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Dianetics is the "modern science of mental health" invented by L. Ron Hubbard and first presented in book form in 1950. 1 Hubbard is an American science fiction writer who claims to be a graduate engineer (he is not), 2 a doctor of philosophy (from an unaccredited California "university") 3 and a D.Sc. (a Doctor of Scientology, a degree he awarded himself when he founded Scientology).
Scientology claims to be a religion, "a spiritual guide designed to bring about Total Freedom to all spiritual Beings". The word itself is defined as "the science of knowing". Scientology, which was introduced in 1952, incorporates Dianetics and its "science of the mind".
Hubbard ranks his creation of Dianetics as "a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and arch". According to the jacket of his book and advertising material currently distributed in Ontario, "The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration, has been discovered and skills have been developed for their invariable cure." It is explained that "the skills offered in this handbook will produce the Dianetic Release, an individual who has been freed from his major anxieties or illnesses". The study of and training in Dianetics will "prepare you for the attainment of even higher states of existence in Scientology". "Dianetics is used for training purposes only," the advertising material explains; but it adds that training in Dianetics is "prerequisite to higher training". 4
Dianetics and Scientology are inseparable; the former is used as a technique in the practice of the latter, and the doctrines of the former are incorporated in the latter.
1. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, The Modem Science of Mental Health, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1950
2. He registered in engineering at George Washington University in 1930 but never received a degree of any kind.
3. "Sequoia University" of Los Angeles is not recognized by any accredited college or university.
4. At a hearing of the Committee on the Healing Arts, the Toronto Scientology organization claimed the Dianetics text was no longer used. It is still on sale at the Toronto headquarters, however, and the most recent edition of The Auditor (No. 41, Hubbard Communications Office, East Grinstead, Sussex) from the international headquarters in East Grinstead, England, urges readers to buy and read this book and to give it to friends.
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Hubbard's claims for his first book, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, are similar to those made by Mrs. Eddy for her textbook, Science and Health:
Anybody who has read this book once through and procured a patient with sonic recall for a trial effort will know more about the mind, in those actions, than he has ever known before, and he will be more skilled and able to treat the mind than anyone attempting to do so, regardless of reputation, a very short time ago. 6
Five years later, after the introduction of Scientology, Hubbard was claiming that "Dianetics offers a therapeutic technique with which we can treat any and all inorganic mental and organic psychosomatic ills, with assurance of complete cure in unselected cases".
By this time, however, he had encountered charges of practising medicine and consequently was becoming a little wary of making medical claims. Speaking of a Scientology device, electropsychometry, he writes:
The E-meter is...used for valences and sometimes psychophysical difficulties. (Auditor: Use the word psychophysical rather than psychosomatic and stay out of a medical field....) 7
Often, though, Hubbard has chosen to ignore his own advice, and the following excerpts can leave no doubt about the wide range of claims of Dianetics and Scientology within the healing arts.
Dianetics sets forth the non-germ theory of disease, embracing, it has been estimated by competent physicians, the cure of some seventy per cent of man's pathology. 8Eye glasses, nervous twitches, tensions, all of these things stem from an unwillingness to confront. When that unwillingness is repaired, these, disabilities tend to disappear. 9
Scientology does things for people where nothing has been done before. It makes people well from illnesses which were once considered hopeless. It increases their intelligence....One outstanding thing which it does: it alleviates burns received from Atomic Bombs. Scientology is the only, specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns. Scientology processing
5. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, op. cit., p. 167.
6. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1961, p. 96.
7. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Clear Procedure, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1957, p. 7.
8. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Evolution of a Science, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1960, p. 98.
9. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: A New Slant on Life, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1965, p. 90.
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given to persons burned by radiation can alleviate the majority of the difficulty. This is true even when the person who is treating (auditor) is not completely trained. 10Tens of thousands of case histories (reports on patients, individual records) all sworn to (attested before public officials) are in the possession of the organization....11
From the Scientology Newsletter, 1965, in an article entitled "The Scope of Scientology, the Need to Change", we find the following:
Of what must a science of mind be composed?
- An answer to the goal of Life;
- A single source of all insanities, psychoses, neuroses, compulsions, repressions and social derangements;
- Invariant scientific evidence as to the basic nature and functional background of the human mind;
- Techniques, the method of application, by which the discovered single source could be invariably cured, ruling out, of course, the insanities of the malformed, deleted or pathologically injured brains or nervous systems and particularly, iatrogenic psychoses (those caused by doctors involving the destruction of the living brain itself);
- Methods of prevention of mental derangement;
- The cause and cure of all psycho-somatic ills, which number, some say, 70% of Man's listed ailments.
Simple though it is, Scientology does, and is doing, and is, these things.
Of course, Hubbard does not limit his claims to healing and improvement of intelligence. He offers the serious student of Scientology "total freedom" - the complete self-determination of all his actions. This state is called "clear" and a person proceeding towards this state, a "preclear". (The word "patient" is used in Dianetics but is not used in Scientology.)
The ultimate possibilities open to a clear are beyond all the limitations of eternal existence. Again there is a close resemblance to the ultimate expectations of Christian Science:
If you were cleared and, with your body at home you were in a library, you could read in the library just as well, with the limitation that you might not have as good a grasp on pages You would certainly know you were in the library....You would not be concerned with telepathy, with the reading of other people's minds, and other such bric-a-brac. You would simply know what you wanted to know. 12
10. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, the Fundamentals of Thought, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1956, p. 11.
11. Ibid., p. 10
12. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, op. cit., p. 33.
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While Scientology officially claims to be uninterested in healing mental or physical disorders, it is extremely antagonistic towards the medical profession and towards the psychiatric profession in particular. Students contracting for Scientology processing must agree not to take psychiatric care at the same time, nor may they belong to any organization of an occult nature considered to be providing rival forms of treatment. A special Scientology project is the collection of data on cases of psychiatrists raping or assaulting patients.
Hubbard does not make the claim that Scientology will replace physical medical treatment, but he does regard his techniques as superior to all other forms of healing for psychosomatic and psychological disorders, which he sets at 70 per cent of the total. Although he collected much of his material by the use of hypnosis,14 he claims that Scientology does not use or involve hypnosis, and opposes its use for therapy.
Like Mrs. Eddy, Hubbard is quite concerned to protect his own personal interest in the commercial propagation of his teachings, and to maintain a heavy veil of secrecy over the techniques used in Scientology training. All information and materials received are the property of Hubbard, by contract, and are not disclosed to the uninitiated. "Keeping the technology in", as it is called, is part of the assignment of the internal policing system of the organization known as "Ethics".
The basic thesis of Dianetics and Scientology is that the human mind consists of three parts: The "Analytical Mind", the "Reactive Mind", and the little mentioned (and for our purposes unimportant) "Somatic Mind". It was the discovery of the "Reactive Mind" which Hubbard ranked with the discovery of fire, the wheel and the arch.
The Analytical Mind is the conscious, rational, calculating and computing mind, which in perfect form Hubbard likens to a computer. It records and recalls every perception and never makes a miscalculation. The survival of the human organism is its basic drive, and it thinks in terms of differences and similarities.
The Reactive Mind is a bank of faulty, trouble-making circuits in the computer. When the Analytical Mind experiences pain, painful emotion or unconsciousness, its perceptions continue to be recorded by the organism, with the pain included, and these are filed separately from conscious experience. The recordings are called "engrams".
13. The Toronto Scientology organization and the Washington and international (Saint Hill, Sussex, England) headquarters officially take the position that Scientology is not concerned with healing or the healing arts. (In this respect, Scientologists and Christian scientists are alike.) Indeed. the Toronto organization objected to our investigation of its activities on the grounds that we were infringing on its religious freedom.
14. See Scientology: Evolution of a Science, op. cit. Chapter 1.
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If the Analytical Mind later encounters any perception in its conscious experience corresponding to a perception contained in an engram, it seeks to avoid the pain which it expects to accompany the perception and, for survival purposes, goes into a partly or completely off-circuit state. Then the Reactive Mind takes over, to guide the organism through the crisis.
This tripping-out of the Analytical Mind explains the occasions on which hum an behaviour becomes irrational, and accounts for psychological disorders and psychosomatic illness. At one time in human evolution the Reactive Mind was useful; for it directs the organism on a stimulus-response basis, at a rugged, extremely simplified level of action where the fine computations of the Analytical Mind are absent. It is a kind of "fusing" system to protect the computer from overloading. The Reactive Mind thinks only in terms of identities. If dogs have been dangerous in the past, every dog is dangerous.
