SCIENTOLOGY®
-- Menace to Mental Health
Today's Health, Dec. 1968, p. 34
Couched in pseudoscientific terms and rites, this dangerous cult claims
to help mentally or emotionally disturbed persons -- for sizable fees.
Scientology has grown into a very profitable worldwide enterprise . . .
and a serious threat to health.
By Ralph Lee Smith
[Picture in upper right of page caption: L Ronald Hubbard, Scientology's
founder.]
[Picture in lower left of page caption: Bust of Hubbard flanks
"altar" in Scientology "church" near London. Among
his accomplishments, Hubbard claims to have been dead and recovered, to
have visited Venus and heaven.]
LAST SUMMER in New York City, a seriously disturbed woman who was
receiving psychotherapy heard about a wonderful new way to solve
emotional problems. It was called Scientology. "Step into the
exciting world of the totally free!" Scientology leaflets read.
"Scientology processing releases you smoothly and swiftly from
the tensions, oppositions, frustrations, and problems that sap your
vigor and inhibit your abilities
The woman went to a Scientology center, was impressed by the sales pitch,
signed a contract to be "processed," and informed her analyst
that she was abandoning therapy. "As you know," the enthusiastic
new convert said, "Scientology and psychoanalysis don't mix."
In Washington, D.C., a man of modest means, living with his wife and
family in a suburban home, fell under the Scientology spell. So far he
has spend $5000 being processed.
"The only difference in him," observed a neighbor, "is
that he has lost his sense of humor, constantly talks in a language of
gibberish that no one can understand, and is letting his family drift
slowly into bankruptcy."
A Los Angeles housewife told a district attorney that she had spent
$1000 [illegible - could also be $4000] on Scientology processing, on
assurances that it would help her to overcome frigidity. The net result
of her investment was that her husband divorced her.
Scientology is a cult which thrives on glowing promises that are heady
stuff for the lonely, the weak, the confused, the ineffectual, and the
mentally or emotionally ill. For a healthy fee, Scientology claims it
can "help people do something about the upsets and travails of life.
Hope and happiness can return again through Scientology."
Believers have established a firm foothold in the United States and a
number of foreign countries. From its international headquarters in
England, the organization oversees active groups in Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. In this country, Scientology centers
are operating in major cities including New York, Los Angeles,
Washington, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin,
and Honolulu.
On street corners and college campuses, eager Scientologists press their
literature into the hands of passers-by. Widely advertised free
lectures, films, and parties are given almost continuously at
Scientology centers.
[Picture in upper right caption: Modern teaching methods provide aura of
authenticity to instruction at Hubbard College of Scientology in Great
Britain.]
[Picture in middle right caption: Students practice "auditing,"
using the E-meter, which supposedly measures when a person is suppressing
information.]
[Picture in lower right caption: Popularity of cult spurred expansion of
Saint Hill complex. This recently completed annex is "Castle Number
Two."]
One Scientology source says that the cult is growing at the rate of 250
percent a year in the U.S. Another enthusiast states that the total
membership already is "in the millions."
Whatever the actual figures may be, it is clear that large numbers of
persons are responding to Scientology's promise of a quick, easy road to
mental and emotional health. Unfortunately for many, the road may lead
not to health but to tragedy and disaster for themselves and their
families.
At the head of this activity, ensconced at Saint Hill (a magnificent
18th century manor near London, England), surrounded by servants and
scores of the faithful, with a chauffeur-driven black Jaguar at his
constant disposal, lives a solidly built, broad-faced,
ruddy-complexioned American named L. (for Lafayette) Ron (for Ronald)
Hubbard. Hubbard, the inventor of Scientology and its predecessor
Dianetics, rules over the worldwide organization with a smile, a gentle
voice, and a silken-gloved iron hand. His easy assurance befits a man
who says that he has been up on the Van Allen radiation belts, has
dropped in on the planet Venus, and has visited heaven twice.
Hubbard was born in Tilden, Nebraska, on March 13, 1911. Scientology
literature claims that he graduated with a B.S. in civil engineering
from George Washington University and was "trained as one of the
first nuclear physicists."
In a tax case involving a Scientology center in Washington, D.C.,
university officials testified that Hubbard entered school in 1930, took
-- and flunked -- physics, was placed on probation after his first year,
never returned after his second, and received no degree.
