Psychosomatic Conditions: An Analysis of Hubbard’s Claims

 

 This article was sent to me by one of our readers, David Chirko. It is an academic analysis and thus rather dense and uses plenty of big words. It deserves to be recorded, it is thorough and cites to many sources, which in itself is an invaluable resource.

 

 

Psychosomatic Conditions and the Church of Scientology

By David Chirko, A.B.

chirkoart.ca

Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Psychological Researcher/Author

Professional Affiliate Member, Division 49, American Psychological Association

 

“Psychosomatic adj. 1. of or relating to the role of the mind…in diseases or disorders affecting the body …specifically…psychological factors (e.g., anxiety, depression) in the etiology and course of pathology in bodily systems” (VandenBos, 2015, p. 863).

My article will attempt to debunk the Church of Scientology’s position on, and curative efficacy of, psychosomatic illness.

 

SCIENTOLOGY THROUGH DIANETICS – FOR TODAY’S SOCIETY

Scientology has always been known for its production of dazzling television commercials.  (It has even been inculpated of endeavoring to purloin material from an atheist commercial: CultOfDusty [2014].) Kiefaber (2009) says that, in order to make “…money…Scientology needs…marketing, which is why it’s rolling out new commercials. The first two are similar, in that they propose replacing rewarding things like mountain climbing with a…religion cooked up by a…science-fiction writer. The third is…different, stating…Scientology doesn’t judge people by what they look like or where they live. We’re all equal…in that we’re all neurotic….”  He also noted that they didn’t utilize any celebrities this time to vouch for them in the three commercials described.

What those in the psychology of religion and consumerism should know then, as Spohrer (2014) asseverates, “…the Church’s Web site…2005 to 2010 engages a rhetoric of consumerism.”  Moreover, regarding its language, she adds, “…at the level of vocabulary, syntax, visual design, and site architecture, consumer capitalism is the site’s mode of discursive engagement.”  This rhetoric causes the seeking of spirit to morph into capitalistic consumption.  Bray (2008) contends “…people have a spiritual gap in their lives which consumerism is failing to fill.”

Being won over by the mass-marketing of Scientology, clients are very vulnerable—in search of something higher.  In fact, as Jansson-Boyd tells us, “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is…an example of how human needs can be the underlying factor of consumption” (2010, p. 119).  Abraham Maslow stated that there were five hierarchical levels of needs that any individual wants fulfilled, making them human: physiological needs – 1st, survival needs, i.e., sustenance; 2nd, safety needs, like shelter and a secure environment; then the psychological needs, 3rd, belongingness and love needs, such as socializing and cultural pursuits; 4th, self-esteem needs, where a person wants to deeply express himself as unique, through opulence (material items) or status; 5th, self-actualization needs, as the person brings to fruition his highest potential—being everything that he can be, in order to reach a “peak experience.”  It contains a spiritual aspect, which is aptly described  phenomenologically and therefore outside the realm of empirical scientific study (as Jansson-Boyd indicates).  The 5^th need, for self-actualization, is where Dianetics concentrates its target.

 

THE GURU’S BACKGROUND/ EDUCATION

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) was an American science fiction writer who, in 1952, founded the Church of Scientology, which was based on Dianetics – also the main title of the church’s primary text, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (May 9, 1950).  This volume presented a psychotherapeutic technology of mass therapy, consisting of spiritual/metaphysical healing, dealing with the affect of spirit on one’s body.

Hubbard was a university dropout who studied civil engineering.  However, he originally and erroneously asserted that he was a graduate engineer and nuclear physicist.  In fact, Malko says, “many of his researches and published conclusions have been supported by his claims to be not only a graduate engineer, but ‘a member of the first United States course in formal education in what is called today nuclear physics’’’ (1970, p. 31).  A bio states he was “never noted for being in class” and that he “thoroughly detest[ed] his subjects” (Church of Scientology, 1959).  Furthermore, according to Malko (1970, p. 31) and Wallis (1977, p. 18) “He earned poor grades, was placed on probation in September 1931 and dropped out altogether in the fall of 1932.”  Streeter avers, “One of the courses he took involved…molecular and atomic physics.  He received an F grade…yet thereafter…sometimes referred to himself as a nuclear physicist” (2008, p. 206).  Behar apprises us that Hubbard falsely asserted in Church brochures that he was a well decorated hero of the 2^nd World War, disabled, blinded and pronounced dead on two occasions, but, alas, that it was Scientology which cured him of all this.  Moreover, he says that Hubbard’s “…’doctorate’ from ‘Sequoia University’ was a fake mail-order degree” (1991, p. 66). (Said university was a diploma mill in Los Angeles, which was shut down by the courts in 1984.)  What this signifies regarding Hubbard’s status as a veritable scholar is not propitious when his work is put to scrutiny.

