chocolate chocolate chocolate

March 16, 2005 1:22 PM

Chocolate is so damn goodI keep seeing boutique chocolate companies popping up everywhere (like this one: www.delicioustruffles.com). And now Pete of Pete's Wicked Ale has started one (www.cocoapetes.com) Which begs the question is chocolate the next beer? Is America about to be deluged with extraordinary chocolates like we've been hit with microbrews? And why has it taken so damn long?
posted by zibzanna (61 comments total)

Isn't Delicious Truffles your own website? Color me confuzzled.
posted by iconomy at 1:34 PM on March 16, 2005

When dad gets home, you're gonna be in soooo much trouble.


I still insist that when you comment in a thread that gets deleted it's like saying a little prayer, c'mon everyone, say a little prayer with me.


Hrrrrnnggggg, urrrrrrnnnngghhhh, blurrrrrrrngh.
posted by Divine_Wino at 1:34 PM on March 16, 2005

A content free post to the website you list as your homepage?
This doesn't look so good for you, zibzanna.
posted by OmieWise at 1:38 PM on March 16, 2005

Delicious Truffles gave me eczema, and my wife got alopecia from them, which is the real tragedy.

Then my wife left me and joined Scientology and sang backup on Beck's new album and now none of my friends will talk to me, all due to delicious truffles.com

Now I am left all alone, without even a light frosted pink lipstick to scrawl out a suicide note on the cracked mirror of this dirty hotel room, no quarters for the vibrating bed and the bathwater is already rust colored and the Florida branch of the GOP hasn't even got here to slit my wrists for me, all because of their so-called boutique chocolate
posted by Divine_Wino at 1:40 PM on March 16, 2005

Has any one heard of my favorite website?

/saying a little prayer
posted by AllesKlar at 1:46 PM on March 16, 2005

What are you all doing with those pitchforks?

Oh.
posted by yhbc at 1:48 PM on March 16, 2005

I hope your chocolate melts in your hand, not in your mouth.
posted by Arch Stanton at 1:48 PM on March 16, 2005

A chocolate bar on every corner. An eatitlive post in every deleted thread!
posted by eatitlive at 1:49 PM on March 16, 2005

It's already begun here in Berkeley, CA with Scharffen Berger chocolate. The first new chocolate manufacturer in the US in the last 50 years to actually produce chocolate from bean to bar. Many of the confectioners and upper-scale restaurants in the Bay Area use Scharffen Beger chocolate in their products and desserts.
posted by eggonstilts at 1:50 PM on March 16, 2005

Ay caramba! There's even a typo in the URL of the second self-link!
posted by mr_roboto at 1:53 PM on March 16, 2005

Delicious truffles claim to be environmentally conscious, but I found a big chunk of slave in one of their caramel rhubarb truffles, so there's obviously some ethical issues here.

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, DELICIOUS TRUFFLES?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:57 PM on March 16, 2005

Begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, begs the question, ARGH!
posted by Plutor at 1:58 PM on March 16, 2005

Begs the question does not mean what you think it means.
posted by exceptinsects at 1:59 PM on March 16, 2005

eggonstilts

from bean to bar was the name of Pol Pot's favorite donkey, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED FOR?
posted by Divine_Wino at 1:59 PM on March 16, 2005

Ahem. Yes, exactly.
posted by exceptinsects at 2:00 PM on March 16, 2005

I think Plutor is begging the following question: "What's the correct usage of the construction 'it begs the question'?".
posted by mr_roboto at 2:01 PM on March 16, 2005

I think that it could have been a fun and worthy link. Unfortunately, zibzanna, your linking to your site is something that some people around here frown upon, to put it mildly.

It's too bad. . .I was going to busk Cowgirl Chocoates, out of Moscow Idaho, as my current fave. . .chocolates that can defend themselves. . .
posted by Danf at 2:05 PM on March 16, 2005

Perchance, where are these delicious truffles and how do I buy them?
posted by AlexReynolds at 2:08 PM on March 16, 2005

Where can I buy chocolate boots?
posted by eatitlive at 2:12 PM on March 16, 2005

What, the Donkey or Pol Pot?
posted by eggonstilts at 2:18 PM on March 16, 2005

eggonstilts
In my rush to point out the physical, emotional and cultural failings of the airplane glue sniffing bedwetters at delicioustruffles.com I might have directed the firehose of my indignation at you, without justification, if my comments about donkies or Pol Pot have harmed you or anyone in your family I apologize unreservedly and without exception. If it will help in any way to make good on my error perhaps I could buy you a confection of some sort, perhaps a coca bean product?
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:27 PM on March 16, 2005

LOL, this is too funny.
posted by graytopia at 2:29 PM on March 16, 2005

Why thank you Devine! Something from delicioustruffles.com perhaps?
posted by eggonstilts at 2:40 PM on March 16, 2005

"Of course, no preservatives, stabilizers or gums are added to our Truffles."
posted by brheavy at 2:44 PM on March 16, 2005

Devine is off of which you pick Degrapes, I am divine, un wino.

