The
                            Road
                          to Total
                          Freedom
                       A Sociological
                        analysis of
                        Scientology

                         ROY WALLIS


The Road to Total
Freedom

This book is a sociological study of a
new quasi-religious movement,
Scientology. Its author, Roy Wallis,
traces the emergence of this
movement as a lay psychotherapy -
"Dianetics" and its development into
an authoritarian sect. Drawing on
formulations in the sociology of
religion, he analyses the processes
involved and presents a theory to
account for the transformation of cult
into sect.

On the basis of over eighty interviews
with members and former members,
a typology of the motivations which
led individuals to affiliate with the
movements is derived, and the
processes by which members
become further committed to the
movement are explored. The
reasons which led a proportion of
members to defect from the
movement are also described.

Scientology has been notable for the
extent to which is has come into
conflict with the state, medical
agencies, and individuals critical of
its practices. The author turns to the
sociology of deviance to provide a
model to account for the development
of a 'moral crusade'against
Scientology and to explain the way in
which the movement reacted and
adapted to a hostile environment.

This study should find a place on
courses in Religious Studies, the
History of Religion, and the
Sociology of Religion. It will be
essential material for any attempt to
understand the form and place of the
new religions in advanced industrial
societies. It is also likely to be
appropriate material for courses on
the Sociology of Social Movements.
The controversial nature of the topic
of this work may, however, endow it
with a market appeal beyond the
confines of the academic community.


The Road to Total Freedom

*A Sociological Analysis of Scientology*


The Road to Total Freedom

*A Sociological Analysis of Scientology*

Roy Wallis

NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESs 1977


Copyright c 1976 Roy Wallis

All rights reserved.

Printed in Great Britain

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Wallis, Roy.
  The Road to Total Freedom.

  Bibiography: p.
  Includes index.
  I. Scientology. I. Title.
BP605.S2W34  1976   131'.35   76-27273

ISBN 0-231-04200-0


PREFACE

There is a sence in which sociology is inevitably a subversive
enterprise. The very act of refiecting on the behaviour of people
and organizations entails that these activities do not bear their
meaning and explanation on their face. The sociologist's pursuit of
further or different knowledge after he has already been informed
of the 'truth'of the matter by the individuals or organizations
concerned, displays the fact that he does not accept the 'self-
evident', and perhaps even that motivated by malice, he is prepared
to tell some entirely different story.
  Hence, the sociologist poses a threat to the rhetorics and
legitimations employed by social groups and a potential challenge
to their definition of reality, and to the definitions of themselves
which they present for public consumption. He therefore risks
calling down upon himself the wrath and opprobrium of groups which
he studies. Generally, the groups examined by sociologists are
relatively powerless and their complaints may do little more than
prick his own conscience or the consciences of his more radical
colleagues. In other cases, however, the group examined may not be
without power and in such instances, depending on the nature of the
power and the society in which it is exercised, the sociologist may
risk more severe if not necessarily more serious, consequences,
  I began my work on Scientology as a raw graduate student,
fascinated by the relationship between beliefs, social organisation
and society. While I had initially intended that Scientology be
considered as one among a range of unorthodox system of belief to
which I proposed to devote attention, I found myself increasingly
interested by the rich body of material I was uncovenng on this
multifaceted movement. I have recounted at length elsewhere (in my
contribution 'The moral career of a research project'to Colin Bell
and Howard Newby, editors, *Doing Sociological Research*, Allen and
Unwin, London, 1976) the history of my research on Scientology. It
remains, however, to summarize a few points salient to the final
production of this book.
  As my opening remarks would suggest, the Church of Scientology
was suspicious of my research. Having suffered at the hands of
newspaper reporters, investigators for state and medical agencies,
and government enquiries in many countries, my own work was readily
placed by the leaders of the Church of Scientology into the category
of hostile or critical commentary. My protestations that I had no
axe to grind, and that I sought only to provide a coherent and

vi                        PREFACE

as-nearly-objecive account of Scientology as possible, were viewed
with commendable scepticism by the church leadership.
  The Church of Scientology is not known for its willingness to take
what it construes as criticism without recourse. Indeed its record
of litigation must surely be without parallel in the modern world.
It therefore seemed almost inevitable that my own final work would
be the subject of lengthy and expensive litigation. In such a
situation, the writer faces a dilemma. Does he 'tell the truth, and
damn the consequences'? Or does he, in the light of the extreme
severity of the British law of libel, reflect that in over a hundred
thousand words of text, anyone can make a mistake? There is a
powerful tension between the threat of censorship and the
possibility of enormous cost in time, effort and money for a single
error.
  But there is a further consideration. The sociologist has an
*obligation* to the subjects of his research. Even if his
relationship with them has sometimes approached open war, he owes
them a duty not to misrepresent their activities and beliefs, the
more so if they are in any respect a socially stigmatized or
politically threatened collectivity. In my decision to make my
manuscript available to the Church of Scientology, *both* of those
considerations weighed heavily. Informing them in advance of what
one intended to say had its dangers. Forewarned is, after all,
forearmed for any legal battle. But the risk, in this case, paid
off. It is my feeling that the church leadership appreciated the
gesture, and while they remained adamant over a period of months
that certain things should not be said, they were willing to
compromise and to negotiate.
  These negotiations, covering several reams of typescript were
salutory. I came to appreciate that things which had initially
sounded innocuous to me could be read as pejorative or even
invective. In due course, I made various modifications to the text
in this light. As an example, I amended my argument that Hubbard
was 'obsessed'with communism, to read that he was 'preoccupied'by
it. I also deleted a comparison with the Nazi party and the Ss which
seemed on reflection *unnecessarily* offensive to members of the
Church of Scientology. I further incorporated into the text from
various commentaries sent to me by the Church of Scientology,
statements of their views on certain events on which we could not
find common ground.
  As a final gesture to the Church I offered to include in the work,
as an appendix, a commentary commissioned by the Church, on my work
as a whole. This seemed to provide what they claimed had been denied
them in the past, i.e. an adequate right of reply, for which reason
they had been forced to seek recourse in the courts. Dr Jerry
Simmons was commissioned by the Church to write this reply. His
interesting paper 'On maintaining deviant belief systems', has often
been cited by sociologists working in the field of unorthodox
collectivities of believers.1
  As a believer hmmself in this case, Dr Simmons inevitably rejects
my study.
  1 *Social Problems*, II, Winter (1964), pp. 250-6.

vii                       PREFACE

His main argument is that my methods are not adequate in that they
do not fulfil the criteria of tradltional survey research, and that
I theretore violate "the scientific method'. Dr Simmons fails to
recognise that methods are tools and tools must be adapted to
circumstances. The 'scientific method'is no more than an injunction
to examine evidence dispassionately and critically. My study does
not intend to be a piece of survey research. Dr Simmons'strictures
are, therefore, at best, misplaced. There are no 'sampling errors'
since there is no 'sample'. My respondents are ethnographic
informants not randomly sampled survey respondents. That many of
them were not practising Scientologists and were openly hostile to
Scientology only tells us that my information *may* be biased and
not that it *is*. As it happens, information secured from
informants, whether devoted adherents or active opponents, could be
checked against other informants or against documentary sources. Dr
Simmons suggests that I was offered permission to interview over
4,000 believers for my study. This offer was not, I'm afraid, ever
as clear to me as it was to Dr Simmons. He accuses me again of bias
in sampling statements from documents rather than performing a
content analysis, but again his argument is misplaced. Had I wished
for an analysis of the content of the documents, I would have
conducted a content analysis. But something said only once in a
body of documentation may have as much influence on organizational
and individual behaviour as something said a thousand times. Hence
I utilized documentation as any historian would, seeking to locate
influential statements and to cite statements which information
from other sources had indicated were important for behaviour,
rather than to analyse as a whole the content of documents which,
in the case of Scientology as of many other organizations and social
movements, are often written for public relations purposes.
  Ultimately, of course, which of us Dr Simmons or I is right on
the questtion of the degree of bias in this book, is open to
dispute. That is as it should be. I would be as foolish as Dr
Simmons thinks me, if I believed I have said the last word on
Scientology. It is right, and indeed exciting in its prospect, that
debate about this movement will continue. I am hopeful that new
information will continually come to light, and urge anyone with
documentation on Scientology to send it to me, or to the Librarian
of Stirling University, where an archive can be formed to preserve
such material for future scholars. In the meantime, anyone hoping
to resolve the matter can do no better than Dr Simmons suggests:
begin your own investigation. Read Hubbard's *Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health* and compare it, in terms of objectivity,
the 'scientific method', etc., with my book.


CONTENTS

Preface                                                         v

Contents                                                       ix

Acknowledgements                                               xi

Abbreviations                                                xiii

Introduction and Methodological Note                            1

PART I THE SOCIOLOGY OF CULT AND SECT

1 *Cult and Sect: A Typology and a Theory*                     11

PART II THE CULT AND ITs TRANSFORMATION

2 *The Cult Phase: Dianetics*                                  21
3 *Crisis and Transition*                                      77

PART III THE SECT: SCIENTOLOGY

4 *Theory and its Transmission*                               103
5 *Social Organiation and Social Control*                     127
6 *The Scientological Career: From Casual Client to
   Deployable Agent*                                          157
7 *Relations with State and Society*                          190
8 *Reality Maintenance in a Deviant Belief System*            225

PART IV CONCLUSIONS

*Conclusions*                                                 245

APPENDICES

  I Special letter from Ron Howes                             259
 II HCO Ethics Order                                          261
III Executive Directive from L. Ron Hubbard                   263
 IV On Roy Wallis'Study J. L. Simmons, PhD                   265

BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                  270
INDEX                                                         281


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In a research enterprise of this kind innumerable debts are 
inevitably accumulated. For the first two years of the research 
I was fortunate to be a student at Nuffield College, Oxford. I 
am grateful to the Warden and Fellows for providing me with a 
home, facilities, and intellectual stimulation during this
period. The Social Science Research Council generously provided me
with a grant which enabled me to pursue this research. The Ofrex-
Drexler Foundation also kindly provided me with a small grant
at a crucial stage in my work. Professor Duncan Timms, Chairman of
the Department of Sociology of Stirling University, greatly
assisted my work by providing me with time, research funds and
secretarial assistance.
  Without the aid of Cyril Vosper, the study would never have begun.
I am also grateful to him for many stimulating conversations and
useful leads in the course of the research. Mr P. Hetherington made
available to me material otherwise unavailable in Great Britain on
the early days of the movement. On a research visit to America, Mr
and Mrs Don Rodgers, Mr and Mrs Ross Lamoureaux, A. E. van Vogt and
his late wife, Mayne, Perry Chapdelaine, Beau Kitselman, and Waldo
Boyd kindly provided hospitality and much useful material. There I
benefited from conversations with Paulette Cooper and Robert
Kaufman. Among the interview and questionnaire respondents to all
of whom I am grateful, Miss Shelia Hoad, and Miss Carmen D'Allessio
provided much assistance. Mrs Nan Mclean and Dr Russell Barton
provided useful information and documentation.
  The Editors of the *News of the World*, *Mayfair*, the *Denver 
Post*, and of other newspapers and magazines too numerous to mention
individually, and the management of Reuters, all made freely
available copies of articles otherwise unobtainable, or provided me
with facilities to examine their clipping files. I have benefited
from discussions with Miss Mary Appleby, OBE, formerly secretary of
the National Association for Mental Health (now the Mind Associa-
tion); and with Mr David Gaiman, of the Guardian's Office of the
Church of Scicntology who also arranged for me to interview
students and staff at Saint Hill Manor. Dr Christopher Evans and Mr
C. H. Rolph kindly showed me their manuscripts prior to
publication.
  Earlier drafts of Chapter I appeared as part of an article
'Scientology:

xii                   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

therapeutic cult to religious sect'in *Sociology*, 9, I (January
1975); and aspects of the theory were presented in 'The cult
and its transformations'in *Sectarianism: Analyses of Religious
and Non-Religious Sects* Roy Wallis, (Peter Owen, London,
1975). This latter work also contained an early formulation of 
sections of Chapter 7, under the title 'Societal reactions to 
Scientology: a study in the sociology of deviant religion'. For 
comments on earlier versions of Chapter 7, I am grateful to 
Professor Stanley Cohen, Dr David Downes, Dr Shelia Mitchell, and 
Dr Russell Dobash. The bulk of the manuscript has been read by 
Robert Kaufman and Richard Bland, and all of it by Professor David 
Martin and Dr Roderick Martin, whose comments and criticisms have 
been most helpful. Dr Bryan Wilson supervised my research for the 
doctoral thesis on which this book is based, and provided personal 
encouragement, sociological insight, and incisive editorial 
criticism. He has read many drafts of the manuscript and commented 
carefully and patiently upon each. I owe him a particular debt of 
gratitude. My wife and children have tolerated me throughout, a more 
difficult task than can easily be imagined.
  Parts of the manuscript have been typed by Pam Drysdale and Marion
Govan. To them and to Grace Smith who, with my wife, performed the
bulk of the secretarial tasks connected with the preparation of this 
work, I wish to express my thanks.
  Finally, I acknowledge a most profoumd debt to those who talked to
me, completed my questionnaires, wrote letters, sent me information
or otherwise assisted my research, but who must, for one reason or
another, remain anonymous. None of those acknowledged here bear any 
responsibility for the final product. 
  This book is dedicated to the memory of my late father, John C. 
Wallis.

