express regarding the authenticity of the Admissions document.
>
>I am having a debate with my OTV11 sister, a Scientologist, regarding
>the authenticity of the document. Below, I offer her my opinions as to
>why I think it is valid, and her argument against was largely based on
>the DA pack used to discredit Armstrong with the syllogistic logic
>that if he is a crook, then anything he offers is invalid.
>
>For the record, let me just say that I don't believe Armstrong is any
>such thing, and I believe he was persecuted by the church.
>
>Although I have offered my contentions as to why I think it was truly
>penned by Hubbard, I realize there may be other things I have yet to
>consider, which, if were brought to light, this would aid in my debate
>with my sister. And so, I start this thread.
>
>I would prefer that this issue of authorship be limited to the
>document itself, and not questions of Armstrong's character or intent,
>which, I feel is irrelevant, by virtue of the simple fact that even if
>you offered incontrovertible evidence that Armstrong was anything less
>than honorable, it is still possible that he could have received, as
>he has claimed, a document authored by LRH, especially in light of the
>fact that the was assigned to aid Omar Garrison in the sorting of
>archives for the purposes of a biography. Therefore arguments of
>Armstrong's character aside, I feel we have only the document itself
>to ultimately tell us of its veracity.
>
>
>
>I will start this thread with my own observations of the document:
>*******************************
>
>Here is my reasoning which leads me to belief it was authentic:
>
>Let me start with three essential areas:
>
>1. Tremendous details supporting the documented aspects of Hubbard's
>life, the vast majority of which are mostly positive in intent, i.e.,
>self-affirmations in a self-hypnosis setting, only a very few items
>are damning to his character (but those are significant).
>
>2. It is written in a not too organized fashion, more in the
>stream-of-consciousness method. This is consistent with early
>witnesses testifying of his writing in the fashion of
>"stream-of-consciousness" method before he evolved Dianetics, though
>the method was more used in his pulp fiction writing.
>
>3. It was written as an exercise in self-hypnosis, self-reaffirmation.
>There are words to that effect in the text.
>
>Item #1 could have easily been forged, but it would make more sense to
>me that a forger with an anti-Hubbard agenda would have written in
>more damning stuff, and there is not that much. However, the little
>that is damning, is very damning.
>
>Item #3 is especially compelling for I doubt a forger would have
>thought of this, since, in Hubbard's modern writing, he eschews
>hypnosis. If one is going to forge it, why would he make Hubbard
>practicing something he publicly denounced?
>
>The self-affirmation self-hypnosis exercise forces the author to speak
>in the first person. Naturally, Hubbard's public writing would never
>be written in the first person, and so, why would a forger write it in
>the first person if he was going for a style that would not draw
>attention to itself?
>
>One might argue that if he eschewed hypnosis, why would the document
>seem to be a hypnosis exercise?
>
>That answer is simple because we have early witnesses giving testimony
>to Hubbard's mastery of hypnosis, that he demonstrated on more than
>one occasion at parties his expertise on the subject by hypnotizing
>people in a parlor setting. Therefore, he must have studied hypnosis
>extensively and used it. This would account for his knowledge, and
>later admonition of it, reflecting an evolution on his view on the
>subject, born of authoritative knowledge. Therefore, the 'admissions'
>could have easily been written at the time he was studying it and
>experimenting with it, and it would account for the introspective
>style, which is unlike his public writing. It doesn't make sense a
>forger would have done this. This plus the many details leads me to
>believe it is authentic. The commonality of style in the admissions,
>adjusting for the introspectiveness, is more in the area of the
>intensity in the writing. Hubbard has a style which exudes
>considerable intensity, both the document and Hubbard's more
>contemporary writing have this intensity about them, and my view is
>that intensity is very difficult to fake, since it is a reflection of
>someone's psyche.
>
>Moreover, there are numerous tale-telling but innocent details such as
>this line:
>
>"I must also be convinced that I dictate stories to a Dictaphone with
>ease."
>
>Think about this line. If it were someone who was dealing with the
>technology at the time, being a writer, a Dictaphone would be
>something in the surface of his consciousness, but in an innocent and
>uncompelling way, and it is natural he would mention it. It is natural
>because the document is not intended for anyone's eyes, and so the
>inclusion of trivial items would not be an issue. It is not a big
>thing, really, but how could a forger have anticipated something so
>trivial as the Dictaphone, when its inclusion does not give any
>particular sway on his character? A forger (with an agenda, as
>Scientology has alleged ) would attempt more in the way of lines which
>paint him in a worse way, and there are actually very few of those,
>and why would the forger include a plethora of triviality which holds
>no sway on the reader? It makes much more sense if the document was
>authentic simply because it reflects and individual's writing which
>was not intended for public consumption. The fact that the document
>was not written for an audience is to our great advantage in the
>determination of its authenticity. A forger is writing to an
>audience, and this is going to affect the document in ways elusive to
>the forger which would not likely to be present in an authentic
>document not intended for an audience all of which can be revealed by
>careful forensic level analysis.
>
>If it were a forgery, would not the forger would have chosen a more
>contemporary LRH style, so no one would even raise that issue (of it
>not being in Hubbard's style)? Personally, I feel that it is
>Hubbard's style, and individuals stating otherwise are failing to make
>the adjustment for the first person in which the document was written,
>allowing this to obfuscate that it is, indeed, his style. It is
>unlikely a forger would have written it in the first person so as not
>to draw attention to the subject of style. This strikes me like a
>hammer that it was a sincere document.
