"A science is something which is constructed from truth on workable axioms. There are 55 axioms in scientology which are very demonstrably true, and on these can be constructed a great deal"
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Hubbard borrows the prestige of science the way a stage magician borrows a lab coat: not to test reality, but to command it. The line opens with a clean, textbook-ish definition, smoothing the path for a bait-and-switch. “Constructed from truth on workable axioms” sounds like Euclid with a clipboard, but it quietly replaces science’s real engine (skepticism, falsifiability, replication) with something closer to architecture: pick foundations, build upward, declare the building “true” because it stands.
The number does heavy lifting. “55 axioms” signals rigor the way a long ingredients list signals health. Specificity creates an aura of accounting. Yet the phrasing “very demonstrably true” is a rhetorical cul-de-sac: demonstrable to whom, by what method, and against which competing explanations? Hubbard doesn’t cite experiments; he asserts the existence of demonstrations, then moves straight to the payoff: “on these can be constructed a great deal.” The emphasis is less on discovering what’s there than on manufacturing a world that fits the system.
Context matters: mid-century America was drenched in Cold War technocracy, self-improvement movements, and a rising faith in “methods.” Hubbard’s genius, and menace, is packaging spiritual authority as technical expertise. Call it “scientology,” talk in axioms, and you trade the messy vulnerabilities of belief for the cool authority of procedure.
The subtext is recruitment and insulation. If Scientology is “science,” disagreement becomes ignorance, and criticism becomes anti-rational bias. It’s not an argument; it’s an attempt to seize the referee’s whistle before the game starts.
The number does heavy lifting. “55 axioms” signals rigor the way a long ingredients list signals health. Specificity creates an aura of accounting. Yet the phrasing “very demonstrably true” is a rhetorical cul-de-sac: demonstrable to whom, by what method, and against which competing explanations? Hubbard doesn’t cite experiments; he asserts the existence of demonstrations, then moves straight to the payoff: “on these can be constructed a great deal.” The emphasis is less on discovering what’s there than on manufacturing a world that fits the system.
Context matters: mid-century America was drenched in Cold War technocracy, self-improvement movements, and a rising faith in “methods.” Hubbard’s genius, and menace, is packaging spiritual authority as technical expertise. Call it “scientology,” talk in axioms, and you trade the messy vulnerabilities of belief for the cool authority of procedure.
The subtext is recruitment and insulation. If Scientology is “science,” disagreement becomes ignorance, and criticism becomes anti-rational bias. It’s not an argument; it’s an attempt to seize the referee’s whistle before the game starts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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