However my offer stands, misnomination or no, I will leave a packet of Delicious Truffles under the wheelless primer painted and bondo-ed AMC Pacer that DeliciousTruffles.com has left parked on their FUCKING FRONT LAWN SINCE 1998. Retrieve at your lesiure.
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:47 PM on March 16, 2005

This is actually a good post (and a good reason why I shouldn't let my g/f read MeFi, lest she start complaining about giving her Hershey's)
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:04 PM on March 16, 2005

I've been hit by Choco Fever!
Catch it!
posted by Outlawyr at 3:12 PM on March 16, 2005

And so, we bid fairwell to zibzanna, a self-linking fuckwad, but a good fellow none the less.
posted by Outlawyr at 3:15 PM on March 16, 2005

Plus it's good for you. No, really, seriously good for you. Science says so.
posted by IndigoJones at 3:22 PM on March 16, 2005

a self-linking fuckwad, an asspanther, a self-hating zorastrian, a fink, a lammister, a laminated carbunkle, a CRITIC and a lowdown bellycrawling horsestealing backshooter, of whom a good portion clearly ran down the inside of his/her mommas leg but a good fellow none the less.
posted by Divine_Wino at 3:23 PM on March 16, 2005

These chocolates, do they come in blue?
posted by NickDouglas at 3:25 PM on March 16, 2005

O zibzanna, o don't you cry for meee.....
posted by postmodernmillie at 3:55 PM on March 16, 2005

MetaFilter: Seriously good for you. Science says so.
posted by Man O' Straw at 4:02 PM on March 16, 2005

chocolate the next beer?
"You're not old enough, son. Where's you get this stuff?"
*Hangs head* "Delicioustruffles.com, officer."
posted by PhatLobley at 4:08 PM on March 16, 2005

www.delicioustruffles.com have so many truffles that they're coming out their a...

oh wait, those aren't truffles...

nor delicious.

sorry to go for the low hanging fruit on my first comment.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:08 PM on March 16, 2005

Scharffen-Berger is, in my opinion, the very best chocolate in existence.
posted by bz at 4:12 PM on March 16, 2005

This question, it begs?

And is a self-link truly a self-link if it's misspelled?
www.delcioustruffles.com...

Sheesh.
posted by Floydd at 4:13 PM on March 16, 2005

chocolate the next beer?
"You're not old enough, son. Where's you get this stuff?"
*Hangs head* "Delicioustruffles.com, officer."


Yes, watch out. They'll card for anything these days.
posted by picopebbles at 4:21 PM on March 16, 2005

Er...for. Yeah.

Clearly what I need are some delcious (or even, dare I hope, delicious) chocolate products to speed up my woefully mis-linking brain.
posted by picopebbles at 4:23 PM on March 16, 2005

BZ


I too think it is exceptionally tasting chocolate.

If you are in Berkeley or plan to visit I highly suggest taking the tour of Scharffen Berger's factory. Although it is free you will have to make reservations in advance. If I remember correctly you get to taste a bit of the raw, bitter chocolate (before they add the sugar) during the opening lecture, but alas, they don't offer free samples at the end of the tour. Still, just seeing the whole process was quite educational!
posted by eggonstilts at 4:47 PM on March 16, 2005

Chocolate the next 5 MeO-DMT?
posted by eatitlive at 5:24 PM on March 16, 2005

Gourmet chocolates rock. Thankfully the world's best chocolatier has just opened a Chocolate Haven three blocks from my job. On Valentines Day I went to buy a box for my better half and Mr. Torres himself was behind the counter and filled my box for me. Major bonus.

Tip: his "salted caramel" chocolates are treats of the first order and worth braving death for.
posted by jonmc at 5:55 PM on March 16, 2005

I love gourmet chocolate, but unfortunately I'm lactose-intolerant, so eating milk chocolate without taking the proper precautions gives me cramps, bloating and diarrhea.

So long, #21173!
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:12 PM on March 16, 2005

I have bookmarked your wonderful e-commerce site five times!!
posted by naxosaxur at 6:29 PM on March 16, 2005

Faint of Butt, there's no reason other than force of habit to eat milk chocolate. It's a diluted, dumbed-down version of the glory that is real chocolate. While yes, there are gourmet lines of milk chocolate, the best chocolate, and the only chocolate that's been shown to be good for you, is dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate was found to boost blood antioxidant levels by nearly 20%. However, there was no such effect when volunteers ate milk chocolate or drank milk with dark chocolate. "What this tells us, is that probably the proteins in milk bind with the antioxidants in chocolate," Professor Alan Crozier of Glasgow University told BBC News Online. "As a consequence, they are not being absorbed to the same extent as they would be with dark chocolate. Any potential protective effects are lost." The findings raise the possibility that dairy products may interfere with the healthy properties of other foods, such as fruits, tea and red wine, which are also believed to have anti-oxidant effects.

