Re: Harlan Ellison on Scientology

As I recall, Moskowitz made a brief reference in one of his books to the alleged statement by L. Ron Hubbard that someone could get rich by starting a new cult or religion. This alleged statment, true or false, was widely circulated through science-fiction fandom in the 1970s, and no one else who attended the meeting where Moskowitz supposedly heard the statement ever seemed to dispute it substantially. I believe that the Ellison version is rooted in a personal observation, since the meeting occurred in New York and I think Ellison also was in NY at that time. His account is obviously embroidered with overstatement and invented dialogue, as is customary when a raconteur such as Ellison (who also does not have a precise memory for facts) tells an anecdote many times.

The one thing I am skeptical about is that Ellison used to get mail from L. Ron Hubbard on a regular basis. Ellison once claimed to me that Thomas Pynchon calls him once in a while. Perhaps at one time Howard Hughes was frequently on the line, just checking in to say "hi" ... but this is not relevant to the central claim that L. Ron Hubbard conceived of Dianetics as a cult which would help him make more money than he was raking in as a science-fiction writer.

The first I heard of Scientologists bringing suit against anyone who "perpetuated the libel" of Sam Moskowitz' story was in the early 1980s when Hubbard had returned to writing science fiction and CoS was actively promoting it, directly and also indirectly through its "Writers of the Future" contests and anthologies. At that point CoS people started turning up at science-fiction conventions, and I believe they actively researched the science-fiction field. As a result, they may have come across the reference by Moskowitz, which they may not have known about before. But this is conjecture on my part.

Prior to the 1980s, in the social circles of science fiction that I frequented, it was just taken for granted that Moskowitz' account was accurate. I am not of course endorsing the Moskowitz position, merely stating that it was commonly believed. I also understand that when Moskowitz was contacted for verification and elaboration of his original statement, back in the 1980s, by this time he felt sufficiently worried by the CoS that he said "no comment." I do not know if he is still alive, but I doubt he would want to get involved.

I have gone into this exhaustive detail since it seems that there is an appetite for it, although it doesn't seem especially interesting to me; you only have to read some of the more "advanced" teachings of Hubbard to see that they are eerily similar to a very hastily written 1930s science fiction novel, complete with ancient galactic civilizations and an alien master race. This, I would have thought, speaks for itself. -- ############################################################ Charles Platt cp@panix.com