 

HUBBARD’S DEITY

The closest Hubbard gets to a deity in the theology of his Church was that Scientology – meaning knowing thoroughly plus study, in this case, the study and the utilizing of spirit in relation to its self, other life and universes – was founded on the premise that man is, in fact, a spiritual being.  It is an active path to discovering truth about oneself.  Dianetics is the technology of spiritual healing of the body, through the mind, i.e., what the soul does to the body.  Sessions tells us that these are Scientology’s thetans, “…an invisible part of a human being, similar to the concept of a soul or spirit in other religions, that exists whether or not it is currently operating a human body.”  Scientology asserts that the thetans, tantamount to all that is meritorious and creative and the person being himself, are incessantly reborn in different earthly bodies.  The existence of the material world is contingent on them, which they brought into being through will.  Moreover, Xenu was “…the dictator of a Galactic Confederacy who brought billions of people to Earth and massacred them with hydrogen bombs 75 million years ago.”  The thetans of those victimized were transformed into “body thetans,” which torment today’s humans.  Integral to the quest of Scientology is the process of releasing their stranglehold.  All this is beyond scientific scrutiny, therefore I will not comment on it any further here.

 

THE HUBBARDIAN ENGRAM

Hubbard asseverates that the only source of psychosomatic illness and any aberration is an “engram,” which, according to the Dianetics Glossary, is “a moment of ‘unconsciousness’ containing physical or emotional pain and all perceptions, and is not available to the analytical mind as experience” (1950b, p. 650).  This “analytical mind” is a segment of the psyche that perceives and holds any data of experience to form and solve problematic issues, leading the organism through the four dynamics – each involving symbiotes (energy and life forms which reciprocate for their dependence on existence) and cultural extension – that is, the individual’s drive pertaining to ultimate survival, for: 1. himself and his own benefit and exaltation of his moniker; 2. (through coitus), creating and rearing offspring, providing for the future; 3. the group; 4. all of humankind.  It cogitates in similarities and differences.  The “reactive mind” (or reactive bank, or bank), on the other hand, is the part of the psyche that keeps file of and stores emotional and physical pain, guiding the organism exclusively on a stimulus-response premise.  It cogitates solely in identities.  The “somatic mind,” under direction of the analytical and reactive minds, puts solutions into effect on a level that is physical.  An “auditor” – a person trained in Dianetics, who listens and computes, applies this knowledge to someone, to ameliorate them.  When the latter successfully has his engrams extirpated they achieve a Clear – the quest of Dianetics.  This is acquired via study and patience, wherein the client then becomes bereft of any aberration, is rational, and equipped to ratify solutions from his point of view and the data at his disposal.  Nevertheless, apparently, engrams can be stimulated again, by ushering in bogus and obscured data, which reenter the person’s psyche.

