John McMaster – reminiscences of
John McMaster was a famous Scientology figure in the 1960s and 1970s.
He was called Clear Number One, though there were clears by other methods in the 1950s.
There is a page for him on Scientolipedia ( http://scientolipedia.org/info/John_McMaster ) though it needs a bit of work (research et cetera) to make it a proper biography.
Recently (September 2017) there was some reminiscence of him on the IVy Yahoo list and you see them below, preserved for posterity.
---------------------------------------
Sent Saturday Saturday 2nd of September 2017
by ant.phillips@post8.tele.dk (Antony Phillips)
What We Were Writing Then 97
A look back at a bit of the FriScientology over 15 years ago
ivy-subscribers was an Internet list populated by people who subscribed to the printed FriScientology magazine IVy (International Viewpoints). If you were a member you could write to it and your email was distributed to everybody who subscribed. Every week Angel Piercy made a selection of the most interesting (to her) items sent in and it is these weekly collections which we are resending as WWWWT.
Content includes:
Basically this issue is only about John McMaster (and Ron)
I have some minor things to add in present time about John McMaster and perhaps you have also,
if you do, write to this list in present time as I will be doing shortly.
Note that this is a resend of a message sent some years ago, and some data (like addresses) is liable to be inaccurate.
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Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 16:07:07 -0600
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** selection of the weeks ivy-subscribers contributions **
Enjoy the selections!
Angel
I take the responsibility to forward this letter to IVySub.
SO theta. I like it.
Thanks ED
Luca
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da:Ed Dawson
Inviato: domenica 19 maggio 2002 22.09
A: Techs4reality@yahoogroups.com
Oggetto:[T4r] John McMaster
Yesterday I spent the day helping Lyn Keller teach a short EFT and PEAT
processing workshop. Some of the people had a little prior experience with
PEAT, so Lyn paired many of those up with newbies.
I ended up working mostly with two people who were struggling, neither of
which had tried to process another with PEAT before (both had received it
previously). So they co-processed, taking turns while I watched and advised
them, and they both got into some hot case and resolved it! It was fun and
they were processing well by the end of the day.
After the workshop was over, I talked a little with one of them. To my
joyful surprise I discovered that he had known John McMaster very well. So
we talked about John... who I met ONCE when I was 18, and was so impressed
by John's state of being that I stuck with the tech despite my total disgust
with the behavior of the Co$. This is possibly going to sound a little
squirrely, but meeting John was sort of like meeting Jesus Christ in person.
No overwhelming personality, or any other bullshit like that -- instead John
had the cleanest, clearest, most peaceful space I had ever been in, and his
affinity for others was the highest I have encountered in this life. So when
I said it was like meeting Jesus, I am not kidding or exaggerating.
For those who never heard of or met John McMaster, he was the creator or
co-creator of much of the scientology tech during the mid-60's: Power
processing, R6, Grade 7 (the clearing course) and many of the lists used in
sessions.
While John was a student on the class 8 course, Ron Hubbard ordered John
thrown overboard (over the side of a ship into the water). The fall broke
John's arm. It was the act of a barbarian.
The contributions to the tech made by John McMaster were marvelous. He was a
great man.
cheers
Ed
*************************************
Date:Mon, 20 May 2002 16:42:04 -0700 (PDT)
From:
"N. Brov"
Subject: Re: IVySubs: I: [T4r] John McMaster
To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com
Dear Luca,
TFYM
Nice of you to forward this tit bit about John
McMaster.
I have personally met him twice, once in Adelaide
South Australia, when he was on the World Promotional Tour,
and next time which was about 20 years or so later in
California at Virginia Downsborough place in Montecito.
My recollections of him are quite vivid,
The first time I was impressed with his speeches he
made at our local Org and the feelings he created at
that meeting, which spurted a lot of people to action.
Also I remember him relating to me (the second time)
about the simplicity and power of the Power Processes, but
how he came by them and how he developed them.
Also how the Scn mucked around with them later on and
"standerdized" them.
He was quite a gentle man. One felt the clarity of
space with him around, he never encroached on your
space.
