Once Upon a Time -- a Lonq Time Ago -- Dianetics Was Referred to as "The Poor Man's Psychiatry". However ...

$¢IENTOLOGY WEARS A SABLE COAT

DIANETICS, at one time, was labeled "The Poor Man's Psychiatry". But $¢ientology seems to be taking on the valence of a sable coat.

Back in the days of Book One, "making a world sane and free from war" was very simple. And cheap. John and Bill, or Ted and Mary, could follow a printed formula, install a "canceller" as a safety valve, and from out of their prenatal bank, the File Clerk would dutifully hand them all of the choice family secrets. It was a lot of fun -- and worth the $4 the book cost -- to know that those shivers you got on cold wintry mornings weren't from the weather at all but from the ice man's exploring hands -- a fact Mama had successfully buried all these many years.

There were courses, too, if you moved fast enough to find a Foundation, where you could get all the latest data and a gold-bordered certificate for $5 down and a new $500 course a year for the rest of your life. This course, however, was for those who wanted to be "professionals" and help others find what phrase made them bald, toothless, pigeon-toed, or shivery.

Comes 1954. The $500 course is still available, but the ultra-ultra in six-week training costs now $800, plus a few hundred extra to "bring your own case up to an acceptable level". For this "extra", the prospective student gets 20 to 25 hours of putting his finger on exact spots in diametrically opposed walls. This makes him worthy of spending the $800 to learn how to make others put their fingers on exact spots in diametrically opposed walls.

What about Mama and the ice man? What if the E-meter (that's an ancient -- mid-summer, 1954 -- gadget American auditors mustn't use any more but British auditors can buy from the London office of the HA$I) needle drops 20 dials at the mention of cold fingers?

Fie on you! Come up to present time! Those were incidents that happened to a body -- just a mock-up made by an immortal being (which is you, my son or daughter). To run an incident, validates it; go back to the left wall, put your finger on an exact spot, get its weight, temperature, color.

L. Ron Hubbard -- in Book One, in science fiction magazines, and in his lectures and books -- said Dianetics was for the masses to make a world safe from wars and ruin. When the Hubbard Association of Scientologists was organized in Phoenix in 1952, membership could be obtained merely by subscribing to the "Journal of Scientology" for $2.50 a year.

What has happened since is a merchandising marvel. Not only has the JOURNAL been able to double in price, but it is one of the few advertising pamphlets known that can get away with making the customer subscribe. Membership in the HA$I, a "non-profit" organization, has gone up to $25 a year, and according to a recent ukase, membership is mandatory if one is to practice or use $¢ientology in any form. However, we have it on good authority, that in the case of graduate auditors who fail to keep up their memberships, a system of "categorying" will be invoked, which has no relation whatever to "brain washing". You still can remember what you learned, if you don't use it.

Groups, which once were hailed as the mainstay of scientology and were encouraged with the offer of a certificate and a 30 per cent discount on books if they merely registered, have lost their free ride. All certificates now out have been revoked. To re-register, each group member must hold membership in the HA$I -- at from $8.50