61 Years - the Modern Psuedoscience of Mental Distress

Today - May 9th - is the 61st anniverary of the publication of L. Ron Hubbard's book: Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health - The ...ehem! "church" of Scientology likes to refer to it as "the owner's manual for the human mind," but that is in no way accurate. 


Dianetics is the psuedo-scientific ramblings of a seriously disturbed hack science fiction writer.  There is no Science, modern or otherwise, in Dianetics.

For my summary of Dianetics, read - This is Dianetics

or for all things L. Ron Hubbard

Another Published Poem

Hey, hey!

I've got another published poem. This time it's I Was a Teenage Thetan from Outer Space published by The Clockwise Cat. This is my third poem published by that time sensitive feline.

A History of Abused and Tortured Thetans

Scientologists are a little bit sensitive about the whole OT - III "Wall of Fire" Xenu Space Opera.  Perhaps with good reason.  It is a little weird - weird that is if taken as "science" - which is how LRH (L. Ron Hubbard) always described his work.  It's not so weird if taken as science fiction.

In this video, Tommy Davis, head of The Church of Scientology's Celebrity Centre, storms out of an ABC interview when asked about Xenu.

Given a yes or no question - do you believe this? - he could have said "no" and put the whole thing to rest.  But, putting that aside, there is plenty of weird science fiction material within Scientology without going into the whole disputed (and falsely denied)  Xenu material.

In the book Scientology: A History of Man LRH described how at death the Thetan (the pure spirit being) leaves his or her physical body and goes to the "BETWEEN-LIVES" area and "reports in." For males this report area is located on the planet Mars; females are required to go elsewhere in the solar system.  At this reporting station the Thetan is brainwashed to forget his or her most recent life.

Additionally it appears that the Thetan is naively curious about bright shiny things and ornate buildings.  Seeing them, the Thetan will approach and can be captured by an Invader using an electronic force. The Invaders are "an electronics people" from heavy gravity planets intent on conquering the whole of the physical universe. The captured Thetans are then abused in a variety of ways - they are beaten up, spun around and around, jerked back and forth, and dropped repeatedly from great heights.

This, according to LRH, is why you and I are so screwed up.

It's Always the Next Level

In 1950 L. Ron Hubbard published his book Dianetics - the result, he claimed, of years of scientific research into the human condition.  In it he claimed that he could show people how to rid themselves of all irrational behavior, compulsions, and psycosomatic illnessess (about 70% of all illnesses, according to Hubbard.)  He further claimed to be able to alieviate asthma, poor eyesight, color blindness, poor hearing, stuttering, allergies, high blood pressure, sinusitus, arthritus, ulcers, migraines, morning-sickness, alcoholism, tuberculosis, and the common cold.

"Dianetics cures and cures without failure." L. Ron Hubbard

Dianetics would lengthen the human life-span and slow the aging process.  It would boost your IQ by at least 50 points and give you a perfect memory.

The trick was to go "clear" - free of painful memories or engrams that had been recorded in the unconsious or reactive mind.

But this wasn't a problem.  It was simple to do.  A person could go clear with as little as 30 hours of auditing.

In August of 1950, L. Ron Hubbard held a lecture in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles where he presented a young woman identified as "Soyna Bianca" (a psuedonymn) who was the world's first clear.  He called her to the stage to demonstrate the effectiveness of his Dianetics.  But when the audience began to ask her questions, she stumbled.  When they asked her to demonstrate her "full and perfect recall of every moment of her life" - she couldn't do it.

"What did you have for breakfast on October 3 1942? someone shouted. She couldn't answer.
"What's on page 122 of Dianetics someone else asked. Again she couldn't answer.
At that moment L. Ron Hubbard was pacing the stage and had his back to her. "What color tie is Mr. Hubbard wearing?" And again, she could not answer.

Dianetics couldn't live up to Hubbard's claims and the world's first clear was ushered off the stage.

Undeterred, Hubbard continued to promote his "science of the mind" and making extraordinary claims. In 1952 he published the book, What to Audit (later retitled as The History of Man)  and claimed that with Dianetics "the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner."

But now it wasn't enough to be clear. Auditing sessions now required the use of the E-Meter (a simple sort of lie-detector), and one had to clear the engrams not only from this life, but from countless thousands of previous lives going back trillions of years.

Believers continued to shell out their money for auditing sessions hoping to reach that always elusive Clear.

In subsequent years L. Ron announced that being Clear wasn't enough.  There were further levels beyond Clear.  One had to become an OT - that is an Operating Thetan.  The OT would be able to remodel his physical appearance, grow taller or shorter, loose or gain weight at will. They would have astounding abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and remote viewing.  All that was required was that you give total control of your life and finances to Hubbard.  Don't ask questions.  Don't think about the contradictions or the failures, just keep working the procedure and Hubbard guaranteed you would become an OT

But then there were ever increasing levels of OT.  OT-I, OT-II, OT-III where one went through the "wall of fire" and was introduced to the space-opera story of Xenu.  The levels of Operating Thetans continued to increase - OT-IV through VIII were introduced each requiring many hours of expensive auditing sessions and books and recorded lectures from L. Ron.  When members of the Church of Scientology don't realize the promised changes in their abilities or health they are told that the next level will bring the break through they've been anticipating.  It's always the next level.  The next level.

David Miscavige - current leader of the Church of Scientology - recently spoke about OT level 56.  It's not clear whether or not he was joking.

