A Rational Process

  “A rational process is a moral process.  You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest — but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes responsibility for thinking.” 

-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957) 

Eos

The village sleeps.  They all miss it. 

It’s just me, in the chill November daybreak,

  with an explosive, blazing-red Sunday morning dawn.

Why am I the only one to witness such a spectacle?

Am I but a lucky hobo with nothing to his name

  except for the open sky

     and lonely offbeat hours like this?

.

Red in the morning:  surely a storm will come. 

I’ll accept the weather as the price I must pay

    for this flaming horizon.

And I’ll accept myself, a philosophic vagrant,

    thinking hard over the big picture,

  and moving through the silent sleeping world

      in eccentric times and places,

  lounging out on the frozen snow

      throughout the meteor-torn night,

  and awakening alone

      in the midst of morning’s fiery skies.

This alien way of mine might be said, by some,

      to be a karma that I’m cursed to carry;

  but its driving necessity comes instead

      from being the philosopher’s chosen means

          of monitoring the pulse of all existence,

      and of holding the reins of reason firm

          to guide the human ascent and quest.

.

What’s wrong with the world

    that it sleeps through this once-only,

       raging, radical dawn?

.

[Ross Barlow, 1986]

.

Jack Kerouac, one century

Jack Kerouac was born 100 years ago today.  (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969).  Some of his writings made him a great mentor to me as a teen in the 1960s, being very influential in my comprehension and practice of Buddhism, of personal freedom, and of the great outdoors.  He was one of the great influencers in my life. 

Of his books, The Dharma Bums, On The Road, and Desolation Angels were most important to me as a high school seeker. 

His novels are extremely uneven in their projected sense-of-life.  They can occasionally have some very rare “healthy” aspects (which, to me, are his  articulations of the joy of getting out “on the road” to new unexplored places, of seeking out uniquely interesting people, of some of his insights into Buddhism, and, above all, his chronicling of a solitary human slogging through Samsara).  But most of his other novels are extremely depressing and portray his often sick, addicted and sad soul.  Ignore those.  Following below, I will try to winnow out what are, to me, the best aspects of Kerouac’s writing. 

I read his novels in this order:  In high school, my friends and I traded books and ideas.  Mark handed me a copy of Kerouac’s Desolation Angels.  Wow!  I had already been deeply into Buddhism, but this was my first immergence into Zen.  We next found On The Road. 

Then, The Dharma Bums (1958).  This is one of those top few books that have inspired me the most both in my young life and beyond.

Jack partied – hard, as did I – but he also meditated, and he sought out what an honest and authentic human should think and do.  This novel chronicles the mid-1950s Beat Generation renaissance in poetry and freedom on the West Coast.  And much, much more. 

Gary Snyder, the poet, translator and intellectual, is a key figure in The Dharma Bums (his name is disguised as Japhy Ryder).  Snyder introduced Kerouac (and me) to the poetry of Chinese Ch’an/Zen mountain hermit Han Shan and his Cold Mountain Poems.  Snyder later published a small volume of translations of some these Han Shan poems (1959), which I acquired in the late-1960s and still have with me close at hand.   

And mountain climbing!  I had always been fascinated by mountaineering literature and any books and documentaries of great climbs and climbers.  So, Kerouac’s account, in The Dharma Bums, of him and Snyder doing a backpack climb in the High Seirra was right on. 

Jack had earlier gone to a San Franciso surplus store and bought a rucksack, sleeping bag and other gear, outfitting himself for major backpack rambling.  His concept of a “rucksack revolution”, where he envisioned American youth loading up their packs and venturing out into a bold rambling way of life – this hit home, and it easily launched me “on the road” and into the hills. 

Re: my own Buddhist journey.  I had been exploring comparative religions then in my teens, and I liked Buddhism most of all, especially the life-story narratives of Siddhartha Gautama (the Shakyamuni Buddha), with his genuine solitary all-out seeking of moral truths.  The Pali Canon of “southern Buddhism”, i.e., the most ancient Hinayana/ Theravada traditions (despite their unfortunate supernatural interludes) chronicled this, and it seemed more historically accurate than the Mahayana cosmic visions.  But Zen, a Mahayana offshoot, seemed to nail the here-and-now beauty of mountain and forest in its practice – without dogma. 

In this book, Kerouac reinforced a native trait I already had:  bivouacking out alone under the night skies.  He stayed with his sister for a while in North Carolina, and he found a little spot amongst the trees where he could sit and meditate in the frosty winter nights.  I, too, staked out an obscure spot of nature above Chandlers Valley that I called the Zen Grove, where I would sit and meditate.  And, in all the years since, I’ve found special little spots of privacy and quiet, in forests, meadows, or even urban corners, where I can sit.  And see the Moon. 

Zen apprentice motto:  “Haul Water, Chop Wood.”

Barlow corollary:  “Climb high, Watch Moon.” 

I think The Dharma Bums is Kerouac’s finest writing.  It was written in late-1957, just after On The Road was finally published, with Jack’s first  experience of literary recognition and success, so he was full of energy, enthusiasm, and was rather “optimistic” (if that concept could ever be ascribed to Desolation Jack). 

Desolation Angels (published in 1965) was written over time in 1956 and again in 1961  There are two distinct sections:  “Desolation Angels” and “Passing Through”.  (But Kerouac had wanted them published as separate books.)  The first section (written c.1956) was mainly from his journals while he was a lone Firewatch up on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades for the summer of 1956, and it was written before his publishing success.  The second section (c.1961) was a reflection on later experiences, and I found this last section very depressing. 

The greatest impressions on me from that first section on Desolation Peak – as a teenage explorer of Buddhism and my first reading of Kerouac – was his presentation of Zen, its aesthetics, and especially the recognition of the wonderous Full Moon and the night.  Han Shan too! 

On The Road (1957) written in 1951.  This book launched countless numbers of us in my generation to hit the road.  By 1968, I had a rucksack, sleeping bag, and a jungle hammock shelter, and I had “dropped out”.  The day after graduation, (the late) Gary Olson and I hitchhiked across northern Pennsylvania’s Route 6 toward the unknown of New York City.  We went right to Greenwich Village, traditional Beat center, and we drank beer at Gerdy’s Folk City, the bar where Bob Dylan was discovered.  That summer, I hitched all over the northeastern US, on the road, as a Dharma bum with Kerouac as an example.  A satori in the USA. 

By the way, get the best version:  On The Road: the Original Scroll, published not that long ago, which has the original text.  A purist’s delight.  And, there was a good 2012 film version of this Kerouac novel. 

In summation:  Jack, you were a bit sick and self-destructive, but I did especially appreciate your compassion.  Whenever I see hardship and adversity endured by either humans or animals, in my mind I hear you exclaim, like a long-enduring bodhisattva: 

“Poor suffering creatures, everywhere”. 

Caveat:  my scholarship on Kerouac history is not up to date, so I may have to update and correct this post from time to time. 

-Zenwind.  

.

Liberate Marijuana!

(Below is the text of my published letter-to-the-editor to my old hometown newspaper at the end of February.) 

