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Article: Letters from the Birth of Dianetics (n.d.)

Those familiar with the life of L. Ron Hubbard as recounted in issues of the Ron Series will recall repeated references to the LRH trail of research through the latter 1940s. Generally touched upon are his 1945 endocrinological studies at an Oak Knoll naval hospital near San Francisco, his 1946 examination of narcosynthesis at a California Veterans Administration, his 1947 work with neurotics from the Hollywood film community and his 1948 treatment of the criminally insane in a Savannah, Georgia institution. Also routinely mentioned is Ron’s first formal description of results in a widely circulated “Original Thesis,” his presentation of discoveries to an American medical and psychiatric establishment, his rebuff from that establishment and, finally, his authoring of a broadly accessible Dianetics handbook in a beachfront rental in New Jersey. Never previously offered, however, is what appears here: the actual correspondence from which we draw so much of the color and detail found in the Ron Series.For example: from the literal road of discovery LRH traveled through these years, comes his most revealing letter to Russell Hays. An author, inventor and gentleman farmer, Hays had counted himself among Ron’s closest friends for more than two decades. Both shared an abiding fascination with primitive cultures, aeronautics and that terra incognita of the human mind — the subject of Ron’s letter here.

Next, and quite in addition to above-mentioned LRH letters to the American Medical and Psychiatric Associations, we offer Ron’s summary description of Dianetics to the Gerontological Society in Baltimore, Maryland. Of particular interest — and found nowhere else — is Ron’s reference to that Oak Knoll experimentation wherein former prisoners of war responded to hormonal therapy only after “the removal of early traumas” through Dianetic procedures.

Although much has been previously said regarding author-editor John W. Campbell’s publication of Ron’s “Evolution of a Science” in Astounding Science-Fiction, here is what Campbell himself had to say on the matter. Here, too, is J. W. Campbell on the forthcoming Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and what he rightly foresaw as the backlash from a deeply flawed psychiatric community.

Finally, and for a rare LRH description of the actual Dianetics birthplace, comes a second telling note to Russell Hays from the “wilds” of Bay Head, New Jersey.1

Notes

  1. Letters from the Birth of Dianetics. (n.d.). traditionalhubbard.org. Retrieved 28 April 2010 from http://www.traditionalhubbard.org/page06.htm ↩

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Article: L. Ron Hubbard a Chronicle (n.d.)

In early 1945, while recovering from war injuries at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, Mr.  Hubbard conducts a series of tests and experiments dealing with the endocrine system. He discovers that, contrary to long-standing beliefs, function monitors structure. With this revolutionary advance, he begins to apply his theories to the field of the mind.1

Notes

  1. L. Ron Hubbard A Chronicle (n.d.). Retrieved 26 April 2010 from http://www.lronhubbardprofile.org/profile/chron5.htm ↩

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HCOB: Dianetic Assists (1969)

There is a conflict between Dianetics and political practices such as psychiatry since electric shock, brain operations and general degradation of the person may prevent the patient’s recovery by Dianetics.

As answers exist now for insanity there is no reason to continue Medieval or Fascist solutions to the problem of the psychosomatically ill or the insane and we are doing everything in our power against fantastic opposition to end the torture and killing of the insane regardless of the politically “desirable” ends envisioned by some groups. Dianetics, like any other true treatment, like aspirin or penicillin, was originally designed to handle the apparent basic cause of psychosomatic illness. The first research was intended to help allied prisoners of war degraded by the Japanese and Chinese prison camps and who after VJ day were transferred to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Later, in 1954, in a much more advanced state of development, Dianetics was successfully employed to eradicate the results of allied prisoners of the Korean war who had been subjected to Russian brainwashing. The subject has been improved, made easier to teach and apply and its results bettered continually over a total period of 29 years. It has in 1969 been fully updated as Standard Dianetics. It is very successful and is in very broad use over the world. 1

Notes

  1. Hubbard, L. R. (1969, 2 April). Dianetic Assists. (Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin). The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology (1991 ed., Vol. VIII, pp. 342-345). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc. ↩

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Lecture: The New Auditor’s Code (2) (1968)

It doesn’t mean that when a preclear is sufficiently ill, and he won’t recover, that you shouldn’t process him at all. Doesn’t mean because he’s being given medical treatment you should abandon him.

