3. CRISIS AND TRANSITION

Sources of the crisis

The developments that took place in the ideology and organization
of Hubbard's following emerged partly as the resolution of a
variety of strains and conflicts in the Dianetics community, which
existed between Hubbard and other leaders; between Hubbard's desire
for a strong central organization and the amateur groups keen to
retain their independence; and between Hubbard and other innovators
of theory and practice. They were also, in some measure, a response
to external vicissitudes: a hostile environment, and a declining
market.

The break between Hubbard and Purcell was the culmination of a
series of strains in their relationship and even earlier
difficulties with other coleaders of the movement. Ninter, for
example, had broken with Hubbard over a number of issues, of which
the financial precariousness of the Elizabeth Foundation was only
one. Firstly, Winter found

a difference between the ideals inherent within the dianetic
hypothesis and the actions of the Foundation in its ostensible
efforts to carry out these ideals. The ideals of dianetics, ar I
saw them, included non-authoritarianism and a flexibility of
approach; they did not exclude the realization that this hypothesis
might not be absolutely perfect. The ideals of dianetics continued
to be given lip-service, but I could see a definite disparity
between ideals and actualities.'

He had growing doubts about the possibility of achieving the state
of 'clear', and was concerned at the extent to which the effects of
Dianetic therapy were simply the results of suggestion. He felt
that the effect of the techniques might not always be beneficial to
the pre-clear, and that it might sometimes be positively dangerous
in the hands of poorly trained auditors without adequate medical
knowledge. The increasing disparagement of 'the medical profession
and the efforts of previous workers in the field of mental health'
disturbed him, as well as the absence of scientific research for
the purpose of which the Foundation had supposedly been
established.a The research which was being conducted was

IJoseph A. Winter, A Dottor's eport on Dianctics: heory and hrrapy
(Julian Press, Nevv York, Ig5t), p. 30.

2 Ibid, p. 40 78

 'rHE CULT A-D ITS TRANSrORMAT10:" directed to 'investigating the
possible therapeutic benefits of "recalling" the circumstances of
deaths in previous incarnations'1 and Winter did not regard this as
likely to result in acceptance by the medical profession. Finally,
he objected to the uncontrolled administration of a vitamin and
glutamic acid compound known as 'Guk', as an aid to therapy.2 His
protests concerning these matters met with sharp rebuff 'and I was
led to infer that I was acting as a deterrent to the progress of
the Foundation'.3 Winter resigned from the Foundation and
established a private psychotherapy practice in Manhattan uhere he
combined Dianetics with psychoanalysis and Genera Semantics.4 In
due course, Dianetics dropped from his practice.5

John W. Campbell in retrospect also criticized the increasing
dogmatism and authoritarianism of Hubbard. The relationship between
Hubbard and Purcell followed a similar pattern. After a short
period of co-operation, Hubbard began to feel that Purcell was
constraining his control over the development of ianetics Purcell
attempted to establish the Foundation on a sound business footing,
but Hubbard rapidly began generating new techniques faster than
students could be trained in them. More money was being spent than
was being earned as experimentation continued with vitamin
compounds and later started with electropsychometers.

When Purcell insisted that expenditure be reduced to meet income,
Hubbard began initiating independent fund-raising schemes7 which
were a source of embarrassment to other oundation directors, and a
source of further expense.S Finally, Hubbard insisted on pursuing
the matter of past-lives in spite of the protests of other leaders
of the Dianetics movement, including Purcell.9

Ibid, p. 189. 3 On 'Guk', see L. Ron Hubbard, Science of SurzJival,
1 l, p. 260.

3 Winter, op. cit..p. Igo 4 'Departure in dianetics', 7i1ne, 58,
lo (3 September 1951), p. 39.

S See his later book: Joseph A. Winter, Are Your rroubles
Psychosomatic? (Messner, New York, Igs2).

S Letter in rfe Arc Light, 25 (May 1952), pp. 6-8.

7 Such as the Allied Scientists of the World, discussed in the
previous chapter.

8 Letter of Don Purcell, 19 April 192 in e Diarews 1, 21 (April
l952); Letter of Don Purcell, 21 May r952 in the Dianews 1, 22 (31
Iay 1952), pp. g-12; 'Foundation Story', Dianetics 7oday, 3, 1
(January 1954), pp. 1-3; interviews with leaders of the Dianetic
movement.

8 A footnote in Science of Surviual indicates that past-lives had
been an early source of strain:

'The subject of past deaths and past lives is so full of tension
that as early as last July (1 gso-ed) the board of trustees of the
Foundation sought to pass a resolution banning the entire subject.
And I have been many times requested to omit any reference to these
in the present work or in public for fear that a general impreS-
sion would get out that Dianetics had something to do with
spiritualism.' (Science of SurDiual I, footnote, p. 61). rulrl..r
anc dlllpUtll ululr ll uullu

r. secure sole authority:

Ron's motive has al-vays been to limit Dianetics to the Authority
of his teachings. Anyone who has the ahfrontry Lrsic] to suggest
that others besides Ron could contri bute creatively to the work
must be inhibited '

In the later bankruptcy action, it was alleged that:

...Hubbard completely dominated the a fairs of the corporation
and dominated the meetings of the Board of Directors to such an
extent that only those matters which hc approved were discussed at
the Directors' meetings and other matters were not considered.
During such periods of time, said Hubbard exercised complete
control over the employees of the bankrupt, to the extent that from
time to time he countermanded the orders of the other offieers and
directors and ran the business of the bankrupt according to his own
whim and choosing.S

By the time this action took place, it was clear to Hubbard that
any future organization would have to be based on his sole
leadership.

WhiLc Hubbard was facing chaLlenges to his authority at the centre
of the movement in the Foundations, challengcs v ere aLso appearing
from the grass roots These took a number of forms.

The dispersed amateur groups which formcd the main active body of
support for Dianetics exhibited a considerable independence. They
tended to view with suspicion attempts to create more than a loose
central organization and the possibility of the infringement of
their autonomy. The attitude most prominent in the pubLications was
one of independent, democratic individ ualism. One description of
the movement by a Dianeticist represented it as:

processing of ordinary cases by ordinary people. It means ordinary
people getting together for study and practice. It means little
groups of dianeticists up and down the country.:

While others saw Dianetics as moving towards a professional rather
than an amateur basis they retained a preference for a democratic
form of organization. When Dianeticists proposed to set up a
national organization in Britain, three possible models were
envisaged.

. There might be one central organisation, tending to paternal
authoritarianism,

with individual auditon relatively unqualified...

2. A state of afairs might be reached in which individual members
would be sufficiently highly quahfied to be able to look after 
themselves legally, professionally, etc..rnd so need from thc 
central organisation the minimum of I Dianehcs ·roday, 3, 1 
(January 195.). r Hubrard Dianetic roundation Inc. rn Bankrutcy 
Jo. 37g-B-z, District Court of the United States for the District 
of Kansas. r 'the Dianeticist, I (April 1952), p 3. authority 
compatible with the maintenanee of those standards which the 
individual members would eventually be adopting. Thus Dianetic
would be safeguarded frcm exploitation by any biassed section by 
ensuring the competence of each individual auditor, so emuring 
maximum individual freedom. g. Or there might be a central 
organisation whose functions were so limited that it could not 
claim the authority to take much responsibility, with individual 
members and local groups left largely autonomous to feel their own 
way towards the sort of standards which will eventually become 
necessary if they are to have safety as well as freedom as 
dianeticists.

Model one was totallv rejected, and while model two was seen as the
form of organization towards which Dianetics would eventually move,
three was seen as the only viable interim form of organization. The
Dianetic Federation of Great Britain followed such a model, with no
control over affiliated groups, and little rcsponsibility beyond
the circulation of informahon.

Hostility was frequently expressed in the independent Dianetics
literature for 'authorities' of any kind:

In working with advanced cases we have discovered much that is not
in accordance wih Hubbard's teachings. For example, leality. There
is only one reality for each of us and we destroy it by accepting
the realities of others...Dianetics is Hubbard's reality.
Christianity is Jesus' reality, Theosophy is Blavatsky's reality,
etc. All of these must be given up before a person can go optimum.S
In a healthy and growing science, there are many men who are
recognised as being reality. Christianity is Jesus' reality,
Theosophy is Blavatsky's reality, etc. All of these must be given
up before a person can go optimum.' In a healthy and growing
science, there are many men who are recognised as being competent
in the field, and no one man dominates the work [....] To the
extent dianeties is dependent on one man, it is a cult. To the
extent it i5 built by many minds and many workers, it is a
science.S

Asearlyasmid Igsl,atthetimeofthemuchpublicizeddivorcecasebetween
Hubbard and his second wife, Sara, it was argued that the movement
could well proceed without Ron Hubbard:

...Dianetics no longer revolves wholly around Hubbard. He
developed it, and gave it to the world and the world has taken it
and gone on from there. Other groups besides the Foundation are
carrying on research and processing. As for the Hubbard affair, we
dianeticists do not have to either explain or deny it. Dianetics
does not depend on their actions and if they choose to disqualify
themselves as leaders, we now have others.'

On the occasion of the split between Hubbard and the Wichita
Foundation, a section of the movement took the view that there was
no reason to identify Dianetics with Hubbard, and that as....

' Letter from Secretary, Dianetics Study Group, to Dianeticists
n.d. (probably early 1 952) . sLetterfromJimWelgos, ·thePreclear,
1, 7 (5JUne 1952),p 12S Letter fromJohn W. Campbell, hr Arc Lght,
25 (I ay 1952), pp 6-8' Dianetos, I, 3 (15 April 1951). Hubbard .
..Hubbard is not the onlv onginal thinker in Dianetics many
otherr are thinking and producing ideas, some, elucidations of
Hubbard's ideas, some ideas that Hubbard has never mentioned.

Dianetics would progress, they argued, 'with or without Hubbard'.2
This attitude of independence and indiidualism led many
practitioners to generate new Dianetic techniques and theoretical
rationales. Some felt their innovations to be so far reaching as to
have become a completely new praCtise deserving a separate name and
reCognition, and set up institutes, schools and foundations of
their own to propogate the practice. This diversification was
deplored by some Dianeticists:

The dianebc population, though oEunknown size, certainly is small
compared to the total world population. Even so, there have already
appeared many vectors of effort (factions) among this relatively
small group. Recriminations, name-calling, denials of other's
reality...are a part of the scene. Some of the vectors involved
are Kitselman's Institute of Integration, and Automatic Scan
Clearing; Altman's Examiner Theory and Techniques; Fisher's
Integrator Therapy; iaylor's PCMA techniques, Winter's modificrtion
of 'classical' (1950) dianetics, Home Work techniques, Hubbard's
rg50 theory and techniques, recent developments in theory and
technique now coming from Wichita, and many others; the Hubbard
Dianetic Fovndation, as a commercial institution...HDF as a
school; Power's Function Processing; the HDAA-I, a society of
professional auditors wimh their own individually varying
attitudes; and all the individuals and groups throughout the
country who act to any degree along any of these vectors, or along
one of their own S

It was, however, applauded by others:

Each of these cell-divisioni accomplished something positive.
Hubbard bwlt more wisely than he knew when he insisted on a
prineiple of non-authoritarianism for now

we have dianetics, we have therapy, we haveER,wehaveNaylor'spCM,wehave .
..analytical procedure and nexology, and humanics, and, as an
adjunct, gestalt therapy [Etc]. We have all these things and 1, for
one, believe the whole is worth while. These cell divisions have
made possible our survival. hvlore important, they have made our
potentialities limitless as compared to those of our cousins, the
psycho-analysts because of our essentially non-authoritarianistic
structure.'

Such innovators often believed their own developments to have
greatly surpassed those of Hubbard:

Dianetas, 1, 22 (31 May IgSr p. 2. Ibid..p. 3. ' Editorial,
Dianotts, 1, 5 (December rgSI) pp. 2-3. Art Coulter, 'Cell Division
and Growth', Dianotes, 3, 34 (July 1954), p 9; for an amusing
account of the factionalism in Dianetics, see Vox Populi, 'Origin
and development of Psychoreligion', Dianotes, 3, 3 1 (April 1954),
pp. o-lo. ·..we have rrogressed beyond Dianetics...Now we
are promulgating teaching of greater deprh, 'lgidetic
Psychology....We find agreement with all techniques i part, but it
seems that the higher goals produce greater results while admitting
their basis in Dianetics: only one third or less of the total
process is based on Dianetic Procedure . r

One former Dianeiclst who established his own foundation even had
the tcmerity to offcr for sale a book entitled Dianetics
Perfected.3 Others, while not extensively developing independent
theories and procedures, eclectically combined Hubbardian theory
and practice with those of other psychnlogical and philosophical
schools: Garbon Dioxide Therapy,4 New Thought affirmations,9
nutritional rrgimes, Orgone Therapy, etc.S

A ·videly prevailing view was that any theory or technique which
could help gain thc ends sought through Dianerics should be
employed. Thus one Dianetics nev,sletter cditor rcviewing a book on
Huna (Hawaiian magic), Max Freedom Long's he Secret Scince Behind
Miracles, suggests:

Opcn-minded Dianedciss might do well to consider much of this data
sic in the light of biending some of the suggesed echniques into
our present procedures. If they will simplify and spced up
processing, they are well worth a trial.9

Some practitiOnerS became extremely eclectic, one describing a
technique derived from

Krishnamurti, Henshaw Ward, Gestalt Therapy, Analytical Procedure,
anc Some prachtioners became extremely eclectic, one describing a
technique derlved from Krishnamurti, Henshaw Ward, Gestalt Therapy,
Aralytical Procedure, and

Karen HorneyP'

A few moved towards more occult realms, one group even began
delving into alchemv in order to create gold.ll

For many others, hov.ever, the direction in which they wished
Dianetics to

IJohn B. Lewis, 'A report on the investigation of dianetic
phenomena', the ArG Light 15 April 1952), pp. 5-7

3James Welgos, Dianetics Perfrcted (Human Engineering Ine,
Fairhope, Alabama, 955)

' Dianotes, 3, 26 (November 1953). t Dianotes, 4, 45 (June 1955),
p. 6. For example, 'I will not gain (or lose) weight anymore...
Food can be fattening or not, as I wish it to be...'

; Gllforn)aAssociationofDianeticAuditors Sournal, t, 5 (May 19$).

' theArclight (26January 1952).

