| Scientology Rare Book Library | Dr. Christopher Evans - Cults of Unreason |
IN 1950 L. R. HUBBARD found himself a figure of national prominence He rose to the occasion splendidly, happily enjoying the publicity, dashing off new tracts to supplement the original thesis and at the same time attempting to seal up the cracks which were beginning to appear in its logic. The success of his book (it sold over a million) had put large sums of money into his hands and these he decided to reinvest rapidly in establishing Dianetic Research Centres across America. The first, and in the early days the most famous, was established at Elizabeth, New Jersey and here, auditing each other like mad and listening to ad hoc lectures of incredible length, were to be found an amazing collection of individuals. Some were lonely neurotics for whom the techniques had struck a spark, some science fiction writers such as the brilliant A. E. Van Vogt, some figures such as John Campbell himself - who must have been beginning to wonder what it was he had started - and some academics such as the political scientist from Massachusetts, Professor F. L. Schuman (who risked the ridicule of his university colleagues in order to champion Dianetics in the weekly New Republic). There was even a sprinkling of scientists and mathematicians who were at least intrigued at the song and dance that Hubbard was making.
Businessmen too found Dianetics of compelling interest. It wasn't long before at least two millionaires had enthusiastically involved themselves in the movement, one of whom was the oil king, Don Purcell, who considerably expanded Hubbard's empire by building a spanking new headquarters for him in Wichita, Kansas. Here, in expensively furnished offices, secretaries clacked away at typewriters, telephones rang non-stop and all the signs were evidence of a business going into boom. In a specially constructed lecture theatre, for a fee of a hundred dollars a time, Ron Hubbard (paid by Purcell) lectured daily to full houses.
In other parts of the country eager audiences awaited the words of the master who flew back and forth from coast to coast, addressing enthusiastic groups and gathering around him the collection of sensation seekers, sycophants, fanatics, fortune hunters and considerable numbers of honest individuals who believed that Hubbard had really got hold of something of significance. For, despite the aura of razzamatazz which had swiftly surrounded the topic and its originator, there was at this time a brief but measurable period when the world of psychology quaked. Was it possible, was it just conceivable, that this fantastic, academically unqualified extrovert had developed techniques which worked, and had really pulled something out of the bag?
Hubbard himself evidently had no doubt, for the opening lines of the synopsis to his first book describe Dianetics as `a milestone for Man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch'. But he must have realized also that this was no time to rest on his laurels.
Thanks to intensive research, the frontiers of Dianetics were being steadily advanced, and the concept of a `Clear' became particularly important. This is a word which appears in Scientology literature today ad nauseam and it continually mystifies ordinary people not conversant with the cult's elaborate jargon. It is also a concept which has changed quite considerably as the years have passed.
It will be recalled that in therapy the auditor undertook a quest for his patient's engrams and, by causing him to confront them or `run them through', erased them from the reactive memory banks. As each engram slid away in limbo, so the patient gradually rid himself of the tedious physical and psychological afflictions which they had caused, gradually becoming a healthier and happier person. Now obviously, if these engrams were, as Hubbard claimed, the source of practically all human ills, then one should be able to produce a physically and psychologically perfect individual if only they could all be cleared away. Any such individual would then become a `Clear', all others being ipso facto `preclear - the name used to denote the rank and file of Dianetics, and later Scientology.
Clears, as you may imagine, would be very superior people indeed, and Hubbard spelt out the fact in no uncertain terms. They would, he claimed, not only be totally without neuroses, etc., but their bodies would cease to be a prey to the minor tribulations of life. Clears would not get colds for example. Their eyesight would improve to the point where they would not need glasses. If wounded they would heal abnormally quickly. Even their IQ would be raised.
To many, Clear sounded a tempting state of being and a goal to be vigorously pursued. Unfortunately, Dianetic processing was not cheap. In 1951 the Wichita Foundation was charging over five hundred dollars for thirty-six hours' processing, and personal attention at the hands of Hubbard was even costlier. Thirty-six hours, however, never seemed to be quite enough to product any Clears, and no one seemed sure, since there were no comparison samples around, just how long it would take to reach the final state. But it was obvious to all that at nearly fourteen dollars an hour clearing could be quite expensive if it turned out to take, say, a year. There didn't seem much point in going to Hubbard himself about this either, for he was uncharacteristically coy on the matter of whether he was Clear himself. He did, however, promise that the state was attainable, and so the processing continued.
