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Old AOL RAH Biography Page 
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Joined: Mon May 02, 2011 2:10 pm
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Location: Juneau, AK
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Post Old AOL RAH Biography Page
Back in 2006 on an old blog of mine I posted "The Crowley-Parsons-Heinlein-Hubbard-Cruise Connection":

Part I:

Part II:

Dashed off for fun, the post is a mildly interesting piece of drivel, but at the beginning of Part II, "I highly recommend the linked biography of Robert A. Heinlein as the best I've seen on the Web." The linked AOL member page went away a long time ago, but being blessed with a good memory I strongly believe it was by a guy named William Patterson...I assume it was removed as the book progressed. My copy is due to arrive in a few days, and I greatly look forward to reading it. I am now wondering whether the Heinlein-Hubbard relationship is covered mostly in v.1 or if there will be more in v.2. I'm not clear on how much contact they had in the 50s as Hubbard left Southern California in 1948. The story of how RAH influenced LRH toward founding a church is one that, if read through a long series of Web postings seems like a game of "Telephone" with people just lifting it from some unknown source and retelling with some slight variation until it is unrecognizable.

Hurry up, mailman!

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Wed May 04, 2011 1:26 pm
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Post Re: Old AOL RAH Biography Page
I think most of the Heinlein-Hubbard interaction is in volume 1, as they never actually managed to be in the same place at the same time after 1948, though there was, at long intervals, correspondence.

I think the AOL page version of the biography was a cut-down version of the biographical sketch I did in 1999, compiling in one place all the publicly-known information to date. Ginny helped out with that one, just before she started getting back in public touch, and I think the process had something to do with her asking me to write the full biography in 2000.

I authorized the Heinlein Society to carry that sketch; perhaps it's still on their site. I know Alexei Panshin also linked to it at one point.


Wed May 04, 2011 5:08 pm
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Bill Higgins
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Thu May 05, 2011 4:16 am
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Thank you both for your replies; however, the text at the Heinlein Society is definitely not the same piece as the one I linked. I did see the one at the Society at some point after 2006, but it doesn't mention the Hubbard association at all. Here is the text that I quoted from the original AOL page. Perhaps someone will recognize it:

Heinlein kept in touch with his friends. L. Ron Hubbard was stationed in the Pacific, but toward the end of the war he wound up in Philadelphia and was a participant in Heinlein's think tank.

(...)


Also in 1950, Campbell began publishing the series of Dianetics articles by Heinlein's close friend, L. Ron Hubbard, after they had been rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association. While writing the Old Doc Methuselah stories, and after serving as a magickal assistant for one of Aleister Crowley's most promising American disciples, Jack Parsons, in The Babalon Working, Hubbard developed a "new" theory of the mind based on his observations (and, some say, secret doctrines of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientalis, or "O.T.O.") rather than on psychiatric theory. Hubbard's "Dianetics" was to be a "scientific" replacement for the pre-scientific Freud. Dianetics monitoring, using a psionic device called the E-meter (psionics devices -- machines that interacted directly with the mind -- were Campbell's new passion in the 1950's), became something of a fad in the science fiction community, but Hubbard was running into stiff resistance from the convention-minded medical community, who were inclined to become nasty about Dianetics monitors practicing medicine without a license. Heinlein had told Hubbard in conversations in Philadelphia during World War II that a religion could successfully front anything in the U.S.

Hubbard followed Heinlein's now ten-year old advice, abandoning Dianetics. The Founding Church of Scientology opened in January 1955 in Washington D.C. and in New York. Heinlein's advice to Hubbard had allowed him completely to bypass the medical opposition; for the next fifteen years, Hubbard's principal bĂȘtes noirs would be the Internal Revenue Service (but Heinlein was right: the IRS was never able to prove Scientology a fake religion under U.S. law, and they eventually gave up after being defeated in decision after decision).

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"There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk 'his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor' on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else."


Thu May 05, 2011 8:42 am
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Post Re: Old AOL RAH Biography Page
Yes, that's the original version of the biographical sketch published in the Heinlein Journal no. 5. It was online briefly, but replaced with a condensed version, at my request.


Thu May 05, 2011 5:55 pm
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Post Re: Old AOL RAH Biography Page
Did any of y'all ever read the biography of Parsons, "Strange Angel"? Wild book.
RAH is mentioned six times, and my not-all-that-great memory is that one mention is a quote from a Heinlein letter in which he states his belief that Hubbard lost his morals during WWII.
Hubbard ran off with Parsons' wife (legal? common-law? or just girl friend? I can't recall), but months later wrote him from Florida begging Parsons to take her back, she was so much trouble.
Highly recommend the book. Parsons, one of the founders of American rocketry, was certainly no straight-laced NASA type!


Sat May 21, 2011 12:47 pm
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Post Re: Old AOL RAH Biography Page
is an interesting article about Crowley.

And I recently picked up a copy of this on Jack Parsons (the director is an email friend), but haven't watched it yet. Anyone familiar with it?


Sat May 03, 2014 4:29 pm
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