On Excalibur

Caroline

clerk #2
There are a number of threads on the original ESMB that get into Hubbard's 1938 Excalibur manuscript:
One of the most revealing documents about Excalibur, is a letter Hubbard wrote to his wife Polly, apparently also in 1938. Russell Miller obviously possessed this letter, quoted from it and discussed it in Barefaced Messiah. Following the initial publication of Miller's book, Professor Dave Touretzky posted a side-by-side comparison of the UK and US editions of BFM. The UK edition contains more substantial excerpts of Hubbard's letter:

When, by and by, it became important to promote an image of Ron as one of the world's great thinkers and philosophers, these two stories would be presented as clear evidence that L. Ron Hubbard had begun his research into the workings of the mind. Science fiction, it was explained, was 'merely the method Ron used to develop his philosophy'.[5]
It was a philosophy which was supposedly fully expounded in Excalibur, an unpublished book Ron was first said to have written in 1938. Modestly described as 'a sensational volume which was a summation of life based on his analysis of the state of Mankind',[6] much would be heard of this great work in later years; indeed, it would become a cornerstone of the mythology built around his life. It was claimed that the book derived from Ron's 'discovery' that the primary law of life was to survive, although, naturally, the part played by 'his explorations, journeys and experiences in the four corners of the earth, amongst all kinds of men, was crucial'.[7]
The first six people to read the manuscript were said to have been so overwhelmed by the contents that they went out of their minds. Curiously, however, few of Ron's fellow writers were aware of the existence of the book, with the exception of Art Burks: 'Ron called me one day and said, "I want to see you right away, I have written the book." I never saw anybody so worked up. Apparently he had written it without sleeping, eating, or anything else and had literally worked himself into a frazzle.
'He was so sure he had something "away out and beyond" anything else that he said he had sent telegrams to several book publishers telling them that he had written the book and that they were to meet
_______________
5. Ron The Writer, Author Services Inc., 1982
6. L. Ron Hubbard, Mission Into Time, 1973
7. Ibid.
79
him at Penn Station and he would discuss it with them and go with whoever gave him the best offer. Whether he did this or not, I don't know, but it is right in line with something he would do.
'He told me it was going to revolutionize everything: the world, people's attitudes to one another. He thought it would have a greater impact upon people than the Bible.'[8]
Burks's recollection of the manuscript was that it was about seventy thousand words long and began with a fable about a king who gathered all his wise men together and commanded them to bring him all the wisdom of the world in five hundred books. He then told them to go away and condense the information into one hundred books. When they had done that, he wanted the wisdom reduced into one book and finally into one word. That word was 'survive'.
Ron developed an argument that the survival instinct could explain all human behaviour and that to understand survival was to understand life. Burks particularly remembered a passage in which Ron explained how emotions could be whipped up to the point where a lynch mob was formed. 'It made the shivers move up your back from your heels to the top of your head,' he said.
Burks was sufficiently impressed by Excalibur to agree to write a brief biographical sketch of Ron for use as a preface. It was the usual 'red-headed fire-eater' material, with only one surprising new claim - that 1934 was the year Ron 'rounded off his application of analytical geometry to aerial navigation'.
The preface also mentioned a facet of Ron's character which few members of the American Fiction Guild had noticed - his unwillingness to talk about himself. 'Long ago he discovered that his most concrete adventures raised sceptic eyebrows and so, without diminishing his activities, he has fallen back on silence. We hear of him building a road in the Ladrone Islands or surveying the Canadian border and bellowing squads east and west with the perfection of a trained military man and delve though we may, that is as far as we can get.'
Burks concluded with a tactful reference to the difficulty of reconciling the adventurer with the author of a philosophic treatise: 'One envisions the philosopher as a quiet gray-beard, timid in all things but thought. It is, withal, rather upsetting to the general concept to think of L. Ron Hubbard as the author of Excalibur.'
Although Excalibur was never published - Burks was convinced that Ron was deeply disappointed he could not find a publisher - Ron assiduously stoked rumours about its existence and its content. 'He told me once that he had a manuscript in his trunk that was going to revolutionize the world,' said his friend Mac Ford. 'He said it was called Excalibur, but that's all I know about it. I never saw it.'[9]
_______________
8. The Aberee, Dec. 1961
9. Author's interview with Ford, 1 September 1986
80
Unquestionably, Ron himself believed in Excalibur, for in October 1938 he wrote a long and emotional letter to Polly in which he expressed his hope that the manuscript would merit him a place in history.
Polly had recently had a riding accident which resulted in her losing the tip of one finger. Ron tried to cheer her up with a funny catalogue of his own imagined ailments and promised her a jewelled Chinese fingernail holder which she could be 'snooty' about. He wrote of his frustration about his work, the constant shortage of money ('I still wonder how much money we owe in incidental bills. It's grave, I know . . .') and the need to spend so much time in New York, away from her and the children.

Then he turned to the subject which was clearly in the forefront of his mind: 'Sooner or later Excalibur will be published and I may have a chance to get some name recognition out of it so as to pave the way to articles and comments which are my ideas of writing heaven.​
'Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same. The entire function of man is to survive. The outermost limit of endeavour is creative work. Anything less is too close to simple survival until death happens along. So I am engaged in striving to maintain equilibrium sufficient to at least realize survival in a way to astound the gods. I turned the thing up so it's up to me to survive in a big way . . . Foolishly perhaps, but determined none the less, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned . . .
'When I wrote it [Excalibur] I gave myself an education which outranks that of anyone else. I don't know but it might seem that it takes terrific brain work to get the thing assembled and usable in the head. I do know that I could form a political platform, for instance, which would encompass the support of the unemployed, the industrialist and the clerk and day laborer all at one and the same time. And enthusiastic support it would be. Things are due for a bust in the next half dozen years. Wait and see.'
Ron was clearly worried that he would be hampered by his reputation as a pulp writer: 'Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do because it retards my progress by demanding incessant attention and, further, actually weakens my name. So you see I've got to do something about it and at the same time strengthen the old financial position.'
Towards the end of the letter he wrote about strange forces he felt stirring within him which made him feel aloof and invincible and the struggle he had faced trying to answer the question 'Who am I?' before returning to the theme of immortality: 'God was feeling sardonic the
81
day He created the Universe. So it's rather up to at least one man every few centuries to pop up and come just as close to making him swallow his laughter as possible.'
Ron's nickname for Polly was 'Skipper' and hers for him was 'Red'. The letter finished with a single encouraging line: 'I love you, Skipper, and all will be well. The Redhead.'
Source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/bfm05.htm#79

Excalibur contained, by many reports including Hubbard's, his foundational science for Dianetics/Scientology. I believe that because of this, his contemporaneous statements to his wife about this book are extremely relevant and helpful. I'll post what I think are the pertinent portions of his 1938 letter to Polly:

