scientology article saturday evening post

8/13/2019 Scientology Article Saturday Evening Post

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SeielllolofJY's inventor - L. Ron Hubbard.

Saint Hill Manor is a traditionalold English mansion that standsbehind a high gateway on a quict Sussex road some 30 miles south of London. Its size and agc-it was built inI72S-give it an impressive but faintlybrooding air. Before 1959 it was ownedby the Maharaja of Jaipur, and beforethat by Mrs. Anthony Drexcl Biddlc.But it is a safe bet that in all its 236years Saint Hill Manor has never seenanybody quite like its present owner,Dr. Lafayette Ronald Hubbard .Doctor Hubba rd is a big , orangehaired. 52-year-old American who de

scribes himself as an author, explorer,cientist, boatsman, engi neer, gliderpilot, philosopher, movie writer. student of the occult and the real-lifemodel of Mister Roberts in thenovel of the same name. The mostfascinating side of his many-facetedis the Doctorbefore his name. He is not an M.D.but a D. Sen., which stands for Doctorof Scientology. This is a degree thatbrings a look of puzzlement to aohns Hopkins or a Harvard registrar,but Scientology, a growing international movement with branches onll five con tinents, is close to DoctorHubbard's heart. He is not only itshead and best-known practit ioner ; hectua lly invented it.Essentially Scientology is an outof an American fad of the early1950's ca lled Dianetics, wh ich was alsonvented by Dr. L. Ron Hubbard.be a sort ofreligion; ' but it is not affi liated withany of the broad U.S. church movements. It has elements wh ich resemblepsychoanalysis, although leading psychiatrists bitterly reject it. Even Hubbard, who has written 10 million words

about Scientology, seems to have diffiit. He currently calls itthe Common people's science of lifebetterment:' but this is only theatest of a series of definitions that heas tried and discarded. In view of itsscope, its odd proceduresclaimed for it,

LED BY AN EX-SCIENCE-FICTION WRITER A STRANGE NEW RELIGION IS SPREADING AROUND THE WOR

HAVE YOUEVER BEEN A

BOO-HOO?an attempt to compress Scientology intothe few words of a definition is muchlike trying to gift-wrap a dozen live ee ls.t is easier to explain what Scientologists do. For a fee Hubbard's followerswill audi t or listen to people whohave troubles. They use a small, batteryrun machine known as a HubbardE-meter while they are auditing thepeople with troubles. whom they callpreclears. The machine has two wi resrunning out of it, and these are clampedto a couple of tin cans, wh ich the pre_clear holds whi le he is being audited.The E-meter has knobs and a large dial

wi th a needle, and as the person talks,the need le moves around, wh ich presumably means something to the Sci-cntologist. As Hubbard ' explains itThe meter tells you what the preclear'smind is doing when the preclear is madeto think of something. If they're emotionally disturbed about cats, andthey're talking about cats, the needleHies about. If they're not disturbed aboutcats, the needle doesn't fly abou t. So youlet them talk about cats until they'reno longer disturbed about cats, andthen the needle no longer flies about.Scientology also has many drills forpeople with troubles. In one, you sit ina chair, visualize the two upper cornersof the room, then ho ld these twocorners in your mind and think ofnothing else. This is ca lled HoldingCorners. Its purpose, Hubbard says,is to make you act younger, In another drill the Seientologist reads asentence or two frol11 Alice in Wonderland to the preclear, who repeats itverbatim. The Scientologist thcn says,Thank you, and reads another passage from Alice in Wonder/at/d andthis goes on and on. This drill , calledthe Dcar Alice, is supposed toimprove communication. In at leastone instance it resulted in a completecollapse of communication. A policecaptain in one Eastern city, puzzled byreported goings-on at a ScientologyU. ) . marshal r mo v s m e t e r fromBejel/tnlOfJ I ort/ fter IVm(/ringtol1 -raid.