ABBREVIATIONS

SCIENTOLOGY ABBREVIATIONS

AD        After Dianetics
Anaten    Analytical Attenuation
AOLA      Advanced Organization Los Angeles
A-R-C     Affinity, Reality and Communication
BA        Book Auditor
BDA       British Dianetic Association
B. Scn.   Batchelor of Scientology
C.C.H.    Communication, Control and Havingness
Comm.     Communication
Dev T     Developed and Unnecessary Traffic
DFGB      Dianetic Federation of Great Britain
D of T    Director of Training
D Scn     Doctor of Scientology
E-meter   Electropsychometer
E/O       Ethics Office
*ES*      L. Ron Hubbard, *Dianetics: Evolution of a Science*
FSM       Field Staff Member
HAS       Hubbard Association of Scientologists (also, Hubbard 
          Apprentice Scientologist)
HASI      Hubbard Association of Scientologists International
HCA       Hubbard Certified Auditor
HCO       Hubbard Communication Office
HDA       Hubbard Dianetic Auditor
HDRF      Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation
HGC       Hubbard Guidance Centre
HPA       Hubbard Professional Auditor
MEST      Matter, Energy, Space and Time
*MSMH*    L. Ron Hubbard, *Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental
          Health*
NAAP      National Academy of American Psychology
*OEC*     L. Ron Hubbard, *Organization Executive Course*
Org       Organisation

xiv                    ABBREVIATIONS

OT        Operating Thetan
OTC       Operations and Transport Corporation
(OTS)     (Operations and Transport Services Ltd)
PTS       Potential Trouble Source
Q & A     Question and Answer
Sec       Secretary
Sec Check Security Check
S.P.      Suppressive Person
Stats     Statistics
T.R.      Training Routine
WW        World Wide

OTHER ABBREVIATIONS

*AJS*     *American Journal of Sociology*
AMA       American Medical Association
*ASR*     *American Sociological Review*
*BJS*     *British Journal of Sociology*
FDA       Food and Drug Administration
*JSSR*    *Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion*
NAMH      National Association for Mental Health

INTRODUCTION AND
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

A number of notable nineteenth-century rationalists held the view 
that the development of mankind resembled the development of the 
human individual. In his early, primitive state man was childlike 
in his mode of thought. His power of reason suffered severe 
limitations. It was said to be 'prelogical'in character.1 Men 
believed that things once associated with each other continued to 
influence each other when apart; that words had the power to alter 
the course of nature; and that objects similar in one major respect 
were similar in others.2 Primitive man was said to possess a magical 
world-view. Magic was held to have been born of man's ignorance of 
natural causation and his desire to infiuence and control the 
dangerous and threatening natural environment in which he found 
himself.
  On some accounts primitive man gradually learned that his magical
methods were inefficacious. The law-like generalizations hitherto
employed were discerned not to hold in all instances. Consequently,
this account runs, he began to predicate the existence of
supernatural beings, hke himself except for their superhuman
powers, which might be mobilized to the good or to the detriment of
mankind. Where formerly he had commanded events through the
incantation of a formula regarded as inevitable in its consequences
(other things being equal), he now propitiated these superior
beings, seekdng to cozen and cajole them into interfering in the
course of nature and human society.3 By this means the great world
religions were said to have been born.
  Although this religious world-view was to prevail for many
centuries, the nineteenth-century rationalists believed that they
could perceive a change overtaking the intellect of civilized
western man. The prevailing view of the world was again being
challenged. As religion replaced magic, so science was coming to
replace religion. As Man 'came of age'in Victorian Britain, so he
cast off less mature modes of thought. A cosmos inhabited by
arbitrary and capricious spirits and deities was giving way to a
cosmos governed by natural laws,

1 Lucien Levy-Bruhl, *Primitive Mentality* (Allen & Unwin, London,
  1923).
2 James, G. Frazer, *The Golden Bough* (Macmillan, New York, 1922).
3 Ibid.

2           INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

mechanical in their functioning, operating upon objects rendered
visible by an advanced scientific technology.
  This view was enshrined in the work of Sigmund Freud. Freud
maintained that religion was an infantile obsessional neurosis born
of anxiety and wish fulfilment. Science marked, and provided the
means to further, the maturation of man. Science broke through the
illusion and infantile projection. Scientific thought was therefore
not merely more mature than religious thought, it was on Freud's
account, psychologically healthier.1 Although both the logic and
the empirical detail of these evolutionist accounts of the
development of human thought have been challenged, a variant on
this view remains incorporated in much contemporary thinking on the
relationship between religion and social change. The spectacular
advance of science in the nineteenth century is seen as one central
feature of an account of the decline in the hold that religious
beliefs have on man's actions, and the declining commitment
displayed to religious institutions in most western societies.2 In
short, a prevalent view holds that with the development of science
and its increasingly evident ability both to explain the world in
which we live, and to modify that world in the direction of human
desire, secularization is an inevitable concomitant of the
development of industrial societies.
  This view has its critics, of course, and we can here neither
debate the conceptual problems incorporated in the notion of
secularization,3 nor the empirical case of persistent high levels
of religious affiliation in the United States of America.4 What is
more central to the enterprise recorded in the following chapters
is the fact that despite the enormous progress of science and the
evident decline in religious commitment in most western nations,
new religious movements have continued to appear at an apparently
undiminished rate. Indeed since the end of the Second World War
there has, if anything, been an increase in both the rate of
formation of such movements and the rate of growth of their
membership. This phenomenon is not restricted to western industrial
nations. Japan too has experienced a rapid increase in the number
of new religious movements, and the size of their followings.5 The
industrialization and rationalization of contemporary,
technologically advanced societies appears to have 

  1 Sigmund Freud, *The Future of an Illusion* (Hogarth, London, 1962).
  2 Brian R. Wilson, *Religion and Secular Society* (Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth, 69), pp. 57-74
  3 For discusions of these problems, see: Vernon Pratt, *Religion and
Secularization* (St Martin's Press, London, 1970); David Martin,
'Secularisation'in Julius Gould, ed., *Penguin Survey of the Social
Sciences 1965* (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1965); Idem, *The
Religion and the Secular* (Routledge Kegan Paul, London, 1969); Idem, 
*The Sociology of English Religion* (SCM Press, London, 1967).
  4 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 109-50.
  5 H. Thomsen, *The New Religions of Japan* (Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont,
1963); H. N. McFarland, *The Rush Hour of the Gods* (Macmillan, New
York, 1967); C.B. Offner and H. van Straelen, *Modern Japanese
Religions* (Brill, Leiden, 1963). 

            INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGICAL NOTE                3

produced problems for their members with which science has yet proven
incompetent to cope.
  Rationalist and humanist intellectuals have tended to be puzzled 
by this flourishing of exotic new religious and quasi-religious
movements in relatively secular societies. Many, viewing
contemporary industrial society through sometimes unacknowledged
evolutionary eyes, conceive such phenomena as 'regressive'in
character. Resort to the occult and the supernatural is seen as a
withdrawal from the realities of modern life, a retreat from the
anonymity, the tensions, and the individualism of the modern world.
For those with Marxist inclinations, the new religions are seen as
a particularly bizarre form of 'false consciousness'. They have in
general been regarded as peripheral to the central features of
modern society. Since they are viewed as a fringe phenomenon,
ephemeral, and even frivolous, they have not motivated any
extensive sociological description or analysis. Published
monographic studies of such movements by social scientists are
rare.1 Only if they maintained clear links with the prevailing
religious tradition2 or had political implications3 have these
movements been regarded as sufficiently important to merit any
considerable sociological attention.4
  While it may be the case, however, that some new religious
movements in advanced industrial societies are more or less
explicitly attempts to escape from the more unattractive features
of modern life: its impersonality, atomization, materialism and
bureaucratization or attempts to resist it in form, other

  1 Leon Festinger, Henry W. Rieken and Stanley Schachter, When
Prophery Fails (Harper, New York, 1964); John Lofland, Doomsday
Cult (Prenhce Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1966); Adam W.
Eister, Drawing Room conversion (Duke University Press, Durham,
North Carolina, 1950); H. T. Dohrman, California Cult: the Story of
Mankind Unded (Beacon, Boston, 1958); Geoffrey K. Nelson,
Spiritualism and Society (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1969).

Malcolm J. C. Calley, God's People (Oxford University Press,
London, 1965); Richard Enroth, Edward Ericson and C. Breckinridge
Peters, the Story of the Jesus People Paternoster, Exeter, 1972);
Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia Hine, People, Pou er, Change
(Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1970). 3 Eric C. Lincoln, 7 the Black
Muslims in America (Beacon, Boston, 1961); E. V Essien-Udom, Black
Nationalism: a Search for Identity in America (Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth, 1962); James A. Dator, Soka Gakka2: Budders of the
Third Civilisation (University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1969);
James W. White, the Sokagakkai and Mass Society (Stanford
University Press, Stanford, California, 1970). The new religious
movements in less developed societies have been better served.

In part this must be due to the concern among anthropologists and
sociologists to understand the mechanisms of socia change in hitherto 
largely stable societies.

Moreover since such societies were less secularized, religious
phenomena could be seen as playmg some central part in social 
change and adaptation. In 'secular'industrial societies, religion 
and its social-scientific study have been relegated to a very 
inferior

S Benjamin Zablockd, the Joyful Cammunity (Penguin sooks,
saltimore, Maryland, : 1971); Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony,
Getting straight with Meher Baba', JSSR
2 (June 1972), pp. 122-40; Erancine J. Daner,

  Conversion to Krishna than reject the values which prevail within
it. They are bureaucratic and rationalistic in orientation, and
sometimes thoroughly materialistic. They may be relatively
impersonal and individualistic rather than communally based. They
sometimes seek to incorporate science, or its rhetoric, into their
legitimations.

Such movements, Bryan Wilson has termed 'manipulationist'1 Rather
than a means of escape from the world, of attaining other-worldly
salvation, or of achieving a radical transformation of the
prevailing society, they offer the believer some superior, esoteric
means of succeeding within the status quo. They offer knowledge and
techniques to enable the individual to improve his 'lifechances';
the means of achieving the valued goals of this world. The manipu-
lationist movements appear, in terms of numbers of recruits and
income, to be among the more successful of the new religions in
industrial societies. Within this category fall Christian Science,
the Japanese movement Soka Gakkai, Transcendental Meditation, and
the subject of the present work, Scientology.

Scientology is a movement which straddles the boundary between
psychology and religion. It offers a graded hierarchy of 'auditing'
(the quasi-therapeutic practice of the movement) and training, which
will ultimately release fully all the individual's inner potential.
Correct application of the knowledge purveyed by the movement will,
it is claimed, lead to the freeing of the individual's superhumanly
powerful spiritual nature. In the progress towards this desirable
state, current human limitations psychosomatic illness,
psychological and physical disabilities, lack of confidence, or
competence will fall away, enabling the individual to cope more
successfully with his environment.

Training and 'auditing'are provided primarily by the central
organizations of the movement which are administered on highly
bureaucratic lines. The services provided by these organizations
are expensive to purchase, and have been marketed with all the more
aggressive techniques of modern salesmanship. The size of
Scientology's following is almost impossible to estimate, but sub-
stantial groups of followers exist throughout the English-speaking
world; and smaller groups in Germany, Scandinavia, and France. The
movement is able to command sufficient resources to maintain a
large permanent staff and a fleet of vessels known as the 'Sea
Org'. Scientology has aroused widespread controversy and occasional
public hostility. It has been the subject of government

1 Bryan R. Wilson, Religious Sects (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
1970), pp. 14166. Consciousness: the transformation from hippie to
religious ascetic, in Roy Wallis, ed., Sectarianistn: Analyses of
Religious and Jon-Religious Sects (Peter Owen, London, tg75; Robert
Lynn Adams and RobertJon Fox, 'Mainlining Jesus: the new trip-,
Socitt 9 4 (l972), pp. So-6; Donald W. Peterson and Armand L.
Mauss, 'The Cross and the Commune: an interpretation of the Jesus
People', in Charles. Gloc, ed., religion investigations in a number 
of states and legislative sanction in others (these are discussed 
in Chapter 7).

Scientology is of sociological interest for a number of reasons.
Its recruits, as will be demonstrated in the following chapters,
are not drawn from the categories of the traditionally
dispossessed. They are not marginal individuals, but individuals
who are members of groups and strata which are in many ways central
to the character of industrial society. They are for the most part
drawn from a relatively privileged, relatively comfortable, middle
class. Analysis of this movement may therefore direct us to
features of contemporary society which are a source of persistent
alienation and anxiety, even to its most typical constituent
groups.

Scientology is of theoretical interest also because although the
nature of its doctrine and practice differs from them radically,
Scientology shares a number of characteristics with movements such
as Communism, the Nazi Party, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Scientology
is a source of data and further insight into the ctics and dynamics
of totalitarian and sectarian movements. Moreover, in the cmlrse of
its development Scientology has undergone a transformation from a
loose, almost anarchic group of enthusiasts for a lay
psychotherapy, Dianetics, to a tightly controlled and rigorously
disciplined following for a quasi-religious movement, Scientology.
It therefore provides an opportunity to explore a little understood
transformation, that of a cult into a sect.

The chapters which follow analyse the history, the membership, the
beliefs and practices, the structure and functioning, and the
changing nature of the relationship of this movement to the wider
society. In chapter one, a typology of ideological collectivities
is presented, and a theory of the development of cults into sects.
Cults are presented as highly individualistic collectivities prone
to fission and disintegration. The transformation of a cult into a
sect is viewed as a strategy by means of which leaders seek to
perpetuate and to enhance their status by arrogating authority in
an attempt to create a stable and cohesive following.

Chapter two describes and analyses the emergence of Dianetics,
exploring the origins, the nature and the development of its
beliefs and practices, the character of its followers, and its mode
of organization. In chapter three the strains and tensions which
threatened the disruption of the movement are considered, and the
processes by which the movement's leaders sought to resolve these
problems. Chapter four presents the beliefs and practices of the
new gmosis, Scientology, on the basis of which organizational
transformation was carried through. The progressive rationalization
of the practise and teaching of Scientology was an important
component of the process by which the leader was enabled to secure
unchallenged control of the movement. In chapter five the manner in
which this control was exercised through an increasingly
bureaucratic administration is discussed. Chapter six analyses the
motivations of recruits to Scientology, and the process through
which, as individuals become increasingly committed to the tion in
the pursuit of organizational ends. In chapter seven a model drawn
from the sociology of deviance, the 'deviance-amplification'model,
is employed to analyse the controversy and hostility in which this
movement was involved during the 19605, and the nature of the
movement's response. In chapter eight Scientology is viewed as a
deviant version of social reality, and a number of mechanisms are
described by which this reality is sustained. In the concluding
chapter Scientology is located within a view of secularization and
its impact on the prevailing religious climate; and a number of the
major themes explored in the work are summarized. McthodolugJ The
methodology of the study is eclectic. Since the aim of the research
was primarily that of generating data concerning certain broad
themes rather than testing a limited and defined set of hypotheses,
various methods were employed in order to maximize the information
available, and at the same time to provide a method of
'triangulation', whereby one data source could be checked against
another.