5f 21 professional Dianetic auditors in Southern California in a
195s Dianetie publication, 14 were listed as practising and
o8fering other techniques as well as Dlanehcs and Scientology -
including General Semantics, Nutritional Therapy, Gestalt Therapy,
Psvcho-analysis, Rogerian i herapy, Concept Therapy, etc. t ADA
Bulietin, 1, m (1955), pp. 8-s.

9 Dianotes, z, 15 (December 1952).

 Dianotes, 3, 28 (January l9541, p 5.

'l Letter in the Ghost of Scientolog, m (April May lgs3), p. 8.
proceed, ·vas tov ards a rapprochement with the medical and
psychologic. professions. They viewed Dianetics explicitly as a
form of psychotherapy, tendc to reject thc occult and spiritual
aspects of the theory that developed out of ti notion of thta, such
as past lives, and restricted themselves to the form I practice
presented in Hubbard s early Dianetic works. The shift towards mo]
mechanistic procedures of rote processing, on the basis of ists of
auditing commands, alienated them further.

Some of those who possessed a model of Dianetics as a therapeutic
art advocated thc assimilaion of elements of orthodox healing
theory and practise

...we should not hesitate to carefully examine and integrate
into Dianetics, where applicable, any and all of the techniques
which are in common use in psychologica and psvchiatric practise.
Certainly these practices work to a cer ain exrent; in so far as
they are useful and safe, they will have to be integrated into
Dianctics eventually. If they are not, then Dianetics wiLI not
develop into the complete, well-rounded and comprehensive science
of the mind that it now potent2ally is Finally, a number expressed
a commitment to the notion of Dianetics as a science, indepcndent
of the medical or psychological professions, but rejecting Hubbard
s occult developments.

All such views were reported in the independent Dianetics media.
New techniques werc presented and ncw theories discussed with
considerablr tolerance:

Mr Powers has his ideas about this...others have other ideas .
..and Dianetics ha tolerance:

Mr Powers has his ideas about this...others hav other ideas..
. and Dianetics has room for all.e

The newsletters and bulletins reflect the tolerance and electicism
of many of their readers and correspondents:

I feel in dianetics we have a segment of the truth...but in
order to get this segment of truth in perspective, we need to
compare it to other truths. If so indicated, we can then
individually decide whether or not we wish to add to the original
segment.n

What constituted the truth was held to be an individual aflair, up
to each member of the Dianetics community to determine. As one
E-therapist stressed:

In discussing the psychic aspects of E, I wish to state, first of
all, that whatever I may say is only my truth. By this I mean that
what may be true for me, may not be true for anyone else in the
vorld.:

Hubbard himself did not view such attitudes and developments
favourably. From the tume of the Elizabeth Foundation he had called
developments of Dianetic techniques that he did not sponsor
Black Dianetics 5, and declared

Introductovy Butletin of the Central Pennsyluania Dwnehc Gvvup
(August 1951), pp 2-3. ·theDinnews, r, Z2 (ivfay 1952), p. 10.
CelDzl Bulietin, I, 19 (l9ss), p. 18.

' Dianotes, 3, 33 (June 1954), p 4

L. Ron Hubbard, Suggested Changes in the Organisation of the
Eoundation mimeo (Elizabeth, lev Jersey, 195O). the mixing of
Dianetics with some other therapy to be the source of many problems
with students I

A severe challenge to Hubbards standing in the movement came when
independent auditors began to proclaim that they had produced
clears'. Such auditors were eagerly sought for guidance, training
and auditing, and rapidly moved into positions of leadership in the
Dianetics community. However, it was one of those declared 'clear,
Ronald B. Howes, rather than his auditor, who presented the gravest
potenhal challenge to Hubbard's leadership within the Dianetic
community.

Howes was a Dianeticist in inneapolis. Like many others, he had got
into the movement as a result of the article in Astounding. He had
previously been briedy a convert to Catholicism, and was declared
clear in January 1952. A close associate at this time described him
before he had attained the state of clear, as tending to be a
'promoter with his feet off the ground' and having big ideas which
didn't work due to other people's lacks'.

Howes had been audited by a man who had been associated with the
Wichita oundation. As a result of processing and conversation with
this auditor, Howes went through what appears to have been an
intense mystical expenence which convinced him and many others that
he was clear. Many Dianeticists hurried to VIinneapoLis to meet
him, and Later to Colorado Springs where he established the
Institute of Humanics. Tape-recordings and transcripts of his
conversations with other members of the Minneapolis group, and
visitors were widely circulated. They convey an attitude of
considerable awe on the part of his associates, who regarded him as
capable of displaying miraculous powers: U

 nr nnirclllmls nowfrs We have in Ron me validation for me vision
of 'Perfect aan' which has haunted mankind through the centuries.
Ron will demonstrate the absence of galvanic reflexes to the most
extensive and erbaustive questior ing, the absence of body tremors
or other waste motion such as occulomotor jerks. He will be
eompletely relaxed save for the particular activations required for
particular requirements. He can induce cellular proliferation at
any point in the body, grow cancerous or omer tissue and make it
disappear at will. His sleep requirements are reduced to an optimum
for him of four hours to five hours per night, with fLLI alertness
on awakening. His 'psychic' aetivities are phenomenal; he can
read other's thought-feelings as though they were an open-book..
. His mental ealculations are with extreme speed and preeuion.

He was believed to be engaged on projects such as:

further development of his conquest of gravity and space...
explorations into the mechanics and maaipulability of life and
behaviour towards more optimum human beings and societies.a

I L. Ron Hubbard, 'Instruction Protocol, Omcial', mimeo (20
November l950, -r^lizabeth, NewJersey).

' Grace Krausy, ';\leet Mr Ron B. Hov es', Dlanors, I, m (May
1952), p. 11.

S Dwight H. Bulklzy, 'Introduction' to Gordon Beckstead, ed..
Prologw to Suruiual, Part III (Psychological Research Foundation,
Phoenix, Arizona, 1952) . plonouncements durmg this pcriod without
exttnsive quotation,l btt as a sample:

Q. What is your reading speed compared to what it was? A. It s
mighty fast and improving steadily every day. I noticed and my · if
e remarked upon it, that I seemed to be turning the pages about
mree times as fast. My comprehension of printed materia has gone up
enormously eompared to the past. The most difficult paragraphs in
technical reading are very easy now. No confusion, no identity, no
failure. My ability to pick out errors in judgement of other people
on paper is much higher. Q. How do you find the field of physical
chemistry now? A. I have never discovered a cave with aboriginal
drawings in it but when I opened my physical cbemistry text book I
did. The child bas more intuitive knowledge about the world than
the adult scientist, if the child is reasonably bigh toned. At one
time I was in that state for a period of approximately two years.
There were peaks, of course, and there were valleys. There were
moments when I as an individual was hieher than I am right now, and
certainty was absolute. There were no goals impossible to achieve.
I v-as right. My ability to solve a problem was complete. I cou]d
do it. I was me. I was a strong force. My beart sang and the stars
were alive and then I went to school it may sound like a jest,
but it is not. Our educational system is one of

the finest methods of eontrolling society of which I know, and the
most insidious. Q. Can you be affeeted by baeteria? A. I still
believe there are bacteria wbich I can t resist, but there must be
many 
bacteria which I can resist now that I could never resist before.
ous . Q. What do you contemplate as your duration of life ? A. In
chronological years, if my anti-gravity plan works, I would assume
approximately another four hundred years. Under present 
circumstances, one hundred

and a quarter. Q. How much eoncern have you at this time over
income? A.
None.ofear,worry,anxiety.Allmypostulatesonlosingmyjobdisappeared;
about being successful, disappeared. I can do more for any
partieular persor who employs me than any other person possibly
could. And I find it very easy to talk them into giving me money if
I so desire no difficulty. Vhat experiments have you performed on
yourself?

I ve also tried to see if I can regenerate teeth. For the moment I
ve got some very sore gums but no teeth. Perry suggested to me, in
a roundabout way that I sbould regenerate teeth. Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, I got extremely sore gums. Teeth were pulled
out. I ve regenerated tissue to the maximum extent I can. The
soreness is now disappearing. The gums are much more healthy. Next
point is what constitutes a seed tooth? I think it s possible to
construct them again See Appendix 1.

IncidentaDy, I haven't decided what I am going to look like yet.
It' variable and to a large eLtent subject to one's pleasure.l

Although other auditors also announced that they had produced
clears3 non of these was to cause the ercitement in the ficld of
Dianetics aroused by Howes. He rapidly gained a reputation second
only to Hubbard himself His theories and practices vere widelv
taken up, and the question was raised whether with Hubbard
apparently leaving the field, Howes might be 'A new leader in the
making?'3 Whcn Hubbard began publicizing Scientologv, some
Dianeticists felt the community had split into two 'apparently
conflicting camps of "thought": the Howes ideas and the Hubbardian
ideas'.

'vlany Dianeticists pilgrimaged to the Institute of Humanics in
Colorado Springs to receive processing from him, but he made no
attempt to organizc his clientele, and his prestigc received a
shaltering blow when police investigation of the Institute was
widely reported, and Howes was found to have been claiming a
doctorate ·which he did not possess. Howes closed the Institute,
and although a small personal following remaincd associated with
him, his influence on Dianetics was thereafter negligible.5

While the Dianedcs community was splitting into competing factions,
it was also suffering a considerable attrition of membership..SA/I
had, according to its publisher, sold lo,ooo copies during its
first year of issue. Iany thousand people had tried out the
practice, and a proportion had actively pursued their interest in
Dianetics by taking courses at the Foundation, or by joining
amateur groups A tailing-offof interest had appeared, however, as
early as the beginning of 1 95 t . ^lAhe income of the Eliabeth
Foundation had dropped from $28,160 in January to 520,620 in
February of 95 r .t After the initial boom, a slump had begun to
set in. By mid-lgs2 it was clear to one newsletter editor that: r
TA Fl:,.l. FiAn h Irnnlrd lmll 528.160 in

The publie, it would seem, does not want to participate in
Dianetics, but rather they want to benefi by n....They want, in
Dianetics, to be able to purchase the resultant end
productvithout actively doing the eonstructive work that it
requires, liLe buyhlg an automobile without helping the
assemblage.'

I Gordon Beckstead, ed..Prologue to SUTCWtI Part Il (Psychological
Research Foundation, Phoenir, Arizona, 1952), pp. 5 6. r See 'Jack
Horner' in Ibid..pp. 14 15. 3 Dianotes, 2, 14 (November 1952), p
2.

he CommunicttoT, 1, 9 (Sovember 1952), p n

5 Howes appears to have had iess interest in founding a movement,
than in establishing a self-supporting communitv. He continued in
this attempt after his 'eYposure', founding among others the St
Eloi Corporation where a small group of followers worked with him
on various rrscarch and development projects, including a 'rare-
earth' separation plaut. The community appeas eventually to have
foundered, and Howes and some of.ais followers v-ere leceised
fback] into the Catholic Churcb. nterviews . Documems n.adc
available to me by a lormer Foundation director. 7 Dlanrtes, 1, 12
(June-July 19 i2), p. 2. As another Dianeicist observed in
retrospect, 'Whilst dianetics reaclled thc proportions of a
national craze in 195n, by late 195 1 it had largely collapsed'.l A
number of groups had disappeared, and many had c:perienced a
decline in active membership.

Dianeticists had a number of hypotheses concerning this decline.
The most important reason for the loss of inttrest many believed,
was that the promise had been very great but that it had not been
fulfilled:

The promise made in Dianetias: the Aodern Sciente of Msnal ealh was
a very definite and simple one. It was stated that the application
of the approach described m the book would within a fev hundred
hours of auditing time produce a clearcd :ndividual, free or all
aberrafion. It vas alYo stated that as auditing continued, rogress
toward 'clear became consistently more easy. The resson that
dianetics did not retain is oririnal impetus and, in ract, rapidly
lost almost all the ground it had gained dt first, was due simply
to the iact that, when dianetics was put into practice, it as
obselved that none of these statements was correct.

Inny Dianeticists had become 'disappointed because we wcren't
clears after one hundred hours of processing.S This disappointment
was heightened by the apparent failure of those declared clear' to
perform in a manner regarded as appropriate Sonya Bianca, Sara
Betty Hubbard, Ron Howes; and the failure of the two hundred or so
individuals, Hubbard maintained that he had cleared before the
publication of his book, to manifest themselves in any way.
Hubbard's own behaviour between Igo and 1952 had given some cause
to doubt the efficacy of his 'science'. Others had abandoned
Dianetics in the face of attacks upon it by psychiatrists and
psychologists.4 Yet another reason for attrition was the
presentation of Dianetics as a psychotherapy. Whatever their
feelings about the state of clear, many people had gone into
Dianetics to solve relatively specific problems of illness or
psychological handicap. Whether through spontaneous remission, the
hope given them by Dianetics, the attention they reccived as
pre-clears, or the therapeutic validity of the practice, a number
had felt improved in consequence. Having secured what they had
wanted from Dianetics, some discontinued involvement S

l James H. Schmitz, 'What happened to the rens of thousands ?',
Internalional Dianetic Socie(y Leller, r (1957). ' Ibid.

ilt Carland, 'Remember that bridge?', Dianotes, 1, 5 (December 1
95l) p r.

That people had drawn away from Dianetics because of bad reviews of
L. Ron Hubbard's Dianelcs: Ihe .Uocern Science of Menlal Heallh by
psychologists and psychiatrists, was certrinlv belicvcd by
Dianeticists themselvcs Dianoles, 1, 5 (December

ll;t riews with former glCUp leaders and Dianetic 4uditors.
.4daptatiett t

lrom the earliest days of the movement, Hubbard had attempted to
assert control over its direction and development. He first sought
to control the theorv and practice of the movement, attempting to
prevent the submergence of his own ideas under the weight of
synthesis, or ideologicai or technical innovation. While technical
innovations by others were permitted, such developments only
received publici in official media if they were approved by
Hubbard:

Our subject is standard procedure, a routine of auditing devised
byJames E. Hurt in July of 1950. It had become obvious by that time
that many people, who had studied the book only, were running into
problems which their knowledge of dianetic procedure would not
resolve. When this became apparent to Jim, he sat down one evening
and outlined a procedure for dianetic processing which would
eliminate these apparently irresolvable situations. His plan was
studied by Mr Hubbard ard then adopted by the Foundation for
general use.l

Other theoTehcal or technical innovations of which Hubbard did not
approve, or which had not been submitted for his approval, were
attacked in official publications:

E-therapy is an outgrowth of an amalgamation between dianetics and
a system of opinion held by an individual. The advice of the
Foundation is: Don t use it. At best, it is another wi]d variable
in an area which already has too many variables. At worst, it can
be actually dangerous. Dianebcs should not be diluted.