Engrams (the "demon circuits", as Hubbard calls them) are of more than a residual recording nature. They have their own power to disrupt.
The reactive mind does not store memories as we think of them. It stores engrams. These engrams are a complete recording, down to the last accurate detail, of every perception....But they have their own force....An engram can be permanently fused into any and all body circuits and behaves like an entity. 15
Engrams can take over the body's behaviour during periods when the Analytical Mind trips out; but they can also cause the Analytical Mind to trip out. The normal person, unaware of the Reactive Mind, will not understand why he acts as he does, and will be unable to control actions in those areas where engrams have been recorded. Nor will he be able to remember when the engrams were recorded. (In fact, the most serious ones were fused into his circuits before he was born.)
Scientology incorporates most Dianetic doctrine, but with some changes. When he introduced the new science in 1952, Hubbard said:
It is a precise and exact science...employed by an auditor (a scientology practitioner) upon individuals or small groups of people in their presence. The Auditor makes these people, at their choice, do various exercises, and these exercises (processes) bring about changes for the better in intelligence, behaviour and general competence. 16
Hubbard believes that Scientology is superior to Dianetics. Dianetics is essentially a mechanistic procedure, through which man is treated as a machine (a computer). Scientology, by contrast, is like a religion, for it "addresses Man the Spirit, not Man the Machine". 17
15. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, the Modem Science of Mental Health, op. cit., p. 60.
16. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, the Fundamentals of Thought, op. cit., p. 9.
17. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Evolution of a Science, op. cit., p. 7.
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The psychological doctrine of Scientology improved on that of Dianetics by adding an "awareness of awareness unit". This is not part of the mind, but a facility or pattern of operation. It is defined as follows:
An actuality of no mass, no wave length, no position in space or relation in time, but with the quality of creating or destroying mass or energy, locating itself or creating space, and of re-relating time....the foremost ability of the awareness of awareness unit is to have an idea and to continue that idea and to perceive the idea in its continuance in the form of mass, energy, objects and time. In the field of Scientology the fact that this awareness of awareness unit can also control and even make physical bodies is almost incidental. 18...the analytical mind and the reactive mind alike are by product mechanical minds....The awareness of awareness unit however, is itself decision, is itself knowingness....Apparently then we have a causative agent and two machines. 19
While Hubbard continues to use the term "awareness of awareness unit" when elaborating psychological doctrine, he speaks of the causative agent at the metaphysical or religious level of Scientology as the "Spirit" - or more specifically, the Thetan - of each individual. This Thetan is immortal, and has been reincarnated through many forms.
Hubbard also has elaborated his own physiological doctrines to support his psychology and metaphysics. The basic physiological doctrine is that of cellular engrams. He argues that the sentient organism records perceptions before organs are formed, or a nervous system or brain.
...cells are evidently sentient in some currently inexplicable way...the Cells as thought units evidently have an influence, as cells, upon the body as a thought unit and an organism....20The engram is not a memory, it is a cellular trace...21
Then the body remembers. It may co-ordinate its activities in a mechanism called the brain, but the fact is that the brain is also part of the nervous system and the nervous system extends all through the body. 22
The psychological content of engrams is recorded, he claims, along a "time track", an awareness of continuity of experience. This leads to two further psychological doctrines of Hubbard's invention: the key-in and the lock. A key-in is an occasion when an engram is restimulated by an experience or perception encountered by the Analytical Mind, at which point the Analytical Mind trips out and lets the Reactive Mind take over. Every time this happens, the power of the engram over the individual's "normal" behaviour is strengthened. This effect is like adding one more "lock" to Houdini's many chains and locks.
18. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, op. cit., p. 37.
19. Ibid., p. 22.
20. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Clear Procedure, op. cit., p. 70.
21. Ibid., p. 128.
22. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Evolution of a Science, op. cit., p. 37.
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Hubbard claims that most individuals have hundreds of engrams, and that by adult age many of them have been keyed-in thousands of times. 23 He suggests that psychoanalysis and psychiatric treatment attempt to pick these locks one at a time, over endless hours, perhaps never reaching the original engram. Of course, no matter how many locks are opened, as long as the engram is there the problem will continue and more locks will be formed. 24 In short, psychotherapy is hopeless.
When L. Ron Hubbard published his first book, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, in 1950, it rapidly rose to the American bestseller list. On July 24, 1950, Time Magazine reported:
Armed with the manual, which they called simply "The Book", fanatical converts overflowed Saturday night meetings in Hollywood, held dianetics parties, formed clubs, and "audited" (treated) each other. In many ways, dianetics ("the science of mind") is the poor man's psychoanalysis; it has a touch of Coueism and a mild resemblance to Buchmanite confession. It purports to cleanse the mind of previous harmful influences, thus vastly increasing its powers and efficiency, by making the individual relive former painful experiences to "discharge" their evil power.
Cures were reported from the very beginning:
Frank Dessler, an office manager at 20th Century Fox, had dabbled in dianetics and was persuaded to audit an actor's wife who had suffered from migraine. Says Dessler: "She was suffering a severe headache, but it wasn't like migraine. It seemed to be sharp and on either side of the head. Finally, she actually experienced birth. She crouched on the couch in fetal position with her head between her knees." She attributed the pain she felt to the pull of the forceps on her head. Having relived her birth, her migraine disappeared. 25
In February 1952, Hubbard's Dianetic Research Foundation went bankrupt, after New Jersey authorities charged its "auditors" in that state with illegally practising medicine. Hubbard moved to Kansas to attempt a reorganization but the bubble had burst, and Dianetics dropped from public attention.
Not easily discouraged, Hubbard gathered a small group of loyal followers. He became interested in a device produced by Volney G. Mathison, the "electropsychometer" or E-meter (see Chapter 5 for a full description). Hubbard obtained a franchise from Mathison (later cancelled), and by December 1952 he was back in the public eye:
Now, the founder of still another cult, he claims to have discovered the ultimate secrets of life and the universe and to be able to cure everything including cancer. 26
23. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, the Modem Science of Mental Health, op. cit., p. 304
24. Ibid., p. 304.
25. Time Magazine, July 24, 1950.
26. Time Magazine, December 22, 1952.
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Establishing a new headquarters at Phoenix, Arizona, Hubbard awarded himself the degree of D.Sc. and began the promotion of Scientology clubs. The E-meter fascinated many who tried it, and preclears were soon reported in the press as recalling experiences trillions of years ago. It was said that these painful engrammatic experiences accounted for present-life problems. For example, the patient who had a great deal of trouble containing emotion was found to have lived as a form of clam millions of years ago. It lived by pumping sea-water from its shell through its eyes. Hubbard called it a "boo-hoo", and the treatment applied to this problem, "running the boo-hoo". 27
Hubbard appears to have learned two important lessons from the collapse of Dianetics. First, he must establish an organization under his own personal control, rather than simply releasing a book for use by any reader. (Mrs. Eddy learned the same lesson in founding Christian Science; for, as we have mentioned, she gradually restricted possible competition by control of sermon material, church government, and so on.) To this end, on May 19, 1954, Hubbard incorporated a parent company, "Hubbard Association of Scientologists International" as a non-profit corporation in Phoenix, Arizona, to facilitate his personal, corporate control of the activities of Scientology clubs.
The second lesson Hubbard learned was that the field of religion is much less restricted than that of medicine. Dianetics had been presented as a therapeutic system, with appropriate terminology, and had been offered to the medical profession as a certain cure for 70 per cent of man's ailments. The medical profession had proved ungrateful and antagonistic. Hubbard noted that "society accords to men of the church an access not given to others". Prisons, hospitals, and institutions "cannot do otherwise than welcome men of the church..." 28
He therefore followed the pattern already well proved by Christian Science, achieving free operation for a healing technique by organizing it as a religion. The "Church of Scientology of California" and the "Church of Scientology of Washington" were incorporated, both under the personal control of Hubbard and his third wife, Mary-Sue.
Hubbard then travelled to England to organize Scientology support there, and found the milieu comfortable. He purchased a rambling twenty-room mansion at "Saint Hill", East Grinstead, Sussex. Saint Hill became the international headquarters from which the movement expanded. The training organization at Saint Hill is incorporated under the Church of Scientology of California, but in addition Hubbard incorporated the Hubbard Communication Office (World Wide). The Scientology movement was organized into two parallel branches,
27. Saturday Evening Post, March 21, 1964
28. Ibid.
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with the HCO side acting as an internal policing system directly responsible to Hubbard. Through HCO Hubbard also personally controls all doctrine and publication in Scientology.