So don't deprive yourself - enjoy some delicious dark chocolate today!!!
posted by soyjoy at 7:05 PM on March 16, 2005

soyjoy, I'd love to take your advice, but I'm wondering: could you could point me towards the website of a recommended purveyor of gourmet chocolates?
posted by PhatLobley at 7:37 PM on March 16, 2005

Why here, try this: delicioustruffles.com.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:52 PM on March 16, 2005

I must be missing the point here. What is "best of the web" about an e-commerce site showing all the web design nous of your average blind village blacksmith?

(munches 85% cocoa chocolate for health reasons)
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:10 PM on March 16, 2005

PhatLobley, CunningLinguist was right. Your best bet has gotta be delicioustruffles.com.

It's really stunning how undeveloped this site is. One sign that you're not ready for the Pepsi Blue Spotlight is when your "Products" page says... "Coming Soon!"

And who the hell says their own company is named for "our founder's Grandmother, an alcoholic second to none"? I dunno, seems unwise to me.
posted by soyjoy at 9:44 PM on March 16, 2005

The gourmet chocolate earbuds that came with my iPod melted when I fell asleep in the sun one afternoon last week.

I woke up with ants in my ears. Angry ants. And delicious, melted earbuds.

Can anybody recommend a decent replacement pair? They need to be feather-light, made of aircraft-quality chocotanium, and get at least 40 MPG. Cruise control and GPS are desirable, but not must-haves: I'm on a budget here.

Please help me. If I have to listen to my co-workers discuss their miscarriages and nail fungus cures, I'll lose it.

Is there a website out there anywhere where I could buy a pair of gourmet chocolate earbuds?
posted by trondant at 11:22 PM on March 16, 2005

Choc a little, choc a lot.
Have you tried a Callabaut?
The food I do adore,
Have you had Cote d'Or?

Judge chocolate by the abscence of vegetable fat, not the quantity of cocoa mass. Cocoa mass varies according to taste. I find over 60% cocoa mass gets too chalky for my taste.
posted by Goofyy at 3:06 AM on March 17, 2005

trondant, thank god this thread is still here, so that I can help you with your delicious dilemma. I believe you can purchase a replacement pair of gourmet chocolate earbuds at Delicious Truffles. And next time, try covering the ants in some of the melted chocolate - very tasty!
posted by iconomy at 5:10 AM on March 17, 2005

I'm gonna start posting whole Scientology texts in here if this thread doesn't get deleted.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:34 AM on March 17, 2005

A five dollar ad... I wonder how MeFi compares to buying some sort of gift-related keywords on google.
posted by mosch at 5:57 AM on March 17, 2005

Scientology is perceived by the public as a cult, and its founder, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, as the Howard Hughes of New Age religion. Psychological academia has never taken the subject seriously as a science, nor has the clerical community given the structure credence as a religion. Even esotericists veer sharply away, considering it beneath their intellectual dignity. But despite its discomforting eccentricities, the Scientological paradigm is worth more than a cursory glance by any serious student of the Western spiritual tradition. Its roots are firmly planted in the fertile gardens of both Eastern and Western philosophy and its influence has diffused irrevocably into the groundwater of the contemporary Human Potential Movement.

Scientology's contribution to 20th century esotericism is analogous to Theosophy's contribution in the last century. Just as Madam Blavatsky's "secret doctrine" engendered numerous progeny, so did Hubbard's methodology provide raw material for Frederick Perls' Gestalt therapy, Jack Horner's Eductivism, Alexander Everett's Mind Dynamics, Werner Erhard's est, Stuart Emery's Lifespring, Paul Twichell's Eckankar, Lewis Bostwick's Berkeley Psychic Institute, Irene Mumford's Dianasis, John Galusha's Idenics, and Frank Gerbode's Metapsychology, as well as countless lesser lights. Either directly or obliquely, it is probable that no other methodology has had more profound an influence on New Age thought than Hubbard's.

The usual approach to Scientology is sociological. The pseudo-militaristic central organization controlling a quasi-religious congregation, the reactionary political debacles, the harassment of disaffected members, the alleged brainwashing and, most curious of all, the mad-genius who masterminded the multi-million dollar operation from the poop deck of his private flotilla are admittedly enough to distract one from the actual subject buried somewhere beneath the dross of fanaticism. [1] To be sure, it is difficult, even for one who has made a formidable study of Scientology, to separate its technical aspects from their source. Although many others made substantial contributions, Hubbard's fingerprints are ubiquitous. But, in order to understand the subject, one must be able to differentiate between Scientology as a cult phenomenon and Scientology as an original transformative technology built upon the conceptual foundation of an ancient philosophy. It is this latter aspect which is universally ignored by journalists and most germane to an understanding of why any one of the millions who have studied the subject were interested in the first place.