The principal source of information has been documentary. L. Ron
Hubbard was a prolific writer for some years before his creation of
Dianetics, and the movement has, throughout the quarter of a
century of its existence, been the source of many millions of
words. Much of this material was of ephemeral interest, and much
that wcs produced in the early years is no longer available.
Fortunately, some individuals in England and America have retained
collec. tions of old documentation a dusty reminder of an earlier
enthusiasm and these collections proved an invaluable source of
histoncal information. Containing, as they often did, the works
of schismatics and heretics, notebooks and letters, these
documentary sources often fulfilled both methodological needs.
Study was made of the now extensive, although by no means complete,
collection of more recent material in the Bntish Museum. In the
United States, legal records and supporting documents were
examined. Individuals made other documents and tape-recordings
available to me, as did the Church of Scientology on certain
occasions.

The second important source of information was from interviews. 83
individuals were interviewed, of whom 35 had become involved in
the movement during its Dianetics phasel and 43 after the
transition to Scientology. The remaining 5 individuals were never
committed to the movement, but had

I Dianeties as a form of theory and prachce is shll employed by the
movement, However, I use the term throughout, unless contextuallY
indicated, to refer to u thasc of the movemcnt, prior to the
development of Scientology. 'Dianeticist'usually refers to tomeone
who joined the movement during thu phase, or to someone who
continued

Interviews were principally occasions for respondents to talk
freely on certain themes to which I sought to direct them. Usually,
the interviews were tape-recorded unless the informant objected on
the grounds that some traceable record of our conversation might
fall into hostile hands; or when the surroundings made recording
difficult. The interviews varied greatly in length, from
three-quarters of an hour to a total of over ten hours. The yield
from these procedures was inevitably uneven in the quantity and
quality of usable material produced.

Interview respondents were generated in a number of ways. Names of
potential informants were originally supplied by a former member.
These individuals in turn supplied further names, some former
members, some still committed in various ways to the movement.
Other interview respondents were generated as a result of a
questionnaire which was circulated.

This questionnaire method was relatively unfruitful m terms of
conventional survey critena. Of some 150 questionnaires sent out
over several months, only 46 completed schedules were returned. As
well as sending questionnaires to individuals whose names were
supplied by informants, questionnaire respondents also provided
further names. A very dated mailing list of the Hubbard Association
of Scientologists Internahonal was provided by one informant, and
the names sampled. It was this which led to the lo v return-rate.
The mailing list was some eight years out of date, and very few of
the questiommaires sent to the sample from it were returned.
Questionnaires were sent only to United Kingdom residents.

A very brief period was spent in participant observation. At an
early stage in the research, the author went to the movement's
headquarters, Saint Hill Manor, to takc a Communications Course.
Despite later claims by representatives of the movement that the
author acted unethically by not revealing his sociological mterest,
the author was simply responding to widespread advertising inviting
members of the public to take this course and at no point made any
effort to conceal his identity. After two days, he found it
impossible to continue with the course without having to lie
directly about his acceptance of its content, and withdrew.

A number of other individuals and agencies have been contacted
during the course of the research, and many sent long letters and
other documents presenting aspects of their involvement with this
movement.

While very little published material on Scientology was available
when the study was begun, at the time of writing some seventeen
systematic and lengthy accounts exist, ranging from the
journalistic to the apologetic, including five lengthy government
inquiries or sponsored studies.l

I Paulette Cooper, rhe Standal of Sntolagy (Tower, New York, 1971
); Cynl Vosper rhc Mind Bcndas (Neville Spearman, London, 1971);
George Malko, SvicnlolagJ: Ihc

INTRODUCTION AND UETHODOLOGICAL NOTt Now religioa (Dell, New York,
1970); Robert Kaufman, Inside Scicntolog (Olympia, New York, 1972);
Maurice Burrell, Saentolos-y: What B Is and What It Does (Lake-
land, London, 1970); C. H. Rolph, BelieD6 What You Like (Andre
Deutsch, London, 1973); Chriseopher Evans, Cults of Unreason
(Harrap, London, 1973); David R. Dalton, rwo Disparatc Philosophes
(Regency, London 1973); Omar V. Garrison,
7hehriddcnSto/yofScicntolory(ArlingtonBookz,London, 1974);
HarrietWhitehead, 'Reasonably fantastic: some perspectives on
Scientology, science fiction and occultism', in Irving 1.
Zaretsky and Mark Leone (eds), Religious Mouements n Contemporary
Amrrica (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1974); John A. Lee,
Sectarian Healers aad llypnotherapy (Queen's Printer, Toronto,
970); Walter Braddeson, Scientolo!!yfor the Millions (Sherbourne,
Los Angeles, 1969); Helen O'Bnen, Dianetics in Lmbo (Whitmore,
Philadelphia, 1966); SirJohn G. Foster, Enquiry into thzPracticrand
Efects of Srientoloy (HMSO, London, 197l ); Kevin V. Anderson,
Report of the Board of Inguiry into Scientology (Government
Printer, Melbourne, 1965); Sir Guy Richardson Powles and E. V.
Dumbleton, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the lubbard
Scientology Orzanisation in Nera Zealand (Government Printer,
Wellington, New Zealand, 1969); G. P. C. Kotze, et al., Repor of
the Commission of Enquiry into Scirntology for rg7z (Government
Printer, Pretoria, South Africa, 1973). It should be noted that of
these works, that by Burrell was withdrawn shortly after it
appeared, and the publishers of the A TYPOLOGY AND A THEORY

entihcahon Sects have been the focus of considerable research
enterprise in the sociology of religion, and much of this endeavour
has been directed to the issue of whether, or under what
conditions, sects become transformed into denominations I This
dominating area of concern has distracted attention from other
types of ideological collectivity and other possible processes.
An analogous but different procetz, to which little attention has
been paid, is that of the transformation of cultz into sects.

Until recently, cults have been regarded as rather trivial social
phenomena, unworthy of systematic sociological attention. More
important perhaps, the process of transformation of cults into
sects has, on some accounts, been rendered not merely empirically
unlikely, but a priori impossible.

Consider, for example, Glock and Stark's def nition. Cults they
argue are religious movements which draw meir inspiration from
other than the primary religion of the eulture, and...are not
schismatic movements in the same sense as

Consider, for example, Glock and Stark's denition. Cults they
argue are

religious movements which draw their inspiration from other than
the primary

religion of the culture, and...are not schismatic movements in
the same sense as

sectz whore concern is with preserving a purer form of the
tradihonal faith. Glock and Stark demne cult and sect in terms of
the conrnt of belie Cults have theoloFcally alien beliefs, sects
have more rigorous or more fundamentaluzt variants of the
prevailing theology, and are schismatic in origm. On this basis
there could be individual convernon from one to another, but not
organizational transformation.

While Glock and Stark draw an impenetrable theological boundary
between cult and sect, others such as Lofland and Dohrman blur any
boundary between

I H. R Niebuhr, / he Social Sourccs of Denominationalism (Holt,
Rinehart

  Winston, New York, 925); Bryan R. Wilson, 'An analysis of seet
development', ASR, 24 ('959), PP 3-15-

Charles r Glock and Rodney Stark, religion and Socict. in rcnsion
(Rand McNally, Chicago, 1965), p. 245. them at all Lodand, in his
definition of cults, describes them as 'little groups'which break
off from the conventional consensus and espouse vely different
views of the renl, the possible and the morall while Dohrman
suggests that the concept of 'cult'will refer to that group,
secular, religious, or both, that has deviated from what our
American Society considers normative forms of religion, cconomics,
or poLitics, and has substituted a new and often unique view of the
individual, his world, and how this v orld may be attained Z

Thesc forms of definition seem inadcquate from a number of points
of vie-v 1 If dcviance is the idcntifying characteristic of cult
belicfs as suggested by Lofiand and Dohrman, Cllristian schismatic
and LtercticaL forms of bclief, such as thosc of Christian Science,
the Iormons, Jehovah's 'v'itnesses, and even the Salvation rmy,
become the ideologies of cults The distinction between cult and
sect disappear5 t 2 If, as Glock and Stark suggest, cults are to be
identlfied by their alien 'inspiration', and sects by their
concern to preserve the purity of the 'traditional faith'and their
schismatic origins, cults and sccts are t, pes of ideological
collectivity which bear no developmental relationship to each other
We cannot predica of a cult its possible transformation into a
sect. More important, however, this definition ignores a crucial
sociological feature, that is the social organization of the
collectivities concerned The theological cntenon of classification
employed by Glock and Stark provides us with no insight into the
similarities in mode of organization and methods of control over
adherents of such theologically diverse movements as Christian
Science, Scientology,aJehovah's Witnesses, etc.

Deviance, it has been suggested, is a distinguishing feature of
both cult anl sect. Cult and sect are deviant in relation to the
respectable, the normatively sanctioned, forms of belief prevailing
at any time. Today they are deviant in comparison with prevailing
indifference, agnostirism, or denominational Christian orthodoxy.S
A feature which distinguishes betv een them is that, like

IJohn Lofland, Doomsday Cult (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliflfs, Ne
w Jeney, 1966), p. 1.

'H. T. Dohrman, CalifoMia Cult: tle Story af Mankind United
(Beacon Press, Boston, 958), p. x.

'As it does in the work of some theologians for e:cample, A. A.
Hoekema, i hs our Majar Cults (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 196g).

: For a comparison of Christian Science and Scientology, see Roy
Wallis, 'A comparative analysis of problems and processes of
change in two manipulationist movements: Christian Science and
Scientology'in 'rhe Contemoorary fetamorhosis of Religion? Acts of
the l2th International Conference on the Sociology of Religion (The
Hague, Netherlands, August, 1973, PP Jr7-Z2

5 On the Prevailing religious climate in Britain and America, see
Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Soriety (Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth, 1969); Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-ew
(Doublcday Anchor, Ncw York, :960); Rodney Stark and the church,
the sect is conceived by its adherents to be uniquely Iegitimate as
a means of access to truth or salvation. The cult, like the
denomination, is conceived by followers to be pluralisticallv
legitimate, one of a variety of paths to the truth or salvation.l
This provides us with the following typology:

A ypologv of Ideological CollectiDiiiesr

Respectable

  DeDiant

Uniquely legitimate Church

   Sect

Plutalistically legitimate Denomination

  Cult A theory of culi deDelopment Although not all new religious
movements go through any simple undirectional sequence of stages,3
it is worth emphasizing that some do undergo transformation from
one type of collectivity to another. The best known case, although
less typical than was once believed, is the development of sects
into denominahons. It is argued here that some new religious
movements emerge as cults, and of these, some develop into sects.

Colin Campbell has proposed the notion of the culhc milieu to refer
to the cultural underground from which cults arise. This cultic
milieu he describes as Mueh broader, deeper and historieally based
[sicl than the contemporary movement known as the underground, it
includes all denant belief-systems and their associated practices.
Unorthodox science, alien and heretical religion, deviant medicine,
all comprise elements of such an underground. In addition, it
includes the collectivities, institutions, individuals and media of
communication associated with these beliefs. Substantively it
includes the worlds of the occult and the magical, of spiritualism
and psychic phenomena, of mystiQsm and new thought, of faith

I The notions of unique and pluralistic legitimacy were first
employed by Roland Robertson, 7. he Sociological Interpretation of
12cligion (BlackweD, Oxford, l 970), p. I 23, in slightly different
fashion. David Martin has also drawn attention to the pluralistic
legibmacy of the cult and the denommnation, See the appendix, 'The
denomination'in Dand Marhn, Paafsm (Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London, 1965).

'In the context of some ideological collectivities the label
'church'would be inappropnate, as indeed might some of the
others. In the case of political movements, for example, what one
has in mind here is the Nazi party in Germany after I gg,, or the
Bolshevik party in Russia after 1922. In terms of churches,
Catholicism would typically fit this category, as would the
Calvinism of Calvin's Geneva. Catholicism in contemporary
America, however, is clearly denominational.

S The Quakers, for example, appear to have fluctuated between
sectarianism and denominationalism, see Elizabeth Isiehei, 'From
sect to denomination among English Quakers'in Bryan Wilson, ed.,
Patttns of Sectalianism (Heinemann, London, 1967), pp. 161-81.
Charles Glock, American Pidy: the Naturc af Pdigiaus Commitment
(University of California Press, Berkeley, 1968).

healing and nature cure. This heterogeneous assortrnent of culhlral
itenns can be

regarded despite its apparent diversity, as constituting a single
entity the entity of

the cultic milieu.l

This idea seems a helpful one in broadly characterizing the
background from which cults emerge. Cults differentiate themselves
from this background as more or less temporary associations of
'seekers'organized around some common interest, the researches or
the revelations of an individual. The belief systems around which
they are organized are typically broadly based syntheses of ideas
and practices available within the cultic milieu and sometimes
beyond, adapted, supplemented, and organized through the insights
of their founders.'

Cults are generally described as exhibiting a number of typical
features. They are depicted as oriented towards the problems of
individuals, loosely structured, tolerant, non-exclusive, they make
few demands on members, possess no clear distinction between
members and non-members, have a rapid turnover of membership, and
are transient collectives. Their boundaries are vague and
undefined, and their belief systems are said to be 'fluctuating'.3
These features of the cult can be accounted for in terms of a
central characteristic of cult organization, which I shall refer to
as 'epistemological individualism'.5 By epistemological
individualism I mean to suggest that the cult has no clear locus of
final authority beyond the individual member. Unlike the sect, the
ideal typical cult lacks any source of legitimate attributions of
heresy. Hence in movements such as spiritulism,S New Thought,5 and
much of the flying saucer movement,7 so vague is the range of
accepted teaching that 'heresy'is a concept

I Colin Campbell, 'The cult, the cultic milieu and secularization'
in Michael Hill ed. A Sociologcal relrbook of Rdigwn in Britain,
No. 5 (SCM Press London, tg72) p. Ir2.

