Talk:Dianetics

A while ago I put in comment about Joh W campbell's promotion of Dianetics. Unfortunately my memory had played me false: what he had supported was the Dean Drive.Sorry. Keephappy 11:57, 26 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Somewhere around here, I have a copy of an article by someone (Alfred Bester, I think) talking about how he met Campbell once, and had the surreal experience of Campbell proselytizing about Dianetics to him, to the point of scaring the hell out of the poor man. It's funny, but you'd expect that coming out of Bester. --Kels 12:32, 26 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Campbell did support dianetics but I didn't think he had been such a disciple. Was I right first time. (alzheimers approaching?) Keephappy 13:26, 26 July 2007 (CDT)


 * wish I'd met Alfred Bester; the first SF book I bought was The Demolished Man. It must have been in the 50s. (Ringo Starr bought me a drink) Keephappy 13:45, 26 July 2007 (CDT)


 * I think it was Bester, it's been a while since I've read it. Might be in my copy of "Hell's Cartographers", which I heartily recommend in any case, if you can find it. --Kels 15:19, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

I think I did have it (at one time I had zillions of sf books but think it went in my great downsizing about 15 years ago). There aint many of us female sf readers are there? I started pre school with Alice in Wonderland(!). KEEPquiet! 16:11, 26 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Haha, it's true, although I've known a few. Perhaps not so many with a taste for the vintage stuff, but it happens (an old friend adopted Fred Pohl as a grandfather a few Worldcons back).  I don't remember when I read AiW, although I do remember reading Animal Farm before I got out of elementary school.  Oh, and my copy of The Annotated Alice is among my prized possessions, even if my ex did minor damage to it.  It's not the book, it's the contents! --Kels 16:19, 26 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Is that the one with the intro by Martin Gardner? Cuz I think I might have that too. ThunderkatzHo! 16:23, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

categories
This is in category:pseudoscience, but should I move it into the new Alternative medicine cat (a subset of C:PS) or leave it where it is? Totnesmartin 07:15, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

Has anyone read Dianetics?
I found a copy for 50 cents...trying to read it now. I have read many books in the self help genre, good and bad, and most of them are very readable and full of common sense advice albeit often mixed up with pseudoscientific concepts, the sort of thing best approached with a critical mind able to separate the good sense from the nonsense. Not so with Dianetics - this is the most unreadable mess I have read in a long time. Hubbard jumps all over the place, makes assertion after assertion which I know to be factually incorrect or else couched in his own made-up terminology not understandable to the layman, and doesn't tie them together in any coherent way. I'm about 1/4 the way through and so far my impression is Hubbard started writing Dianetics without any clear idea of it himself, and was "winging it" the whole time. What does this writing style remind me of? Yes, of course, I've seen it before: Lyndon LaRouche; same incoherence, insider language and repeated faulty assertions that leave the reader's head swimming. How this book ever became a best seller is a mystery, but I'm starting to see a common thread in how cults develop. Secret Squirrel 21:49, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

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