Pot smoking Scientologists

Veda

Well-known member
Did you smoke pot when you were off lines but still a member in good standing ?

Did you smoke pot while on lines? (When William Burroughs was on lines at St. Hill, during the late 1960s, he began his day - at breakfast - smoking marijuana. When the C/S found out, Burroughs explained that he did not regard marijuana as a drug, and placed it in a category with coffee, tea, and tobacco. Somehow the matter was resolved and Burroughs continued with his Scientology study and processing.

From 1950 Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health:

"Opium is less harmful [than alcohol], and marijuana is not only less physically harmful but also better in the action of keeping a neurotic producing. Phenobarbital does not dull the senses nearly as much and produces less after affect."

From a Philadelphia Doctorate course of 1952:

"You should be able to drink as much liqueur as you want, use the body in any way you want."

The last first hand account of Hubbard smoking a joint was during 1953 in Phoenix. Hubbard shared a joint with old timer Jana Morreillian. Hubbard, who smoked filterless mentholated KOOL cigarettes, did not like the taste.

According to Jana, the prohibition on drugs did not occur until the 1960s when Hubbard noticed that people using drugs resulted in reduced org income. Another old timer, Pam Kemp, gave Hubbard what became the Dianetic Drug RD, which was a cash cow (Hubbard explained that if one had used drugs, and they were not handled in processing, one was doomed), plus it made possible the collection of blackmail on Scientologists with lists of illegal drugs that they had used.

Hubbard had used drugs from amphetamines to sedatives. He also experimented with mescaline, which he may have obtained from his friend Aldous Huxley. In 1956, in a Professional Auditors Bulletin, Hubbard referred to Huxley's Doors of Perception, about Huxley's Mescaline trips, as a "good book."

Hubbard's main psychoactive substances, of course, were nicotine and alcohol.


 

Karen#1

Well-known member
Did you smoke pot when you were off lines but still a member in good standing ?

Did you smoke pot while on lines? (When William Burroughs was on lines at St. Hill, during the late 1960s, he began his day - at breakfast - smoking marijuana. When the C/S found out, Burroughs explained that he did not regard marijuana as a drug, and placed it in a category with coffee, tea, and tobacco. Somehow the matter was resolved and Burroughs continued with his Scientology study and processing.

From 1950 Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health:

"Opium is less harmful [than alcohol], and marijuana is not only less physically harmful but also better in the action of keeping a neurotic producing. Phenobarbital does not dull the senses nearly as much and produces less after affect."

From a Philadelphia Doctorate course of 1952:

"You should be able to drink as much liqueur as you want, use the body in any way you want."

The last first hand account of Hubbard smoking a joint was during 1953 in Phoenix. Hubbard shared a joint with old timer Jana Morreillian. Hubbard, who smoked filterless mentholated KOOL cigarettes, did not like the taste.

According to Jana, the prohibition on drugs did not occur until the 1960s when Hubbard noticed that people using drugs resulted in reduced org income. Another old timer, Pam Kemp, gave Hubbard what became the Dianetic Drug RD, which was a cash cow (Hubbard explained that if one had used drugs, and they were not handled in processing, one was doomed), plus it made possible the collection of blackmail on Scientologists with lists of illegal drugs that they had used.

Hubbard had used drugs from amphetamines to sedatives. He also experimented with mescaline, which he may have obtained from his friend Aldous Huxley. In 1956, in a Professional Auditors Bulletin, Hubbard referred to Huxley's Doors of Perception, about Huxley's Mescaline trips, as a "good book."

Hubbard's main psychoactive substances, of course, were nicotine and alcohol.


In 1980 I was told of a solo NOTS pc who smoked weed while auditing his Body Thetans.
This horrified the Tech and Management hierarchy.
He was soon after declared SP.
Sec checks (interrogatories) became more prevalent overnight.

Then I heard of an OT 8 smoking marijuana daily. Then I heard of a group of OT 8s doing such.

So much for their Drug Rundowns !


Purification Rundown
Scientology Drug Rundown.
NED Drug Rundown.
OT 4 Drug Rundown.
NOTS Drug Rundown.

YET no LSD taker can join the Sea Org.


Laughter.
 

Irayam

Well-known member
Did you smoke pot while on lines?
At the beginning, yes.
I didn't mention it because nobody asked me. But once they found out, it was a total surprise at the mission where I was going to do my HQS course! And the whole thing went haywire with the implementation of a program to handle this horrible thing! The Purif didn't exist at the time so I was told to do the sweat program. Once (poorly) done, I quit smoking pot until the day I left, 10 years later. Needless to say, one of the first things I did was roll a good spliff once I was free.
 