According to Scientology brochures, Hubbard also attended and received a
Ph.D. from an institution called Sequoia University in California. No
such university is recognized by the state Department of Education.
There is a junior college in California named College of the Sequoias,
but this school certainly does not grant doctoral degrees.
In the 1930's, Hubbard became a writer of science fiction and novels,
using such hairy-chested pen names as Winchester Remington Colt. In
1938, he finished the manuscript of a book called Excalibur, containing
the ideas that he later amplified into the concepts of Dianetics and
Scientology.
In World War II he served in the Navy. After he left the service in
1947, he went back to work on his theories. Dianetics, the fruit of his
reflections, was given to the world in an article in the May 1950 issue
of Astounding Science Fiction. Soon thereafter he published a book
entitled Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which became a
surprise best seller. He subsequently made a few additions to his system
and rechristened it Scientology, although the term Dianetics is still
used. Since then he has nearly buried his ideas in millions of words
written in scores of books. He has devised such an elaborate special
vocabulary that he even published a Scientology dictionary to enable
people to plow through his writings
To be continued
SCIENTOLOGY, Menace to Mental Health
Part 2
His basic ideas, however, are simple -- some say simplistic. The mind,
he says, is divided into the analytical mind (which is similar to the
conscious mind of psychology) and the reactive mind (which roughly
corresponds to the unconscious).
The analytical mind is rational: it perceives, reasons, figures things
out. The reactive mind, under certain stimuli, takes over, shorts out
the analytical mind, and causes irrational behavior.
The object of Scientology is to bring the reactive mind under the full
control of the analytical mind, thus achieving "total freedom"
from nutty behavior. This ultimately will bring about "a condition
of high intelligence, above genius," will put the person in
possession of unlimited powers, and will cause him to overflow with
happiness, Hubbard claims.
A person who has achieved this state is called a "clear."
Hubbard, and Hubbard alone, has discovered how people can be
"cleared." Scientology, and Scientology alone, is the avenue
through which it can be accomplished. "No such knowledge has ever
before existed," Hubbard notes modestly, "and no such results
have ever before been attainable."
According to Hubbard, the reactive mind stores "engrams." These
are impressions made on the protoplasm of the mind by an acute emotional
shock or pain. When some incident in the present has elements that
resemble some painful past experience, the appropriate engram is
"keyed in." The reactive mind promptly takes charge of the
person's behavior and causes him to act irrationally.
A third entity in the theory is called the "thetan," which
roughly corresponds to the spirit. A person's thetan, says Hubbard,
is immortal, and has lived in countless bodies, human and animal, on
this and other planets, since the beginning of time. In its wanderings,
it has picked up engrams like barnacles.
To be cleared, a person must be released, not only from engrams created
by traumas in his own life, but from all the engrams that his thetan has
picked up since time began.
A person who arrives on the doorstep of a Scientology center encrusted
with engrams is called a "preclear." On the wall he will find
an immense chart showing the "grades of release" through which
he will pass as he shucks off his engrams. If his money holds out, he
will scale the ladder to blessedness. He is told that it is an easy and
joyful experience, and he will make swift, glorious strides.
Processing involves regular sessions with a Scientology auditor. The
preclear is quoted a blanket price for a series of sessions that will
bring him up to certain specified levels, and he is required to sign a
contract for the full amount. The price works out to about $30 for each
one-hour session. A course that will carry the person up through the
first four stages of release costs about $1000.
Completion of all courses and levels offered by Scientology costs
several thousand dollars. Police records cite the case of one wealthy
Floridian who spend some $28,000 on Scientology processing.
From the time that the Astounding Science Fiction article appeared,
disturbed persons have been beating a path to Hubbard's door to press
their money into his willing hands. Few have heeded the warning of the
American Psychological Association that Hubbard's claims are "not
supported by empirical evidence."
They ignore the statement by the late Dr. William Menninger, one of the
founders of the famed Menninger Clinic of Topeka, Kansas, that Hubbard's
system and ideas "can potentially do a great deal of harm."
[Picture along bottom of page caption: Students, young and old, flock to
Scientology's mecca, Saint Hill, to become auditors and spread the
gospel throughout the world]
In 1955, Hubbard and his third wife Mary Sue set up the "Founding
Church of Scientology" in Washington, D.C.
Three-week intensive processing courses were offered for $1250.