Hubbard had always been antagonistic towards psychology and psychiatry.  He succinctly states that Scientology is not designed for those suffering from mental or physical illnesses, because his is a religious philosophy addressing spiritual healing.  The APA’s VandenBos says the original engram or memory trace is stored in the brain and is hypothetical.  He asserted that its nature, “…in terms of the exact physiological changes that occur to encode a memory, is as yet unknown” (2015, p. 372).  He goes on to say that Richard Semon, a German Biologist, inaugurated the term in the early 1900s and Karl S. Lashley popularized same in his paper, “In Search of the Engram,” published in 1950 – the year Dianetics came out.  Nevertheless, as we shall see, Hubbard claims that he knows everything about this engram phenomena.  Concerning the engram, such is not a memory, Hubbard proclaims, but “…a cellular trace of recordings impinged deeply into the very structure of the body itself” (1950b, p. 189).  This leads us to body memory  (remember The Courage To Heal [1988], by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis?).  He claims that monocells have identities, dividing into generations.  He says that he pays attention to function, as Dianetics is a science of mind, not requiring concern for structure.  Neurons exist in the embryo and although they don’t divide, hold viruses.  Prenatal engrams exist, Hubbard says, but all can achieve a Clear.  He alludes to five cases treated by Dianetics, hypnosis, and other therapies.  These persons were not cognizant of prenatal engrams, nor did they confess to anything prior to their birth, and therefore their psychosomatic illnesses were not wholly cured.

 

HUBBARD MEDICINE FOR THE PSYCHOSOMATIC

I will now adumbrate some of the more specific remarks Hubbard made about psychosomatic conditions in his Dianetics volume.  He states that allergies, arthritis, asthma, bursitis, common colds, dermatitis, eye trouble, migraine headaches, sinusitis, some coronary difficulties, ulcers (and even cancer and polio [neither being a psychosomatic condition; Hubbard believed leukemia, for instance, was caused by an engram, yet its etiology has never been totally ascertained by medical science and the latter, is a disease caused by a virus, with no known medical cure]; see Hubbard’s  Scientology: A History of Man [formerly What To Audit] and Dianetics Today in remarks by Owens, below), ratify but a small segment of the psychosomatic spectrum.  Hubbard attests that the aforementioned can all be totally cured via dianetics, i.e., by removing the engrams involved, like, for instance, in the common cold, and when accomplished, “…no further colds appear – which is a laboratory fact not so far contradicted by 270 cases” (1950b, p. 135).  The reader is not purveyed with any empirical data.  Such engrams, he adds, even predispose germ diseases, like tuberculosis.  Hubbard explains that there are five classes of psychosomatic illness; its ills caused by:  1. A derangement in physical fluid flow—exorbitant or deficient, instigated mentally; 2. Derangement of physical growth, be it excessive or inadequate, also caused mentally; 3. Predisposition to diseases, the result of a chronic pain that is psychosomatic, in a certain area; 4. A disease that is perpetuated because of a chronic pain in that area; 5. The verbal command parts of an engram.

 

THE AUDITING PROCESS, AND BEYOND—FROM THE CRITICS

Randi exclaimed that Scientologists audit through a galvanometer as if it were a kind of electronic Ouija board.  He elaborates that it is skin resistance that is being measured, which is indicative of emotional states, akin, partly, to an aspect of polygraph testing.  Randi asserts that this was merely to bring about “…a minimal amount of real science into their highly doubtful research” (1982, p. 98).  It is known that it is also termed an “E-meter,” measuring the person’s skin’s electrical changes, whilst they were being audited; destroying engrams, curing the blind, “…even improve a person’s intelligence and appearance” (Behar, 1991, p. 66).