I’ll tell you something funny in this particular field. The original experiments, way back. 1945. The original experiments on this line determined that function monitored structure. In other words, function ran structure. That was a big lesson. Actually, endocrine compounds like hormones and so on, could be given to somebody. Well that’s physiological. I mean, you know? You can give him hormones and so on. Well he should have responded in some fashion to this. And then, after they were mentally unburdened of their problems or troubles, it would work. But it wouldn’t work.

In other words, the wild variable was that hormones and certain preparations, and by the way it was undertaken with people who were just released from Jap prison camps who had been starved during the better part of World War II in Japanese prison camps.

And they were coming in to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. And it was very difficult to handle these boys, because they were very badly deranged. They had been subjected to brutality, the like of which nobody ever heard of. And they weren’t really treated as prisoners of war at all. They were just absolutely inhumanly butchered. And these fellows were carrying a terrific amount of mental stress, so that on some of them you would give them preparations, like amino acids, which is the acids of protein, so maybe they could begin to digest their food again. Or something like that. Wouldn’t work, you know? Wouldn’t work. Damn little to do with it. Because there’s enough coordination there they could imagine that they were associated.

So this, this is interesting, this is interesting from this standpoint, because it brings you up to this one. The guy’s on penicillin, but his lumbosis won’t cure up. He’s got pneumonia. He actually can be on penicillin and it isn’t handling the thing. He isn’t getting any better. Or he’s getting better very, very slowly indeed. Now he was so ill before he went on any antibiotic that he couldn’t stir. But now that he’s on the antibiotic he can stir around a little bit. Do you follow?

Now, this magic can occur. Now that he can pay attention he’s not running a high fever, or something like that. But he isn’t getting any better. He’s come up Just that little bit, and he’s stuck right there. You can audit the engram and the penicillin works. I’ve seen this. I’ve seen this and done some work with this. It’s the most miraculous thing you ever cared to see. I mean, the fellow’s been hanging five for three weeks and they’re starting to step up the penicillin to million units an hour or something like this you know? He isn’t getting any better. He doesn’t improve. They continue. This is all, anything, you know, and then just run the engram of the illness, or put in his Ruds, or something like this, and all of a sudden, wham! All cures us in about four hours. So what it is is sort of a penicillin assist. It’s a reverse flip.

You say, “Well you shouldn’t audit a person under drugs.” You shouldn’t audit a person under soporifics, which are sleep. Sleep drugs, you shouldn’t audit a person under those that produce wild euphoria, or vnee vnee ney cay. You shouldn’t process him when he’s on that kind of drugs. For the excellent reason that the processing probably becomes part of the trip. So you try to process him later, why then it restimulates this, and he sets into a sore of a fog. It’s wild. It’s kind of a mess. He has sort of a processing engram. You know? And he’s somewhat hypnotic when he’s on this stuff.

So that you say to him something or other something or other, he’s liable to come out the other end of the session without remembering a single thing that happened in the session. That’s expressly the type of drug.1

Notes

  1. Hubbard, L. Ron. (1968-10-14) The New Auditor’s Code. Class VIII Course (Tape 18). Lecture given aboard the Apollo. ↩

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Lecture: Handling the PTS (1965)

Remember, we’ve already seen a psychotherapy go by the boards. I’ve gotten results with that psychotherapy; it’s called psychoanalysis. Why didn’t it ever take the world? I think they were so busy trying to handle PTSes and SPs on an individual-practitioner basis, with absolutely no rundown, that they could never complete their research. Now, they might have found some of our sub-zero material, if they’d continued to research. But psychoanalysis had a certain degree of workability. We shouldn’t snarl at Papa Freud, because he is a very bright man. But it was the world that kicked Papa Freud’s head in, and Papa Freud was not quite strong enough or able enough to take it.