For some of the pseudo-6cientific Culb to have developed, see
Martin Gardner 17ads and allacies in the Name of Scence (Dover
Publications, New York, 1957).

S See Geoffrey K. Nelson, 'The concept of cult', Sociological
Pcriew, 16, 3 (19ba), pp. 351-6 t, for a review of the
charactenstics of the cults.

5 Davld Martin has stressed that 'The fundamental cnterion of the
cult is...individualism', David Marhn, PaciJism (Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London, 1965), p. 194. However, in contrast to my own
formulation, Martin regards the sect as exhibiting either
'authoritarianism or...almost total lack of authority'(Ibid,
p. 185). He also employs an implicitly theological distinction.
Culb are conceived to be theologically alien, while sects fall
within the Chnstian tradition and are marked by the extremlsm wlth
which they reject contemporary society.

5 Geoflrey K. Nelson, Spiritualism and Society (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, Londo

5 Charles S. Braden, Spirits in Rebllwn: th Rise and Development of
New 7houg (Southern Methodlst Univer3ity Press, Dallas, Texas,
1963); J. Stillson Judah, 7 listory and Phlosophy of the
Met:physical Morements in Amerlca (Westminster Pres Philadelphia,
1967).

'H. Taylor Buckner, 'The flying saucerians: a lingering cult Ntw
Society, g Se tember 1965. An exception is the Aetherius iociety,
which has moved very muc closer than Buckner's groups towards
sectarianism. See Roy Wrllis, 'The Aethenl without clear
application, The determination of what constitutes acceptable
doctrine is a matter to be decided by the individual member.

Lacking any authoritative source of attributions of heresy there
can be no clear boundaries between (I) cult ideology and the
surrounding cultic milieu, nor, in the absence of authoritative
tests of doctrine or membership, between (2) members and
non-members. There are, therefore, few barriers to doctrinal
adaptation and change. Since the determination of doctrine lies
with the members, cults cannot command the loyalty of their
membership which remains only partially committed. Commitment being
slight, resources for the control of members are lacking. Members
typically move between groups, and between belief systems adopting
components to fit into the body of truth already gleaned. The
loyalties of members are thus often shared between ideological
collectivities, and this leads to tolerance. Membership changes
rapidly as members move on from one group to another,l and the
collectivities themselves tend to be transient as charismatic
leaders emerge and attempt to control the activities of the
following and this, in turn, leads to alienation; or as dissension
anses due to the relatively limited basis of shared belie Since
any particular cult is only one among many possible patbs to the
truth or salvation, membership may decline through sheer
indifference. In order to retain or bolster membership, appeal may
be made to an ever wider range of interests, leading to ideological
diffuseness and the reduced relevance of the cult beliefs for the
individuaps salvation.2 Power lies in the hands of the consumer,
and for the individual's salvation.2 Power lies in the hands of the
consumer, and leaders may often be forced tD cater for consumer
interests rather than directing them, or risk membership decline.

Cults then, are fragile institutions. They typically face a problem
of doctrina precariousness, that is, the ideological distance
between the cult doctrine and the cultic milieu from which it was
derived is typically slight. Ideologically the cult is, therefore,
poorly differentiated from its background. A membership primarily
recruited from other cultic groups is liable to be selective in its
acceptance of the doctrine and disposed to create a new synthesis
of the cult's teachings with other belief-systems, thus threatening
the reabsorption of the cult into the cultic milieu.

I Buckner suggests 'A typieal occult seeker will probably have been
a Rosicrucian, a member of Mankind United, a Theosophist, and also
a member of four or five smaller specific cults. The pattern of
memberzhip is one of continuous movement from one idea to another
Seekers stay with a cult unhl they are satisfied that they ean
learn no more from it or that it has nothing further to offer, and
then move on'. H. Taylor Buckner, 'The flying saucenans: an open
door cult'in Marcello Truzzi, ed., Sociology and Evtryday Life
(Prentice-Hall, Engiewood Cliffs, Nev-Jersey, tg68), pp. 225-6.

5Buekner, op. cit. (196$), suggests such a process occurred in the
flying saucer grou,or which he observed. Society: a case study in
the formation of a mystagogic congregahon, Sociatogicat Review,
22,1
(l974),pp.27-44.ReprintedinRoyWallis,ed.,
Seclarianism:.nalysesafltetigious and Jon-h'eigias Secls (Peter Ov
en, London, l975). 111

   THE SOCIOLOGY OF CULT AND SECT

Cults similarly face a problem of authority, deriving from two
features of cultic movements. Furst, their membership is
predominantly composed of seekers who see a variety of paths to the
truth or salvation and who regard it as their right to select those
ideas and practices which wLI lead towards this goal. Second, cults
are typically service-oriented, purveying an experience, know-
ledge or technique through teachers and practitioners. Hence
charisma tends to be dispersed toward5 the lower echelons.
Membership (or clientele) loyalties are often centred on the local
teacher or practitioner rather than on the movement as a whole.
There is therefore a perennial threat of schism and secession as
local teachers or practitioners assert their autonomy. Third, cults
tend to face a problem of commitment. They are viewed as one among
a range of paths to truth or salvation rather than a unique path.
They typically dispense commodities of a limited and specific
kind. The involvement of the membership tends, therefore, to be
occasional, temporary and segmentary. Retaining, institutional-
izing and enhancing membership commitment therefore presents a
problem to cults which, if unresoved, may lead to passive and
limited involvement, apathy, and declining adherence. Sectarianism
as stratey In the face of these problems of organizational
fragility, the possibility of developing a cohesiye sectanan
collectivitv has had considerable appeal to some developing a
cohesive sectarian colleetivity has had eonsiderable appeal to some
eult leaders.

Seets may emerge in a variety of ways, as sehismatie movements from
existing denominations, as a result of interdenominational
erusades, or tbrough a proeess of development from eults. The
dimensions of the seet have been mueh debated.l Among those that
have been advaneed, eharaeteristies, sueh as the esehatologieal
nature of the seet stressed by Troeltseh, but also such eharaeter
istics as aseetieism, the aehieved basis of membership, an ethieal
orientation, and egalitarianism, seem in retrospect to have been
features of the sect in partieular soeio-historieal eireumstanees
rather than timeless, or universal dimensions of seetarianism.2
Those features advaneed as eentral to the concepl of sect which
have stood the test of time, therefore, seem to centre on the right
to exclusion, a self-conception as an elect or elite,
totalitarianism, and hostility towards, or separation from, the
state or society.

The suggestion advaneed here is that these dimensions of
seetarianism are

I senton Johnson, 'A critical appraisal of the ehureh-sect
typology', ASR, 2 (9S7), pp. 88-92; idem, 'On church and sect',
ASR, 28 (1963), pp. 539-49; idem Church and sect revisited', 7SSR,
m, 2 (1971), pp. 124-37; J. Milton Yinger, rhe Scienti ic Study of
Relieion (Collier-Macmillan, New York, 1970); Bryan R. WiLson,
Sects and: Society (Heinemann, London, 1961).

I have argued this point in Roy Wallis, 'The sectarianism of
5cientology'in Michael Hill, ed., A Sociologioal reaTtook of
Religion in sitain, No. 6 (5CM Press, London, 1973), pp 36-S5-
related to the characteristic which underlies sect organization -
'epistemological authoritarianism Sects possess some authoritative
locus for the legitimate attribution of heresy.l Sects lay a claim
to possess unique and privileged access to the truth or salvation.
Their committed adherents typically regard all those outside the
confines of the collectivity as 'in error'. The truth must be
protected from defilement or misuse and therefore extens*e control
is necessary over those to whom access is permitted, and the
exclusion of the unworthy. Those who remain, therefore, believe
themselves to have proven their superlor status. Hostility to state
or society readily follows. The state demands acceptance oEits own
version of the truth in some particulars. In those areas it defines
as its legitimate concern it can brook no rivals taxes must be
paid, births registered, children educated, wars fought whatever
the revelation. Thus state and society may threaten, and even
directly confiict with, the sectarian's notion of what constitutes
the truth, sometimes forcing the sect to defend its vision by
isolation and withdrawal.

The transition from cult to sect, therefore, involves the
arrogation of authority. In order for a cohesive sectarian group to
emerge from the diffuse, individualistic origins of a cult, a prior
process of expropriation of authority must transpire This centra
ization of authority is typically legitimized by a claim to a
unique revelation which locates some source or sources of authority
concerning doctrinal innovation and interpretatiOn beyond the
individu member or prachtioner, usually in the person of the
revelator himself.

Propounding a new gnosis and centralizing authority permits the
exercise of greater control over the collectivity through the
elimination or underrnining of alternative loci of power and the
transmutation of independent practitioners and teachers into
organizational functionanes. It facilitates the establishment of
clearer cognitive boundaries around the belief-system; the
abandonment of elements which most closelv link it to the cultic
milieu; and the introduction of new doctrinal elements which
effectively distinguish it from competitors. Doctrine may be
expanded to incorporate a systematic metaphysics increasing its
scope beyond the mere provision of a rahonale for a specific and
limited form of practice. Thus a wider and deeper commitment is
encouraged. Since the new doctrine is endowed with unique
salvational efficacy it provides a focus for more than segmentary
and occasional involvement, and a rationale for insulating the
believer, for example, by the denigration of alternative sources of
ideology and involvement, and by endowing the world and competing
belief-systems with formerly unsuspected danger. The emergence of a
charismatic leader provides a

'Where such authority lies may not always be obvious, even to
members. It may sometimes be shared between two or more loci, a
situation liable to lead to conflict, and a power-struggle, as, for
example, in the struggle between the prophets and thl aposfles in
the Catholic Apostolic Church See Kenneth Jones, 'The Catholie
Apostolie Church: a study in diflfused commitmenfl in vlichael
Hill, ed., A Sociological erbook oJ Religion in liricin, No. 5 SCM
Press, London, 1972), ppm37-60. 18

   THr SOCIOLOGY or CHLT AD SHCT focus of loyalty of a supra-local
kind. Together these factors assist in the transmutation of a
clientele into a following. A successfully implemented strategy of
sectarianization, therefore, provides one viable and attractive
solution to the cultic problem of institutional fragility.l

I Aspects of his theoretical structure have been devdoped in Roy
Wallis, 'Ideologv, authority and the developnnent of cultic
nnovernents', StciaI Reearch, 41, 2 (197i),

DIANETICS Background to the cult The founder of Dianetics and
Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, is reported to have been born m Igm at
Tilden, Nebraska. His father was an officer in the US navy and
appears to have seen ser ice in the East, on which occasions his
son may have spent vacations with him. He was raised for some years
by his maternal grandfather who ov ned a ranch in Montana, and
spent his early teens in Washington DC, where he graduated to
George Washington University. According to the testimony of the
Registrar of George Washington University, Hubbard attended the
summer session in 1931, and the fall and spring sessions 1931-32.
He was placed on probation in September 1931 and failed to return
for the fall 1932 sersion.l

His early adulthood is somewhat difficult to trace. He appears to
have led a mobile life, acquiring a number of skills and working in
various jobs. Arnong the occupations m which he is reported to have
been engaged during this period, are pilot, US Marine, radio
entertainer, scriptwriter and explorer. Hubbard was also a prolific
wnter of pulp magazine adventure, phantasy, and science fiction
stories and novels in the same genres.

Hubbard was commissioned into the navy before the outbreak of the
Second World War and is reported to have spent some time in Oak
Knoll, a military hospital. There he is reported and his own
statements lend some credibility to this account to have
interested himself particularly in the patients suffering from
mental or emotional disorders to whom he talked, and to have sought
out books dealing with the subject.2

Eollowing the war, Hubbard parted from his first wife and two
children to go

'In the liSht of Hubbard's later claims to competence in physics
it is worthy of note that in a course on dynamics sound and liSht
he aehieved a grade E, in a course on electricity and masnetism a
srade D, and in a course on modern physieal phenomena molecular
and atomic physics he was awarded a srade F. Stenographic
rranscript, Poun,ing Church of Scientology u. U.S.A, in US Court of
Claims, No. 226-61, Washinstcn

D Por example, in a story reported in the Withita Eagle, 24 April 1
95 r. 22

   THZ CULT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION to Holly vood as a scriptwTiter.
What success he may have had at this vocation is uncertain, but
dunng the following three years Hubbard became a major writer for
.4stounding Science Fiction, acquired an expert knowledge of the
practice of hypnosis, and became briefiy involved with Jack
Parsons, a follower of Aleister Crowley in Pasadena. During his
period in Hollywood, Hubbard claims i got a nurse, wrapped a towe
around my head and became a swami, and by 1947 achieved
'clearing'.'

Probably some time during 1948 Hubbard wrote a book outlining his
ideas for a new form of psychotherapy, later published in revised
form as he Original / hesis, for which he was unable to find a
publisher at the time. By 1 949, Hubbard was living in Bay Head,
New Jersey, where he appears to have interested John W. Campbell
Jr, editor of Astounding Science Fiction, in his therapeutic ideas,
and indeed to have relieved him, at least temporarily, of chronic
sinusitis.3 4

Gaining John W. Campbell as a disciple was indeed fortunate.
Campbell was an established editor of a respected science fiction
magazine with a considerable follo-ving. He was acquainted with
doctors, scientists, publishers and others who could lend their
support to Dianetics, Hubbard's new psychotherapy, and commanded
access to an important medium of communication within and beyond
the cultic milieu.

Campbell succeeded in interesting a Michigan general practitioner
v. ho occasionally contributed to Astounding, Dr J. A. Winter.
After some correspondence with Hubbard, 'Vinter visited Hubbard's
house in Bay Head, New Jersey, where the latter had a small
clientele on whom he was practising and developing his techmi:ue.
Winter relates:

larrivedinBayHead,N.J.onOctoberr, Ig4g,andimmediatelybecameimmersed

in a life of dianetics and very little else. I observed two of the
patients wbom

Hubbard had under treatment at this time, and spent hours each day
watching him

send these men 'down the time-traek'. After some observation of the
reaction of

I Alexander.Mitchel', 'The odd beginnings of Ron Hubbard's
career', Sunday 7 imts, 5 October tg69, p. Q; eorrespondence with
members and former members of the Ordo Templi Orientis; and
interviews with acquaintances of Hubbard at this time. See also
Chapter 4. It should be noted that the Sunday 7 imes article
contained errors for which ib publuhers rendered an apology and
paid an out of eourt settlement.