August 1938
Thursday

Dearest Skipper,
[...]​
As I have been for a long, long time, remember I'm still faced with the necessity of somehow getting lined up on steady money. whether that be the sales of Excalibur or a movie job or something.
[...]​
So just how to bring about financial freedom was a problem. Still is, for that matter. It does not and never will lie in, the realm of magazines unless one is a hack like Kelland. And I notice that Kelland still grinds them out at pulp pace, getting no younger and really no richer.
I love to write. But sometimes I get as sick as I would if I prostituted you to every man that came along, having to hammer bang-bang and accumulate, hot peace, but further grief.
Hollywood's major studios don't work a man too hard and I want a chance to breathe. And so I am not going to do anything to jeopardize a decent paying job. I know that that down there is far, far from creative art. But at the same time a major studio, unlike Columbia, isn't very demanding of sweat and there's time to sit back and figure out things and write only when the old bean gets to boiling.
Sooner or later Excalibur will be published and I may have a chance to get some name recognition out of it so as to pave the way to articles and comments which are my ideas of writing heaven.
Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same. The entire function of man is to survive. Not for what but just to survive. The outermost limit of endeavor is creative work. Anything less is too close to simple survival until death happens along. So I em engaged in striving to maintain equilibrium sufficient to at last realize survival in a way to astound the gods. I turned the thing up so it’s up to me to survive in a big way. Personal immortality is only to be gained through the printed word, barred note or painted canvas or hard granite. Foolishly perhaps, but determined none the less, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all the books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned. Things which stand too consistently in its way make me nervous. It's a pretty big job. In a hundred years Roosevelt will have been forgotten - which gives some idea of the magnitude of my attempt. And all this boils and froths inside my head and I'm miserable when I am blocked. Let the next man concentrate upon "peace" and "contentment". When life was struck into me something else accompanied it. And when I leave things in the lap of the gods who seem to be interested in my destiny, boy, things happen!
My fight right now is to get into a spot where I can tide across the gap until the next blaze. Excalibur may be fought, accepted or forgotten. I don't care. I seem to be the only one that has attained actual personal contact with it. Others take it mentally and seem to be at a loss to apply it. When I wrote it I gave myself an education which outranks that of anyone else. I don't know but it might seem that it takes terrific brain work to get the thing assembled and useable in the head. I do know that I could formulate a political platform, for instance, which would encompass the support of the unemployed, the industrialist and the clerk and day laborer all at one and the same time. And enthusiastic support it would be. Things are due for a bust in the next half a dozen years. Wait and See.
Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do because it retards my progress demanding incessant attention and, further, actually weakens my name. So you see I've got to do something about it and at the same time strengthen the old financial position.
Anyway, I won't burden you with any more of that sort of thing. But the things I do often seem pretty weird when judged from the standpoint of nice, quiet surroundings and peaceful old age. I haven't started to get old and I won't seek peace until I'm stretched on a marble slab., And I won't be stretched on any marble slab until I've done the things assigned. I'll lay a sizeable wager that hell will begin to break loose within the next twelvemonth and continue to go for many a year. I seem to have a sort of personal awareness which only begins to come alive when I begin to believe in a destiny. And then a strange force stirs in me and I seem to be completely aloof and wholly invincible. It is the problem of "Who am I?"
Psychiatrists, reaching the high of a dusty desk, tell us that Alexander and Jenghiz Khan and Napoleon were madmen. I know they were maligning some very intelligent gentlemen. So anybody who dares say that maybe he's going to out things up considerably is immediately branded as an egomaniac or something equally ridiculous so that little men can still save their hides in the face of possible fury. It's one thing to go nutty and state, "I'm Napoleon, nobody dares touch me," and quite another to say, "If I watch my step and don't let anything stop me, I can make Napoleon look like a punk. That's the difference.
A man wouldn't have to be either very tall or very smart to whip any leader of today hands down.
It's a big joke, this living. God was feeling sardonic the day He created the Universe. So it’s rather up to at least one man every few centuries to pop up and come just as close to making Him swallow his laughter as possible.
Anyway, these are the things about which I revolve. I can't blame it on environment or experience, strangely enough. When I was eight I remember figuring out how long it would take me to achieve these ends, still saying to myself, "Who am I?" And I said it at sixteen and I'm saying it at twenty-six even though the old cards persist in getting stacked against me and people are often like tugs trying to shunt me into a dismally peaceful berth. A few months of cold logic on the subject I struck upon in February have shown me that I didn't have it all under control. Hence I must needs slow down on my concept, though it broadened in another way which compensates and it has some popularity angles now which it lacked before. I guess I'm thirty percent showman after all because I instinctively dive toward popular huzzahs. And so, quite magnanimously for me, I gave man back his human soul and created a new explanation for creative urge which the lads will love. Nonetheless, the things are as true as can be.
Here's the time at three-thirty and I've got to go downtown. Maybe I shouldn't have written such a letter to you but I just got going and, so here it is.
I love you, Skipper, and all will be well.
[Signed]
The Redhead
 

Xenu Xenu Xenu

Well-known member
Burks's recollection of the manuscript was that it was about seventy thousand words long and began with a fable about a king who gathered all his wise men together and commanded them to bring him all the wisdom of the world in five hundred books. He then told them to go away and condense the information into one hundred books. When they had done that, he wanted the wisdom reduced into one book and finally into one word. That word was 'survive'.


Hubbard must have read Somerset Maugham's, OF HUMAN BONDAGE. That story about the king is in that book. Hubbard, it appears merely changed the story with the inclusion of "the word survive".
 

Caroline

clerk #2
Burks's recollection of the manuscript was that it was about seventy thousand words long and began with a fable about a king who gathered all his wise men together and commanded them to bring him all the wisdom of the world in five hundred books. He then told them to go away and condense the information into one hundred books. When they had done that, he wanted the wisdom reduced into one book and finally into one word. That word was 'survive'.


Hubbard must have read Somerset Maugham's, OF HUMAN BONDAGE. That story about the king is in that book. Hubbard, it appears merely changed the story with the inclusion of "the word survive".
Russell Miller's source was The Aberee, Dec1961. From The Compleat Aberree:


page0001.png page0007.pngpage0008.pngpage0012.png

Here's Burks' language about the king and his wisdom reduction mission:

Yes, There Was a Book Called "Excalibur" by L. Ron HUBBARD
By ARTHUR J. BURKS
From "The Aberee", Dec 1961​
[...]
Going back to "The Book", I don't remember how long it was. It probably was under 70,000, which is considered an average book. He told me what he wanted to do with it - it was going to revolutionize everything: the world, people's attitudes toward one another. He thought it was somewhat more important, and would have a greater impact upon people, than the Bible.
After I'd read the manuscript, we got to arguing over different titles. I asked him what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to make changes. He wanted to reach inside people and really work them over, and he had to have a title that would be attractive. I am the one who suggested "Excalibur", because Excalibur was King Arthur's sword. This had a certain mystical meaning that suited Ron, and so "The Book" became "Excalibur".
As I remember "Excalibur", it started - in the introduction only - with a king who got all his wise men together and told them to prepare and bring to him all the wisdom of the world contained in 500 books. In the course of time, they succeeded, and the king was very pleased and said so. Then he told them to go away and cut down these 500 books into 100 books. It took them a bit longer this time, but they did it and came back and insisted all the wisdom of the world was contained in these 100 books. He said, "Now, do it over again, and bring it to me in one book."
This was quite a trick, but they did it, and came back some years later and they had, indeed, reduced all the wisdom of the world into one book.
Then he really gave them an assignment. He said, "Now go away and bring to me all the wisdom of the world in one word."
What was the one word? I don 't know how many times we argued, Ron and I, to discover what this one word was. It may have been the creative fiat, it might have just been the word "Be", it might have been the word "Survive". I don't think we ever settled it. But the book "Excalibur" from there on had to do with survival.
Source for text: http://www.xenu.net/archive/oca/burks.html
Letter (Burks) (1941-05-10).png

Incidentally, Burks wrote this May 10, 1941 letter of recommendation for Hubbard, in which he claimed he had known Hubbard intimately for about seven years.
 
