Heinlein's Double Star

[J Gimmysum Truth]

Keep in mind Heinlein was an associate of L Ron Hubbard and a bit of a Thelemic master in his own right...

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Star

Double Star is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first serialized in Astounding Science Fiction (February, March, April 1956) and published in hardcover the same year. At the 1957 Worldcon it received the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the previous year.[1]

Plot summary

The story, which is told in the first person, centers on down-and-out actor Lawrence Smith (stage name Lorenzo Smythe, a.k.a. "The Great Lorenzo"). A brilliant actor and mimic, he is down to his last coin when a spaceman hires him to double for a public figure. It is only when he is on his way to Mars that he finds out how deeply he has been deceived: he will have to impersonate one of the most prominent politicians in the solar system (and one with whose views Smythe deeply disagrees): John Joseph Bonforte. Bonforte is the leader of the Expansionist coalition, currently out of office but with a good chance of changing that at the next general election. Bonforte has been kidnapped by his political opponents, and his aides want Smith to impersonate Bonforte while they try to find him.

Bonforte is rescued, but he is in poor health due to the treatment inflicted on him during his imprisonment. This forces Smith to extend his performance, even to becoming temporary Supreme Minister and running in an election. The central political issue in the election is the granting of the vote to Martians in the human-dominated Solar System. Lorenzo shares the anti-Martian prejudice prevalent among large parts of Earth's population, but he is called upon to assume the persona of the most prominent advocate for Martian enfranchisement. Smith takes on not only Bonforte's appearance, but some aspects of his personality.

At the moment of electoral victory, Bonforte dies of the aftereffects of his kidnapping, and Smythe realizes he has little choice but to assume the role for life. In a retrospective conclusion set twenty-five years later, Lorenzo has 'become' Bonforte, suppressing his own identity permanently. He has been generally successful and has carried forward Bonforte's ideals to the best of his ability. Penny (Bonforte's adoring secretary; now Smith/Bonforte's wife) says, "I never loved anyone else." At the end, Lorenzo looks back on his former life, including the prejudices he used to hold, commenting that they seem to him like they happened to someone else.

[J Gimmysum Truth]

The Heinlein - Hubbard Wager Myth
(thing) by Roninspoon Fri Mar 29 2002 at 19:49:50

For years I have preached the story of the Heinlein-Hubbard Wager. Any time Scientology or Hubbard came up in conversation, I would merrily launch into the tale of the wager and do my pedantic duty to relay poorly researched information. It never occurred to me that it may not be true. It seemed so plausible, especially so once I read some of the Scientology theological history.

The most common version of the story goes something like this:
Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard, two good friends and legendary contributors to the golden age of science fiction, are sitting at a bar/dinner table/convention table and discussing the nature of religion/mass hypnosis/writers wages when Hubbard exclaims "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion" or "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous, if a man really wanted to make a million dollars, he would start a religion." or one of several variations on the same theme. The legend continues by claiming that Heinlein and Hubbard then entered into a wager to see who could start a religion the fastest and make the most money. Heinlein's entry was Stranger In a Strange Land.

The myth was spread and gained popularity for many of the same reasons that all myths persist, it has the potential to be true and it has a root in fact. It's an easy story to believe, two men renowned for their outspoken opinions decided to create religions, one of them succeeds with Scientology and the resultant theology sounds strikingly similar to most of his fiction. Few people besides Scientologists take Scientology seriously or even consider it a religious faith. For many people this only further reinforces the idea that Scientology is contrived and has certainly aided in the belief that its genesis was a wager.

Eventually someone I was doing the disservice of attempting to spread this myth to called me on it and asked me to produce proof. I no longer remembered where I had received the information from myself, but I seemed to recall that Harlan Ellison had been the source of it. I commenced to researching the topic and the more I discovered the less likely it seemed that the myth was true. The only evidence available in favor of the myth were second hand accounts or different variations of the same story I had been telling.

An associate claimed that Larry Niven told her a variation of the myth while doing the waltz at a convention. Another claimed, as I had believed, that Ellison had mentioned the same thing in an interview. Others believed the wager was made at a Los Angeles convention in the 50's but had heard it from someone who was present although not engaged in the conversation personally.

I decided that I was going to get nothing but the same rhetoric by searching google.com, and interviewing acquaintances. What I needed was an authority on either man to give me some details. So far no one I had asked had offered any counterproof, only the same vague assertion that the wager had happened but the details were fuzzy. I wasn't about to contact the church of Scientology for their slant on the subject. Their version would be inescapable and terribly biased. Instead I decided to contact someone with authoritative information on Heinlein

I wasn't likely to get a response from his surviving wife, Virginia, as I couldn't find any way to contact her. Even if I did have contact information for her, I have too much respect for the man to go around bugging his wife for details regarding something that had the potential to be a touchy subject. Instead, I began a correspondence with Bill Patterson, Chairman of the Heinlein Society, to see if any light could be shed on the subject. His help has been instrumental in straightening out some of the details, false logic and misinformation that have helped this myth persist.

The simple truth of the matter is that a wager never took place. It never happened, end of story. Having said that however, the possibility does exist that a series of conversations between the two authors and commentary made by Heinlein, may have been the catalyst for Hubbard's authorship of Dianetics. Heinlein and Hubbard were close friends and Hubbard greatly respected Heinlein, his opinions and his ideas.

