Same forever
Still thinking about Alphia Hart, who seems to have been a truly Emersonian figure. He wasn't immune to fakery and balderdash; he joined the Hubbardites willingly and worked with Hubbard directly for a while. When he realized the damage Hubbard was doing, he pulled out and devoted his life to exposing it.

These documents were gathered by inventor Volney Mathison as part of his dispute with LRon Hubbard, who stole Mathison's meter and claimed it as his own.

The meter is described and schematic'd in US Pat 2684670. (Number mistyped by Volney in the docs.) It's an interesting gadget, essentially a lie detector with one added feature. The electronic part is just a sensitive ohmmeter; the added feature is contained in the electrodes themselves.



Here I've redrawn the ckt in more conventional order, and added the R and V values suggested in the patent. The first two tubes are a diff amp measuring the voltage across the electrodes, which are biased by the voltage divider on the left. The third tube is just a diode protecting the meter from reverse voltage.

Note wire 28 connecting the electrodes.

The skin-contacting electrodes 26 may be made of woven metallic fabric formed into the approximate shape of natural sponges and having characteristics of resiliency and compressibility.

In other words, the electrodes behave something like carbon microphones, decreasing resistance when you squeeze them. So the meter is detecting stress two ways. Skin resistance drops when you sweat, and electrode resistance drops when you squeeze. A useful device for forensics or bio-feedback training. Hubbard grabbed it and built a "religion" around it. Mathison was NOT happy with this, and Hart shared Mathison's dislike.

A 1963 letter from Hart to Mathison:



Note especially the FBI's vector. They became interested when Hubbard offered anti-Communist help to JFK.

Good old FBI. Consistent forever. Lady Edgar was expected to disapprove of Communism, so shehe did what was expected; but heshe HATED real anti-Communists with a bright lavender passion and did everything possible to slow them down.

Same now, with a different Current Enemy. FBI is expected to work against RadicalIslamicTerrorism, so they make gestures in that direction. But when any Deplorable dares to get seriously Christian, the bombs and snipers start firing.

This word/action disconnect was obvious here immediately after 9/11. The media riled us up against RadicalIslamicTerrorism, but the literal concrete barriers went up around the Federal Courthouse. Federal Courthouses were NOT threatened by RadicalIslamicTerrorism.

What's the underlying constant? Sting. AP. In the '50s the "Communists" were a branch of CIA/FBI. In the 2000s the "RadicalIslamicTerrorists" are a branch of CIA/FBI. You can't expect FBI to seriously oppose one of its own departments.

= = = = =

Electronic sidenote 1: Not clear why Volney used a triode with grid tied to plate as the meter protector. A plain diode tube would be cheaper, and solid-state diodes were commercially available in '51. It looks like he originally meant the tube as a cathode follower, then realized he needed the diodeness more than the bufferness?

Electronic sidenote 2: It would be interesting to take the diff amp all the way. Bring the connector 28 to ground and to a center electrode on neck or chest. Eliminate the diode and use a zero-center meter. This would read the left-right difference in stress and squeeze.

Later, I did what I asked, with surprising results. The E-meter isn't a passive meter, it's an active nerve stimulator, which causes heart and brain panic effects. No wonder the "student" went crazy.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, Aberree

  ¶ 4:06 AM