Rather long 1

I've been listening to this interview by Jason Begne on behalf of his involvement with Scientology. Never heard about this man before. Must be he ain't such a big celebrity compared to Tom Cruise :). Very long and uneven interview, sometimes boring, sometimes entertaining, could be much better if not cursing that much. Notably his whole vocabulary was infected with scientology specific lexems such as "G"'s, "SP"'s and alike. At the end, I still couldn't understand what is "the trap of Scientology". I read the wikipedia article about R.L. Hubbard. It seems he was a genuine avanturist similar to his somewhat less successful peers, like russian Gurdjieff or english Crowley. Finally i opened the book of Alfred Korzybski "Manhood of Humanity" to check out what about the other half of L.R. Hubbard's inspirations, concerning science.

I glad I did it, the book, which is published under Project Gutenberg, is worth an hour or two of your life. For several reasons it is quite an interesting reading. Firstly, it gives you a glimpse on the "unspoiled progressive thinking" circa begining of 20-th century. Though I was expecting to see a stronger impact of pessimism after WW1

The conclusion of the World War is the closing of the period of the
childhood of humanity. This childhood, as any childhood, can be
characterized as devoid of any real understanding of values, as is that of a child who uses a priceless chronometer to crack nuts.

This childhood has been unduly long, but happily we are near to the end of it, for humanity, shaken by this war, is coming to its senses and must soon enter its manhood, a period of great achievements and rewards in the new and real sense of values dawning upon us.

The sacred dead will not have died for naught; the "red wine of youth," the wanton waste of life, has shown us the price of life, and we will have to keep our oath to make the future worthy of their sweat and blood.

Later in the book I found another remarkable thought

Bismarck was considered almost the leading spirit of
paternal state socialism. He was a believer and promoter of the close relation of the state and the railways, keeping always in view a thorough nationalization which he finally accomplished. This fact eliminated from German public life all that phase of corruption which private ownership of railroads brings in any country, the railroad being the very life of any country

.

How naive and yet beautiful. I can hear the rational railroads of 3-rd Reich. This Polish aristocrat doesn't shy about german imperialism :) Well, that will come, pretty soon. WW2 is just around the corner, another 20 years.

Speaking about his main ideas, mathematically engineered future "Human Engineering". Hm, the mathematics of today doesn't look that simple like his geometric-arithmetic progressions. Completely new field of math is emerging , like "order from chaos", fractals and so on.

As of Hubbard's "scientology", my personal opinion is simple, very simple indeed. When i first met "scientology evangelist" i was already acquainted with Gurdjieff's and Crowley works. It appeared to me a Mickey-mousey american version of those old ideas, not without some charm and well-organised bussiness model. But still, it was dull, and lacking new perspectives of what i already knew.