“Pennsylvania should legalize adult use of recreational marijuana, for both moral and practical reasons.  And if a user does any careless harm to others, then they should be prosecuted for such harm just as we do with the much more dangerous use of alcohol. 

“The Declaration of Independence emphasizes our individual “inalienable” natural rights, including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as long as we do not violate such equal rights of others.  Government’s primary purpose is “to secure these rights,” not to restrict them like some nanny.  Toleration of another’s unique peaceful pursuits is profoundly American.  (Please forgive the history lesson, but this former teacher cannot resist.) 

“Two relevant examples of American toleration of individual rights: 

“Our Founders recognized that many once-persecuted refugees had found religious freedom in America, thus our diverse religious practices may offend and even horrify others.  But so long as we are peaceful the government should leave each of us free to practice whatever heresies we choose – even (gasp!) the Quakers. 

“Americans also have a clear constitutional individual right to keep and bear firearms.  In such cases when innocents are ever harmed, just laws and juries will find you guilty if you violate others’ rights by your careless or malicious use of guns. 

“The same moral rules of mutual toleration and individual responsibility should apply to the individual’s use of cannabis. 

“Americans’ use of marijuana is commonplace.  In Vietnam in 1969-70 at our US Marine combat base at An Hoa, over 75 percent of us in my unit smoked grass whenever we got a safe chance to do so when not out in immediate combat danger.  Returning home from Vietnam I smoked grass in moderation almost every day throughout the decade of the 1970s, and this, part of my own personal “pursuit of happiness,” helped me to get my life back together.  I am grateful for its profound effects, both medicinal and inspirational, and I became a healthier, more motivated, and more optimistic person for it.  I stopped smoking cannabis in the 1980s because I moved on to other pursuits.  It was so easy to simply quit, although I did have a subsequent decline in health.  In the 40 years since, it has been most extremely rare for me to ever use it at all. 

“Practical arguments for legalization are many.  It would eclipse black markets where other truly dangerous drugs are available, so that consumers are not associating with such pushers of poisons.  Cannabis is a safer “exit drug” substitute for them.  And we will stop ruining countless human lives by making criminals of them.

“Of course, drivers impaired by marijuana are a legitimate concern, although it is not nearly as deadly a problem as drivers on alcohol, not even in the same league.  States that have legalized it are not seeing the horrors once feared.  But we certainly need to keep impaired folks from endangering others on the road. 

“The problems here – moral, justice, and practical – are that cannabis-impaired driving is difficult to prove.  Blood-draw evidence cannot prove actual intoxication as it does with alcohol, since THC traces can remain in the system for weeks even though any actual impairment might only have been for a few hours.    

“A better, and more just, solution seems to be roadside sobriety assessments by Drug Recognition Experts (DRE), a specialty of emerging importance.  More DRE certifications are needed.  Our law enforcement officers are intelligent and competent public service professionals, and they have a proven record of being easily trained in any such new methodologies.  Legalization is the future, and law enforcement must be ahead of the curve and prepared on this.

“Morally and practically, recreational cannabis should be legal for all adults, and nearly two-thirds of Americans agree in whole or part.  Justice demands it.  Pennsylvanians, recover America’s ideals of individual rights and personal freedom, and liberate marijuana!” 

(End quote.)

-Zenwind. 

.

Joe Brown, RIP

Joe Brown, one of my early climbing heroes, died on April 15 at age 89.  Joe was a working-class climber from Manchester, England who advanced the standards of rock climbing during the 1950s and 60s.  He also did notable ascents in the Alps and Himalayas.  His autobiography, The Hard Years (1967) was a formative influence on my own climbing.  Joe was famous for using fist-jams in vertical rock cracks, and I still have scars on my hands from using the technique.  I bought a Joe Brown climbing helmet in the mid-70s, and it is still my one-and-only for rock and ice, although it is a bit scuffed up.  Please read this fine obituary of him. 

-Zenwind.
.

20 July 1969: Eagle on the Moon

20 July 1969.  (Or maybe it was 21 July, since I was over the International Dateline.)  I was in Quang Nam Province in Vietnam, on Hill 34 at Bunker 6 and it was a quiet night for us on the perimeter.  There was a fire-fight going on about a kilometer out to our right-front and flares were lighting up that area.  Because we were not immediately under direct threat we had one of us up and alert while the other two got some sleep close by.  I was the one up. 

Our handset phone, connected by wire to the guard-shack bunker in the middle of the perimeter, sounded.  “Bunker 6”, I answered. 

The Sergeant of the Guard was on the line and said, “I just wanted to let you men know that the astronauts just landed on the Moon".  (All I could say in answer was, “Wow!”)  He continued:  “I don’t think they have got out of their spacecraft or are walking around yet, but they have landed safely.”  It was sometime in the middle of the night for us and we were groggy, and since there wasn’t much else to say we just left it at that.  I told my relief about it later when I woke him up. 

After dawn we were updated as new developments were reported.  We went around kind of dumbfounded, as these events were, literally, more than a world away and they were so new that they were hard to conceive. 

-Zenwind. 

50 Years Ago Today: Marine Boot Camp

My official date of military service started 50 years ago on 8 November 1968.  I graduated from high school and then enlisted in the Marines on the Delayed Entry program so that I could have that summer free to hitchhike and do Dharma Bum rambling around the Northeast USA. 

It was a great summer.  Immediately after graduation, Gary and I hitched across Pennsylvania’s northern tier on Route 6 to NYC and went straight to Greenwich Village, a mecca where we drank beer in the Gerdy’s Folk City pub where Bob Dylan was discovered (remember “Positively Fourth Street”?).  We stood at the holy folk-music corner of Bleeker and McDougal streets.  Gary went back home, so I went alone up to Boston, and most importantly out to Lexington and Concord.  I hitched up New Hampshire through the mountains to the Canadian border and then down through the Maine coast.  Ramblin’ Boy.

Later I hitched with John to Newport, RI, and with others elsewhere, but most often alone.  I saw America and experienced stuff like the hostility, bigotry and hate of a cultural civil war, but also stuff like compassion, decency and good will. 

Just before the drive-in movie theaters closed for the 1968 season in the autumn, we had an epic party in the back row of a NY state drive-in for the original showing of “Night of the Living Dead”, the classic black and white zombie flick. 

That summer I had gotten out of several tight spots with cops because among my ID cards I had a card from my Marine Corps recruiter.  The cops always asked, “What’s this?”  I told them about my delayed entry enlistment, and it immediately changed their attitude toward this long-haired bearded freak.  The USMC had good currency among law enforcement. 

A week into November 1968, the recruiter pulled into my family’s driveway and picked me up for the trip to the Buffalo, NY airport.  With me were guys from Sheffield and Lance Corners.  We flew, via several connections, to Charleston, SC, arriving after midnight.  A Marine NCO picked us up and herded us on a bus to Parris Island.  We arrived at USMC Boot Camp around 02:00 and life would never be the same ever again.  My life would be a surreal chaotic Hell for all of the foreseeable future. 

-Zenwind. 

.