2 L. Ron Hubbard, 'The story of dianetics and scientology',
Lectu7es on Cleaing recorded at the Londrn Congress tgs8 (Hubbard
Communications Omce, London 8).

5 Martin Gardner, f.ds and sallacies in the Name of Science (Dover
Publications, New York, 1957), p. o64.

Much of this account of Hubbard's life is based on George Malko,
Scientology: the NowRellgion(Dell,NewYork,
tg70),pp.27-41,andGardner,op.cit.,modifiedinthe light of interviews
wi:h early colleagues and acquaintances of Hubbard. See also
Chrutopher Evans, Culs of Unreason (Harrap, London, rg73). While
the account offered here is nat to Qy knowledge inaccurate, it
should be noted that Malko's book has been withdrawn b, its
publishers who also paid a legal settlement. others, I concluded
that my learning of this technique would be enhanced by sub-
mitting myself to therapy. I took my place on the couch, spending
sn average of three hours a day trying to follow the directions for
recalling 'impediments'. The experience was intriguing; I found
that I could remember much more than I had thought I could, and I
frequently experienced the discomfort which is known as
'restimulation'. While listening to ubbard 'running'one of his
patients, or vhile being 'run myself, I ould find myself
developing unaccountable pains in various portlons of my anatomy,
or becoming extremely fatigued and somnolent. I had mghtmares of
being choked, of having my genitalia cut off, and I was convinced
that dlanetles as a method could produce effects.'

Having experienced these effects in therapy and discovering that he
could produce them in others, Winter moved to ew Jersey to work
with Hubbard. There with Campbell and Hubbard he vorked on a
systematic formulation of the theory and practice, modifying
nomenclature. A paper giving a 'resume of the principles and
methodology of dianetic therapy'was submitted by Winter to the
ournal of the American sledical Association, but was rejected. A
revised version including case histories supplied by Hubbard was
submitted to the American ournal of Psychiatry, but again
rejected.r Winter was also unsuccessful in his attempts to persuade
other medical practitioners to try out the therapy.

Hubbard therefore decided to write a book directed to the laity
rather than the medical profession, and Campbeil commissioned an
article from him on Dianetics for Astounding. This article was
previewed by Campbell in his editoriais in extremely enthusiastic
terms: in longer range view...the item that most interests me
at the moment is an article on the most important subject
conceivable. This is not a hoax artiele. It ir an article on the
science of the mind, of human thought. It is not an article on
psychology that isn't a science. It's not General Semantics. It
is a totally new science called dianetics, and it does precisely
what a scirncc of thought should do. Its power is almost
unbelievable; it proves the mind not only can but does rule the
body eompletely; following the sharply defined basic laws dianetics
sets forth, physical ills such as uicers, asthma and arthritis can
be cured, as can all other psychosomatic ills....It is, quite
simply, impossible to exaggerate the importance of a true science
of human thought.'I assure you of two things: you will find the
article fascinating, and it is of more importance than you ean
readily realise.4 And finally: Next month's issue will, I believe,
cause one full-scale explosion across the country. We are carrying
a sixteen thousand word article entitled 'Dianetics...An

Joseph A. Winter, A Doctor s Report on Dianetics: rheory and I
herapy (Julian Press, New York, 1 95 l )

  p m.

2 Ibid., p. 18.

'John W. Campbell, 'In times to come', Astounding Science Fichon,
44, 4 (December '949), p. 80.

'John W. Campbell, Astounding Science Fiction 4j, 1 (March Igso),
p. 4. Introduction to a New Science', by L. Ron Hubbard. It will, I
believe, be the first publication of the material. It is, I assure
you in full and absoiute sincerity, one of the most important
articles ever published. In this article, reporting on Hubbard's
own research into the engineering question of how the human mind
operates, immensely important basic discoverie. are related. Among
them:

A technique of psychotherapy has been developed which Will cure any
insanity not due to organic de;truction of the brain.

A technique mhat gives a man a perfect, indelible, total memory,
and perfect, errorless ability to compute hu problems.

A basic answer, and a technique for curing not alleviating -
uicers, arthritis, asthma, and many other nongerm diseases.

A totally new conception of the truly incredible ability and power
of the human mind.

Evidence that insanity is contagious, and is not hrrsditaty.

Thls is no wild meory. It is not mysticism. It is a coldly precise
engineering description of how the human mind operates, and how to
go about restoring correct operation tested and used on some two
hundred and fifty cases. And it makes only one overall claim: the
methods logically developed from that description worl;. The memory
stimulation technique is so powerful that, within thirty minutes of
entering therapy, most people will recall in full detail their own
birth. I have observed it in action, and used the techniques
mysebf.

I leave it to your judgement: Will such an alticle be of interest
to you? It is not only a fact article of the highest importance; it
is the story of the ultimate adventure an exploration in the
strangat of all tcrra inrognita; the human mind. No stranger
adventure appeared in the Arabian Nights than Hubbard's experience,
using his new techniqua, in plowing through the strange jungle of
distorted thoughts within a human mind. To find, beyond that zone
of madnas, a computing mechanism of ultimate and incredible
emciency and perfection! To find that a fuUy ane) enormously
able and altruistic personality is trapped deep in every human mind
however insane or criminal it may appear on the outside !l These
editorial previews attracted inquiries from individuals seeking
therapy and traimng, and in April 1950, the Hubbard Dianetic
Research Foundation was established to provide the services for
which a demand was appearjng. rhcory and practite of Dianetics The
eagerly awaited article appeared in the May issue of Astounling.Z
There

John W. Campbell, 'In tima to come', eistounding Scicnct Fictwn,
45, 2 (Apnl l 950),

5 L Ron Hubbard, 'Dianetia: the evolution of a science', Astounding
Scicncc /'iction, 45, 3 (May l950), pp. 45-87. Repnnted with some
minor modifications as Dianetics: the Evolution of a Scicncc
(Publications Organisation World Wide, 1968), hereafter referred to
as ES. An earlier article on Dianetics had appeared in a
publieation of the New York Explorers Club, L. Ron Hubbard, 'Terra
incognita: the mind', Ihe Extorcr's ournat, 28, 1 (winteSpnng
195O), pp. 1-4, 52. This article presents Hubbard presented a model
of the mind as a computer. The 'optimum'mind, Hubbard argued,
would have perfect recall of all sense-impressions which had ever
impinged upon it, and vastly improved mental agility beyond that of
the normal brain. Since this level of optumum functioning is
potentially available to every mind, Hubbard called this the 'basic
personality': tho basic personalities contacted were invariably
strong, hardy, and constructively good ! They were the same
personalities as the patients had in a normal state minu certain
mental powers, plus electronic demons and plus general
unhappiness.l The basic personality was also called a 'clear'. This
term was derived from the operation of a calculating machine, in
which depressed numbers are released. If left unreleased, the
depressed numbers will result in a systematic inaccuracy in future
computations. Since the 'normal'mind fell far short of the heights
postulated by Hubbard for the basic personality, he argued that
like the com puter with a 'held down seven', the normal mind was
operahng under the constraints of severe 'aberrations'which
limited its capacities and caused mis-computation.

These aberrations resulted from pain. Pain was a threat to survival
(which Hubbard argues is the basic principle of existence).
Therefore the mind the sane, analytical mind sought to avoid
it. Evolution had provided a mechanism which made this possible.
The 'Reactive Mind'had evolved as a means of protecting the
sensitive computing machinery of the 'Analytical Mind'from damage
in the face of threats to survival.

The reachve mind thinks in identities. It is a stimulus-response
mind. Its actions The reactive mmnd thmnks in idenPities. It is a
stimulus.response mind. Ib action are exteriorly determined. It has
no power of choice. It pnts phyrical pain datt forward during
moments of physical pain in an effort to save the organism. So long
as its mandates and commands are obged it withholds mhe physical
pain. As soon as the organism starts to go against its commands, it
indicts the pain.'In moments of pain, unconsciousness or emotional
trauma, the analytical mind shuts off and the reactive mind comes
into operation. The reactive mind operates on the basis of
information stored in the reactive memory banks. The contenb of
these reactive banks are 'engrams'and 'locks'.S

An engram is a recording of the full perceptic content of a moment
of pain, unconsciousness, or emotional loss. Hence, Hubbard argued
that wmle it was

5, P 3-

'Ibid., p. 62.

Ibid., p. 63. In part of the original Asounding article, the term
'norn'was used instead of 'engram'. Dianetics as an aid to
expedition commanders with umbalanced personnel. It had little or
no impact. Dianeticists and Scientologists do not in general know
ot its existence, and it is of interest solely because it employs
the term 'comanome'rather than the earlier term 'impediment', or
the later term engram-. This lends some support to Winter's version
of the derivation o Dianehc terminology, and hence to his claim
that the work ot Richard Semon was unknown to Hubbard at this time.
See below, page 36. 20

   THE CULT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION 
   
   believed by orthodox psychology
that during periods of unconsciousness, nothing was perceived, he
had discovered that there was no period when the organism did not
perceive. Perception, however, was performed by different
components of the mind the analytical mind during periods of
normal consciousness, the reacDive mind duLing periods of
'analytical attentuation'('anaten'), that is what were otherwise
believed to be periods of unconsciousness. At some future date
should the individual enter an environment which contained any of
this perceptic content, the analytical mind would begin to shut
off, the reactive mind would come into operation and the individual
would experience some of the pain originally contained in the
engram, as a warning to leave the situation of danger. For example:
Here's how an engram can be established: Mary age 2, knocked out by
a dog, dog bites. Content of engram: anaten; age 2 (physical
structure); smell of environment and dog; sight of dog jaws gaping
and white teeth; organic sensation of pain in back of head (hit 
pavement); pain in posterior; dog bite in cheek; tactile of 
dog fur, concrete (elbows on pavement), hot dog breath;
emotion; physical pain plus cndocrine response; audio of dog
growl and passing car. What Mary does with the engram: she does not
'remember'the incident but somehmes plays she is a dog Jumping
on people and biting them. Otherwise no reaction. Then at age ro
similar circumstances, no great anaten, the engram is restimulated.
After this she has headaches when dogs bark or when cars pass that
sound like that car, but only responds to the engram when she is
tired or harassed otherwise. The engram was first dormant data
waihng just in case. Next it was keyed-in stu^f we Then at age m
similar circumstances, no great anaten, the engram is reshmulated.
After this she has headaches when dogs bark or when cars pass that
sound iike hzt car, but only responds to the engram when she is
tired or harassed otherwise. The engram was first dormant data
waiting just in case. Next it was keyed-in stuff we have to watch
out for. Then it was thereafter restimulated whenever any combina-
tion of its perceptics appeared while Mary was in slight anaten
(weary). When forry years of age she responded in exactly the same
way, and still had not the slightest conscious understanding of
the real reason !l If in the formation of the engram words are
spoken, these words may have a later effect similar to that of a
post-hypnotic suggestion. If the words art subsequently repeated,
the engram is 'keyed-in'or partially restimulated, and if 'the
individual is slightly anaten weary, ill, sleepy'the engram will
be fully restimulated, leading him to behave in aberrated ways.

The purpose of Dianetic therapy, therefore, was to gain access to
and locate engrams, and 'erase'them from the reactive mind, thus
eradicating their effects in the form of psychosomatic illness,
emotional tension, or lowered capability, by permitting the
analytical mind to operate unimpeded.

Hubbard claimed to have a technique which would remove an engramic
'memory'from the reactive mind, refiling it in the memory of the
analytical mind where it no longer had engramic effects.Z
lxhausting the reactive mind of engrams hence has a number of
highly desirable consequences. The individual becomes
'self-determined'rather than having his actions determined by his
IES,pp.65-6. Ibid., p. 70. engramS. The analytical mind being a
perfect computer would always supply the correct answer from the
information fed in, when relieved of the engrams which lead to
error.l The individual's IQwould rise dramatically. He would be
free of all psychological or psychosomatic illness, his resistance
to physical illness would be vastly improved, and he would be able
to cure himself of other illnesses or injuries much more rapidly.
His memory would vastly improve. He would, in short be a 'clear'.
As Hubbard describes it: The experience of his entire life is
available to the rlstr and he has all his inherent mental ability
and imagination free to use it. His physical vitality and health
are markedly improved and all psycho-somatic illnerses have
vanished and will not return. He has greater re-istance to actual
disease. And he is adaptable to and able to change his environment.
He is not 'adjusted'; he is dynamic. His ethical and moral
standards are high, his ability to seek and experience pleasure is
great. His personality i5 heightened and he i. ereative and
constructive. It i9 not yet known how mueh longevity is added to a
life in the process of clearing, but in view of the automatic
rebalancing of the endocrine system, the lowered incidence of
accident and the improvement of general physical tone, it is most
eertainly raised. As a standard of comparison, a clear is to the
contemporary norm as the eontemporary norm is to a contemporary
institutional case....A clear, for instance, has complete recall
of everything which has ever happened to him or anything he has
ever studied. He does mental computations, such as those of chess,
for example, v hich a normal would do in half an hour, in ten or
fifteen seconds....He is entirely self-determmned. And hus
ereative imagination is high. He ean do a swift study of anything
within his intelleetual capacity, which is inherent, and the study
would be the equivalent to him of a year or two of training when he
war 'normal'. His vigor, persistence and tenacity are very mueh
higher than anyone has thought possible.

The only obstacle to this desirable state was that while 'locks'-
severe restimulations of engrams could be released by 'returning'
the individual to the restimulating situation, releasing engrams
and hence clearing the reactive mind required that the earliest
engram (the 'basic-basic') be located and cleared. Then the therapy
could move on to later engrams. Hubbard, claimed in his Astounding
article that his 'pre-clears'patients) had first been found to
have engrams resulting from birth, but even these did not turn out
to be the earliest. The earliest engrams turned out to occur in the
period shortly after conception 5 Hubbard's radical claim therefore
was that the source of much human illness and incapacity lay in
'pre-natal'engrams. The commonest source of pre-natal engrams
Hubbard claimed was attempted abortions.