In the meanwhile more exciting new facts emerged. Behind every reactive and analytic mind, it appeared, lay an entity known as the `Thetan'. Thetans are the really important part of the human being - the part that is `aware of being aware', as Hubbard put it nicely. They are entirely non-physical and also quite immortal. They inhabit bodies, moving them around like someone operating a puppet, but have for the most part forgotten that they are immortal. They have, in principle, complete and absolute power over their bodies. Most of them, Hubbard sorrowfully points out, even think they are bodies! The reasons for this unaccountable error we will go into later, merely noting at this time that since they are immortal, on the death of their puppet body they must presumably go elsewhere. Where? Well you guessed right if you say to yet another body - taking it over at the point of conception and sticking with it, for better or for worse, until it dies of old age or whatever.
And now we come to another revelation, and this is the point at which many people feel that Dianetics began the long and slippery descent into occultism. When the Thetan enters this new body it comes not, as one might hope, fresh and clean, but equipped with the accumulated detritus of its previous lives, all the engrams which have piled up in its apparently limitless backlog of existence. Fortunately Ron Hubbard soon found it was quite possible, though arduous and expensive, to clear even these ancient engrams, some of which had been thwarting their Thetans for millions of years. Thus encouraged, the faithful plunged back into battle, and in houses and apartments, in Dianetic Centres, in colleges and even army camps across America the fans of Dianetics began the exploration of their many, many past lives. In countless sessions, in countless houses, auditors watched as their preclears ran through the traumatic engrams of the past, re-dying dramatic deaths in blazing zeppelins, in sinking ocean liners, in the retreat from Moscow, beneath the guillotine, during the Black Death, leaping from the Wooden Horse of Troy, etc., etc. The cheery swopping of past lives and deaths became a feature of sophisticated conversation at many parties, anticipating the Bridey Murphy `reincarnation' vogue by several years.
Obviously it now became necessary to reconsider the concept of Clear, for the techniques of Dianetics, potent though they might be, could hardly be expected to whisk away the engrams of a million previous lifetimes in the twinkling of an eye. Most people would have to rest content with the prospect of one day becoming a MEST-Clear (these being the initials for the universe of Matter, Energy, Space and Time) when they would find themselves with only the limited rewards of perfect health, boundless energy, a photographic memory, a vastly increased IQ and some measure of telepathic ability. For the real achievers, assuming some speeding up of the Dianetic technique, the next step would be the clearing of past life engrams, and then the state of `Operating Thetan' - i.e., the state in which an individual becomes capable of exercising literally miraculous powers and being pretty well independent of the shackles of the MEST-universe - would be attained.
Like that of Clear, the concept of Operating Thetan has today been considerably watered down, and at the time of writing the latter state has not yet been fully achieved. There is, however, a suggestion that in 1952 or thereabouts Hubbard must have felt that there were some OTs in existence for in an extraordinary passage in one of his more extraordinary books (History of Man) he urges such beings to preserve their anonymity and:
...not go upsetting governments and putting on a show to prove anything to homo sapiens for a while; it's a horrible temptation to knock off hats at 50 yards and read books couple of countries away...but you'll just make it tough on somebody else who's trying to get across this bridge.
Compared with such nonsense Hubbard's earlier words, on the potential of Clear, seem like crystal sanity, though they do have slightly unpleasant overtones:
One sees with some sadness that more than three quarters of the world's population will become subject to the remaining quarter as a natural consequence about which we can do exactly nothing.
In these days Hubbard was still able to talk about Clears without actually having to produce one. It was a sunny period free of carping criticism or childish backsliding, and he was able, with a few choice friends, to engage in some peaceful research in the friendly surroundings of the Wichita Foundation. It was at this point that a young mathematician appeared on the scene and, impressed by Hubbard's platform manner and convinced for various reasons of the workability of at least some of the Dianetic's methods, offered his services in the cause. His name was Perry Chapdelaine, and today he is a distinguished computer scientist who looks back wryly on his youthful love-affair with the cult. He was, somewhat to his surprise, to play a significant role in its further evolution and became a close associate of Hubbard. He also served as his personal auditor and soon found, even in his own first flush of enthusiasm, that the Master's research methods did not match the vigour of even the most rudimentary scientific study.