It was a pleasure being around him and one felt
uplifted by just that.
He also was telling me how LRH was using him as an
ambassador for Scn, as he was so exeptional with his
comm.
He sure was a great being.
CheersNick
*************************************
Date:Tue, 21 May 2002 13:17:59 -0500
To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com
From:
"Kenneth G. Urquhart"
Subject: IVySubs: John Mac as Source
>[A previously bounced message re-sent through Ant's kindness}
>
>I liked John MacMasters and understand others liking him too. Well, I
>*usually* did. He gave me a very nice session one day at Saint Hill out of
>comradeship. As a matter of fact, I still have the worksheets for it.
>
>I would be very interested in any documentary or anecdotal evidence for the
>following statement:
>
> >For those who never heard of or met John McMaster, he was the creator or
> >co-creator of much of the scientology tech during the mid-60's: Power
> >processing, R6, Grade 7 (the clearing course) and many of the lists used in
> >sessions.
>
>...anecdotal, that is, *not* originating with John Mac.
>
>Not that it is terribly important to me, one way or the other. My
>observation of the technology development activities in the sixties was limited but I saw no
>indication of the truth of the quoted statement. Although I was not on tech lines,
>as I say, LRH was talking to me a great deal about what he was doing on them.
>He was (seemingly, at any rate) so open about it all that it seems likely
>to me that if another were involved to the extent the above statement suggests,
>he would have told me about it. As it was, the comments he made about others'
>involvement certainly led me to understand that those contributions were practical and
>subordinate, if of use at all (and some weren't, in LRH's opinion).
>
>This is not to say that some person other than LRH did not contribute
>substantially and brilliantly. I can't assert that LRH was not leading me to believe
>something that was not true, although my feeling about our conversations is that he was
>being quite open and honest. He was certainly very high-toned.
>
> From what I observed (and again, what I observed is mostly what LRH told
>me and what I saw of him from day to day), the initial
>development of Power Processing was entirely his own work; John Mac may have
>participated in some early experimental sessions, but the bulk of the
>production of Pr Pr as a rundown was done by LRH in his solo research, at his desk, and in the
>daily C/Sing of all the folders in the first Pr Pr HGC at SH.
>
>Likewise, he researched and he produced R6. I don't know what help he had
>in developing it --that was before my time. He did tell me that some of the SH technical
>staff were auditing it (there were not many on staff at SH at the time) and he did say that he was
>not terribly impressed with the standard of work they were doing (I paraphrase here).
>
>He talked to me a great deal about his research in solo auditing; if anyone
>else was doing anything at all to research what became the Clearing Course he didn't
>mention it to me (his not mentioning it does not prove anything. He was
>not unknown to acknowledge substantial and important assistance. The CC material always struck me as
>coming straight from and only from LRH.
>
>I don't know about the "many lists used in sessions." It's perfectly
>possible that John Mac drew some of them up for LRH's approval or editing. On the ship, in
>later years,
>I often saw LRH order the current crew C/S to compile a correction list for
>LRH to review, edit, and approve. Alan Walters has claimed to have introduced the
>idea of correction lists; while I was not there at the time and know nothing about
>that, I can certainly accept it as a possibility. I hope these things can be documented
>sooner or later.
>
>My feeling is that John Mac promoted himself as contributing more than he
>actually did, or perhaps considering that his (considerable) contributions added up
>to more than they did. This is not uncommon. In the stories several people have
>told of their backgrounds, I have seen exaggerations of their closeness to and value to LRH.
>"I worked with LRH on the ship," for example, gives very free rein to the
>imagination; you would have had to have been on the ship to separate out
>the fact from the wish.
>
>It's become very usual now for us to present selected and dressed-up
>facets of our pasts in order to create that great certificate of manipulated truth, the
>essential proof of public beingness, the rezoom (or seavee).
>
>Oh, by the way, wanna see *MY* resume?
>
>Ken U
*******************************
Date:Tue, 21 May 2002 16:01:00 -0700 (PDT)
From:
"N. Brov"
Subject: Re: IVySubs: John Mac as Source
To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com
Dear Ken & All,
After reading your e-mail Ken,
I would like to clarify some of the points that I have
made in my recollection of J McM and his statements to
me.