Hubbard's claims of religious privilege did not prevent the Food and Drug Administration of the United States from seizing 100 E-meters from the Washington Scientology offices in 1962. The charge was that the devices were mislabelled:
...claiming diagnosis, prevention, treatment and elimination of the causes of all mental and nervous disorders such as neuroses, psychoses, schizophrenia, and all psychosomatic ailments including most of the physical ailments of mankind, such as arthritis, cancer, stomach ulcers, radiation burns from atomic bombs, polio, the common cold.. 29
The FDA charge eventually was heard in a U.S. federal court in 1967, and the government attorneys argued that the only demonstrated effect of the E-meters was to measure skin resistance to electric current. The court decided in favour of the FDA.
In Australia in 1963, following several cases of mental breakdown and of severe family discords arising from Scientology practice in Melbourne, the state parliament of Victoria appointed a Board of Inquiry to investigate Scientology. Between November 1963 and September 1965, the Board sat for 160 days or hearings, called 151 witnesses, and received 621 exhibits. The local Scientology organization cooperated with the Board for about six months, with the hope hat the final report would provide the organization with its first official governmental recognition. Instead, the Board denounced Scientology in the most vigorous terms and urged that it be banned from the state, both as an organization and in the form of all Hubbard's writings. The Victoria Psychological Practices Act of December 1965 carried out the Board's recommendations in full, and the Ministers of Health of all Australian states have since resolved in a joint gathering to keep a watchful eye on the activities of Scientology elsewhere on the continent.
In October 1966, the American Cancer Society felt compelled by the expansion and claims of Scientology to issue a specific warning to its fifty-eight divisions that it had "found no evidence that treatment with the E-meter results in any objective benefits in the treatment of cancer in human beings".
In March 1967, following a debate on Scientology in the British Parliament, the Minister of Health strongly denounced the activities of the organization in Britain.
In July 1968, the Ministry of Health in Britain went so far as to issue a public warning that "the Government is satisfied, having reviewed all the available evidence, that scientology is socially harmful" but noted that it had "no power
29. Quoted from FDA records by a letter to the Committee on the Healing Arts from the Investigation Bureau of the American Medical Association, May 15, 1967.
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under existing law to prohibit the practice of scientology". The press release (July 25, 1968), however, announced new restrictions 30 on the entry of foreign nationals to the United Kingdom for study at the Scientology Headquarters at East Grinstead.
Following a joint announcement of concern by the Ministers of Health of South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales at a conference in June 1968, a bill was introduced in the South Australia legislature in September 1968, which would have the same effect as the Victoria Act already mentioned.
Despite these setbacks, Scientology has continued to grow steadily everywhere. L. Ron Hubbard has stated his conviction simply: "Nothing can stop us."
The central corporate structure of Scientology has already been outlined. It is under the direct legal control of the founder, L. Ron Hubbard. National centres of Scientology have been established on five continents: Africa, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia (Japan). These national organizations have "city offices" in the larger urban centres, and "franchises" in smaller centres. The national centres are in constant communication with Hubbard through Telex links.
At the time of writing there were two operations in Canada: a "city office" in downtown Toronto and a franchise operating out of a private home in Vancouver. Until the Committee on the Healing Arts requested certain information on "auditing" as a healing technique, the Toronto centre called itself "The Hubbard Scientology Organization of Toronto". Then, for the first time, correspondence was headed "Church of Scientology" and signed by a "minister".
The Toronto centre operates directly under the control of the Washington Church of Scientology. The Certificate of Incorporation of this Church, dated July 21, 1955, includes among the objectives of the Church "healing the sick and suffering by prayer or other spiritual means without the use of drugs or material remedy". The Church is entitled to "accept fees and donations for the furtherance of its religious, educational and missionary objectives and work...." The Certificate provides that the Trustees (Hubbard, his wife Mary-Sue and one "David Murray") "shall not receive compensation for their services as such, but may be compensated for other services rendered".
Ten per cent of all Scientology organization income throughout the world goes directly to Hubbard at Saint Hill. He maintains that this is spent on "research" and that he lives on his own "private means". 31
No reliable estimate of the total world membership of Scientology is available,
30. These are quoted in full on p. 86.
31. Saturday Evening Post, March 21, 1964
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though Hubbard maintains that it is "in the millions" and doubling every six months. 32 At this rate of growth, the whole population of the world would be within the organization by 1980.
"Membership" data would be of little use in estimating the growth of Scientology, since one of the growth techniques of the organization is a liberal policy of "free six-month memberships", which entitle the holder to purchase Hubbard's books at a 10 per cent discount and to receive the Scientology newspaper edited by Hubbard, The Auditor. An annual membership costs fifteen dollars but does not entitle the holder to voice or vote in the policy or administration of Scientology.
A more useful indicator of Scientology growth is the number of clears graduating from Saint Hill. In 1968 this averaged about ten per week and totalled 1,400 towards the end of that year. Becoming clear (as described on pp. 69-73) requires at least six months by the processing route and two years by the training route. Either route costs several thousand dollars. For each clear there are probably many hundreds of students (preclears) in processing.
Even where Scientologists are few in number, by dedicated work they achieve impressive results as an organization. The Toronto organization will devote ten hours of instructor time to a class of one student, rather than risk losing him by asking him to wait until more enrol. Once an individual has given his name to the organization with even a minimal indication of interest, he continues to receive direct mail appeals for at least six months. The centre opens a file on each individual who has received any form of training.
Very few individuals who commence processing or training can afford the fees. The solution is to join the staff, contributing part-time hours of work to help pay the fees. Once absorbed into the organization's daily activities, the preclear tends to remain after completing his course. Of the first 131 clears whose names were published in The Auditor (1966), at least 111 were on Scientology staff somewhere in the world.
Employment by the organization also increases the opportunities of higher staff to indoctrinate the newcomer in the philosophy and mission of Scientology. An attitude of personal loyalty to Hubbard is inculcated, and all staff are repeatedly urged to "Help Ron clear the planet".
Hubbard has designed his organization to weed out doubtful recruits and to ensure the constant dedicated loyalty of staff. This has been achieved by organizing all Scientology centres into two parallel structures. On one side is the Academy of Scientology (HSA), with responsibility for training, and on the other, the
32. Ibid.
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Hubbard Communication Office (HCO), responsible for administration and "Ethics". Thus the Toronto centre has two chief executives, one in charge of the HSA (training) and the other as HCO Director.
Within the organization, any staff member may report (by "pink slip") any other for a default in either responsibilities or understanding of doctrine. The pink slips move up through the "Ethics" channel, setting in motion a trial process, with appeals and petitions, which reaches up to Hubbard himself at Saint Hill. If a member is accused of being a "Suppressive Person" (S.P.), until he is exonerated no Scientologist (including a new member) may communicate with him, on pain of losing his own good standing.
An incident which occurred in the Toronto organization in 1967 serves to illustrate how members are disciplined. Internal dissension between two executives, both trained at Saint Hill, led to one charging the other with "high crimes against Scientology" and declaring him a Suppressive Person. Although the accused executive appealed to Saint Hill for restitution, the appeal was rejected. A bulletin labelled "The Fair Game Law" (issued by Hubbard) was posted for several months on the Toronto centre bulletin board. It informed all Scientologists that any actions they took which might otherwise be considered offensive against Scientology standards, would not be so considered when directed at S.P.'s; these persons were to be regarded as "fair game" for any kind of attack.
Some idea of the nature of Scientology treatment of alleged opponents and apostates, their so-called "Suppressive Persons", can be gained from a Written Answer by the British Minister of Health 33 quoting an Executive Letter of L. Ron Hubbard issued September 5, 1966:
To: Scientologists
From: Ron
Subject: How to do a NOISY Investigation.Further to H.C.O. Executive Letter of 3rd August, 1966, Cathy Gogerly, H.C.O. Area Sec., Adelaide, Australia, has given details of how to go about dealing with attackers of Scientology.
"Here's what you do.Soon as one of these threats starts you get a Scientologist or Scientologists to investigate noisily.
You find out where he or she works or worked, doctor, dentist, friends, neighbours, anyone, and 'phone 'em up and say, "I am investigating Mr./Mrs....for criminal activities as he/she has been trying to prevent Man's freedom and is restricting my religious freedom and that of my friends and children, etc."
You say now and then, "I have already got some astounding facts", etc., etc. (Use a generality) ....It doesn't matter if you don't get much info.