As early as hlSMH, Hubbard had attempted to protect the practice
against compounding:

Don t mix gasoline and alcohol, or dianetics and other therapy
except purely medical...

Crossing Dianetics with an older therapy was considered one source
of troubles with studen s in training and a dangerous practice. The
term Black Dianetics had come into use at the Elizabeth Foundation
with the meaning of any form of, or vanation on, Dianetics, or any
use of it, of which Hubbard disapproved. The dangers of Black
Dianetics became a part of the course

I Anonymous, An Outline of Dianehe Standard Procedure, mimeo
transcription of tape, n.d..probably 195l. For a general statement
of this policy, see L. Ron Hubbard, A definition of standard
proeedure, Appendix Two, Science of surDira st edn (Hubbard
Dianetic Foundation, Wicbita, Kansas, 1951).

2Dianetir Auditor's duttetin, 1, 8 (February 1951). See also L. Ron
Hubbard, A definition of standard procedure, op. cit..p. go8,
where an attack is made on a doctor who can be no other than Joseph
Winter, for his attempts to develop, without facilities or
expenence, eertain techniques of application .

MS.llrl, p. ag8. L. Ron Hubbard, Instruction Protocol, Official,
op. cit. 2 Slil,p. 165curriculum at the Wichita Foundation,
although it was not a widely publicized idea until Scientology was
launched.l

Having established the existence of heresy, Hubbard had also to
establish machinery for locating and managing it. This remained
rudimentary during the Dianetics period. A locrd of Ethics was
established at the Elizabeth Foundation in November 1950 with the
brief of 'checking on alignment with Standard Procedure',s but the
activities of this Board do not appear to have had any great
influence on the Dianetic community at that hme.

An attempt was also made to constrain the free use of the term
'Dianetics' and to exercise some control over independent and
competing professional schools:

Dianetics has encountered its greatest difficulty with those who
have tried to jump on the bandwagon for personal gain. It has had
to resort to legal measures against unqualified persons who stvle
themselves professional d!aneticists, those who rnisreprescnt the
name of dianetics by opening unauthorised schools and clinics and
others who attempt to publish plagiarised or fraudulent dianetic
literature.'

Hubbard and his associates also sought to distinguish Dianetics
from what its detractors in the press had seen as its principal
sources, hypnosis and psychoanalysis. Dianetics was distinguished
from hypnosis by a number of factors. In Dianetic auditing, the
pre-clear retained full consciousness of his environment, and of
what occurred. No form of positive suggestion was used, it was
argued. Indeed post-hypnotic suggestion was regarded as aberrative
in Dianehcs, and a form of engram.4 Hypnosis was held to be
dangerous since while in the trance state, anything said by the
therapist would be engramic.6

Psychoanalysis was held to differ from Dianetics in that the former
was concerned primarily with sex, while this vas only one among
four dynamics in Dianetics Psychoanalysis sought to recover
unconscious memories only from childhood (or in the Rankian
variant, from the birth trauma) while Dianetics returned to the
pre-natal period. While psychoanalysis stressed itight as an

IL.RonHubbard,'Danger:BlackDianetics',ournalofScientoloy, 3G,n.d.
(1952), p. 7. the term had been emploved publicly before in
reference to A. L. Kitselman s E-Therapy. Alan A. Engelbardt 'An
analysis of E-Therapy' in Waldo Boyd, ed..Sulement o. 2 o 'Science
of SUrDiual' (Wicbita, 1951), p. 4n There are, of course, close
parallels between 'Black Dianetics' and 'Malicious Animal
Magnetism' which Mrs Eddy accused her apostate and heretic students
of employing to evil ends.

2John Maloney, 'Organisational Memorandum', mimeo (6 November 1950,
Elizabeth Foundation).

S the Dianamic, 1, 16 (30 March 1951), p. 2. It is unhkely these
'legal measures' ever went beyond attorney's threats, though a
progress report issued by the Foundation in August 1951 indicated
that suit bad been filed against one individual wbo, althougb not a
qualified auditor, was advertising courses in Dianetics, and giving
the degree of Dianetic Auditor upon graduation. Reported in the
Dianews, 1, Ig (December 195-), Pp. 6-7

4 hrSMH, p. 66.

S Ibid..p. 124. 90

 THIS CULT AND ITS TRANSFOrtlATlON

esscntial therapeutic agent, Dirnetics stressed the recounting of
incidents to the point where they were erased. he Dianetic auditor,
unlike the psychoanalyst, never interpreted or eva]uated material,
but only acknowledged it.l

Hubbard's most important reaction to the crisis within Dianetics,
however, was its abandonment, and the promulgation of Scientology
as a separate system of beliefs and practices. It was around this
ideological innovation that all other adaptations were based.2

As early as the Elizabeth Foundation, Hubbard bad found that
pre-clears produced material which seemed to have no relation to
their experienee in this life It appears that he briedy resisted
the notion that this material emanated from past lives,3 but
sbortly became reconciled to this view and began experimentation
on the running of past-life engrams.4 It is not hard to see how a
Convichon of past lives would develop out of Dianetic technique.
Since the loeation of the basic-basic and its erasure would quickly
result in clearing the case, it followed that if individuals were
not cleared there mus necessarily be an earlier ineident to
resolve.6 When pre-elears had returned to conception without
elearing as a consequence, they began to produce material prior to
conception of the 'sperm-dream' variety 6 When even this did not
solvc the problem, some began recalling past deaths. Hubbard had
also early noted the phenomenon of 'exteriorization',' buin
Dianetics this was seen as a matter to be htmdled by releasing
'moments of painful emotion' before turning to the process of
engram running.S In Scientology, extenonzation was a state to be
sought. Both pastlnes and extenorization were predicated on the
assumption of the 'thetan', the entity which could exteriorize from
the body, the essential persistent individuality that formed the
continuity between various past lives.

I Donald H. Rogers 'Dianeties and psychoanalysis', Danetic
Auditor's Bulletin, I, 8 (February rgSI). Hubbard later wrote a
'critique' of psychoanalysis along largely these lines, L. Ron
Hubbard, 'A critique of psycho-analysis', Part One, ceTtainty 9 7
(rg62); Part Two Cerainty, 9, 8 (1962).

: Dianetics again became part of the corpus of Scientological
theory and practice after the return of the Hubbard Dianetic
Research Foundation to Hubbard's control in late 1954. See p. 95
below.

a Students of the Elizabeth Foundahon have claimed that the first
person to 'run a past-life' was expelled from the course. I have
been unable to verify this, although reference is also made to this
story by George v1alko, Scientology, Ihe ,fow Religion (Dell
Publishing Co, ew York, 970), p. j7, and certainly up to and
including August 195: and the publication of Science of Surviual,
Hubbard's public pronouncements on past-lives were extremely
cautious.

' Winter, op. cit..p. 189

L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: (he Origina/ thesis, Scientology
Publications Organization (Copenhagen, 91), p. 16. First
published HDRF, Wichita, Kansas, 195

. ' Winter, op. cit..p 189.

' A dissociated state in which the individual believes himself to
be outside his body It is a familiar synptom in psychiatry, and
llas had an important role in oceult and religious eYperience as
'astral travel'.

MSM, p. 256.

Scientology ·vas a new revelation entirely transcending the
limitations of Dianetics. While Dianetics had been a form of
psychotherapy concerned with eradicating the limitations on the
achievement of full human potential, Scientology was heralded as
the 'Science of Certainty' concerned with rehabilitating the thetan
to its full spiritual capacity.

Wbile Hubbard's theory and techniques had been moving increasingly
in this direction, it was not until his break with Purcell and the
Wichita Foundation that Hubbard established Scientology in Phoenix,
Arizona. Phoenix had a flourishing Dianetics community, organized
under the auspices of the Psychological Research Foundation, and
an independent auditing practice, which provided an immediate
clientele on which Hubbard could draw. (As the Scientologv
organization correctly point out, however, Hubbard's parents lived
in Phoenix at this time. This may have influenced his decision to
settle there briefly.) In Phoenix, Hubbard established the Hubbard
Association of Scientologists (HAS), and a ,orlraal, which
announced that he had discovered 'The source of life energy'l and
the reason for the existence of matter, energy, space, time and
thought 2

On the basis of his new revelation Hubbard sought to establish
control over the Dianetics community. His publications roundlv
attacked the Wichita Foundation which had continued to operate
under Purcell's ownership. He hinted broadly that receipts from the
sale of his books had found their way into private pockets (other
than his own) rather than into furthering the purposes of the
Foundation. It was asserted that the directors of the earlier
Foundations had been motivated solely by a desire for profit.3 The
Wichita Foundation was classed as an 'unauthorized' group and it
was argued that rm A fnr nr f a Thc Wrchita Folmdation was

the enormous change in Scientology in the last year and the great
advance in its effectiveness...have rendered unimportant
organisations which falsely o6fer certification in Dianetics or
Scientology.'

Purcell found it necessary to defend himself against the charge
that he aimed to destroy Dianetics or Ron Hubbard, and that he had
received half a million dollars from the American qedical
Association to put the Foundation into bankruptcv S Hubbard
appealed to the amateur following, seeking to secure its support

,ournul of Sclentology, 3G ( I gsz), p. n Z Ibid..p. 2 ournal of
Scientoloy, 4G ( rgs2), p. I . Later Hubbard would refer to 'money
mad millionnaires, crooked, dishonest and incompetent management .
..' Professionzl .luditor's Bulletin r (May rg53), p 1. ournal of
Scientolog, gG (rg j2). c Letter from Don Purcell, he Donrus, r, z2
(3r May rgs2), p. r2. On the splil between Hubbard and the Wichita
Foundation, sce also Helen O'Brien, Dianetics in Lirnbo (Whitmore
Publisbing Co, Phiiadelphia, r 966), pp. 49 5 r . against the
Wichita Foundation, placing many Dianeticists in a considerable
dilemma:

While the Foundation has not asked us to renounce Hubbard in order
to work with the Foundation, Hubbard has irsisted that we follow
only him and reject all others. If we do not do this, he replies by
rejecting usP

This appeal was supported by changes in organizational practice.
Those who adopted ScientologicaL theory or techniques were at first
urged to join the HAS, but by late rg,;4 more forceful methods were
employed to secure support.

Amateur groups were notified by the Hubbard Association of
Scientologists International (to which the HAS had been changed)
that:

...only a member...of the HASI or itr amliated organisations
shall have the right to yossess and use the information of
Scientology.

As a result, a new policy for amateur groups was to be enforced. To
qualify as amliated groups all group members were to hold HASI
memberships nnd monthly reports of activihes were to be submitted
to the HASI. Those groups which did not comply would be regarded as
inactive and have their certificates revoked, and would become
ineligible for Scientology materials.

A simiLar policy was also applied to independent practitioners. A
Committee of Examination, Certification and Services had been
established by the HASI to secure conformity from practitioncrs.
Practitioners who had manifesed a consistently independent line of
thought were informed that their right to practice Dianetics and
Scientology, and their cerhficates as professional auditors, were
revoked.5

A former member of the Committee of Examination, Cerhfication and
Services expressed the direction of policy at this time.

A lot of other things came out, ideas and -ologies, and some people
halted at the split and some...took off in their own direction.
..Ron was trying to get a codified procedure and a set of
ethics...and a standard group activity...But this is pretty
hard when there are people calling it psychology, or a guy is still
being a psychologist, or a Rosicrucian, or a 'Mixologist'. We were
trying to be a Scientologist, be a group...It was trying to
define, to differentiate Scientology from other -ologies. This was
the basic effort of that time and it did come out in revocation of
certificates.

These policies aroused protest from those sectors of the Dianetic
community which had not followed Hubbard unquestioningly, and saw
this as an attempt on Hubbard's part to secure a monopoly of
Dianetics and Scientology,s and as authoritarian s

7heDanews, 1, r2 (31 May 1952), p. t. : Letter from HASI Group
Secretary to Group Members, g October 1954. J Dianoes, 4, g7
(October 1954). nterview with former member of CECS. 'Poor Man's
Psychitry', Dianotes, 4, 39 (December 1 g$4). r Bristol Dianehr
Revirw, 3, 3 t (October 1954), pp. 1 70l

Since his removal to Phoeni:c, Hubbard had sought to secure the
support of some of the Dianetic newsletters and magazines, and
through them, of the Dianetic commlmity. In a letter published in
one of these newsletters he expressed his dissatisfaction with
the factional state of Dianetics and Scientology: 'these splinter
groups and copyists are holding back the entire movement of
Dianetics and Scientology .'1 Only one of the many newsletters
responded by adopting a totally Hubbardian line. The editor of 7h
Glost of Scientolog)! attacked deviation from Hubbard's policy, and
supported him in his attempt to gain control of the field:

If you are not a Hubbardian Scientologist, then you are not a
'seientologist' at all, as Hubbard coined that word to fit HIS
Science.t This publication attacked other newsletters which did not
follow the same practice and individual practitioners who continued
to adopt, sponsor, or promulgate non-Hubbardian theory and
technique.3

Hubbard's own publications followed a similar practice, advocating
the harassment of groups which appeared to be engaged in any
activity remotely connected with Dianetics and Scientology, but not
approved by the HASI:

if you discovered that some group calling itself 'precept
processing had set up and established a series of meetings in your
area...you would do all you could to make things interesting
for them. In view of the fact that the HASI holds copyrights for
all sueh material...the least that eould be done...is the
placement of a suit against them for using materials of scientology
without authority...The purpose of the suit is to haras and
discourage rather than to win. 1'hc law can bc osed very easily to
harass, and enough harassment on somebody The law can be used very
easily to harass, and enough haraisment on somebody wbo is simply
on t'oe thin edge anyway, well knowing that he i9 not authorised,
will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. if
potSible, of course, ruin him utterly.g

Independent newsletters were also threatened with legal action if
they persisted in 'defaming' Scientology.5 It was suggested that
one editor had practised fraud6 when he had earlier worked for the
EIASI, and a detective agency was commissioned to investigate
another editor 'to disclose any criminal past or connections..
.'7

An attempt was made to force organizations of independent
practitioners to disband. The California Association of Dianetic
Auditors, for example, was informed that its charters, certificates
and permissions to employ Dianetics

LetterfromL. RonHubbard, theGhostofScientoioy, IO (April-May
Ig53),p 2. J theGhostofScientoloby, 11 (IsJune Ig53),p.4.