The Great 1958 Manual Corn Planting

This was in the summer of 1958 when Aunt Doris came east on the train from Washington State with cousins Wesley and Gordon, the first time I had ever met any of them.  I was 8 and Wes was 18.  Cousin Wes was my great hero and I followed him around everywhere.  He was cool, wore a cowboy hat, zapped woodchucks with one shot from a .22 rifle, and he had a great sense of humor.  This was a memorable summer. 

That year the rich field directly behind and north of the Double Decker building was planted in corn.  It was an extremely fertile field and always alternated between pasture, alfalfa, and corn.  But there was a very hard rainstorm that had washed out about a third of the beginning corn seedlings.  You could see where the young sprouts were coming up and where the field elsewhere was washed barren.  This was rich loam bottom-land with huge and very important corn yields for us.  It was a serious situation. 

My father took advantage of extra visitors at the farm and drafted us into labor for manual re-planting, pairing us up into two-man teams (e.g., Wes and me).  I am quite sure that Uncle Rod and Cousin Danny were a team.  Father was a friendly, generous, earnest and genuine man, charmingly persuasive, and people would go the extra mile for him. 

And I remember Uncle Albert and Cousin Ladd, on my mother’s side of the family, being a team.  They most likely were visiting the farm because Aunt Edith and Cousin Judy from that side of the family were there on a visit that summer, and thus Albert and Ladd may have been unluckily drafted into service.  (I have no idea where my mother put up all the company that summer!) 

My father carefully lined out the rows where corn should have been sprouting.  Then, in each team, the older one (Wes) would use a hoe and dig a little hole every so many measured feet straight along the row.  The younger member of the pair (me) would place about four kernels of corn seed into the hole, then the older one would use the hoe to cover it up. 

I don’t remember who watered the kernels because my focus was on the holes in front of me and the bag of seeds in my hand – but I’ll bet it must have been Father, because he had an invariable rule for new plantings, whether for seeds or sapling trees, that you first water the dry hole generously, then plant, then cover, then water generously again.  He must have hauled a lot of water. 

Our two-man teams moved slowly, methodically, in parallel straight down the rows of the field toward the Creek.  I am not sure if there was another team or more.  It was a very hot day, but once organized it didn’t take that long.  And the good results could be seen in a few weeks as new corn sprouts came up in previously barren stretches of field. 

It was a great example of farming in older days.  It may seem like a strange story in this day and age, but at the time it seemed like a natural everyday obstacle to overcome on a family farm.  It needed to be done, and, with generous help, we did it.  (I'm sure that Elvis would have understood completely.)  

I feel privileged to have grown up in such a place and time.  We were not pathetically poor but we were certainly not at all well off nor did we consider ourselves ever financially safe.  We were merely a family of small-time farmers, doing what our ancestors always did, living off the soil and raising livestock.  Working to make a life.  It was hard work but a good life.  We were all richer for such experience. 

-Zenwind.

.

Book Review: Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline.

This is primarily a Book Review (and only secondarily a bit of a movie review which appears at the end).  [Spoiler Alert:  The book was much, much better, but the movie was ok and worth watching although, in my opinion, the very best parts of the book were omitted.]  This novel, Ready Player One (2011), by Ernest Cline won the 2012 Prometheus Award for best new libertarian-themed Science Fiction novel from the Libertarian Futurist Society – of which I am a member – and, in my experience, their winners and nominees are usually very good SF reads.  I read this book soon after it was published and found it to be a delight.  

(Steven Spielberg has just produced and directed a feature film of this book, recently released, and the screenplay was co-written by author Cline.  Spielberg said that making this movie was the “most difficult movie I’ve done since Saving Private Ryan.”) 

The book’s story takes place in the future dystopian 2040s, mainly in youth Gamer culture, at a time when Virtual Reality has evolved so far that most people in the entire world are totally wrapped up in it to escape the depressing real world.  It is addictive.  It is Dungeons and Dragons, etc., gone space age wild in 5D. 

An incredibly powerful and realistic virtual reality platform called OASIS (i.e., the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) had long become the world’s greatest hit by far.  Everybody is hooked into it, and the OASIS currency (i.e., its virtual credits) is the most stable money in the real dystopian earth.  This virtual reality is a universe onto itself. 

The genius creator of OASIS, James Halliday (1972-2040), has recently died and left behind in his will the ultimate Easter Egg hunt.  If you solve all of the puzzle game quests hidden within his vast OASIS simulation, you will inherit his incredibly huge fortune as well as having complete control of the OASIS virtual world.  There are Three Keys to find (the Copper, Jade, and Crystal keys) and also Three Gates to navigate in order to win.  The worldwide competition to solve the puzzle is intense, and sinister corporate powers (the “IOI”) covet this powerful prize and muster enormous financial and technological resources to grab it by hook or crook. 

Some of our young Gamers want to win the quest in order to keep the OASIS free, as Halliday had intended it.  They are called “Gunters”, i.e., egg hunters.  The relentless sinister IOI corporate competitor puppet avatars are called “Sixers” (or, contemptuously, “Sucksers”). 

Halliday, the OASIS creator, had been a big fan of the era that he grew up in around the 1980s – long before our youngest gamers in the story were born – so knowledge of the culture of the 80s and the entire late-20^th century seems to be critical in solving the Easter Egg hunt.  One must become a cultural historian-archaeologist of sorts to succeed. 

Our hero, Wade Watts, is an orphaned high school senior (in a virtual high school within the OASIS simulation) living in real life in poverty in the US mid-west, and he absolutely lives for his “life” within the OASIS virtual reality.  He is a dedicated Gunter.  His avatar is called Parzival (the Arthurian seeker of the Holy Grail), and, because he is so poor, his virtual credits/ props/ tools/ weapons within the game-world of OASIS are extremely modest.  But he does have a cheap beat-up (virtual) spacecraft in the OASIS universe which is a Firefly-class transport vessel modeled after (Joss Whedon’s) ship Serenity.  [Being a huge Firefly fan myself, I love it!]  Wade has mastered most of the cultural references of Halliday’s youth era, e.g., the old classic video games, movies, TV shows, music, etc. that Halliday loved.  And he has a few avatar friends within the OASIS virtual reality that he trusts, while never actually having met them yet in the flesh. 

Caveat:  I am most decidedly NOT, nor have I ever been, a “gamer” of any sort.  Yet I love this book.  I hate games and always have, whether they are card games, video games, parlor games, board games, or so-called “sports” team athletic games (I rather liked boxing or solo climbing instead).  I did like many of the theatrical films referenced in the book as well as a lot of the great music of the era.  I haven’t a clue about many of the other circa 1980s cultural references here, but it does not in any way detract from my enjoyment of the book. 

Even though this book won the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Award, political themes are not explicitly emphasized much at all.  It’s more implied.  Libertarian issues in the book would include:  personal privacy, individual self-determination, rejection of regimentation and conformity, and the fight against tyrannical elites. 

Here is one of the book’s few mentions of government by our 2040s protagonist narrator, Wade/Parzival: 

“I didn’t bother with [elections for the US government], because I didn’t see the point.  The once-great country into which I had been born now resembled its former self in name only.  It didn’t matter who was in charge.  Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it.  Besides, now that everyone voted from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.” [emphasis added]  (This book was published in 2011; does that last sentence not jump out at you today?) 

