An offensive (and silly) slang term for
scientologists.
The explaination, from
Pope Charles, the
SubGenius Pope of Houston, follows:
All over the internet, the latest question due to well known
controversies originating from alt.religion.scientology (ARS) seems to
be, "What is this bit about clams?" "Why do people on ARS think
this is funny?", and the ever popular, "Can I be in on the joke?"
Well, here are some answers to all of this and more.
L. Ron Hubbard late in 1952 wrote a book called "What To Audit",
later renamed "The History Of Man". It is still sold by the
Church Of Scientology and this book contains many of the basic
beliefs of the Church Of Scientology. It is considered by many
connosieurs of kook literature as a true classic of kook nonsense
and it is well worth looking for this book in used books stores
if you are indeed interested in a book that proves that there isn't
anything so stupid that people won't believe in it if it's in a book.
L. Ron Hubbard in the introduction claimed it was "a cold blooded
look at your last 60 trillion years." How could this be wrong?
He also claimed his book finally proved the theory of evolution.
(Patience, we will get to them clams soon enough.)
This following excert of History Of Man is taken from the book
Bare Faced Messiah by Russell Miller, a fine book for the neophyte
Scientologist watcher and clam afficionado.
Thanks also to Diane Richardson who originally typed this excerpt
up and posted it to ARS.
In a narrative style that wobbled uncertainly between
schoolboy fiction and a pseudo-scientific medical paper,
Hubbard sought to explain the the human body was occupied by
both a thetan and a 'genetic entity', or GE, a sort of low-
grade soul located more or less in the centre of the body.
To underpin his new science, Hubbard created an entire
cosmology, the essence of which was that the true self of
an individual was an immortal, omniscient and ominpotent
entity called a 'thetan'. In existence before the beginning of time, thetans picked up and discarded millions of bodies
over trillions of years.
('The genetic entity apparently enters the protoplasm line
some two days or a week prior to conception. There is some
evidence that the GE is actually double, one entering on the
sperm side...') The GE carried on through the evolutionary
line, 'usually on the same planet', whereas the thetan only
came to earth about 35,000 years ago to supervise the
development of caveman into homo sapiens. Thus the GE was
once 'an anthropoid in the deep forests of forgetten
continents or a mollusc seeking to survive on the shore of
some lost sea'. The discovery of the GE (Hubbard hailed
every fanciful new idea as a 'discovery') 'makes it possible
at last to vindicate the theory of evolution proposed by
Darwin'.
Much of the book was devoted to a re-working of evolution,
starting with 'an atom, complete with electronic rings'
after which came cosmic impact producing a 'photon
converter', the first single-cell creature, then seaweed,
jellyfish and the clam.
Look! Clams!
Many engrams, for example, could be traced back to clams.
The clam's big problem was that there was a conflict
between the hinge that wanted to open and the hinge that
wanted to close. It was easy to restimulate the engram
caused by the defeat of the weaker hinge, Hubbard pronounced,
by asking a pre-clear to imagine a clam on a beach opening
and closing its shell very rapidly and at the same time
making an opening and closing motion with thumb and
forefinger. This gesture, he said, would upset large
numbers of people.
'By the way,' he warned, 'your discussion of these incidents
with the uninitiated in Scientology can cause havoc.
Should you describe the "clam" to some one sic, you may
restimulate it in him to the extent of causing severe jaw
pain. Once such victim, after hearing about a clam death,
could not use his jaws for three days.'
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Does your jaw ache, dear reader?
Bwahahahhahahahaha!
Clams! And people pay to be taught stuff like this from silly lads, who believe stuff like this. And they claim it is science!
And a religion! Low level Scientologists are discouraged from
reading this book and are told it will all be explained later
when they are ready to understand the higher secrets of Scientology.
'Clamhead' is a phrase used on alt.religion.scientology to describe scientologists who believe stuff like this and explains the rash of clam jokes of alt.religion.scientology.
More secrets of Scientology:
After the clam became the 'Weeper' or the 'Boohoo', a
mollusc that rolled in the surf for half a million years,
pumping sea water out of its shell as it breathed, hence
its name. Weepers had 'trillions of misadventures',
prominent among them the anxiety caused by trying to gulp
air before being swamped by the next wave. 'The inability
of a pre-clear to cry,' Hubbard explained, 'is partly a
hang-up in the Weeper. He is about to be hit by a wave,
has his eyes full of sand or is frightened about opening
his shell because he may be hit.'
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Progressing along the genetic time-track, evolution arrived
at the sloth, which 'had bad times falling out of trees',
the ape and the famous Piltdown Man, which was the cause
of a multitude of engrams, ranging from obsessions about
biting to family problems. These could be traced back to
the fact that 'the Piltdown teeth were enormous and he was
quite careless as to whom and what he bit.' Indeed, so
careless was the Piltdown Man, Hubbard recorded, that he
was sometimes guilty of 'eating one's wife and other
somewhat illogical activities.' (Unfortunately
for Hubbard, just twelve months after The History of Man
was published, the supposed fossil remains of primitive
man found in gravel on Piltdown Common in the south of
England were exposed as a hoax. The Piltdown Man had
never existed.
The History of Man drifted into pure science fiction when
Hubbard came to the point of explaining how thetans
moved from body to body. Thetans abandoned bodies earlier
than GEs, it appeared. While the GE stayed around to see
the body through to death, thetans were obliged to report
to a between-lives 'implant station' where they were
implanted with a variety of control phases while waiting
to pick up another body, sometimes in competition with
other disembodied thetans. Hubbard revealed that most
implant stations were on Mars, although women occasionally
had to report elsewhere in the solar system and there
was a 'Martian implant station somewhere in the Pyrenees'.
Well, there you have it. How can we deny the genius of
L. Ron Hubbard? The thoughtful and useful ideas he taught
the world? He obvious deep learning and careful judgement?
The certain correctness and amazing insights of the basic beliefs
of Scientology?
More tartar sauce with your clams?
Poor Little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Poor Little Clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!