Conway and Siegelman inform us that auditing fees are charged per hour and may last for hundreds of hours – to reach to the Clear phase, that is; this, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.  At a peripheral level, auditing resembles biofeedback.  To register on the e-meter, wires are placed in the hands of the subject’s and the amount of perspiration is tantamount to an emotional response.  Any uptight reaction signifies presence of past trauma.  The authors were told by members that when one attains a Clear state, all psychosomatic illnesses vanish.  The highest state is “O.T.” or “Operation Thetan,” where the person is entirely the person himself – not a moniker, body or part of a physical universe.  The subject is now free of the charge from all pain of past experiences.  They have transcended faith and acquired certainty, adhering to Hubbard’s sci-fi cosmology.  The auditee goes through a series of drills, commands and responses that can last for hours.  Conway and Sieglman deduced that, “…this combination church and therapeutic service trains people in hallucination and delusion” (1978, p. 164).  The transformation of awareness is what they seek to accomplish.  One can be told to seek the molecules in an object and will eventually see them.  Successful clients become conversant or proficient in telepathy and astral travel.  There’s nothing spiritual, religious or psychological here and, as the authors aver, Scientology’s recruitment methodology is sheerly social.  Conway and Siegelman here speak of “information disease.” This is when the capacity for information-processing in the brain is altered, because of very intense experiences imposed on it, leading to, basically, one’s inability to feel and think.  Fantasy and reality, the present and past, are all fooled with as the person’s ability to discriminate, as well as their awareness, is impaired.  Another kind of information disease is the delusional  – which may become hallucinatory, where the client is bereft of emotion or feeling and becomes irrational and violent.  The last variety, and the most pernicious, is the “not thinking” mode; here the very personality is obliterated.  The three modes can occur slowly or suddenly, consecutively, or all concomitantly.  This is the pathway to a snapping moment (when the person cannot feel or think for himself; his social relations and awareness which connect his personality to the outer world are shattered and his mind is lost to an external, automatic agent, i.e., organization, or individual, [read: auditor], which assumes total control).  Its onset is sudden and where “personality” must be confronted in a larger sense – whether it is “awareness,” “consciousness,” or “mind,” one is describing – it’s the overall impact of personality transformation that must be recognized and explored.  There are tinctures of psychoanalysis, psychodrama, etc., in the mass-marketing style of Scientology, Conway and Siegelman say.

West explains that, “At first, Dianetics attracted followers by promising to cure psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders through a procedure called ‘dianetic auditing,’ based on pop psychology, hypnosis, and cybernetics” (1990, p. 13).  He goes on to say that Scientology later believed it had been victimized, conspiratorially, by critics of their findings and methodology, in agencies of governments and medical organizations like the National Association of Mental Health in Great Britain and the World Federation of Mental Health and, particularly, the American Psychiatric Association (and those in psychopharmacology).  It has assailed the latter for its alleged violation of human rights, through its employment of ECT, and drugs like Ritalin, phenothiazines, Prozac – the lot.  West also states that those who abandoned Scientology have since been diagnosed with PTSD, with severe dissociative features.

Bray (2008) explains that Scientologists disrelish psychiatrists because “Scientology abuses the methods of psychiatry .”  This making the field of psychiatry most eminently qualified to criticize Scientology’s methodology and assertions.  He says, further, that Scientology employs spurious ‘personality tests’ in order to capture people’s attention, diagnosing them with inauthentic mental illnesses, persuading them to think that the only road to recovery is to join their clique, albeit at a hefty cost.

After several grueling hours of auditing, the auditee is interrogated about his present and past and when the meter displays no sign of any reaction, the auditor exclaims how good that is and consequently the subject feels exhilarated, experiencing in a way the aforementioned peak experience, if you will. Recruits are confronted by discombobulating discussions, with intellectual rhetoric only the manipulator comprehends.  Rituals then follow, to purvey the subject with an understanding which is tantamount to an invigorating experience.  The subject is ordered not to question the authenticity of the procedures, nor to entertain any doubts as to its efficacy.  Furthermore, Donald Cameron Watt tells us the church disconnected members from the unaffiliated, is “…of a quasi-religious character….” and is “…widely accused of authoritarian attitudes and of indoctrinating, hypnotizing, and BRAINWASHING….” (Bullock and Stallybrass, 1977, p. 561).

(After the FDA pursued him, Hubbard conceded in Dianetics that his electrometer was a “religious artifact” [page, To The Reader], incapable of doing anything by itself and designed only for religious purposes by students and practitioners for pastoral counselling and confessionals.)

 

SCIENTOLOGY: A SCIENCE?

First of all, it is worth noting that in, for example, Herink’s The Psychotherapy Handbook The A to Z Guide to More Than 250 Different Therapies in Use Today (1980), Dianetics, as a scientific therapeutic system, is given no mention whatsoever.

Stanovich, says that scientific observation or empiricism, in and of itself, is inadequate.  Rather, one should seek systematic empiricism, which is structured so that the results gleaned via observation tell us something new regarding the very nature behind the world.  These kinds of observations are most often theory driven, testing various explanations of our world.  He states, “They are structured so that, depending on the outcome of the observation, some theories are supported and others rejected” (1989, 15). Let’s see if Scientology conducts its observations with the aforementioned scientific rigor.