The actual procedure, Chapdelaine reports, was for Hubbard to settle himself on a couch with a tape recorder handy and an `auditor' who would be expected to provide appropriate feedback. In no time a flow of introspection - like the free association characteristic of a psychoanalytic session - would begin. But, unlike an orthodox session in analysis where the material is treated with the suspicion that all ramblings from the unconscious deserve, in Hubbard's research periods all was apparently accepted with solemn deliberation - the most outre fantasies, the most oddball ideas being treated as unremarkable fact. Much of the text of History of Man, which is quite one of Hubbard s odder works, emerged from these Wichita sessions, and knowing this one can see why it reads so peculiarly. Candidly, the more one inspects its text, the more one begins to wonder whether he ever meant it to be taken seriously. It is, one feels, not particularly rich in literary merit, but because it marks a transition point at which the technically oriented Dianetics became the philosophically oriented Scientology we will need to take a rather close look at it. Fortunately has the saving grace of being exceedingly funny, so the process of inspection is less painful than one might fear.
History of Man begins soberly enough with the following remark: `This is a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years', and after tossing off a few remarks about making the blind see and the lame walk, it gets down to real business. The message is simple. Dianetics, which deals largely with the technique of clearing engrams, is a relatively slow and temporary measure. Scientology, its bouncing progeny, takes up where Dianetics leaves off and provides techniques which allow one to tackle the problem of past lives with relative ease and pave the way to achieving the states of Clear and Operating Thetan. Furthermore, it is no longer just a technique in isolation, but has a philosophy with it.
For those interested, the real secret of the universe is as follows. In the beginning are the Thetans. These are omnipotent, indestructible beings who suffer from being immortal. The reason they suffer is because immortality, when one has nothing to do, becomes intolerably boring. There are, it is true, other Thetans about, but since they too do nothing it's just as boring as if there were only one. Now in order to help while away eternity they decided to play some games. These consist, in the first instance, of creating universes of one kind and another, and playing with them. The games could be of any kind. They might create a world, for example, where pigs fly and centipedes wear green socks, or a world, like the one in Alice in Wonderland, entirely made of treacle. You name it, the Thetans can make it.
After a while this too becomes boring, and the Thetans begin to realize that their omnipotence and omniscience is the real trouble. So with a master-stroke typical of their genius they decide voluntarily to handicap themselves, limiting their powers and cutting down the range of their knowledge. Now the game becomes more interesting, and the Thetans enter into it with greater enthusiasm. Then, imperceptibly, something begins to happen.
Slowly but surely, as the countless millions of years pass by, the lures of the universe they have created out of matter, energy, space and time (MEST) begin to snare them. They become more and more immersed in the game, less and less concerned about their true status as Thetans. Slowly, like flies sinking into honey, they become more hopelessly trapped in the material universe, reaching their present state (almost total ensnarement) many millions of years ago. And the path has been steadily downward. Nowadays the Thetans have forgotten what they really are, and go around thinking they are bodies. They have even forgotten that they are playing a game at all!
But something has happened. One man, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, has stumbled on the secret, has remembered what it's all about and will lead us back until we cease to be pawns and return to our heritage as players. Such is the grand design behind all our lives as revealed by Scientology. It is imaginative, if nothing else, and smacks from top to bottom of the very best science fiction. If this seems unfair, then a closer look at the contents of History of Man is prescribed.
Much of the book is devoted to details of past lives and intensely traumatic encounters in the Thetan's catastrophic past. In the long haul of evolution the Thetan has struggled up through a number of life forms, all of which have left their mark on poor twentieth-century homo sapiens. For several million years, for example, the principal form of life was THE CLAM, the normal type of bivalve, one supposes, tossed about on beaches and subject to the whim of wind and wave. You can soon tell, advises Hubbard, whether a preclear is really hung up on incidents from his past as a clam by saying to him, `Can you imagine a clam sitting on the beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?'. At the same time you make a motion with your thumb and forefinger as of rapid opening and closing. This gesture will suffice to upset large numbers of people, causing a clam-type to `grip his jaws with his hand and feel quite upset. He may even have to have a few teeth pulled ...and he will feel quite sad emotionally.' `You will be amazed', Hubbard adds later, `to find the clam sufficiently advanced as a cellular-somatic mind to have postulates, to think thoughts'.
After the clam comes THE WEEPER, a mollusc which also lay around on beaches for vast tracts of evolutionary history. We have all been through this too, as the Thetans, and our memory banks bear the scars. It must have been a tedious period for the plights ot the weeper were `many and pathetic. Still obtaining its food from the waves, it had yet to breathe. Waves are impetuous and often irregular. The WEEPER [the capitals are Hubbard's] would often open up to get food from the water and get a wave in the shell. It would vigorously pump out the water and try to get some air and then, before it could gulp atmosphere, be hit by another wave. Here was anxiety.' Indeed. But worse was to follow, for the creature had two respiratory tubes which continually had `very rough treatment, getting full of sand, being battered by surf'.
