humphrey

I won't lie to you. There's a lot of really good science fiction out right now. Post-singularity shit that would stand your hair on end. There are some good minds writing some really thoughtful stories.

Why then, is the only going science-fiction author cult of personality devoted to -- of all people -- L Ron Hubbard?! If Scientology were pretty much exactly the same but centered around Philip K Dick, my god -- I'd want in, for his secret scriptures! The lectures on cosmogony! The resonant gnostic insights that made PKD's work so mythic!

If the Philip K Dick cult were, in all other ways, exactly the same as Scientology, I'd probably be quite upset that they were 'squirrelling' PKD's tech. But if it was PKD tech, they wouldn't have to change it... at all, or ever! [Also note that PKD wouldn't have told his followers they were ubermensche with the sacral right to destroy all lesser life! Not only would it have actually valuable books, it would be a much kinder, gentler cult... though even a PKD cult might run into the same problems Scientology is having trying to keep their upper-level materials secret in the Internet age... in fact, it would be worse for a PKD cult, because unlike the poisonous barbiturate-drenched Hubbard scrawl, people would -want- these materials! Yaaa]

I'm just saying it's a shame that these people aren't being sold materials that are culturally sanctioned as eye-opening or mind-expanding. The scam goes all the way down to the value and style of their foundational content, which are abysmal.

If it was a PKD cult people would join -because they worship PKD-! No-one joins Scientology out of love of L Ron Hubbard. People join out of confusion and misdirection and are taught about him as a side-effect.

A shiny gold star to anyone who can find me a non-scientology-affiliated L Ron Hubbard fan club.

:D

YetAnotherAnonymous

Thing is, really good sci-fi writers make a decent living out of their writing.

Shitty hack pulp-fiction writers don't, and therefore have to resort to other methods of making money. Some write columns for magazines, others hold down day jobs; this particular one decided to start a Ponzi scam.

In a way, it's a pity that LRH wasn't a better writer, because if he could have made a really good living out of writing, he might never have started this shit.

"It’s purely made-up. It just taps into some 'gullibiligy'. They find some film star or somebody like Tom Cruise or whatever his name is who's thick as two short planks and he becomes a sort of advertisement." ~ Richard Dawkins

humphrey

Point. Probably then, most of what good sci-fi authors would have told their cult is already in their works -- fiction being a somewhat more savoury medium for philosophic-existential insights than secret cult scriptures

L Ron Hubbard didn't have the opportunity to embed his rank ideas in fiction. His fiction didn't sell. So everything he had to get off his chest went into the annals of a creepy cult...

I think a cult of personality centered around a stable individual with unequivocally great ideas could be positive for everyone involved. But it might -still- be destructive to the community around it.

All cults might be bad

FUCK

Sci-fi is crap.

Indiana Anonymous at cause!
http://indiananon.ning.com

The Dude Abides

Hubbard was way too messed up to handle a real job and he didn't have the talent to write fiction people felt was worth paying for. The only work a flake like Hubbard was able to land was writing painfully dragged out, third rate, pulp mag, science fiction for a penny a word. It wasn't enough to sustain him, so he found a cult of suckers who allowed him to hypnotize them into working for him. If Hubbard had enough talent to author quality work, he wouldn't have been force to take the con man route of cult leader instead.

Oswald2001

Hubbard was a predatory sociopathic megalomaniacal pathological liar control freak dominator destroyer.

Pulp sci-fi writing would never have been enough for him. Even if he were have to made millions from it (which he didn't), he would have had to have another outlet for his truly evil intents.

Predators gotta have prey.

He hadda have a CULT for that.

"Go sell crazy somewhere else... we're all stocked up here."

failboat

Good sci-fi writers pay attention in their math and science classes.

Hubbard failed his introductory nuclear physics/chemistry class.

Fail Fleet Naval Vessel awaiting orders.

The Dude Abides

his specialty was extremely cheesy sci-fi comedy some people call it Scientology

PimpXenu

i remember i started reading battlefield earth when i was a kid, long before i knew who lron was or what scientology was.

Wow...that was a horrible book. The funny thing was i didnt have very good taste as a kid either, i thought dragonlance was like Shakespeare, but i just couldnt stand battlefield earth, i think i only made it like 1/4 of the way through and i just gave up. I just flat out couldnt understand why something that bad was "popular".

Wasnt until much later that i figured out it must be scilons promoting the shit out of the book to boost it's numbers.

Is this ok to post ^^^ ?

Anonymous

King Felix

Anonymous

thread/

Anonymous

Isaac Asimov would have also made an infinity more believable space alien drama for a cult religion. And the only one he would have declared an inferior being would have been lron!

Of course Isaac had a conscience (whereas hubbard was all con science) plus a great sci-fi writer to boot!

Deus Ex Machina

This is a true story. I have to be vague on certain details, both to protect myself & the others in the story.

I actually ran into a very small proto-cult building up around a mediocre sci-fi author about 7 years ago. I had picked up & read the guy's first novel, it had some interesting ideas but his writing was just sub-par all around. Maybe a year later a girl I'd met took me to this party. After I'd spent the first couple hours loudly pontificating on some cutting-edge technologies I was interested in at the time & some implications of them for society in the future, I found out that almost everybody at the party was a rabid fan of this bad author. Remembering what the book was about, I suddenly realized to my horror that I was talking about exactly the same technology the guy had used as the basis for his novel, except he'd depicted it as leading to a dystopian society that persecuted a hidden minority. I understood that his fans saw themselves as prototypes for this underground movement & that if I kept on blabbering they were likely to appoint me to the role of the novel's antagonist. I was on the verge of unwittingly becoming this nascent cult's techno-Antichrist. It was a profoundly surreal, art-crosses-reality experience. I shut up, dropped the girl & got the hell out of there.

charlie

spot on

humphrey

FREAKY. This baby talk they do in the expensive lectures makes my hair stand on end. There's a scene in The Bridge with some of that. Creeped me right out

Talk about throwing your money away. Delivering this sub-verbal gibberish at the highest levels of investment is the final insult. Imagine spending thousands and thousands of dollars for that!

Is there a thread about this babble? I've seen it referred to in writing only one time.

humphrey

lul

BusterFriendly

Smells like John Twelve Hawks.

"Actually, what's happening with the church right now is frankly spectacular."-Tommy Davis

ChronicEnturbulator

If you have sensitive dox, there's this newfangled "Make Post Anonymously" checkbox which may be relevant to your interests.


Anyway, if you don't mind, please PM the name of the series because reading excruciatingly bad Sci-fi is relevant to MY interests...

humphrey

Agreed re: Asimov. I'd also join a cult of Frederik Pohl

failboat

This thread may be relevant to your interests:

Scientology, OSC, and the Writers of the Future.

Fred Pohl is a judge for the Writers of the Future Sci-Fi contest, which is sponsored by Scientology. Orson Scott Card is also associated with the project.

OSC was just on NPR's Talk of the Nation last night talking about his new Ender comic books. He spent a lot of time explaining why he wants to get the movie just right, which is why it's taking so long.

Fail Fleet Naval Vessel awaiting orders.