3 replies to this topic

[Rhythm]

"The lure of the pseudo-scientific vocabulary and promises of Dianetics cannot but condemn thousands who are beginning to emerge from scientific illiteracy to a continuation of their susceptibility to word-magic and semantic hash." S.I. Hayakawa in Etc: A Review of General Semantics, fourth quarter of 1951, Dianetics: From Science-Fiction to Fiction-Science," pp.280-293.

In Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard credited Alfred Korzybski and his field of General Semantics as an influence on Dianetics. Korzybski died in 1950, so could not comment on Hubbard's attribution. However, Dianetics was an unknown method of therapy and Hubbard was neither a psychologist, nor known in the field of self-improvement. Hubbard had everything to gain by positioning Dianetics with the relatively new field of General Semantics, which had some validation.
There is no evidence that General Semantics is employed at all in the subject of Dianetics.
Moving forward to 1965, an employee of Hubbard's, John McMaster, developed what were named "Power Processes". One of the processes uses the commands, "What is?" and "What isn't?" This process in particular runs contrary to the advises of General Semantics, as "is" can confuse identity and predication. (Additionally, the use of is can confuse auxillary verb, existence, and location. More explanation of that in the subject of English Prime.) Hubbard signed off on the Power Processes and later attributed those to himself. While the name of that process is Existence, the answers are from the mind of the person doing the process. Thus, confusion with other contexts may already exist in that person's mind.
If Hubbard wanted to demonstrate honesty about his statement of the influence of General Semantics on dianetics, and by extension, scientology, he would have corrected the Existence Power Process to something like, "What exists for you?" and "What does not exist for you?"
Clearly, Hubbard used scientology as a vehicle of fraud and General Semantics for positioning because that field had some validity and good reputation.

[lamb]

You, I believe, have hit it right on the head. It is only another example of how Hubbard was only interested in MONEY and had no empathy or heart to care about what his Tech did to anybody else. He was fortunate that people had some wins from the practices that he plagiarized from that kept them so interested in finding more.

[Rhythm]

lamb, on 30 December 2009 - 09:38 AM, said:

You, I believe, have hit it right on the head. It is only another example of how Hubbard was only interested in MONEY and had no empathy or heart to care about what his Tech did to anybody else. He was fortunate that people had some wins from the practices that he plagiarized from that kept them so interested in finding more.

I appreciate your recognition. I have found many other examples of violation of General Semantics in dianetics and scientology auditing commands, but I think that listing those here would be superfluous. I will share one: The dianetics command "When was it?" "Was" designates the past tense of "is". A General Semanticist or someone using English Prime would ask, "When did it seem to happen?" or "When did that seem to occur?"
Yes, making money embodies the fundamental purpose of the scientology enterprise for its owner.

[lamb]

And yet, unless he was listing and nulling, the question still violates his rules regarding only asking y/n questions if not in an L&N session. Right? Further proof that he merely spouted out of his lower orifice.