But he, nevertheless, got across to the world the idea that psychosomatic illness could stem from the mind. He got across several other points, all of which are very interesting. His technology is sufficiently workable that I wrecked a Navy project, which wouldn’t have amounted to anything at all, by sitting under a tree and psychoanalyzing their research patients. See, I wanted their data for myself. And they weren’t going to do anything with their data anyhow, except file it, so I threw the book.

You say, how’d you do this? Well, I was sitting up in the middle of Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. I didn’t have anything to do. And they had a project running by which they were testing people with endocrine hormones and so forth. And they kept book on it, of course, and I was a very good friend of the doctor who was running this project. And they would take these people one after the other and they’d run them through this lineup. And the doctor would tell me enough about this–we’d sit around and chin-chin–and he’d tell me enough about this that I finally got interested. And I started studying up on what he was studying up, and studied up on a few things off my own kick and found out what his project was all about–and had been interested in it before that anyhow. And I thought, “What a beautiful tailor-made experimental line.”

So I merely looked at those patients that he wasn’t getting any result on to see if I could change it by a mental shift. And boy, I sure fixed it up! I didn’t put his–I didn’t put his project out of action because I told him–after a while. But I found out a datum which is absolutely invaluable to us: That the mind has dominance over structure. Structure does not dominate the mind. And that differentiates us from the medico.

The medico believes that structure monitors the mind. And it doesn’t. It’s the mind that monitors structure. Because the endocrine, which is the midway point, you might say–the switchboard of regulation and so forth–won’t monitor structure as long as the mind is unaffected. That is to say, if the mind is left alone, in a large number of cases the endocrine treatment will not monitor structure, including the glands or anything else. There it is.

But when you remove a few psychic blocks–traumas if you please–Freudian style, all of a sudden, zingo, it bites and monitors structure. Now, you could change the man’s diet; you could change his exercise; you could do anything you pleased with him; you could change his operating environment; and you did not change the environmental factor enough to make the endocrine dosages work.

In other words, with the changed mind conditions, why, hormones would work; but with changed physical like conditions, the aspect of the hormones did not change. That was a very, very fundamental thing, because it laid in my lap something very interesting.

Well, it was Freudian analysis did that, because I didn’t use anything on these boys. Sitting under a tree out in the hospital grounds: “Oh, I think your name is Jones, isn’t it? Hiya, hiya, Jones. Understand you’re part of that project up there. Hmm? That so? What are they doing up there? Mm–hm. Have much to do with what you used to think about life and so forth? You ever been worried about yourself? You ever thought about this sort of thing? Oh, is that so? Well, that’s very interesting. What sort of a childhood did you have? Did you ever have any unfortunate sexual experiences in your childhood? Oh, is that so?” You know, light Straightwire.

All of a sudden he’d say, “You know, I’d never remembered that, you know?” You’d get this bug-eyed-blowdown type of look. Mark it down in your little book. “Jones. November 1945, 5th.” Next time you’re in seeing the doctor, and so forth, a week or so later, and so forth; let’s look at Jones’s weight and physical record. “Same, same, same, same, same. November 5th–haaa!” And I’d say, “Thank you very much.”

This doctor, by the way, he was–he was a young fellow. And he didn’t take–he didn’t take mental treatment seriously. He didn’t think it worked. He’d never been educated in it in any way. But he was a nice young bloke, and he didn’t blow his stack very much. He was very pleased after a while to find out what had been going on. It didn’t draw any conclusion from him and he didn’t owe anybody the record but the medical department in the navy, so the devil with it.

