20110208

à lire absolument

l'article de lawrence wright dans the new yorker: The Apostate
Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology
:

[...] At the meeting, Davis brought up Jack Parsons’s black-magic society, which Hubbard had supposedly infiltrated. Davis said, “He was sent in there by Robert Heinlein”—the science-fiction writer—“who was running off-book intelligence operations for naval intelligence at the time.” Davis said, “A biography that just came out three weeks ago on Bob Heinlein actually confirmed it at a level that we’d never been able to before.” The book to which Davis was referring is the first volume of an authorized Heinlein biography, by William H. Patterson, Jr. There is no mention in the book of Heinlein’s sending Hubbard to break up the Parsons ring, on the part of naval intelligence or any other organization. Patterson says that he looked into the matter, at the suggestion of Scientologists, but found nothing.

Davis and I discussed an assertion that Marty Rathbun had made to me about the O.T. III creation story—the galactic revelations that Haggis had deemed “madness.” While Hubbard was in exile, Rathbun told me, he wrote a memo suggesting an experiment in which ascending Scientologists skipped the O.T. III level. Miscavige shelved the idea, Rathbun told me. Davis called Rathbun’s story “libellous.” He explained that the cornerstone of Scientology was the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. “Mr. Hubbard’s material must be and is applied precisely as written,” Davis said. “It’s never altered. It’s never changed. And there probably is no more heretical or more horrific transgression that you could have in the Scientology religion than to alter the technology.”

But hadn’t certain derogatory references to homosexuality found in some editions of Hubbard’s books been changed after his death?

Davis admitted that that was so, but he maintained that “the current editions are one-hundred-per-cent, absolutely fully verified as being according to what Mr. Hubbard wrote.” Davis said they were checked against Hubbard’s original dictation.

“The extent to which the references to homosexuality have changed are because of mistaken dictation?” I asked.

“No, because of the insertion, I guess, of somebody who was a bigot,” Davis replied.

“Somebody put the material in those—?”

“I can only imagine. . . . It wasn’t Mr. Hubbard,” Davis said, cutting me off.

“Who would’ve done it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t think it really matters,” Davis said. “The point is that neither Mr. Hubbard nor the church has any opinion on the subject of anyone’s sexual orientation. . . .”

“Someone inserted words that were not his into literature that was propagated under his name, and that’s been corrected now?” I asked.

“Yeah, I can only assume that’s what happened,” Davis said.

After this exchange, I looked at some recent editions that the church had provided me with. On page 125 of “Dianetics,” a “sexual pervert” is defined as someone engaging in “homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc.” Apparently, the bigot’s handiwork was not fully excised. [...]

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