The villain in this book is not a government, but a huge corporate entity that aspires to the same levels of classic governmental power, corruption, and control by using the timeless monopolistic government strategies of coercion and murder to achieve complete domination.  The corporation is called IOI (Innovative Online Industries), and its villainous CEO is Nolan Sorrento.  A highly rigged system of Indentured Servitude ensnares people into debt and then coerces them to work for IOI to work off the debts, but it is so structured that it only makes them serfs for life.  Gunters desperately want to keep IOI from winning the prize of controlling OASIS. 

Among my favorite cultural references:  We get an important plot item during one of Wade’s early quests that involves details of the 1983 film WarGames with Matthew Broderick, a film I really liked at the time.  Among other film favorites of OASIS creator James Halliday were the great teen films of John Hughes, as well as Blade Runner (1982) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), and many others.  (The 2018 film pretty much ignores them.) 

But I especially loved the book’s episode of Wade/Parzival’s quest for the Second Gate, where he drew upon his knowledge of the music and the (Neil Peart) lyrics of one of James Halliday’s all-time favorite Rock albums, the 1976 Rush album 2112.  (This album has also been a nominee for the Prometheus Hall of Fame Special Award).  This is a crucial libertarian connection if you know that album’s background. 

(As an aside:  In those mid-1970s, I was a rambling radio music listener, only hearing random FM radio Rock tunes while driving to and from solo climbing expeditions while toking on the holy herb.  So I never had time to collect any Rock albums in those days or know much of the details about the era’s other great musical groups or their lyrics, but I definitely liked what I was hearing on the radio from Rush.  I often stumbled down from a climbing ordeal out of the mountains to my car at the roadhead, and as I lit up and turned on the car radio I heard glorious Rock and Roll with blazing guitars and heroic lyrics about liberty.  In those days, I had no idea of the extent of Rush lyricist Neal Peart’s libertarian ideas, as I could rarely decipher many of the garbled words I was hearing in Rush songs, but a few phrases and notions that strongly celebrated freedom came through.  And I liked the band’s hard Rock sound.  I was a big fan, albeit not knowing much about them.) 

Peart’s scenario in 2112 has a protagonist who in many important ways is like the hero of the 1938 libertarian SF novella Anthem (a Prometheus winner, in the Hall of Fame category).  The Anthem hero offers his great scientific re-discoveries to humanity only to be rejected and threatened with destruction by an idiotic, conservative, theocratic bureaucracy.  In the Rush album, the hero offers up his own wondrous individualistic discovery of ecstatic soul-renewing music, via his own re-discovery of the electric guitar, to an uncomprehending stupidly dark priesthood.  (This is a very strong libertarian background connection in the Ready Player One novel, but unfortunately all mention of this Rush album and its individualist ideas was left out of Spielberg’s 2018 feature film except for just a too-brief glimpse of a wall poster of 2112 in Halliday’s bedroom.) 

The issue of Personal Privacy is very important in this book, as an individual’s need for their own private space.  Wade’s secret “hideout” deep into the midst of a vast discarded junkyard heap is his one place to interact in OASIS without interference from anyone.  When he discovered it, early on, he realized:  “I’d found something of immeasurable value:  privacy.”  He homesteaded his own private property.  Privacy is crucial for the development, sanity and flourishing of an individual.  Later in the story, after successfully winning important game quests and thus earning vast virtual credits in the OASIS universe, Wade/Parzival buys his own personal (virtual) asteroid and it gives him a precious personal kingdom of privacy.  Secure private property equals safety.  Later, before committing to his most risky revolutionary strategy of probing into the very heart of the tyrannical corporate entity, he first seeks to secure a niche of privacy within which to operate. 

Finally, Ogden “Og” Morrow is a peripheral character in the story (played in the 2018 film by Simon Pegg).   He had co-founded OASIS with James Halliday and was his best friend since youth.  But Og quit the foundation running it in 2022, because he said OASIS had become “a self-imposed prison for humanity.”  The book says that Og’s real-world mansion and grounds in Oregon “looks exactly like Rivendell” (an episode also missing in the film). 

.

.

The movie of Ready Player One (2018) produced and directed by Steven Spielberg

The Spielberg film is very different from the book in many details, but much of the action is still captured.  The plot has been extensively reworked, even though Cline was a co-writer, and most of the cultural references have been changed.  It is a bit less dark than the novel, but it is very much less implicitly libertarian.  I still like it though I regret that many of the best parts of the book are ignored. 

It is well casted.  The villain, Nolan Sorrento (played by actor Ben Mendelsohn) looks exactly like David Miscavige!  Mark Rylance plays James Halliday, and Simon Pegg plays Og.  The CGI is great, as it would have to be to depict the virtual reality universe that is a major location of the story’s action. 

The historical-cultural details referenced in the film are, like the book, so deep and richly layered that I bet I will find much, much more of interest by studying the DVD someday.  E.g., on first viewing, I swear I had an extremely brief glimpse of an incidental OASIS avatar depicting Beetlejuice (1988) in the crowd, etc. 

The film has the potential to be a nerd classic on account of its abundant (and often too-brief) references to past culture in films, books, games, etc.  The more one knows about the culture of the 1970s, 80s, 90s and beyond, the more amazing the experience.  There is much information to be mined.  E.g., the film makes very good reference to the Stanley Kubrick 1980 film adaptation of Steven King’s The Shining. 

In the end, I was most disappointed by the fact that the book’s use of both the music and story of the album 2112 by Rush was left out.  Unforgivable. 

The movie was worth seeing.  Hey, it’s Spielberg!  But do check out the book. 

-Zenwind. 

.

Ramblin' Boy

.

I’ve always had a tendency for rambling, for lone wandering, and this is evident going clear back to some of my very earliest memories. 

Ramblin’ Boy, in the Fields

Big cows along the fence-line. 

I was just a toddler, and it was a summer evening, not yet too dark, after the cows had been milked and after supper.  My Dad was in the pasture down by the creek fixing fence or something.  I could see him and the truck from the barn.  I reckoned that I could get to him by simply following the straight fence-line that separated the pasture from the hayfield.  So I set out along the edge of the pasture toward the creek. 

The cows were grazing everywhere, and I was never really afraid of them.  But now one turned and walked over to me, curious.  I remember looking up at that huge animal lumbering over to me with the enormous snout and those big eyes.  She sniffed me and snorted loud, then took a step closer.  I was between her and the barbed wire fence, looking up at her.  She then put her nose down, nudged me and knocked me over. 

I was starting to get scared, realizing how huge and strong this animal was.  She started rolling me over and over with her nose, until she rolled me under the lower wire of the fence and thus out of the pasture.  I was now safe but disoriented.  By then my Dad arrived to save the day and take me back to the house. 

My big Great Dane babysitter

Later, as I rambled further afield, our big Great Dane, Czarina, was my friend and babysitter around the farm and in the fields.  My Mom always said that if she wanted to find me she would just look for the big dog.  I was so small that I had to carry a stick – a small staff as tall as me – to block Czarina’s tail from hitting me across the eyes as we walked together.  We rambled around the farmland with the big Dane close beside me. 

