Dianetics

Dianetics is a body of theory and associated practices developed by author L. Ron Hubbard regarding the relationship of the mind and the body. Hubbard believed most mental and physical problems are caused by traumatic memories (which he called "engrams") that are stored in the unconscious mind—in his terminology, the "reactive mind". The goal of Dianetics is to become rid (or "cleared") of this portion of one's mind. Once at this state of "Clear," according to Hubbard, an individual becomes able to function at his or her full potential. The primary practice of Dianetics is "auditing", in which a "pre-clear" (usually with the assistance of an "auditor") attempts to confront the engrams in his reactive mind and resolve them, thus treating the wide variety of conditions that they cause. Auditing frequently uses a device called an E-meter, which measures the electrical resistance of the human body and which followers of Hubbard claim actually "measures the spiritual state or change of state of a person".

Hubbard first introduced Dianetics to the general public in April 1950, in an article published in the Astounding Science Fiction pulp magazine. Among the notable differences between this and subsequent versions of Dianetics was that engrams were referred to as "Norns". "Impediment" and "comanome" had also been tried as names before "engram" was adapted from its existing usage at the suggestion of Joseph Winter. Some commentators noted Dianetics' blend of science fiction and occult orientations at the time

In his subsequent 1950 book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard presented Dianetics as a revolutionary and scientifically developed alternative to conventional psychotherapy and psychiatry, claiming that it could increase intelligence, eliminate unwanted emotions and alleviate a wide range of illnesses he regarded as psychosomatic.

Dianetics is the secular predecessor of Hubbard's "applied religious philosophy," Scientology, and it is still employed and disseminated by the Church of Scientology. It is also practiced by independent groups in what is collectively called the Free Zone, although sometimes with great variations from what the Church openly teaches today. The Church does not approve of Free Zone activities and has pursued them in court for appropriation of Scientology/Dianetics trademarks. Dianetics has been highly controversial since its introduction. While some practitioners testify that they have found Dianetics techniques to be personally effective, it is considered pseudoscience and quackery by the majority of scientists, science historians and members of the medical community. The mainstream scientific community has never recognized Hubbard's "Modern Science of Mental Health" as a bona fide scientific theory. The troubled histories of the organizations established to promote Dianetics have added to the controversy surrounding it.

Basic concepts of Dianetics
Hubbard coined Dianetics from the Greek stems dia, meaning through, and nous, meaning mind, resulting in a word similar to the already-existing Greek adjective dianoētik-os διανοητικ-ός, meaning "mental" (compare Aristotle's dianoetic virtues). His choice of the suffix "-etics" (meaning, roughly, "discipline") may have been inspired by cybernetics, a vogue idea at the time of Dianetics' establishment. Indeed, Hubbard stated that Dianetics "forms a bridge between" cybernetics and General Semantics, a set of ideas about education originated by Alfred Korzybski that was receiving much attention in the science fiction world in the 1940s.

Hubbard described Dianetics as "an organized science of thought built on definite axioms: statements of natural laws on the order of those of the physical sciences". Unlike conventional medical or mental therapies, Hubbard said, Dianetics would work every time if applied properly and "will invariably cure all psychosomatic ills and human aberrations." In April 1950, before the public release of Dianetics, he wrote: "To date, over two hundred patients have been treated; of those two hundred, two hundred cures have been obtained."

In Dianetics, the human mind is described as a collection of "mental image pictures," which contain the recorded memory of a past moment, including all sensory perceptions and feelings involved. One type of mental image picture, created during a period of unconsciousness, involves the memory of a painful experience. Hubbard called this memory an engram, and defined it as "a complete recording of a moment of unconsciousness containing physical pain or painful emotion and all perceptions."

Hubbard proposed that physical or mental traumas caused "aberrations" (deviations from straight thinking) in the mind, which produced adverse physical and emotional effects. The conscious or analytical mind, out of a desire for survival, would instinctively shut down during moments of stress; the memories recorded during this period would be stored as engrams in the unconscious or reactive mind. Thus, in moments of stress the conscious mind would shut down, and the engrams created during this period would be stored in the unconscious mind.

Dianetics identifies these engrams as the cause of almost all mental and physical problems. In addition to containing memories of physical pain, engrams can also include unfortunate words or phrases overheard by the patient while he was unconscious. For instance, Winter cites the example of a patient with a persistent headache supposedly tracing the problem to a doctor saying "Take him now" during the preclear's birth. Hubbard similarly claims that the cause of the blood cancer leukemia is traceable to "an engram containing the phrase 'It turns my blood to water.'" While it is sometimes claimed that the Church of Scientology no longer stands by the claims of Hubbard that Dianetics can treat physical conditions, it still publishes them:  "... when the knee injuries of the past are located and discharged, the arthritis ceases, no other injury takes its place and the person is finished with arthritis of the knee." "[the reactive mind] can give a man arthritis, bursitis, asthma, allergies, sinusitis, coronary trouble, high blood pressure ... And it is the only thing in the human being which can produce these effects ... Discharge the content of [the reactive mind] and the arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalog of ills goes away and stays away."