Not that I am opening a can of worms here in any way,
or try to contradict anyone.
But my encounters with J McM at Montecito, were of a
friendly person to person encounters without any pomp
or ceremony.
Also when John was telling me about what he termed "my
power processing" he was talking from the heart so to
say, as an originator of something normally would,
giving the lead in to its origins and follow on from
that, how to apply and what the pitfalls were and how
to avoid them.
Not that I recall every word or event he uttered to
me, at that time, but it seemed genuine enough to me
at least.
Also I am not trying to be smart about it, or be an
expert on Power, or defend John and his statements.
All it was, just a recollection of events and stirred
memories of John MacMasters.
If there are any corrections to be made to how genuine
John was, well I fully accept those.
However memories are memories and some are quite vivid
and shining brightly.
Some people had that certain engaging and taking you
in their confidence, of which John did have plenty.
CheersNick
******************************
From:PJSpickler@aol.com
Date:Wed, 22 May 2002 02:08:31 EDT
Subject: IVySubs: Facts and fancy
To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com
Due to startling medical breakthroughs that are not uncommon here at
Stanford University, a team of avant-garde research people, accompanied by
various archeology and anthropological types, recently unearthed my mausoleum
and, using beyond-state-of-the-art techniques, brought me back to life. Thus
I am with you again, and who knows for how long. But while the spark burns,
I should like to say a few (far too many) words about the late great John
McMaster and our former founding father of Dianetics and Scientology, that
is, L. Ron Hubbard.
My bona fides include personally meeting L. Ron Hubbard in Washington,
D.C. in January of 1957, and by 1958 being an executive of the Founding
Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. who met practically on a daily
basis with Mr. Hubbard, mostly to see if we could keep that Church afloat
financially, which then provided a good base for Ron and his tech-finding.
I first met John McMaster at St. Hill, England, in June of 1963.
This fact can easily be checked out, since the Briefing Course tape lecture
of the date June 13, 1963 mentions a new arrival by the name of Phil
Spickler; and I think it would be safe to say that from June of '63 through
October of 1963 I saw and listened to L. Ron Hubbard on a daily basis, and
that I and my fellow students on the Briefing Course received bulletin after
bulletin regarding the tech of Scientology from the ever-creative hand of the
founder of Dianetics and Scientology.
John McMaster and yours truly became fast friends early on, and we did
quite a bit of co-auditing in one of the units of the Special Briefing
Course. Having established that I had been there (was there), I should now
like to comment on what tech might be attributed to the pen of L. Ron Hubbard
and what might be attributed, if anything, to John McMaster.
Back in 1958 in Washington, D.C., when Ron was developing a Clear
Procedure, he determined at a staff meeting that what interested the public
more than anything else, starting in 1950 with the book _Dianetics, the
Modern Science of Mental Health_, was the state of Clear -- being Clear and
how to get there was then, and still is, a very popular idea. And so in the
late winter/early spring of 1958, Ron started developing Clear Procedure,
and both at staff meetings and auditor conferences he started mentioning
snippets of it to us. Eventually what he put tgether was handed over to John
Sanborn and John Galusha, two of the best a if uditors ever, to try out on
various people, at that time mostly staff members -- and boy oh boy, it
worked like crazy! And thus was born the 1958 Clear Procedure, introduced at
the Freedom Congress in Washington, D.C. that July, using Help processes,
Step 6 (a creative process), and Connectedness (a Havingness process) as the
core of the procedure. The research auditors helped Ron quite a bit, gave
him pleanty of feedback as things were tested and tried out, but the idea for
the procedure, its development and what it finally led to, came from the head
and pen of L. Ron Hubbard.