Scientology auditors, calling themselves "ministers," were
instructed by Hubbard in the fine art of beating the bushes for
customers. The techniques included:
"I Will Talk to Anyone." Auditors were instructed to place
newspaper ads saying that "Reverend" so-and-so "will
talk to anyone about anything." When calls were received, the
"minister" assured the caller that his problem was indeed
significant and that he should visit the "church."
When the caller arrived, he was given the pitch on Scientology
processing
"Illness Researchers." Scientology disciples placed newspaper
ads asking victims of polio and other crippling diseases to volunteer for
examination by a "research foundation" or "charitable
organization." When a person responded, he was told "that
there is a way (via Scientology) to improve his ability to walk or
breathe or whatever."
"Casualty Contact." Under this heading, the
"ministers" were instructed in the techniques of the ghoul.
They were to follow accident stories and death notices in newspapers,
note names of families involved, contact them, "express compassion
and concern," and try to get the persons to come to the
Scientology "church."
[Picture in upper right caption: Worldwide headquarters of Scientology
is magnificent Saint Hill Manor at East Grinstead, about 30 miles from
London.]
[Picture in middle right caption: Church of Scientology of California,
housed in Los Angeles mansion, is one of cult's 10 centers in the United
States.]
[Picture in lower right caption: Hubbard's writings and devices are
major sources of cult's profits. Books sell for up to $7; E-meters cost
about $149.]
Today's Health, Dec., 1968
Part 3
In the four-year period from June 1955 to June 1959, the center brought
in $758,982. It denied that it owed any federal taxes on this amount
since it was a church. The Internal Revenue Service began an investigation.
In March 1959, Ron and Mary Sue moved to England to preside over the
expansion of Scientology from Saint Hill Manor. The tax case moved
slowly. Finally, in August 1968, the U.S. Court of Claims ruled that the
Washington center was not a church but a profit-making commercial
enterprise, and required that it pay taxes.
The Scientology movement is coordinated and governed through the
"Hubbard Communications Office-World Wide" (HCO-WW) at Saint
Hill. This office distributes Hubbard's decisions, policies, dicta, and
accounts of such things as his visits to heaven. It is also Hubbard's
vigilant international collection agency, raking in a slice of the action
wherever preclears are being processed.
"Subsequent to L. Ron Hubbard's departure to Saint Hill," says
the U.S. government, "the weekly remissions by the affiliated
Scientology churches and congregations and franchised Scientologists (of
10 percent of their gross income) were made directly to L. Ron Hubbard
in the name of HCO-WW. Some of these checks were deposited in banks in
Switzerland."
The international office's take also is increased by Hubbard's refusal
to permit most of his centers and franchisees to process preclears all
the way up to the state of clear. After the clients have reached a
certain level, they must make the journey to Saint Hill for the final
stages of clearing, and may be declared clear only by the Saint Hill
Qualifications Division.
The Saint Hill headquarters recently inaugurated a super course for
people who have been cleared, which carries them yet another step upward
to the state of O.T. -- "operating thetan." This state is
described as achieving something akin to complete omnipotence.
(The only operating thetan that I have met is the co-owner of a
Scientology franchise who recently returned from Sain Hill, his O.T.
certificate in hand. He is a former narcotics user, a former proprietor
of a health-food store, and an enthusiastic proselytizer for the
"macrobiotic diet," a fad that recently caused at least one
person to die of malnutrition. He usually is attired in unpressed
dungaree pants and shirt, with a dingy T-shirt visible at the neck.)
What goes on in Scientology auditing sessions? Preclears won't tell you
-- they are forbidden to discuss their experience with anyone. They also
are forbidden to speak any word of disparagement of Scientology to the
press or to listen to any condemnation of the cult. If the preclear's
superiors think that he is guilty of any conduct "undertaken knowingly
to suppress, reduce, or impede Scientology or Scientologists," he may
find himself labeled a P.T.S. -- potential trouble source and charged
with "high crimes." The penalty is dismissal from Scientology.
Others in Scientology, who might presumably include his friends and/or
members of this family, are instructed to "disconnect" from him.
[Picture in upper left caption: Students examine clay figures, which are
used to depict preclear's progress up through the various grades of
Scientology.]
However, the procedures used in Scientology auditing are easily obtained
without imperiling any preclears. Hubbard goes into them in detail in
his books.