>
>It is this very fact plus little details which are compelling, and it
>all has such a quality, a powerful psychic undertow, undercurrents,
>etc., that it really reads like a bona fide snapshot of someone's
>innerself, innerworkings. The style, from my vantage point, is
>immensely Hubbard's, but a pre-famous Hubbard, a young Hubbard, a
>pre-philosophically developed Hubbard, and if you factor in that it
>was written when he was young, ambitious, driven, as well as that it
>was not intended for anyone to read it, it is inevitable it won't be
>in his "public" style. I write in different styles all the time. We
>must look deeper than this. When you factor in that vantage point,
>that it is personal, in the nature of an experiment in self hypnosis,
>which there is evidence he was an excellent hypnotist, and that he
>experimented with it, taken into consideration, factor up close
>testimonies by those who knew him at the time, I see Hubbard in
>"Admissions" through and through.
>
>Writing is such a personal enterprise, the words well up from one's
>inner being, and a forger cannot know with such panoramic detail
>Hubbard's psyche, for there is very little outside of the document to
>give the forger any such clues, all the more compelling for make the
>case for its authenticity.
>
>
>This line:
>
>"That I wrote a great book in The One Command".
>
>As far as I know, there is no documentation of the existence of such a
>book with this title outside of the Admissions document. But that
>doesn't mean he didn't write books which never got published, or were
>saved in archives, the point being that why would a forger make
>reference to an unverifiable and unknown book?
>
>Also, looking at it from another angle, Hubbard's Excalibur was not
>named by Hubbard, but suggested to him by a friend, so that manuscript
>above may very well have been "Excalibur" since it dealt with the
>ultimate basic word "survive", i.e., "the one command", and there is a
>whole chapter on the circumstances leading to this book in the Bare
>Faced Messiah. I believe the book "The One Command" was the
>previous title, or one possible title in transit, before the final
>agreed upon title of "Excalibur".
>
>How could a forger know what the original title to "Excalibur" was
>when there is no mention of it in the public record? Only Hubbard
>could have known that. Why would a forger not refer to it as
>"Excalibur"? (Of course, this premise is only valid if we assume that
>Hubbard's mention of "The One Command" is, indeed, the notorious
>Excalibur. But logic dictates that it very well could be, and it is
>likely that it is, given the fact that it was not Hubbard who thought
>of the name, which tells us it could easily have had previous titles
>before Excalibur was agreed upon).
>
>That is one of the most compelling aspects of the whole document, in
>my view. Another compelling aspect is the overall style, and, to my
>eyes, it is Hubbard's.
>
>Unless someone can offer me compelling reasoning to the contrary, I
>believe that it is authentic.
>
>
>Phineas
>
Hi Phineas, (and a very big Hi to all our other friends too.)
I am glad you brought up this question. And there is a very simple process of authentication, which is what the Scientology organization itself did when it authenticated these Hubbard writings in the Armstrong "mutual release and settlement agreement."
Take a look:
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/mutual-release-1986.html#124
" [...] (b) All originals and copies of documents commonly known as the "Affirmations" written by L. Ron Hubbard; and [...] "
So that takes care of the question: did Armstrong ever possess the Affirmations; or, as they've come to be known, the Admissions. Yes he did.
Now, are the Admissions, webbed at http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2000-03-11.html the same as the Admissions that are identified in the "mutual release?"
Since Armstrong originally possessed them, as Scientology agrees, he can authenticate them. And he has authenticated them. See his statement at http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/admissions.pdf (page 2)
Pieces of the Admissions were accepted into evidence and read into the record in the trial of Armstrong I, LA Superior Court No. C 420153, which resulted in the wog-world-renowned Breckenridge decision. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/breckenridge-decision.html
Scientology's lawyers never argued during the Armstrong I trial or litigation that the Admissions were not authentic. It will be quite a project to get these trial transcripts up on www.gerryarmstrong.org
Regarding "The One Command," here's a mention by Armstrong on a.r.s. from 1998: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=365df6d9.14022627%40news.dowco.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain Armstrong says that there were 3 manuscripts or partial ms's in Hubbard's archive and that Hubbard titled at least one of them "The One Command." "Excalibur" and "the One Command" are the same idea, different titles.
Here's a paper I wrote called Excalibur and the Scientology Cross", http://www.entheta.ca/caroline/excalibur.html , in which I gave some references to the One-command idea and how that fits in to Crowley's A...A... grade system.
I first came across the Admissions at http://www.holysmoke.org/ga/admissions.pdf during a time when I was trying to make sense of the to me shocking information that Hubbard's history was *far* different from what I had "known" for 24 years of my life in the cult.
I found much testimony and credible documentation about Hubbard's magickal history, both online and off line. (E.g., Aleister Crowley's letters about Hubbard. E.g. Russell Miller's book "Barefaced Messiah" and Jon Atack's book, "A Piece of Blue Sky."
For me, the period after I left scn and began that research was simply one shocking revelation after another. If I had been allowed to inform myself of the truth about Hubbard and his past when I was in the cult, those 24 years of my life would most definitely not have been spent as a Scientologist.
With the content of the Admissions, I was finally able to connect the dots between the objective historical documentation and a completely new (for me) sense of his psychological profile at the time he was spawning Dianetics and Scientology.
As I said, there is a wealth of information on Hubbard's history -- information that no practising Scientologist would dare dream about in their wildest out-ethics wanderings. For a Scientologist to pass off the Admissions with a "so what" attitude, or a "that was then" attitude, is, in my mind, just plain programming, or worse--intentional efforts to defuse and divert.
I summarized some of my own searches here: http://entheta.ca/caroline/frater-x.html
http://entheta.ca/caroline/left-hand-path.html
I am not claiming to be an expert in language or syntax analysis, but having listened to Hubbard in (how many?) lectures, and having studied the mountains of his written material necessary to become an organization-certified auditor, there was nothing in the Admissions that appeared to be unauthentic.
Best, Caroline
----------------------------- Caroline Letkeman
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org
------------------------------