Shermer assures us that “Something is probably pseudoscientific if enormous claims are made for its power and veracity but supportive evidence is scarce….” (1997, p. 49).  For instance, he says, the way Hubbard begins his text, Dianetics, comparing his philosophy with man’s invention of the wheel, arch, and discovery of fire.  (See Gardner, 1952, p. 263.)

Right from the get-go, in 1950, Gompert, a physician, challenged the propositions issued in Hubbard’s volume, Dianetics, stating that his “…concept of psychosomatic disease is definitely wrong. Psychosomatic ailments are not simply caused by emotional disturbances: they are diseases in which the emotional and the organic factor are closely involved and interdependent” and, later quoting Hubbard, “He announces (p. 93): ‘At…present…dianetic research is scheduled to include cancer and diabetes. There are…reasons…these may be engramic in cause….’”

In an article entitled “Dianetics / Scientology” at the Skeptic’s Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll, a refutation is offered.  Carroll declares that Dianetics, as Hubbard asserted, could not be constructed on “definite axioms” or that his a priori idea that such a science of mind must seek a sole source of psychosomatic and mental illnesses.  Carrol (1997) asseverates, “Sciences aren’t built on axioms and they don’t claim a priori knowledge of the number of causal mechanisms which must exist for any phenomena.”  He maintains that science embraces on presupposition that there exists a regular natural order with more or less constant principles that underscore what phenomena in nature in fact works.

However, Carrol explains, science cannot be aware, a priori, what the principles are, nor what the sequence of any collection of empirical phenomena will be.  Bona fide science is built on temporary proposals that account for any phenomena ascertained.  Epistemologically, what science is cognizant of pertaining to causes must be discovered, not merely stipulated.  Science esteems logic and would be at a loss to say that Scientology must demonstrate that there exists but one source of all maladies, save for those instigated by other sources.

Carroll also remarks that Scientology is not a science because it has a paucity of data in concert with current neurophysiology.  In essence, Hubbard knew little about the brain and how it operated.  He describes Hubbard’s analytical and reactive mind, as well as his somatic mind, directed by either of the aforementioned, relegating solutions to affect the physical dimension.

The engram, Carroll tells us, has never been empirically tested in a laboratory.  How they are “hard-wired” into a cell is a mystery.  Nevertheless, Hubbard affirms “These are scientific facts.  They compare invariably with observed experience” (1950a, p. 52).  In fact, as Carroll reminds us, Hubbard never says that any lab studies have been conducted in this area, only that, Hubbard remarks, “in dianetics, on the level of laboratory observation, we discover…that cells are evidently sentient in some…inexplicable way” (1950a, p. 71).  “Sentient,” meaning able to perceive, sense, feel and therefore be conscious of.  These engrams of events that are painful, apparently, are retained in cells.  It’s all metaphysical, obscured by a scientific coating, Carroll inculpates Hubbard of.  The cells, that are units of thought, impact on the body which is a thought unit, besides being an organism.  Hubbard thinks it plausible the reactive mind is a combined cellular intelligence and he concedes that there is a “…lack of any real work done in this field of structure” (1950a, p. 71).  The reactive engram bank, he adds, perhaps is the very material stored in those very cells.  Hubbard even declares, that it is a “…scientific fact, observed and tested…that the organism, in… physical pain, lets the analyzer get knocked out of circuit so that there is a limited quantity or no quantity…of personal awareness as a unit organism (1950a, p. 71).”

Carroll speaks of “begging the question” (where one is already under the assumption of what they are endeavoring to prove), anecdotal data, contrived examples, fictional speculation and pseudoscience as it applies to Hubbard’s approach, because it is inconceivable how it can ever be put to any sort of rigorous testing.  Carroll avers that Hubbard proclaims that he has acquired huge amounts of data to bolster his theories and that said are immaculate, with nobody proving otherwise.