Clearly, the methodology of transformation has fascinated Humanity since our earliest recorded history. It constituted the basis of the Egyptian theurgic arts, manifested in the mudras and asanas (hand gestures and body postures) of yoga, in the tantric applications of Tibetan Buddhism, and the rituals of early Christian sects who sought gnosis, or direct heuristic knowledge of the divine. It sparkled in the metaphor of the alchemists who searched for a universal solvent to transform the base metal of inquiry into the gold of liberation, and resonated in the allegories and poetry of the sufis who found transformation in the experience of the ordinary. It captivated Victorian Hermeticists of the Golden Dawn like Eliphas Levi, A. E. Waite, and W. W. Westcott, and provided the impetus for Blavatsky's Theosophy, Gurdjieff's "Work," Freud's Psychoanalysis, Steiner's Anthroposophy and Korzybski's General Semantics. And it was a fascination with the possibilities of such a methodology that led a young science fiction writer to develop Scientology's progenitor.

In 1950, Hubbard's first work on Dianetics appeared in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, with editor John W. Campbell hailing it as "one of the most important articles ever published." Walter Winchell said of its rumored release, "From all indications it will prove to be as revolutionary for humanity as the first caveman's discovery and utilization of fire. [2] Stripped of obvious hyperbole, Dianetics -- literally "through mind" -- was a bold attempt to push Psychoanalysis into the age of Univac. Drawing liberally on Sigmund Freud's Standard Edition and Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity, Hubbard constructed a logical model of the human stimulus/response mechanism which he called "the reactive mind." He outlined the process by which mental image pictures are produced and stored during periods of trauma and unconsciousness, and how these unknowingly created images can cause suffering and mental anguish through incorrect association with later experience. Hubbard used the analogy of a calculator with a key accidently held down. Each subsequent computation, although presumed accurate, will yield an incorrect answer. Once discovered, the calculator malfunction can be "cleared" and, assuming the input of correct data, all future computations should be accurate. He called the discovery procedure by which this is accomplished "auditing" and formulated a step-by-step technology for approaching and "clearing" these unconsciously created mental images or "engrams." [3]

Since Freud's work had been so brutally mistranslated into English, the spirit of Psychoanalysis was largely lost to all but those who understood both his language and idiom. Freud's methodology had been effectively taken out of the hands of the common man and placed in the professional domain of the medical doctor despite his belief that psychoanalytic practitioners should function as "secular ministers of souls, who don't have to be physicians and must not be priests." [4] Hubbard's Dianetics was an attempt to return the realm of the mind to its rightful owners and, in the spirit of the American Dream, make a profit in the process.

But Hubbard proved a poor business man. Despite the interest of respected professionals like endocrinologist J. A. Winter, psychologist Fritz Perls, and philosopher Aldous Huxley, not to mention the vast public acclaim his published work had engendered, the Dianetic Research Foundation found itself bankrupt by February of 1952. The Foundation's assets, including the rights to Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health were purchased by Don Purcell, a Kansas oil man, and Hubbard had no choice but to create a new game. [5]

Based upon an amalgam of Eastem philosophical precepts, experimental physics, electronics engineering, and a few other odds and ends, what a game it turned out to be. Although the two men apparently never met, Hubbard referred to Aleister Crowley, then head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, as "my good friend" in a series of lectures given in Philadelphia during December of 1952 where he laid the groundwork for his new creation. "Magick," Crowley had written, "is the Science of understanding oneself and one's condition. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action." [6] "Scientology," Hubbard told his audience, "is the science of knowing how to know." [7]

In the textbook which accompanied the Philadelphia lectures, he outlined his basic concepts of human nature and relationship to the universe. Hubbard's cosmology defined life as a "static" which he called theta. Rather than the classic equilibrium of forces, this static represents a zero-condition of pure potential. Theta, he postulated, is capable of creating motion; the ensuing kinetic condition is energy condensing in space through time to become matter. The interplay between theta and its creation results in the activity of life and life forms. Thus, "thetan" [...] became his shorthand for a life form with unlimited potential.

Hubbard defined the conditions of existence as "beingness, doingness, and havingness" relating respectively to space, energy, and matter existing through time. The considerations, or decisions, made by life forms which are responsible for these conditions are: "as-is-ness," the moment of creation and destruction unmitigated by force; "alter-is-ness," the introduction of change resulting in persistence; "is-ness," the apparentness of existence brought about as a result of persistence; and "not-is-ness," the use of force against a persistent, unwanted creation as opposed to viewing it as-is. The cycle of any action he identified as "start - change - stop" or "create - persist - destroy."