33. House of Commons, Great Britain - Written Answer No. 1459, 1967-1968. July 25. 1968.
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Just be NOISY - it's very odd at first, but makes fantastic sense and WORKS. (Honestly, you feel a real dill, it's so reverse to all detective work).L. RON HUBBARDYou will find that Scientologists will come rushing forward with 90% of your facts anyway. (They are never from auditing sessions). Scientologists are really terribly ethical.
Best and love,
Cathy."
Any member enrolled in Scientology programs can act as a "Field Staff Member", referring his friends to the centre. Any new member enrolled as a result of an F.S.M 's efforts will bring a 10 per cent commission to the F.S.M., based on the fees paid in by the new member. Special weekend "Training Rally" instruction is given to members wishing to become F.S.M.'s.
Scientology also recruits new members by free lectures, by some newspaper advertising, and by direct mail. Even complex training programs, such as the "Anatomy of the Mind" course covering twenty evenings, are arranged so that a new recruit can enter without waiting. Since the "Anatomy" course is taught in twenty self-contained units, a new member who enters at Unit 11, simply continues on to Unit 20, and then remains for Units 1 to 10.
The age range of those attracted to Scientology is much younger than that of Christian Science. Most preclears at the Toronto centre range between the early twenties and the early forties. The educational range is higher than that of Christian Science; many of the younger preclears at the Toronto centre are university students, or even graduates. Artists, salesmen, young professionals and the occasional "beatnik" are also found among Scientology members. Most preclears are in the middle-class range, economically speaking. While Scientology does not require an intellectual aptitude, it is more complex than the average working class person would wish if seeking an occult healing technique.
According to their own claims, Scientologists do not practise therapy. "Dianetic therapy" is said to be used only for training purposes, and Scientology auditing is claimed to be concerned not with healing, but with "making the able more able". After we have presented the techniques involved, the reader may judge for himself whether Scientology auditing is a form of therapy.
There are two routes to the ultimate and hoped-for state of clear. The processing route takes the preclear himself to clear, but does not enable him to help anyone else attain that state. The training route teaches the techniques of taking a person to clear; and in the process, with help from an auditor at the lower levels of training, the student may use these techniques to clear himself.
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The processing route requires about six months of auditing, for at least twenty-five hours a week. The price of auditing at the Toronto centre is currently $150 for five hours, or a reduced rate of $780 for thirty hours. Scientology clearing compares in price with psychiatric treatment (though, of course, the Scientology process is claimed to be much faster as well as far superior).
The organization prefers the preclear to take the training route, so that he can join the staff and "help Ron clear the planet". This route takes at least two years, but involves less intensive routines than the processing route at the lower levels. The higher levels of training and/or processing are done only at Saint Hill.
Whichever route the preclear selects, auditing will be a major portion of his experience. Auditing is the therapeutic technique of both Dianetics and Scientology. Since Dianetic auditing is still used as a training method, and is the forerunner of Scientology auditing, a brief description is necessary.
Dianetic auditing is done in a "Dianetic reverie". The patient sits in a comfortable chair...or lies on a couch in a quiet room....The auditor tells him to look at the ceiling...(and) says "When I count from one to seven your eyes will close". He continues counting one to seven until the patient's eyes do close. 34
"This is not hypnotism," Hubbard emphasizes. To prove his point, he instructs the auditor to install a "canceller."
A canceller is worded more or less as follows: In the future when I utter the word Cancelled, everything which I have said to you while you are in a therapy session will be cancelled and will have no force with you. Any suggestion I have made will be without force....do you understand? 35
Even so, Dianetic reverie could be a hypnotic procedure. The installation of a "canceller" simply prevents posthypnotic suggestion. (It would not even do that if incorrectly applied.) During the session itself the auditor could acquire much information as a result of inducing suggestion. In fact, even the induction of the canceller, in the terms above, is a suggestive procedure, of which hypnosis is simply an extension in degree.
Once the patient is in reverie, he is "returned" to an early age and asked to start talking about anything he can recall. It is desirable that he actually relive the event, speaking to the auditor in the present tense. Hubbard suggests that once he does so, a hypothetical mechanism of the mind's recording system (which he calls "the file clerk") will begin to "hand out" traumatic experiences from the past. It is the auditor's task to "discharge" the emotional pain attached to these experiences by having the patient relive them over and over.
34. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. the Modern Science of Mental Health, op. cit., p. 198.
35. Ibid., p. 200.
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Hubbard also has devised a healing therapy he calls an "assist":
It is done after injury or illness...in order to promote more rapid recovery....This is specialized therapy which will probably be practiced commonly enough but is of primary benefit to the medical doctor who, with it, can save lives and speed healing. Any dianetic auditor can practice this. The assist has about the same level of usefulness as a faith healing miracle which would work every time. 36
In Maclean's Magazine, August 1966, a Toronto Scientologist was shown being given an "assist" to a bruised knee. 37 This technique, one of the grades in Scientology training, Hubbard has described as follows:
A burn or bruise or even sprains or breaks heal much more swiftly with Scientology assists....For ages Man has known that "laying on of hands" or Mother's kiss was effective therapy....Do this exactly and with a minimum of talk. Place your index finger or fingers or palm on the injured member, very lightly, and say to your patient, "Put your attention on my hand". Now change the position of your finger or palm and have the patient do it again. It is best to touch your patient on spots which are further from his head than the injury. Do not talk excessively. But coax him, as you touch, briefly, spot after spot, to put his attention on your finger or fingers or palm. Change the spot every moment or two. Be calm. Be reassuring. If your patient experiences pain or trembling as a result keep on for the therapy is working. Continue in this fashion for many minutes or half an hour if necessary until pain or upset is gone. During this treatment the patient has his eyes closed. It is not power from your finger which is healing him. It is power he generates by "looking" at your finger down through his body. You are putting him in communication with the injury. His communication with it heals it. Ordinarily injuries, sprains, burns, scalds, broken bones, headaches and colds heal slowly because the patient is avoiding this area with his own energy. 38
Scientology auditing is substantially different from Dianetic auditing, both in theory and in practice. In Dianetics the therapy aims at retrieving and discharging ("running") engrams. Basic engrams of prenatal perception are the most important. Since the patient can hardly be responsible for having these engrams, Dianetics heals the patient of problems he "cannot help". In fact, it is quite impossible for the patient to audit himself:
It cannot be done. That is a flat statement and it is a scientific fact. The auditor is necessary for a large number of reasons....The work is done on these equations: The dynamics of the preclear are less than the force of his reactive bank. The dynamics of the preclear plus the dynamics of the auditor are greater than the force in the preclear's reactive bank. The
36. Ibid., p. 173. Hubbard's characteristic lack of modesty is well expressed in this extract. He seems quite confident that the medical profession will welcome the enlightenment of Dianetics.
37. Maclean's Magazine, August 1966, p. 37.
38. L. Ron Hubbard, The Problems of Work, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England. 1956, p. 62
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analytical mind of the preclear is shut down whenever he reaches an engram and he is then unable to pursue it or recount it enough times to discharge it without the auditor's assistance.39
In Scientology, the objective of the therapy is to improve the general condition and self-control of the preclear so that he can handle his own problems. Engrams are not dug out and discharged until the preclear has been trained to do this. The final processing to clear must be done by the preclear himself, using an E-meter, and without an auditor. In short, having acquired the E-meter, Hubbard reversed the position he took in Dianetics. But Scientology differs from Dianetics in more than approach alone. Dianetics asserts that one cannot be held responsible for engrams, especially prenatal engrams, which are hampering one's present performance. But in Scientology training (auditing) the preclear is directly responsible for his own progress. 40
The manner in which the preclear agrees to accept Scientology auditing is without parallel in the occult healing groups or in the medical profession. Auditing is sold by the hour, with a five-hour minimum, and the fee is payable in advance.
Before being accepted, the "wog" (Scientology's derogatory term for the man off the street) must satisfactorily answer questions on a form called a "release". These questions determine that he has never been under medical care for mental illness, nor had electric or drug therapy; nor ever used LSD or tranquilizers; nor ever had any serious illness (such as epilepsy, heart trouble, diabetes); nor is addicted to any drug (including alcohol); nor is a member of the Communist party. They also assure that he has never been convicted of a criminal felony, never used a false name, and is not employed directly or indirectly by any governmental agency. He must attest that he came to Scientology on his own self-determinism and that he is "willing to undergo any E-meter test requested by any authorized HCO personnel" (the internal policing side of Scientology).
Having surmounted all these hurdles, the wog signs a contract for a stipulated number of hours of auditing (processing). This contract permits the organization to "continue processing beyond the contracted time at the Centre's discretion if the Centre deems it advisable and necessary to the successful completion of the processing". Although the enforceability of such a provision could probably be contested in court, the preclear is naturally expected to pay for all additional auditing.
39. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, op. cit., p. 366.
40. In many Scientology auditing routines, the preclear is frequently "flunked". Routines are repeated again and again until the preclear exactly "duplicates" the auditor's instructions. During this process, the preclear may (and probably will) develop a heavy burden of guilt, comparable to that of a student on whom heavy demands are made and who is repeatedly failed. The analogy of a "confessional" used by Scientologists to describe auditing is significant. The Dianetic patient is not guilty of his problems; the Scientology preclear is made to feel excessively guilty.
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The contract further requires the preclear to "disconnect" from any groups, associates, friends or family that are found to be "enturbulative" to the preclear's progress. Additionally he must not use any other "practice of any kind" and must not have used on him any other practice, during the term of the contract. Apparently this is not interpreted to cover dental or (physical) medical treatment, but does exclude psychiatric treatment, as well as any occult form of healing. The contract states that the preclear understands that Scientology is not for "treating and diagnosing human ailments of mind or body"; but we have already demonstrated amply the factitiousness of this advice.
The contract used by the Saint Hill headquarters for enrolment in higher level training (power processing and clearing) is of interest. The applicant recognizes that the processing to be received will be given by Hubbard and his staff "entirely at their discretion...and out of the goodness of their own hearts", and agrees that he can be "suspended from such processing and/or training without rebate or refund, recourse or appeal". He agrees that any additional auditing and/or training in the Department of Review will be accepted and paid for "at the current rates prevailing". He further agrees to all the standard release requirements (including E-meter tests and the fact that he is not anyone's spy) and also agrees to find his own preclear to practise auditing on. All materials and information received remain the property of L. Ron Hubbard.
Having consented to all this, the applicant is invited to pay in advance at the rate of $1,140 for fifty hours of "power processing". If the applicant sends the money before actually arriving at Saint Hill, he gets a 5 per cent discount.
Since our further inquiries into auditing procedures were blocked by the organization,41 the following details are derived from four sources: a verbal description of auditing given by the Toronto HCO Director; experiences of several Toronto residents who were audited in the Toronto Scientology centre; extracts from instructions on auditing contained in Scientology publications by Hubbard; descriptions of actual auditing sessions arranged by the Melbourne Scientology organization for viewing (on closed circuit television) by the Victoria Board of Inquiry into Scientology.
Auditing is a very light process...a kind of confessional....A listener asks a question and receives an answer. One person addresses another as a being, not
41. The "Church" used the same techniques for dealing with us as it instructs its members to use against any alleged opponent or apostate, the so-called "Suppressive Persons" techniques (see p. 68). In our case this involved scurrilous press releases accusing at least one member of the Committee on the Healing Arts of personal "crimes" and impugning the motives of the whole Committee. After lengthy consideration the Committee concluded that further use of its powers of investigation would not add substantially to information already available (the general drift of which was amply confirmed by the "Church's" tactics) and would merely delay a final report on the matter.
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a body - that's very important - helping the person to be able to take sufficient responsibility for himself, for the position he is in, the things he has done, and to be more at ease over his own life, therefore to become more able."
This is the way auditing was characterized in a personal interview with the Toronto HCO Director of Scientology. She admitted that the questions asked in auditing follow a standard pattern and gave an example.
At Level 0 I might ask you what you would like to talk about and you might say "Fish" and I'd say "Fine, what would you like to say about fish?"
This Director is a fully trained auditor to the highest Scientology level (Grade 6). In addition she has completed the auditing of herself to clear. At the time of the interview, she conducted all the higher level auditing in Toronto. A second auditor at the centre has been processed to clear, but is trained only to Grade 1.
Auditing hours are not given in the same manner as in psychiatric treatment, an hour at a time, and perhaps one or two hours a week. Instead, all the hours purchased by the preclear are used up in consecutive sessions before the auditor turns her attention to another preclear. Thus a preclear who purchases twenty-five hours receives five a day for five consecutive days. "We don't just dibble-dabble," the Director explained.
In further conversation, the Toronto auditor admitted that she had never studied psychology and knew very little about techniques of psychotherapy. However, she felt quite confident that her training equipped her to handle the problems she dealt with as effectively as any trained professional. She denied ever having experienced any emotional breakdowns of preclears in auditing, but she admitted that she had dealt with problems sufficiently severe to request the preclear to "disconnect" from family or friends felt to be "suppressive".
She argued that auditing is a light, easy gradient which puts no healthy person under any unusual strain. People come in for auditing because they want it, she explained, and they therefore cooperate with the auditor without emotion or hostility.
The role of the E-meter in auditing was explained as a "confessional aid" which "helps the preclear to locate something". The preclear, when asked a question, may believe he has the answer somewhere in his experience but cannot find it, perhaps because the memory is painful. He runs over a series of memories until the E-meter needle indicates that he has hit upon the significant one. The auditor says, "There it is - that's it", and the preclear tells what he is thinking about at that moment.
The Director explained that the E-meter is used also to determine when "the end of a process" has been achieved. After a preclear has mastered a routine, the needle stays flat (there is no traumatic reaction) and the auditor can go on to the next process.
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In summary, we note the Director's emphasis on the preclear's responsibility in the auditing situation, her emphasis on the lightness of this "confessional" process, her apparently non-directive role and her assurance that the preclear is not involved in potentially dangerous psychological and emotional situations. A similar picture of the nature of auditing was given to the Committee on the Healing Arts at the Hearing on Scientology, March 4, 1968, during which an E-meter was "demonstrated".
The personal reports of individuals who have experienced Scientology auditing in Toronto differ substantially from the description given by the organization leadership.
In its August 1966 issue, Maclean's Magazine reported the case of a young woman sent for auditing by Wendy Michener, a free-lance writer. The following account is based on the article and an interview with the author.
"Jean", the author's "plant", was audited for five hours. A number of questions concerning intimate personal matters were included, and during the auditing "Jean" was connected to an E-meter. Since she had no idea how it worked, she was easily intimidated into disclosing information, becoming confused and nearly hysterical.
The auditor got a high E-meter reading on a question which could be expected to upset anyone sent as a "plant": "What did some one almost find out about you?" This question was asked over and over for an hour, while "Jean" continued to conceal her real purpose in being there.
By the end of five hours, "Jean" was convinced that she had done an evil thing in deceiving the auditor, and when the latter recommended more processing, she was ready to agree. In fact, it took Miss Mitchener three days to dissuade "Jean".
The Toronto HCO Director explained that as "Jean" had obviously not come in good faith for auditing, she could expect an unhappy experience. "She was lying and the auditor knew it," the HCO Director pointed out, comparing the situation with a child lying consistently to its parents for an hour. "You'd feel terrible afterwards too," she suggested.
The ethics of "Jean's" behaviour need not concern us here; but it is obvious from her experience that auditing is more than a light confessional, or a listening process. Considerable psychological pressure is used on the preclear to get the information wanted by the auditor.
This observation is confirmed by the experience of a young male university student who took some auditing more than a year ago in Toronto. He reported that at times he felt "like taking a swipe" at the auditor when pushed to answer
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probing personal questions. Another preclear, a young professional woman, report that she was asked the same question more than 100 times. She was reduced to the point of giving any answer that came into her head in a desperate effort to satisfy the auditor (and the E-meter, of course).
A number of extracts from Scientology publications by Hubbard indicate the processes used in auditing and the results expected. In explanation, it should be noted that the concept of "communication lag" is employed, as well as the E-meter to measure the efficacy of processing.
"Communication lag" is defined by Hubbard as "the length of time intervening between the posing of a question...and the exact moment that question...is answered". This concept is used because in many auditing routines the preclear is moving about the room 42 and E-metering is impossible. Thus, instead of continuing a process until the E-meter shows no reading, it is continued until the "communication lag goes flat":
Flattening the communication lag requires only that the preclear answer after a uniform interval of time at least three times....This uniform interval could, for practical purposes, be as long as 10 seconds....Give an order, as in Opening Procedure of 8-C or ask the question, as in Straightwire, and then continue to give that same order or ask that same question until the preclear executes it after a short interval three times the same. 43
After the communication lag has been flattened, the auditor can confirm that the process is finished by using the E-meter, and then move on to the next process.