By JAMES PHEL


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At Scientologu IlCadquarters in London's Saint Hill "Aranor, students of cult learn tow to audit ea clt otlter properly.

A MILESTONE COMPARABLE TO MAN'S DISCOVERY OF FIRE.

c ien to logyoffice, enro lled an undercover man there.The agent spent several bewildering dayslistening to Alice ill Wonderland, repeatingit to the Scielllologist, and gett ingthanked. When he returned to the policestation, his superior asked him what wenton at this Hubbard place. "I 'm not go ingto tell you , said the officer , "because youwon ' t believe me."

The feats Hubbard claims for hisscience are just as unusual. At varioustimes Hubbard has held that Scientology"can cure some seventy percent of man 'sillnesses," that it is the on ly effectivecounterforce to the H-bomb threat andthat it can make you immune to the common cold. He maintains that Scientologycan raise a person's I.Q. one point forevery hour of auditing. ("Our most spectac ular feat was raising a boy from 83 I.Q.to 212," Hubbard told th is reporter.) Heclaims that it can improve the performance of astronauts and help jet pilotsavoid crashes, that it can "arrest the aging process" and make you look younger,that it will restore psychotic persons tosanity much faster and cheaper thanpsychiatry. (" I saw Ron do it in anasylum," says a California follower. "Hejust went along snapping his fingers atthem and saying, 'Come up to presenttime Come up to present time " ')And along with all this, according toHubbard, a Scientologist can move aperson out of his body and let him standover in a corner and look at himself. "Wedon't like to publicize this," says Hubbard, who has publicized it in many ofhis pamphlets. t makes people uneasy."If these marvels seem reminiscent ofthe old-time snake-oil peddler, let it besa id immediate ly that there is nothingold -ti'me about L. Ron Hubbard. A fewfeet from his desk at Saint Hill stands aTelex, giving him instant communicationwith his far-flung branches. "A irmail istoo slow for Scientology," he says. Hubbard speaks easi ly and with seemingauthority about physics, mathematics,nuclear fission , or indeed, a lmost anyscience, and salts his conversation withphrases like "small energy measurement, "stimulus-response cycle" andthings Uke that.Scientology litera ture frequently refersto him as an engineer, a mathematician82

and a nuclear physicist, and Who's Whoill 'he Southwest credits him with an engineering degree at George WashingtonUniversity. The un iversity does not. ltsrecords show that he enrolled in 1930 butnever received a degree of any kind.Today, besides his "DoclOr of Scientology," he appends a Ph.D. to his name.He got it , he says, from Sequoia University. This was a Los Angeles estab lishment, once housed in a residential dwelling, whose degrees are not recognized byany accredited college or university.Hubbard, who was born in Tilden,Nebr., in 1911, has been married threetimes, divorced twice, and is the fatherof seven children. (Scientology is supposed to be superb in healing maritaldifficulties. Hubbard carefu lly points outthat his present wife Wi\S a Scientologistwhen he married her, and that they havebeen happily married for 12 years,whereas the two earlier non-Scientologymarriages were stormy.) He once wrotemovie scripts, his major op us being TheSecrel o/Trewiflre Is/alld, a Co lumbia adventure serial. He se rved as a commissioned Naval officer in World War 1I inboth the Atlantic and Pacific theaters,and after the war banged about L.A. andPasadena, where he was known as a fellow with an intense curiosity.Somewhere along the way he took upthe writing of science fiction, and bothDianetics and Scientology show thestrong influence of his former craft. BothScientology and science fiction are characterized by a rcane words and by invented terms, phrases and abbreviations.Where every science-fiction fan knowsthat a RE.M. is a Bug-Eyed Monster,every Scientologist knows that an "org"is a Scientology group, and that H.A.S.1.is the Hubbard Association of Scientologists Internat ional. Hubbard's followersalso deal with and knowingly discuss suchthings as down-bouncers , Thetans ,M.E.S.T. bodies, lock-scann ing, dub-ins,rock slams, bops, big mid ruds, S.O.P.goals, anaten, engrams, H.C.A.'s andboo-hoos, or weepers. t is not possibleto explain all these in just one magazinearticle, but the "boo-hoo," or "weeper,"deserves some detailing. As p u e oier s gives you the flavor of France, theboo-hoo tells much about Scientology.The boo-hoo, Hubbard writes, was a