The goal of life, Hubbard theorized, is survival of the Self through ever-expanding spheres of influence and responsibility: initially as an individual, then beyond that single identity through procreation and family; through group interaction; through membership in a particular species; through interaction with other species; through matter, energy, space and time (MEST); through identity as spirit; and finally expansion of the Self into the Absolute.

The optimum solution to any problem, he concluded, is one which brings the greatest benefit to the broadest sphere of influence. "Good" and "bad" are therefore relative to context and an absolute is unobtainable in any practical sense. Judgement of value depends entirely upon one's viewpoint, so "truth" is what an individual perceives as true.

The concept of matter originating in thought has its genesis in the mists of antiquity. Around 500 B.C., during India's Epic Period, a prince turned mendicant taught an eight-fold path to the attainment of nirvana or freedom from suffering. "All that we are is the result of all that we have thought," said Siddhartha Gautama. But even the Buddha drew upon ideas gleaned from the Vedic mantras first recorded 1500 years before his birth. In the Rig-Veda, the Hymn of Origin proclaims:

The Law of Heaven and Truth were born
Of conscious fervor set on fire.
From this came stillness of the night,
From this the ocean with its waves. [8]

Among the Vedic principles is the concept of brahman, the Ultimate as discovered objectively, and atman, the Ultimate as discovered introspectively. In the exploration of Self one eventually finds the Absolute. Also essential in Vedic literature is the concept of cycles as apotheosized in Brahman (creation), Vishnu (maintenance), and Shiva (destruction).

In early Mazdean legend, precursor to the Persian cults of Zarathustra and later Mithra, is found the precept that life is an interplay of polar opposites characterized by Ahura Mazda (light) and Ahriman (darkness). This seminal idea would manifest throughout most religious and philosophical thought thereafter in such archetypal dichotomies as Yahweh and Satan from the Book of Job, the yin/yang principle of Lao Tzu, the aeonic eternal pairs of Valentinus, and eventually as Hubbard's concept of "terminals." It is a two-terminal universe, he said, in regard to thought as well as electricity. "A datum can be understood in the MEST universe only when it is compared to a datum of comparable magnitude ... Indeed it could be said that the MEST universe came into being by one terminal demanding attention from another." [9]

The yoga sutras of Shri Patanjali appeared in India around 200 B.C., comprising a systematic body of mental and physical exercises based upon Vedic principles. Probably India's first "technological" approach to liberation, they include a concept called samyama, or concentration leading to direct knowledge. This process requires three components: dharana, dhayana, and samadhi, or focused attention, union, and illumination. In Hubbard's system, perhaps the most important concept is the "ARC Triangle." Understanding, or direct knowledge, requires affinity, the willingness to share the same space or be in union with some aspect of existence; reality, some experience of or illumination about the nature of an object or being; and communication, the focusing of attention and impulse toward union. To the degree that these components are present, one can achieve relative understanding of anything in existence. Conversely, a diminishment of one component affects the other two sides of the "triangle" and thereby the entire equation. Hubbard believed ARC to be the requisite constituents of love, itself.

Another significant concept defined a scale of emotional "tone levels," upon which anyone could be located for the purpose of processing. "Under affinity we have the various emotional tones ranged from the highest to the lowest and these are, in part, serenity (the highest level), enthusiasm (as we proceed downward toward the baser affinities), conservatism, boredom, antagonism, anger, covert hostility, fear, grief, apathy." [10] This "Tone Scale" represents the small cycle within the greater cycle and illustrates Hubbard's contention that people, from their first moment of existence, are spiraling "downward" from the full vitality of consciousness to death and non-existence. It is the same concept as the Passion of Sophia draped in scientific raiment, the Fall from Divine Grace and descent into chaos chronicled by the early Christian gnostics, and the unknown authors of Genesis before them.

Throughout the 1950s, Hubbard and his associates probed into those areas at which Science has traditionally scowled. In addition to the repression of present-lifetime trauma, they explored past-life regression and exteriorization from the physical body as well, always with the intention of demystifying the esoteric. "Creative processing," developed in 1952, employed visualization techniques or "mock-ups" designed to return native abilities lost to an individual through fear of failure and abdication of responsibility for his creations over many lifetimes. With the return of Dianetics to the Scientological arsenal in 1954, processing became characterized as "negative gain" (removal of disability) or "positive gain" (recovery of lost ability) in approach.

In 1961, Hubbard purchased Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, England, and set up an academic laboratory. It was there, in the green hills of Sussex, that he examined in depth the entire body of his work with the intention of systematizing auditing procedure. Probably for the first time, he conducted himself as a scientist, albeit one unencumbered by peer review. Attracted by Scientology's publicized efficacy and Hubbard's undeniable charisma, students flocked to Saint Hill from the world over to learn auditing techniques from the master. And it was this intense period of experimentation and distillation during the early 1960s that produced Hubbard's most effective technology.

