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---
title: "Understanding Scientology — us-a1"
source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-a1.html
retrieved: 2026-06-28
---
Understanding Scientology, by Margery
Wakefield
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## Scientology Auditing and Its Offshoots
## by Robert Kaufman
L. Ron Hubbard raised Scientology from Dianetics' ashes with the aid
of a device that tracks electrical resistance on skin surfaces of the
"auditee's" hands during sessions. Hubbard claimed that E-meter "reads"
confirmed his notions about events, images and words making up a
destructive mind he called the "bank." In the auditing procedure, the
readings are supposed to signify the presence and dispersal of "charge"
present in the events and other "bank" material. The meter not only
keeps the processing on course but also verifies the results.
Hubbard framed his theories and method in terms that thwart
comparison with the rest of the world. However, we find ready comparison
between the E-meter -- a biofeedback device, the tangible element in a
wash of intangibility -- and the assortment of biofeedback devices used
outside Scientology to monitor physiologic functions such as brainwave
frequency, pulse rate and finger temperature. The readings of the
non-Scientology instruments are interpreted only to the extent that
their signals (dial needle, flashing light or humming tone) are deemed
to indicate moment-to-moment change in a favorable or unfavorable
direction.
No doubt the auditee gets "passing" and "non-passing" readings.
These reflect the rise and fall of tension, and the underlying composite
of mental, physical and emotional forces. A person hypothetically
"wearing" biofeedback equipment through the day would get a similar
variety of readings, including the equivalents of "baseline," "rising
needles," "blowdowns," and "free," "floating" and "clean needles." The
readings would reflect, in part, his reaction to being on the device,
i.e., to situation.
Incentive, a sense of positive purpose, tends to generate the
positive type of emotion that produces favorable physiologic change and
improved
readings. This is precisely the working principle of biofeedback
training, where the trainee's object might be to slow brainwave
frequency to alpha, or raise finger temperature, for health or
meditation purposes. His incentive directs him to the desired result.
Incentive, of course, is also the major part of learning to pass a
lie-detector test. The lie-detector is an array of biofeedback devices
that supply simultaneous readings. Clearly, the very principle that
makes biofeedback training possible, and useful, makes lie-detector test
results inadmissible as evidence in court proceedings: One may beat the
machine.
No special magic makes Scientology biofeedback different from "wog"
(non-Scientology) biofeedback. Human emotion doesn't take a holiday
during an auditing session. The auditee brings his hopes and dreams to
the session. His prime incentive, to succeed at auditing, is channeled
through the inculcation of "stable data," "R-factor," and his own
auditing experience. The regimen instills how auditing is supposed to
go, what should happen, and what is expected of him. He is deluged with
suggestion, and may even glean the nature of his forthcoming insights
from descriptions in Hubbard's writings and the "Bridge" chart, or
simply from the name of the process.
The auditee begins to associate his success with the indoctrination;
following the program becomes his prime incentive. When he does as
Hubbard tells him he feels positive. Compliance is then reward in
itself.
The auditee's motivation to get favorable readings is tremendous.
With each floating needle he is closer to his shining goal. He is
probably unaware that he can control the meter. In any case he wouldn't
want to, for that would defeat the assumed purpose of auditing. Here
emerges one of Scientology's strange contradictions: The auditee,
following his natural instincts once he's on the machine, controls it
anyway -- and neither he nor the auditor knows he's doing it.
To begin with, the auditee has access to the running supply of
machine-generated information that constitutes biofeedback -- directly,
if he is self-auditing, otherwise in the form of cues given him by his
auditor. His intellect may not register this information, but his body
does. He soon learns to identify a certain special feeling with end of
"cycle" or process. His inner sense learns what produces a floating
needle. Also what doesn't -- as when the auditor merely acknowledges and
repeats the question or instruction. At some point he experiences a
subtle sense of prediction about floating needles. Again, this is not
his wish to influence or control the needle, but out of a feeling of
accomplishment (Certainty On The Data) wedded to compliance, as well as
what body-mind physiology has learned about biofeedback.
Meeting Hubbard more than halfway and complying with the program
creates another conflict, strange, too, in that it contradicts Hubbard's