clam-like animal that lived millions of

years ago and to pump sea waterfrom its she ll through its eyes. t markedthe transition from life in the sea to lifeon land, and "may be the missing link inthe evolutionary chain ." Life on thebeach was miserable for the boo-hoo;sometimes it wou ld get stranded there,or even attacked by predatory birds.(Hubbard did not expla in where, if lifewas just emerging from the sea, thosebirds came from.) According to Scientology, you may have been a boo-hoo,aeons ago. If you were, your personalityhas been affected by some of the awfu lthings that happened to you as a clam onthe beach at the dawn of time. When aScientologist audits you, he may discover evidence of your life as a clam. Hethen processes this, which is called "running the boo-hoo." This makes you weeplike a clam pumping sea water throughits eyes, after which you fee l better.TwO million membersFor some reason this sort of thing hasattracted a considerable amount of support. According to Hubbard he has"several million" followers in the U.S.,Canada, Mexico, South America, SouthAfrica, Europe, Japan and Australia."Somewhere in the world there is a newScientology office opening every threedays," Hubbard says happily. "We can'tgive you our exact memberShip total,because it doubles every six months."A quick computation shows that if Scientology has two million followers todayand is doubling every six months, it wi ll

num ber more than eight billion peopleby MarCh, 1970. Long before then the lastholdout wi ll Obfious ly have given in , andeveryone on earth will be a Scientologist.There are orgs on five continents, anda heavy sprinkling of Scientology installations across the U.S.: New York,Washington, Detroit, Miami, Chicago,Dallas, Den ver, Minneapolis, Seattle,Honolulu, San Diego and, naturally,Los Angeles. Scientology has also established itself in Auckland, Melbourne,Wellington, Tokyo , Paris, Berlin , London,Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Caracas,Vancou ver , Toronto, Johannesbu rg,Durban , Port Elizabeth, and Bulawayo,Southern Rhodesia.There are also a number of Scientologyacademies, usually coexistent with a large

org. In the U.S. there are twoonein Washington and one inwhich train people in Sc ientothem certificates of variousend them out to train olher ScSaint Hill Manor, which berelation to Scientology that Vhad to psychoanalysis, offerslent of postgraduate courses.training" is necessary to achranks of H.G.A., which stanbard Graduate Auditor. Ththese is an .H .G.A. Class 4Class 4 speaks up, everybodup , says Doctor Hubbardhas roared."Fees vary in the academican get a short, " intensive" chours for $700 or $800. AccScientology pamphlet, "Scisufficiently simple and rapidit requires 12 years to train a eight weeks of heavy traininga person to achieve resultsplete Freudian ana lysis cost$ I 5,000. Better results canin Scientology for $25 and,basis, for a few dollars. "Unfortunately Scientologstraighten out el'eryc lientat thbasement figures. One U.S.partment has a record ofmillionaire who has spe ntSciento logy processing in leyears. Hi s only compla int wvousness" and, before turninto logy. he had been checkeHopkins and Mayo Clin ic,doctors told him they could wrong. '"The common peopdid not give up so easily onFloridian, and at last repodoggedly auditing him .People who encounter Scithe first time are astoundedflung growth. Actually Scienot have to start from scraab le to rise phoenixlike fromof Dianetics, a craze whichU.S. in 1950. t or iginated wthat Hubbard wrote in 60Dial/elics: The Modem ScienHealth. Overnight, Dial1eticrunaway best seller, althoughjournals of psychology, psymedicine all ignored it.