Some of the psychometric ideas in Dianetics can be traced to Sigmund Freud, whom Hubbard credited as an inspiration and was said to have used as a source. Freud had speculated forty years previously that traumas with similar content join together in "chains," embedded in the unconscious mind, to cause irrational responses in the individual. Such a chain would be relieved by inducing the patient to remember the earliest trauma, "with an accompanying expression of emotion."

With the use of Dianetics techniques, Hubbard claimed, the reactive mind could be destroyed and all stored engrams could be purged. The central technique was "auditing," a two-person question-and-answer therapy designed to isolate and dissipate engrams (or "mental masses"). An auditor addresses questions to a subject, observes and records the subject's responses, and returns repeatedly to memories or areas of discussion that appear painful until the troubling memory has been identified and confronted. Through repeated applications of this method, the reactive mind could be "cleared" of its content and permanently done away with entirely; a person who had completed this process would become a "Clear."

The benefits of going Clear, according to Hubbard, were dramatic. A Clear would have no compulsions, repressions, psychoses or neuroses, and would enjoy a near-perfect memory as well as a rise in IQ of as much as fifty points. He also claimed that atheism, "zealotism" (by which he seems to have meant fundamentalism) and homosexuality could be "cured" through Dianetics, if they were caused by engrams. He further believed that widespread application of Dianetics would result in "A world without insanity, without criminals and without war,"

Hubbard stated that as many as seventy percent of physical illnesses are psychosomatic and can be cured by Dianetics, including asthma, poor eyesight, color blindness, hearing deficiencies, stuttering, allergies, sinusitis, arthritis, high blood pressure, coronary trouble, dermatitis, ulcers, migraine, conjunctivitis, morning sickness, alcoholism, tuberculosis and the common cold, to which Clears would be immune. The Church of Scientology has consistently advertised Dianetics as a means to physical cures, and its website includes claims that while a student seeks spiritual gain with Dianetics "the arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalog of ills goes away and stays away."

According to a Scientology Journal called "The Auditor," the total number of "Clears" as of April 2006 stands at 50,151. One critical organization's analysis, however, brings the accuracy of the official figures into question.

Scientific evaluations of Dianetics
Hubbard's original book on Dianetics attracted highly critical reviews from science and medical writers and organisations. The American Psychological Association passed a resolution in 1950 calling "attention to the fact that these claims are not supported by empirical evidence of the sort required for the establishment of scientific generalizations." See Scientific method.

Subsequently, Dianetics has achieved no general acceptance as a bona fide scientific theory. Many scientifically informed voices have criticized Dianetics as a classic example of pseudoscience.

Few scientific investigations into the effectiveness of Dianetics have been published. Professor John A. Lee states in his 1970 evaluation of Dianetics:


 * Objective experimental verification of Hubbard's physiological and psychological doctrines is lacking. To date, no regular scientific agency has established the validity of his theories of prenatal perception and engrams, or cellular memory, or Dianetic reverie, or the effects of Scientology auditing routines. Existing knowledge contradicts Hubbard's theory of recording of perceptions during periods of unconsciousness.

The MEDLINE database records two independent scientific studies on Dianetics, both conducted in the 1950s under the auspices of New York University. Harvey Jay Fischer tested Dianetics therapy against three claims made by proponents and found it does not effect any significant changes in intellectual functioning, mathematical ability, or the degree of personality conflicts; Jack Fox tested Hubbard's thesis regarding recall of engrams, with the assistance of the Dianetic Research Foundation, and could not substantiate it. Dianetics advocates question the validity of these studies, criticizing the authors' qualifications and methodology.

Hubbard claimed, in an interview with the New York Times in November 1950, that "he had already submitted proof of claims made in the book to a number of scientists and associations. He added that the public as well as proper organizations were entitled to such proof and that he was ready and willing to give such proof in detail." In January 1951, the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation of Elizabeth, NJ published Dianetic Processing: A Brief Survey of Research Projects and Preliminary Results, a booklet providing the results of psychometric tests conducted on 88 people undergoing Dianetics therapy. It presents case histories and a number of X-ray plates to support claims that Dianetics had cured "aberrations" including manic depression, asthma, arthritis, colitis and "overt homosexuality," and that after Dianetic processing, test subjects experienced significantly increased scores on a standardized IQ test. The report's subjects are not identified by name, but one of them is clearly Hubbard himself ("Case 1080A, R. L.").

