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science of thought should do. Its power is almost unbelievable;
following the sharply defined basic laws Dianetics sets forth, physical
ills such as ulcers, asthma and arthritis can be cured, as can all other
psychosomatic ills.... (1)
Hubbard began experimenting with his new "science" on his friends.
He would have them lie on a couch, close their eyes, and follow his
commands to remember certain painful memories, particularly memories of
prenatal experiences in the womb. To his surprise, Campbell found
himself cured of chronic sinusitis. He began to tell others about this
remarkable new science and a small group began to form which became the
nucleus for a new organization, the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation
in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
In May, 1950, the promised article on Dianetics was published in
Astounding Science Fiction, outlining the basics of this new
science. Shortly afterward, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Health was released and soon became a best seller.
Hubbard was not modest in his claims for Dianetics. "The creation of
Dianetics," the book began, "is a milestone for Man comparable to his
discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and the
arch. The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration
has been discovered and skills have been developed for their invariable
cure." (2)
Dianetics is an adventure. It is an exploration into terra
incognito, the human mind, that vast and hitherto unknown realm half an
inch back of our foreheads. You are beginning an adventure. Treat it as
an adventure. And may you never be the same again. (3)
Early in the book, Hubbard introduced what he called the "clear."
Dianetically, the optimum individual is called the "clear." One will
hear much of that word, both as a noun and a verb, in this volume, so it
is well to spend time here at the outset setting forth exactly what can
be called a clear, the goal of Dianetic therapy.
A clear can be tested for any and all psychoses, neuroses,
compulsions and repressions (all aberrations) and can be examined for
any self-generated diseases referred to as psychosomatic ills. These
tests confirm the clear to be entirely without such ills or aberrations.
(4)
The state of Clear, Hubbard promised, was a state of mind never
before achieved by man. In fact, upon achieving Clear, a person would
progress from the state of Homo Sapiens to the new and advanced state of
"Homo Novis."
Dianetic therapy, called "auditing" (to listen), turned out to be an
amalgam of Freudian analysis, in which a reclining patient is encouraged
to recall past traumatic experiences; abreactive therapy, in which past
events are reexperienced by the patient with their accompanying emotion;
General Semantics of Korzybski, in which a person learns to
differentiate between subconscious experiences; and the psychoanalytic
theory of Nandor Fodor, in which the influence of prenatal experiences
is explored.
Dianetic theory is basically simple. According to Hubbard, all the
events of our lives are stored in the mind as "mental image pictures,"
or memories. But they are stored, or "filed," in "chains" by similar
content. So a person might have a "headache chain," or a "pain in the
right ankle chain," etc.
By directing the patient, called the "preclear" in Dianetics (one
who is not yet "Clear"), to recall and reexperience the traumatic
memories on each chain, the potential of the "somatic" of that chain to
"key-in" or become restimulated in the present can be erased. The memory
then becomes refiled from the subconscious or "reactive mind" of
Dianetics to the conscious, or "analytical mind."
The success of the "auditing session" will depend on the ability of
the "auditor" (the person leading the session) to maintain control over
the preclear and his memories.
The complete file of all the memories of an individual going back in
time is called the "time track." Hubbard claimed that when a person was
audited to the point that all his subconscious, "reactive" memories were
refiled in the "analytical" memory banks, then he would achieve the
state of Clear and would never again suffer the effects of his reactive
mind. The reactive mind in Dianetics is also referred to as the "bank."
The theory is that if a person is complaining of a somatic in the
present (i.e., a headache), then an earlier memory of an experience in
which there was an actual injury to the head is "in restimulation." By
getting the "preclear" to recall all headaches progressively earlier in
time until the "basic" (earliest) memory on the headache chain is
reached, theoretically the headache should vanish.
That in essence is Dianetic therapy.
At the time when the only option for people suffering from painful
psychosomatic symptoms was costly and time-consuming psychoanalysis, the
idea of an inexpensive and easy to administer lay psychotherapy caught
on quickly.
Within weeks, the nascent Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation was
deluged with letters and phone calls about the new "science" of