Czarina kept me from getting too close to the creek.  Walking the 100 yards through the pasture seemed a mile, but we made it to the water.  She blocked me from getting too close, just a few yards from the water, by turning sideways in front of me.  I would try to end run around her head, but she would put her head down and push against my chest, knocking me down.  Same thing if I tried to go around her tail end, when she would turn and nudge me down with her huge snout.  I tried going under her, but she would knock me down and sit facing me between me and the creek.  She never let me get to the water in those days. 

* *

Ramblin’ Boy, in town

This was a completely unauthorized solo expedition, and I caught hell for it in short order.  But it was one great adventure, etched into my memory. 

It was sometime in the early 1950s, and I was not five years old.  I remember wearing my little cowboy boots and taking off alone on a twilight summer evening to visit my cousins who lived on another street in town.  Playing with my cousins was always such great fun. 

Uncle Rod, Aunt Kate, and my cousins, Danny, Bonnie and Crystal, lived in The Little Red House on Pleasant Street.  I was too young to be able to walk to it straight across two hundred yards of rough field in a beeline, but I did know how to get there by the streets although I’d never actually walked it before. 

It was quite simple:  One could just walk up our street toward town, and take the first street to the left (Curtis Street).  Walk on until taking another left on Pleasant.  The Little Red House was on the left way down near the end of the street.  You couldn’t miss it.  I knew these directions because I had been driven there many times by my parents. 

It was summer twilight, and I was in the front lawn with my Mom and her friend Anita.  We were standing by the white board fence under the big maple, and they were talking about something.  I remember trying to get my Mom to listen to me, and asking her if I could go see Danny, Bonnie and Crystal, but she was busy talking.  I remember how tall these two adult women were, towering above me, and I tugged on the hem of my Mom’s dress and asked her again. But she didn’t look down or seem to be interested in hearing me.  I guess I figured that it wasn’t important enough to her to give any permission, so I permitted myself to go.  Typical. 

I just walked away, crossed the street, and took to the sidewalk.  I took the left at Curtis, and near the junction with Pleasant I met some older kids on bicycles.  Wayne Schoonover stopped, and with apparent concern asked, “Ross, do your parents know where you are?”  I said, “Yes,” thinking that my Mom had certainly heard me.  The walk along Pleasant was long, but before it got too dark I arrived at The Little Red House. 

I knocked on the door (or rang a bell, I can’t remember), and Aunt Kate answered.  The first thing she said was, “Do your parents know where you are?”  (Why is everyone asking this?)  I went up the steep stairs to my cousins’ rooms, and soon we were all laughing and jumping around, having great fun. 

But all too soon, Uncle Rodney’s deep voice called up from the bottom of the stairs, “Ross.  Come down here.”  (Huh?)  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I knew the fun was over.  There was my Mom, who bent down, grabbed my arm, and gave me a spanking.  I guess I miscalculated about that permission thing.  Aunt Kate had (wisely) called my Mom, who was probably freaking out when she couldn’t find me. 

It seemed to me to be just a misunderstanding.  To my mind, I knew what I was doing and thought I was in total control of the situation.  This little solo adventure probably had my parents thinking about getting a leash for me.  But it shows that my rambling has had a long tradition. 

-Zenwind.

.

I Hated School: a series in six parts

.

(Please bear with me a bit.  This is a long series that starts out cynically but becomes more upbeat in the end parts.  Conversations and direct quotes are paraphrases from my aged memory.  The chronology jumps around a bit.)

(I will be posting each of the six parts as soon as I've proofed them.  Eventually I will have them re-posted so that they are then in order from the top down on this blog's page.  And I will eventually provide working links here for each part.  Here are the projected titles of the six parts:  

Part 1:  Compulsory Education: the 12-year Prison Sentence

Part 2:  Slow at Arithmetic = Acalculia?

Part 3:  A Few More School Tortures

Part 4:  Some (Rare) Redeeming Moments in School

Part 5:  Self-Education

Part 6:  Never-Ending Self-Education.)

-Zenwind. 

.

Uncle Rod

.
[Written on 26 February 1996, not long after his death. I just found this in an old pocket notebook.]
.
I took a walk
in memory of Uncle Rod.
I just wanted to be alone.

It’s a late February thaw;
the snow cover is thin;
the trail muddy.
Brooks everywhere are full,
singing loud, starting out from
the high Pennsylvania hilltops
on their steady journey
down to the sea.

Nietzsche asked:  “What is noble?”
So did Uncle Rod.
.
.
.
[Written on 28 February 1996.]
.
I took a hike
in honor of Uncle Rod.
I just wanted to be alone.

A day and a half
of rain and melt.
The streams are roaring.
A new snowstorm just started,
whitening the world.

I never had a chance to go
with Rod on his famous hikes.
Never had the wind nor the wings,
being a farm boy on the flats.
.
.
-Zenwind.
.

Book Review: Lonesome Squirrel (1991) by Steven Fishman

.

Wow!  This is one outrageously hilarious parody of the Church of Scientology.  It is in a class by itself as a completely thorough mockery of L. Ron Hubbard’s “religion.”  Very well done and great fun, but it is definitely not for everyone.  (Among other reasons for this, it is a very long document, and it seems to be only available online.) 

Although the book represents itself on the surface as a true autobiographical narrative, it is actually a work of fiction, while still uncannily reflecting the actual documented culture and policies of Scientology, albeit in a most exaggerated manner.  Yet it is not as far from the truth as one might think -- e.g., the very well-documented (from numerous other sources) culture of vicious infighting within Church ranks, etc.  Steve Fishman was actually never as much of a Scientologist as he claims, but he had studied tons of genuine Church books and history closely enough to gain an impressive expertise of its workings.  But he actually figures into the true history of Scientology by infamously causing some of the cult’s most secretly guarded “scriptures” to be publicly released, e.g., the story of galactic overlord Xenu, etc.  More on this below. 

Caveat:  Again, this is definitely not a book for everyone.  It is grossly blasphemous, vulgar, extremely offensive, misogynous, and way sick – which is part of its warped appeal – but it is funnier than Hell on Fire.  (E.g., as Fishman sings praises of the Church: “Even my bowel movements were clean and crisp, and it was all due to Scientology.”)  There is something in this book to offend almost everyone.  If you don’t have much informational background on Scientology and on its insane culture and criminal history, then you will not understand much of Lonesome Squirrel, but if you have been following the Hubbard cult closely then this book will blow your mind by its spot-on satire. 

Another Caveat:  Steve Fishman is a convicted criminal and a well-documented liar who is now in prison for the second time.  His first conviction (1990) was for mail fraud and obstruction of justice – which according to his fictional account in this book was in the service of the Church of Scientology – and he was sentenced to five years.  After serving some of that time and getting out on probation, Fishman got into another fraud scheme, and this time he is serving a 20-year sentence.  He can be a piece of shit, but he’s got a great sense of humor. 