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Caroline

clerk #2
Hubbard and Robert Heinlein discussed Excalibur in letters during 1948 and 1949. Here's the first mention I saw in the Heinlein archive. Clearly the conversation was already ongoing.
Box 1036 GPO NYC
November 24, 1948
Dear Bob;
Well, well, well! How delighted I was to hear from you. And you sounded so much like yourself. Five thousand deer and twenty-three men, indeed.
You know, of course that your letter made me writhe with envy; imagine having a place to live and not only that but a place off the atom bomb beat. I should think your situation completely ideal and complete. Charming wife, security, fame and fortune. Some guys just can't help but catwise on their feet.
I am dizzily going daffy trying to solve my problems in existence. 1. I am bomb bait here. 2. I have no home town. 3. I have no home. 4. I may be but am not yet retired, and so am roller coastering up and down the graphs. 5. I got a million dollar book ready to write and no time to write, said publisher offering no gratuity in advance. 6. I hate the soot, streets, buildings, people, monuments, cops, business men, curbstones, taxicabs, yes and even the pigeons of this here New York. Everything else I got licked.
I sent a note to a gent in New Orleans asking him about housing but his data is obviously b-6. I don't know anybody in Santa Fe. I wouldn't go back to Los Angeles for a starring part.
Africa beckons but somehow I can't recall losing anything there. South America has itself confused with 1928. England may not be there long, poor place. Asia Minor has too much proximity to the Bear. We didn't leave enough of the South Pacific to be idyllic over even in a costume historical.
In short, the only place I would really like to go is Alpha Centauri's New Earth and that hasn't been completely settled yet.
Robert, count your blessings!
I will do better than give you those principles aforestated. I will soon, I hope, give you a book risen from the ashes of old Excalibur which details in full the mathematics
[2]
of the human mind, solves all the problems of the ages and gives six recipes for aphrodisiacs and plays a mouth organ with the left foot.
Soon as the Navy makes up its collective mind about my retirement I can plan better for the future. Right now I am admiral hurdling with M&S and SecNav. Went to the hospital for a checkup, took two weeks getting checked, saw so many decripit characters thereabouts that I finally bogged down and got sick myself which said state lasted me for another four weeks. I am getting back into the running now. I am planning to get a white outfit so I can wear all my miniature medals in case they don't retire me. I've got to get some good out of the war.
The main difficulty these days is getting sane again. I find out that I am making progress. 0f course there is always the danger that I will get too sane to write.
Yore Rocket Ship is displayed prettily about the bookstores. Hope it is selling well. Beyond is liberally plastered around the windows and is stiil on display at the Book Festival, the sf section having been considered too fascinating by the Industrial Museum at RCA (where it was held) to be thrown out. Of all the publisher's displays, only the sf remains for posterity. People keep swiping my DD copies off it. Not from supprior merit but from the pocketability of that volume, I fear.
I am going out to the Campbells, me and Sara, for Thanksgiving. John is a hot ham now. Last time I saw him, he and Dona spoke most kindly of thee. If you have a ham in Colorado Springs you can undoubtedly make a contact with W2ZGU of Scotch Plains by prearrangement in the mails and probably talk to John. The reception is usually superior to telephone.
Robert, if you know of any town in the US which has climate and housing, please send me some of your very excellent advice.
I suppose you will be having venison for Thanksgiving in the tradition of your ancestors. Make sure it ain’t hunter.
My very best to Ginny. Sara sends her love.
Love and kisses,
[signed]
Ron
PS: Sara is here. Her ma is still sick but you can live just so long in a hurricane. I will send you a wedding present when I get somewhat richer. LRH
Source: The Heinlein Archive (CORR306-02:007)
 

Caroline

clerk #2
In a March 8, 1949 letter to Robert and Virginia Heinlein, Hubbard compared his Excalibur system with Heinlein's making supermen in his Coventry story. Hubbard claimed his Excalibur system makes "nul Ās" and abolishes religion.

Wikipedia: a) The World of Null-A; b) Coventry

Box 1996
Savannah, Ga.
Mar 8, 1949
Dear Bob & Ginny--
Work stares me in the face and urgent letters have been stacked here for answer and so, with laudable industry, I take my pen in hand to chin-chin.
Markets were flooey in NY three-four mos ago and have just now broken open, looks like. But slick is particularly capricious even yet, advertising and slick not being very flush, making the quill pen- blue-slip regiments rather noxious in their nervousness.
Argosy ordered a re-write on a 10,000 worder (I'm the Great Dallas Strudemeyer there) and I re-wrote exactly what they said, adding
[2]
not one word to their ms, just cutting several lines as ordered. Got the ms back couple days ago with the comment that they couldn't use it because the ending was suddenly improbable. Hadn't been touched. So we wasted 10,000 words of re-type. Sure sore. But that's the way the Ritz Boys act. Pulp was stagnant for a long while but now I've got several orders--Standard western and sf. I expect rates will fall. They have already at Columbia Pub. They sent me back a 33,000 worder, asking me to add 7,000 or more words for a flat rate of $300. That's about the record. But old S&S and Standard are still up, though I'm not sure for how long. S&S is 2 cents, Standard 2 [cut off]
[3]
Got a series at Standard - The Conquest of Space -- in Startling. One an [isane]. Two others series going elsewhere but less steady. Crawling slowly up again. That damned Shasta Pub. in Chi is trying to pay me percentage on their wholesale book price --$1.25 for a $3 book or 12 1/2 cents/copy on a contract calling for 3 [cut off] Hadley is paying me $25 quarterly interest on what they owe me. Fantasy Pub, unless it swamps or something is the best book pay.
Some serious fiction is in the making around here, but it's all pretty much side-tracked by my re-write of Excalibur, of which you ask. For two months I have been shirking my coffee and cake work for this
[4]
magnum opus. I am going to publish it. Have an offer. But when I re-read it, my war experience pointed several necessary alterations and inclusions and so I slave away. I'll be glad to pitch a galley at you when I get one in a few months. If it drives you nuts, don't sue. You were warned!
On this book thing, I trained up Sara into the routine. Never had anybody around before with enough time to spare, so I had never used the work on myself--couldn't! Case of Physician etc. So anyway, I been agonizing around losing some of the bitter years. My hip and stomach and side are well again--which
[5]
pleases me and makes a fool out of Polly. But most important I am straightening out the kinks that held down production on the money machine. Should be back to my 100,000 a month fiction plus non-fiction come April. My joi de vive is sliding up smoothly and my plotting ability is cranking back up like a Pratt and Whitney. Most important to me and yea, to my friends, is that the old wingding I went into in 1945 is vanishing, leaving a more virile, adventurous and fearless Hubbard, or is it Fosdick?
Poor Sara, she didn't know what she was in for when she consented to digest this old ms and pour me full of the necessary
[6]
swamp root oil. She's invested over a hundred hours to date and has about twenty more to go before I'm in level flight -- 30,000 feet up, flat on my back.
Strange thing. You recall your Coventry? Well, you didn't specify in your book what actual reformation took place in the society to make supermen. Got to thinking about it the other day. The system is Excalibur. It makes nul Ās. So even if it does upset a few applecarts and blow a fuse in the current moral and political system, I'm releasing it and to hell with the consequences. Know a good hide-out?
[7]
I fear the Catholic Church is going to take one look at that book and heave a fit that would make the Mindszenty affair pale. It ain't agin religion. It just abolishes it. It aint agin anything, which is wherein lieth its deadly poison. It's science, boy, science. That's a godly word we all love.
Anyway, I'll send you a galley so you kin man the barricades in time. Cause like the chicken that et the Japanese beetle in good faith, this one is going to come straight out through the side of any society what digests it.
With this cheerful thought, we leave Savannah the beautiful. If you sniffed quick when you opened this you smelled sunshine.
My love to you both--
[Enrs? Unintelligible word] the Red
Source: The Heinlein Archive (CORR306-02:015)
 
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Hatshepsut

Well-known member
Hubbard and Robert Heinlein discussed Excalibur in letters during 1948 and 1949. Here's the first mention I saw in the Heinlein archive. Clearly the conversation was already ongoing.
Box 1036 GPO NYC
November 24, 1948
Dear Bob;
Well, well, well! How delighted I was to hear from you. And you sounded so much like yourself. Five thousand deer and twenty-three men, indeed.
You know, of course that your letter made me writhe with envy; imagine having a place to live and not only that but a place off the atom bomb beat. I should think your situation completely ideal and complete. Charming wife, security, fame and fortune. Some guys just can't help but catwise on their feet.
I am dizzily going daffy trying to solve my problems in existence. 1. I am bomb bait here. 2. I have no home town. 3. I have no home. 4. I may be but am not yet retired, and so am roller coastering up and down the graphs. 5. I got a million dollar book ready to write and no time to write, said publisher offering no gratuity in advance. 6. I hate the soot, streets, buildings, people, monuments, cops, business men, curbstones, taxicabs, yes and even the pigeons of this here New York. Everything else I got licked.
I sent a note to a gent in New Orleans asking him about housing but his data is obviously b-6. I don't know anybody in Santa Fe. I wouldn't go back to Los Angeles for a starring part.
Africa beckons but somehow I can't recall losing anything there. South America has itself confused with 1928. England may not be there long, poor place. Asia Minor has too much proximity to the Bear. We didn't leave enough of the South Pacific to be idyllic over even in a costume historical.
In short, the only place I would really like to go is Alpha Centauri's New Earth and that hasn't been completely settled yet.
Robert, count your blessings!
I will do better than give you those principles aforestated. I will soon, I hope, give you a book risen from the ashes of old Excalibur which details in full the mathematics
[2]
of the human mind, solves all the problems of the ages and gives six recipes for aphrodisiacs and plays a mouth organ with the left foot.
Soon as the Navy makes up its collective mind about my retirement I can plan better for the future. Right now I am admiral hurdling with M&S and SecNav. Went to the hospital for a checkup, took two weeks getting checked, saw so many decripit characters thereabouts that I finally bogged down and got sick myself which said state lasted me for another four weeks. I am getting back into the running now. I am planning to get a white outfit so I can wear all my miniature medals in case they don't retire me. I've got to get some good out of the war.
The main difficulty these days is getting sane again. I find out that I am making progress. 0f course there is always the danger that I will get too sane to write.
Yore Rocket Ship is displayed prettily about the bookstores. Hope it is selling well. Beyond is liberally plastered around the windows and is stiil on display at the Book Festival, the sf section having been considered too fascinating by the Industrial Museum at RCA (where it was held) to be thrown out. Of all the publisher's displays, only the sf remains for posterity. People keep swiping my DD copies off it. Not from supprior merit but from the pocketability of that volume, I fear.
I am going out to the Campbells, me and Sara, for Thanksgiving. John is a hot ham now. Last time I saw him, he and Dona spoke most kindly of thee. If you have a ham in Colorado Springs you can undoubtedly make a contact with W2ZGU of Scotch Plains by prearrangement in the mails and probably talk to John. The reception is usually superior to telephone.
Robert, if you know of any town in the US which has climate and housing, please send me some of your very excellent advice.
I suppose you will be having venison for Thanksgiving in the tradition of your ancestors. Make sure it ain’t hunter.
My very best to Ginny. Sara sends her love.
Love and kisses,
[signed]
Ron
PS: Sara is here. Her ma is still sick but you can live just so long in a hurricane. I will send you a wedding present when I get somewhat richer. LRH
Source: The Heinlein Archive (CORR306-02:007)
Hmmm. It actually seemed Ron thought he had a 'friend' or two back then, before his paranoia set in with the tendency to destroy them. It's actually kinda touching. Wouldn't be long though before the distrust and warring would begin over the distribution rights for this 'gift' to mankind where he gave humanity back its 'soul'.

