On Friday mornings we leave our bodies and travel back in time to stand on the bridge of the Apollo with L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1968-1971, to watch the Commodore run Scientology as he sailed the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
We have an excellent set of excerpts from Hubbard’s shipboard dispatches this week, but we ran into a bit of a snag when we went looking for our other Friday morning feature, “OT Phenomena” — stories of superhuman Scientology abilities from old copies of Advance! magazine.
It turns out, editor Jefferson Hawkins left out the very popular OT Phenomena in some of the issues we’re looking through now, in 1978. But then, in Issue 55, from November/December, we spotted something monumental that we can’t wait to share with you.
It was then that L. Ron Hubbard changed life as we know it forever.
First, let’s get to those naval dispatches and see what was happening on the waves. Our dispatches this week cover the period from October 14 through 20…
October 16
COMMAND INTENTION
Command Intention for the ship at this time is TO HAVE A FULLY OPERATIONAL SHIP, A SMART COMPETENT CREW AND A POSH YACHT ATMOSPHERE AND APPEARANCE FOR SHIP AND CREW.
Command Intention for the Flag Org at this time is TO COPE AND CONTINUE AT HIGH SPEED THOSE ACTIONS ALREADY IN PROGRESS AN PROVING SO WORTHWHILE IN Station Ships, AOs and orgs.
Those persons designated Flag on the 14 Oct 69 list are to turn over any ship hats or actions and then take their attention right off the ship and get it extroverted to Flag functions whether the Flag Org is well organized or not. We haven’t got the time or people to organize the Flag Org yet. BUT WE MUST OPERATE FULL BLAST in order to maintain the initiative we have already got rolling.
Ship’s officers and crew attention to the ship and its ship operation.
Flag personnel, attention to the external affairs of the SO and improve those down stats.
LRH, COMMODORE
…
ASPIRIN
There is some evidence that Aspirin causes a high TA.
Qual needs volunteers for a test.
LRH, COMMODORE
1970
October 14
US SHIP
The vessel lying behind us is an oceanographic survey ship run by a US university. It has been located as the point spreading rumours about us in a limited fashion in this port.
Another ship, the blue 40 footer, is an American yacht with a journalist aboard bound for West West Africa. He picked up the rumors and exaggerated them.
The oceanographic vessel’s crew is said to be at swordpoints with it’s scientists, the crew brawls in port saloons, a drunken disreputable bunch under an incompetent shipmaster. The ship is sailing at vast expense with inoperative engines on some implausible search for a fault on the ocean floor. It doesn’t even know who we are.
The things to remember are (a) stay with the shore story in casual conversation and (b) we actually are the proprietors of these ports. In other words keep consistent in what you say ashore, consistent with other crew members. Don’t dream up fancy tales. Read the shore handout and use that in answering questions. You can generate mystery by departing from the truth in the shore handout. If you don’t have one, get one. And follow it and use only it.
We are the ones who set opinions in ports, not any enemy. We could probably get this oceanographic vessel impounded without half trying.
We’re the cowboys in the white hat, the good guys.
When things go wrong it is we who are at fault — inconsistent tales about our ship differing from one crew member to the next, people approaching consuls, unauthorized calls on shore authorities, discourtesy to shore people by crew members have cause trouble in the past.
We have got it under control. So let’s keep it that way. Follow and use the shore handout, be courteous and friendly, let only authorized persons go to consuls and shore officials and agents. That’s how we do it and that’s what works to keep us safe.
To break these rules is outright treason to your shipmates.
Upgrade your awareness to the true situation of a world uneasy and on war footing and man trying to stay in ARC but in all these ports a bit afraid of both the US and Russia and only willing to trust strangers just so far.
If you know and use our rules, we have the lot. If not you could deny us terrain.
…
LRH, COMMODORE
October 20
MO
Lack of use of Auditing to handle physical troubles has greatly extended our MO list.
The practice of not auditing pcs who did not F/N at Exam and introducing medical “remedies” has shown us which way not to go.
A new HCOB amends the auditor stat.
Pjt B must be expedited.