Briefly, the story of how Steve Fishman publicly released top-secret Scientology scriptures.  On 6 May 1991, TIME magazine published a phenomenal cover story, “Scientology:  The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power”, and the Church of Scientology immediately sued the magazine for libel.  (The magazine won the case, but only after spending over $7,000,000 in the legal fight; this expensive “victory” quelled other journalists’ temptation to anger the Church for years to come.)  Apparently, the magazine’s cover story writer had believed Fishman’s wild account of his fictional career in Scientology and recounted some of Fishman’s most outrageous lies; and these were some of the things the Church held to be libelous. 

So the Church also sued Fishman, who represented himself in court.  In his massive personal library of Scientology lore he had somehow acquired authentic copies of the secret upper OT levels.  These “Operating Thetan” levels, OT 1-8, are as high as you can go in the Church, and you must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars before the uppermost secrets are revealed to you.  Fishman entered these OT level secrets as exhibits in open court files, and from there they were posted by others onto the Internet (famously known ever since as the Fishman Affidavit, aka, the Fishman Papers).  The Church then retreated from suing Fishman and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop online dissemination of the OT levels.  The most famous of these levels is OT-3, the “Wall of Fire” level where the story of Xenu was revealed.  (See South Park’s famous parody of Scientology in their episode “Trapped in the Closet”.)  That these Fishman Papers are actually authentic is proved by the fact that the Church tried to shut down Internet dissemination of the OT levels by arguing that their "copyrights" were being violated, thus admitting that these were their actual documents. 

At the very end of Chapter 18 of Lonesome Squirrel, Fishman claims that he personally “introduced Russell Means to the Libertarian Party” in 1984.  This being a Fishman claim, I am skeptical enough to call it total bullshit. 

Only a die-hard Scientology Watcher will appreciate this book and get its in-jokes, so I recommend it only to those twisted few. 

-Zenwind.

.

Goop, R.I.P.

At 20 years of age, Goop, the little cat that spent her first 10 years with me in Pennsylvania, has passed away at my sister’s place there, where she spent her last 10 years.  She was always loved, and she knew it.  A lucky cat who was affectionate and a real clown. 

Twenty years ago, my American wife at that time had found little Goop and another kitten in an animal shelter in a rough area of East Cleveland while she was studying at nearby Case Western Reserve.  My wife called her a “little goofball”, and I evolved the name “Goop” from that.  Since two kittens proved a bit much for her, I took Goop back to Pennsylvania where I was living and teaching. 

As Goop and I drove east back to PA, she stood on my lap while I was driving.  She put her forepaws on the top of the steering wheel and looked out at the road ahead.  I held the wheel at its bottom rim, so it looked like Goop was driving.  As cars passed us on the interstate, I got a lot of double-take looks from the drivers. 

Goop adapted quickly to the mobile home at Wilderness Park and to the other cat I had inherited, “Mr. Cat” (who passed away in early 2000).  Goop would crowd my school paperwork as I had it spread across a big lapboard on my recliner.  She especially loved the big Full-Spectrum light-box that I would park squarely in front of my chair to combat SAD symptoms in the dark evenings and mornings of November and December.  Reading and grading student papers and planning lessons all had to be done by working around the furry Goop-ball that had claimed front and center against my chest. 

Goop and a 24-hour Classical music station out of Buffalo kept me sane in those lonely days. 

After my father’s death I moved to the old stone farmhouse in Sugar Grove for a few years.  At first, it took Goop a while to explore the huge house, but she soon settled in.  She was there to witness my marriage to Tuk on her visit to the States – and the plan was for Tuk to retire from her job in Thailand and return to Sugar Grove. 

At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t teach another term.  I was completely exhausted and depleted.  My FMS, plus the increasing bureaucratic burdens put upon teachers, ran me into the ground.  The FMS “brain fog” was the worst part of it, dulling my mental capabilities and radically crippling my effectiveness as a teacher.  Also, Tuk’s early retirement plans had hit snags, so we decided I would move to Thailand to be with her there. 

But what about Goop?  I thought I might have to take her to my sister’s home in upstate New York, where she would be wonderfully cared for but where she would also be traumatized by the radical change of place and people.  I even thought about bringing her to Thailand if possible. 

But Goop really lucked out with the timing when my brother-in-law lost his job in a major (but expected) down-sizing.  They had one option:  moving to the farmhouse in Sugar Grove.  Goop was lucky because, to her, it was her house and they were the new folks.  Her adjustment was minimal as they moved in gradually, and she even got along with their cats.  I could leave Goop with them when I moved to Thailand and know that she would be loved and cared for. 

It worked out very well for her, and she lived a long life. 

Rest in Peace, little Goop. 

-Zenwind.

.

Excelsior! by H. W. Longfellow

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
"Excelsior!"

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
"Excelsior!"

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
"Excelsior!"

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
"Excelsior!"

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
"Excelsior!"

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
"Excelsior!"

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
"Excelsior!"

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
"Excelsior!"

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
"Excelsior!"

(-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
.

Vesta when First Seeing the Ocean

It was 1991, and I will never, ever, forget the look on the face of my little niece Vesta at the very instant when she first saw the big vast Atlantic Ocean. It was a look of absolute wonder. She was almost three years old, and we were starting our return trip from Maine from the wedding of my father to my wonderful new stepmother, Alice. On this return voyage in my sister Carol’s van there were Carol, her daughters Mara (13 years old) and Vesta, and me. We took the scenic route home, starting with the nearby coast of Maine.

Vesta was at that time what some may call a “strong-willed” child. (A cynical person might instead say, a “brat,” but that would be unacceptably cynical.) I remember that morning just before we set out on our voyage home. It took Carol and Mara teaming together to wrestle down the rebellious, ferociously fighting little Vesta just to comb her hair. She was feisty little thing! Mara was the oldest sibling and was always a terrific second mother to her siblings: to Justin, two years younger (and not with us on this trip), and to Vesta, ten years younger. Mara contributed immeasurably to their nurturing and development.

Vesta’s first ocean sighting was at the Pemaquid Point lighthouse in coastal Maine. This was off the main highways, but I recommended we go there because of my memories of this area over 20 years earlier on my inaugural hitchhiking trip into New England immediately after high school in June 1968. I had good memories of the little nearby fishing village of New Harbor, Maine, so I wanted to share the views with them.

Pemaquid Point has a little museum and beach as well as the lighthouse out on the point. The grand open ocean view was off the point immediately beyond the lighthouse.

I was carrying little Vesta against my chest, and she was looking back over my left shoulder at the way we had just come, not seeing the ocean ahead. Perhaps she was bored; I don’t know. We walked toward the point. The big rocks down to the side of and just below the lighthouse were wet from waves, but I had good footwear and good footing (i.e., good balance and adhesion) as I walked down along the rocks to the water’s edge. (Carol may have been a bit nervous as I carried her youngest over these rocks, but she never mentioned it.)

The two of us were down to where the waves were hitting my feet, almost in front of and under the lighthouse, yet Vesta had still not turned to see the ocean. It was a view that took my own breath away, as it had been a long time since I’d seen it. The majestic ocean.

Then a big wave crashed at my feet and made enough noise that it couldn’t be ignored, and at that moment Vesta turned her head to look for the first time at that vast expanse of water. What was unforgettable was how perfectly she was taken by surprise.