Carroll decries further Hubbard’s pseudoscientific stance when the latter postulates that, “Several theories could be postulated as to why the human mind evolved as it did, but these are theories, and dianetics is not concerned with structure” (1950a, p. 69).  Therefore, to Hubbard, it is irrelevant that one cannot put an engram to observation, though he defines such as a permanent change in a cell, as physical structures they need not be ascertained.  Carrol also says that, neither does it perturb Hubbard that the very cure of all existing illnesses would stipulate that “permanent” engrams be somehow “erased” from what is known as the reactive bank.  This is because they aren’t erased but moved over to the standard bank, the structural or physical process involved therein not mattering.  Hubbard believes it just all occurs that way, bereft of any actual proof or even arguing for its authenticity.  In essence, this all transpires because Hubbard said it did, making it, in his mind at least, scientifically factual.

Carroll also explains that one must take Hubbard at his word when he says that hundreds of prenatal engrams can inhabit a zygote or embryo.  Again, no tests to confirm this.

Lastly, Carrol contests the concept of “dianetic reverie” in auditing.  Said is, according to Hubbard, a special brain faculty, undiscovered by anyone else, but merely tantamount to someone sitting down and reporting what ails him to somebody else.  Supposedly, when one removes content in the reactive engram bank a release is achieved as the bulk of emotional distress becomes deleted; in a Clear, everything is dislodged, i.e., no psychosomatic condition.

Hubbard states,”…don’t question the validity of data.  Keep your reservations to yourself” (1950a, p. 300).  Couldn’t auditors conceivably have deleterious effects on people?  Carrol believes this is like a guru advising his disciples, in lieu of a scientist advising his minions.  In fact, Hubbard says auditing “falls utterly outside all existing legislation,” and thinks that hypnotism, psychology and psychoanalysis, “may in some way injure individuals or society” (1950a, pp. 168-169).

Chris Owen (2002), presents the Anderson Report, regarding the science prevalent in Scientology.  He avers the Anderson report summed up Scientology, stating, “As with Hubbard’s scientific claims concerning radiation, his medical claims were the result of ignorance and poor research. His failings were…present in work…he did personally, rather than…his misunderstanding of someone else’s work.”

In fact, a Board of Enquiry was created in Victoria, Australia, mid-60s to delve the authenticity of Scientology.  They succinctly summarized Hubbard’s research approach.  In a nutshell they said that Hubbard is comfortable with his standards of proof that are subjective.  There is no testing of said subjective data, even when objective testing methods are available.  He purveys insufficient detail to ratify any value to the conclusions he arrives at.  His findings cannot be correlated by testing conducted by anyone else in the same field.  His experiments are undescribed and there exists no way of putting his conclusions to test.  The very material he employs is not feasibly testable; extracted from situations that do not possess checks or controls; the material he works with was obtained by those under hypnosis, suggestion, or in a state of illusion.  Bereft of any supportable evidence Hubbard, nevertheless, makes asseverations categorically.  Lastly, Hubbard’s body of work is at odds with what is theoretically orthodox and scientifically known via empirical evidence–through duplication, testing and confirmation, under apropos conditions.

 