Ibid. 1l (15 June 1953), pp lo, 15, 16; 14 (20 November 1953), pp.
5, 7; 17 (25June 1954) passim. : 'Di semination of matenal, Abilily
lajor, 1, n.d. (late Igs4/early 1955), p. 7.

'Aberee [sic] you said it', Abiiity Minor, g, p. 3.

7 'Detective Hired', Ibid..p. 1l; Blistoi Dinetic JieDiew, 4, g7
(April 1955), p. 6; he abertee, 1, 6 (Oetober 1954), p. Ig; the
Abaee, 1, 7 (November 1954), p. 1. were withdrawn.l Since it was an
independent corporation, however, its members declined to disband
and refused to observe the requirement of the HASI that all CADA
members also become members of the HASI.r

Hubbard sought to move Scientology away from the amateur
practitioner basis of Dianetics. Group processing had been
extensively promoted during 1954, but an increasing distinction was
emerging between the certified auditor and the ordinary rnember The
latter was permitted only limmted access to information. Trainh g
became a prerequisite for access to advanced matenais.5 Advanced
training and certification were centralized in the HASI and its
associate schools, and an attempt was made to require practising
auditors to contract to pay a percentage of their fees to the HASI,
and to sign promissory notes for 55000 as a bond of good
behaviour.4 This attempt to control practitioners met with little
success and the policy was abandoned.5

While Hubbard sought to exert control over practitioners and other
followers in the field, he also t!ghtened controi over his central
organization, dismissing officers who failed to perform precisely
in accordance with his requirements.5 Executive officers in
Hubbard's organizations typically enjoyed only brief tenure-in
office. In 19J4 dnring an absence in ngland, for example, Hubbard
directed the leaders o;his Philadelphia Associate School to move
the HASI from Phoenix to Philadelphia; fire various officers; and
hghten up control on the flow of information to members of suspect
loyalty. On his return from America, in the face of a barrage of
protest from followers against the actions of his Philadelpbia
lieutenants, Hubbard disclaimed all responsibility for the actions
they had talten and expelled them £om office.7

Hubbard progressively gained complete control over Scientology, its
membership, ideology, practices and organizations. The
development of those sectors of the Dianetics movement which did
not follow Hubbard was very different. The Wichita Foundation
continued to operate after Hubbard's departure, but its membership
and clientele declined rapidly in the absence of Hubbard. By 1 954
the active membership of the Foundation was down to l r 2 . While
originally aiming to remain within the field of Dianetics, new
theories and techniques were developed at the Foundation, leading
to an increasing diffuseness of its ideological base and a
decline in the immediacy of its appeal.i Don Purcell had become
disillusioned with Dianetics, and increasingly interested in a new
development produced by one of the HDRF members, 'Synergetics':

I Ability Major, u, n.d. (early 1955). t Dunbrr'sARC (1 l April
1955), p..Disseminatmn of material', Ability Mejor, I, p. m . :
the aberree, 3, 1 (April 1955), p. 9. 5 interview wlth former
members of CECS. ' Letter from Reg Gould, e-director, HAS London .
..the Ghost oJ Scientolog, (January 1954), p 1l. 7 Imerviews Also
see Helen O'Brien, op. cit..pp. 68 77. · Dienrtics roey 3, 7 (July
1954). In synergetics Art Couher has created a new scientific
approach to the solution to the problem we are dealine with.
Synergetics includes much that is included in dianetics and a great
deal that is not.l

Late in 1954, Purcell announced that he would support Dianetics no
longer, but would devote his resources in future to Coulter's
Synergetics. After tahng a 'straw voe' among the membership
concerning disposal of the Wichita Foundation, Purcell advised
Hubbard that he would hand over to him the Hubbard Dianetic
Research Foundation whose principal assets were the copyrights to
sl/S..and a mailing list. Hubbard accepted gladly, and announced
that 'the entire and complete control without contest of Dianetics,
as well as Scientology...' was vested in the HASI 2 It was
undoubtedly the return of Dianetics to Hubbard's control which led
to the more rigorous attempts to end fringe practices, exclude
practitioners who compounded Dianetics or Scientology with other
practices, and force critical newsletters to cease publication.

Some of the remaining amateur groups and newsletters allied
themselves with one of the leaders who had emerged from the
Dianetic community to found their own InstitutesCoulter's
Synergetics, Howes' Humanics, Welgos' Institute of Integration.3
Others moved toward an increasingly eclectic position, or shifted
their ideological loyalties to other systems of thought.
Minneapolis Dianetics Inc and the Minnesota Scientology Council,
for example, had united in 1954 as a result of the reuniting of
Dianetics and Scientology in Hubbard s hands. By 1955, however,
they had split again because of conflict between the two groups.
The Dianetic group which controlled the newsletter, / he Dianotes,
moved under the auspices of the Institute of Humanics. It later
pnnted an increasing number of articles promoting the practice of
Yoga. Another prominent newsletter, ·the qtierree, moved
progressively further from Dianetics and Scientology, becoming
after 1956 an open forum in which followers of any cultic belief
could present their ideas. During the following years articles
appeared on astrology, atlantis, Totology, Yoga, ew Thought, mystic
Christiamty, hypnosis, numerology, Subud, etc. By 1961 it bad
become a general occult-metaphysical magazine with only one small
article on Dianetics in its July-August issue.

The founder of E-Therapy, A. L. Kitselman, attempted to found an
eclectic colony devoted to self-improvement:

...the Pyramid Lake Project is a resort-community specialising
in the human mind and its functions.

I Don G. Purcell, 'Special Announcement', Dinnetios oday, 3, m
(October 1954) "Dianetics and Scientology organisations united
again', Grop JewsleUer (September 1954)

S Only Synergetics and E-Therapy appear to have survived through
the 19505, and Synergehcs disappeared early in the 19605.

' See Dlanotes, volume 4, nos 47 (August 195s), 48 (September
1955); and volumc 5, nos 5t (December 1955), 52 (January 956), etc.
The Projeet was started on October Ist of 1956 by A. L. Kitselman,
developer of a form of lay psychotherapy known as 'E-Therapy'. It
was Kitselman's wish, however, to establish a project not
dominated by any one man or doetrine, and, accordingly, the
Pyramid Lake Project is being used by many persons who have little
interest in E-Therapy. Now that the Project has completed its first
year there is nothing spectacular to report. The enterprise is
slowly growing in size, and persons who are strongly interested
in self-improvement are becoming permanent residents at Pyramid
Lake. Others visit the Projeet regularly whenever free to do soP

The project shortly failed, however, although Kitselman continues
to write on, and practice, E-Therapy and appears to have a small,
unorganized Eollowing.2 Only scattered individuals remain in the
United States who maintain a loyalty to early Dianetics. As far as
I can ascertain there are now no full-time Dianetic practitioners
in America practising only the Dianetics of the early years. Only
one independent organization remains to foster the practice of
traditional Dianetics, the California Association of Dianetic
Auditors, with a persistently declining membership.

In England, after the establishment of the Dianetic Association
Ltd, and thc Dianetic Federation of Great Britain, as loose
national organizations to facilitate communication betv een
Dianetic groups, and between them and the American organizations,
Hubbard announced that hc would visit England, and proposed the
establishment of a Hubbard Dianetic Foundation in Great Britain as
a subsidiary of the HAS. Some leading British Dianeticists favoured
the establishment of a Foundation but felt that his 'proposal re
control would not necessarily be acceptable to all British
Dianeticists'.3

Hubbard was not prepared to accept the attempts by some British
Dianetics leaders to limit his authority He approached a
Dianeticist outside the leadership echelons of the movement and
asked her to establish a Hubbard Association of Scientologists in
Britain, as a profit rather than non-profit corporation, and under
his complete control. As he made clear in his letters to her, he
blamed the failure of the Dianetic Foundations on the fact that he
lacked complete control over them, and had no desire for members or
co-directors with voting rights in Scientology organizationS He saw
no virtues in the factional independent groups around which
Dianetics was organized in Britain and sought to establish a strong
central organizatiOn which would eliminate them.4 The HAS vas
established in London When Hubbard made his first visit to England
in late 952 groups rapidly flocked to affiliate with the HAS, and
independent Dianetics

AnonymousmimeosbeetNewsfrompyramidLakec :957.

'Amonghiswntingsare,forexample:A.L.Kitselman, HelloStuid!
(Translator's Press, La Jolla, California, 1962); E-ther:y
(Institute of Integration, New 'ork, 1953); What ntegraton is About
(Inshtute of Integration, La Jolla, California, 1960) .

' British dianetics the present position', icentre: Bullehn of
the Dianetie Federation of Gre:t Britain, z (September 1952), p 1.

L Ron Hubbard, Letters to -D-, August-September 1952. groups almost
cntirely disappeared. The last remaining independent group finally
disbanded and ceased pubhcation of its newsletter in 1955l in the
face of increasing hostility from the HAS.s

The personal paths of those involved in Dianetics during the early
rgSOs provided the pattern for the development of the groups,
organizations, and publications. It is not possible to calculate
how many of the initial following remained with Hubbard during the
transihon to Scientology. A number experienced no difficulty in
making this transition. Some do not seem to have noticed any major
change:

I wasn't too aware of that [the transition from Dianetics to
Seientology]...I went to Phoenix with the idea that I was going
to study Dianetics, but when I came there they gave us some
Dianetics and then it was already Scientology and I just couldn't
see too terrible big a difference behveen Dianetics and
Scientology. It all dealt with communicatioDs and getting a person
to trace back his experiences. I wasn't unhappy about that [thc
notion of past ]ives as a matter of fact I am very fascinated with
it....I found it very absorbing.t

Some lost interest as their own problems seemed to be resolved; as
a result of domestic or occupational pressures on their time; as a
result of alienation from Hubbard's progressively more overtly
metaphysical pronouncements; or through some combination of these
factors. Others left from hoshlity to Hubbard's organizational
changes.

Among the early Dianeticists from whom interviews were obtained,
many ol those who objected to what they thought was a developing
authoritarianism ir Hubbard's organization, passed on from Dianehcs
to other forms of culti belief:

We did a period of research wim something connected with something
they do in California, and also other typei of Dianetic teehniques.
Benefit came when we went on to study Ouspensky e GurdjieE We
became interested in Indian stutf, Hindu and meditations. We've
been interested in meditative techniques. I find meditation of
tremendous benefit. I've gone on to Krishnamurti...I personally
consider I've reached the end with Krishnamurti because the things
he teaches are so true to life...so concrete...I'd come
across Krishnamurti before Dianetics and found him very difficult
to underztand, but after Dianetirs I really began appreciating
him.:

Some continued the practice of early Dianetics, paying little or no
attention to Hubbard's later developments, although introducing
modifications of their own. A number of others made a point of
indicating to me that they had later joined MNSA.s

Bristol Dicneht Reuiew, 4, 40 (August-September 1955). ristol
Divnelit Review, 3, 27 (June rg54); 3, 32 (November 1954). S
Interview: Amencan Dianeticist.

l Interview: English Dianeticist.

5 While MrNsA is not a self-improvement organization it seems to
have a clear status-conferring and ego-enhancing function for
individuals who are convinced they In titutionalfregility and the
strategy of settarianization The origins and early development of
Dianetics bear a close resemblance to those of a number of other
cultic movements. Mary Baker Eddy claimed a new revelation which
led her o move away from the ideas of Phineas P. Quimby which she
had earlier taught under the name Moral Science. Aspects of the
healing practice most closely associated with Quimby, such as
manual manipulation of the patient's bead, were dropped, and new
doctrines such as that of malicious animal magnetism and a
radically idealist metaphvsics were introduced. Mrs Eddy's
developing system drew heavily on Quimby's work as well as owing a
lesser debt to other currents of thought then prevalent in lew
England: Transcendentalism, Swedenborgianism and spiritualism.l
Wben faced by challenges to her authority both from members of her
Church, and from former student who had established their own
Institute and Colleges and had begun developing new ideas of theory
and practice, or combining Christian Science with Theosophy or even
orthodo.Y medical practice, Mrs Eddy dissolved or suspended the
operation of the movement's organization. In their place she
erected thc highly centralized Mother Church, administered through
a personally appointed bureaucracy. She drastically reduced the
authority of local leaders by limiting their duration of office; of
teachers by permitting them to teach only the preliminary levels of
doctrine and by rcstricting the frequency of their classes; and of
practitioners by mahng their continued practice depend on their
good standing with the central organization. Mcmbers were forbidden
to join more than a limited range of voluntary

Members were forbidden to join more than a limited range of
voluntary associations; constrained from seeking medical assistance
or advice; and forbidden to read other occult or metaphysical
literature. Mrs Eddy's preoccupation with the induence of
maliciouS animal magnetism sensihzed her followers to the dangers
of the world outside the safety of the Church S

Bryan R. Wilson, 'The Origins of Chrutian Scienee: a survey', the
Hibbtrt

70urnat, 57 (1959), pp. 161-70.

s Roy Wallis, 'Ideology, authoritY and the development of culic
movements', Sociat cscarch, 4r, 2 (1974), pp. 299-327. Roy Wallis,
'A comparative analysis of problems and processes of change in two
manipulationist movements: Christian Science and Scientology', in
the Contempoavy Metamorphosis of letigion? Ch of the r2th
International Conference on the Sociology of Religion (The Hague,
Netherlands, 1973), pp. 407-22; Ernest S. Bates and John V.
Dittemore, .Uary Baker Eddy: thc

rruth and rhc rradition (George Routledge & Sons, London, 1933);
Edwin Franden Dakin, Mrs Eddy: the Biography of a Virginal .:.find
(Charles Scnbner's & Sons, London 1929); Charles S. Braden,
Chistain Sience roday (Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas,
TeYas, 1958); Bryan R. Wilson, Sects and Soeiety (Heinemann,
London, 1961).

have greater capabilities than their other status attributes would
suggest. It provides a conviction of hidden powers, talents and
abilihes for individuals who lack clear sourcrs of such conviction
in their other achievements It perhaps provides a functional alter-
native for those ·who sought psychological and social improvement
through Dianetics. Science teaching Its founders, Gharles and
Myrtle Fillmore appear to havc been active in the cultic milieu of
Kansas City. Charles Fillmore had been a follower of spiritualism
for many years and had a clear acquaintance with various
metaphvsical schools, as well as having contact with a number of
Christian Science schismatics and teachers in the emerging New
Thought movement. The sources of Unity teaching have been traced in
Nev Fngland Transcendentalism, Theosophy, Christian Science,
spintualism, and New Thought.l

The movement was organized pnmarily through the medium of a number
of magazines produced by the Fillmores. ihile early editions of
their magazines exhibited an eclectic orientation, containing
articles on Christian Science, Theosophy, spiritualism and
Rosicrucianism, they progressively movcd toward a more rigid and
intolerant editorial policy, and a less open doctrinal system.
Flements dcrived trom Christian Science and the New Thought
Movement bccame more prominent, although Unity was disting ushed
from these movements by the extent to which it incorporated
fcatures of traditional Christian doctrine. Unity broke with the
loose International New Thought Alliance because of the
'open-platform' policv ot' that bodv, which permitted lecturers rom
all affiliaed groups to lecture at centres of other members. The
Fillmorcs began to resent this freedom to present ideas at vanance
with their own at Unity centres, particularly when they discovered
that in some centres teachers were holding spiritualist seances and
practising numerology.t

A 'Statcment of I'aith' W1.3 drawn np, to which followcrs werc
required to subscribc, mld grcatcr controls ovcr millisers and
centrc Icadcrs implcmcntcd.