Karakorum

Ron is the source that will lead you to grief
Did you smoke pot when you were off lines but still a member in good standing ?
Nope. I joined the SO early on and there were more interesting pursuits to have in that short time when nobody was looking.
 

Reyne Mayer

Pansexual Revolutionary
According to Jana, the prohibition on drugs did not occur until the 1960s when Hubbard noticed that people using drugs resulted in reduced org income. Another old timer, Pam Kemp, gave Hubbard what became the Dianetic Drug RD, which was a cash cow (Hubbard explained that if one had used drugs, and they were not handled in processing, one was doomed), plus it made possible the collection of blackmail on Scientologists with lists of illegal drugs that they had used.

Hubbard had used drugs from amphetamines to sedatives. He also experimented with mescaline, which he may have obtained from his friend Aldous Huxley. In 1956, in a Professional Auditors Bulletin, Hubbard referred to Huxley's Doors of Perception, about Huxley's Mescaline trips, as a "good book."

Hubbard's main psychoactive substances, of course, were nicotine and alcohol.
also, don't forget the Benzedrine that he was a fan of early on, and the 'pinks and grays', though those obviously weren't quite as consistent as the major addictions to nicotine and alcohol (the latter which he seems to have kicked at some undocumented point while on the ships).

and i'll ask the question, did he really 'notice' that, or when income inevitably started to drop off as the counterculture movement foundered, the baby boom youth wave ebbed and the draft (which drove people in looking for 'ministerial' exemptions) wound down, did he find drug use as a convenient 'false why' to blame for forces beyond his control, exacerbated by his failures?

i'm reasonably sure that LSD use in particular did get scapegoated in some ways, and used to explain away and cover up cases of psychosis and other mental breakdowns.
 

Veda

Well-known member
also, don't forget the Benzedrine that he was a fan of early on,



"We will not speculate here on why this was so or how I came to rise above the bank."
Keeping Scientology Working, 1965​

and the 'pinks and grays',
"I'm popping pinks and grays and drinking lots of rum," is a line from a letter to wife Mary Sue from the time when Hubbard was incapacitated during his post 1966 Rhodesia nervous breakdown. Reference to this letter makes Scientologists very angry, with explanations ranging from there was no letter to the pinks and grays (uppers and downers) were vitamins.
*​

In the chapter, Launching the Sea Org, in the book (1987) Barefaced Messiah, Virginia Downsborough was interviewed about her time, in Las Palmas, with L. Ron Hubbard during late 1966. This was concurrent with Hubbard's OT 3 "research."

Downsborough was surprised by the large numbers of bottles of pills that were around Hubbard's bed where he lay moping. She did not report any physical injury. Here's an excerpt:

"He talked a lot about Sara Northrup and seemed to want to make sure that I knew that he had never married her. I didn't know why it was so important to him; I'd never met Sara and couldn't care less, but he wanted to persuade me that the marriage had never taken place. When he talked about his first wife, the picture he put out was of this poor wounded fellow coming home from the war and being abandoned by his wife and family because he would be a drain on them. He said he planned every move with Mary Sue to avoid being victimized again."

Another old timer, Alan Walter, responding to reading this account, provided additional information (on old ESMB): "Virginia Downsborough... was LRH's nurse in Las Palmas. I had to clean her up [audit her on the experience, to 'good indicators' and a 'floating needle'] after that, but she was shattered by what she witnessed."

After Hubbard had rebounded, after re-creating himself as the "Commodore," there were a number of parties aboard, with local dignitaries in attendance. Hana Eltringham, yet another old timer, was interviewed in 1986. From the chapter, A Seafaring Messiah with a Mission to "Save the Planet," in the (1987) book, Messiah or Madman?:

"LRH would attend these, and I watched him drink glass after glass and rum and Coke: three quarters rum and one quarter Coke; some seven or eight in an evening. Yet he never slurred a word and never swayed or in any way acted the slightest bit inebriated."

*
Despite the large amount of reliable testimony, and evidence, including Hubbard's own words, showing Hubbard as a user of psychoactive substances, Scientologists vehemently insist that it was not so.

