The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
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 l ron hubbard




From: jdb@condor.cchem.berkeley.edu (Justin D. Bukowski)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: New (?) Scientology info (was Re: Chilling)
Date: 18 Jan 1995 06:35:25 GMT

In article <3ffmuc$d8q@agate.berkeley.edu>, Justin D. Bukowski <jdb@condor.cchem.berkeley.edu> wrote: >I ran across this in a bunch of newsgroups (trimmed
>from header, except rasf.misc) in a thread
>on the alt.religion.scientology debate.
>
>In article <3ff9hl$164@hustle.rahul.net>,
>Cameron Spitzer <cameron@rahul.net> wrote:

[claim of first hand sighting of L. Ron Hubbard writing about starting a religion]

I wrote to Cameron for more information. Here is my letter and his reply (posted with permission):

-----begin mail-----
I'm a reader of alt.folklore.urban, and questions about Hubbard's genesis of Scientology come up once in a while. We've never found solid evidence. This claim is, to me at least, a new variation. I'd like to follow up on it.

One immediate question:
1) You saw the text to the effect that "Hubbard proposed forming a personality cult with the legal status of a church" with *your own eyes*?

Further questions:
2) What was your roommate's name? Can you get in touch with him?

3) When did you see it? Where was this?

4) Hubbard himself was the author?

5) The copyright on Dianetics is 1950, I believe. Have a better guess on the date of the debate?

Any other information you could provide would be very helpful. -----end mail-----

-----begin reply-----
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 00:29:47 -0800
From: Cameron Spitzer <cameron@rahul.net>
To: jdb@condor.cchem.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Hubbard and Scientology

There were several columns back and forth. I read the one where Hubbard describes how the church will antagonize the IRS so as to become a persecuted religion, the rings of secrecy, and the pseudoscientific appeal. He thought the Mormons had blazed this trail pretty well to protect their counterfeiting in the early days. I'm not sure of the date, could have been any time after WW2 and before 1960. Fairly sure it was one of the two major "hard" science fiction (no "fantasy") pulps.

The thing came up because I told the roommate _Stranger in a Strange Land_ was my favorite Heinlein, and he replied it was Heinlein's salute to Scientology.

There's no way I could find the guy. We were roommates for one semester in 1978 or 79 and we didn't have much in common. But it shouldn't be hard to find _Amazing_ or _Astounding_ mags with Heinlein and Hubbard on facing pages. -----end reply-----

Argh. Someone want to follow this up?

Justin "counterfeit Mormons?" Bukowski


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