Mr. Patterson revealed to me, "RAH and LRH had one or more discussions during 1944 and or 1945 when they were both in Philadelphia, and RAH pointed out to LRH that religions had an inordinate amount of legal latitude in the U.S. and that churches could engage in a great many activities otherwise thought of as secular, under the tax and other protection churches enjoy. He had already explored these ideas in some of his stories and was to revisit these notions in their original form in Stranger. It is possible that this conversation or series of conversations took place as late as December 1945 or early 1946 and in Los Angeles."

The theme of money and religion was apparently a very popular one for Hubbard as he seems to have mentioned it at several other informal discussions around the same time. In a 1978 interview Harlan Ellison commented "Scientology is bullsh*t! Man, I was there the night L. Ron Hubbard invented it, for Christ Sakes!...We were sitting around one night... who else was there? Alfred Bester, and Cyril Kornbluth, and Lester Del Rey, and Ron Hubbard, who was making a penny a word, and had been for years. And he said "This bullsh*t's got to stop!" He says, "I gotta get money." He says, "I want to get rich"."

Editor and Author Sam Moskovitz claimed a number of times that Hubbard had made similar remarks at a convention he hosted in Newark in either 1947 or 1948. Another respected SciFi author, Theodore Sturgeon, revealed to Mike Jittlov, himself a respected filmmaker, an incident in the 1940's when Hubbard had become upset and said, "Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!" Lloyd Arthur Eshback related in his autobiography, an incident in either 1948 or 49, "I think of the time while in New York I took John W. Campbell, Marty Greenberg, and L. Ron Hubbard to lunch...The incident is stamped indelibly in my mind because of one statement that Ron Hubbard made. What led him to say what he did I can't recall--but in so many words Hubbard said: "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is!"."

Several of these claims have been refuted, but others have not. The Church of Scientology takes these matters very seriously and has won several court cases in regards to the issue of Scientology's origins and disparaging remarks made against it. The origins of Dianetics and Scientology may still be a little clouded but it seems clear to me now that a wager between the two authors, or anyone else for that matter, was not responsible and while it's possible that Heinlein planted the seed for Hubbard's Dianetics, Mr. Patterson cautioned me to remember, "Both LRH and RAH were talkers of the first water. This particular conversation was one of many they had at the time -- it only looks significant when we see it through the historical lens of experience of what LRH did with the ideas, long after he and RAH had fallen out of intimate personal contact."

Bibliography

The Real Harlan Ellison. Saturday Evening Wings, Nov-Dec 1978 pg 32
www.users.wineasy.se/noname/harlan.htm

Eshback, Llyod Arthur. Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era.
Oswald Train: Phila. 1983

Lindsay, Don. www.planetkc.com/sloth/sci/religion.money.faq.html

Patterson, Bill. Perosnal correspondence

[beatlies]

NASA is BOMBING the MOON on 10/9/09 WTF?
Quote


The planned October 9, 2009 bombing of the moon by a NASA orbiter that will bomb the moon with a 2-ton kinetic weapon to create a 5 mile wide deep crater as an alleged water-seeking and lunar colonization experiment, is contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies. The NASA moon bombing, a component of the LCROSS mission, may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.

If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject. The U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S. has ratified, requires that “ The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.” 98 nations have ratified and 125 nations have signed the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.

NASA’s LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission

The NASA LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission, which departed on Earth on June 18, 2009. According to one report, “Flying over the moon's southern hemisphere, LCROSS will use its high-precision instruments, as well as close-up images of the terrain gathered by the lunar orbiter, to seek out a crater just shallow enough and dark enough to be a prime bombing target.

“There, acting as what the Ames team calls its "shepherding spacecraft," LCROSS will guide an empty Centaur rocket weighing two tons toward its target. The rocket will crash into the crater at 5,600 mph, creating a new crater - perhaps as large as 5 miles wide. The crash is scheduled to occur Oct. 9.”

The two-ton Centaur rocket qualifies as a space-based kinetic weapon. The reason alleged by NASA for the mission is that “the [LCROSS} probes will map possible landing sites and search for water sources that could be used by a future lunar colony.”

According to NASA, “The Mission Objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) include confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of one of the Moon’s polar craters with two heavy impactors in 2009 to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The impact will eject material from the crater’s surface to create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials.”

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 774297
9/20/2009 1:00 AM Re: NASA is BOMBING the MOON on 10/9/09 WTF? Quote

Will I get pimples that day?

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 765377 (OP)
9/20/2009 1:01 AM Re: NASA is BOMBING the MOON on 10/9/09 WTF? Quote

Where have I been that I hadn't heard about this?


Anonymous Coward
User ID: 765377 (OP)
9/20/2009 1:10 AM Re: NASA is BOMBING the MOON on 10/9/09 WTF? Quote


Will I get pimples that day?
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 774297

Here's NASA's latest press release inviting the media to MOFFET FIELD, California to observe the 2 impacts.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 765377 (OP)
9/20/2009 1:19 AM Re: NASA is BOMBING the MOON on 10/9/09 WTF? Quote


Will I get pimples that day?

Here's NASA's latest press release inviting the media to MOFFET FIELD, California to observe the 2 impacts.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 765377