To understand Scientologessary to understand Dianetitology incorporates Dianeticon from there. This is quitecause Hubbard ca lled Dianetstone for Man comparablecovery of fire and superior ttions of the wheel and arch.preached that everybody hadthe "analytical ," similar to Fsc ious," and the "reactive,""unconscious." The analyHubbard maintained, was a pputing mach ine, incapableexcept for "engrams," whicthe computer.Engrams were recorded ontrack" by your reactive mindana lytica l mind wasn' t lookiample, said Hubbard, "Aknocked down by a blow. She'unconscious.' She is kickethat she is no good, that shchanging her mind. A chaturned in the process. A faucein the kitchen. A car is pastreet outside. The engramrunning record of a ll these pLater the engmm gets "keyedsorts of things can happen; may feel a sensation of b


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Student holds metat-con terminals of Hubbard E-JIIeter, as (luditor seeks out 'engrams. 'j'llOuglt SC ientology is set 'Up as a. religion. audUors do 1/ot llsu lly dress a.;; mi1Iis

Neg S/m'I'}Je, Hubbard' ? rig/l.t-lul.11d 111ml. points Ollt 1 ca tiollR ot or gs " 11 ll five contil1ents, H Ibbard cla.ms 1I1embeJ' ?h1p of several miNion, '< Vllic/t. i r; doubling every .r;i.1' mon


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BOTH RUSSIA AND CUBA WANT HIS SECRETS HUBBARD SAYS BUT HE HAS TURNED THEM DOWSciento logywhenever she hears a faucet running.You could also gel p renata l" engrams; Hubbard preached that the embryo recorded engrams in the wombfrom the moment of conception . Mamagets hysterical, baby gets an engram,"Hubbard wrote. Papa hits Mama, babygets an engram. And so it goes," Hubbard maintained that a child whosemother had een pregnant and 'wed in a"shotgun marriage" often could recall,under the ministering of Dianetics, having attended his own parents' wedding.Dianetics taught one how to erase engrams by aud iting. You returned aperson on his time track to the time ofthe engram and had him talk it out by" reliving" it. Once a ll the engrams wereerased, a person would become a"clearH-highly intelligent, healthy, witha great zest for life, enormously improved abilities and a perfect memory.In sho rt, a giant among pygmies. Dianetics was enough like psychoanalysis toimpress a good many people, and alsohad the advantage that anyone whobought Hubbard 's book could play doctor at home, without a ll those tediousyears in medical school. In no time hundreds of thousands of Americans, armedwith Hubbard's book, were playing Sigmund Freud for each other.

For some hect ic, glorious months Hubbard was one of the busiest lecturers inthe U.S. He acquired advisers, managers,press agents. A Dianetics Foundationwas set up in New Jersey. He was e-sieged by admiring fans and feted inHollywood. Across the country psychiatrists seethed in wardl y. So did the rest ofthe medical fraternity, resentful at hispreaching that the erasing of engramswou ld cure most of man's ailments.In New Jersey, when his foundationwas charged with violat ion of the medicalpractice act , his followers packed uptheir E-meters and fled to Kansas. Butthe boom was already fading, and with ina year the fad had died. Dianelics wasput away on the top shelf with the oldalm anacs, and people turned to hypnotic"age regression" and The Search jorBridey Murphy Hubbard retreated toArizona to plan for the future , droppingout of the news entirely. Hn 1954 I evengot a letter from the Encyclopaedia r -lannica asking what had become ofDianetics," he recalls with a sm ile.Little did the Encyclopaedia Britannicaknow. Despite the public's mass defection, a few thousand stalwart believersacross the country st ill clung to the faith.By 1952 Hubbard was regrouping hisforces, and Dianetics was preparing tosa lly forth on little cat feet under thebrand-new name of Scientology.But this time there would be no publicity, no press agen ts. He quietly builtfrom the ground up, establishing his orgs,setting up his lines of communication,training his staff men.