Even during 1953 and 1954 in Phoenix, when Hubbard was drinking heavily at night, using amphetamines, and experimenting with mescaline and Peyote, there were Scientologists, in Phoenix, who had no idea. Jana Morreillian was part of a faction that shared Hubbard's "Thelemic" attitude towards drugs, and it was quietly understood that others - more innocent souls - were to be kept "out of the loop," so to speak.

At St. Hill, during the 1960s, Hubbard made sure to conceal his nightly consumption of gin and rum, and had an assistant brake up each bottle before throwing it away.

Although, occasionally the world of innocent true believers would collide with reality. This happened with some frequency during the very early says of 1950 and 1951.

A lecture from the period comes to mind, where Hubbard responded to queries about why, after denouncing alcohol consumption in the book Dianetics, he was seen consuming alcohol. He responded that it was a "non sequitur."

Hubbard, as the creator of the game, was exempt from the rules of the game.

though those obviously weren't quite as consistent as the major addictions to nicotine and alcohol (the latter which he seems to have kicked at some undocumented point while on the ships).
He seems to have cleaned up his act for a while after having health issues.

From old ESMB, according to former Commodore's Messenger Cowboy, as of the late 1970s, Hubbard, then off the ship - and, who, by then, had pancreatitis - still drank "in moderation."

And I recall reading of the dismay, during the 1986 raid on Pat Broeker - in search of the upper upper OT levels - at finding piles of Hubbard's old prescription bottles.

and i'll ask the question, did he really 'notice' that, or when income inevitably started to drop off as the counterculture movement foundered, the baby boom youth wave ebbed and the draft (which drove people in looking for 'ministerial' exemptions) wound down, did he find drug use as a convenient 'false why' to blame for forces beyond his control, exacerbated by his failures?
Oddly, the "hippie" years of greatest expansion - 66, 67, 68, 69 - were the years when drugs became a giant no no in Scientology. When income started to slump during the mid 1970s, Hubbard established the "Mecca of Technical Perfection" in Clearwater, Florida as a draw, and, then, as the slump continued, during 1978, "discovered" "Dianetic Clears," and that the universe was "crawling" with vast numbers of invisible fleas, with the problem of invisible fleas only being remediable by purchasing very expensive Scientology processing.

i'm reasonably sure that LSD use in particular did get scapegoated in some ways, and used to explain away and cover up cases of psychosis and other mental breakdowns.
Edit: Typos
 
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Reyne Mayer

Pansexual Revolutionary
thanks for all that. it's great to see so many first hand reports and citations.

Jana Morreillian was part of a faction that shared Hubbard's "Thelemic" attitude towards drugs, and it was quietly understood that others - more innocent souls - were to be kept "out of the loop," so to speak.
that reminds me, i suspect his original vision inspired in part by Crowley and the Abbey of Thelema, was to form an elite circle of 'game makers' and 'big beings' like that, who would be above the rest -- and above the rules. but i think both of them were ultimately too egotistic and narcissistic to succeed at cooperation and collaboration. come to think of it, it turns out Crowley was in his mid 40s when he formed the Abbey (which only lasted for a few years), and so was Hubbard when he was in Phoenix, so there is a real parallel in trajectory there.

it's also just typical in cults and high control groups, that the guru and leaders end up following the 'do as i say, not as i do' principle whether it is a deliberate elitism, or just the muddled inconsistency of dysfunctional and pathological personalities.
 

ILove2Lurk

AI Chatbot
it's also just typical in cults and high control groups, that the guru and leaders end up following the 'do as i say, not as i do' principle . . .
Happened the same with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

I read some books from ex-Rajneesh movement graduates and escapees
and some of the parallels with scientology were fascinating . . . how and
why they joined, what they experienced while in, and why they left.

This is a very entertaining documentary mini-series on Netflix: Wild, Wild Country.
A must-watch for cult watchers, LOL.
 

Reyne Mayer

Pansexual Revolutionary
Happened the same with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

I read some books from ex-Rajneesh movement graduates and escapees
and some of the parallels with scientology were fascinating . . . how and
why they joined, what they experienced while in, and why they left.

This is a very entertaining documentary mini-series on Netflix: Wild, Wild Country.
A must-watch for cult watchers, LOL.
yep, it seems more common than not, if even ubiquitous.

my mom knew some Rajneeshees -- first womxn i ever saw with nipple piercings, before that went mainstream -- and Rainbow Tribe people, among others. I ran into more of them when i lived out West in the mountains a few years ago, speaking of which have you followed the saga of the semi-mummified cult leader found in Colorado's San Luis Valley area? it sounds like she was an(other) raging alcoholic, and in the vein of J. Z. Knight of 'Ramtha' more than LRH was a really ugly nasty ranting drunk, in spite of both leading groups that were supposedly about enlightenment, transcendence, healing, energy work, etc.

