Volume 5, Issue 5, page 4
when he says he found anything out for
himself when it's so obvious he copied it
from here." Little concern was given to
the fact that the volume might be "The
Old Midwives' Handbook of Superstitions",
printed in a private edition of 10 copies
of which the author and his vanity publisher still owned the other nine copies.
So it was that the professional headshrinkers -- which may be an even more appropriate nickname than even its user
suspects -- who had been working in and
around the influence of prenatal emotional and physical conditions of a pregnant woman, and the resultant emotional
products, were out-flanked by a daring
and bold entrepreneur, a man of talent
and undoubted genius who could extrapolate more real and useful data while jumping on a pogo stick than a corps of pompous scientific pundits could precipitate
in a century of empty profundities.
But the hullaballoo that was raised in
what we should laughingly refer to as the
"professional field" (of mental therapy)
was as nothing compared to the squalling
clamor that directly rose from a million
outraged, but guilty, minds among the
fairest sex -- the "Mom" gang so enduringly
immortalized by Philip Wylie in his " Generation of Vipers".
A new clause was coined for the old
proverb, "Hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned -- or about to have some secrets
found out by Junior who has a chronic
rash and a suddenly developed interest in
his prenatal experiences."
For several years, even TIME magazine
was inveigled into panning Hubbard and
the flood of amateur Dianetic auditors
who hit the market almost overnight -- but
when they found it always seemed to bring
in a flock of newly-interested persons,
they finally quit helping out with this
exclusive and free advertising.
Lots of real screwball stuff came burgeoning out of the "new science", of
course, as crackpots of a thousand varieties got their hands on something they
didn't understand and couldn't handle,
and some of it landed on Page One here
and there-