A 'Statement of Faith' was draun up, to which followers were
required to subscribe, and greater controls over ministers and
centre leaders implemented. Formerly autonomous centres were
required to use texthooks and other literature published by the
central organization, and to eliminate all literature and teachings
not approved by the leadership.3

Dianetics, Christian Science and Unity illustrate in their early
years the problem of institutional fragility faced by the leaders
of cultic movements. Their belief-systems were precarious in that
thev were liable to selective acceptance and synthesis by seekers
recruited often from other cultic groups. Authority within the
movement was open to challenge by practitioners, teachers and
leaders of local followings. The commitment of members was limited
because the doctrine and practice offered was not seen as having
anv unique salvational efficacy, and hence the loyalty of members
was often shared with other groups and practices.

James Teener, 'Unity School of Ghristianity', Unpublished Phr)
dissertation,

J. Shllson udag, 7 k Hislory ard Philosohy oJhe .fetallys)cal
lforemer5 ir .merica (Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1967), p.
z44.

Roy Wallis, 'Ideoloy, authority and the development of cultic
mosements', op. 100

THE CULT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION

These features of cultic movements provide a set of environmental
and structural contingencies with hich the movement leadership i5
faced. They pose a threat to the persistence of the collectivity.
In the face of such a threat, a strategy of sectarianizatiOn, the
arrogation and centralization of authority and control, appears to
have had a considerable appeal to cult leaders. If successfully
implemented as in the cases of Dianehcs, Christian Science, and
Unity such a strategy may result in the emergence of a distinct
ideology which only the leadership may interpret or ctend; a
reduction in the autonomy of members and prachtioners; and the
emergence of a stable and cohesive collectivity organized around
the leader. 4. THEORY AND ITS

TRANSMISSION Several million words have been written on the heory
and practice of Scientology, for the most part by Hubbard
himself. While the basis of the theory has changed relatively
little since 1952, the techniques employed to secure the ends
specified by the theory have changed frequently as one thing after
another was tried in an effort to find the set of techniques which
would routinely achieve these ends. A full account of the theory
and practise of Scientology and their vicissitudes over the past
twentv-two years or so would be tiresome and unenlightening,
perhaps even to the committed adherent. Moreover, much of the
matenal to provide such an account consists of confidential
documents and tape-recordings available only to the thoroughly
initiated. However, published materials do permmt the presentation
of an outline of the theory of Scientolog and a description of some
of the techniques that have been prominently employed It is hoped
that the following account will convey the 'flavour' of both
practic and doctrine, although it must necessarily fall short of
being a complete set o recipes for the attainment of the state of
'Operating Thetan'.

Cos7nologic Cos?lologictt The theory and practice of Scientology is
underpinned by a eosmology. Hubbard's notion of 'theta' began life
as 'thought' or as an impersonal life-force, but became in the
course of several re-workings an animate entity, the 'thetan'. The
thetan according to Hubbard is

A Static with the ability to eonsider, postulate, and have
opinions, that has, through postulates and considerations,
developed a differentiation from the static theta. The thetan is me
'I' the individual that force, not a part of the physical universe,
which is direeting the organismB The thetan is immortal.
'omniscient and omnipotent'.t the true self of each individual,
which has ecisted since before the beginning of matter, energy,
space, L. Ron Hubbard, 'the Creation of Humon Abiiity (Scientology
Publications, London, ), p. 286.

2 Robert H. Thomas, Guardian of the Church of Scientology in the
l;SA, quoted in Omar V. Garrison, 'the Hdden Story of ScientoloFy
(Arlington Books, London, 1974), P-53 104

TtlE SECT: SCIE:'ITOLOGY

and time. These latter are merely the creations of thetans bored
with their existence. 'Life' Hubbard assures us, 'is a game'.1 To
enliven the game, thetans permitted limitations upon their
abilities They began to create matter, energy, space, and time
(MEST), to form universes and worlds with which, and in which, they
could play. These worlds might take any varietv of forms, but
gradually the thetans became increasingly attracted by the
universes they had creatcd. ProgTessively they became absorbed into
the games they were playing, permitting further limitation of their
abilities, imposing limitations upon other thetans, forgetting
their spiritual nature, and becoming more dependent upon the
matenal universes that they had created. While the MEST universe
began as the postulation of thetans it gradually acquired an
overwhelming sense of reality. The thetans became so enmeshed in
thcir creation they forgot their origins and true status, lost the
ability to mobilize their spiritual capacities, and came to believe
that they v ere no more than the bodies they inhabited.S

Hubbard therefore claims that each thetan has taken on many
millions ot MEST bodies dunng the tnllions of years of its e
tistence. During this time it has been subjected to many traumas,
such as the loss (through death) of the MEST body with which it has
come to identify itself entirely; attacks by other thetans or other
life forms (in which 'implants' are received); and the psychic
damage to itself which accrues when the thetan, or the body which
it w-as inhabiting, harmed or sought to control another. 'lhe
techniques of Scicntology aim to harmed or sought to control
another. The techniques of Scientology aim to restore to the thetan
his original capabilities:

Almost the entiretv of Scientology consists of the discovery and
refinement of methodr whereby the Thetan can be persuaded to
reinquish his self-imposed limitations.a

Having relinquished them, the individual achieves the state of
'Operating Thetan', a state, the exalted nature of which, is
indicated by the following:

Operating Thetan has not before been known as a state of being on
Earth. Neither Lord Buddha nor Jesus Christ were OTs according to
the evidence. They were just a shade above Cleal.'

The methods emploed in the process of achienng the states of clear
and OT, have taken a number of forms,

Incidents on the whole track' or the recordings of events possessed
in the forrn of 'facsimmles' or mental image pictures by each
thetan, may be 'run' (that is, audited or processed) as engrams.
Have 'rOu Lived Before his Life? is a collection

L Ron Hubbard, Seientoloy 8-8aoe3 (Hubbard College of Scientology,
East Grinstead, Sussex, 1967), p. m7.

Christopher Evans, Cults of Unrezson (Harrap, London, 1973), pp.
43-5; Cyril Vosper, The hrind Benders (Neville Spearman, London,
1971), pp. Z8-31; Garrison, op. cit..pp. 49-s3 3 Vosper, op. cit..
p. 31. Ability, 81 [c 1959], p. 6. of reports by auditors and
pre-clears of the processhsg of whole-track (or past-life) engrams.
For e:cample: Scientolrir's e,bort Located the incident with the
command 'Have you ever died?' The F-meter needle dropped. 'Was it
more than mo years ago?' ,eedle dropped..Carried on like this
and finally located it at ss,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo years ago..
. 'Be in that incident'. 'Whrt part of that incident can you
confront?' and we were away. First picture that came was of the
sea, great deal of unreality but by discussion and conbnuing the
question 'What part of tha incident can you confront?' various
other pictures and sensations uncovered which eventually added up
to a section of the incident concerning a giant Manta Ray type of
acquauc creature which the preclear had seen while underwater...
the engram started on [a] spaeeship. The ship had needed an
outside repair. On going outside, the preclear had been hit bv a
meteorite particle which had not punctured the suit. At this point
an acute pain undt r the arr . where the meteor had struck,
occurred. The Pc clambers back into the space-ship. Later the
atomic engines of the ship break down and the Pc has to repair
these and apparently receives radio-acti-e burns. He finds that he
has to leave the ship and so falls from a ladder into the sea where
he encounters the Manta Ray.l

...Pc, after a period of 440 years without a body, arrives in
error on a planet which ir being taken over by 'Black Magic'
operators who are very low on the ethical scale and using
electronics for evil purposes. HaviDg come originally from a 'good'
plane he battles for a long, long time againSt the forces of 'blaek
magic', which, like a mfth column, are subverting the originally
'white magic' populace. It is a losing battle, implant after
implant gradually weakening his ability and control by causing
hallucinated perception..Eventually after a period of spiritual
torment and grief he abandons his former high goals and goes over
to the 'Black Magic' faction, not having entirely given up the
idea of outwitting it from within. This occurs some 74,ooo years
after his first arrival on this planet. He now goes to another
planet by space ship. A deeeption is accomplished by hypnosis and
pleasure implants (rather like opium in their effects) whereby he
is dece-ved into a love affair with a robot decked out as a
beautiful red-haired girl who receives all his confidences for a
period of 30 vears [EtC.t

The other incidents reported in this work range across lives as a
supporter of the Pretender after the '45, a Tibetan nobleman in the
sitteenth century, the captain of a space-ship, a space pilot with
a robot body over a million years ago, etc.

I L. Ron Hubbard, leue rOu Liurd Before r/is Life?, A Scirntiic
Suruey (The Department of Publications World Wide [Church of
Scientology, East Grinstead], 1968), PP 53-4

2 Ibidpp. 156-7

TIE SECT: SClEtTOLOCY

Running past-life incidents as engrams is not, however, typical of
contemporary Scientology technique. Un ike Dianehcs, Scientology
does not seek to crase the causeS of limitadons on the individual's
full capacity, since with the development of the belief in the
whole-track, this would be far too lengthy and arduous a process.
The aim of Scientology is therefore to free the thetan from the
limitations of vlEST and the control of the facsimiles be has
rccorded, and to increase his awarencS5 of his spiritual capacities
to such an extent that he becomes the cause and not merely the
effect of his environment and his life (and of course, his past
lives) I

Centrol therles in Scientoogice theory While Scientological theory
is underpinned by a cosmology and extensive metaphysics little of
this is initially transmitted to the following in an overtly
dogmatic fashion. There is a recognition that the theorv of the
origins of the universe and the space-operatic scenarios of some of
the more distant past-lives may have very little reality' for some
adherents. These aspects of the ideology are referred to as
'para-Scientology', a category variously defined for example:

that large bin which includcs all greater or lesser uncertainties.
Here are the questionable things, the things of which the common
normal observer cannot be sure wlth a little study...Some of
the classified bodies of data which fall in ParaScientology are:
Dianetics, incidents on the whole-track', the immortality of \Ian,
Scientology are: Dianetics, incidents on the 'whole-track', the
immortality of Man, the existence of God, engrams containing pain
and unconsciousness and yet all perceptlon, pre-natals, clears,
character, and many other things which, even when closely and
munutely observed, still are not certain things to those who
observe them. Such things have relative trum. [..] Also under the
heading of Para-Scientology one would place such things as past-
lives, mysterious induenees, astrology, mysticism, religion,
psychiatry, nuclear physics and any other science based on theoryd

The para-Scientological is held not to be required belief, and
indeed Hubbard has frequently expressed the view that new followers
or potential converts should not be exposed to it at too early a
stage. 'Talking whole track to raw meat is frowned upon,

Nov, in talking to a group, steer off from para-Scientology. Lay
off the whole traek

stuff,
huh?Layofflhefantastic.lfyouhavesomechaparoundwhoinsistsontellin
people about these thmgs, just note him down; he isn't working for
us, fellahs. Th quickest way to lose a beset peson or group is to
load him down with phenomena Talk, instead, abot I the fact that
there is a spiritual side to Man. Talk about th fact that
Scientology solves social problems, When they are very initiate and
it's a

I L. Ron Hubbard, Dianehrs 55! (Department of Publications World
Wide, Eat Grinstead, 968) p. 18. S L Ron Hubbard, the Creation of
urlan Abiliy (Scientology Publications, Londor

), pp. 188 9. in good fun rnd they've also got theh HPA or HCA, do
what you like with the whole track. Or use it in private sessions.
Don't hand it out to the public ra-v. Ids too strong '

This policy is also redected in the relative dearth of published
information on this aspect of Scientological belief. Past-lives are
discussed in only three of the movement's books in any detail, and
there is no systematic account of the cosmological doctrine in any
publicly available documents.

Most published work deals with those aspects of the doctrine which
have practical relevance, and it is to these that Scientologists
themselves seem to havt strongest commitment. i\Iany of these
derive directly from earlier Dianetic practice. The notion of ARC
and the tone-scale, for example, were carried over into Scientology
with only minor modification. With the transition to Scientology,
hov-ever, a number of new elements were added or differently
stressed. While exteriorization' had been seen as a state in need
of remedy in Dianetics, it was now seen as a state to be aimed for:

The usual residence of the thetan is in the skull or near the body.
A thetan can be in one of four conditions. The first would be
entirely separate from a body or bodies, or even from this
universe. The second would be near a body and knowingly controll-
ing the body. The third would be in the body (the skull) and the
fourth would be an inverted cPndition whereby he is compussively
away from the body and cannot approach it....one of the many
goals of procersing in Scientology is to 'exteriorise' the
individual ald place him in the second condition above, since it
has beeP discovered that he is happier and more capable when io
situated 8

Recovering the thetan's ability 'to confront' his environment is
also an important goal.

That which a person can confront he can handle. The first step of
handling anything is gaining an ability to face it.3 Problems
start with an inability to confront anything.