I was watching her closely as she turned her head, her face just inches from mine, and I saw the exact instant when she registered (the equivalent perception, but not in words) that this was an extraordinarily new and startlingly different experience of aspects of reality. Her eyes were extremely wide, but not in fear. It was more like the immediate switching on of total focus and rapt attention outward toward the external world, and it seemed to me that her eyes showed that huge and sudden expansion of consciousness we all require when processing such marvelously new unknown immensities of experience.

She saw the huge ocean ahead, quickly glanced just a bit to the left and quickly just a bit to the right and then straight on out to that incredible horizon without limit. I was struck by her very serious look of complete wonderment and fearless awe. Waves crashed, seagulls circled, breezes shifted. It was a priceless moment.

I’ve studied a bit of psychology through the years, especially child psych, and this was a moment I’ll never forget. It also resonates with many of my other subjects of study, most especially philosophy and epistemology. I cannot assume that Vesta even remembers this episode in her adult memory, but I can speculate that it was nevertheless an important early milestone in her developing epistemological “vision”, i.e., her experience of “seeing,” of integrating, and of knowing that the world is much more extraordinarily complex and wonderful than ever previously imagined. Just as in scientific discovery, the young individual mind discovers New Worlds every day.

I cannot help but think here of the classic opening words of Aristotle’s Metaphysics:

“All men [aka, all human beings] by nature desire to know. As an indication of this, consider the delight we take in our senses, especially the sense of sight.” (Aristotle, The Metaphysics)

(And so it goes, in Aristotle’s historical-developmental model of epistemology, on up from simple perceiving to logically identifying to inductively integrating all of this info into infinitely higher permutations of human Reason and its astonishing knowing potential.)

Vesta saw the ocean, dramatically, for the first time. What a wonderful milestone on the way to the discovery of the world! As for myself, as a witness to this episode of basic individual discovery, I will never forget it.

-Zenwind.

Book Review: Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (2013) by Lawrence Wright

.

For the Church of Scientology, the shit has hit the fan. If you can only read one book about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, this is the one. I have had a perverse hobby of researching this cult for many years, and I’ve read most of the important exposes of the cult. They are all informative and most often riveting, but this book is the gem of Scientology critiques because of its journalistic rigor and completeness. It is very well written.

(There has been a recent HBO documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015), directed by Oscar-winning documentary maker, Alex Gibney, which is based on Wright’s book and which includes interviews with Wright. I saw the documentary, and I love it.)

Although I have read many books about Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (L. Ron Hubbard, or “LRH,” 1911-1986), this book by Lawrence Wright provided a lot of additional information about him and his religion. Wright dug deep and interviewed many “apostates” who left Scientology but who were witnesses during its important years, and he mastered the vast literature of the multitude of ex-Scientologists.

He also acknowledged some of the reasons that make Scientologists so loyal to their group. He sees LRH as not only a liar and a fraud but as a charismatic fabulist that fascinated many people and made them believe him on faith. He notes that LRH, while still successful at grabbing money for power, spent much of his time alone with his E-meter developing his “spiritual technology.” LRH worked obsessively on working out a route to higher levels in his church doctrine. Wright asks: “If it was all a con, why would he bother?” He apparently believed his own bullshit. LRH was astoundingly complex, and Wright appreciates this while not sparing him radical criticism.

Lawrence Wright is an eminent American journalist on the staff of The New Yorker, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2006 book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, in which he accurately nailed the relevant terrorist ideology, origins, and activities.

He wrote this book on Scientology in a measured style, honest and reality-oriented – brutally honest – yet also showing sincere compassion for true believers who were positively affected by Scientology. E.g., Scientology has netted some celebrities as high-profile icons/recruiters; and actress Ann Archer (Patriot Games, Fatal Attraction) and her husband agreed to be interviewed by Wright – and I really respect them for such openness and forthrightness – and Wright is respectful of their deep devotion to Scientology.

Scientology is very much a Hollywood style religion of the late 20th century, but it has its perverse dark sides and the well-documented extreme horror stories of totalistic confinement, mind control, families ripped apart through forced “disconnection,” and ruthless revenge against anyone who is considered to be a critical “enemy” of the church. The Hollywood celebrities are shielded from such controversies.

Academy Award winner Hollywood screenwriter and director Paul Haggis is a big part of this story because Wright wrote a long 2011 article on Haggis’s journey in and out of Scientology in The New Yorker called “The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology.” Chapter 1 of Going Clear is “The Convert,” an account of Haggis as a young man pursuing the allure of Scientology in the early 1970s. The book will tell, near its end, of Haggis investigating and re-thinking Scientology after 35 years in it, and Haggis is very honest and courageous in his criticisms.

Chapter 2, “The Source,” focuses on LRH (Hubbard), the “source” of all cult doctrine. He was such a bullshitter! His lies about his wartime service and intellectual accomplishments are covered in other of my posts here in the Post Index Category, "Scientology".

Chapter 3, “Going Overboard,” covers LRH’s exile when running from governments in the 1960s and 70s. One very interesting item is about when he wrote the “theological” level Operating Thetan Three (OT-III), the secret knowledge of Galactic overlord Xenu 75 million years ago and how Xenu caused the mindfuck that continues on planet Teegeeack (aka, Earth). In the late 60s LRH was in Tangiers “researching” OT-III, the “Wall of Fire” level, and he wrote to his wife in England that he was “drinking lots of rum” and downing drugs, “pinks and grays,” while researching. He sounds inspired. The reaction of Paul Haggis when he finally earned the right to read this secret story about Xenu – which is now all over the internet – is one of my favorite parts of the book.

Hubbard moves his base of operations to Clearwater, Florida in the early 1970s, while personally hiding out elsewhere. This is the time of his aggressive campaign to “destroy” Paulette Cooper, a journalist who wrote The Scandal of Scientology (1971), and he almost did destroy her. (Her story is the subject of another great recent book by Tony Ortega, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, which I hope to review here someday.) The Church of Scientology is infamous for its litigious practices, suing opponents into the ground. Hubbard’s doctrine was to viciously attack and to completely destroy perceived enemies. The church’s dirty tricks were often criminal.

At this time Hubbard also declared war on the US government, and other world governments, in his “Snow White Program,” which I have described before. It is called the biggest domestic infiltration of the US government in history. The FBI raided the church in 1977, and 11 high-level church officials, including Hubbard’s wife, ended up going to prison.

Chapter 4 is “The Faith Factory.” Borrowing from Jon Atack’s research, Wright applies the work of Robert Jay Lifton on “ideological totalism.” Lifton studied Maoist “thought reform” (which the CIA called “brainwashing”), especially the techniques of public confession and then re-education. Numerous Scientology defectors describe these exact techniques as a principal tool of control in the Sea Org (SO), the core “clergy” unit of the church. The horror stories are consistent from many different informants.

Meanwhile, the cult cultivates celebrities, especially Hollywood ones. John Travolta was one of the first big names. Tom Cruise is now the biggest name. LRH always emphasized going after famous people as icons and recruiters, and Hollywood was his main target. Celebrities are insulated from the harsh realities of rank and file church members.