Hubbard establ ished one importantdifference between Scientology and Dianetics. Instead of presenting it to thepublic as a science equal in importanceto the discovery of fire, he set it up as areligion. Many of the orgs are now84

labeled and chartered as churches. Atthe outset this move distressed his followers, some of whom we re science-fictionfans, free-th inkers and even agnost ics.To some this seems mere opportunism," Hubbard quickly explained, to

some it would seem that Scientology issimply making itself bulletproof in theeyes of the law, and to some it mightappear that any association with religionis a reduction of the ethics and purposesof Scientology itself_ _ _ _ Why shou ldScientology a lly itself with religion?There are many, many reasons. Amongstthem is that a society accords to men ofthe church an access not given to others.Prisons, hospitals and institutionscannot do otherwise than we lcome menof the church ,"The rebellion dwindled, and the newfaith went forth. With sca rcely a whisperof publicity Scientology spread and prospered. Hubbard himself took it to England, found that he liked the country andsettled tbere.

Although he is founder a nd unquestioned titular head of the Chu rch ofScientology, Ron Hubbard does not lookupon himself as patriarch, pope, bishopor even elder. " 1 control the operation,"he says, as a general manager wouldcontrol any operation of a company."The orgs or churches pay 10 percent oftheir take to the Saint Hill center. Hubbard insists that he does not profit fromScientology but draws only a token salaryof $70 a week. He claims he is "independently wealthy" and that Scientologyis a labor of love." Just exactly wherethe 10 percent goes is not clear; Hubbardsays he has spent a million dollars ortwo" on research. He does not like to talkabout money; he responds to questionsabout it wi th a smile, a sad shake of thehead and a comment about the American preoccupation."Despite Hubbard's claim that he isleadi ng a religious movement, the Foodand Drug Administration moved againsthim in ear ly 1963. They raided his headquarters in Washington, D.C., seizing ahundred E-meters and copies of some ofHubbard 's publications on the groundsthat the meters were "misbranded"devices claiming "diagnosis, prevention,treatment, detection and elimination ofthe causes of all mental and nervous disorders such as neuroses, psychoses, schizoph renia, and a ll psychosomatic ai lments, " including " most of tbe physicala ilments of mankind such as arthrit is,cancer, sto mach ulcers, radiat ion burnsfrom atomi c bombs, polio, the commonco ld The books were seized, theFDA sa id , as labeling containing therapeutic claims charged to e fa lse."The Scientologists claimed religiouspersecution , showering congressmen andthe White House with angry letters andtelegrams. They complained about " Gestapo attacks" on " our confessionals." Letters to the late President andthe Attorney General called on themto protect the sanctity of the religionof Scientology, "even though you areof a different faith. " The Washington headquarters of Scientology asked,Are we in America today living undera Godless government which intends

ultimately to destroy a ll religions?"At Saint Hill Manor Hubbard focusedon the book seizures. which he referredto as " book burning." He expressed adesire to meet personally with PresidentKennedy to "come to some am icab leunderstanding on religious matters." Noanswer was forthcoming, a nd the envisioned summit meeting of Saint Hilland the White House glimmered away.Scientology has appea led the FDA -seizure in court, and the case wi ll go to trialsometime this year.Hubbard admits that m istakes weremade" back in the 1950's, but he insiststhat he now hammers at Scientologists" not to treat the sick or insane," andthat h any physical illness which is manifestly physical illness, or even questionable, is turned over immediately to themedical docto r .Nevertheless, his orgs sti ll peddle theDianetics vo lume as the basic book."In a ll the editions it has gone through,Hu bbard has never altered its claim thatengrams are " the hidden source of allpsychosomatic ills and human abe rration," or that with the book an "intelligent layman can successfu lly and invariably treat a ll ps ychosomatic ills andinorganic aberrations," Says Hubbardproudly, It is still selling like mad."No secret can be sa le