The authors provide no qualifications, although they are described in Hubbard's book Science of Survival (where some results of the same study were reprinted) as psychotherapists. Critics of Dianetics are skeptical of this study, both because of the bias of the source and because the researchers appear to ascribe all physical benefits to Dianetics without considering possible outside factors; in other words, the report lacks any scientific controls. J.A. Winter, M.D., originally an associate of Hubbard and an early adopter of Dianetics, wrote an account of his personal positive experiences with Dianetics, but criticized the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation for failing to undertake "precise scientific research into the functioning of the mind".

Commentators from a variety of backgrounds have described Dianetics as an example of pseudoscience, that is, information which claims to be scientific but which fails to meet the basic criteria for science. For example, philosophy professor Robert Carroll points to Dianetics' lack of empirical evidence:


 * What Hubbard touts as a science of mind lacks one key element that is expected of a science: empirical testing of claims. The key elements of Hubbard's so-called science don't seem testable, yet he repeatedly claims that he is asserting only scientific facts and data from many experiments. It isn't even clear what such "data" would look like. Most of his data is in the form of anecdotes and speculations ... Such speculation is appropriate in fiction, but not in science.

W. Sumner Davis similarly comments that


 * Dianetics is nothing more than an example of pseudoscience trying to legitimize itself... Hubbard, had he indeed been a scientist, would have known that truth is not built on axioms, and facts cannot be found from some a-priori knowledge. A true science is constructed on hypotheses, which are arrived at by the virtue of observed phenomena. Scientific knowledge is gained by observation and testing, not believing from some subconscious stipulation, as Hubbard would have us believe.

In the years since its introduction, Dianetics has become a sub-study of the spirtually focused "applied religious philosophy" of Scientology, and the Church of Scientology places little emphasis on Hubbard's original claims to have created a "modern science." Current practioners of Dianetics typically believe that charges of pseudoscience are irrelevant, emphasizing that their own experience of the therapy's "workability" is far more important to them than the imprimatur of official science.

Dianetics procedure in practice
The procedure of Dianetics therapy – known as auditing, from the Latin audire, "to listen" – is a two-person activity. One person, the "auditor", guides the other person, the "preclear" (often also referred to by Hubbard as the "patient"), through a series of steps set out in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and the accompanying Hubbard Dianetics Seminar work-book. The preclear's job is to look at the mind and talk to the auditor. The auditor acknowledges what the preclear says and controls the process so the preclear may put his full attention on his work.

The auditor and preclear sit down in chairs facing each other. The process then follows in eleven distinct steps:


 * 1. The auditor assures the preclear that he will be fully aware of everything that happens during the session.


 * 2. The preclear is instructed to close his eyes for the session, entering a state of "dianetic reverie", signified by "a tremble of the lashes". During the session, the preclear remains in full possession of his will and retains full recall thereafter.


 * 3. The auditor installs a "canceller", an instruction intended to absolutely cancel any form of positive suggestion that could accidentally occur. This is done by saying "In the future, when I utter the word 'cancelled,' everything I have said to you while you are in a therapy session will be cancelled and will have no force with you. Any suggestion I may have made to you will be without force when I say the word 'cancelled.' Do you understand?"


 * 4. The auditor then asks the preclear to locate an exact record of something that happened to the preclear in his past: "Locate an incident that you feel you can comfortably face."


 * 5. The preclear is invited by the auditor to "Go through the incident and say what is happening as you go along."


 * 6a. The auditor instructs the preclear to recall as much as possible of the incident, going over it several times "until the preclear is cheerful about it".


 * 6b. When the preclear is cheerful about an incident, the auditor instructs the preclear to locate another incident: "Let's find another incident that you feel you can comfortably face." The process outlined at steps 5 and 6a then repeats until the auditing session's time limit (usually two hours or so) is reached.


 * 7. The preclear is instructed to "return to present time".


 * 8. The auditor checks to make sure that the preclear feels himself to be in "present time", i.e. not still recalling a past incident.


 * 9. The auditor gives the preclear the canceller word: "Very good. Cancelled."


 * 10. The auditor tells the preclear to feel alert and return to full awareness of his surroundings: "When I count from five to one and snap my fingers you will feel alert. Five, four, three, two, one." (Snap!)

Auditing sessions are kept confidential. However, a few transcripts of auditing sessions with confidential information removed have been published as demonstration examples. Some extracts can be found in Dr. J.A. Winter's book Dianetics: A Doctor's Report. Other, more comprehensive, transcripts of auditing sessions carried out by Hubbard himself can be found in volume 1 of the Research & Discovery Series (Bridge Publications, 1980). Examples of public group processing sessions can be found throughout the Congress Lecture series.