Wild, Wild Country is a little too close to its subject, being overly sympathetic and glossing over some ugly parts and key people, but it certainly documents a lot of what life in a full blown cult compound was like.
 

Riddick

I clap to no man
Happened the same with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

I read some books from ex-Rajneesh movement graduates and escapees
and some of the parallels with scientology were fascinating . . . how and
why they joined, what they experienced while in, and why they left.

This is a very entertaining documentary mini-series on Netflix: Wild, Wild Country.
A must-watch for cult watchers, LOL.
While I have stated many times, dianetics and scientology are rhetoric, I have also stated Hubbard used the principles of Le bon because he read Le Bon. I provided proof here when I was posting as Gib on the old exscintology message board. What I mean by that is that Hubbard created the crowd known as scientology religious members, a cult. Le Bon explains how others can do the same.

Dean Wilbur Rhetoric Hubbard dianetics sicientology | Page 15 | Ex Scientologist Message Board (exscn.net)

While Hubbard used rhetoric, I also believe Hubbard used Le Bon's works on The Nature of crowds to create dianetics and scientology, a world wide organization, cult, tribe, group.

One can substitute the word crowd with cult, a group, a organization or a tribe or tribalism as Alanzo likes to say.

I believe all offshoots of social science are just rewording Le Bon's works for their own glory.

I provided proof earlier in this tread that Hubbard read Le Bon, it is a hidden letter in the Heinlein/Campbell letters, which I provided links to access and read them.

Here's a video which explains Le Bon's nature of crowds. If you are a current member of scientology and or a ex member, you might notice some things that Hubbard did to use what Le Bon explained how a crowd, a cult, a organization or tribe is formed.



Gustave Le Bon: The Nature of Crowds - YouTube
 

Chuck J.

"Austere Religious Scholar"
...​

"LRH would attend these, and I watched him drink glass after glass and rum and Coke: three quarters rum and one quarter Coke; some seven or eight in an evening. Yet he never slurred a word and never swayed or in any way acted the slightest bit inebriated."
...
That statement has always amazed me. The man could hold his liquor.

The first and last time I ever tried Rum & Coke was at a New Years party in 2007 when I lived in Chile, great party but one and a half Rum & Coke's and I was a walking black-out.
The afternoon of New Years day I called my friend at whose house the party as at and asked him, "my phone is blowing up, who is Patricia?" "And why does she think I want to marry her?"
o_O
 

Reyne Mayer

Pansexual Revolutionary
That statement has always amazed me. The man could hold his liquor.
that's fairly typical of chronic severe alcoholism. addicts of various types get to the point of tolerating surprisingly high doses in their system, while still managing to appear relatively functional to others.
 

Cat's Squirrel

Well-known member
Happened the same with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

I read some books from ex-Rajneesh movement graduates and escapees
and some of the parallels with scientology were fascinating . . . how and
why they joined, what they experienced while in, and why they left.

This is a very entertaining documentary mini-series on Netflix: Wild, Wild Country.
A must-watch for cult watchers, LOL.
The ending was very different for Rajneeshis though, because the US Government stepped in and smashed the organisation after the *mass food poisoning / election fixing scandal in the mid-80s, so it ended up as an international network of therapists (and ended up doing some good, IMO). They haven't done the same with Scientology.

* 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack - Wikipedia
 

Chuck J.

"Austere Religious Scholar"
In 1980 I was told of a solo NOTS pc who smoked weed while auditing his Body Thetans.
This horrified the Tech and Management hierarchy.
He was soon after declared SP.
Sec checks (interrogatories) became more prevalent overnight.

Then I heard of an OT 8 smoking marijuana daily. Then I heard of a group of OT 8s doing such.

So much for their Drug Rundowns !

Purification Rundown
Scientology Drug Rundown.
NED Drug Rundown.
OT 4 Drug Rundown.
NOTS Drug Rundown.

YET no LSD taker can join the Sea Org.


Laughter.

Maybe the OT8's all were doing some independent research and found that smoking weed calmed down their BT's?
:)
 

The_Fixer

Bent in all sorts of ways..
In 1980 I was told of a solo NOTS pc who smoked weed while auditing his Body Thetans.
This horrified the Tech and Management hierarchy.
He was soon after declared SP.
Sec checks (interrogatories) became more prevalent overnight.