Examples of the specific questions and orders used in auditing follow:
Elementary Straightwire has two basic commands. One of these commands is used continuously, over and over and over, until the communication lag is entirely flat on it and then the other command is used over and over and over until the communication lag is flat, at which time it will be discovered that the first command will now give communication lag....The two commands are "Give me something you don't mind remembering" and "Give me something you wouldn't mind forgetting". 44Opening Procedure of 8-C is one of the most effective and powerful processes ever developed...the main error which is made...is not to do it long enough. It takes about 15 hours of Opening Procedure of 8-C to bring a person into a completely relaxed and self-determined state of mind regarding orders....Step "a" is..."Do you see that object?", the auditor pointing. When the preclear signifies that he does the auditor says "Walk over to it". When the preclear has walked over..."Touch it'. When the preclear does..."Let go"...and designates another object,...and goes through the same procedure once more. 45
42. According to the Toronto HCO Director, the preclear is stationary during auditing.
43. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, op. cit., p. 103.
44. Ibid., p. 120.
45. Ibid., p. 123.
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Thus, in these auditing procedures the preclear is not merely remembering or confessing, as he might in psychotherapy; he is obeying orders, and must obey them exactly as desired by the auditor before the process is completed. Up to fifteen hours is suggested for a single automatizing process.
In Chapter 2 we pointed out that hypnosis may be induced by "command" techniques. If a preclear can be trained (remembering that hypnosis is a learning process) to obey orders automatically on relatively meaningless matters (such as "Do you see that object...touch it"), it seems reasonable to assume that a process of suggestion, and probably hypnosis, is involved in Scientology auditing.
Hubbard himself is highly skilled in hypnosis and refers to frequent use of it in his "research". 46 However, he insists that hypnosis is not involved in Scientology auditing. He compares auditing with a concept of hypnosis which we have already shown (in Chapter 2) to be mythological:
Many people believe that Opening Procedure...induces hypnosis. This is because in running it hypnosis runs off: the preclear while the hypnotism is running off, may feel quite hypnotized. It is the exact opposite of hypnotism. Hypnotism is an effort to persuade the individual to do nothing, to sit still, and to fully accept the inflow. 47
Hypnotism is not necessarily "doing nothing" and does not involve "fully accepting an inflow", whatever that may mean (it seems to suggest the concept of hypnosis where the hypnotist stares the subject into submission). The phrase "hypnotism runs off" is without any scientific meaning whatever. Note, too, that Hubbard refers to "hypnotism" rather than "hypnosis"; in the medical literature the latter has been employed, and the former rejected as inaccurate, for some years.
If the preclear decides to continue auditing beyond the elementary levels, with the hope of becoming clear, he can expect even more severely manipulative processes than those of "Elementary Straightwire". Start-Change-Stop (SCS) is a process allegedly designed to increase self-control:
The commands of SCS processes are almost all the same except that some are made more severe than others. The first of these processes is the Start...we have a preclear out in the middle of the room standing up...and we explain...that when we say "Start" we want him to start his body in that direction, and we point out some direction....We do not say Stop, Halt or anything else, but after he has moved forward we then say "Did you start your body?" And he says he guesses he did, or he did, and we then - and only then - acknowledge. We do this many times until the process apparently has no charge on it or has gone flat.We then go into...Change...the auditor marks four points out on the floor (labelled) A, B. C, D...we give him this auditing command:
"Now when I ask you to change the body I want you to change the body's position from A to B. Do you understand that?"
46. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Evolution of a Science, op. cit., pp. 22-25.
47. L Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, op. cit., p. 124.
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The auditor then goes on to Stop...explains that when he says "Stop" he wants the preclear to stop the body...lets him move down the room a distance (never the same distance twice) and says "Stop".... When the preclear has stopped the auditor says "Did you stop the body?"....The auditor does this many times until the preclear understands that he himself can stop the body...these three steps are then repeated. And it will be discovered that one Stop has been flattened, Start is now unflattened and can be flattened all over again. 48
These three operations are repeated until the preclear automatically obeys the auditor, a process which at least resembles command hypnosis. As various phrase in the extract suggest, the alleged goal is to give the preclear personal control over his body, so that he conceives of himself, the controlling agency, as separate an independent from the body. This is known in Scientology as "exteriorization", and is regarded as a valuable sign of progress towards clear.
Most normal individuals occasionally experience a cognition of "separation" from the body, as in anaesthesia, in religious ecstasy, in intoxication, on an LSD "trip", or on other occasions. Hypnosis can produce the same sensation, as can some forms of mental disease. In psychology it is known as "dissociation" and is not regarded as a psychological state to be frequently sought. To Hubbard, it is.
The specific commands used in the Remedy of Havingness process (for adding mass) are remarkably similar to those used to induce positive hallucinations by hypnosis, while the "perfect duplication" process resembles the hypnotic induction of negative hallucination (not seeing what is actually there). For example:
The commands of Remedy of Havingness are as follows: "Mock up a (planet, man, brick). Make a copy of it. Make a copy of it. Make a copy of it." And when the preclear has from five to 15 copies, "Push them all together. Now pull them in on you...." 49
Hubbard claims that these processes can be used to improve the ability of a Thetan even when unconscious or dead in human bodily form 50, and can be used on children. The Auditor, Scientology's newspaper, shows a photograph of a ten year-old girl from Cape Town with her certificate for completion of Grade 3. 51 In another issue of the newspaper, Scientology announced its "youngest clear", the Hubbards' eldest son, age thirteen. 52
The Toronto HCO Director emphasized that nothing painful or difficult to handle happens in auditing which might require skills such as those of a psychologist or psychiatrist, but Hubbard warns his auditors:
48. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Clear Procedure, op. cit, p. 16.
49. Ibid., p. 126.
50. Ibid., p. 1.
51. The Auditor, No. 22, Hubbard Communication Office Worldwide, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1967, p. 4.
52. The Auditor, No. 30.
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Don't be surprised in running SCS if the preclear suddenly flies to pieces, goes flip-flopping, has to be picked up off the floor and put over on the couch and left aghast, but do be very surprised at yourself if you fail to get the preclear back up on his feet and into session again at once....53
In another process, which Hubbard calls "Stop Supreme" because of the severity and rigidity of the Stop commands, he warns:
...don't be surprised if the preclear falls apart in the process of doing it....There are even more severe versions of this but they are left to the imagination of the auditor. 54
One of the dangers we noted in the use of hypnosis (in Chapter 2) was the fact that certain individuals obtain considerable satisfaction from the sense of power that comes with hypnotic control over a subject. A hint of this satisfaction can be detected in some of Hubbard's descriptions of auditing.
Another thing is to make the preclear use his eyes to view the objects and if he doesn't turn his eyes toward them then it is up to the auditor to use manual direction of the head and even pry the eyes open. No balks are ever permitted in auditing. 55Never permit the preclear to end the session on his own independent decision. 56
Since he has set out a wide variety of routines by which, over hundreds of hours and at a cost of thousands of dollars, the preclear may ultimately hope to attain the state of clear, it may come as something of a surprise that Hubbard has found that all these routines are quite unnecessary for 50 per cent of the world's population. These fortunate persons can be cleared by the mere command of even "magic words":
For a very long time in Dianetics we looked for the "one-shot clear". Such a thing has come into existence and is workable on over fifty percent of the current populace of mankind. The one-shot clear depends, of course, upon getting the awareness of awareness unit at a distance from and in control of its various by-products....The astonishing speed with which fifty percent of the human race can be cleared is believable only when you put it into action. The magic words are: "Be three feet back of your head".That is the one-shot clear. 57
Although The Auditor and various internal bulletins of Scientology periodically publish the names of the latest clears by processing and training (with 1,400 persons clear), no list is known to have been published or even a single person noted who has been cleared by the "magic words".
53. L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology: Clear Procedure, op. cit., p. 18.
54. Ibid., p. 19.
55. Ibid., p. 22.
56. L Ron Hubbard, Auditor's Code, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, Sussex, England, Appendix.
57. L Ron Hubbard, Dianetics '55, op. cit., p. 27.
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Finally, to complete our information on auditing, we refer to the Report of the Victoria (Australia) Board of Inquiry, issued in September 1965 at the conclusion of 160 days of hearings, with 621 exhibits and evidence from 151 witnesses. This Board witnessed seven closed-circuit television demonstrations of auditing willingly produced by the Melbourne centre, using the same standard Hubbard techniques employed in all Scientology organizations.
It is clear from these demonstrations that the description by the Toronto HCC Director of auditing as a "light confessional" and "listening" process applies to the very lowest level of auditing, which is called "Listen Style Auditing". In the Victoria demonstration the auditor said, simply, "Tell me about the rigid decisions you have made." The volunteer preclear who participated in this demonstration (and who had taken processing for some time) was admitted to a mental hospital nine days after the demonstration.