The year of this letter to Bob and Ginny, Ron would finally become domiciled in a home with Sara.
the real estate

BAY HEAD: THE BIRTH OF DIANETICS

In 1949, Hubbard moved into a Victorian at 666 East Ave. in Bay Head, where, he wrote in a letter to a friend, "The ocean is just outside the front door but it knows its place and never makes a real nuisance of itself. And if it does, why, we just go to a movie until the house has settled back down on its foundation again."
 
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Caroline

clerk #2
From Heinlein to Hubbard:
1313 Cheyenne Blvd.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
26 March 1949
Dear Ron,
I wish you were around today. Ginny and another girl have been out panning for gold in the creek across the street from us. I patted them on the head, told them to have fun, and paid not much attention. Now they have come back with what they believe to be a nugget---and I don't know enough about it to tell real gold from pyrites. It looks like gold, but I can't be sure.
I still want to see Excalibur as soon as possible, in its old form, its new form, or both---and preferably in carbon in advance of publication. The subject intrigues me immensely. Your last letter had numerous references to disciplines, drills, hours of study[*]---and was not very clear because I don't know what the hell you are talking about. More light, maestro, more light!
Which reminds me---long ago you were going to write down for me the so-many principles of the agent saboteur and the thus-many principles of the agent provocateur. You talked about them, but you never did. From a famous German work on Geopolitick and Realpolitick I believe. How about coming through on it?
I've seen some, maybe all, of your space-pioneering series. Two, I think. They are good---but my heart belongs to Old Doc Methuselah. I'll keep my eye open for Dallas Strudemeyer; I usually see Argosy since I sell them occasionally. Oh, yes: I hit a new market for me and the last in the world I would ever expect to hit. Calling All Girls, a mag for bobby-soxers---with a short containing no fantasy and having a teen-age girl as the central character. Now they want a series and I am a little bit dumbfounded. "Don, oh Don: What I do now?" I don't know anything about teen-age girls; the story was a freak, a random idea which I wrote in an hour and a half, then tossed on the market.
Your warning about Shasta appears to have saved me from signing a trick contract. Thanks!
On rereading your letter I am still more intrigued by the Excalibur business. If if does you that much good, it ought to be good for me. In my own way I came out of this war battle-happy myself---from not having been shot at. Ginny has me about put back together but a bit more therapy would do no harm.
No real news at this end. I work away at the machine, with enough success to keep us eating but nothing startling. We skate, we read, we sleep, we chew the fat. The surroundings remain a constant joy but I am wondering seriously whether or not my lousy sinuses can stand the dry climate. Nevertheless I am happier than I have been in ten years. Sara seems to have been just what the doctor ordered for you---Ginny is the same for me.
Love and kisses to you both,

Emphasis added
Source: The Heinlein Archive (CORR306-02:023)


[*] I was not able to find a letter from Hubbard that fits this description.
 

Caroline

clerk #2
Hubbard's reply to Heinlein's 26 March 1949 letter:

L. RON HUBBARD
Box 1796
Savannah, Ga.
March 31, 1949
Dear Bob,
Sara is out in California, having shove off suddenly last week when her mother was stricken with a heart attack -- which leaves Sara sole nurse 24 hours a day and the old lady in on oxygen. Naturally, the second she showed up, everybody left and discharged the practical day nurse. That family of hers will be the death of itself yet. When I'm around I won't let them impose on Sara so thoroughly and that makes me as popular as the measles. So I am giving up my apartment here and looking for other local quarters. And I sat around getting gloomy about moving and the first thing I know I recalled that I had some correspondence. A writer will do anything -----
I sure am battered up with equipment these days. Got a new IBM, strictly streamline, and Audographs. Got a ratty old 1941 Ford station wagon - parts are cheap; ever repair a Cadillac? - and a distaste for professional southerners. So I am homeless with the dawn. Now if a couple man-sized cheques romped home come morning mail I might try conclusions with highways. But I probably won't. I'll probably sit tight sir and make my fortune.
Just wrote John W a letter and gave him hell, the air-conditioned sort. I sent him an athletic sort of yarn and he bounced it - just a lousy old short. But his emphasis on the esoteric these days graveled me, since he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Which is what I told him. So to take the editor taste out of my mouth I am writing a love letter to thee.
Glad if I really was of service in any Shasta matter, not because I want to hurt them but because it might aid the profession a bit - which is all too full of pitfalls as 'tis. A greased pig is non-skid compared to those lads.
Fascinated with this CALLING ALL GIRLS business. My lord! But it's a good idea, though. Personally lately I have another tekneekew.
[2]​
(that's a French word meaning "methods employable in getting into things") I completely apprehend your idea. You write a story. Then you get fan letters. Then maybe some of the fan letters are close to home. Then maybe....
Your request about the agentes techniques recalls me that this here area is shore revolutionary, pard. They just ain't fergot nothin' about Reconstruction. Down at the library, all the way back in the vault, are four full lengths shelves of books such as THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION, ERRORS MADE BY REBESPIERRE, THE POWER OF THE RABBLE, LAWS GOVERNING LEVEE EN MASSE, HOME BOMB MANUFACTURE, ASSASSINATION AS A POLITICAL TECHNIQUE, etc. etc for about three hundred big, authoritative volumes. And I've never before seen a single one of them.
Robert, if I hadn't heard your last plan for Armageddon, I wouldn't even think twice about separating myself from this data. But what would you do with it? You'd go and put it in books. And then maybe the conservatives would pick it up and what would right wing people like myself do then? No spoofing, though, I'll dictate them off one of these days when I get this condemned southern girl up to a point where she can spell elementary English. I get a phone call every couple hours when she's working with a long list of words. Then she plays a record back over the phone so she can fill in the first draft. And loddie, she can really stretch a point, which is to say a syllable. Pretty, though. Awful pretty.
I'd sure like to help pan that gold. My golly, of all the things I do poorly I pan gold the least poorly. I can pan gold where they ain't no water, without a regular pan, without proper dirt and even without gold. Although I often find gold, that is the poorest part of it because then I have to stop looking and start working. So don't let Ginny find herself a gold mine. It would be entirely fatal on your typewriting. You got any idea of how much a shovelful of wet blue clay weights? Don't find out. Just keep on telling her everything is pyrites but save it. Actually you can tell the two apart too easy to worry about. It it's yellow and you can dent it with your nail or knock a corner of it flat (an ounce of gold will thin out to a sheet an acre in extent) and if she flattens, she's gold. If she breaks, she's pyrites. Also get yourself a little nitric or hydrochloric acid. Put a little in a saucer, put in the article to be tested. If she stays there, even
[3]​
if she stays black, she’s gold. In one or the other everything else under the stars dissolves. Gold dissolves only in aqua regia, a combination of those two acids. But once you see a piece of gold even if it's tiny, in a pan, you'll never make another mistake.
Boy, I'm sure not typing worth shucks. But that’s because I'm just plain weary. Or maybe lazy.
Sure would like to hit the road, but I'm planning to have a little fun anyway. This hellbroth I cooked up works remarkably well on kids. I hadn't tried it in that department before to amount to anything and if it jumps an adult IQ about double, you ought to see what it does to kids. John W's mutation infants - and I begun to consider mutation a kind of corn - are downright ignorant, really. Took a scared little kid that was supposed to be stupid and was nailing everything and worked on him about thirty-five hours just to make sure. That was last month. So now he turns up this afternoon with all A’s and all of a sudden reading Shakespeare. His teacher was out in the car. I went down and she was kind of flustered and scared - said good-bye in a hurry like maybe I was going to throw a spell or an incubus or something at her. Science fiction is wonderful. van Vogt and the rest of the crew are getting the irons all hot, thinking they are pulling somebody’s leg with fiction. But if they knew just how high the human mind really can soar they’d feel like pikers. They’re doing good ward work, though.
Most trouble I had with this was bailing out my own green slime. Being the only "expert" has its drawbacks. Poor Sara. I swear her hair stood right up straight a few times, hyperbolically speaking. But she was game. I’m not out in complete level flight yet because I didn’t have the heart to push her into the fifth tone drills. So I am sweating those out on my lonely. My working speed has about doubled and I am cruising on four hours sleep a night. But the most interesting thing is, I’m up to eight comes. In an evening, that is.
I see some of the above won’t make sense. So let me explain myself. At first glance this business is a trifle involved unless it is derived from its keys. But this much can be
[4]​
said: the general condition, which is to say the chronic behavior of a human being can be classified on a tone scale (corresponding to musical wave lengths, for instance). They start at One, the lowest and worst. The First and Second tones lie under the insanity break point. The First tone is apathy, the second is chronic anger. The Third tone is where the bulk of humanity lives. It’s above the break point. But it has its liabilities and will sink into anger or apathy on rather minor cause. These can be mathematically graded, actually, such as 0.4, 1.7, 2.9. The first two figures are in first and second tone bands. The last figure is a pretty darned sane individual as the norm runs. Now we move up into the Fourth Tone. 3.2 would be a good, happy, industrious Fourth Tone. This is very high above average and it can be found in its natural state. This, incidentally, has no bearing on I.Q., the most overrated gimmick in the whole gamut of “psychology”. It is just a measuring stick, but it happens to be a very useful one when teamed up with all the rest of this mathematics of mind. The first Four Tones are determined by the depth of the”unconscious” mind, a misnomer incidentally. At the bottom, the "unconscious" has the full grasp, the tones are devised to measure its finite — and believe me, I mean finite-extent. We get up to 4.0 and the “unconscious” isn’t there anymore. It is gone. In that the "unconscious" in this sense is only one of the three divisions of Mind, that simply means that the pain is all missing now. In order to haul to 4.0 (and the Navy grading is accidental as it was computed on its own), it is only necessary to eradicate all the basic heavy pain the individual has experienced in his lifetime with all of its associatives. Now that can be done because for the last year I’ve been doing it. And it can be done very fast - ninety hours, for instance, compared to two years of "modern psychiatry" which even then doesn’t accomplish it or effect any cure of aberrations or illnesses. But once you’ve drained off the pain content of the individual some astonishing results take place. His general health and activity markedly increase. Such things as asthma, migraine headaches, arthritis, sinusitus, (no dictionary at hand), menstrual cramps, glandular cessations, astigmatism, ulcers etc. etc. disappear for keeps and don't come back no matter what happens to coerce them. His errors and accidents fall nearly to zero, subjects which before balked him
[5]​
are now very simple, skills hitherto denied him convert into facilities and so forth. We are not talking about sane and insane, now. These are just norms, pain removed and boosted to Tone Four. The former difficulty that "people liked their aberations" has been vanquished. They don’t but they sometimes think they are necessary for a while.
Now you’ve got a Tone Four. In the normal course of living one gets a broad e[d]ucation even if one is pretty "uneducated". Mental sensitivity entering in here and the ability to associate or differentiate facts plus education gives us the finite limits of the rational mind. The "unconscious" - which should be called the reactive mind - is not rational or any part of it. The reactive mind obscures large segments of the rational mind - which is no more or less than the frontal lobe, peculiar to man. Tests on animals can only deal with the reactive mind because the animal hasn’t got a frontal lobe to amount to anything or to be rational with. Now here lives IQ., if you want to use the term. And if you haven’t deserted me, by now, wouldn’t it be lovely if this were the end of the problem. But it would only be lovely for the memory boys and the clerks because the third segment of mind is powerful enough to overset the most beautiful I.Q. which ever went down on an examination form, and which cannot be examined in any way except observing behavior in an environment.
The third mind I would rather not name. We’re moving now right up against the Prime Mover Unmoved and no matter my studies of this segment, I am going up against so many contrary semantics that I would rather not argue. But anyway, here resides the Force or the Drive which, in four branches, pretty well regulates the personality and measures the ultimate ability of the individual. When you get into this rarified air, the first thing which comes out strong is that artistic genius is more Third Segment than it is rational. In other words genius can have a low I.Q. and still whip a weak Third Segment with an astonishingly high I.Q.. Naturally, most creative people have both fairly high I.Q.s and high Third Segment. In short, this last factor of the mind is both the steam in the boilers and the standard compass. The reactive mind and, to a lesser extent, the rational mind are deviation and variation
[6]​
respectively. The latter two are finite, measureable and altogether very simple affairs once you see them all apart. But in what I am calling here - and I’ll have to give it a better name finally ‘but designate it to myself only as O - the Third Segment we cruise on off into infinity. A lot about it is not so much Unknowable as "not worth knowing". But its intention and desire from one man to the next is constant even if its quantity from person to person is variable, It has four forces branching from one force and obeys one rather simple law.
Now the whole thing becomes a sort of a wheel with the Third Segment being the First and the First being the Second and the Second being the Third. But again this is almost "not worth knowing". In short, we have a trinity, a good, solid old trinity which is a unity and no "let’s all praise Allah" jimming the equation.
Understanding these things, with a Tone Four attitude (and Robert, that’s really some attitude I being no basic change whatever from what the man wanted in the first place and what he could do but so much more of it that the opposition just plain collapses), we can train up to a Tone Five. There are Ten Tones, as high as I can calculate on this slide rule, but when you get to about Six you levitate and live forever, so why tackle Tenth Stage Emergence?
Well, well, didn’t mean to get going on all that. I might add that it is highly classified even if the above is fragmentary. It’s fast and sloppy in its outline. But. it gives you something of an idea of what one red-head has been tackling. I have under a thousand case histories and will have to realize that number before I publish. So the school kids and the orphan asylums around here (it’s so quick to work on kids, though I have to throw in a few adults as I go to keep up appearances, there being absolutely no difference in the mind at eight and at sixty barring strokes and VD paresis) have been getting a run for it. I spend about two and a half hours a day on research and it’s boiled down to routine now. I have more than enough for me and almost enough for the professors.
[7]​
So here goes the Hiroshima fuse for psychology as far as I can see from where I sit. And vV with, his nul A is going to be an awful surprised young man! I am running 97% into Tone Four and l00% into Tone 3.6 or better including the "hopelessly insane". I finished up the work on. criminals just before I went to Washington and I sure don't want to resume it until our laws get better. Poor guys: square them up, give them better than normal outlook and then they go back at the demand of "society" (what the hell is society anyway, Bob?) and finish out their terms.
People around here give me wonderful cooperation. They are not deserving of my assignation of epithet to their Reconstructive manias. I got the whole city Guidance Center, the Federal Probation Officer, five orphan asylums and two schools ready to roll out carpets when my poor old clunk clatters up. And the chief of police, Monday afternoon, sidled up to me while I was in the Post Office and said he'd been bothered lately with "an inferiority complex" - whatever that is.
The worst of this moving is shifting my working set-up which is pretty exact. But there’s a dog that howls all night out here and I haven’t been able to catch him and give him any therapy. So I give up.
Tomorrow I load everything into the clattercrate and then go find me a room for a week while I see if anybody has a house. I really don’t have any great desire to stay here - I’ve gotten tired of curing Reconstructionosis (it’s quite real as a part of the southern reactive mind) - but I‘m not inspired enough by any other place to move.
Consider yourself wrote to.
My very best to Ginny and my love to you both.
[signed]
Ron
[Handwritten] PS: Too tired to proof. You're a crytographer anyway.
Source: The Heinlein Archive (CORR306-02:024)
 