Freud had theorized that by reducing a patient's resistance to the unconscious, its contents can be brought into consciousness. But his focus shifted, over the years, from analysis of the resistance generated by the id to that of the ego. [11] Hubbard knew that auditing works on the same principle as psychoanalysis or, for that matter, the ritual of the Roman Catholic confessional: confrontation with truth brings catharsis. Like Freud, he decided that the best route into the reactive mind is through the decisions made by the individual Self.

There are, however, substantial differences in Hubbard's technique. An auditor uses repetition to aid a subject in the examination of a painful emotional trauma; the same question is repeated until the answer brings relief. The subject looks not only at trauma inflicted on them, but at three additional vectors: what they have done to others, what they have witnessed others do to others and what they have ultimately done to themselves. In this manner, no stone is left unturned. And, unlike psychoanalysis, the auditor is forbidden to evaluate for the subject; the signifigance of their revelations is inconsequential. If the subject feels better, it's all that matters.

Throughout the years Hubbard had followed a number of blind alleys looking for the ultimate process that would "clear" an individual of his stimulus/response mechanism. Dianetics had provided some consistently workable techniques and Creative Processing had exposed basic automatic mechanisms with which an individual "thinks." Although many subjects reported the phenomenon of being exterior to the physical body during a session, permanent clearing had never been achieved to Hubbard's satisfaction. So, he combined the most useful of his techniques with a tool for measuring electrical resistance [12] and went after the elusive reactive mind, seeking a way to dismantle it bit by bit.

One had to first postulate its composition and Hubbard began with the anatomy of a problem: "Truth is the exact time, place, form and event ... Any problem, to be a problem, must contain a lie. If it were true it would unmock [vanish] ... A lie is a second postulate, statement or condition designed to mask a primary postulate which is permitted to remain." [13] It was simply a matter of finding the lie and he found it where it would be least expected: in the solution. "A problem is postulate-counter-postulate, terminal-counter-terminal, force-counter-force ... you've got two forces or two ideas which are interlocked of comparable magnitude and the thing stops right there." [14] What often passes for a "solution" is, in fact, an attempt to undo a situation by force, one idea in opposition to another. Recognition of a problem's source is the key to its dissolution and the source is inevitably one's own observation of the situation.

Sometimes, in an attempt to solve a problem, one commits a harmful or "overt" act, or fails to act defensively in another's behalf, resulting in a phenomenon Hubbard called a "withhold" or "an unspoken, unannounced transgression against a moral code by which the person was bound." [15] The result is guilt. Here the auditor, like the psychoanalyst before him, adopts the role of confessor. By confiding one's actions or neglect to a non-judgmental party, an individual discharges that guilt. In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, published in 1925, Freud classified anxiety as the signal of approaching internal danger to the ego. Guilt, he postulated, was a self-punitive measure taken by the superego against the ego for transgressions of conscience. Hubbard went even further. When one commits an "overt act," he proposed, it is immediately followed by a necessity to justify the damage. Thus one must believe he has a "motivator," or reason why the act was committed. The obvious cause and effect are actually reversed in this "overt-motivator sequence."

Fear, according to Freud, was the ego's interpretation of approaching external danger. And most dangerous of all is "change." Each upset in life is marked by a prior unforeseen change. "Upsets with people or things come about because of a lessening or sundering of affinity, reality or communication," Hubbard noted. [16] It is the upsets, or "ARC-breaks," of the past which affect one's ability to face the future with equanimity and confront the great Heraclitan constant. Find these past ARC-breaks and one can locate the changes which precipitated them.

Success in life requires adaptability. Unable to handle change, one becomes fixed in attitude and position and is thereby destined to fail. Hubbard believed the mechanism responsible for this immobility was a computation based upon past failure: "The facsimile [mental image picture] part is actually a self-installed disability which 'explains' how he is not responsible for not being able to cope. So he is not wrong for not coping. Part of the 'package' is to be right by making wrong. The service facsimile is therefore a picture containing an explanation of self condition and also a fixed method of making others wrong." [17] Because an individual fashions justification into a crutch, the computation he uses to make others wrong is the key to his door of failed purposes.

Failure can be defined as a thwarted goal. "The goal pointed one way, the opposing forces pointed exactly opposite and against it ... Where these two forces have perpetually met, a mental mass is created." [18] Hubbard hypothesized that an individual stuck in this quagmire would be chronically and unknowingly "dramatizing," or repeating in their present actions, what had happened to them in the past as a result of these opposing forces. An "opposition terminal," for instance, would be an identity one opposed as counter to one's values and goals. Any value can be perceived in a plus or minus aspect -- love/hate or good/evil -- and these opposing pairs form conceptual dichotomies. At the basis of all aberration is this inherent opposition of ideas of comparable magnitude -- the mythic interplay of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman.