Similarly, if we move from 1958 to 1966 St. Hill, the month is
January, and I arrived to get the Power Processes, Grade VI, and Clear. I
run into my good old friend John McMaster, who at that time is very high in
the tech hierarchy at St. Hill, who is very close onto being declared Clear
#1, and who discusses with me the developments of the Power Processes, Grade
VI, and the new 1966 Clear Procedure called the Clearing Course. It seems
very clear or obvious to me at that time from what John is telling me that he
has become the experimental or research auditor for L. Ron Hubbard in trying
out processes and procedures, and in that, with his ability to closely
duplicate Ron's processes and instructions, and his ability to give excellent
feedback to Ron, we find this to be his major contribution to those
developments in the then-Grade Chart. But make no mistake, the ideas and the
final formulations came from the guy that created the Axioms of Dianetics and
Scientology, who wrote all those nifty books, and who created and delivered
the Philadelphia Doctorate Course Series -- that's right, none other than L.
Ron Hubbard.
And it is from Ron's pen that the Scales and the correction lists, and
just about anything of any importance in Dianetics and Scientology, flowed.
It has been my understanding, or it has been claimed, that David Mayo had a
lot to do with the development of New Era Dianetics for OTs -- of that I have
no information other than heresay. But anyone that has done the NOTs course
and the NOTs auditing who is familiar with Scientology tech will find in NOTs
only the novel arrangement of certain elements as something that may be
considered a new creation.
And so in closing I should like to throw my weight, all 6 ounces (which
I understand is the weight of a thetan who is still communicating) behind the
words of Ken Urquhart on the subject of who created what. Sometimes one of
the least popular things about Ron, especially to some few beings who have
followed in his wake, is the sheer magnitude of his creation. Some folks
have case on this, which is to say they are disturbed by it and find it
necessary to resolve their disturbance by endeavoring to pare the old man
down in size a bit. These folk, whoever they may be, are more to be pitied
than censured.
It will for some time to come remain difficult to attempt to enlarge
one's size by positioning oneself with L. Ron Hubbard. If one does succeed,
however, in doing so, it could be a double-edged sword, sort of like what
happens when you assume anyone's valence or identity, namely, with great
ability to tech-find, you may yet end up as an uncommon nut with a mean
streak here and there.
And so good night, sweet dreams, and the best of your tomorrows --
As ever, whoever,
Phil
**********************************************
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Re-Sent in 2017 by: ant.phillips@post8.tele.dk
__._,_.___
Posted
by: Antony Phillips
==================================================
[A few days later I posted this to the same list.]
Dear IV Yahoo reader,
I have met John McMaster's at two vastly different times in my life and his.
First in 1954/5 and secondly in 1984/5. Both times were at East Grinstead.
In 1954/5 I was a staff member. There were only about four or five Scientologists on staff as office workers and three or four on staff as Briefing Course supervisors. Monica Quirino was one of of the office workers. One day she came out of Ron's office rather happy and, perhaps a little bashfully, told us that Ron had appointed her as his personal secretary and was very pleased about. Possibly a few days later, I don't remember, John McMaster came out of Ron's office, bouncing with enthusiasm and announced to us all that Ron had made him his personal secretary. I doubt if in his bumptiousness he noticed Monica Quirino in the background looking rather upset.
In 1984/5 we were both outside of the church when we met. I had gone from Denmark to East Grinstead to get Steve Bisbey, who was the head of the local FriScientology organisation, to check and see if I was finished with audited NOTs. I had used my spare time to make a 3 1/2 hour taped interview with Bevan Preece. He had been heavily involved in the movement to split away from the established Church of Scientology, having a communication line to Australia and learnt what was happening there. I had one side of a tape cassette to fill up. I intended to publish the two cassettes with my interview with Bevan Preece, and there was this one side (half an hour) empty. I made an appointment with John McMaster to interview him (this I thought would be a scoop, to have an interview with John McMaster).
John had come into Scientology in South Africa having been convinced of his efficacy by having (I think it was) cancer cured, his life saved. He was very thankful and enthusiastic about that. I had exactly half an hour to fill up, and no means of editing the tape. Unfortunately fairly near the end of the tape John got worked up about his ARC break with Scientology and it was impossible for me to end. I think I made three attempts and each time he got worked up and I couldn't end the tape when it ran out.
