Man’s search for the answer to his own riddle was quickened during the last century by two things: the first was the energy and curiosity of Sigmund Freud and the second was the mathematics of James Clerk Maxwell who gave to us the fundamentals of energy.
To talk of the faults of Freud, as do those who practice psychoanalysis today, is ungenerous. This great pioneer, against the violent objections of medical doctors and the psychiatrists of his day, ventured to put forth the theory that memory was connected with present time behavior and that by talk alone a patient could be made well. Whatever the repute of the libido theory, whatever the disillusionment of this great man himself–for he admitted defeat before he died–his work and method of address were a valuable step toward an eventual solution.
The probable reason why this solution did not earlier appear has to do with the knowledge we have gained in this century about the physical universe and its structure.
The mind was a problem which had to be solved from a knowledge both of humanity and of nuclear physics and modem mathematics. The final solution was simple. The route to it required the physical universe knowledge given to us by searchers in the physical sciences and mathematics.
The story of how Scientology and Dianetics came about will demonstrate this. It will illustrate the background knowledge which was apparently necessary to carry forth to conclusion work which was initiated by Freud and the countless generations behind him.
In the Twenties I was fortunate enough to know Commander Thompson of the Medical Corps of the United States Navy. He was a colorful man, poised, polished, greatly traveled, curious in half a hundred sciences. The United States Navy, having heard much of the work of Freud in Vienna, sent an officer, Commander Thompson, to study under Freud and bring back to the Navy any benefit from psychoanalysis. When I knew Thompson he was but lately returned from long study with the master. And Thompson was not too impatient and not too bored to communicate something of Freud’s teachings to a boy. As a dashing and brilliant figure, Thompson was enough to incite enthusiasm in any youngster and I fear I imposed greatly on his patience and his time.
But a career in the humanities was not on schedule for me. My father, a naval officer, decreed that I would study engineering and mathematics and so I found myself obediently studying the physical sciences at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. A course called “Atomic and Molecular Phenomena” had been instituted there. Today we call it Nuclear Physics. I was fortunate enough to be an early student of that subject in what I believe was the first course in nuclear physics formally taught in the United States.
While at the university I adventured upon certain researches which were off curriculum. I wanted to find the smallest particle or unit of energy Man could contact. And, recalling Thompson’s teachings, decided to investigate the energy of the human mind. […] 1
Notes
- Hubbard, L. R. (1952, 6 February). Introduction. The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, (1976 ed., Vol. I, pp. 1-4). Los Angeles: Church of Scientology of California. ↩