From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 20 - January 1995
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Classic Comment
by Terry E. Scott, England
A Norn is Born
I VISITED London this week and discovered norns.
George Hay was one of the first Dianeticists. We share an interest
in science-fiction, and recently he told me of a London shop that
sells second-hand 'sci-fi' magazines. Yesterday, I went there.
This morning, on my desk is 'Astounding Science Fiction' for
May 1950.
Page 43: Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science, by L. Ron Hubbard.
A Fact Article of Genuine Importance. Plus an introduction by Joseph
A. Winter, M.D., and an editorial by John W. Campbell, Jnr.,
Concerning Dianetics. All copyrights Street and Smith Publications,
Inc.
Interesting: in Evolution of a Science books, material is
missing or altered. Like this: 'By engram we mean, solely,
the actual impression - like the wax indentations on a record -
of the `unconscious' experience upon the body. The engram as
an entire experience, we call a norn.'
Where book editions say 'engram,' Ron sometimes wrote 'norn'
in the May 1950 article. Such as, 'It was necessary to go back
and back in the lives of patients looking for real norns, total
anaten.' And at the end of the magazine article is the following.
Just compare it with the book editions...
'This is part of the story of the search. I wrote it for you this
way because you have minds with which to think. For strictly
professional
publications, I can, will and have dressed this up so it's almost
impossible to understand, it's so exact. A lot of you have been
reading
my stories for years. We know each other. And I have told you the
story as is and I have given you the major results exactly as they
turned out. A lot of you are fellow engineers. I thought you'd enjoy
seeing the structure built.
'I am truly sorry, Eric Frank Russell, that the black enchantment
of Earth didn't turn out to be a sinister barrier for your sake. But
it's a black enchantment all the same. The social and personal
aberrations,
traveling from Egypt's time and before, piling up higher and higher,
being broken only by new lands and new mongrel races.
'The black enchantment is slavery. Man's effort to enslave man
so that man can be free. Wrong equation. That's the black enchantment.
We've a magic word to break it and a science to be applied. Up
there are the stars. Down in the arsenal is an atom bomb. Which
one is it going to be?'