The Big Trouble with Dianetics -- NOBODY EVER TRIED IT

The Big Trouble with Dianetics--

NOBODY EVER TRIED IT

By Bob Arentz

DURING the last four and a half years, I've heard a lot of "bull" about what is wrong with Dianetics--and lately, Scientology. Some, from people who should have known better.

But the main item has been missed completely. The big trouble with Dianetics is that nobody ever tried it!

It's true that there may have been a half-dozen conscientious auditors who tried to get Hubbard's real data from the first book, but most of them used "The Modern Science of Mental Health" as a springboard to dramatize their own engrams and sympathy exciters, or to prove some crackpot theory they already had.

It was a jolt in 1950 to see a graduate of the first Elizabeth Foundation school practicing a type of auditing that "The Book" warned against time and again--and from correspondence with other graduates, it appeared that the technique was being taught. This also was true with other so-called schools: California, Wichita, etc., as well as the groups.

All programs were aimed at ignoring the most important tenets of Hubbard's first book and substituting every kind of screwball substitute --from E-Therapy and self-hypnosis to the nonsense scattered from centers of idiocy in Colorado, Alabama, Florida, Washington and elsewhere. Seeing supposedly long-term, fast friends of Ron's turn to the enemy for money, and later come back hypocritically contrite has only intensified my dislike for people who ignore data, and then blame Ron for the miserable failures attendant upon their efforts.

If the first book was ignored, still less attention was given to what may yet prove to be THE classic work: "Advanced Procedures and Axioms". Even Hubbard has rejected both of these works by implication, which might serve to validate F. Scott Fitzgerald's statement that writing and works of art transcend their creators' own understanding of them.

"Advanced Procedures" brought clear light and understanding to mankind's greatest mystery and suggested a means of solving that mystery. But it was used as a springboard to dramatize what was called "the service facsimile chain", and instead of following Ron's basic advice to always use light techniques on low-toned preclears, the heaviest stuff possible was run by screwballs looking for blueprints on how to make a bap gun instead of how to get a preclear out of an engram he was stuck in.

As a result, many calling themselves "Dianeticists" got only the results they should have expected, yet they used their own failures to "prove" Hubbard was wrong--that his techniques didn't work.

Now we have the recent "Auditor's Handbook and Intensive Procedure", which stands with the first two as a major work on mental--or, if you prefer it, spiritual therapy.

This book is a full package, as were the first two. This book, if followed carefully, will produce the miraculous betterments in health and mind that Ron always has extravagantly claimed for all of his techniques.

But it has the same pitfall as the other two--the same "bugger factor" that auditors en masse used to nullify the preceding books.

Ron again has taken it for granted that auditors will follow his instructions and audit according to the outlines of Dianetics and Scientology already given. He has assumed that the stuff will be used with a modicum of horse sense.

Well, let's hope so. But

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WE'VE known Bob Arentz nearly 3 years, and in that time have discovered he can get "madder" at L. Ron Hubbard than any one we know. Also, he can express his anger most convincingly, as many of the H.A.S. staff will testify.

Therefore, it was with crossed fingers that we agreed to let him write a review on Hubbard's new "Auditor's Handbook". We liked the book, and wanted no vitriolic pen taking it apart. Besides, Uncle Sam is somewhat of a minacious guardian of the mails' purity.

But Bob fooled us. And in the light of the Dianetic-Scientology reunion, Bob may have a point. In fact, he may have several points in a "review" that's as long as this one is.

--THE EDITOR