SCI
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he maintained absolute control over funds, facilities, personnel and
procedures; claimed church tax deductions; distracted from the failed
Dianetics with metaphysics, the paranormal, and a method that now dealt
with past lifetimes, damaging word patterns, and space dramas of
"entities" and "implants"; declared "reliving" unnecessary with the
advent of a device that refereed the struggle with "bad mind."
In short, Scientology was Hubbard's way to capitalize on Dianetics.
The E-meter was instrumental (pun intended) in the transition, since it
could be "scientifically" linked with concept, method, and the spirit,
or "thetan."
The E-meter was, and is, an innocent victim. Hubbard's basic
confusion was his identification of a machine with his already-shaky
Dianetics mind-model. Meter readings are equated with solid and
persisting "bank." Subjective thought content -- meaning, significance,
connection, value -- is reduced to "quantities" of objective mental
content -- electricity, or "charge" -- which in turn is equated with a
bounded, finite quantity of "bank" content. In other words,
Content (1) = Content (2) = Content (3),
where each "content" is in fact something quite different in nature
from the other "contents" -- a case of equating apples, oranges and
pears. Premised on these faulty relationships, favorable E-meter
readings are then identified with truth, existence, reality, abilities
and achievements, and spiritual revelation.
Ironically, Alfred Korzybski, whom Hubbard cited as one of his
intellectual mentors, devoted his lifework in General Semantics to
uprooting spurious identifications. If Korzybski had known Hubbard's
particular equation, and had had reason to believe (as I think he would
have) that its elements, most notably the "bank," were wishfully
imagined as well as falsely linked, he might have coined his own word
for Hubbard's kind of reasoning.
Scientology, like much other dogma, seeks to fit everything into its
system, relying upon its followers' perceiving the world within a
contrived context. Common properties are interpreted as Scientologic
phenomena.
The auditee is programmed to identify his experience with Hubbard's
drama, and arm-twisted ("What gains?") into attributing his positive
states to auditing and to nothing else -- when in fact he never lacked
native ability to achieve his goals without auditing. Hubbard's
glittering promises -- communication, awareness, higher states of being
-- are the auditee's rightful possession, and always were. During
processing, the glittering promises manifest as imitations of a
constructive life process. Imitations, suggestions, rewards and hidden
incentives deceive the auditee into thinking that Scientology reveals to
him his own truth.
The repeated questions and acknowledgments provoke the auditee's
borderline-of-consciousness thoughts, and movement and flow in his
responses. Awareness of thoughts as "things" enhances movement of
thought. In this respect, auditing is a listing, or itemizing, of the
auditee's thoughts. Objectification of thought is, in itself, a
constructive pattern; awareness of thought movement allows detachment
from "items" in the mental stream.
The problem is auditing's straight-jacketing format. The
objectification is not really "objective,"
since thought is erroneously reduced to the common denominator of
"charge." Moreover, movement of thought is valuable when it is freely
expressed, not stopped by floating needles or other rewards, and when it
is augmented by the very elements that Scientology rejects for a
"quantitative" approach: the individual's meanings, emotions,
connections, comparisons, observations of his own "process" and
formulation of his own principles.
Insight also becomes an imitation: "cognition." In the English
language, cognition is the act, process or faculty of knowing or
perceiving. In "Scientologese," it is not "cognition" but "a cognition,"
again a quantity or thing. Insight is not an end in itself, but an
increment in a creative thought-stream, while "a cognition" is a reward,
a stopping point. The auditee begins to view his insights as a
Scientology property, and express them in Hubbard's terminology.
Cognition stoppage is well illustrated by the service facsimile. The
auditee attains his "release" with a sentence or two, and leaves session
believing that in the space of a few hours he has unearthed and left far
behind a deep-seated mechanism. If the service facsimile is a truly
"serviceable" idea, the arrived-at statement is an invitation to
self-discovery -- an invitation, however, that the rewarded and
"stopped" auditee never receives.
A cognition may be delusory. The auditee feels gratified that he has
resolved a problem and gained an ability -- but this was merely
suggestion confirmed by the meter. The problem resolved may never have
existed for him, and the ability gained he may always have possessed.
Ex-members have observed, accurately, that auditing gives the
auditee biofeedback training. In legitimate training, prompting