Three CCH (Control-Communication-Havingness) routines were demonstrated. These resembled the descriptions by Hubbard already quoted above. After watching these routines in action, the Board concluded that the preclear required to continue them for several hours could easily become hysterical, and that the process could lead to "discussion between the preclear and the auditor of the preclear's most intimate sexual secrets and behaviour...these processes were practised for hours at a time and almost invariably produce a state of hypnosis" 58
Another routine demonstrated was "Slow assessment by dynamics", in which the E-meter is used to locate "the answer the preclear is looking for". The Report notes that when the needle refused to drop, the preclear was brought to a point of loss of self-control in which he would give out almost any information and at the same time experience a deep sense of guilt. 59 In fact, he "confesses" acts he never did at all, but merely produces in his imagination in his effort to "satisfy" the E-meter. The Board found that in some cases the preclear gave 350, or 750, or as many as 1,400 different answers to the same question in an effort to "flatten" the E-meter reading. 60
Training in Scientology begins at an extremely elementary level, and at a low price, with a five-evening course in "Personal Efficiency", for a fee of five dollars.
This course operates as a "loss leader". As we mentioned earlier, a class as small as one student will be taught. The course is repeated each week, as long as
58. Report of the Victoria Board of Inquiry into Scientology, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1965, p. 87.
59. Ibid., p. 88.
60. Ibid., p. 144f
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one new student is ready to start. The content of the course is simply an appeal to the student to become concerned with his own self-improvement, and with the possibilities available to him through Scientology.
In the first course, a few simple Scientology concepts are explained. These tend to formalize commonsense knowledge. There is the "ARC triangle", which demonstrates in a technical manner the everyday experience of losing emotional rapport and communication with someone when we fail to perceive accurately who or what they are. There is the "SCS cycle" which makes a theory out of the fact that some people can never seem to finish the projects they start, while others are always trying to stop things from going on. "Policemen are strong on Stop."
The ease of comprehension and apparent applicability of the first concepts are attractive to those concerned with improving their abilities and achieving happiness. Scientology is compared with other practices, and it is suggested that a few minutes of Scientology processing can achieve as much as hours of psychotherapy.
The student who completes the "P.E." course is given a certificate and invited to register for the "Communications Course", at fifteen dollars for five evenings. This course is taught to as few as two students. It consists of a series of drills, called Training Routines (T.R.'s).
T.R. "0" consists of each pair of students sitting opposite each other on chairs, knees not quite touching. One student acts as "coach" for the other, who acts as preclear learning to become an auditor; then the roles are reversed. The preclear is instructed to "confront" the coach, by looking directly at his (or her) face, but without staring. The "coach" is instructed to "flunk" the preclear for allowing his eyes to wander away, or for staring or blinking excessively, or for developing a tic or any other abnormality, such as tilting the head to one side.
The objective is to teach the would-be auditor how to "be there" with a preclear being audited, and corresponds to the training of a professional (such as a psychologist or social worker) in interviewing techniques.
The "Comm. course" is extremely effective in arousing the interest and participation of anyone interested in improving his ability to communicate with other people. The drills are simple enough to bring early achievement and a sense of accomplishment, but also complex enough to actually improve communication ability. Many professionals could probably benefit from such drills.
Since the inability to fully confront, encounter, and communicate with other persons is said by many social theorists (such as Erich Fromm, Martin Buber, David Reisman) to be one of the most prevalent problems of our day, it follows that a simple training routine in this skill is likely to prove attractive to many persons. Even the Board of Inquiry in Victoria, Australia, which recommended prohibition of Scientology, noted the great skills of Scientologists in communication.
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The successful student is granted a certificate as an "Apprentice Scientologist" and invited to register for the next course, "Anatomy of the Mind", at fifty dollars for twenty evenings. This course is taught in twenty self-contained units, so that a new student can enter at any time, instead of having to wait until a course under way is completed.
The next stop up the Scientology gradient is the "Dianetic Auditor's Course", at $500 for sixteen weeks (eighty evenings). In this course the preclear begins by auditing a fellow student (after a study of the theory involved) and must then bring in a new subject ("wog") for continued practice. (We have already noted that one of the terms of the Saint Hill contract is that the applicant supply his own preclear for auditing practice.)
By this time, the student-auditor has obviously made a considerable investment of time and funds in Scientology and has probably decided to go all the way to Grade 6. The Academies of Scientology can train the preclear up to and including Grade 4. He must then go to Saint Hill.
The range of fees involved in this training is indicated by a few sample prices. Five hours of auditing at Toronto cost $150, while twenty-five hours cost $65. At Saint Hill, fifty hours of "Power Processing" cost $1,140. Fees are always payable in advance and under contract.
The Toronto HCO Director estimated that the number of hours involved would be six weeks of forty hours for each of the first four levels, including both study of theory and auditing experience. This is a total of 960 hours. Then the preclear goes to Saint Hill where he must repeat these levels to the satisfaction of the staff there, before proceeding on to Grade 6. In all, a total of about 2,500 hours would be typical. The student proceeds at his own speed, and may complete the training in a little less time or a great deal more.
At any time during this training the HCO side of the organization can step is to administer a "Review" test and, if not satisfied, can instruct the Academy said to require more training hours. This can be done also as a penalty for "infractions" of Scientology rules. The student must pay for all such hours imposed, of course. Since he is likely to be working on the staff part time to help pay his fees, his situation is quite complicated. He can give offence through acts as an employee, as well as through shortcomings as a student.
When the student auditor completes each level, he is certified as a qualified auditor at that level, and he is able to audit other preclears up to and including that level. When he has completed Grade 6, he is fully qualified to audit any other preclear. He is equipped also to audit himself through Grade 7 to clear. However the route to clear is carefully guarded, and only those approved by Hubbard as loyal and worthy Scientologists are finally certified. The specific tests for determining that the individual is truly clear are a closely guarded secret.
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At the Toronto Scientology centre, one is deeply impressed by the conviction and radiance of the committed leaders. There is a quality of dynamic, powerful, serene charm in the character of the three clears who have been active in Toronto. Whatever may be said of the Scientology processes, those who survive them have some of the fanatical strength of religious conversion combined with great skill in manipulating other persons.
Some clearly have benefited from their experience with Scientology. At a gathering of preclears, an insurance salesman described how he has had to change his eyeglasses three times in the past several months, as his eyesight improved with auditing. His optometrist was now reading Hubbard, he reported. A young woman, a clear, has described how Scientology has made her life over, giving her a sense of "living in present time" which dissolves worry and enriches experience.
Against all this must be put the hard, cash-oriented attitude of Scientology academies, the almost sadistic delight in the difficulties of the S.P.'s, the intimidating letters when too many questions are asked. One must also add the experience of Melbourne preclears, whose misfortunes brought about prohibition of Scientology in Victoria.
In addition, the British Ministry of Health supplied the Committee with brief descriptions of a number of police reports from its own evidence on which it ultimately decided to take restrictive actions against Scientology (see p. 65). These cases included:
1) A schizophrenic young man receiving treatment in hospital after twenty-five hours' processing discharged himself and spent personal savings of over £500 on further processing, despite his parents warning to the H.A.S.I. staff that he was schizophrenic. He eventually returned to hospital, but subsequent treatment was seriously hindered by the Scientologists' teaching about psychiatry.2) An adolescent boy, subsequently discovered to have been suffering from latent schizophrenia, was introduced to Scientology. He left his job and home and went to Saint Hill, where he was later picked up penniless by the police. The boy's prognosis was said to be poor owing to his resistance to psychiatric treatment, encouraged by Scientology doctrine. More than a year later, he was found by police wandering semi-conscious in the streets of East Grinstead. He died shortly afterwards.
3) A French au pair girl employed by a leading member of the Scientologists was left by her employers at a police station in a very disturbed mental state and admitted to hospital with acute schizophrenia.
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The psychiatrist in charge of her case had "little doubt that the attempt to indoctrinate the girl with the principles of Scientology played a large part in her breakdown".4) A twenty-six year-old man, known to have a history of paranoid schizophrenia, was accepted for two courses at Saint Hill, and was declared to have reached the state of clear. He was later found naked running and marching down a road in East Grinstead shouting incoherently about Ron Hubbard. He was admitted to hospital.
5) The police were called to a house in East Grinstead where a young American Scientologist was threatening violence to all within his range; the elderly lady owning the house was terrified, and other Scientologists had fled. The young man said that Scientology courses made him feel bad, and that his mind was affected. His parents (also Scientologists) lived elsewhere in the town, and the police took the young man to them, whereupon he again became distressed and blamed them for his condition. He was eventually quietened, and the police advised his parents to seek psychiatric advice.