Not eonfronting things one has done leaves one 'in mystery' about
them and subject to their impact Being able 'to confront', to face
up to, and take responsibility for, things one has done would
erase their power. One might illustrate this as follows: a man who
causes an accident which injures others might repress his part in
the incident and in his future interactions with these others
behave in an aberrated fashion for example, attacking them for
their clumsiness and causing further trauma out of fear of being
found out. Were he able to confront

IL RonHubbardPofessionalAuditorsBulretin,Sl (t6Septemberrgss),p 2.
: L. Ron Hubbard, 'The Funlamentals of 7 hought (The Publications
Organisation World Wide, Edinburgh, tg68), pp. 57-8. t L. Ron
Hubbard, Srienolog A .Stew Slant on Life (The American St Hill
Organisation, Los Angeles, California, 196s), p. 85 9 Ibid. his
part in the incident and take responsibility for it, the situation
might improve rather than continue to deteriorate. The theory of
'confionting' has a number of ramifications. In this life and in
past lives we have all performed a number of 'overt acts'.5
Generally we justify such acts by means of a 'motivator'S and they
become 'withholds'.3 Having withholds against some person or group
leads to guilt and fear about being found out which in tt rn leads
one to perform further overt acts against them. It is by means of
this theory that Scientologists explain attacks upon them by press,
politicians, doctors, and psychiatrists, and other ' enemies' of
Scientology. I The notion of the w.thhold became parhcularly
prominent in the practice of 'Sec thecking'.5

A further fundamental concept in Scientology theory is that of
communication. The individual spends most of his time out of
communication with his environment (out of present time). He is
held at some point on the 'time-track' as a result of trauma or '.
isemotion' and lives out his present involvements from a point of
view in the past. Scientology aims therefore to bring the
individual 'up to present time'.

When we say that scmebody should be in present time we mean that he
should be in communication with his environment. We mean further
that he should be in communication with his snvironment as it
exists not as it existed.'

Many psychosomatic ailments are held to be the result of the
individual, the thetan, beihg out of communication with a
particular part of his body, and living, in relation to that body
part, at some point in the past when it suffered pain. Tecbniques
have been developed which seek to bring him into communication in
present time with that body part.7 mumcanon Wlth hlS envuonment as
it exu ts, not as it existed.5

I 'OVERT ACT (Overt): Harmful or contra-survival act. Preeisely, it
is an act of commisslon or omission that harms the greater number
of dynamics', Anonymous, Scientology Abridged Dictionary
(Scientology Publications Organization, Copenhagen, 970-

Z'The consideration and dramatisation that one has been wronged by
the action of another or a group, and which is charactensed by
constant complaint with no real action undertaken to resolve the
situation'. Ibid. 'WITHHOLD: Undisclosed contra-survival act; a no
action after the fact of action, in which the individual has done
or been an accessory to doing something which is a transgression
against some moral or ethical code consisting of agreements to
which the individual has subscribed in order to guarantee, with
others, the survival oi a group with which he is coachng or has
coacted towards survival'. Ibid. See Chapter 8, below. 5 For the
practice of 'Sec Chechng', see Chapter 5, below; Paulette Cooper,
h9 Scandal of Scisntology (Tower, New York, 1971), pp. 85-92. 9 L.
Ron Hubbard, Dianstics 55! (The Department of Publicahons World
Wide East Grmstead, 1968), p. 62. These techniques of an informal
kind are known as 'assists, on which see L. Ror Hubbard, Jr..
George Richnrd Haipern and Jan Halpern (compilers), CC Preara

Improving the individual's ability to communicate therefore
improves his ability to handle his body and his environment,
bringing him to present time, and releasing him from points on the
time track at which he has become stuck. Improving communication
therefore means improving the individual's abilities in general.

The notion of control is important in Scientology theory. The
thetan has permitted itself to become 'an effect' of the universe.
It has allowed itself to believe that it has no spiritua powers and
that it is merely the body it inhabits. Having denied its spiritual
powers it has become prey to its creation, suffering the traumas
and injuries of its bodies, the guilt and fear of its overt acts,
reacting tc. its environment on a stimulus response basis,
obsessively holding on to MEST and facsimilcs out of confusion and
insecurity. One aim of Scientology processing is therefore to
increase the thetan's ability to control the body it inhabits and
its environment, to be willing to have and 'not-have' MEST,
postulates, facsimiles, etc. That is, to overcome the
stimulus-response reaction and increase the self-determinism of the
thetan; to restore its ability to be 'at cause' over its
environment.

CLEAR: (noun) A thetan who can be at cause knowingly and at will
over mental mattcr, energy, space and time as regards the First
Dynamic (survival for self).l O.T. (Operating Thetan': A Clear who
has been familiarised with his environment to a point of total
cause over matter, energy, space, time and thought, and whr ls not
in a body.'

The final aspect of the theory of Scientology whmch I wish to
discuss is that of its metatheoretic assumptions. Hubbard has
defined Scientology in a variety of ways. In his early
formulations, he stressed the scientific status of the enterprise.

Scientology is defined as the science of kmowing how to know.a

Hubbard developed the principle that in contrast to the fields
generally termed 'sciences' which were full of 'maybes' Scientology
was 'the science of certainty'.

You aren't a scientist, and you don't have to be wishy washy and
indefinite about what you say.5

Scientology was the study of knowledge, dealing in 'stable data'.
'Knowledge is certainty'5 and moreover 'Certainty is saniZy'.7 This
conception of what issued

Anonymous, Scientology Aoridged Dictionay, o p. cit. ' Ibid. ' L.
Ron Hubbard, Scientolog 800ed, znd edn (HASI, London, :gj3), p. 5.
' ournal of Scientology 166, n.d.

5 Professional Auditor's Buaetin, r6 (September rgS5) p. 3.

' L. Ron Hubbard, 'The three universes, Certainty, unnumbered
issue, n.d. (transcription of a lecture delivered by Hubbard at
Birmingham Town Hall in 1953), p. 5.

7 Ibld..p 4.

tory .Iqanualfor dDanced Students in Scientolog (The Academy of
Scientology, [Washington DC], 1957), pp. 30 45110 TIE SECT:
SCIENTOLOCY

from the mouth of Hubbard as certain knowledge seems to stand in
contradiction to the distinction drawn elsewhere between
Scientology and para-Scientology, and the principle often quoted to
show the non-dogmatic nature of the movement, that 'If it's trle
for you, then it's true.' Since Hubbard's science is a matter of
knowledge and certainty, certainty is sanity, and reality is
agreement, it would seem to follo-v that those who decline to agree
with Hubbard's conception of ·what COnStilutes knowledge are out
of touch with reality; and that those who reserve their judtement,
or who retain some uncertainty as to the truth of his claims, are
insane.

This impression is strengthened elsewhere. In his volume Sciertooey
t-o, for example, Hubbard argues:

Ncither you nor a prtclear need accept 'whole track' or the
identity of the thetan as described fully in Wt o tdit. Not to
begin. You'll very rapidly make up your own mind about it when vou
start to process 'Black and Wbite' I As for 'whole track' and
thetans, I wouldn't dare say n word if 'Black and White' didn't
show them up with alarming velocity.S

In the same volume Hubbard provides a technique 'to separate the
preclear from bodies and discover rohy he thinks he is only the
current body...13 and in one of his recorded lectures he states:
Those who do not believe in past lives do not have to believe in
past lives...bm

don't get audited !4

There can, therefore, be no doubt about how Hubbard intended bis
followers to make up their own minds.

Inutnces on Scientoloiv theory A number of sourcethave been
suggested for aspects of Hubbard's theory and presentation. George
alko suggests that Hubbard may have found some inspirahon in an
early work by R. Buckminster Fuller, called Jint Chains to the
Moon. Apart from one passage in which Fuller argues that 'the
sum-total of human desire to survve is dominant over the sum-total
of the impulse to destroy' . and his propensity to utilie
upper-case type for emphasis, I can discover nG convincing links
behreen the work of Fuller and that of Hubbard.; Dr A.

L. Ron Hubbard Scientology 8-ho (The Distribution Center, Silver
Springs aryland, 195Z), p. 2t. 2 Ibid. ' Ibid..p 31. 4 L. Ron
Hubbard, 'The skills of clearing', Leeture 2 of the Lectures on
Clearing London Congress, 1958 (Hubbard Communications Office,
London, 1958. R. Buckminster Buller, Vine Chains to the

oon (Southern Illinois l.niversitv Press, rg38); George alko
Scientology: the Now ReligioN (Dell Publishing Co..New York, 1970),
pp. I l9-21. IIEOEY ND ITS TUNSMISSIUN

...Nordenholz, whom Malko rlso suggests as an important influence
on Hubbard, secms an initially more plausible candidate.

Nordenholz, in a thoroughly opaque work of philosophical
speculation published in 1 934,1 presents the notion of
'scientology' as a science of knowledge to be developed on the
basis of a set of axioms. Apart from the name of the 'science', its
concern with knowledge and how to grasp it, and the idea of erect
ing a set of axioms as the basic formulation of the science, it is
not evident that ordenholz provided much that became incorporated
into Hubbard's Scientology.a

It has also been suggested that Hubbard secured some of the
material incorporated into Scientolo y fromJack Parsons, a
follovver of Aleister Crowley and briefly the head of a Lodge of
Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in Pasadena.3 That Hubbard was
associated with Parsons early in 1946 is not in doubt, although a
press release issued by the Church of Scientology after the appear-
ance of Alexander Mitchell's article offers a different
interpretation of the facts, ' claiming that he was sent to live
with Parsons by 'certain agencies [wbicb] objected to nuclear
physicists being housed under the same roof'.5 There is no evidence
that Hubbard's system of Scientology owes any gTeat debt to that of
Crowley, Parsons or the O.T.O. Indeed none of the four members of
Crowley's order whom I have contacted in 13ngland and America has
been able to confirm

' A. Nordenholz, Saentologle, Wissenschaft uon der seschaJenheit
und Der rauglich,teit des IVissens (Ernest ReinhardE Munich, 1934).

It i also a mvtterv how ubbard could have come into contact with
Nordenbclz's

I A. Nordenholz, Saentologie Wissenschaft von der Beschaf enheit
und Der rauglicheit des Wissens (Ernest Reinhardt, Munich, 1934).

' It is also a mystery how Hubbard could have come into contact
with Nordenholz's work. Hubbard did not, as far as I have been able
to discover, read German, nor have I been able to locate a
translation of this hook by Nordenholz prior to the version
produced by a former Scientologist in 1968 (A. Nordenholz,
Scientologie rg3.f, trans. Woodward R. McPheeter, Causation Press,
Lucerne Valley, California, 1968). It is on the basis of this
translation that Malko suggests Hubbard was indebted to Norden-
holz (Malko, op. cit..pp. m6 19) but McPheeters was a
Scientologist of many years standing who left the movement for a
schismatic offshoot, and in an atmosphere of mutual hostility. It
is at least a porsibility that this may have induenced the trsnsla-
tion. An independent translation which I commissioned, of some
pages from the original, seems to bear this out. The possible
parallels with Hubbardian formulations are very much less evident.

9 Although he does not refer to Hubbard by name, I think there can
be no doubt that this is the implication to be drawn from Kenneth
Grant's remark that an unnamed associate of Parsons after the death
of the latter 'is still at large, having grown wealthy and famous
by a misuse of the secret knowledge which he had wormed out of
Parsons'. Kenneth Grant, the hagica Reriral (Muller, London, 1972),
p. 107. The context makes it quite clear that Hubbard is the man
referred to. The same implication is to be found in a newspaper
feature by Alexander Mitehell, 'The odd heginning of Ron Hubbard's
career', Sunday rimes, 5 Oetober 1969, p. m .

' Which are mmsreported or misunderstood in some particulars by
Mitchell.

5 Thms press statement was for the most part reproduced in the
Sunday rimes 28 December 1969. The newspaper also paid the Church
of Scientology a small sum in settlement of an action initiated by
the Church in respect o Mitchell's article. (Parsons was a research
chemist working at the California Institute of Technology.) any
significant points of similarity.3 The only apparent simmlarities
are those which are common to a number of systems of magical and
occult practice for example, the belief that the individual has
supernatural abilities such as telepathy, teleportation, and
telekinesis, which can be achieved or regained through mental and
spiritual exercises. In the case of many magical and occult systems
these practices and their goals have been absorbed from Yoga.

In Yoga a number of parallels with Scientology are evident. Yoga
offers a system of metaphysical knowledge leading to 'rebirth to a
non-conditioned mode of being'.3 The aim of the earliest philosophy
of Yoga, sumkhya, was to dissociate the spirit from matter.3 In
Yoga the world is real not illusory, but its endurance is the
result of the ignorance of spint. When 'the last self shall have
found its freedom, the creation in its totality will bc reabsorbed
into the primordial substance.' The source of the soul's suffering
is held to be man's solidarity with the cosmos, his participation
in nature (the enturbulation of theta and MEST?).s

The conception of Snirit in Yoga is remarkably close to that of the
thetan:

Vedanta...regards Spirit as a unique, universal and e-ternal
realitv, dramatically enmeshed in the temporal illusion of creation
(maya). Samkhya and Yoga deny Spirit (purusa) any attribute and any
relation; aceording to these two 'philosophies', all that can be
affirmed of pututa is that it is and that it rous..Y

Elements of the cosmolog, appear similar (although Yoga seems to
have only a very rudimentary cosmology).

From all eternity Spirit has found itself drawn into...illusory
relation with psychoall that ean be affimmed of putusa is that it
u and that it knou s..Y

mental life (that is, with 'matter') This is owing to ignoranee..
.7

While Yoga accepts the existence of God, the work of Patanjali,
like that of Hubbard, did not accord him very much importance.S
Yoga also contains the notion of the transmission of the
'subconscious' through Karmic transmigration . t fter penetrating
normally inaccessible areas of consciousness and reality, the yogin
was believed to acquire siddhts, or miraculous powers knowing
one's previous existences, invisibility, great physical power, the
power of nsing in the air, of controlling and dominating any being,
etc..l although wanton use of

I The author, John Symonds, also paid a sum in settlement after his
book on Crowley, hc Great Beast, suggested a connexion between
Crowley's 'tenet's of black magic and 'the prirciples of
Scientology' (the Guardian, 22 Novemher 1974). S lircea Eliade,
rOga · Immortaldy and recdom (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,

8), p. 4. 3 Ibid..p. 8.

Ibid..p g r Ibid..p. Io. Ibid..p. t6. 7 Ibid..p. 27.

S Ibid..p. 29 God or the Supreme Being is mentioned in
Sciertological works, (see, for exampie, ha Background and Ceremanl
s of Church of Scenology of Ca(ifornia, World Wide Church of
Scientology, East Grinstead, 1970), p. 2, but does not figure

7 ibid..p. 42. 10 Ibid..pp. 85, 129.

