By Jeff Jacobsen more
1992
Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/f5cd08c5e24ebc3a
THE HUBBARD IS BARE
by Jeff Jacobsen
PO Box 3541
Scottsdale, AZ 85271
Copyright 1992 by Jeff Jacobsen
may be reprinted so long as it is kept in its entirety and not
edited.
Introduction
Review of Hubbard's Theories
The Murky State of Clear
Problems with the Engram
Theory
Science and Dianetics
Hubbard's Sources
The Ideal Dianetics Society
Conclusion
For Further Reading
REVIEW OF HUBBARD'S THEORIES
First I must tell you that there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE
for most of Hubbard's theories, despite his claim that they are
"scientific facts". Secondly, Hubbard had no academic
background to come up with theories of the mind, despite his
false grandiose claims of world travel and incredible education.
Finally, the actual scientific community and in fact the real
world all dispute with credible evidence almost all of Hubbard's
theories. Despite this, Hubbard still has a following. And
since he and the Church of Scientology have placed his teachings
into the marketplace of ideas, it is useful to all interested
parties to have these ideas critiqued. But first, a brief
overview of those ideas.
If you already understand dianetics and Scientology
doctrine, you may wish to skip this chapter as it is a general
overview of these. Most of this booklet deals with the
teachings from the book Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental
Health and the basic ideas that sprang from this work. If you
are not clear on dianetics, you should read this section in
order to follow large portions of this booklet. I will be brief
yet concise enough for the reader to follow the deeper
discussions. Words underlined are Hubbard's terms that you
should familiarize yourself with. It is of course helpful to
read the book Dianetics before continuing.
L. Ron Hubbard, author of the book Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health and founder of the Church of
Scientology, was a science-fiction writer before penning the
book that would launch his fame. Dianetics is a self-help book
published in 1950 which claimed to include new and unique
theories on how the mind works. Hubbard claimed that this work
was totally unprecedented; "...Dianetics was the bolt from the
blue."1 Mankind was destroying
himself by various means "without any idea of what caused Man to
behave as he did or what made him sick or well. THE answer was,
and still is, Dianetics."2
So there would be no doubt as to the originality of his
ideas, Hubbard wrote that "dianetics borrowed nothing but was
first discovered and organized; only after the organization was
completed and a technique evolved was it compared to existing
information."3 According to
Hubbard, some philosophers of the past helped provide the
foundation of dianetics, but the remaining research had been
done "what the navigator calls, 'off the chart'."4
Dianetics became a New York Times Best seller in 1950, and
has since sold many millions of copies.
Dianetics is a "science of mental health" as the full
title of Hubbard's 1950 book declares. The main theory of
dianetics is that the human has two minds, the Analytical mind
and the Reactive mind. The Analytical mind is a perfectly
working device, and life would be wonderful were it not for the
Reactive mind lousing up the workings of the Analytical mind.
The Reactive mind stores memories of events in our life when we
were unconscious and in pain. These memories are perfect
recordings of the events, but the problem occurs because they
are not stored in the Analytical mind. These memories can be
triggered or restimulated by events in our environment that the
Reactive mind interprets as similar to one of its memories.
When the Reactive mind spots such a similarity, it attempts to
take over from the Analytical mind. This is a problem because
the Reactive mind is "moronic" and screws things up horribly and
disrupts the proper activities of the Analytical mind.
The goal of dianetics is to re-file these memories, called
Engrams, into the Analytical mind, where they can be properly
indexed and utilized. The Reactive mind is an evolutionary
throwback to how animals think, and is therefore a weaker area
of the mind in the human.
An example of an Engram in the book Dianetics is of a
child whose father beat his mother while the child was still in
the womb (Engrams can be recorded from conception on in
dianetics). The child was knocked unconscious from the beating
and was in pain when the father yelled "Take that! Take it, I
tell you! You've got to take it!"5
When the child grew up and something (perhaps the sound of the
father yelling) occurred within the child's surroundings that
was similar to the recordings in the Engram, this keyed in or
triggered the Engram, and the Reactive mind would take over,
effectively shutting down the Analytical mind to a degree and
controlling actions based instead on the moronic interpretation
of statements made in the Engram. Thus this child, because of
the "Take it!" statements in the Engram, becomes a kleptomaniac.