In Ontario experience of Scientology has remained at the personal level; it has not yet become a matter of concern to public authorities.
Scientology officially claims to have no concern for physical or mental healing. Nevertheless, physicians and psychiatrists are viewed as bitter enemies. The following bulletin indicates Hubbard's attitude:
Certain vested interests, mainly the American Medical Association, wish to do all possible harm to the Scientology movement over the world in order to protect their huge medical-psychiatric income and desired monopoly which runs into tens of billions annually. In their congresses they complain that we and people like us cost them 1.1 billion dollars a year that they don't receive. Their sole interest is income. Reference: Minutes of various AMA conferences. Almost all our bad publicity and attacks is authored by two men, one named Keaton, the AMA press man, and one named Field, their head of "investigation". These men flood bad tales about Scientology into press, magazines, radio, TV....The sole reasons for attack are money and monopoly....
We have always had policies of leaving healing alone and not attacking medicine and other areas of psychiatry. Our pay for this is receiving continual bad press.
Medical doctors practising psychiatry are peculiarly vulnerable. Their physiological technology belongs to the 19th century. It has innumerable crimes on its hands. Hitler and Stalin held power through medical psychiatry. They associate themselves chiefly with the rich and powerful....
We are modern, 20th century. We are of the people. We hate Fascism and
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brutality. We are the new replacing the old. We have passed the test of survival. Despite 13 years of attack we have survived. Therefore we must have something and we must be all right.61
This bulletin is quoted at length to indicate the style and flavour of Hubbard's vitriolic attacks on organized medicine.
To date, no instance is known of favourable recognition of Scientology by any major institution of Western society. Hubbard has claimed recognition by "companies in South Africa", but the claim has never been substantiated. No medical association, church, voluntary organization or other social institution has recognized the merits of Scientology.
On the other side, several political jurisdictions have recognized Scientology as an undesirable agency. As reported earlier, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States has successfully prosecuted Scientology. The state of Victoria, Australia has banned it. Medical associations and the Cancer Society have warned against it.
The attitude of the British government to Hubbard's activities at the international headquarters of Scientology at Saint Hill, Sussex may be judged from a statement made by the Minister of Health on March 6, 1967, at the conclusion of a debate on Scientology:
What I have said will make clear my belief that Scientology is not merely ludicrous, which would not matter, but it is potentially harmful to its adherents...further inquiry is unnecessary to establish that the activities of this organization are potentially harmful. The Anderson Report in Victoria and the evidence put before me in this country make this quite clear. There remains the question whether the practice of Scientology should be prohibited. 62
To this the Minister replied that at present it should not be prohibited, because this would require restrictive legislation affecting similar groups and altering the freedom of medical practice which has been preserved in Britain (see Appendix II). However, the Minister added:
What I have tried to do in this Debate is to alert the public to the facts about Scientology, to the potential dangers in which anyone considering taking it up may find himself and to the utter hollowness of the claims made for the cult. 63
61. HCO Policy letter, August 14, 1963, reprinted in Report of the Victoria Board of Inquiry into Scientology, op. cit., p. 200.
62. Hansard, U.K. Vol. 742, No. 158, Column 1216
63. Ibid., Column 1228.
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To date, the only comprehensive regulation of Scientology has been the Psychological Practices Act, 1965, of Victoria, by which it is prohibited.
In Great Britain in July 1968, the government decided to use its powers under the Aliens Order to restrict entry of foreign nationals proposing to study at Scientology's international headquarters in East Grinstead, Sussex. The following restrictions were announced:
(a) The Hubbard College of Scientology, and all other scientology establishments, will no longer be accepted as educational establishments for the purposes of Home Office policy on the admission and subsequent control of foreign nationals;(b) Foreign nationals arriving at United Kingdom ports who intend to proceed to scientology establishments will no longer be eligible for admission as students;
(c) Foreign nationals who are already in the United Kingdom, for example as visitors, will not be granted student status for the purpose of attending a scientology establishment;
(d) Foreign nationals already in the United Kingdom for study at a scientology establishment will not be granted extensions of stay to continue these studies;
(e) Work permits and employment vouchers will not be issued to foreign nationals (or Commonwealth citizens) for work at a scientology establishment;
(f) Work permits already issued to foreign nationals for work at a scientology establishment will not be extended. 64
No court cases involving Scientology auditing are known of to date. As we have indicated, press reports of Scientology have been generally unfriendly, as have statements by medical associations and similar organizations.
The internal regulatory mechanisms of Scientology affecting the practice of auditing, described already under "Organization", are carried out through the HCO side of the Scientology structure.
Hubbard's own attitude to any attempt by society to regulate or limit Scientology is clear enough:
Dianetics is the enemy of none and falls utterly outside all existing legislation...Dianetics belongs to Man, and no profession or government must be allowed to withhold it.Advocate total freedom....We are alive today not because we fought...but because we went on doing Scientology in spite of everything. So never advertise an attack. Just advocate more strongly "Total Freedom"....
64. House of Commons, Great Britain, Written Answer No. 1459, op. cit.
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That's the answer no nation or person can stand up to, if we keep saying it long and loud. SCIENTOLOGY IS THE ROAD TO TOTAL FREEDOM 65
Hubbard has always maintained that no law can prevent one man from telling another his troubles - and that, he claims, is all that Scientology is really about.
Objective experimental verification of Hubbard's physiological and psychological doctrines is lacking. To date, no regular scientific agency has established the validity of his theories of prenatal perception and engrams, or cellular memory, or Dianetic reverie, or the effects of Scientology auditing routines. Existing knowledge contradicts Hubbard's theory of recording of perceptions during periods of unconsciousness.
A psychology dissertation in New York University in 1953 tested the effect of Dianetic reverie on increase in IQ and mathematical ability, which Hubbard claimed. The usual controls and sampling techniques were used, and the tests found no noticeable influence as a result of the Dianetic auditing. 66
Hubbard's claims to have found the only known cure for atomic radiation effects is not only unsubstantiated, but, in view of its obvious military value, hardly likely to have been left uninvestigated by military authorities if it was of any value whatever.
Hubbard's original thesis of the existence of engrams in a Reactive Mind was tested by three psychologists in 1960. 67 A passage from a physics text was read to a subject in an unconscious state induced by sodium pentathol. During a period of almost six months, Dianetic auditing was unable to recover the passage. Hubbard maintains that all conversation heard during periods of drugged unconsciousness recorded (as, for example, during surgical operations). 68
The extracts from Hubbard's instructions to auditors, as well as the Victoria demonstrations, make it clear beyond doubt that a command form of hypnosis is involved in Scientology auditing, whether intended or not. The particularly sadistic note of endless hours of repetition of extremely simple routines only adds to the potential damage to the mental health of those subjected to these routines. Preclears are never permitted to end auditing sessions on their own initiative.
On the other hand, as we have noted, those who survive Scientology's rigorous training manifest a most impressive self-assurance, poise and ability to communicate
65. The Auditor, No. 22, p. 1.
66. L. B. Fisher, "Dianetic Theory: An Experimental Evaluation", Dissertation abstracts, New York University, New York, 1954, p. 390.
67. C. Fox, A. Davis, and A. Lebovits, "Experimental Investigation of Hubbard's Engram Hypothesis", Psychological Abstracts, No. 1475, 1960.
68. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, the Modem Science of Mental Health, op. cit.
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effectively with others. They appear to appreciate the environment of Scientology groups, so much preferring it to the world of "wogs" that most remain on Scientology staff. This could be interpreted also as an effect of training in unfitting Scientology members for normal social relationships. The doctrine of Suppressive Persons, the special in-group terminology, and the dedication to "help Ron clear the planet" also disable Scientology graduates in normal social intercourse, even while Scientology claims to "make the able more able".
Evaluation of the credibility of Scientologists when making their claims and activities known to "outsiders" is left to the reader to assess. He may compare the description of auditing given by the Toronto HCO Director with that of the other sources, including Hubbard's manuals. He may also compare the insistence that Scientology is not in any way connected with the healing arts with the claims made in Scientology literature.
Evaluation of the right of Scientology to claim exemption as a "religion" may be made on the same criteria as those applied to Christian Science, with this distinction: Christian Science leaders have never cynically announced that it is better to be a religion than a healing practice. Christian Science took a religious form from its beginning; Scientology took on a religious form after it suffered severe setbacks as a "science of mental health".
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Martin Hunt / martinh@islandnet.com / August 20 1997