Danda 1995 - Suhotra Maharaja Archives

emember and speak the best that has been thought and said in the history of theworld: katha eva kathasu saram, the essence of all topics, Krsna katha. Sarammeans essence. Even if one remembers only a drop of that essence, his memory isperfectly cultivated, because as it is said, "One drop of the ocean of divinenectar would drown the whole world." As the soil, however rich it may be,cannot be productive without cultivation, so the memory without culture cannever produce good fruit.Comment by Suhotra SwamiMarch 28, 1995Subject: The recent madness has been consigned to the Oblivion conference ...------------------------------------------------------------...by the vigilant sysop. Those texts are no longer accssible through the Dandaconference.BELATED COMMENT ON HUBBARD JUNKText by Suhotra SwamiMarch 29, 1995Today I read that download of that internet bulletin on the "secret scripture"junk of L Ron Hubbard. It goes without saying that it is completely bonkers.But it is also interesting to note that Hubbard seems to have tapped into thesame sort of astral "space-opera" as did one Richard Shaver. I'll try to avoida too-detailed explanation, but the Shaver Mystery, as it is commonly called,predates Scientology by a good many years. It started in the late '40's whenRay Palmer, the editor of a US science fiction magazine, publicized the "racialmemories" of Mr. Shaver which Palmer happened to find in a a waste paper basketin his magazine's office. His assistant editor had thrown Shaver's letter inthe trash, considering it lunacy. But Palmer was intrigued by Shaver's story(full of cryptic jargon not unlike Hubbard's) about the hidden history of PlanetEarth involving Teros (deva-like spacemen) and Deros (demons who live below theearth, who operate magic-tech machinery to harrass humanity). Human beings weresupposedly cultured millions of years ago by the Teros. Now, according toShaver, the Teros are somewhere in space, and we are left at the mercy of theevil Deros and their underground mind-warping ray projectors. Palmer rewroteShaver's letter as a 30 000 word article entitled "I Remember Lemuria!" that hepublished in the next issue of his 'zine. It sent shockwaves all across theUnited States, bringing in many thousands of letters of reader response.Typically, these people claimed to have similar insights, memories and evendirect contact with the Deros and Teros. Thus the Shaver Mystery was born. Itlasted well into the 50's, and then faded away. But by that time, Hubbard (whohad been a science fiction hack) had started his Dianetics movement. There wasalso another early '50's science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick who tappedinto a similar mystical/technical quasi religious state of mind. He didn'tstart a cult, but he wrote what are celebrated today as "cult" stories. One ofhis last books was called VALIS, which presented an autobiographical account ofDick's sci-fi religious hallucinations. Clearly, it could have bečíme"scripture" like Hubbard's had Dick not been too psychologically broken to tryseeking popularity as a cult leader. A very popular Hollywood film, BladeRunner, was based on a PK Dick story.Anyway ... I just wanted to say that Hubbard's genre is not unique, and he isnot the first in this line. It is just weirdness, of course, but it is p o w er f u l weirdness that seems to have burst out all at once in the late '40's --from somewhere down below. Along with the flying saucer phenomena, it wouldappear.