Over at Strange Herring Anthony Sacramone, remarking on a New Yorker piece on Scientology, has it in mind to start a religion. Can’t say as I blame him; it does pay. Story goes, in fact, that Scientology got its start exactly that way.
L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer back in the days when science fiction was worth about two cents a word, is said to have decreed to a gathering of fellow writers that religion was where the real money could be found. Dianetics was the result, promoted in part by the otherwise legendary editor of Astounding Science Fiction, John Campbell. Dianetics was published in 1950, the same year as another pseudoscience work, Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky.
Despite the thorough thrashing the two books received at the hand of critics, both became best sellers—which raises the not insensitive question of why Americans pay so much attention to the New York Times best sellers list.
February 9th, 2011 | 11:10 am
Quick thought as devil’s advocate: I’m not a Scientologist, nor do I have any allegiance to their “doctrines,” but the pedant in me demands that I point out a logical fallacy here–even if Hubbard made the statement about inventing religions to make money, that doesn’t necessarily prove that Scientology is untrue. Certainly there are plenty of other reasons to doubt and even reject Scientology’s veracity; I’m only saying that this quote is not a definitive slam dunk against it–hypothetically, Hubbard could have said it and the beliefs could still be true. Extremely unlikely, sure, but still…
February 9th, 2011 | 12:19 pm
I don’t think Americans do pay all that much attention to the NYT best sellers list.
February 9th, 2011 | 2:53 pm
A very old story, well known within the ranks of SF fandom. After all, the formula is well-tried, and it works–look at Mohammed and Joseph Smith, for instance. Of course, when it doesn’t work, it usually results in mass suicide.
February 9th, 2011 | 5:20 pm
Mr. Koehl: do you mean that Muhammad and Joseph Smith falsely claimed to have received revelations which they knew that they had not received, and that they did so in order to increase their personal wealth? This is what is alleged of Mr. Hubbard in regard to his Dianetics and Scientology, as explained in “Bare-Faced Messiah,” among other works. Is there no other potential explanation? Even if we alter that to read “wealth [and power],” is there really no other explanation?
February 9th, 2011 | 6:11 pm
I think Worlds in Collision was published in 1949.
Dr. Velikovsky had some genuine scholarly interests. The problem was that the knowledge gleaned from his study was an unreliable guide to astronomy and astrophysics. He was pig-headed, not a fraud.
February 13th, 2011 | 9:48 am
“Mr. Koehl: do you mean that Muhammad and Joseph Smith falsely claimed to have received revelations which they knew that they had not received, and that they did so in order to increase their personal wealth?”
Yup.
“Even if we alter that to read “wealth [and power],” is there really no other explanation?”
Wealth is power, power is wealth, and no, there is no other explanation. If nothing else, the oh-so-convenient timing of revelations that always happen to coincide with the personal interests of these founding fathers (to the point of reversing earlier, no longer convenient revelations) ought to make one extremely skeptical.
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