Welcome to our ongoing project, where we blog a 1950 first edition of Scientology’s bible, Dianetics, with the help of ex-Scientologist, lawyer, and author Vance Woodward. Go here for the first post in the series.
We’re finally going to finish the chapter “Mechanisms and Aspects of Therapy” this week, Vance, and we won’t really be very sorry to see it go.
By this point, Hubbard is just riffing on what he’s previously proposed, generally rehashing his ideas about engrams picked up in the womb and how to remove them so they stop affecting adult life.
In the final portion of this chapter there’s a lengthy example involving a woman who is skeptical about the auditing that her husband is going through.
That skepticism is making the man’s own auditing take longer, and we’re told that the couple’s nine-year-old child is also a nervous type because of his mother. When the husband suggests that his wife was “aberrated” and could benefit from dianetic therapy, she blows her stack, withdraws their money, and absconds with the kid.
But this story has a happy ending. Eventually the woman relents, gets auditing, and then discovers that she is suffering from the usual horrific womb-stories that Hubbard has a knack for finding…
It was instantly discovered that her father had many times threatened to kill her mother and that her father had not wanted her. Further it was found that her father’s name was Q and that her engram bank was strewn with remarks such as “Q, please don’t leave me. I will die without you.” Additionally, when she was no longer in session, she suddenly volunteered what was to her a hysterically humorous fact that all her life she had been having affairs with men named Q no matter what their shape or size or age….She divulged that she had tried many times to abort their son because she was terribly frightened that he would be a blond whereas she and her husband had dark hair. Further, the engrams of that child, she knew, contained data which she considered incriminating beyond mere abortion; while pregnant she had had intercourse with three men other than her husband.
Another woman who is a danger to her fetus is ensnared and neutralized by the Great Scientist.
VANCE: Yes, Hubbard saved the day once again.
A bit later on in the chapter, I noticed Hubbard was already laying down cult foundations: “One either practices all dianetics and gets results or practices himself into a decline: that is a mechanical, scientific fact. Dianetics, as a self-protecting science, demands practice by clears or at least good releases.” Yes, Dianetics is always effective but it demands Clears and “good releases,” which I take to mean that only Clears and good releases can effectively apply Dianetics. So, the reason you aren’t getting results is that you’re not a Clear or a good release. The solution is to continue auditing until you are.
There’s another example here that struck me as autobiographical.
THE BUNKER: The story of “R” and “C”?
VANCE: Yes. R was “high dynamic.” C was apathetic. C didn’t understand the auditor’s code, got mad at R while auditing him, and so forced R into an anger valence. Ultimately, they audited out the bad auditing (yes, you can do it). R audited out a dental extraction engram, “which contained an enormous amount of conversation between the dentist and his assistants and R’s mother, who, unfortunately for his sanity, had accompanied him to the dentist’s office.” Next C realized that she’d been a pretty lousy wife and needed to start treating R better if she were to get any results from auditing R (this might have been induced by the 50-point IQ increase she obtained from R’s quality auditing). Later, “it was suddenly disclosed” that the reason R got so upset with C is because C reminded R of a nurse from a tonsillectomy. Case closed.
Maybe it’s the “R,” but this example always struck me as being semi, if not entirely, autobiographical.
THE BUNKER: And assuming you’re right, this portion of it seems especially revealing…
His ulcer stemmed from an attempted abortion. His father, an extremely aberrated individual, had sought to abort the baby when it was seven months in the womb. The mother remonstrated that the baby might be born alive. The father said that if it were alive when born he would kill it as soon as it came out. He had said, further, that the mother had to hold still while he operated. On another occasion the father had said that he would lock the mother in a closet until she decided to abort the child. (This case was much complicated because the mother had been afraid to tell the father and had pretended not to be pregnant for three months, giving the husband the belief that the child, seven months along, was actually only four months along. Therefore, there was much secrecy in the case, much confusion and conflicting data.)…R would now cooperate but his time track had wound into a ball around the holder engram, the key. Two exodontistries for the removal of wisdom teeth with nitrous oxide anaesthesia were also suppressing the prenatals.
As you say, Vance, case closed. And if that’s true, did Hubbard believe his mother had tried to abort him, and had succeeded in injuring him so that he suffered from an ulcer as an adult? As we’ve seen in previous examples, that’s a scenario that Hubbard seemed to believe was surprisingly common.
We can’t leave this lengthy chapter without quoting one of the biggest howlers in the entire book.
“Charlatanism is almost impossible where dianetics in any of its principles is being practiced.”
Sometimes, you just have to admire Hubbard’s chutzpah.
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Last Night in LA: Scientology on the Big Screen!
Mark Bunker tells us that last night’s Cinefamily event was a big hit, with a packed crowd and numerous surprises. Held at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles, the event featured two classic Granada documentaries about the church introduced by Bunker, A Faith for Sale and The Shrinking World of L. Ron Hubbard. Also seen was the beloved music video, “We Stand Tall,” and a panel discussion that featured Battlefield Earth screenwriter J.D. Shapiro. Also on hand to field questions were Tory Christman and Norway’s Geir Isene, who are seen here with event emcee Hadrian Belove. Bunker tells us Isene put on a demonstration of auditing (using Belove as a guinea pig) that was remarkably fun and not nearly as repetitive and boring as actual Scientology processing. Way to go, Geir!
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 20, 2013 at 07:00
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