Tuesday, April the 11th, 2006

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That Dobson-hubbard Slur

Speaking of Scientology, I read somewhere recently an article claiming that Dobson, the out of print pamphleteer, had pretensions to being some sort of L Ron Hubbard figure, or “Enron” Hubbard, as some wags have taken to calling the old rogue. This is a terrible slur on Dobson who, if not exactly saintly, was by no means a money-grubbing charlatan. It is true that he wrote a “guide to life” entitled Dobsonetics, and devised a “personality test” with which he would attempt to entice passers-by on street corners, but there the similarities end. Much as he might have wanted to, Dobson was never able to buy a small fleet of ships and spend years sailing the oceans with a private navy (the “Sea Organisation”) as a tax-avoidance scheme.

The Dobsonetics personality test survives only in fragmentary form, for the simple reason that most of those invited to take it judged it a piece of blithering inanity and tore it to shreds. To his credit, the pamphleteer did not condemn such folk as apostates who should be abominated, threatened, and shunned. Instead, he looked on sadly as the torn-up scraps of yet another uncompleted test fell to the ground, only to be picked up by the howling winds and carried off, fluttering away in the air. He would watch until they disappeared, and then trudge home, fix himself a cup of piping hot tea, and sit at his escritoire to devise more questions.

It is worth pointing out that, as with so much else Dobsonian, the personality test was a fleeting fad, and he soon moved on to pastures new. Years later he penned a pamphlet entitled A Recantation Of Dobsonetics, which has the dubious distinction of having sold precisely nil copies.

It is estimated that there were two hundred questions in the original Dobsonetics personality test. Of these, only seven have survived. As an act of historical curiosity, you may wish to answer them.

1. Complete the following sequence: thumping headache … spinach … creosote … viper … Helen Shapiro …

2. Do you prefer a flip-top lid to a twist-off cap?

3. Have you ever been mistaken for Stalin?

4. Do you tremble in the presence of coat hangers?

5. “Men are from Uttoxeter, women are from Didcot.” True or false?

6. The best thing to do with a plastic basin full of bird feathers is…. what?

7. Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about L Ron Hubbard?

DETOURS : The History Of Phrenology … Germander Speedwell … The Stingy Scholar