IES,p.76. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: th: Modern Scenee of Mental Health
(Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, 1968; first
publisbed by Hermitage House, New York, 1950), pp 170-l. Thus book
will be referred to hereafter as MSMH.

'n the Astauneiing article (p. 81) Hubbard states that the
earliest engram he had found occurred twenty-four hours after
conCepQon. In the version of this arfiele printed subsequently as
ES p. 86, this had been amended to read Shortly eforr concetlon..

                THE CULT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION 

Therapy proceeded in the following
manner: The pre-clear lay on a bed or couch in a quiet room. The
auditor tells hinn to look at the ceiling. The auditor says: 'When
I count from one to seven your eyes will close'. The auditor counts
from one to seven and Iceeps counting quietly and pleasantly until
the patient close. his eyes. A tremble of the lashes will be
noticed in optimum reuerie.l Hubbard insisted that this process of
inducing 'Dianetic reverie'was quite different from hypnosis. To
ensure against hypnotic suggeshon, however, a canceller is
installed. 7:hat is, the pre-clear is told: In the future, when I
utter the word Gncelled, everything which 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 hrve made to you will be without
force v-hen I say the word cancelkd. o you understand?Z The
pre-clear is assured he vill be aware of everything that happens.
When the pre-clear has entered the state of reverie he is requested
to return to childhood, to an incident involving a pleasant
experience and to go through it from the beginning recounting all
the perceptual detail involved in the incident. This is to give the
pre-clear the idea of what is expected. If he cannot recall (or
'relive'in Hubbard's view) such an early incident, he is returned
to a more recent incident. After further prelirninaries the auditor
directs the pre-clear to return to 'basic-basic'. He does this by
direchng the 'file-clerk'(a hypothetical entity which 'monitors'
the memory banks and selects appropriate material on request by the
auditor)3 to return to the incident necessary to resolve the case.
Generally, the basic-basic is not located so simply, however, and
other engramic material will be brought up. This has to be
'reduced', that is the pre-clear is asked to return to the
begiDning of the incident and recount all the perceptual detail
involved in the incident. The pre-clear is directed to recount this
incident until all the emotion involved in it is discharged. MSMH,
p. 159. 'MSMH, p. 200. S Ibid., p. 198.

The cnteria for what counts as the reduction or erasure of an
engram aro given by Hubbard as follows: 'To reduee means to take
all the eharge or pain out of an incident. This means to have the
pre-elear recount the incident from heginmng to end (while returned
to it in revene) over and over again, piceing up all the somatics
and perceptions present just as though the incident were happening
at that moment. To reduce means, teehnieally, to render free of
aberrative material as far as possible to mahe the case progress.
'To "erase" an engram means to recount it until it has vanished
enhrely....If the engram is early, if it has no material earlier
which will suspend it, that engrann will "erase'. The patient,
trying to find it again for a second or sixth reeounting will
suddenly find out he has no faintest idea whatwas in it. SI'vlfl,
p. 287.

The 'file-clerk'is then asked for 'the next incident required to
resolve this case', and the process is repeated. Ideally,
basic-basic would be located and erased and the pre-clear then
progressively cleared of all subsequent engrams and locks. Often,
however, this would not occur and it would therefore be necessary
to end the session at some convenient pomt, usually after the
reduction of an engram. (The modal length of a Dianetics session
was generally around two hours, but when the pre-clear was 'stuck
in an incident', that is, an engram, it might occasionally last
several hours,)

The pre-clear would be told to 'come up to present time'. The
auditor might then question him as to the time, location, etc., to
ensure that he was 'in present time'. He would then say 'Cancelled'
and end the session.

...(work continues until the auditor has worked the patient
enough for the period)

...Come to present hme. Are you in present time? (Yes) (Use
canceller word).

When I count from five to one and snap my fingers you will feel
alert. Five, four,

three, two, one. (snap) 'The thrust of the auditing activity was
to get the pre-clear to return to the 'basic area', that is, the
area of pre-natal experience, contact the basic-basic engram and
erase it, and then move along the 'time-track'erasing later life
engrams until the individual was cleared. In order to reach the
basic-basic, ho-vever, it was generally believed necessary to
reduce, or discharge the painful emotion from later life trauma
which blocked access to it.

In the course of therapy the pre-clear was often unable to contact
an earlier engramic incident and would verbalize this inability
with a phrase such as 'I can't go back at this point'.8 Such a
phrase is an engramic command, which must be overcome by means of
'repeater'technique. This technique simply involves getting the
pre-clear to repeat the phrase over and over again, similar
phrases, and anything else the pre-clear might add. For example:
Woman: All I get is 'Take her away'. Auditor: Go over that again.
Woman: Take her away [repeated three timesl. Auditor: Go over it
again. Woman: Take her away. Auditor: Go over it again Woman: No
no, I won't. Auditor: Go over it again Woman: I won't I won't, I
wont, I wont. Auditor: Go over it again take her away. Go over
the phrase again. Take he away. Woman: Take her away [cryingl No,
no. I MSMH, p. 202. : MSlqH, p. 124.

u

   TIIE CULT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION Auditor: Go over the phrase,
take her away. Woman: Take...take [cryingl, no, no. Auditor: Go
over the words 'no, no'. Woman: No, no, no. Auditor: Go over it
again. Woman: No. Auditor: Go over it again. Woman: [Moaning...
don't...Auditor: Go over it again, go over 'don't'. Woman:
[Crvingl.

Auditor: Go over the word 'don't'.

Woman: Don't, don't, don't, don't, [Etc.ll

Repetition of such phrases, Hubbard argues 'sucks the patient back
down the track and into contact with an engram wbich contains it',2
sometimes facilitating the reduction of tbat engTam, or otherwise
releasing emotional charge from the reactive bank.

Another important technique was that of securing a 'dash answer'.
This technique was typically employed to discover where on the
turte-track the pre clear was stuck, that is v-hen an engram had
occmTed which had since been a major source of aberration, and to
discover the nature of the incident.3

In the first case, the auditor would tell the pre-clear, 'When I
eount to five...a phrase will flash into your mmnd to describe
where you are on the track. One, two, three, four, five!''Late
pre-natal', says the pre-clear, or 'yesterday'or whatever occurs
to him.'UICUI WaS SUmi, IllamS ynen an ellgram naCt OCCUI.:..
Wllmll nac smce ueen a major source of abenation, and to discover
the nature of the incident.3 Counting was later replaced by
snapping the fingers, in order to discover the nature of an
incident about which the pre-clear, unaided, vas not fortheoming:
The auditor asks a series of questions wbich will identify the
incident and receives flash answers on a yes-no basis. The auditor
says, 'When I snap my fingers you will answer yes or no to me
following question': 'Hospital?'(snap!), and the pre-clear answers
yes or no. Such a series of quesdons and answers might run as
follows: 'Accident?''Yes''X3spital?''No''Mother?''Yes'
'Outdoors?''No''Fall down?'

'This example is taken from an actual auditing situation, a
recording of a public demonstration of Dianetic auditing, given by
L. Ron Hubbard on 28 September 195l. For further illustrations of
repeater technique in Dianetics sessions, see Walter Braddeson,
Sciensoloyft the Millions (Sherbourne Press, Los Angeles,lg6g), pp,
83-5 87-9, 9l. : MSMH, p. V15. t MSMH, p. 296; L Ron Hubbard
Science of Suruiuol (Hubbard Dianetic Founda tion Inc., Wicbita,
Kaosas, 1951), I, pp. m4-5; 11, pp. 57-8. All references are to tb
Tenth Printing, published by Hubbard College of Scientology, :ast
Grinstead Sussex, 1 967 Hereafter referred to simply as Science of
Surviu sl.

'hlSMH, p. 296.

THE CULT PHAsr: DlArTIcs

  3 'No''Cut?''Yes''Kitchen? Yes'. And tuddenly Lho pre-ciear
may remember the

incident or get a visio of the scene or remember or get a soric
recall of what his

mother said to him,, 1 'rhe backgound to the theory atld pTattite of
Dianetits Dianetics was a form of abreaction therapy, with strong
similarities to a variety of techniques then in use. Since Hubbard
himseif has asserted the originality of the entire theory and
practice and acknowledges having been induenced only in a most
general way by other writers, it is difficult to be certain of the
sources of his synthesis. Ideas which approximate to many aspects
of the theory and practice of Dianetics were currently available m
orthodox and fringe psychology, although it is not certain how much
Hubbard may have derived from them, and it is clear that he added
manv entirely original elements of his own.

The theory that aspects of human behaviour might be explained as
responses to traumatically (and, of course, other) conditioned
stimuli was prominent in psychology following the work of Pavlov
and Watson. Pavlov's work on the induction of 'experimental
neuroses'in dogs was taken up by psychiatrists impressed by the
correspondence between his ciinical descriptions of these neu-
roses and the acute war neuroses they observed in evacuated
soldiers.2 'Phe therapy developed to treat these neuroses was an
abreaction therapy, described as follows by Sargant:

A drlla wolld he adminit,red to a...labent...and as it
starred to take effect, A drug would be administered to a...
patient...and as it started to take effect, an endeavour would
be made to make him re-live the episodes that had caused his
breakdown. Sometimes the episode, or episodes, had been mentally
suppressed, and the memory would have to be brought to me surface
again. At other times it was fully remembered, but the strong
emotions originally attached to it had since been suppressed. The
marked improvement in the patients nervous condition was attri-
buted to the releasing of these original emotions.'The technique
of suggesting quite imaginary situations to a patient under drugs,
leading to abreaction of fear or anger was found to be as equally
effective in the restoration of mental health, as getting him to
re-live actual traumatic experiences.4

The therapeutic role of abreaction had been systematically explored
first by Breuer and Freud,s whose investigations revealed that the
root of many hysterical symptoms lay in the experience of
psychological trauma:

Science of Surviual, H, pp 57-8. 'William Sargant, Bttlefor the
Mnd (Pan Books, London, 1 959).

Ibid., Pr7

Ibid., pp. 17-18.

6Joseph breuer and Sigmund Freud, Sludies in Hysteria, Vol 11 of
the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of 8igmund
Freud (Hogarth Press, London, Ig

I Hr CULT AND ITS TRANSb'ORMATlON Any experience which calls up
distTessing affects such ai those of hight, anxiety, shame or
physieal pain may operate as a trauma of this kind. The affect
associated with the traumatic situation is repressed rather than
discharged when the individual is unable to react due to social
circumstances or because it involved something he wished to forget,
or when the expenence occurred while the patient was in a
'dissociated'or 'hypnoid'state of mind, that is, when under
conditions of: severely paralysing affects, such as fright, or
during positively abnormal psychical states, such as the
semi-hypno;ic twilight state of day-dreaming, auto-hypnoses, and so
on.'The memory of the traumatic experience is either partially or
completely out of normal consciousness but can be aroused 'in
accordance with the law-s of association...by a new experience
which sets it going owing to a similarity with the pathogenic
experience'.S

The aim of therapy was therefore to bring the original experience
with its associated affect into consciousness, and get the patient
to describe the event in detail, thereby arousing and discharging
the accompanying affect: We found...that each individual
hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when v
e had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the
event by which it v as provoked and in arousing its accompanyi
affect, and when the patient had described that event in the
greatest possible detail and had put the affeet into words...'
Althouh Freud first employcd hvDnosis as a mn f I Although Freud
first employed hyPnosis as a means of locating traumatic material
and bringing it to consciousness, he shortly found that some
patient could not be effectively hypnotized. This led him to the
creation of a new technique for extending the pahent's memory. He
would ask his patients if they recalled what occasioned the
symptoms. He assured them they did know:

 . After this I became still more insistent; I told the patients
to lie down and deliberately close their eyes in order to
'concentrate'...I then found that without any hypnosis new
recollections emerged whieh went further back and which probabi
related to our topic.'Should the patient still prove recalcitrant,
Freud would then apply manual pressure to the patient's head,
assuring him that when he did this a recollection would come to
mmnd P

The parallels with early Dianetic practice are quite striking. With
only minor modifications in practice and terminology Dianetic
theory and practice might 'Ibid.,p.6. 'Ibid., p. m. 'Ibid., p.
r6. i Ibid., p. 6, emphasis omitted.  Ibid., p. z68. Ibid., p.
z70.

.......ll A ,. I I A N

  I I l: b

  aa have been adapted from that of early Freud. That this is more
than merely a possibility is suggested by John W. Campbell's letter
to Dr Joseph Winter in July 1949 telling of Hubbard's discoveries,
'His approach is, actually, based on some very early work of
Freud's, some work of other men, and a lot of original research'.l

The process of engram formation resembles the mechanism of
repression elaborated by Freud, and Hubbard's distinction between
the analytical and the reactive mind loosely fits Freud's
distinction of the conscious and unconscious. There are even hints
in Freud's discussion of the analysis of hysteria which strongly
suggest an ongin for Hubbard's notion of the 'file-clerk', for
example: consequences of the manuall pressure give one a deceptive
impression of there being a superior intelligenee outside the
patients consciousness which keeps a large amount of psychical
material arranged for particular purposes and has fixed a planned
order for its return to consciousness. or yet more directly,

it was as though we were ellamining a dossier that had been kept in
good order. The

analysis of my patient Emmy von N. contained similar files of
memories..These

files form a quite general feature of every analysis and their
contents al-vays emerge

in a chronological order...'although the order was the reverse
of the actual experiential order. Hubbard's 'file-clerk'did not
always deal with matters in such a systematic fashion. In one
published comment, Hubbard admitted a considerable psychoana-

In one published comment, Hubbard admitted a considerable
psychoanalytic influence on early Dianetics: lytic influence on
early Dianetics: In the earhest befjinning of Dianetics it is
possible to trace a corsiderable psychoanalytic influerce. There
was the matter of ransacking the past; the matter of believing with
Freud mat if one could talk over his difficulties they would
alleviate and there was the matter of coneentrating on early
childhood. Our first improve ment on psycho-analysis itseh
consisted of the abandonment of talk alone and the direct address
to the incident in its own area of time as a mental image picture
susceptible to erasure. But many of the things which Freud
thought might exist, such as 'life in the womb', 'birth trauma', we
in Dianetics and Scientology confirmed and for them provided an
adequate alleviation. The discovery of the engram is entirely the
property of Dianetics. Methods of its erasure are also owned
entirely by Dianetics, but both of these were pointed to by early
Freudian analysis and Hypnohsm.'Despite the fact that Freud had
abandoned the practice, hypnotic abreactive therapy was widely
developed during the 19305 and 1 g40s.r The phenomena of Cited in
Winter, op. cit., p. 3. reuer and Freud, op. cit., p. 272.