LRH died in 1986 – or rather his mythology says that he “dropped his meat body” in order to do research amongst the galaxies and he will reincarnate someday here on Earth. He had still been an exile living in secret locations, hiding from his enemies.

New to me were some of the further historical details about Scientology’s present supreme leader, David Miscavige (DM). DM took over the church after the death of LRH, and he continues the ruthless policies of the Founder. With a vengeance.

DM micromanages every detail of the church’s activities, including the extremely cruel traditional LRH revenge and dirty tricks actions. Miscavige’s violent physical and mental assaults on his staff are very well documented elsewhere, but Wright’s documentation of DM’s history of violence shows us that he was abnormally violent while a young teenager. I can only conclude that Miscavige is a psychopath, by most accounts a dangerously angry bully who delights in crushing anyone he dislikes. And he has over a billion dollars in a slush fund which he uses to litigate or hire private detectives to harass his enemies.

Most of the recent Scientologists who have “blown,” i.e., who have managed to escape this religion that ruthlessly tracks you down and harasses and intimidates you to stay within the cult, have already told their stories elsewhere and the stories are very, very consistent.

Most of Hubbard’s own children have blown. Quentin Hubbard, LRH’s heir apparent, blew in 1976. Quentin was gay in a religion that considered this extremely perverse. He was found in Las Vegas, comatose in a car with the engine running and a hose from the exhaust to the window, and he died later. When Hubbard got the note about Quentin’s suicide, his reaction was: “That little shit has done it to me again!” (!!!)

Hubbard’s daughter Suzette blew in 1988. As did his youngest son Arthur that same year. The only remaining child of his third marriage, Diana, lives as a recluse on the California desert base.

In 1993 the Church of Scientology won a long-fought victory against the IRS, gaining tax-exemptions as a recognized religion. They won by wearing the IRS down through over 2,000 lawsuits against its district offices and individual employees. The IRS lawyers were completely overwhelmed, and the director made it all go away by simply surrendering to the cult’s demands. Now Miscavige has accumulated billions in cash and real estate.

“Google: ‘Lisa McPherson’.” In 1995 Lisa was given the church recognition of having achieved the state of “Clear,” meaning being perfectly healthy and on her way to higher Scientology levels. Yet she was psychotic. Who was the church auditing case supervisor who declared her to be “Clear”? It was David Miscavige. DM himself (although the church now denies it). When Lisa was soon hospitalized in a psych ward for running naked in the streets, the church moved her to their own hotel and “treated” her with LRH’s wacky theories. In 17 days she was dead. Miscavige micro-managed her entire treatment. The church only resolved the embarrassing situation in their favor after declaring a long war on the medical examiner and forcing her to reverse her judgment and retire in shattered health. Bastards.

You won’t believe some of the nutty accounts in Chapter 8, about David Miscavige in the Church headquarters out in the California desert near Hemet. But the witnesses are too many and too consistent. Give a madman like him money and unlimited power, and the incredible cruelty follows when no one will speak up at the time. Meanwhile TC (Tom Cruise) and DM are best buddies, and the abuses just cruise over Tom’s head.

The Sea Org (SO) members work endlessly for measly pay and are “thought reformed” into submission. All their (rare) phone calls are monitored, their mail opened, their bank records watched – like under the Stasi. Meanwhile, DM lives a lavish lifestyle with the best of everything.

Defections from the cult are multiplying, and they include high officials. Mark “Marty” Rathbun was second only to DM in the cult, as the Inspector General. With decades in the church, Marty was trusted to “audit” (i.e., counsel, mentor) Tom Cruise on the E-meter when Tom returned to an active role in the church. Rathbun blew in 2004, stayed silent for five years and then started a blog critical of DM’s dictatorship. He has been harassed unmercifully under DM’s micro-managed revenge machine. His inside knowledge of the church is priceless.

Marc Headley blew in 2005, and this also reflected badly on Tom Cruise. When Tom was in earlier church training he had to in turn audit someone else. Marc Headley was a SO employee who never had time to do his own advancement in Scientology levels, so DM had Tom audit Marc. The point is that if Marc blew, his auditor (Tom) is supposed to share a lot of the blame. Not that it will happen. Marc’s wife, Claire Headley, blew after Marc did, and she was the overall case supervisor of Tom Cruise’s auditing process. Embarrassing, no? Marc’s fine book, Blown for Good was reviewed earlier here.

In 2010 John Brousseau blew, and this shook things up because he had intimate knowledge of DM’s behavior and of the work SO laborers did for Tom Cruise for slave wages.

In 2007 Mike Rinder blew. Mike was a top official, the church’s spokesman for many years and executive director of the Office of Special Affairs (OSA), the cult’s spy org that replaced the old Guardians Office. With uncommon inside knowledge of the cult, he knows “where the bodies are stashed.”

As far as Hollywood celebrities blowing, Jason Beghe, an actor who takes no BS from nobody, left the cult loudly and unafraid. Paul Haggis was concerned about the hypocrisy he saw in church leadership, and he did (forbidden) research on the internet to have his eyes opened to church abuses. Haggis wrote a long detailed letter of resignation from the Church of Scientology and he shared it with a few people. The letter found its way to Marty Rathbun, who asked Haggis for permission to reprint it on his blog. Haggis said sure. What surprised Haggis was that Rathbun’s blog post with his letter had 55,000 hits that very afternoon! Scientology is being watched by multitudes of folk who don’t like what they see.

There is much, much more interesting material in this masterful work. Lawrence Wright had a legion of fact-checkers and an army of lawyers doing their homework before publication, because the cult is notorious at suing critics into the ground. Their work was so well done that the cult can only squawk.

In his Epilogue, Wright puts the Church of Scientology into historical perspective. He compares them with the early Mormons. Joseph Smith was a pathological liar, a habitual fraud and con man, and a sexual exploiter, but he was charismatic enough to have a following of thousands in his short life, and today the Mormons are a flourishing almost-mainstream sect. They even had a Mormon run for president. (Although Mitt said his favorite novel was Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard! Give me a break!) Wright points out that the Christian Scientists oppose mainstream medicine even more than Scientologists, yet they have been accepted in American life for the most part (even though they are diminishing in numbers these days). And as far as Scientology’s policy of “disconnection”, the Amish do the same thing, calling it “shunning,” and the Amish have settled into their niche as an accepted, marginal, sect. Scientology won’t die soon, despite the shit hitting the big fan right now. What will it evolve into?

Wright is harsh when he has to be and compassionate when that is called for. But he is adamant that the Church of Scientology has to be confronted for its egregious abuses. He calls on the celebrity members, naming Tom Cruise and John Travolta, he maintains that they cannot be blind to these abuses, and he challenges them to take responsibility and renounce or try to change the cult’s present practices under David Miscavige.

In sum, this is a great book. I enjoyed reading it, even though many (not all) of the facts were already known to me – mainly through reading the daily blogs on Scientology by the indefatigable journalist Tony Ortega for many years now; Ortega has been covering Scientology for 20 years and is a clearing house of info, and he is also interviewed in Gibney's documentary Going Clear.

Wright is able to combine impeccable documentation with wonderful storytelling. This is a book I will be reading again someday, as a timeless account of the cult.

-Zenwind.