But he had wondered why these sudden shifts and changes, don’t you see? Well, those sudden shifts and changes on that dozen or so patients and so forth was strictly and entirely doing–to what we would call, today, Straightwire, and–but it was run on entirely Freudian basis. So you see, there was some workability to that technology.1

Notes

  1. Hubbard, L. R. (1965, 8 June). Handling The PTS. Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, (SHSBC-426). Lecture conducted from East Grinstead, Sussex. ↩

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Lecture: Geriatrics (1962)

You should understand that one of the longest searches man has ever indulged in has been that of longevity itself. And the study of living longer is Geriatrics. I, by the way, was one time a leading light in the American Society of Gerontology. What do you feed men to make them live longer? Well, there are many such preparations. Women: there’s equinprivine, stilbestrol — the female hormones. Somebody gets beyond forty or something like that, why, they ought to start shooting them with a bit of equinprivine, something like that, that makes them look younger and feel friskier and make passes at the iceman.

Anyway, I had a very astonishing experience one time. I saw a lady and… This was right after the war. I had just studied quite a bit of endocrinology and found it a very fascinating study, but I was only studying it for one particular peculiar reason. I wanted to find out if the mind monitored the body or the body monitored the mind. And obviously the switchboard system between the body and the mind is the endocrine system or the glands. All right. Could you feed somebody these marvelous preparations which had been biochemically developed and effect a better frame of mind? And I found out that you could do so, occasionally, on lots of people. That’s not good enough, is it? What was introducing the variable?

Traumatic second dynamic [relates to sex] occlusions and one thing or another prevented the hormones and other shots from operating. I did this work at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. All right. A line officer wears his badges of rank on both collars and a staff officer wears them only on one collar, see. So I first got into their medical library simply by taking off one of my rank badges off one collar and hired a Marine to come by and say, “Good afternoon, Doctor.” And that was very simple.

So anyway, we entered the field of endocrinology for only that reason and I ruined a great many cases. I ruined them abundantly. I — there was a doctor there by the name of — I think his name — one of the doctors on the thing was named Yankewitz, improbably. And this guy was keeping records on this sort of thing. And they — the government at vast expense was importing carload lots of pills and shots and monkey glands, and they had the problem of all the fellows who had been incarcerated in the Japanese prison camps. And these fellows were in a very bad state. They were too fat, and they were too thin, and they were too this, and they were too that, and they were trying to put them back to rights with hormones.

And this is a very valid proposition. You can do far more for somebody’s ulcers by giving him shots of testosterone than any other known method. The doctors, of course, are unable to operate, so they don’t favor it. It’s out of favor entirely.

Anyway, they were bringing these pills in and capsules in carload lots and they were administering them to people. And having a bit of access to their records, I knew what cases were being successfully affected and which weren’t. And so I have done a little bit of work in trying to ascertain whether or not the people who were being successfully affected were or were not aberrated. And decided they were not very badly aberrated. And the people on whom they were not being effective, I found to have psychic traumas by the bucketload; and à la Freud, with a few frills from Ron, flipped a few psychic traumas out of the road and made these endocrines operate on them very successfully, and came to the conclusion that an endocrine…

The United States Navy should be given a rising vote of thanks for this, because I’m sure the program cost them millions and millions and millions of dollars. And they derived absolutely no benefit from it of any kind whatsoever. But we did. I didn’t ruin their whole program, but I sure sent their figures a little bit awry occasionally, you see. It’s how many — what the dosage should be. And on a case or two it became “none.”

Now, this simply monitored this — this was not very conclusive, it was not very definite, and I could have done far more along this line of course, but I was only trying to establish one thing: By using physical substances, could you change a person’s mind? You understand? Or, by changing a person’s mind, could you change the character of physical substances? I found the latter to be the case and thereafter have spent no time monkeying with physical substances. Do you follow this line of reasoning?1

Notes

  1. Hubbard, L. R. (1962, 20 September). Geriatrics. Saint Hill Special Briefing Course,   (SHSBC-213). Lecture conducted from East Grinstead, Sussex. ↩