TElEOrtY AND ITS TStANSMlSSlON

113

them was believed to preclude further advance to the ultimate goal
of yogic practice, immortality.

Eliade even gives some ground for believing that the nature of the
praChCe, while updated and elaborated in Scientology, may have had
common features with Yoga:

The scholastie Buddhist texts give us some details of the technique
employed. It is the faculty that consisb in retracing in memory the
days, months and years until one arrives at one's time in the womb
and finally at one's past lives...'

This is, however, clearly more reminiscent of carly Dianetics than
of current Scientology practices. Hubbard has credited the Vedic
Hymns as one source of his inspiration3 and the claim that
Scientology has been most strongly influenced by such ancient
eastern sources is one that might perhaps be taken more seriously.
Certainly on the basis of Eliade's account of the theory and
prachce of Yoga, impressive similarities are to be found with the
theory and practice of Scientology and Dianetics.

Auiting Thousands of techniques to be used in auditing have
appeared, although many are no longer in use and only a practising
Scientologist would be able to say what currently constituted
'standard technology'. Many techniques are

Hubbard has also counse led agains the misuse of occult abilities
regained on the

Hubbard has also counselled against the misuse of oeeult abilities
regained on the th to operating Thetan TheSfe harier progreSS to
'tzkb2* (NiTT2ns)

'1. Knowledge of previous hfe (that is, total recall of all of his
existences and of 2. Power of great sight (not only to see great
distances hut also to see through,

over, and under objects. To see anything in the world at any time)
. 3. Complete absence of sexual desire indieating fulfillment and
eomplete 4. Ability to change his size (to any largeness or
smallness). 5. Power of great hearing to hear any sound anywhere at
any time). 6. Power to cause events (if he wants a thing to happen,
to will it) . 7. Power to be where he wants (hy an act of will to
transport himself to where

he wishes to be). 8 Power to be invuible 9 Power to walk on air

m. Power to know all that is known Manning Nash, 7:he Golden ltozd
to ModeTnity (Wiley, New York, 196S), p. 149 Seientologists have
claimed all but items 3, S. and m I have not kmown Scientologists
anxious to achieve item 3, and since Scientology is the science of
knowing how to know, the achievement of Item lo must ultimately be
a goa], although I have not known any Scientologist to claim that
he possessed this ability.

2 Eliade, op. eit..p. 184.

t L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology 8-eoo, op. cit..'Foreword'. Eliade,
(op. cit..p. 102) suggests, bowever, that 'only the rudiments of
classic Yoga are to be found in the Vedas...' directed to the
goal of giving the pre-clear a 'subjective reality' on his
abilities as a thetan. One of the most basic is that of asking the
pre-clear (the thetan) to give up the (self-imposed) need to be in
a body, by 'extenori:cing' from that body:

Ask preclear to be rhree feet behind his head. If stable there,
have him be in various pleasant places until any feeling of
searcity of viewpoints is resolved. Then have him be in several
undesirable plaees, then several pleasant places; then have him be
in a slightly dangerous place, then in more dangerous places until
he can sit in the center of the SunP

A development along these lines was known as the 'Grand Tour',

The commands of the Grand Tour are as follows'Be near Earth', 'Be
near the Moon', 'Be near the Sun', 'Earth', ' vloon', 'Sun', giving
the last three commands many times. Each time the auditor must wait
until the prec ear signifies that he has completed the command. The
preclear is supposed to move near the bodies or simply be near
them, it does nor matter which. The Grand Tour continues with 'Now
f nd a rock', Be inside of it', 'Be outside of it', 'Inside',
'Outside', 'Insidc', 'Outside', 'Be in the centre of the Earth',
'Be outside of Earth', 'Inside', 'Outside', and back and forth
until the preclear is able to do this very rapidly. Then the Grand
Tour contir.ues, 'Be near Mars' EtC] r

Another purely mental technique much employed in Scientology's
early days was a technique known as 'holding anchor points'. The
purpose of this technique was held to be that of enabling the
thetan 'to tolerate or make space'.t' The preclear while seated
would be told

...'Close your eyes', 'Locate an upper corner of the room behind
you'. When he has done so, 'Now locate the other upper corner
behind you', 'All right, hold on to these two corners, and don't
think'...At the end of 15 minutes the auditor says, 'Now, find
the third corner behind you',...When the auditor is assured the
preclear has done this, he says, 'Now hold on to the same two you
had before and the new one'. When the preclear has all three
corners at onee, the Auditor says, 'Noq hold on to those three
eorners and don't think'....The auditor then has the preclear
locate all eight corners of the room and says, 'Now hold on to all
eight corners of the room, sit hack and don't think'...the
Auditor has the prec]ear do this for at least fifteen minutes.'

Some thetans have allowed themselves to become so overwhelmed that
they are no longer even able to control their bodies. A series of
processes was designed to put the thetan back into communication
with and CODtrol of his body. The first of these processes, known
as CCH 1, involves the auditor and preclear sitting

I L. Ron Hubbard, 'This is Scientology: the science of certainty',
70urnal of Scientologv, issue 16G, n.d. (some time in 1953), p.
12. L. Ron Hubbard, i he Creation of luman Ability (Scientology
Publications, London, ), p. 37, emphasis omitted

' Ibid..p. 93. Ibid..pp. 93-6. facing each other. The auditor
commands, 'Give me that hand'. If the preclear gives him the hand
the auditor givcs it a slight pressure then returns it to the
preclear's lap. If the preclear does not proffer the hand, the
auditor takes it and does the same. This process may be run for
several hours.

CCH 6 took the following form:

(auditor takes a book and bottle, placing them some distance apart
on tables so that the preclear doesn't have to bend) . 'With that
body's eyes look at that book'. 'Thank you'. 'Walk that body over
to that book'. 'Thank you'....'With thac hand pick up that book'.
'Thank you'. 'Put that book down in e:cactly the same place'.
'Thank you'. 'Turn that body round'. 'Thank you'. 'With that bodv's
eyes look at that bottle'; etc.:

A further technique of some prominence in the 19505 was known as
'Waterloo Station' (or 'Union Station' in America).

In a populated area (park; RR Station, etc) have pc tell auditor
something he wouldn't mind not-knowing about persons or the persons
not-knowing about him which auditor spots for him. Commands:
Auditor: 'Do you see that (man, woman, described slightly) ?' Pc:
'Yes'. [...] Auditor: 'Tell me something you wouldn't mind
not-knowing about that person'. [...] the pc selects things he
already can know to not-know. He does not give things he ioes not
know anyway. This stress is the willingness to Not-Know things one
already knows [sic]. Otherwise pc will become confused. [...]
When...run Rat or to a dope-oRf, reverse to :1 Auditor: 'Tell
me something you wouldnt mind that person not knowing about

[...] When...run flat or to a dope-off, reverse to :'
Auditor: 'Tell me something you wouldn't mind that person not
knovring about you' .

[...] Run one side for hours then the other side in ordinary use.
[...] The goal of Waterloo Stahon is not to make the pc make one
thing vanish. That phenomenon is just the start. Auditor's have
been quitting when the pc made somebody s hat disappear When the pc
can make the whole universe wink on and offat hls comideration to
know or not know it, you're getting somewhere so don't stop at a
hat.'

One basic aim of Scientoloey auditing is therefore to make the
preclear aware that rea ity is a matter of his considerations, and
changing ms considerahons will change the nature of reality. The
theory and practice of Scientology is radically idealist in
orientation.S L. Ron Hubbard, 'Procedure CCH', Professional Auditor
s Bullehn r33 (r Apnl 8)

S L. Ron Hubbard, 'Procedure CCH continued', Ptofessional Auditor's
Bulletin, 135 (l May 1958)

a That is, a process is flat when it no longer produces change;
dope-off is a sensation

of drowsiness.

' L Ron Hubbard, 'Six levels of processing', Professional Auditor's
Bulletin 69 (6 January I ga6) .

5 L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetes 55! (The Department of Publications
World Wide, East Grinstead, 1968), p. 67. he E-Afeter Most current
auditing (or processing, the terms are synonymous) is conducted
with the aid of the E-meter.l The E-meter is a tcchnological aid
which has been developed to assist tte process of auditing. It is a
form of skin galvanometer operating on the principle of the
Wheatstone Bridge which measures resistance to a current passing
between two terminals. The terminals usually employed in
Scientology auditing and training are ordinary tin cans. In the
auditing situation, a slight current is transmitted through the
pre-clear from one terminal to another, the resistance being
measured on a dial. The needle on the dial moves in response to a
variety of factors such as an increase in skin salinity resulting
from sweat, skin surface area in contact with the terminals,
pressure, etc. It is the view of rlle Scientologists that they are
able to detect what are known to them as 'body-reads', and
therefore are able to isolate readings which reflect changes in the
state of the thetan. The E-meter is held to be infallible. It 'sees
all, knows all. It is never wrong.'S A complex terminology is
associated with 'needle action' on the E-meter 'theta bop', 'rock
slam', 'floahng needle', etc..each of which indicates particular
characteristics of the pre-clear, his mental and spiritual state.s
Although the E-meter was first introduced into Dianetics by Volney
G. lathison in IgSr, it has little employed until the emergence of
Scientology in 1952. vlathison continued to mix Dianetics and
Scientology with other practices. For a ime he formed an alliance
with the leaders of a therapeutic movement known as Concept
Therapy, and marketed his meters to Concept Therapists and
Chiropractors. Later Electropsychometry seems to have become an
independent, if rather insignificant, movement in North America.4
Mathison's incorriaible eclecticism led to a break between him and
Hubbard, after which, for some time, the E-meter fell out of use in
Scientology. By 1957, however, Hubbard and his associates had
developed their own transistorized version of the machine and it
returned to favour.5

"The E-meter is essential for all modern auditing vrith but a few
exceptions'. Cyril Vosper, the 8fmd BendErs (Nenlle Spearman,
London, rg71), p. 83.

' L. Ron Hubbard, Electroprychometric Auditing Operator'r Manual
(HASI, London, n.d. [c. rg53-41), P 57

' On the E-meter, sce: L. Ron Hubbard, E-Meter Essntials rg6r
(Hubbard Communications Office, East Grinstead, rg61); L. Ron
Hubbard, the Book Introducing the E-'vleter (The Publications
Organisahon World Wide, Edinburgh, 1968); Mary Sue Hubbard
(Compiler), the Book of E-,fetet Drills (Hul:.bard College of
Scientology, East Grinstead, 1967). Also see Kevin V. Anderson,
Report of the Board of Inquiry irta Scientology (Govemment Printer,
Melbourne, 1965), Chapter 4; Cooper, op. eit..Chapter 18; Evans,
op. cit..pp. 6g-6.

' See John A. Lee, Sectarian Healers and ypnotherapy (Queen's
Printer, Toronto, 1970), Chapters 5 and 6.

3 Anonymous, the Story af Dianetics and Scientology rraining, ( the
Auditor, Supplement 6), SPO A/S, Copenhgen, 1969. Processing or
auditing is organized on the basis of a strict progression of pro-
cedures. Each level or 'grade has set processes associated with it
which aim to produce different abilities. Passing through this
progression of levels is known as 'getting your grades'. The first
of these, Grade O, seeks to release the pre-clear from inhibitions
about communication. When successfully completed, one becomes a
'communications release'.3

the auditing commands (questions) are: 'What are you willing to
tell me about?'; 'What are you willing to tell me about it?' The
pre-clear, holding the cans of the E-Ieter, answers each of these
questions in turn until the auditor spots a 'floating needle'. This
indicates that the pre-clear has achieved a 'cognition or insight
concerning communication (or whatever he is being audited on) and
should be accompanied by 'good indicators', a bright, aware, happy
expression. In the course of such a process the pre-clear may offer
many hundreds of answers to the auditing question. As may readily
be seen, the nature of these answers may become very inhmate,
personal, even obscene. This feature of auditing bas sometimes
disturbed investigators of Scientology practices,3 but in this
respect, opposition to the techniques would seem to be no more
rationally based than earlier opposition to Freudian revelations,
particularly with respect to the seuality of ehildren and infants.3

Grade I is Problems Release. The auditing eommands are, 'Tell me a
problem' and 'How would you solve it?'4 Grade II is Relief Release,
which deals with 'Overts' and 'Withholds', with the commands: 'What
have you done?'; 'What haven't you said?'. Several further levels
have to be negotiated before the pre-clear can undertake clearing
and then the processes for the OT levels. Since some of these more
advanced levels are self-audited (the pre-clear, employing a
specially designed E-meter attachment, hmmself reads the E-meter
and gives himself the auditing commands, or undertakes the other
technical requirements for the process), the pre-clear who wishes
simply to achieve the goals of auditing for himself has to
undertake only the minimum amount of training required for mm to be
able to conduct self-auditing. This is known as the 'Processing
Route'. The pre-clear is, however, strongly encouraged to take the
'Training Route', that is to become an expert auditor, able to
carry out auditing upon others as well as himsel£ By this means,
the pre-clear is encouraged to seek clearing, etc..not only for
himself but also for others. The client of Scientology

' L. Ron Hubbard, 'flassificahon gradation and awareness chart of
levels and certificates' (Athena Publications, Denmark, 1970).

or example, Anderson, op. cit..passim.

