L. Ron Hubbard had a disdain for doctors. He believed the medical profession was in league with psychiatry and drug companies, and they feared dianetics and scientology because it would take away their income stream. If, as he claimed, the vast majority of illness and disability was psychosomatic, then the vast majority of doctors would not be needed. I have covered some of his crazier statements about what dianetics and NOTs can cure — from eyesight to cancer and everything in between.
But I have not previously covered his disdain for doctors as a profession. There are plenty of people in the world who dislike or avoid doctors, in this Hubbard was not alone. Though his reasons were primarily based on his claims of the efficacy of auditing. Due to the nature of scientology — how anything from Hubbard is taken as unalterable truth — Hubbard’s disdain means all good scientologists also avoid the medical profession/have more faith in auditing than in medical science. It is why we so often hear about scientologists dying, it seems especially of cancer, when early screenings and treatment have a high level of success. They finally go to the doctor when it is too late — after auditing has not cured them and when it’s the last resort.
Here are just a few quotes from Hubbard specifically about doctors that are not widely known to the outside world, especially his crazy theories about the big conspiracy and doctors as the backbone of naziism…
The main reason society has such a distaste for medical doctors is the MDs’ continuous “diagnosis” of things the person has not complained of. The violence of surgery, the destruction of lives by medical treatment rather educates people not to mention certain things. Instinctively the patient knows that the treatment may leave him or her in much worse condition and so sometimes hides things. For the medical doctor to cry “Aha” and tell the person he or she has some undefinable ill is to drive many into deep apathy and accounts for the high frequency of operational shock wherein the person just doesn’t recover.
There are innumerable interlocking organizations, all adding up to the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and possibly the American Psychological Association, which interlock in organizations funded by the Rockefellers. I looked into this in New York in 1973 and was absolutely astounded at the number of organizations and associations grouped in that direction. Although they deny it, the Rockefellers also own a heavy share of the American drug industry which interlocks with the American Medical Association and at one time the drug lobby in Washington interlinked with the Food and Drug Administration in those FDA attacks on the E-Meter.
The Intelligence service of the Third Reich was composed mainly of doctors if you care to look up the list of Hitler’s agencies.
It has been discovered that these big drug firms are the actual wholesale pushers and that doctors and psychiatrists act as their retail pushers. This is why the Pope suddenly opened up on medical doctors in yesterday’s news. It is very satisfying to see the enemy getting more and more trouble from more and more people. Medicine came into existence in the mid-1400s as Satan worshippers. And look at the number of people who have died since then!
Therefore we must, very hard, push the idea that the eradication of unwanted minorities and unwanted religious groups is the primary target of the medical doctor who is himself simply the servant of the insane politician.
Lack of use of Auditing to handle physical troubles has greatly extended our MO list. The practice of not auditing pcs who did not F/N at Exam and introducing ‘remedies’ has shown us which way not to go. Medicine and drugs reach back into the history of the witchcraft, Satanism, infanticide love potions and handling inter personal relations with arsenic. Born of abominations drugs and medicine continue their career in modern times. The only improvement has been to cut the throat of the patient instead of a sacrificial goat’s. I’m fed up with medicine and the lunatics in the drug business. We should pass a law they must wear the clothing of their trade — conical hats with stars and moons on them and black robes. Our recent stat on MO lines proves it. We are the wave of the future. We should get our feet out of the contaminated past.
You want to know what is wrong with the fellow? Let’s say that when he is very young somebody decides to take his tonsils out….Later on he meets some doctor who says, ‘Well, the reason you have ulcers is because … ?’ Actually, it was because one of the doctors during the tonsillectomy — this fellow’s earlier colleague — had an elbow in the patient’s stomach. I think doctors knew this all the time, by the way. I am sure they had this all worked out. The doctor leans his elbow on this young would-be writer’s stomach, and he grinds this elbow down while he is holding the patient. Later on the fellow has to be operated on for ulcers. You can make more money this way and send your children to better colleges.
and yet Hubbard at the end of his life had a personal physician.
Hi Sara. Yes, Gene Denk was with him — after a stroke or two and pancreatitis and whatever other ailments had not been cured by NOTs and he was in constant pain.
The main reason he didn’t like doctors I expect is that they worked out pretty quickly that he was a shameless malingering utterly lazy hypochondriac.
* Although they deny it, the Rockefellers also own
Don’t think it ever really struck me before that not only was LRH experiencing and expressing paranoia at times, but he also straight up drank from the conspiracy theorist fruit punch. This, and another one where he hints at the notion there’s a small hidden group of wealthy running things.
As for the rest, I suspect Hubs with his failure to even have a single college semester with respectable grades was dreadfully jealous and petty in his expression of that toward anyone society clearly respected or who showed true genius.
Medicine was still modernizing back then – but Hubbard just repeated the mistakes of relying on theory and anecdotal evidence, as if somehow it was justified because he thought his theories were better (and Dianetics’ costs were lower, though in the long run that turned out not to be true, either). The same applies to psychiatry and psychology.
The medical (and mental health) professions continued getting more rigorous, and developing better technology including pharmacology, while Hubbard remained mired in an approach that had its roots in the era of bloodletting as a cure-all (which lingered into the early 20th century). He also became just the sort of greedy charlatan he railed against, in what in retrospect seems like some perverse sort of projection.
It’s worse than sad that scientology promotes NOT using evidence-based medicine, dooming its followers to increased pain and discomfort throughout their shortened and more brutal lives. And then the scns compound the problems by milking their followers dry. Of funds, of energy, and of hope.
Thank you, Mike.
This stuff goes in deep in the mindset, insidious seagrass mistrust that lingers past cult involvement.
Strewn throughout Hubbard’s works, he refers to medical professionals only ever in derisive terms.
Medicos, quacks, snake oil salesman, charlatans, etc. He used every opportunity to negate science and flaunt his smug nonsense.
On any rare occasion otherwise, you can bet the gist of his story is how the benevolent wise LRH triumphed or saved the day, got the big bow at the end.
******
Realizing SCN is a bullshit cult is one thing. Peeling LRH tek falsehoods out of one’s mind and lexicon is a top layer.
The insidious stuff includes this mistrust.
Hubbard claimed that all sorts of ailments could be cured because they were psychosomatic ailments. But, if someone gets some auditing to cure their particular ailment, it doesn’t work. If they were to complain about the lack of results, they are told that the reason the auditing didn’t work is because they have ‘hidden standards’. The cult will gladly sign you up for even more auditing to address your ‘hidden standards’ but your ailments will never be cured. Just look at all of the ‘OTs’ who are wearing glasses and dying of cancer and have regular flair ups of their favorite flavor of lumbosis. The con rolls on…
This is not to say that the medical profession provides perfect results, but in my experience with my various ailments, they have done a decent job and no doctor has accused me of having ‘hidden standards’ and then gone on to charge me more money for some lame assed placebo.
Those who hold Doctorates in Political Science (such as Oskar Dirlwanger) aren’t Medical Doctors.
Les, in Germany it’s very common for people with any sort of doctoral-level degree, including in law (which in that country’s system, is often a professional path to business rather than legal practice), to use the title of “Dr.”
Which may be the source of Hubbard’s confusion. But Hubbard should have known better.