The first step is to get a preclear "securely under the auditor's
command." The preclear is required to answer very simple questions
over and over again, or is ordered to move a small object around a table,
starting it, stopping it, and changing its direction at the auditor's
command.
These exercises are carried on until the preclear responds to all
questions and commands "quickly and accurately and without
protest."
The auditor then begins to ask certain rather oddly worded questions,
such as "Tell me something real," or "Can you not-know
something about that person?"
Following this confusing concept of "not-knowing," the
preclear is led to deny the existence of objects around him.
"The auditor should not be startled when, for the precelar, large
chunks of the environment start to disappear."
But, Hubbard cautions, "the environment does not disappear for the
auditor." This mind-numbing questioning is "continued for 25
hours or even 50 or 75 hours."
If the preclear shows a tendency to respond by bringing up some genuine
current problem in his life, such tendencies are sternly cut off.
"To a preclear who is worried about some present-time situation or
problem," says Hubbard, "no other process has any greater
effectiveness than the following one: The auditor, after a very brief
discussion of the problem, asks the preclear to `invent=B4 a problem of
comparable magnitude then lie about the problem he has . . . After he
has lied about the problem for a short time, he will be able to invent
problems. He should be made to invent problem after problem until he is
no longer concerned with his present-time problem."
Instead of discussing present reality, the auditor wishes to push the
preclear into a world of fantasy. To help him, he uses a device called
an E-meter, which consists of a meter and knobs mounted in a small
housing. In the sessions, the auditor and preclear sit facing each other
across a small table.
The E-meter is placed on the table with its face visible to the auditor
only. The preclear is given two tin cans to hold in his hands. The cans
are attached to the E-meter by wires.
As the preclear answers the questions, the auditor watches the meter's
needle. Certain movements of the needle supposedly mean that the
preclear is suppressing something. The auditor "listens, computes,
and commands," closing in relentlessly until the preclear comes up
with the "suppressed information."
When the preclear is eager to cooperate, is fully under the sway of the
auditor's will and the apparently scientific verdict of the E-meter, he
accepts the auditor's statement that he is suppressing something, even
if he can't remember anything.
Sooner or later he begins to exhibit symptoms resembling those of
schizophrenia. These symptoms are encouraged; the preclear is given to
believe that the hallucinations he is experiencing are factual incidents
of his thetan's past, and that his discovery of them is the high road to
health and freedom.
Hubbard has published numerous stories that preclears have told in
Scientology auditing sessions about their thetans' past histories.
Today's Health, Dec., 1968
Part 4 (Conclusion)
Hubbard has published numerous stories that preclears have told in
Scientology auditing sessions about their thetans' past histories.
One preclear said that his thetan had inhabited the body of a doll on
the planet Mars, 469,476,600 years ago. Martians seized the doll and
took it to a temple, where it was zapped by a bishop's gun while the
congregation chanted "God is Love." The thetan was then put
into an ice cube, placed aboard a flying saucer, and dropped off at
Planet ZX 132, where it was given a robot body, then put to work
unloading flying saucers. Being a bit unruly, it zapped another robot
to death, and was shipped off in a flyer saucer to be punished. But
the saucer exploded, and the thetan fell into space.
Another preclear recalled that he had been Mark Antony. He remembered
Cleopatra, but she apparently had given him such a whopping engram that
he couldn't recall the battles of Philippi and Actium.
A woman patient remembered that she had once been a male lion that had
gotten an engram by eating its keeper. This enlightening discovery, says
Hubbard, cured her psychosis.
As each trauma in the thetan's past is "discovered," the
auditor pushes the preclear for all the details he can supply. The
event is then discussed until the preclear no longer reacts to it
emotionally, and until there is no movement on the needle of the
E-meter. The engram caused by the event has then be "flattened,"
or erased.
To anyone but a Scientologist, it need hardly be said that the E-meter
cannot register, record, or assist the memory in recalling ray-gun
zappings, Cleopatra's wiles, badly behaved lions, or other alleged
incidents of one's past.
Far from being a triumphant product of space-age science, the E-meter is
simply a Wheatstone bridge, a circuit that has been used in quack
medical devices for decades. All its wiggling needle registers is the
body's varying resistance to a current provided by a small battery.
In its tax case against the Founding Church of Scientology, the
government said that E-meters cost $12.50 to build, and were sold to
Scientology auditors for prices ranging from $125 to $144.