So, Hubbard postulated, this reactive mind works like the expanding ripples from a stone cast into still waters: In a state of unresolvable contradiction one fails and therefore becomes afraid to move and therefore fears change and therefore becomes upset and tries to handle life with force until life itself becomes the problem. He reasoned that in order to dismantle this vicious mechanism, one must painstakingly discharge the basic dichotomies, like opposite electrical terminals, until no reaction can be located on the galvanometer. Then one would have literally "erased" his reactive mind and achieved the "State of Clear." This was Hubbard's "Bridge" between homo sapiens and homo novus, and it quickly made him a wealthy man.

The late 1960's were the golden days of Scientology, with thousands flocking to lectures, enrolling in student co-auditing programs and "moving up the Bridge" toward the enticing goal of Clear. What caused it all to turn sour is a question bitterly explored by anyone who found themselves eventually disenchanted by Hubbard's promise of a world without pain, guilt, or fear.

In 1954, despite his disdain for organized religion, Hubbard incorporated the "First Church of Scientology" in Washington, D.C. Although it had been an obvious concession to the Internal Revenue Service, Hubbard apparently took his role as clerical patriarch seriously. When he spoke, it was always ex cathedra; there were no checks or balances in matters of policy or methodology. Intellectually, he traded a healthy skepticism for numinous infallibility.

Technically, he broke his own cardinal rule of non-evaluation. With the authority of Freud, Hubbard told subjects what they would find in the course of their exploration. What to Audit, published in 1952 [19] was an astonishing collection of psychotic "space opera" scenarios which Hubbard claimed were incidents common to all of humanity. His Clearing Course of 1966 was a prepared list of dichotomies ostensibly composing the structure of every individual's reactive mind. But the most flagrant of Hubbard's evaluations dealt ironically with the teleology of group insanity.

Since the early 1950s, Hubbard had sought the formula for the ultimate state of spiritual attainment. The "Operating Thetan" (O.T.), he proposed, would be "at cause over matter, energy, space, time, form and life." [20] In 1967, having been expelled from the U.K. for political reasons, Hubbard put to sea, ostensibly to research certain unexpected phenomena observed in his group of nascent O.T.s. He shortly developed a process which explained all of the aberrant behavior that Clears continued to manifest and the reason why "the common denominator of a group is the reactive bank." [21] And to make certain his minions appreciated the magnitude of this discovery, he referred to it as the "Wall of Fire."

[Ed. Note: I have deleted one paragraph from this otherwise excellent summary of the tenets of Scientology. The paragraph briefly describes the somewhat controversial auditing level known as OT3. To see why I removed the paragraph, visit my page on OT3.]

"There is evidently no Nirvana," Hubbard had said back in 1952. "It is the feeling that one will merge and lose his own individuality that restrains the thetan from attempting to remedy his lot. His merging with the rest of the universe would be his becoming matter. This is the ultimate in cohesiveness and the ultimate in affinity, and is at the lowest point of the tone-scale." [22] Consequently, Hubbard saw the group dynamic as inherently aberrated due to its "restimulation" of Xenu's heinous coarctation of souls, and therefore, at the highest level of consciousness one is constantly struggling to differentiate his own thoughts from the rest of the turbid cosmic cluster.

Like the Christian State of Grace, the Scientological State of Clear proved transitory. Although Hubbard had declared an absolute to be unattainable, this was his one shining exception to the rule. Clears, even if they continued to see mental image pictures, manifest problems, commit overts, and make others wrong, were by policy "clear." What had been, for them, a very personal revelation of responsibility and innate potential, quickly became a symbol of status within the group to be maintained at all cost. The highest crime, according to Hubbard, was the invalidation of one who had attested to the State of Clear.

With the advent of the O.T. Levels, Scientology had evolved into a self-contained, quasi-secret society complete with degrees and rituals of initiation. Proponents of secrecy proceed from the premise that knowledge of Self must be experienced first-hand, rather than absorbed vicariously. A process, by this logic, is only as good as it is unexpected. Assuming that to be true, Hubbard negated the argument when he first told his audience what they would find within themselves. Critics of confidentiality point to the inherent tendency toward status-seeking and manipulation within a structure that relies on progressive revelation to its initiates by an elite core. It is primarily due to this secrecy, and the inherent necessity for an ultimate authority, that groups dedicated to inquiry and self-inspection often become cults.

During its formative years there were numerous contributors to the subject and its techniques. But by the mid-1960s "the tech" was Hubbard's personal revelation, his ladder to heaven, and consequently the single most important pursuit in life for an initiate. Auditing, originally a tool of facility, became a ritual drug and as the effect wore off, Hubbard was compelled to find exonerative explanations. If one hadn't achieved results, he pronounced, it was their evil intentions, not his sacred procedures, which were to blame. But how could anything succeed in an environment where one was encouraged to think for themselves and simultaneously precluded from doing so?