Caroline

clerk #2
Hubbard to his literary agent, Forrest (4E) Ackerman:

Box 1796
Savanah, Georgia
Jan. 13, 1949
Dear 4E: (Proper name should be in capitals)
I have been meaning to back up the last note of Sara’s but didn’t, been powerful busy trying to nail down a stack of copy. Been using an old dictaphone arangement which was on the verge of driving me stark staring.Finally today managed to get my big paws on a new Audiograph setup. They were used by the airforce in planes in the war and transcribe or record in any position with a minimum of breakdown. They use a half hour per side vynolile (sp?) plateing which means an hour of dictation per record. The stuff is clear and the transcribing is very easy and simple. They are very light and streamlined. Been out for two or three years now in commercial work. Rather high priced so I really have to grind now to suport my writing.
Have a nice office. Had another one but didn’t take to [the] noise. Present one is in the same apt. building, very neat and very quiet, with its own silk and gilt. Could become a den of vice very easily, I fear, so I only allow women over 16 in there.
Wanted to tell you that Sara is beating out her wits on fiction and is having to do this DARK SWORD -cause and cure of nervious tension – properly – THE SCIENCE OF MIND, really EXCALIBUR – in fits, so far, however she has recovered easily from each fit. It will be considerably delayed because of this. Good as my word, however, I shall ship it along just as soon as decent. Then you can rape women without their knowing it, communicate suicide messages to your enemies as they sleep, sell the Arroyo Seco parkway to the mayor for cash, evolve the best way of protecting or destroying communism, and other handy house hold hints. If you go crazy, remember you were warned.
Good publishing trick, by the way, is to have the bookseller make the buyer sign a release releasing the author of all responsibilities if the reader goes nuts.
Scanning it to insert a few case histories I’d come across here and there, I got interested again and have not decided whether to destroy the Catholic church or merely start a new one. And I grow restless when I think of all the charming ladies and young boys who walk around without the slightest taste for LIFE.
Thought of some interesting publicity angles on it. I might post a ten thousand dollar bond to be paid to anyone who can attain equal results with any known field of knowledge. A reprint of the preface, however, is about all one needs to bring in orders like a snow storm. This has more selling and publicity angles than any book of which I have ever heard, I think, and may very well be able to support them without much effort.
Looking over its project, I find a son of a luckless millionaire here has taken to drink and the millionaire wants him cured bad. Might undertake it for ten grand some afternoon.
Don’t know why I suddenly got the nerve to go into this again and let it loose. It’s probably either a great love or an enormous hatred of humanity. Just a few months ago I would now and then decide [to] use it and start right in to apply and I would lose my nerve. But lo! courage rose and the book is going out before it sinks again.
So here you have the dope.
Looking at all the fantasy movies, how about you contacting Laura Wilck in poisonally and making her scout around when we go in hard covers.
So far what’d Bill Crawford do about assembling the TRITION. Did he like MAN EATS MONSTER?
Best regards my friend, don’t Kroshak the little kids in the neighborhood.
Love and Kisses,
Ron
P.S. This here epistle is confidential, pard.
 

guanoloco

As-Wased
Hubbard to his literary agent, Forrest (4E) Ackerman:

Then you can rape women without their knowing it, communicate suicide messages to your enemies as they sleep, sell the Arroyo Seco parkway to the mayor for cash, evolve the best way of protecting or destroying communism, and other handy house hold hints. If you go crazy, remember you were warned.
Good publishing trick, by the way, is to have the bookseller make the buyer sign a release releasing the author of all responsibilities if the reader goes nuts.
Hubbard's pathology on full display. He was always sneaking and hiding in plain sight and tricking people with confidence scams.

However, in every scam the greed of the mark is played against them.

That being said I can't begin to count the number of books I've obtained for the purpose of raping women without them knowing about it.

Why...it's got to be the bulk of my library!

Wasn't that something Scientology brayed about psychiatry being guilty of?
 

Caroline

clerk #2
Hubbard's pathology on full display. He was always sneaking and hiding in plain sight and tricking people with confidence scams.

However, in every scam the greed of the mark is played against them.

That being said I can't begin to count the number of books I've obtained for the purpose of raping women without them knowing about it.

Why...it's got to be the bulk of my library!

Wasn't that something Scientology brayed about psychiatry being guilty of?
No doubt Hubbard and his insiders delighted and delight in their insouciance.

That's an eerie observation about Hubbard and his Scientologists' unrelenting projections onto psychiatry. His "tech" and attack on "the psychs" was a big part of what kept me in fear of the world outside of Scientology, whereas I should have been afraid of what was keeping me inside and under the Scientologists' control.
 

Caroline

clerk #2
In this 1951 lecture about "MEST Processing", Hubbard mentioned Excalibur in connection with his fundamental Theta-MEST theory.
MEST PROCESSING
A lecture given on
9 July 1951
Running the MEST Side of the Case
I want to talk to you now about MEST Processing.
This subject actually could be the whole of Dianetics unless you have looked at it really closely. The basis of this appeared in "Excalibur," the first book written on this subject back in 1938, which was never published. So that shows you how old this is; it is inherent in the first book, really, and it is definitely in the present book, Science of Survival, but it is not codified or punched up to a point where you would really see it clearly.
Now, if you understand this material, I think your grasp of the whole subject of processing is going to be a great deal better than it has been, and in addition to that you will be able to work your cases at least 50 percent faster. This is a big jump.
This codification is the first really major codification in two years, because it is far more important than Standard Procedure codification. I am not trying to over evaluate it, I am just trying to assign it an importance for you so you will see what we are going into. This codification, however, could not have been made without all the accumulated experience of the past thirteen years.
The first thing one had to know about was theta. If one keeps in mind with MEST Processing that it only comes about or it can only happen because of theta, he stays on good, clear ground. He can, however, very easily forget the existence of theta with regard to it, and go plunging down—as he is liable to in this material society anyhow—strictly into materialistic concepts. The function and the effort of theta (which is life energy) is a conquest of MEST, so far as we are concerned. Theta is engaged upon a conquest of MEST. If we take that as our basic postulate, these others follow very quickly. And I am going to give you several postulates.
Theta in its conquest of MEST conquers the MEST or withdraws and attacks MEST again. Therefore theta reaches a point where it will succumb in its attack and withdraw, and it will withdraw on down to death for the organism. But that is not death for theta.
You have theta, then, going through the cycle of attacking the material universe, conquering some portion of it, withdrawing, coming back to the attack of the physical universe, and withdrawing. That is the cycle of life and death. That is a cycle of birth, growth, decay and death. That is the tone scale, definitely, and I will show you how that is: Theta comes in to a harmonious conquest of MEST, then begins to impinge a little harder and a little harder on the MEST. When it gets down to 2.0 on the tone scale it is not doing well with this MEST; it has come to the point where it is going to have to do something drastic in order to retain possession of this MEST. As it tries and just becomes further enturbulated, it comes down to 1.5 and seeks to destroy the MEST. It drops lower than that, realizes that it is going to lose the MEST— that is fear—and then loses it, which is grief. And that is the end of that.
So we get this repetitive cycle of the tone scale, of the analytical levels of attack on MEST.
Theta gets in to a point where it really isn’t fun to have MEST but the MEST isn’t raising anything very tough, and this is boredom. A little bit further in, theta is still trying to force the MEST into fusion with it, and then just below that tries to destroy the MEST and get away from it somehow or other, and backs on out. This is a continuous cycle.
You could say that the purpose of theta is to create, conserve, maintain, destroy, change, occupy or permutate MEST— the material universe.
Hubbard, L. Ron. (1951-07-09) MEST Processing. Professional Course Lectures. Wichita, Kansas.
 