CONCLUSION

Firstly, it has been established that L. Ron Hubbard – regardless of what he or anyone else claimed – was never an engineer, a nuclear physicist, or a decorated war hero.  He was a university dropout who had no background in medicine.  Hubbard was a science-fiction writer and businessman, period.  From the testimonies of critics and former adherents, and information I have collated regarding an empirical examination of the megalomaniacal scientific claims made by the Church of Scientology in its application to cure psychosomatic conditions, as documented in its primary text, Dianetics, I can say unequivocally that its positions are entirely untenable, not to mention precarious for ill persons.  Unlike Hubbard, medical science today knows that emotional disturbances don’t cause psychosomatic conditions, but, rather, impact on them.  The Church’s auditing system, employing a basic galvanometer or “e-meter,” measuring the electrical charges of the epidermis whilst an auditor performs verbal gymnastics to put the client into Hubbard’s discovered dianetic reverie to cure every condition from the common cold to ulcers, to even cancer – achieving for the client a “Clear” – has been discredited.  It would therefore be unconscionable to entertain the thought that a client could develop his utmost potential, be his total self and fulfill all of his needs for self-actualization, through a positive personality transformation, when everything that has to do with him healing his body – inextricably connected to his psyche – fails.  What actually transpires here in the dianetic process then, is that one becomes unable to think and feel for oneself, therefore they fall beholden to someone else: Scientology, to do said for them; in short, they are brainwashed.  Interestingly, Scientology, which disrelished psychopharmacology and established psychotherapies, also denigrated psychiatry, because practitioners of the latter diagnosed many who deserted the Church with PTSD.  At the heart of it, is Hubbard’s version of the “engram,” derived from, what he terms the momentary, unconscious embodiment of emotional and physical pain and the gamut of perceptions, trapped and stored in the so-called “reactive mind.”  Said is not accessible to be experienced by what he calls the “analytical mind,” whose domain is problem-solving.  Hubbardian engrams have never been scientifically scrutinized in a lab, i.e., tested via empirical evidence – through duplication, testing and confirmation, under apropos conditions.  Nor have they ever been proven to even exist—let alone to have identities, or shown to be perceptive cells of thought units impacting on one’s body or organism, which Hubbard believed was another unit of thought.  Structures (but not functions) involved here are irrelevant to Hubbard.  Keep in mind that modern psychology tells us that the original engram, also called a memory trace, is a hypothetical entity stored in the brain.  The psychophysiology behind the actual encoding is still not known.  With Scientology’s engram paradigm the Anderson report, et al, obliterates the edifice of Dianetics.  Scientology, bereft of rigor, with Hubbard often begging the question and vociferating categorically with his data, is then a pseudoscience, making its plea as any type of psychotherapeutic system directed at the spiritual/metaphysical healing of one’s ills unreasonable.  Remember, that anyone can say anything under the guise of religion: believe and it is so.  And the “Church” of Scientology’s minions called it a religion – albeit bereft of any sustainable theology involving a God – thus garnering them tax exempt status.  His devotees today have continued said trend of Scientology, making it an opulent enterprise.

Hopefully, psychologists of religion will admonish the public that Scientology, as a religious philosophy, is an entity concocted with a tad of imagination and business marketing savvy, to merely generate copious revenue.  Therein, the disillusioned, audited souls shopping the psychotherapy/salvation supermarket can attest to being left greatly out-of-pocket.  Moreover, the very sanctity and salubriousness of their personality can be left abandoned.

 

REFERENCES

Anderson Report, Chapter 9, “Hubbard’s Research” (1965). http://www.xenu.net/archive/audit/ar08.html

Behar, R. (1991). “Scientology A Dangerous Cult Goes Mainstream,” (originally from TIME), Farrell, Alexander, ed., Reader’s Digest, Vol. 139, No. 834. Westmount, QC: Reader’s Digest Magazines Limited.

Bray, S. (2008). Scientology – quite a bad thing https://stuartjbray.wordpress.com/culture-2/scientology-quite-a-bad-thing/

Bullock, A., & Stallybrass, O. (Eds.). (1977). [1980]. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. London: Fontana Books.

Carroll, R. T. (1997). “Dianetics / Scientology” at the Skeptic’s Dictionary. http://skepdic.com/dianetic.html

Church of Scientology.“A Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard,” Ability, Washington, D.C.: Church of Scientology, Issue 111, January 1959.

Conway, F., & Siegelman, J. (1978, 1979).Snapping. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. [CultOfDusty]. (2014, Feb. 2). Atheist Superbowl Commercial – Best Commercial on the PLANET. [Video

File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORGyNo9H0GA

Gardner, M. (1952). Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover.

Gompert, M. (1950, August 14). “DIANETICS, by L. Ron Hubbard” from “From the Archives May 5, 2015 A Doctor’s Scathing 1950 Takedown of L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘Dianetics’” Snyder, Gabriel. (Editor-in-

Chief).New Republic, Washington, D.C.: Chris Hughes. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121590/1950-takedown-l-ron-hubbards-scientology-book-dianetics

Herink, R. (Ed.). (1980). The Psychotherapy Handbook. New York: Meridian.

Hubbard, L. R. (1950). Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Los Angeles: The American Saint Hill Organization.

_____________.(1950). [2002]. Dianetics. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.

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