The Thetan and Your Life as a Clam

Scientologists like to claim that they “proved, for the first time, that man was a spiritual being, not an animal.”i

I too believe that we are spiritual beings, but I don’t know what they cite as evidence – what scientific, tangible, quantifiable, verifiable evidence they have of the spirit, the soul, - or in Scientologist terms – the Thetan. I’ve read a fair number of their books now, and I see the claim, “we’ve proven it” many, many times. But I’ve not seen the proof, just the repeated claim that they have the evidence.

In fact, in the book Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought, Hubbard details the where and when of this exciting discovery:

Probably the greatest discovery of Scientology and its most forceful contribution to the knowledge of mankind has been the isolation, description and handling of the human spirit, accomplished in July 1952 in Phoenix Arizona. I established along scientific rather than religious or humanitarian lines that the thing which is the person, the personality, is separable from the body and the mind at will and without causing bodily death or mental derangement. ii(Italics added. jc)

Can you imagine that? He isolated and measured or quantified or inspected the soul. He even “handled” it. I’ll bet my Thetan is sorta’ squishy.

This event is not, however, mentioned in the list of “Important Dates in Scientology” found in text-book styled What is Scientology? In this list June 1952 has Hubbard giving lectures in Phoenix Arizona concerning the subject of “effort and energy.” And then in July of 1952 “Scientology: A History of Man book is published.”iii It says nothing about the astonishing discovery of scientific evidence for the human soul.

Oh well, maybe it wasn’t that important.

A History of Man claims to provide “a cold-blooded and factual account of your last sixty trillion years...iv" In it Hubbard traces the immortal, omniscient and omnipotent Thetan through the entire history of the universe, and even before.

According to Hubbard, before the universe existed, there were Thetans who concocted a universe for their own amusement, but became enmeshed in this universe and forgot their omnis (omnipotence and omniscience). They forgot that they were ‘gods’. As I said before: this is Gnosticism.

It seems that these Thetans (which you and I are are, we’ve just forgotten) inhabited countless, innumerable bodies though these trillions of years, including many pre-historic life-forms. Ever feel like a dinosaur? That’s because you were one in a previous life.

And in all these multitudinous lives, the Thetans accumulated Engrams – painful experiences that were stored in the eternal memory and now cause everything from arthritis and allergies to cancer, schizophrenia, and behavioral ills like murder and drug abuse…

The Thetans accumulated many of these engrams during their time as clams. The clam’s main problem – and he had many problems– was one of opening and closing the hinge of his shell. This hinge, according to Hubbard, eventually evolved into the bones of the human jaw, and if you were to be so indiscrete as to discuss the clam and his difficulty with his hinges with somebody not yet familiar with the tenants of Scientolgy, you could reawaken their engrams and cause them pain.

…your discussion of these incidents with the uninitiated in Scientology can cause havoc. Should you describe the “clam” to someone, you may restimulate it in him to the extent of causing severe jaw pain. One such victim, after hearing about a clam death, could not use his jaws for three days.

The book continues tracing the Thetan through the millennia – as other assorted animals, as cavemen, and eventually into their lives as humans. Volcanoes come into the story quite frequently v and lots of Thetans were eaten.

But eventually humans evolved, and here we are, you and I with our immortal, invisible Thetans and I’m kinda’ hungry for some clam chowder now.

***

i What is Scientology? Bridge Publications Inc, Los Angeles CA, 1993. page 641


ii Hubbard, L. Ron, Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought, Bridge Publications Inc, Los Angeles CA, 1988 (originally 1963) page 63.

iii What is Scientology? Page 776

iv Sixty trillion years would be roughly 4,300 times the general scientific consensus on the age of the universe. Don’t let science get in your way, though. Hubbard never did.

v Volcanoes are a big part of Scientology – note the volcano on the cover of Dianetics. Xenu used a volcano to obliterate billions of Thetans, but that’s a story for another blog post.

Scientologists are the New Gnostics

Here is what I have discovered: Scientologists are the new Gnostics.

This isn’t a new discovery; I’m not so brilliant as to have a completely original thought. Others who study theology and religion have already reached the same conclusion.

And in bold fact, Scientologists openly acknowledge the fact.

“Scientology is a Gnostic faith in that it knows it knows.” i

According to Scientology every person is really a Thetan - an infinitely capable and immortal spirit that has become trapped into a physical body and in this physical reality. Through the secret teachings of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, the Scientologist believes that he or she can learn to escape the confines of this physical universe.

And this is Gnosticism.

Gnosticism was a widely varied system of belief in the ancient near east. It was syncretistic – meaning that it melded together bits and pieces from different philosophies and religious. But one of the unifying thoughts of Gnosticism was that the Gnostic believer would have revealed to them an esoteric knowledge through which the spiritual elements of humanity would be reminded of their true origins within the superior Godhead, being and thus be permitted to escape materiality. ii

Scientology maintains that mankind is basically good. Men are not evil. Women are not evil. Instead, they are just ignorant of their real divinity. We do not need a savior. We do not need a Messiah. According to the Scientologist we need only to awaken to our own potential. We can, they say, save ourselves.

But I know myself well enough to recognize the error there.

I am not “basically good,” or if I am (having been made in the image of a perfectly good creator) then I am, because of my own choices and my own actions, bent towards evil. I cannot dig myself out of this pit that I have dug for myself. I need a Savior.
 
i http://www.basicscientology.com/basic-scientology.htm
ii (Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels, Vintage Press, 1989, pgs. 18, 37, 42.)