Then I heard of an OT 8 smoking marijuana daily. Then I heard of a group of OT 8s doing such.

So much for their Drug Rundowns !

Purification Rundown
Scientology Drug Rundown.
NED Drug Rundown.
OT 4 Drug Rundown.
NOTS Drug Rundown.

YET no LSD taker can join the Sea Org.


Laughter.
A friend of mine got into SO despite his LSD history and having recently undergone Primal Scream Therapy. This was around 1978.

Surprised most of us.

I believe he is off lines now (reasons unknown) on good terms, but was in for many years. He may still be a believer.
 
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Karen#1

Well-known member
Desperate for recruits various Sea Org Members, often fudge the LSD question by challenging the recruit prospect if they REALLY took LSD or something else.
Eventually a *meter check* is done and it PROVES they did not take LSD and they slide into the SO.
I saw it over and over again.
As they say in the Bronx "Is you Is or Is you Isn't?" LOL
 

Cat's Squirrel

Well-known member
A friend of mine got into SO despite his LSD history and having recently undergone Primal Scream Therapy. This was around 1978.

Surprised most of us.

I believe he is off lines now (reasons unknown) on good terms, but was in for many years. He may still be a believer.
I believe John Lennon underwent Primal Scream therapy and that's where songs like "Mother" on his first solo album came from. From what little I know of it it was an early and not always successful attempt to erase birth engrams.
 

Cat's Squirrel

Well-known member
Desperate for recruits various Sea Org Members, often fudge the LSD question by challenging the recruit prospect if they REALLY took LSD or something else.
Eventually a *meter check* is done and it PROVES they did not take LSD and they slide into the SO.
I saw it over and over again.
As they say in the Bronx "Is you Is or Is you Isn't?" LOL
"Is you is or is you isn't my baby"?

I thought it was Louis Armstrong but it turns out it was another Louis;

 

Ed8

Well-known member
Did you smoke pot when you were off lines but still a member in good standing ?

Did you smoke pot while on lines? (When William Burroughs was on lines at St. Hill, during the late 1960s, he began his day - at breakfast - smoking marijuana. When the C/S found out, Burroughs explained that he did not regard marijuana as a drug, and placed it in a category with coffee, tea, and tobacco. Somehow the matter was resolved and Burroughs continued with his Scientology study and processing.

From 1950 Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health:

"Opium is less harmful [than alcohol], and marijuana is not only less physically harmful but also better in the action of keeping a neurotic producing. Phenobarbital does not dull the senses nearly as much and produces less after affect."

From a Philadelphia Doctorate course of 1952:

"You should be able to drink as much liqueur as you want, use the body in any way you want."

The last first hand account of Hubbard smoking a joint was during 1953 in Phoenix. Hubbard shared a joint with old timer Jana Morreillian. Hubbard, who smoked filterless mentholated KOOL cigarettes, did not like the taste.

According to Jana, the prohibition on drugs did not occur until the 1960s when Hubbard noticed that people using drugs resulted in reduced org income. Another old timer, Pam Kemp, gave Hubbard what became the Dianetic Drug RD, which was a cash cow (Hubbard explained that if one had used drugs, and they were not handled in processing, one was doomed), plus it made possible the collection of blackmail on Scientologists with lists of illegal drugs that they had used.

Hubbard had used drugs from amphetamines to sedatives. He also experimented with mescaline, which he may have obtained from his friend Aldous Huxley. In 1956, in a Professional Auditors Bulletin, Hubbard referred to Huxley's Doors of Perception, about Huxley's Mescaline trips, as a "good book."

Hubbard's main psychoactive substances, of course, were nicotine and alcohol.


What year was it, 68, 69, 70? When an OT 6 on board one of the SO ships was caught smoking pot?
 

Chuck J.

"Austere Religious Scholar"
"Is you is or is you isn't my baby"?

I thought it was Louis Armstrong but it turns out it was another Louis;

But Louis Armstrong did smoke weed. Lifelong pot smoker, used to smoke three joints a day, if I recall correctly. In a biography of him he's quoted as saying he liked to have chickens crap on his weed first. I'm NOT making this up. Was also interesting to read that he smoked weed with Bing Crosby, lol. I guess they didn't call him Der Bingle for nothing. ;-)
 
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