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Caroline

clerk #2
Hubbard gave a bit of history on Excalibur in this 1952 Professional Course lecture about mysticism and the origins of Dianetics. "You want to know about these ecstatic states, you come to Papa." (Speculate here about how Hubbard came to rise above the bank.)

Mysticism: Routes to the Top
Professional Course
2 February 1952
ORIGINS OF DIANETICS
There is no evidence of any kind that anybody ever achieves nirvana. But I can give you lots of evidence that man, with what we know right here in this school, can achieve a very happy and productive state of being. We know about that; we don’t know about the other.
Originally, when Dianetics was first written up — 1938 — it was written up out of a fund of information which had been accumulated over a long period of time. That information had been codified by what we now call mathematics, what we now call physics, we now call chemistry, biology, what we know about evolution. These various things all came together with what had been known for an awfully long time, and we got a codification of this. What was the basic goal of man?
Well, let’s not just go out and sail off to Alpha Centauri again; let’s put down a goal we can use and let’s find out what that goal is, and we find out how far it goes. I did so — 1938 — but don’t think for a moment that in following this track I haven’t been through every ecstatic state on the books. You want to know about these ecstatic states, you come to Papa.
Now, in 1938 I was so steamed up I wrote a 125,000-word book in six days — good book, it’s well written; six days. I bundled it up, took it to New York and said, “Oh boy, now we’ve got it!” I dropped it on some editorial desks. Fifteen people read it.
The first one that read it finished it; he didn’t bother to put it down. It was about seven or eight o’clock at night, evidently, because his secretary saw him in the office that late. He laid the book down, he opened up the safe, he took three thousand dollars’ worth of company funds and he has never been heard of since. Adventure one.
Two or three people read it and their jaws hung open and they looked at it and they said, “Well, modern psychology says . . .” and bogged down in all their maybes and looked unhappy, but nothing very bad happened to them.
A few more people, and then a fellow read the book, ran up an enormous amount of debts the very next morning and raced off for South Carolina with the wrong woman. There he was. He eventually had to pay these debts; he is still sort of ruined, but it is all right. The next thing that happened was one of the publishers to whom this book was submitted came in, got ahold of one of the foremost critics of psychiatric and mental works in New York and had this man come in and read this book, for his opinion, before they published it.
I was in the office the next day when the fellow brought the book back. He came in, he threw the book — this great critic, this great authority — threw the book down on the editorial desk so the inkwells jumped, and he said in a voice which was very close to a high-pitched scream,
“It’s not so, it’s not so, it’s not so, it’s not so, it’s not so!” And he turned around to me and he said, “You wrote that, didn’t you?” — screaming. And I looked at him rather numbly and he said, “You know damn well it isn’t so!” He screamed, went out, slammed the door hard enough to knock all the plate glass out of it, went home, packed and nobody knows where he is since.
Well, about that time I realized that there was something in this book which did something other than what I wanted it to do. Fifteen people read it, four went completely off their bases — just like that.
Well, I decided not to make a sixteenth guinea pig, and I pulled the book and I put it in the safe of Dell Publishing Company where a good friend was holding forth. And I said, “Now, you guard that book with your life. Don’t let anybody read it.” So she put it in with rare manuscripts and so forth that nobody ever looks at, and it stayed there until the end of the war. I took up considerable numbers of subjects in order to disprove this book, in order to disprove these theories, in order to change all of this, somehow, and alter it into something else, or find why it made people spin so badly. In this search I gyrated back, by the way, to mysticism, metaphysics, religion. It wasn’t a very far distance for me to gyrate; I change my spots very easily. In 1941 I was pretty well enmeshed in trying to prove up and go into the field of mysticism — go by the channel of mysticism to discover more.

Hubbard, L. Ron. (1952-02-02) Mysticism. Professional Course Lectures. Wichita, Kansas.
 

Caroline

clerk #2
In this lecture on the "Logics" Hubbard made some specific claims about the contents of Excalibur, and what effects that material has on Homo sapiens. Importantly, Hubbard identified this material as "Scientology."

INTRODUCTION: THE Q LIST AND BEGINNING OF LOGICS
A lecture given on 10 November 1952
Thank you.
The Axioms were basically written on a summary of information which began in November of 1938. And the basic Axioms of Dianetics were written at that time. It's interesting that the material at that time was called Scientology. It appeared in an unpublished manuscript called ''Excalibur.''
I had a great many calls, and have had a great many calls, to be permitted to read "Excalibur." So just as a joke one time I said, why, sure, I would give anybody a copy of "Excalibur" for fifteen hundred dollars. That's a little trick you use: When you're tired of saying no and no hasn't made any impression on anybody, then you just make it scarce. And that's the same as no, but they're so used to this society making everything scarce that it falls inevitably, then, that there would be no bids for it. So fifteen hundred dollars for a copy of "Excalibur" unfortunately netted two replies- demands for "Excalibur" - and this was quite interesting. I had also qualified. I said a person had to be of extreme stability, and so forth, in order to read this book. So I had to knock those two out on insufficient stability.
The truth of the matter is that the raw, naked material of "Excalibur" has the effect upon Homo sapiens of uninhibiting him. And he suddenly realizes that all those things which have held him in a cage are shadows. And they're shadows of such flimsy character that about four cases out of fifteen, in reviewing the material, find themselves suddenly-they think-capable of doing anything they wish to do, and they promptly proceed to do it.
Well, that is not the case. One is not free in this MEST universe and in this society to do everything he pleases to do. There are some small regulations.
Hubbard, L. Ron. (1952-11-10) The Q List And Beginning Of Logics. Logics and Axioms. London, England.
 

Caroline

clerk #2
In this Philadelphia Doctorate Course lecture, Hubbard says Excalibur was about how he did the "simple job of putting together how do you make a universe."

Formative State of Scientology: Definition of Logic
A Lecture given by L. Ron Hubbard
on the 6. December 1952
It doesn’t do much good to be logical about a preclear. We know in Scientology there are so many things that can be wrong with him in this universe. We know he has so many can’ts on create, and so many can’ts on destroy, and so many can’ts on change in this universe on eight dynamics. And we know he’s got these various compartments of eight dynamics, and he can’t do some of these things. That’s that. You run mock-ups on these things, and your preclear’ll come out all right. There’s no sense in trying to be logical.
Never bother to ask him, "Why? Now why was that aberrative to you?" Never ask him to evaluate, because the silliest trick of this universe is: beyond the progressive line of agreement there is no logic in this universe. That IS the logic of this universe. Therefore engineering, mathematics and electronics seem to be so certain and so true. But they are only the track of agreement – there is no logic beyond that agreement. You can make any kind of a logical series of exercises you want to make, and have a wonderful time with them, and amuse yourself no end. But logic was not used to work out Scientology. Logic was not used.
If this had been the simple job of putting together how do you make a universe, that job was done in 1938, and it was written about in a book called EXCALIBUR. But it didn’t work because everybody was in agreement with the MEST universe so you had to find out what this universe was all about, and you had to find out how it was put together and what all these agreements were and what the progressive scale of agreement was, and what happened on the whole line. And then you could make Scientology work. So it became a study of agreement, progressive agreement. But progressive agreement doesn’t really fall within the… the framework of logic. Logic is a progressive similarity.
Hubbard, L. R. (1952-12-06). Formative State of Scientology Definition of Logic. Philadelphia Doctorate Course, (PDC 20, 5212C06B). Philadelphia, PA.

Compare Hubbard's "universe" with Aleister Crowley's Ceremonial Magick instructions:

PRELIMINARY REMARKS
[...]
We shall consider a simple form of magick, harmonized from many systems old and new, describing the various weapons of the Magician and the furniture of his temple. We shall explain to what each really corresponds, and discuss the construction and the use of everything.
The Magician works in a Temple; the Universe, which is (be it remembered!) conterminous with himself.[*]
Bk-4 (p.50).pngIn this temple a Circle is drawn upon the floor for the limitation of his working. This circle is protected by divine names, the influences on which he relies to keep out hostile thoughts. Within the circle stands an Altar, the solid basis on which he works, the foundation of all. Upon the Altar are his Wand, Cup, Sword, and Pantacle, to represent his Will, his Understanding, his Reason, and the lower parts of his being, respectively. On the Altar, too, is a phial of Oil, surrounded by a Scourge, a Dagger, and a Chain, while above the Altar hangs a Lamp. The Magician wears a Crown, a single Robe, and a Lamen, and he bears a Book of Conjurations and a Bell.
_______
[*] By "yourself" you mean the contents of your consciousness. All without does not exist for you.
CHAPTER 1
THE TEMPLE
THE TEMPLE represents the external Universe. The Magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, Liber VII, VI: 2: "We made us a Temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed." This shape is the vesica piscis; but it is only the greatest of the Magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the Magician to reincarnate in a suitable body.