The goal of dianetics is to remove all Engrams from the
Reactive mind and clear them out, transferring these memories
into the Analytical mind where they can be properly utilized and
processed. When the Reactive mind is emptied, or cleared, of
all Engrams, the person is declared a CLEAR, and from then on
the person is able to utilize his or her mind to the utmost,
operating on a heretofore unknown level of abilities.
Engrams are found through auditing, where one person asks
another questions about his past until an event with potential
for an Engram is encountered. If an Engram seems to exist, the
event is then gone over several times until the auditor is
satisfied that the Engram memory has now left the Reactive mind
and has been filed in the Analytical mind (see the section on
Clear for more details).
Auditors are the practitioners that take you throught the
dianetics process. They search your past by asking you
questions, looking for engrams to eradicate. Auditors do not
have to be trained much at all, according to the book Dianetics.6
So long as a person is reasonably intelligent and communicative,
he can audit after reading Dianetics.
After Dianetics was written, Volney Mattheison introduced
Hubbard to a galvanic skin response meter. Hubbard decided to
use this device as a tool to find Engrams. This device, which
appeared in 1941 as a "new fun-provoking stunt for parties,"7
simply registers the differing conduction of a weak electrical
flow through the body which can differ by how hard a person
squeezes the cans held in each hand or how much the person is
sweating. Hubbard called this device an E-meter. In any event,
the goal was still to re-file all memories in the Reactive mind
to the Analytical mind.
The goal of dianetics is to Clear the Planet, i.e. to
process everyone on earth to the state of Clear.
This, however, is not the end of it. While your mind may
now be running at an optimal level, your soul, known in
Scientology as a Thetan, is still troubled. Dianetics has
supposedly fixed the problems of our mind, but now the religion
of Scientology must enter to cure the problems of our soul.
Every person is not just a person with a mental problem, but is
also a reincarnated spiritual being who has lived at least
millions of years. Each of us has experienced an identical
horrible event whereby other Thetans were fused on to our own
Thetan, and these interfere with the optimum activities of the
main Thetan (our own soul). Scientology processing teaches the
Thetan how to rid itself of these Body Thetans that are attached
to us somewhat like leeches, and also how to operate on a more
efficient level.
L. Ron Hubbard claims to have been the first person to
discover the truths of both dianetics and Scientology. Without
his Tech, or methods to eradicate these hitherto undiscovered
impediments to life, there is no hope for mankind.
All the above has been deciphered from about 16 books by
Hubbard, over 45 hours of taped lectures, countless articles on
and by the Church of Scientology, and discussions with several
current and ex-members. Hubbard is often times repetitive and
undecipherable, so understanding some of his ideas is difficult.
Take this sample of his writing;
In other words, Life, faced with a non-understanding
thing, would feel itself balked, for Life, being Understanding,
could not then become non-understanding without assuming the
role of being incomprehensible. Thus it is that the seeker
after secrets is trapped into being a secret himself.8
It is this sort of stuff that makes Hubbard exasperating
to try to follow.
The above is a brief review of a complex subject. There
are many more points to this teaching, but I will attempt to
point out the intricacies when needed for the reader to follow
my arguments.
1 L. Ron
Hubbard, DIANETICS: THE ORIGINAL THESIS (Los Angeles; Church of
Scientology of California Publications Organization, 1951)
outside back jacket
2 Ibid.
3 L. Ron Hubbard, DIANETICS, THE MODERN SCIENCE
OF MENTAL HEALTH (Los Angeles; Bridge Publications, 1987) p.340
4 DIANETICS, p.400.
5 DIANETICS, p.281
6 DIANETICS, P.225
7 Giant Home Workshop Manual, 1941. See The
Survivor, volume 8, p.1 P.O. Box 95, Alpena, AR 72611
8 L. Ron Hubbard, DIANETICS 55! (Los Angeles;
Bridge Publications, Inc., 1955) p.41 |