' lor a reconstruction from his own experience of auditing session.
see Robert Kaufman, Insid3 Scuntororg (Olympia Press, London,
1972), passim. Grade O may sometimes be preceded by 3traight Wire
Release in which Ihe audihng commands are: 'Recall a communieahon';
'Recall something real'; 'Recall an emotion; repeated (or ·run )
unhl a 'floating needle' appears. See Malko, op. cit, p. 133. '
Kaufman, op. cit

p. 14 et seq. u thereby transformed into an agent of the movement
whose personal goals i Scientology become closely bound to his
successful dissemination of the beliei system to others.l The lower
levels of both audlting and training can be secure at a 'Franchise'
or 'Mission' of the movement. These are semi-autonomou
organizations which may be run by a single professional auditor, or
in partnership. After completion of Grades I to IV, more advanced
auditing (and all but the lowest levels of traiming) must be
secured from a central organization. A fixed price-list exists for
auditing and training. A franchise is not permitted to charge
lessthanthecentralorganizationInlg72theGradescostatotalofaround£2oo
for the levels from 0 to IV.5 Addihonal auditing may be purchased
as a block of hours typically twenty-five hours at a time.
According to a price list issued in 1972, twenty five hours of
auditing could be bought for £so with reductions for larger blocks
purchased at one time and with discounts for various kinds of
member (for example, someone both an International and local member
could secure a discount of 20 per cent).a

mining Training in Scientology usually begins with the HAS (Hubbard
Apprentice Scientologist) Course With this, as with most other
levels of training, successful completion of the course is
signified by an impressive certificate, and members often affect
the initials of the successfully completed courses as hononfic
appelations to their names John Smith HPA, for example. It is
not unknown for individuals who have been awarded a Book Auditor's
certificate, after reading and successfully applying the principles
and practices indicated in one of Hubbard's texs, to employ the
style B.A. after their names.' At one time 'degrees' were issued
permitting the individual to employ the styles B.Scn, D.Scn, D.D..
and even 'Freudian Analyst' after their names,

The HAS or Communications Course mculcates the basic training
routines (TRs) wmch a successful auditor should employ. A
well-trained auditor will always 'have his TRs in'. The purpose of
the TRs is to train the student to confront the pre-clear without
extraneous behaviour or habis getting in the way; to direct
commands at the pre-clear in a clear and authoritative manner; and
to ensure that the pre-clear replies or follows the command without
allowing him to distract the auditor from carrying out the process;
to acknowledge the pre-clear's communications, etc.

The first rouhne, TR 0 requires the student and the coach
(typically a fellow student, each taking turns at the two roles)
simply to sit facing each other, neither

' This is taken up in detail in Chapter VI S rhAuilor, 77 (1972) S
Leaflet sent to book purchasers. See the letter si5ned Frank E Wa
ker B.A. (sork Auditor) in Crninly, 1, 9 (n.d.), P-l3making any
conversation or effort to be interesting Have them sit and look at
each other and say and do nothing for some hours. Students must not
speak, fidget, giggle or be embarrassed or anaten. It will be found
the student tends to confront with a body part, rather than just
confront, or to use a system of confronting rather than just be
there. The drill is misnamed if Confront means to do something to
the pc. The whole action is to accustom an auditor to being there
three feet in front of a pre-clear wimout apologising or moving or
being startled or embarrassed or defending selL After a student
has become able to just sit there for two hours 'bull baiting' can
begin I

'Bull baiting' involves the coach seeking to provoke a reaction
from the student by actions, other than touching the student, or by
'treading' on the students 'buttons', that is referring to subjects
about which the student is likely to be sensitive and to which he
might react. Kaufman details amusingly a bull baiting session.

Most coaches found it most convenient to try to make the
auditor-in-training laugh. Morton described to me one such session.
He and his coach sat in chairs facing each other, the coach almost
on top of him, with his knees tightly pinning Morton's. The coach
then set out to find Morton Morvis's 6uttors subjects which broke
him up and diverted his attention from his auditing. He began by
investigating the possibility that Morton had a 'Jewish button'
which neededfattsning (the majority of Jewish people happened to
have such a button). 'Mishter Morvish' crooned the coach, 'mosht
pipple leff et me ven I tzing but you von't leff et me ven I
tzing will you, Mishter Morvish?' With that he cleared his throat
and went into repeated ehoruses of rzum golly golly golly. Other
Seientologists took up the refrain until ttte tune reverberated in
various voice registers throughout the room. An ingenious girl
added as counterpoint rhomt ftom l:rodus: 'Dai dam..dai dai..
. dai dai dai dai dai DAIEE...'. The org resounded with the music
and Morvii's gasps of laughter. Juit as he had calmed down a
stranger stepped into the room and announced 'I've just come from
the planet Sholom in the galaxy of Sheket. Did you ever see a
thetan wearing a yarmulka?' and they were off again. All told it
took six hours to 'flatten' Morvis'sJewish button.5

The more advanced training courses require the reading of 'packs'
of bulletins and policy letters by Hubbard, duplicated and stapled
in folders. Each course has a particular pack. There are also
voluminous tape-recordings of Hubbard's lectures to which the
student must listen. The student may also be required to
demonstrate his understanding of the material by producing a model
in clay at the Clay Table, which illustrates the point of what he
has learned. Students on courses are normally paired oft to test
each other in their knowledge of the course materials and to carry
out training in auditing techniques. Each Course pack has a
'check-sheet' indicating what has to be done to complete the course
successfully. Each item on the check sheet has to be initialled by
the coach or course instructor when the student has acquired the
knowledge or skill required.

L. Ron Hubbard, 'Modernized training drills', HCO Bullstin, 29
April 963, cited in Anderson, op. cit..p. 8m

' Kaufman, op. cit..pp. 4-j.

At each level in training, the student acquires the ability to
audit pre-clears on the corresponding processes. An auditor may
only process pre-clears up to the level for which he has received
training. Part of the course requirement is therefore to find one
or more pre-clears to audit through the necessary levels to
demonstrate one's proficiency.l In this way, training further
mobilizes the student as an agent Sor the dissemination of
Scientology. While one may find one's pre-clears among friends,
since the pre-clear goes to a central organization for training he
may otten not know anyone whom he can ask,S and he therefore ilas
to secure 'raw meat' through dissemination on the street, or at his
lodgings.

On commencing t. course the student is introduced to the others en
masse, wllo warmly applaud him. Similarly, on the completion of any
level of auditing or training the indiidual is congratulated by his
auditor or his classmates. At the central organizations a student
or pre-clear will be brought to the room where study is in
progress. The instructor tells the students to stop work and
announces the individual's achievement. The student/pre-clear then
gives a short speech indicating his 'gains' from auditing or from
the course, and is applauded by those present. On completion of
auditing the pre-clear is taken to the Qualifications Division of
the 'Org' where he is briefly checked on the meter to make certain
that he has been released on the grade. At more advanced levels,
'attestation that one has achieved the grade is generally all that
is required. Similarly, having completed training, the student will
'attest' to his successful completion, He is then taken to the
Success Department, where he is asked to write a 'success story', a
few Gnes indicating his gains from the auditing or the course.
These success stories are frequently pnnted in Scientology
pubGcations and provide an indication of what various levels of
training and auditing meant to those who had umdertaken them.

I am no longer afraid of causing an unwanted effect on Inother
being. This Grade has cleared out such a lot of garbage that I knew
was there but eDuld never put my finger on, and so was therefore
the eflfeet of it. I &el great now that it's gone !

Expanded Grade z Clive Niehol.' It's really great not to be
constantly worrying and bogging myselS down with a burden of
PROsLEMS Another great win I have had from this level is that my
eyesight has improved a lot, and it was good before !

Expanded Grade I Clive Nichol.' I am now beainning to get freedom
from my compulsions which I have had for twenty years or more.
These eompulsions have always blunted my intentions. I now see
mysehf beeoming free and er panded It means the restoration of life
to me.

Quintin McDougall.s Before Scientology I didnt now what I wanted in
life or what to do with my life.

I See ibid..p. 186. r Moreover, most students and pre-clears will
have passed the level he is on and are not permitted to go through
the lower level audihng again. S 'Audifing Successes', Cange Sg
(1973), no paginafion.

ibid. S Dianeoc Successes', leadet (1971).

know just w hat I want to do and I am getting it done. Jenny Good.l
What a perfect gradient these Expanded Grades are. I no longer feel
afraid of anything. I feel calm and very stable. I can grant more
beingness eo others. I like myself a lot better too. Ron has given
man a terrific thing with the Expanded Grades. It's great to see
the things that have been bothering me for years disappearing for
good. Robin Youngman. For the first time for a long time I feel
free to communicate. It is really great and I know I can do it
Shirley Pyle.a Right after Clear I hit a keyed out OT state and
could change my body size about

I to I t inche5 in height by actual measurement. Some people s-vore
it was z to 3 inehes, which it might have been, but it was I inch
difference the time I measured. The ability was under control and I
could do it at will. Fred Fairchild OTv I Clear No 49 Duplication
of data often brings interesting abilities into view. I'm OT 1.
While studying with intention in the privacy of my bedroom, I heard
a noise in the adjoining den. I looked around to 'see' what it was,
and behold, I looked right through the wall into the next room as
though no wall was there. When your intention is very strong you
can do what ya

intend to do. Wow ! Do you intend to go CLEAR' And O.T.' Herb
Stutphin, OTI Clear No 2313.5 Yesterday I was walking down the main
street. A woman ahead of me coming in the opposite direction was
coughing badly. I put across to her telepathically 'Are you
OK?'. When she got beside me she beamed and said 'Yes, that is a
lot better now, thank

When she got beside me she beamed and said 'Yez, that is a lot
better now, thank you' . Well ' The secret is on tho OT Courses -
come and get it too.

Vih Dickey OTs Today was fantastic. I walked downstairs to get some
coffee and the coffee machine was buzzing. So I put my hands out
and mm ed them around me machine putting out beams to bounce back
and thereby I could tell by watching the particle dow exactly where
the error in the machine was. I found it and corrected the
molecular structure of that area in the rnachine and the buzzing
stopped.

Then I heard my air conditioner rattling so I looked at why it was
rattling and it stopped.

I'm becoming much more at cauze. I love it like Superman !

Michael Pincus OT7 Thank you, Ron, for immortality S

'Wins every day with Scientology!', leadet (1971). ' Ibid. 3 Ibid.
'Success beyond man's wildest dreams !', Clee7 .Serl)s, 6 ( 12
December 1 969) . S Ibid.

'OT Phenomena Successes', Advanve! Issue 17 (1973), p. 14. 7 Ibid..
pp. 16-17. 8 A-S-, after Class Ten auditing. Original sourcc
unknown, but cited in an amdavit to the South African Commission of
Enquiry into Scientology sbown to me by its author. eligious
praetiees Despite its stridencv in the proclamation of Scientology
as a church in recent years,l the religio;s practices of the
movement other than processing, and training, are quite rdimentary.
The central organizations of the movement usually have a chapel at
which a Sunday service is given. This service generally takes the
form of a lecure by the minister on some basic principle of
Scientology. Part of a recorded lecmre bv Hubbard is sometimes
played. There may be a question and ansv-er period 2 At one time a
session of group auditing might b conducted.3 Wedding are
solemnized with full legal recognition in America and, following
recent legislation, in Austra]ia; or after a civil ceremony in
Britain. l:unerals and naming ceremonies are also performed and the
movement, from time to time, holds Prayer Davs which are well
supported bv its followers. It ic difficult to see these as more
than peripheral aspects of the practice of Scien tology. The theory
ard practice is highly individualistic in orientation and has
little communal significance which might be recognized and
celebrated through public ceremonial The chaplain has a rather
marginal role v.ithin the organi zational structure of the
movement; he acts as a marriage guidance counsellor, and as an
arbitrator ror interpersonal disputes between members on matters of
a non-organizational and non-ideological kind. Scientology auditors
mus[ undergo iministerial [raining' before practising
professionally. Press photo graphs in recent years have usually
shown Scientology Iinisters attired in graphs in recent year; have
usually shown Scientology Ministers attired in clerical collars.

Conclusions Scientology theory and practice seems to be oriented to
goals that have been traditional in the realms of the occult and to
derive this orientation and some of its philosophical ratior.ale
from Yoga. The abilities to which Scientologists lay claim parallel
the siddis of the yogi. In their techniques, Dianetics and Scien-
tologydepartradicallyfromthemeditativetechniquesofearlieroccultpract
ices. The largely passive meditation and the eercises for physical,
n.ental, and spiritual control have been replaced by bighly
directive, activist techniques. The use of the E-meter clothes
these eercises in a scientific garb and provides an aura of
technological precision and contemporaneity.

In the years since 1952 and the transihon to Scientology, a clear
direction is visible in the development of the practice and
training. Dianetics, for all its pretentions to be 'an engineering
science of the mind' was essentially an art,

On the historical a2d organizational aspects of which, see Chapter
5 5 Anonymous, Cerrmonies of lhe l'ounding Church of Scientology
(Department of Publications World Wide, East Gnnstead, t 967,,
pp. 7 8. 3 Testimony of Joseph Charles 8elotte in Eoundin Church of
Scientology v. U.S..inU.S.CourtofClaims,No.226
61,Washington,D.C.Ig67,stenographictranscript, Pp. 244-5 dependent
upon the ingenuity inventiveness, and ch.lrisma of the practitioner
It therefore contained a number of fundamental dangers. The
practitioner in the therapeutic situaeion, ·vith only general
guidelines to the correct practise of auditing at his disposal, was
thrown upon his own resources. In such circumstances many
practitioners independently developed methods of their own which
finally diverged so far from Dianetics as to challenge Hubbard's
practice. The ciientele became attached to a particular
practitioner rather than to the movement as a whole, or to Hubbard
as its leader. Moreover, given the reiatively limited aims of
Dianetics practice and the nature of its techniques, many of the
clientele, regarding it purely as a psychotherapy, departed when
they achieved /or sometimes when they failed to achieve) some
concrete psychological or psychosomahc benefit.

Hubbard sought to control the movement by ideological and
technological as well as organizational means. First, he generated
very rapidly numerous new techniques. The practitioner, wishing to
satisfy a clientele which desired the best and therefore the newest
techniques, was forced to resort to the central organization much
more frequently to keep abreast of developments. He was thus
rendered more dependent upon the organization. Second, Hubbard
sought to standardize practice. Only certain techniques might be
used, and used only in the precise manner estabiished by the
organization. From the diffuse sills required in Dianetics
auditing, processing with the E-meter particularly took the form of
stereotyped deiivery of standardized commands and acknowledge-
ments. The potential charisma of the practitioner was thus
considerably restricted as his role was changed from that of an
intuihve therapist to that of a machine-operative who had simply to
determine the appropriate process, deiiver the commands from lists
prepared by Hubbard, and observe needle action on the E-meter.
Auditing became a semi-skilled occupation. Skill depended not on
tacit professional knowledge of the auditor but on his ability
precisely to duplicate the auditing technique established by
Hubbard. Training was directed to this end of securing ecact
duplication of technique. Since anyone could be trained to carry
out the highly standardized forms of practice, the indnidual
practitioner was thereby rendered far less important than formerly.
Practitioners became highly substitutable, limiting their autonomy.
The likelihood of schism and fission, while not eliminated, was
greatly undermined by limiting the practitioner's independent
authority The practice of Scientology was considerably
de-personalized by these measures. (The Scientologists advise me
that: 'The requirements for certification of auditors have risen as
time has gone by...graduates of the Saint Hill Special Briefing
Course are required to study the entire evolution of auditing in
all its facets and to demo