Crowley, Aleister (1997) Book IV Liber ABA. Ordo Templi Orientis (pp. 47, 49,50)
 

Caroline

clerk #2
From the First American Advanced Indoctrination Course, Hubbard mentioned being struck every once in a while by there being "sufficient orienting factors" in Excalibur that made it more workable than the deeper technology in the 1950s.

He also says that his bizarre, and arguably antisocial rule, that "a man is as sane as he considers himself dangerous to his environment," originates in Excalibur. This is a basic Scientology datum. It can also be found stated in various ways in Hubbard's affirmations:

  • You are rich in wisdom. You are therefore dangerous beyond the claws of tigers. You never need speak of your dangerousness. Everyone knows you are and it scares them when you mention it. You are kind and soft-spoken always.
  • There was no danger for you from government or navy. You are too big to be touched by their petty opinions and force. Your force and destiny is infinite power.
  • Your psychology is advanced and true and wonderful. It hypnotizes people. It predicts their emotions, for you are their ruler.
    You don’t have to talk about all this. You know too well it is true. You never have to argue, all you need to do is sit back with a calm, kind smile and people will come to you with their opinions. You need never talk to fill silences in a group. You are an arbiter, a kindly one. You do not have to talk. But when you do talk you are amusing, witty, so personable no one can resist your charm. If they do not reply, it is because they are afraid of you.
The Admissions of L. Ron Hubbard

__________


Subjective Processes (Cont'd) Why a Thetan is Stuck in a Body
First American Advanced Indoctrination Course Lectures
Lecture of October 16, 1953
[...]​

I wrote a book in 1938 and probably will never completely recover from having done so. And I gave this book the working title - the mask you might say - of Excalibur. And it was quite a book. It contains, in essence, most of the theory which has been later used. But it didn't have it in any kind of a transmittable organization.
Every once in a while - the book has sufficient orienting factors in it that every now and then I am struck by the fact that we have gone into too deep, technical communication networks concerning this material. And I go back and reevaluate the material against the original postulates in that 1938 book and all of a sudden we lose a lot of technology suddenly and gain a lot of workability.
It would seem to indicate, if the reductio ad absurdum were followed, that everything would simply boil down to one flash. And this would be very nice to contemplate but I have not found this really taking place.
I have, however, found that with the Prelogics, the fact that the mission of theta is to create space in which to locate matter and energy - the Prelogics are a very definite advance. There's the Theta-MEST theory and those. They're very good evaluating theories. Extremely good.
But in this original book there is something that you should know: A man is as sane as he considers himself dangerous to his environment. A real good one for you. That is a not entirely integrated statement. But it is an entirely workable statement.
A man is as sane as he considers himself dangerous to his environment. A woman is as sane as she considers herself dangerous to her environment. Follows with a corollary that a person is as bad off as he considers himself in a dangerous environment. Follow?
Insanity, then, would be that condition pursuant to the consideration of the individual that he is in a dangerous environment, so dangerous that it cannot ever be coped with now or in the future and probably in the belief that he'd never coped with it. See, that would be the complete "gone apathy" about the whole thing.
Well, now let's integrate that with regard to the fellow caught in his body. He is not dangerous to his environment as much as he would like to be and he considers his environment dangerous to him. If you remember this as an auditor - if you remember this, actually, as a case, your problems have a tendency to sort of wither away.

Hubbard, L. R. (1953-10-16). Subjective Processes (Cont'd) Why a Thetan is Stuck in a Body. First American Advanced Indoctrination Course Lectures. Camden, NJ.

"The Dangerous Environment" theory is taught at all levels of Scientology, beginning with introductory courses and Volunteer Minister propaganda. This theory is a key part of Hubbard's Suppressive Person doctrine. See "Scientology, the Dangerous Environment Racket" by Gerry Armstrong (2009).
 

Zertel

Well-known member
I think Hubbard had one whopper of a kensho experience. Since time and space is irrelevant in the Infinite, while he was in that state maybe the "All And Everything" flooded into his "beingness". Perhaps sadly enough as he states, "There is no evidence of any kind that anybody ever achieves nirvana." Some people keep trying.

from Wikipedia

Kenshō[note 1] (見性) is a Japanese term from the Zen tradition. Ken means "seeing", shō means "nature, essence".[4][2] It is usually translated as "seeing one's (true) nature", that is, the Buddha-nature.

Kenshō is an initial insight or awakening, not full Buddhahood.[5] It is to be followed by further training to deepen this insight, and learn to express it in daily life.[6][7][8]

The term kenshō is often used interchangeably with satori, which is derived from the verb satoru,[9] and means "comprehension; understanding".[web 1][note 2][note 3]
..........................................................................

From Dictionary.com

nirvana (often initial capital letter) Pali, nibbana.

Buddhism. freedom from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations, with their consequent suffering, as a result of the extinction of individual passion, hatred, and delusion: attained by the Arhat as his goal but postponed by the Bodhisattva.

(often initial capital letter) Hinduism. salvation through the union of Atman with Brahma; moksha.
a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world.
...........................................................................
That's a simple definition I found and I think it expresses the basic idea without needing to go into an extensive word clearing chain. :)
 
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Zertel

Well-known member
I think Hubbard had one whopper of a kensho experience. Since time and space is irrelevant in the Infinite, while he was in that state maybe the "All And Everything" flooded into his "beingness". Perhaps sadly enough as he states, "There is no evidence of any kind that anybody ever achieves nirvana." Some people keep trying.

from Wikipedia

Kenshō[note 1] (見性) is a Japanese term from the Zen tradition. Ken means "seeing", shō means "nature, essence".[4][2] It is usually translated as "seeing one's (true) nature", that is, the Buddha-nature.

Kenshō is an initial insight or awakening, not full Buddhahood.[5] It is to be followed by further training to deepen this insight, and learn to express it in daily life.[6][7][8]

The term kenshō is often used interchangeably with satori, which is derived from the verb satoru,[9] and means "comprehension; understanding".[web 1][note 2][note 3]
..........................................................................

From Dictionary.com

nirvana (often initial capital letter) Pali, nibbana.

Buddhism. freedom from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations, with their consequent suffering, as a result of the extinction of individual passion, hatred, and delusion: attained by the Arhat as his goal but postponed by the Bodhisattva.

(often initial capital letter) Hinduism. salvation through the union of Atman with Brahma; moksha.
a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world.
...........................................................................
That's a simple definition I found and I think it expresses the basic idea without needing to go into an extensive word clearing chain. :)
While I'm at it I couldn't resist doing some more word clearing.

from Dictionary.com

Atman
noun Hinduism.
1. the principle of life.
2. the individual self, known after enlightenment to be identical with Brahman.
3. (initial capital letter) the World Soul, from which all individual souls derive, and to which they return as the supreme goal of existence.

Brahman
noun, plural Brah·mans. Hinduism.
1. Also Brahmin. a member of the highest, or priestly, class among the Hindus.
2. Also Brahma. the impersonal supreme being, the primal source and ultimate goal of all beings, with which Atman, when enlightened, knows itself to be identical.

Moksha
noun Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism.
freedom from the differentiated, temporal, and mortal world of ordinary experience.

An article on world population in wiki says that an estimate of the number of humans who have ever lived is of the order of 100 billion so probably millions or billions of humans have had kensho experiences over time. Why some people have them and some don't who knows.

If the experience puts one in the temporary state of knowing Who You Are, Where You Are, and Why You Are, then wow.

Western man isn't satisfied with sitting around in bliss. He wants to do stuff. Hubbard spiced things up by promising OT Powerz. Double wow!

End of philosophical pondering.
 
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