The Basics Hot

I strenuously object to the way Miscavige promoted the idea that anyone reading LRH's books before the Basics came out must have had MUs (allegedly the transcriptionist's). The fact that Ron was alive then and would surely have been aware if the books were not what he intended cuts no ice with Miscavige. I don't buy the argument that Ron never reviewed his books after they were published. I believe the real reason for the Basics was so that Miscavige could position himself as a savior and establish his control over Scientologists.

But absolutely the worst thing Miscavige did was to eliminate the inexpensive DMSMH paperback. The reason was supposedly that Dianetics deserved more than to be presented in a cheap paperback. But that cheap paperback was many folks' first introduction to Dianetics and Scientology. People who will buy an $8 paperback at a fair or on the street would never consider paying $25 or $35. Miscavige totally cut Dianetics' reach into the society.

In hindsight I have had to watch the demise of the church I really thought I'd spend the rest of my life in and it saddens me. One man aided by deluded others have destroyed the vehicle to which delivered the holesum phiosophy of L Ron Hubbard.

I myself gained a lot by the Basics. The studying of one tape after the other was giving me a certainty of the way LRH was and thought. Actually to have studied the Basics gave me the ability to find out what of the CofS-activities was truely per LRH and what not.
When I encountered suppression / attacks / manipulative talks to do things differently, they couldn´t get me anymore, since I KNEW that the things, they wanted to convince me of, was NOT LRH. It didn´t matter to me anymore if I could quote the precice HCOB or HCO PL, I just KNEW: LRH´s approach would have been totally different. So the Basics helped me a lot to de-PTS from the Church :-).

At the end of 2007 I did a word-by-word, page-by-page comparison of the 2007 edition of Scn 8-8008 and the 1989/90 edition. People were assuming that DM had screwed up Hubbard's works and the reissue was purely a money grab, but no-one had presented any actual evidence. So I eyeballed a new book for myself and meticulously started to go through it, recording my findings.

The presentation in the 2007 edition is much flashier, although the white paper it too bright for easy studying. Because of the weird spacing and borders, trying to OCR (optical character recognition) that edition is impossible, although one shouldn't be doing that anyway. :). The chapter headings and sub-headings are a dog's breakfast in the earlier edition, and look fine in the 2007 edition.

There are a few minor changes, where the newer version makes *less* sense than the older. For example:

(Old edition): (p.34) "The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength is considered to be on the gradient scale of wavelengths. The lower the frequency, the longer the wavelength is considered to be on a gradient scale."

New edition: (p.32) "The larger the number, the lower the wavelength is considered to be on the gradient scale of wavelengths. The smaller the number, the higher the wavelength is considered to be on the gradient scale."

After three chapters of microscopic examination, I wrote: "OK, I think I've compared enough in these three chapters to make some general comments. If you are a serious Scientologist, who uses this book for reference, whether a churchie or not, my opinion is that you should get this new book. Buy it on eBay or something if you don't want to pay the CofS directly. The earlier copy is very different in places, with different meanings, not just different words. The omitted passages may appear later in the book, or they may not, but I am not talking about those passages particularly.

What I find very interesting seems to be exemplified by that quote about wavelengths/frequencies. The prior edition is much more clear than the revised edition, where Hubbard garbles the terms. No way would diehard SO members [actually DM personally, I later heard] revise it like that unless it is genuinely true to the original dictation!

Overall, there are many minute changes with regard to punctuation, but (in my opinion), all for the better in regard to making the text more comprehensible. If DM had wanted to worsen the text throughout, he wouldn't have done all that. So, counter-intuitively, generalizing from the actual hands-on examination I did do, I will assume that the 2007 books are actually closer to what Hubbard dictated than earlier editions.

Very ambivalent about the Basics. On the one hand, having the full sequential set of books and lectures is really great for a purely theoretical study of the subject. This does not make auditors, however, but it is interesting. On the other hand, finding out that there were several alterations and key omissions, is very disappointing. (A good example of this is in the Phildelphia Doctorate Course lectures, where Hubbard spoke of a world without a remedy for Scientology being worse than Orwell's "1984" - which has been omitted from the 2007 Basics version, and thus the point Hubbard was making is lost, if you do not know what he originally said). Speaking to old timers who still possess the original L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures, one has a sense of loss of authenticity, and thus not a true study of the subject.