Hubbard and his followers have claimed that the E-meter could be used to
detect and treat scores of human ills, from colds to cancer. In 1963,
the U.S. government seized a number of the devices from the Washington
Church of Scientology, charging that they were misbranded. The
Scientology group contested the seizure.
In the trial, held in April 1967, the jury returned a verdict for the
government. The case is being appealed.
Scientologists now seem to be making fewer claims for the E-meter's
effectiveness in treating physical ills, but its use for finding engrams
continues in full swing.
Scientology makes an active attempt to lure people away from
psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. "A Dianetic auditor can do more
permanent good for a person than every psychologist and psychiatrist in
the world wrapped up together," a Scientology official told a group
of persons at a lecture I attended.
A necessary condition for receiving Scientology processing, says a
letter addressed to preclears by the Church of Scientology of California,
is "nonreceipt of any other form of guidance, counsel, or
treatment."
Scientologists are amused by the notion that long preparation may be
needed to deal with human emotional problems. "A psychiatrist spends
16 years in school," a Scientology auditor told me with a grin.
"We train a Dianetic auditor in 30 days."
Scientologists are equally amused by the idea that different kinds of
problems may require different kinds of treatment. "We use exactly
the same process for each person," the Scientology auditor told
me. "It is a science."
In fact, such sessions with nonprofessional personnel are likely to
further confuse rather than help a psychologically disturbed person. In
Australia, a government board of inquiry listened with dismay in an
adjoining room as a Scientology auditor processed an emotionally upset
woman. She floundered her way through the nightmarish session, then
feebly said she felt it had helped her. Nine days later, she was
committed to a mental hospital. The investigators discovered that other
Scientology clients also had been turned over to mental institutions
after processing.
In my visits to Scientology centers I encountered many enthusiastic
persons who claimed that they had achieved fantastic progress in short
periods of time through Scientology. They evinced total belief in the
system. Their attitudes toward their auditors, toward persons running
the Scientology centers, and above all, toward Ron Hubbard, bordered on
reverence.
Such attitudes are familiar to every psychotherapist and psychoanalyst.
In the early stages of treatment, the patient usually regards his
analyst as a paragon of wisdom and knowledge. He also experiences what
he believes are sweeping "insight," and feels that he is making
dramatic progress.
One of the many fundamental differences between Scientology and
psychotherapy is that a genuine therapist or analyst knows that these
feelings are illusory, and that they must be transcended by the patient
on his way to real emotional health.
The analyst is not a god, a lawgiver, or a great discoverer, but a
fallible human being. Genuine insight comes with painful slowness, and
feelings of swift progress are nearly always a chimera.
By contrast, Scientology keeps the patient in this illusory state and
exploits it for profit. Instead of being totally free, a clear is a
person who believes totally in Scientology and who totally reveres Ron
Hubbard. The clear feels, with happy certainty, that he now relates to
the world with complete success.
But this view usually is not shared by the world. To his family and
friends, the person who enters ever more deeply into Scientology seems
to drift further and further from reality and to live more and more in
the special in-group world that Scientology has created.
Communication between converts and the rest of the world lapses and
fails. The Scientologist believes that he is privy to exclusive truth,
while everyone else suspects that he has gone over the deep edge.
In the summer of 1968 a furor arose in Great Britain about the
ever-swelling flood of Americans coming to Saint Hill to be cleared. The
British Ministry of Health received some 65 letters of complaint from
disillusioned former Scientologists and from relatives and friends of
persons who were actively involved in the cult.
Matters came to a head when the Ministry learned that the Hubbard forces
at Saint Hill were preparing to process children.
While the authorities had no power to close down the operation, they
barred Americans from coming to Britain on student visas to study at
Saint Hill.
Scientology, warned British Health Minister Kenneth Robinson, is
"socially harmful . . . Its authoritarian principles and practices
are a potential menace to the personality of those so deluded as to become
followers."
Shortly after this condemnation, Hubbard embarked on an extended
Mediterranean cruise aboard his luxurious yacht. But his organization is
still active.
Unfortunately, the numbers of those "so deluded" apparently are
increasing. Before it finally goes the way of all cults, Scientology may
leave behind a legacy of tragedy unmatched in the annals of fads and
fallacies in mental health.
Today's Health Dec. 1994
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