Auditing was formerly required on pcs and MO lines and when dropped out the lines extended.
Medicine and drugs reach back into the history of the witchcraft, Satanism, infanticide love potions and handling inter personal relations with arsenic. Born of abominations drugs and medicine continue their career in modern times. The only improvement has been to cut the throat of the patient instead of a sacrificial goat’s.
I’m fed up with medicine and the lunatics in the drug business. We should pass a law they must wear the clothing of their trade — conical hats with stars and moons on them and black robes.
Our recent stat on MO lines proves it.
We are the wave of the future. We should get our feet out of the contaminated past.
LRH, COMMODORE
More 1970s Awesomeness!
After L. Ron Hubbard had moved HQ from the yacht Apollo to the Florida coast, Advance! magazine was thrilling Scientologists with tales of “OT Phenomena.” Those church members who had reached the higher levels of spiritual training shared their stories of superhuman powers with fellow dupes — er, enthusiasts. This excerpt is from Issue 55, November/December 1978.
As we mentioned at the top of the post, “OT Phenomena” dropped out of the magazine for some issues, but we found in Issue 55 something that really blew us away.
It was first teased on the cover to let readers know they had a very special issue: “A new top secret rundown for OTs!”
Turning to page 4, this is what readers saw:
And here’s the text…
AN ATTEMPT TO run New Era Dianetics on an OT resulted in a phenomenon which caught my attention, and on further investigation brought to light the fact that you cannot run New Era Dianetics, or any Dianetics for that matter, on a Clear (Dianetics or Scientology Clear) or above.
Research into this paid off handsomely with a fantastic breakthrough for Clears and OTs. I have now developed an entirely new rundown called New Era Dianetics for OTs.
This deals with living lightning, the very stuff of life itself. Run exactly correctly, by the book, it produces remarkable results in the OT band, and has made it possible for me to now release OT VIII.
New Era Dianetics for OTs is a highly confidential rundown done by a Class IV, OT III auditor, called an Advanced Courses Specialist (ACS), who is specially trained on its rundown and techniques.
It is now forbidden to run New Era Dianetics on Clears and above. From Grade VI to OT III is the non-interference zone, during which nothing should be run. Persons in this zone should move on up to OT III so that they may be audited on New Era Dianetics for OTs.
This rundown will be delivered in Advanced Orgs and at Flag to OT IIIs and above.
Clears and OTs who have paid for New Era Dianetics will now receive New Era Dianetics for OTs, which in the pilot auditing produced results beyond their wildest dreams.
While much of it is confidential, I can tell you that the first step of New Era Dianetics for OTs is designed to raise perceptions, especially theta-perception, and as for the rest of the Rundown…surprise, surprise, surprise!
— L. Ron Hubbard
Shazam! That announcement must have hit Scientologists like a firehose, we figure, and we called up Jefferson Hawkins to ask him if that was the case.
“It was huge. I think at that time it had been a while since there had been a technical breakthrough. And any time something new came from Hubbard it was always, ‘Oh my God.’ People were electrified when this came out. It was a big deal. It was something special for OTs,” Hawkins told us by telephone.
He went on to point out that at the time, he wasn’t high enough on the Bridge to know what Hubbard was really talking about. “I wasn’t even up to that level. I was just blind, working as an editor. I was as clueless as anybody else at that time,” he said. So he just did what he could to make it look like the announcement was an important one.
He remembers that he would receive bulletins and briefings about new material, and he seems to remember that an instruction came from Hubbard himself — have the Advance! editor make a big deal about it, it read.
“For Advance! this was a really big deal,” he says.
At the time, Scientology was still dealing with the FBI raids that had occurred the year before, and prosecutions of Mary Sue Hubbard and others were still coming. A technical breakthrough would have been a welcome distraction.
Just a little more than a year later, in 1980, Hubbard went into self-imposed exile and would remain in seclusion until his death in 1986.
So was this — announcing New Era Dianetics for OTs (NOTs) and releasing OT VIII — Hubbard’s last great technical flourish? Maybe some of our oldtimers can answer that.