According to Hubbard, auditing enables the preclear to "contact" and "release" engrams stored in the reactive mind, relieving him of the physical and mental aberrations connected with them. The preclear is asked to inspect and familiarize himself with the exact details of his own experience; the auditor may not tell him anything about his case or evaluate any of the information the preclear finds.

The validity and practice of auditing have been questioned by a variety of non-Scientologist commentators. Commenting on the example cited by Winter, the science writer Martin Gardner asserts that "nothing could be clearer from the above dialogue than the fact that the dianetic explanation for the headache existed only in the mind of the therapist, and that it was with considerable difficulty that the patient was maneuvered into accepting it."

Other critics and medical experts have suggested that Dianetic auditing is a form of hypnosis , although the Church of Scientology has strongly denied that hypnosis forms any part of Dianetics. Critics also point out that subjects in a hypnotic state, even a light one, are more susceptible to suggestion. Winter [1950] comments that the leading nature of the questions asked of a preclear "encourage fantasy", a common issue also encountered with hypnosis, which can be used to form false memories. The auditor is instructed not to make any assessment of a recalled memory's reality or accuracy, but instead to treat it as if it were objectively real. Professor Richard J. Ofshe, a leading expert on false memories, suggests that the feeling of well-being reported by preclears at the end of an auditing session may be induced by post-hypnotic suggestion

History
Hubbard's ideas of Dianetics originated in the 1920s and 1930s. He claimed to have spent a great deal of time in the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital's library, where he would have encountered the work of Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts. In April 1950, Hubbard and several others established the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey to coordinate work related for the forthcoming publication. Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health at that time, allegedly completing the 180,000-word book in six weeks.

The success of selling Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health brought in a flood of money, which Hubbard used to establish Dianetics foundations in six major American cities. The scientific and medical communities were far less enthusiastic about Dianetics, viewing it with bemusement, concern, or outright derision. Complaints were made against local Dianetics practitioners for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. This eventually prompted Dianetics advocates to disclaim any medicinal benefits in order to avoid regulation.

Hubbard explained the backlash as a response from various entities trying to co-opt Dianetics for their own use. Hubbard blamed the hostile press coverage in particular on a plot by the American Communist Party. In later years, Hubbard decided that the psychiatric profession was the origin of all of the criticism of Dianetics, as he believed it secretly controlled most of the world's governments.

By the autumn of 1950, financial problems had developed, and by November 1950, the six Foundations had spent around one million dollars and were more than $200,000 in debt. Disagreements emerged over the direction of the Dianetic Foundation's work, and relations between the board members became strained, with several leaving, even to support causes critical of Dianetics.

In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners instituted proceedings against the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth for teaching medicine without a licence. The Foundation closed its doors, causing the proceedings to be vacated, but its creditors began to demand settlement of its outstanding debts. Don Purcell, a millionaire Dianeticist from Wichita, Kansas, offered a brief respite from bankruptcy, but the Foundation's finances failed again in 1952.

Because of a sale of assets resulting from the bankruptcy, Hubbard no longer owned the rights to the name "Dianetics", but its philosophical framework still provided the seed for Scientology to grow. Scientologists refer to the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health as "Book One". In 1952, Hubbard published a new set of teachings as "Scientology, a religious philosophy". Scientology did not replace Dianetics but extended it to cover new areas. Where the goal of Dianetics is to rid the individual of his reactive mind engrams, the stated goal of Scientology is to rehabilitate the individual's spiritual nature so that he may reach his full potential.

In 1978, Hubbard released "New Era Dianetics," a revised version supposed to produce better results in a shorter period of time. The New Era Dianetics course consists of eleven rundowns. .

Chronology of Dianetic Texts by Hubbard

 * 1949 Terra Incognita: The Mind, an article originally in The Explorers Journal magazine, winter 1949/spring 1950 edition. Republished in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology volume I, page 4, published by Bridge Publications, Inc. ISBN 088404475 onlne edition
 * 1950 Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044165
 * 1951 Advanced Procedure and Axioms Bridge Publications ISBN 8773366048
 * 1951 Child Dianetics, Dianetic Processing for Children Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044211
 * 1951 Dianetics: The Original Thesis, Bridge Publications, ISBN 088404002X. Republished in 1983 with the title The Dynamics of Life by Bridge Publications ISBN 0884043436
 * 1951 Handbook for Preclears Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044203
 * 1951 Notes on the Lectures of L. Ron Hubbard Bridge Publications ISBN 088404422X
 * 1951 Science of Survival: Prediction of Human Behavior (original title: Science of Survival: Simplified, Faster Dianetic Techniques) Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044181
 * 1951 Self Analysis Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044491
 * 1954 Dianetics 55! Bridge Publications ISBN 0884044173
 * 1955 Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science (Original publication 1950, as an article) Bridge Publications ISBN 1403105448
 * 1975 Dianetics Today Bridge Publications ISBN 0884040364