Ibid., p. z88. 4 L Ron Hubbard, 'A critique of psycho-analysis 3',
Cerhinly, 9, 7 (1962, p. g. 5 8ee the discussion of

  and reference to, earlier work in Jacob H Conn, 'Hypnosyn-
thesis: III Hypnotherapy of chronic war neuroses with a discussion
of the value of 34

   THL CULT AND ITS TRANSrORVATlON spontaneous and induced
regression had also been explored under hypnosis,l and it was known
that age regression could be induced by suggestion in a non-
hypnotic state.3 Moreover, the phenomenon of hypnotically
age-regTessed patients reporting details of intra-uterine life, on
being told they were at an appropriate age, had been observed.3

In the practice of hypnosis a distinction was sometimes drawn
between regTeSSion, described as a 'half-conscious dramatisation of
the present understanding of that previous time', and
reuiuiication, described as 'the type of time regression in which
the hypnotic situation itself ceases and the subject is plunged
directly into the chronological past'.

The term regression was generaLly used for both kinds of phenomena,
and some doubt was thrown on the status of such a process of
returning to early periods of childhood, when Young in a controlled
experimental study showed that a sample of controls requested to
simulate the performances of three-year-olds at measured by a
series of tests were able to approximate such performances more
accurately than hypnotized subjects ordered to regress to their
third birthday. Young felt the results of his experiment better
supported an explanation in terms of which the hypnotized subjects
'v ere unwittingly playing a role, and playing it less skilfully
than the controls by virtue of having voluntarily surrendered
their critical attitudes during the trance...'than an
explanation in terms of any actual return, or recovery of actual
memories of the time in question.5

Hubbard was clearly familiar with some of this work. He was an
experienced practitioner of hypnosis, and in MSMH carefully
distinguished returning and reliving in Dianetics from regression
and revivification in hypnosis.C

Although the 'recalling'of the experience of birth and prenatal
life had been

'Milton H. Erickson, 'Hypnotic treatment of acute hysterical
depression: report of
acaseArchiuesofNeurologyandpsychiaty46(lg4l)p.l76i Merton M.
Cill,'Spontaneous regression on the induetion of hypno5i5,
Bullehn of the Menninger Clinic, 12, 2 (1948), pp. 41-8.

Leonard T. Maholick, The infant in the adult', Psychasomatic
Medicine, t t (1949), pp. 295-337-

5J. H Masserman, Yhe dvDamics of hypnosis and brief psychotherapy'
Archiues of Neurology and Psychaty, 46 (1941), ppm 76-9.

'Milton H. Enckson and Lawrence S. Kuble, Succe55ful treatment of
a case of acute hysterical depression by return under hypno5i5 to a
critical phase of childhood', Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 4 (1941),
pp. 585 609.

5 Paul Campbell YounS, Hypnotic regremion fact or artifact?'
3aurnal of Aonormal and Social Psychology 35 (1940), pp. 273-8.

6 MSMH p. 12. The reason given for the terminological substitution
is that regression had pejorahve connotahons, and 'revivificahon
was something that happened under hypnosis. As Dianeties did not
employ hypno5i5, reliving'was more appropriate. abreaction,
regression, and revivification, 30unal of Cinical and Bxerisnenlal
Hymosis (1953), pp. 29-43; Lewis R Wolberg, Hynoanaiysis (Grune &
Stratton, -ew York 1945).

THr CULT PHASL: DIAI'IZTICS

  35 noted in hypnotized sabjects, it was little explored in the
main streams of psychology. Experimental work had been conducted on
the possibility of conditioning the unborn child with considerable
success during late pregnancy,l but the influence of the experience
of birth and pre-natal life on later psychological development
was most actively explored by Otto Rank and his followers. Rank
held that the origins of neurosis lay not in the Oedipus complex,
but in the trauma of birth.t Phyllis Greenacre developed this
theory fuTther, suggesting that events in intra-uterine life,
particularly after the seventh month of pregnancy when
responsiveness to sound begins to appear, might have a traumatic
effect on the foetus leading to reactions akin to anxiety and
influencing later psychological development.a Finally, Nandor
Fodor, in a book published by the publishers of llSM only the year
before Hubbard's book, also argued that pre-natal traumata were the
cause of later life neuroses, and, curiously presaging Hubbard's
thought, argued that...nature left the unborn child unprotected
against the violence of parental intercourse in the advanced
stage. of gestation, and thus exposed it to an ordeal the
traumaticnatureofwhichisclearlytraceableindreamsthrough-outourlives.
: and that accidents su fered by the mother may expose the unborn
to physical shoct s through the protective amniotic cushion....''
The need to relive'the rcpressed memory of birth and pre-natal
trauma

The need to 'relive'the repressed memory of birth and pre-natal
trauma stressed by Fodor,7 also appears in a book by an English
healer.e There Eeman discusses pre-natal memory and the successful
treatment of a number of cases of apparently organic disability by
a non-hypnotic abreactive therapy based on re-living traumatic
experiences.

I David K. Spelt, 'The conditioning of the human foetus in ut6ro',
ournal of Fxperitnenhl Psycholog, 38 (1948), pp. 338-46.

2 Otto Rank, rhe rrauma of Buth (Harcourt Brace & Co, New York,
1929).

J Phyllis Greenacre, 'The predisposition to anxiety, Psychoanalyic
Quarterly, m (l94l)J pp. 66-94-

Nandor Fodor, rhe Search for the Beloued: a Clmlcal Investigation
of the rrauma of Brth and Pre-natal (:;onditioning (Hermitage
Press, New York, 1949), p. 3og

For a resume of Rank, Greenacre and Fodor, see J. A. C. Brown,
Freud and the PostFrradians (PenguinBooks,Harmondsworth,
Ig64),pp.32-s.Thepublisherof MSMH, a member of the Bay Head cirele,
assured me that Hubbard did not know of Fodor's work publisbed in
that first year before the public appearance of Dianetics. This
may, of course, have been the case. Hov. ever, Fodor suggests that
the unborn child may have knowledge of what is going on outside the
womb by means of telepathy. Hubbard takes pams to rebut the thesis
of telepathically derived knowledge, wichout mentioning Fodor,
MSMH, pp. 3zo-1.

'Fodor, op. Clt., p. 193.

L E. Eeman, G-operatiue Healing (Erederick Muller, London, 1947).
pp. 1oz-z4

The practice of securing 'flash answers', known as a eechnique of
induced association also existed in the practice of hypnotherapy.
Brenman and Gill refer to such a technique, which was employed if a
patient was unable to answer a question in therapy, or if the
answer was unenlightening:

the general formula applied was: 'I will count to a certain number
and when I

reach thae number you will tell me the first thing that occuri to
you in eonnectien

with so-and-so.'l

The notion of 'reverie'is referred to in the work of Baudouins but
not as a state to be induced for therapeutic purposes. The notion
of the 'engram'alsr need not have been sought far.a It was a
commonly current term used to designate a memory trace, or an
altered condition in tissue or neura structure as a result of
excitation or stimulus and was employed by a number of
psychologists.4

Hubbard's theories regarding the operation of the reactive mind,
which 'computes in identities'may owe something to Count Alfred
Korzybski, whose General Semantics located the source of many of
Man's llls in misguided tendency to think in terms of
identification, or to his follower Hayakawa.s

How much Hubbard's theones derived from Richard Semon's work is now

I Margaret srenman and Merton M. Gill, pnotherapy: a Surre of I hc
Lieraturc (Internahonal Umversihes Press, New Yor, 1947), p. a4.

2 Charlrs saudouin Saggestwn and Autosuggeston (Allen

  Unwin, London, Igzo),

1 Margaret Brenman and Merton M. Gill, ypnothrrapy: a Surrey of t
hc Literatwe (Internadonal Universities Press, New York, 1947), p.
84.

Charles Baudouin, Suggestion and Autoruggcston (Allen & Unwin,
London, 1920), p. 130.

Wmter claims the search went no farther than Dorland's Medical
Dietionary (W. B. Saunders & Co, Philadelphia, 1936). See Winter,
op. cit., p. 18.

Richard Semon, rhc Mn6m6 (Allen & Unwin, London, 1921); K. Koffka,
Principles of Gcstait Psychalogy (Harcourt & Brace, New York,
1935); Charles K. Ogden and I. A. Iichards, 'rhe Meaning of Meaning
(Kegam Paul, London, 1946); and Karl S. Lashley, 'In search of the
engram', Society of xp6rim6nlal Biolog)l Symposium JVo. st -
Physioi6gical Mechanisms in Animal P6haviour (Cambndge University
Press, Cambridge, 950), pp. 454 82.

6 5, I. Hayakawa, 'From science-fiction to fiction-seience', I'rC,
8 (1951), p. 285; Paul Kecskemeti, 'A review of General Semantics',
JVew Lead6r, 38, 17 (25 April 1955), pp. Z4-5; Alfred Korzybski,
Scieru andSanity (International Non-Anitotelian Library Publishing
Co, New York, 1933); Gardner, op. cit., Chapter 23 Some
Dianetieists saw clear parallels: 'Korzybskd's...work is
implicit in Hubbard's', '...Hubbard [is obviously an old and
expert student of general semantirs...'Dianotes, 1, 5 (December
1951), p. 1 m In some of his later works, Hubbard does credit
Korzybski along with Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Confucius, etc. a
'source material', e.g. the 'Foreword'to L. Ron Hubbard,
Scitntolog o goaod, sm edn (Hubbard College of Scientology, East
Grinstead, Susser. 1967).

'S. I. Hayakawa, Laneuagc in rhought and Action (Allen & Unwin,
London, 1965). The first US edition appeared in 1949. This book is
also notable in this context for its emphasis on the role of
surDiuai as a motivating principle, an idea prominent in Hub-
bard's writing. diffic-llt to determine. Semon's 'mnemic
psychology'certainly appears to have anticipated some Hubbardian
ideas. Semon proposed the existence of a mnemic property, that is,
a tendency for organic tissue to be modified as a result of
stimulation. This modification produced by the stimulus, Semon
called an engram.l This stimulus impression could be reactivated,
or in Semon's termin ology, 'ecphoriSed by the complete or partial
recurrence of 'the energetic conditions which ruled at the
generation of the engram'.2 Under conditions of the strongest
'ecphoric effect', the mnemiC state of exci[ation reproduces the
original excitation in all its proper proportions, inclusive of
time values.'Semon describeS such an engram and its ecphory from
bis own expenence: We were onee standing by the Bay of Saples and
saw Capri Iying before us; near by an organ-grinder played on a
large barrel organ; a peculiar smell of oil reacbed
usfromaneigbbouring'trattorialithesunwasbeatingpitilesslyanourbacksi
and our boots in which we had been tramping for hours, pinched us.
Many years after, a similar smell of oil ecpborised most vividly
the optic engram of Capri, and even now this smell has invariably
the same effect.t In his later intmiC Psycholog, Semon stresses the
vividness of 'mnemic sensations': When associatiS ely...there
is ecphorised the mnemic image of some old teaeher whose stupid
grammatical contentiousness and generr l pedantry made him the
chief object of our boyhood hatred thirty years ago we do not
merely 'remember'this person, dead for fifteen years past, but we
sec him in the flesh.

Thus the wbole simultaneous stratum of the engram-complex to which
he belongr in our dream, and which has 'ecphorised'him as its
central figure, gains reality, appearing not as the ecphory of an
old stratum but as that of a present one...We are ourselves
thirty years younger; we are again going to school and having to
pass our final examinations.5 This is, of course, all highly
remimscent of Hubbard's theory. The engram is substantially the
same in each case, and indeed in his early work Hubbard suggested
that the engram was retained as a cellular recordmg.S Ecphory and
restimulation are exact parallels and both are evoked through
association. Hubbard goes very much further than Semon, however.
Hubbard's engram is created during periods of unconsciousness,
pain, or emotional losr, while Semon's is created during normal
consciousness. When restimulated, it takes Richard Semon, rhe Mneme
(Allen & Unwin, London, 1921). 2 Ibid..p. 145'Ibid., P149'
Ibid., p. 92.

t Ricbard Semon, /llnemic Psycholo y (Allen & Unwin, London, 1923),
p, 221. Semon planned a further work Pahology of Mneme whicb would
treat the subiect of the disappearance of engrams. However, as far
as I can discover, this work was never written.