The inability of the preclear to cry, we are informed, is a particularly good sign that he is hung up on his past lives as a weeper for he is afraid of getting sand in his eyes. The weeper, Hubbard informs us, was originally called the `Grim Weeper' or the `Boohoo', and it had `trillions of misadventures'. Other ghastly incidents in the past include a period on earth when volcanoes abounded. Smoking tobacco, Hubbard hints, might well be a `dramatization of volcanoes'.
Skipping past THE SLOTH, which `had bad times falling out of trees' and being attacked by baboons, and THE APE, which is usually `an area of overt acts against animals and incidents of protecting young', we pass on to THE PILTDOWN MAN, an area rich in engrams containing `freakish acts of strange logic, of demonstrating dangerous [sic] on one's Fellows, of eating one's wife and other somewhat illogical activities'. The Piltdown teeth, we read, were `ENORMOUS and he was quite careless as to whom and what he bit'. Piltdown's successor, THE CAVEMAN, was a more complicated individual, being concerned with `keeping women at home for men and keeping a man from keeping one at home for women'.
If you feel here that your own personal hold on sanity is beginning to slip, then Hubbard's amazing book is not for you. Just be glad that Scientology is around to unburden you of all the trauma of your past lives as CLAM, WEEPER, and SLOTH, to say nothing of PILTDOWN with his ENORMOUS teeth.
Anyone who has wondered at what happens, if anything, after death will be relieved to hear that a good deal of information is now available, thanks to the work Hubbard undertook at Wichita. `At death', we learn, `the theta being leaves the body and goes to the between-lives area. Here he "reports in", is given a strong forgetter implant and is then shot down to a body just before it is born'.
The forgetter implant sounds very unpleasant. `The preclear is seated before a wheel which contains numbers of pictures. As the wheel turns the pictures go away from him... A force screen hits him through these pictures...The whole, effect is to give him the impression that he has no past life, that he is no longer the same identity, that his memory has been erased'. Some individuals do not always report - small wonder - but we are not told what happens to them. Presumably they hang around in limbo putting off the inevitable as one postpones dental appointments on earth. Hubbard reveals that a good deal is known about the location of the report areas. `The report area for most', he declared, `has been Mars. Some women report to stations elsewhere in the solar system. There are occasional incidents about Earth report stations. These are protected by screens. The last Martian report station on earth was established in the Pyrenees.'
This rather extensive coverage of what must be, intentionally or unintentionally, one of the most absurd books ever written, would not of course be justifiable if it were an obscure cranky work, read at the most by a few hundreds of people. The real oddity - and it is a slightly frightening one - is that History of Man (which was first published in 1951) has not sold hundreds, but probably hundreds of thousands of copies and is devoured with great eagerness and diligence by Scientologists young and old in all parts of the world.
The rest of the book concerns the kind of engrams which are implanted as the result of various wars and conflicts between Thetans which have occurred on and off in the past `60 trillion years' and, if anything, it is even sillier than the first part. A large number of devices were employed to trap Thetans, who when caught were subjected to various weird punishments, all of which get soaked into the eternal memory and which manifest themselves during auditing.
Among the traps were the `Jack-in-the-Box', a curious contrivance which operated like a booby-trap, exploding when touched by a nosey Thetan and `filling his beingness full of pictures which are extremely confusing, being pictures of boxes of pictures'. Human beings who are particularly hung up on this episode reveal themselves by being `very curious about cereal boxes which have pictures of boxes of cereal which have pictures of boxes of cereal'. If you can wade your way through that one you might stand a chance of making sense of the `Coffee Grinder' - one of my own personal favourites. This episode goes back to a time when Thetans brainwashed each other with a `two-handled portable machine which, when turned, emits a heavy push-pull electronic wave in a series of stuttering "baps"'.
People are attracted to the job of operating pneumatic drills not, as we all thought in our ignorance, because they could find nothing better to do but because they had, a trillion years ago, been `bapped' by a coffee grinder. These devices, it happens were operated by Thetans wearing hoods and goggles, rather like asbestos fire-fighting suits, and this provided added trauma to the victim. The operators, no doubt aware of their odd appearance, concealed themselves behind a black gauze curtain while operating the machine, but the victims nevertheless generally caught a glimpse of them at least once.
If you are wondering what mark this vision leaves on Thetans when they assume human forms eons later, you will be interested to know that they show an intense dislike of people who wear horn-rimmed glasses. And what type of people tend to wear horn-rimmed glasses? Correct! The former operators of the coffee grinders.
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