Scientologists have an interesting ex planation of any hostility toward theirmovement, whether by organizations likethe FDA or by individuals. People whooppose Scientology. Hubbard says, areafraid of it because 3 Scientologist canF1ND out The secrets of a person whois evilly disposed toward his fellows arenot safe around a Scientologist. "Hostility toward Scientology can evene defined as refusing to pay a Scientologist's bill . A middlewesterner, whose sonowed a New York Scientologist $350 for"processing," at 22 an hour. complainedthat the treatment was worth less anddeclined to pay. He received a two-pageleller on the letterhead of The Found ingChurch of Scientology bearing the handwritten signature of a Rev. AndrewBagley, Organization Secretary. " If youwant to start a donnybrook, buddy.wail away." the letter said. To use theargot of the streets, I'll just sta rt mypeople to work on you, and then beforelong you will be broke and out of a job ,and broken in health. Then I can havemy nasty little chuckle about you.You won' t take long to finish off. I wouldestimate three weeks. Remember: I amnot a m e l y ~ m o u t h e psalm-cantingpreacher. I am a minister of the Church

of Scientology I am able to heal the sickand 1 do. But) have other ab ilities, whichinclude a knowledge of men's minds that1 will use to crush you to your knees,"The recipient quickly ponied up themoney.As befits the head of a five-continentoperation, Hubbard thinks globally, andcurrent ly he is wrest ling with a globalpolitical problem. Although Washingtonseems blind to the vast potentials ofScientology, he says the Red Bloc is not.He has been approached, says Hubbard,

by Castro's government, which watrain a corps of 50 in Scientologyeven wi lling to send them to Londothe training. As far back as 1938,bard says, the Russians were anglihis services. " ) was put under conable argument and stress," he re"They offered me $200,000, all lato ry facilities, everything 1 needRussia." He turned them down, bard says, and later his apartmentblasted open" and his "basic manuscdisappeared.

We have no objection whatsoemaking Russians sane, or Cubans ssays Hubbard , "or even U.S. governofficials sane." But Hubbard realiz"defense potential" of Scientology.can raise the I.Q. ofa scientist one pper hour of processing. and we can rthe reaction time of a pilot at will1/6Oth of a second. If offered to a fostate, Scientology could cause theto suffer a reverse in war. This ispackage, a nd 1 don't care to havemy hip pocket forever Aftewe're not dealing wi th Joe Blowcrazy inventor of pocomonoda. Iwe're dealing with stuff that has abackground."A man with his inventiveness douwill solve this problem, as he has sso many others. Meanwhile he rechas completed a whole new " resline" -subject undisclosed-and isparing it for publication.Perhaps it will provide the defianswer to a question that some oenemies have raised. They have saidthe very man who had discovere"clear, had never himself been procto that high plateau of almost shum an ability.

That is the wildest pitch I'veheard," he sa id wi th indigna tioncourse .I've been processed to 'clearHowever, the definition of clearbeen changed somewhat from thdays of Dianetics, when it meant afreed of engrams, with a flawlesslytioning mind, fantastic abi lities andrecall. Since then Hubbard discothat people have a time track thatback not just to their conceptioperhaps to the clam-like boo-hoomisty beginn ings of life. Hubbardnew, and slightly more modest, defiof clear." t now means "a personhas litis lifetime stra igh'tened out ."Having exp lained this, the masSaint Hill Manor rings for his bShepheardson, who fetches his afteCoke on a tra y. Twice a day thetruck swings in through the gatbringing the letters from his follin a bag that Hubbard calls theClaus pack." If he wishes a bit of achauffeur will wheel out a new Amecar or his Jaguar. And as he sitsgazing contentedly out over the acres of what was once a mahaestate, the profound truth of whsays becomes apparent. Lafayette RHubbard, Doctor of Scientology, mdeed be a man who has this lifstraightened out. THEhi, d ily rit lULl , Shephell.rl tson, Hubblltler, /ti m oke on a sit ver


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scientology article saturday evening post

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