Ultimately, any tool for transformation must in turn be transformed by those whom it helped to transform. If it becomes standardized it serves only the purpose of business; if it stagnates it loses its relevance to the changing sea of existence; if it is made sacrosanct it shackles one to an unquestioned belief. In the words of Shri Patanjaii, "the whole process of discrimination is the elimination of all limitations; when that is attained, the process itself is to be eliminated, as a man who lights the fire throws away the match." [23]

Wholly apart from the destructive aspects of a group dynamic is the undeniably empirical realm of transformation. A re-forming or re-structuring of consciousness, it occurs when an old paradigm dissolves and out of the phoenix rises a new way of seeing. An expanded concept of existence blossoms with the integration of new information. It can adopt the form of disorientation or liberation, but a transformed being must look at the world through different eyes. It was in this realm of transformation that Hubbard made his most valuable contribution.

Ultimately gnostic in orientation, Scientology's avowed purpose is to free the spirit of Man from his imprisonment in matter. As a methodology, the process of auditing is logically consistent and, for those with the good sense to eschew the cult, a formidable tool for self-inspection. Even Hubbard's mythology, like the allegories of the Aryan Avesta, the Semitic Genesis, the Hindu Bhagavad-gita, the Mayan Popul Vuh, and the Gnostic Tripartite Tractate, serves to illustrate that ignorance of Self is the basic sickness in the world. For better or worse, the saga of Xenu is intended to provide a compass for initiates who find themselves navigating through a sea of disquieting ideas and disturbing identities, perhaps of their own creation.

If Scientology is to be criticized as a spiritual pursuit, that criticism might well take the form of mythologist Joseph Campbell's disdain for all religions which developed in the West out of Zarathustra's great dichotomy. "Ahura Mazda created a good world; Ahriman filled it with evil. You have a fall -- a fall in the very nature of the universe -- and so you don't put yourself in accord with nature, you correct it. And that's where we got off. The Bible inherits that ... Christianity takes it over, and Islam takes it over ... And if you want to see how the mythologies we've inherited are working, look at Lebanon and Beirut today. The three major religions of the West knocking each other to pieces." [24] One might look also at Hubbard's church and its aggressive litigation against splinter groups attempting to use this technology of transformation outside the organizations economic regulation.

Anyone honestly exploring the subject of Scientology comes inevitably to the conclusion that L. Ron Hubbard was a mad genius who passionately believed that Mankind was worth saving and, convinced that ruthlessness was a virtue, flattened anyone who stood in his way. A mass of contradictions, he was a self-proclaimed demigod who despised authority, an explorer who discouraged experimentation and a seeker of truth who lived an utter lie. Hubbard could not escape the law of kanna which his overt-motivator sequence had so aptly described. The church he founded to liberate Man from the cosmic trap became a dark illustration of the insidious nature of group fanaticism and his own paranoia. His eventual abdication of responsibility for the juggernaut he had created led to an enormous ARC-break with those who loved him for his genius and could have helped him surmount his madness.

In the final analysis, L. Ron Hubbard was living proof that his technological concepts are largely sound. Through the lack of their application, the man who stated as his philosophy: "The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails," [25] sank his own fleet and collapsed his own Bridge.
Footnotes

1. Two excellent biographies of Hubbard cover his limitless eccentricities in great detail. See Corydon, Bent and Hubbard, L. Ron, Jr., L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1987) for an insider's look. Also see: Miller, Russell, Bare-Faced Messiah (New York: Henry Holt and Ccwnpany, 1987) for an excellent biographical over-view.

2. See the January 31, 1950 edition of the New York Daily Mirror.

3. The term "engram" was first used to describe a psychological condition in 1923 by Richard Simon in his book, The Mneme.

4. Bettelheim, Bruno, Freud and Ma
posted by mosch at 5:58 AM on March 17, 2005

Well,
At least this didn't get out of hand when I went home to watch American Idol and drink beer, beer is the next beer, btw, just as Ghostbusters is the Ghostbusters of our generation.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:21 AM on March 17, 2005

Scientology says gays are deviants, and worse.
nuff said?

And here I thought just maybe y'all were mistaken about chocolate-pants' fpp.

And frankly, truffles aren't all they're cracked up to be. Good pralines, on the other hand...
posted by Goofyy at 6:30 AM on March 17, 2005

I bent my wookie.
posted by everichon at 7:33 AM on March 17, 2005

I like to eat hot turds.
posted by Outlawyr at 8:21 AM on March 17, 2005

You like to eat hot turds? *I* like to eat hot turds!
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:25 AM on March 17, 2005

Great. I know a place where you can order hot turds online! They're always fresh hot turds, and the guy who makes them sometimes posts a hot turd right here on Metafilter! His name is zibzanna, and he's a really savvy business man! A bit of a fuckwad, but still a really nice hot turd artist.
posted by Outlawyr at 8:38 AM on March 17, 2005