I found it interesting in these tapes how he differentiated strongly between Scientology and auditing. In fact he was very unwilling to use the term "auditing". He used a number of euphemisms for it in the direction of "this marvellous thing".
From what I've read and heard I have feeling that John McMaster while being very high toned, friendly and lovable, lacked a sense of humour. There is a story I think it went like this. The small number of people on staff at Saint Hill (excluding me) stayed there after working hours because there you got a chance to talk to Ron. At such a little gathering around Ron the subject arose of making John "Pope of Scientology". I gather it was one of these light, bantering type things, sort of half serious. But I understood that John took it very seriously.
John was a very high toned person, at his peak. But that wasn't the person I met the second time at East Grinstead. Perhaps you could say that if a group treats a clear/OT like trash that person becomes trash if he doesn't disconnect (or I suppose handle). I think all rather guess that Ron's "aberration" about homosexuals was John McMaster's downfall.
All best wishes, Ant(ony).
PS. I find the following also very interesting with regard to Power Processing. It came through yesterday. John McMaster, after he came out of the church (or rather was ejected) made some tapes on cassette which I think were distributed by Joan and Peter Davies/Davis who lived in Loughborough in England at the time (I think John was staying with them). Some of the cassette tapes, I think three, were about Power Processing This came through as part of success story of one of the preclear's of Dex Gelfand | September 1, 2017 at 5:24 pm .
"Power Processing, Optimized
"Power Processing is a very far-reaching, highly effective technique that, applied proficiently, tends to result in surprisingly great relief of troubling conditions. The core Power Process, known as' Power Process 6,' 'The Conditions Process,' is very effective in resolving any dominant unwanted conditions from which you are seeking relief. The more dominant an unwanted condition is over one’s consciousness, the more this technique will move to root it out. People have commented to me,' Power Processing was the best thing I ever experienced in Scientology.'
"In the conventional Scientology paradigm, Power Processing is not available to most people. Those few who meet the imposed qualifications are restricted to just one single application, one time only.
"I have sought and taken advantage of the opportunity to learn from those among the original participants in the developing of Power Processing in 1965, including having thoroughly studied the lectures of the great John McMaster. Much of this important material has never been even been made available to study and train on in the cloistered world of Scientology organizations. I have had the benefit of absorbing a much broader and richer wealth of information vital for applying this incredible technique to its fullest potential – which is what I do."
I
have this email address for Dex and have assumed it's okay to pass
this on though I haven't been able to ask for permission or tell
about it. DexSessions
PPS. [Ant writing now:] I might as well add my personal comment on receiving the Power Processes. I was one of the first to receive them, as a staff member at Saint Hill. I was on a waiting list because paying preclear's came first (by a weird peculiarity I was, so far as I know, the only staff member to be assigned the top level of the Briefing Course full-time with full pay and power processing). The Power Processing went on and on, and I had four different auditors. With the last auditor, there was a point where I waited a little bit while the auditor did a bit of admin and I speculated a bit on my power processing, and remembered a time when with the first auditor one night I had a stomach pain in the middle of the night, got up, took a single aspirin (painkiller) and went to sleep again. I told the auditor, feeling a little bit guilty, he told me off, and went on with the session. In that pause with the last auditor, I think I was looking out of the window and speculating on my auditing, I came to wonder whether that pain was not something bad I had done but had a connection to the auditing and I told my auditor. He ended the session and I was chalked up as a Power Process release (this was before the advance Power Processes came out). I assume I had a long fall blowdown.
PPPS. A further little rumination on Ron and John McMaster. I think the difference between them was that Ron certainly in the beginning and early days had a sense of humour. I think he lost it, but that's just a guess. I suspect that John took everything seriously. I speculate also as to whether both of them had a sort of mild (on a gradient scale from normal) form of Service FAC. Generally speaking I think it is when one has an enormous mass of admirers (like a popstar) it tends to abberate. Both John and Ron and a mass of admirers. They both ended their lives in a rather unhappy state.
END OF RUMINATION.
__._,_.___
Posted
by: Antony Phillips