For example,.SMH, p 7 n complete command of the individual, rather
than being a further, albeit sometimes powerful, stimulus. There is
no suggestion in Semon's work that engrams are a cause of
psychosomatic illness, nor practices for the elimination of
engrams. If Hubbard was influenced by Semon's work, little more was
derived from this source than the notions of the engrarn and its
restimulation, ideas which were available elsewhere, as I have
indicated.l

Unfortunately, the fact that 'engram'was not the first choice of
terminology for Hubbard's pubhshed work does not altogether settle
the matter. Hubbard first used the term 'impediment', then 'norn'
and 'comanone'(the latter at Winter's suggestion2), and not until
then was 'engram'publicly used. Hubbard may have begun with the
notion of engram derived from Semon (or elsewhere) and sought an
alternative terminology to distinguish his own ideas from those
other conceptualizations which emploved the term. Winter is,
however, emphatic that during the Bayhead penod, '...Semon's
work was unknown to our group'.3 In the absence of any stronger
evidence. Winter's word must be accepted. Deuelopments in theory
und ,tuchce Dianetics theory and practice developed rapidly. By the
end of l950 in a series of lectures in Galifornia, Hubbard
introduced a distinction that formed the basis of further
theoredcal change, between 'MEST'and 'theta'. MEST (Matter,
Energy, Space, Time) was Hubbard's acronvm for the matenal or
physical Energy, Space, Time) was Hubbard's acronym for the
material or physica'universe, whmle theta stood for the universe
of thought.'Hubbard also introduced the notion of the A-R-C
(Amnity, Reality, Communication) triangle. This involved the idea
that these three components were mutually related so that 'when
reahty is low affimty and communication wil be low. When com-
mumcation is high, amnity and reality will be high'.5 Moreover,
Hubbard estabiished a fundamental principle of the movement's
epistemology: Reality i5 that upon which we agree If I say there
are twelve black cats on the rtage and you don't agree someone is
insane. The prime insanity is not to agree with another's reality.'
Agreement and reahty are synonymous. We agree upon romething: it
becomes reahty. We don't agree. There isn't reahty.7 See Koftka,
op. eit., Ogden and Richards, op. cit., and Lashley, op. cit.
Winter, op. cit., p. 17-18.

'Winter, op. cit., p. 18,

L. Ron Hubbard's ltotes on the Lcctur7s of L. Rotl uboard, Edited
by the Stahf of the California Foundation (Hubbard Communications
Omce Ltd, Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, 1962). From lectures
delivered late 1950. Eirst published 195. Hubbard's predilectiols
for acronyns and contractions to form new words probably dates from
his naval days. i he practice is particularly prominent among U.S.
milhary personnel,

S ibid., p. 9. Ibid., pp 17-18. 7 Ibid., p. 57. Y he dynamic
ibrinciple of ex*eice S URVI VE ! Survival, considered as the
single and sole Purpose, subdivides into four dyrarnics.By symbiote
is meant all entities and energies which aid survival. DYNAMIC ONE
is the urge of the individual toward survival for the individual
and his symbiotes. DYNAMIC TWO is the urge of the individual toward
survival through procreation; it includes both the sex act and
the raising of progeny, the care of children and their symbiotes.
DYNAMIC THREE is the urge of the individual toward survival for the
group or the group for the group and includes the symbiotes of that
group. DYNAMIC FOUR is the urge of the individual toward survival
for Mankind or the urge toward survival of Mankind for Mankind as
well as the group for Mankind, etc., and includes the symbiotes of
ankind.1 By the end of I950 these had increased to seven: Fifth
Dynamic Life Sixth Dynamic MEST Seventh Dynamic Theta By
August I95I a further dynamic had been added and some of the others
modified DYNAMIC FIVE is the urge to survive as a life organism and
ernbraces all living organisms. DYNAMIC SIX is the urge to survive
as part of the physical universe and includes the survival of the
physical universe. DYNAMIC FIVE is the urge to survive as a life
organism and embraces all living organusms.

DYNAMIC SEVEN is the urge toward survival in a spiritual sense.
DYNAMIC EIGHT is the urge toward survival as a part of or ward of a
Supreme Being.3 The optimum solution to any problem, Hubbard argued
was the 'solution which brings the greatest benefit to the greatest
number of dynamics'.4

At this point Hubbard had not developed the theory of lianetics
beyond a concern with the current lifetime. However, the period in
which engrams could occur had been pushed back so that 'now, they
have found an aberrative sperm and ovum series. Normally, however,
the earliest engram is one day after conception. '5

I MSM, pp37-83 Hubbard, Notes on the Lectres, pp. 95-6. 3
Science of Survi7)al, I, p. xi.

4 Hubbard, Notes on the I ect1lres, p. 96.

6 Ibid., p. 13I. Winter also comments on this period:
'InYestigation of the "past death" or the "last death" in less
imaginative patients had only a brief popularity. It was replaced
by the ''sperm-ovum sequence, which was defined as the ''recolle
tionS of occurrences at the moment of a person's conception '
Winter op. cit., p. 189.

A definite public commitment by Hubbard to 'past lives'did not
occur unt after Hubbard's break with Don Purcell and the Wichita
Foundation,l in 195 although he made reference to past lives and
deaths in Science of Sunlival put lished in ugust 1951.'

The concept of 'theta'was expanded to incorporate not only
thought, but 'life-force, elan vital, the spirit, the soul..d3
Theta, Hubbard argued, was constantly becoming entangled wih MEST.
When they came together 'forcefully'and 'intermingled
"permanently"'an engram was formed.9 Theta and MEST became
'enturbulated'in the reactive mind Processing therefore involved
releasing the theta held in the reactive mind as 'entheta'
'enturbulated theta) and restoring ir to the analytical mind.

Science of Survwal was organized around the 'Tone Scale'. This
scale purported to indicate a range of characteristics associated
with the amount of 'free theta'available to the analytic mind.
Locating a pre-clear in terms of ke criteria on the scale permitted
the prediction of other characteristics possessed by that
individual (or group). Hence, being at 1 l on the tone scale meant
one was in a state of 'covert hostility'and therefore psychotic.9
Among the other features of such an individual are that he is
'incapable, capricious, irresponsible'. Point 4 o on the tone
scale meant that the individual was a MEST clear, he would be 'Near
accident proof. No psveho-somatic ills. Nearly immune to bacteria'
and he would have a 'high courage leve'.'T he tone scale also
provided the basis for political observations by Hubbard. In
Science of Survival, for example, liberalism is identmed as
'higher-toned'than fascism, which is 'higher-toned'than
communism.S

One major innovation in technique was that of 'straight-wire'
processing, or 'straight memory':

1 The history of Hubbard's relationship vrith and secession from
Don Purcell and the Wchlta Eoundation is detailed below (pp. 7
7-95).

Science of Survwa(, I, p. 61, Hubbard states: 'The subject of past
deaths and past lives ls so fnll of tension that as early as
lastJuly [Igso-Ed.l the board of trustees of the Foundation sought
to pass a resolution banning the entire subject.'He would onlv
eommlt humtelf to the view that some past life and past death
expenences 'seem to be valid and reaH. , He also insisted these
experiences should be run as normal engrams, and not mvalidated or
neglected. Sclence of Survivtl, 11, p. g5.

3Ibid.,l,p.4.

'Ibid.,l,p.8.

S Hubbard was wont to describe those who disagreed with him as 'I
1'In the light of the later campaign in Scientology for civil
rights for the insritutionaiized mental patient, it is interesting
to observe that in Saente vf Survival individuals below 2.0 on the
tone scale are identified as 'psychotic'and Hubbard argues 'any
person from 2.0 kmd. Science of Survioel, 1, p 131

r 'Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation and Dianetic Procersing'
supplied as a loose sheet with Science of Survival.

7 Ibid.

 Sciencc of Survivai, 1, p. 124. Straight memory consists of the
pre-clear's staying in present time with his eyes wide open and
being asked to remember certain things which have been said to him
and done to him during his life time. He is not asked to return to
these incidents. He is asked only to recognise their existence.l It
was specifically directed at the pre-clear who 'has difficulty
remembering'but seems to have been used as a tacit coaching device
to instruct pre-clears who had difficulty contacting incidents in
auditing. If the pre-clear says bluntly that he cannot remember
tbings, it is up to the auditor to encourage and validate this
pre-clear's memory. If the pre-clear says 'I can't remember names',
the auditor says, 'Well, what is the name of your business
associateThepre-clearsays,
Oh,hisnameisJones!'Theauditorhasproventothe pre-clear that the
pre-clear can remember at least one name.'Coaching the pre-clear
may have had an important part in the effective running of Dianetic
auditing. For example: There is a triek of reaching conception in a
case...The auditor asks the pre-clear to run a moment of sexual
pleasure, and then when his pre-clear, who does not have to recount
this moment aloud appears to be settled into that moment, the adit
r dennends )hat the pre-clecr go innmediky o concrption. The
pre-clear will normally do 50,, ,s In this case, Hubbard is
auditing a woman and has returned her to infancy: Woman: I'm
imagining being a baby. Hubbard: All right. What do you see there.
Wbat's your visio as you're Iying there being a baby? Woman: I
guesS there was a crib. Hubbard: Let's take a look at it. Woman :
All I can see. Just holding on to the side of the crib. Hubbard:
You'reholdingon.Howyoufeellyingthereinthecrib? Woman: I'm sitting.
Hubbard: You're sitting in the crib. And wbo comes into the room?
Woman: [unclear, possibly a namel. Hubbard: What does he look like
?

[Mother entersl Hubbard: t..l All right, now what's her voice
sound like ? Woman: I don't understand it. Hubbard: What's she
saying. What language? Is it a different language? Woman: Yes.
Hubbard: Well wbat language is it? All rigbt, pick up the fiBt word
she says, how's Ibid., II, p. 68. S Srience of Svrvivai, 11, p. 69.
Ibid., 11, pp. 17g-4. (My emphasis.)

THE CULT AND ITS TRANSFORIATION it sound? Go to the moment of the
first word she says. How does it sound ?

Woman: [Laughsl

Hubbard: What is it? Woman: Maboushsa.l

A further major technical change was the introduction of 'lock
scanning'. Locks and engrams were held to form chains of similar
kinds of incident for example, all occasions when the pre-clear
suffercd a break in affinity, or an enforced agreement. It was
claimed that to run each of these incidents in early Dianetic
fashion would be far too lengthy a process, but that an equt lly
effective and far speedier procedure was simply to get the
pre-clear to 'scan'in his mind similar types of incidents from the
earliest to the latest. The auditor asks the file clerk if there is
a type of incident which can be scanned in the ease. The file
clrrk, at a snap of the auditor's fingers, answers yes or no. The
auditor requests the name of the type of incident. The file clerk
gives the name of the type of incident. The auditor then tells the
pre-clear to go to the earliest available moment on this chair. of
locks...the auditor tells the pre-clear to scan from this
earliest moment to present time through all incidents of the type
named.a Scanning such chains several times, Hubbard argued, was an
effective way of converting entheta into theta (that is freeing
theta).

Hubbard's next major work after SGe7ce of Sunitcl marked a turning
point in the developrnent of the theory and practice of the
movennent. While Dianctics convertmg entneta mm theta (that IS
treemg theta).

Hubbard's next major work after Science of Survit el marked a
turning point in the development of the theory and practice of the
movement. While Dianetics had hitherto maintained that engrams were
a result of what had been done to the pre-clear, Advanced Procedure
and As ionts presented the idea that the individual was responsible
for his engrams:

Evervthing which is wrong with [the pre-clearl he has selectively
and particularly

chosen to be wrong with him.3

'L. Ron Hubbard, Reeordjng of a public demonstration of Dianetie
auditing, September tgsn For a clear caze of eoaching see the
auditing session reported by Joseph Winter, reprinted in Gardner,
op. cit., pp. r76-8. The following aceount of a reporter's
unsuccezsful auditing session reported in a magazine also seems
apposite: 'The expenment by one of the foremost practihoners in the
new seience was not a success. My "engrams" were playing
hard-to-get, or my pre-natal recording device was faultv. After two
hours of attempting to recall the phrases heard in cbildhood or
before, Schofield switched on the lights and said: "You should read
The Book [MSMHl more carefully".'
RolandWild,'Everymanhisownpsyehoanalyst',/
llusraed(305eptemherl950),p. 18. It is not my intention to suggest
that 'eoaching'was consciously carned out by auditors rather, as
many inveztigations into psychotherapy and psychological experiment
show, the therapist or experimenter may give many unconscious cues
as to what he wants or expectz from his patient or subjeet. r
Science of Suruiuat, vol. 1 l, pp. Ir4-5.

L. Ron Hubbard, Aduanced Procedure and Azioms (hereafter APA)
(Central Press, Wiebita, Kansas, 1951), p. 7. Quotations are from
the fourth edition, 1962, published by Hubbard Communieationz Omce
Ltd, East Gnnztead, Sussex. Each individual at some time in the
past chose some means of securing sympathy or 'co-operation on the
part of the environment'l which seemed at the time necessary for
his survival. This v as called the 'service facsimile'.a
Thereafter, the individual became subject to the service facsimile,
believing it essential to his continued survival. Restoring the
individual's self-determinism therefore required the release of the
service facsimile.a

This volume also contained the 'Definitions, Logics and Axioms', a
set of numbered assertions descnbed as 'logics', 'corollaries',
'axioms'and 'definitions', for example:

Axiom 68 The single arbitrary in any organism is time. Axiom 69 -
Physieal universe perceptions and efforts are received by an
organism a force waves, convert by facsimile into thetc and are
thus stored. Definition: andomity is the mis-a ignment through the
internal or external efforts by other forms of life or the material
universe of the efforts of an organism, and is imposed on the
physical organism by counter efforts in the environment.t

Hubbard's next significant book, although first issued at the
Wichita Foundation made a clear commitment to immortality and
employed the term scientology', providing the vehicle for his
secession from the Wichita Dianeticists on the basis of a new
'science'. Social oenization end development With the publication
of MSllfH and the article in Astounding, Dianetics emerged
organizationally in two forms. Organized around L. Ron Hubbard was
the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation [hereafter referred to as
the Foundation the Elizabeth Foundation, or HDRFl, incorporated in
April tgso in Elizabeth, I'ew Jersey. The Foundation had a board of
directors, presided over by Hubbard Branches of the Foundation had
also been established in other major Amencan cities, so that by
November 1950 there were branches in Los Angeles, New York,
Washington, Chicago and Honolulu. The Foundations in Elizabeth and
Los Angeles were offering an 'intensive, full-time course, lasting
four weeks for professional auditors',S as well as courses of
therapy, while the other Foundations mainly provided therapy.

The board of directors was composed of five others apart from
Hubbard and his second wife Sara, including John W. Campbell,
Joseph Winter, the publisher of ll,ISlH, Arthur Ceppos, and a
lawyer, C. Parker Morgan. Each Foundation had a staff of
professional auditors and instructors, and those in New Jersey and
Los Angeles had a small research staff employing Dianeticists and
trained

l Ibid., p. 7. S I t is the means he uscs to exeuse his failures.

e t