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_ Truth about —
Dianetics —

\

a
STEVE MURDOCK

and
‘ HELEN CLARK.

tara UTC IE G t t He Me EE TE Hi NE GE HY ET nT Ty ft |

, A NEW cure-all fad is claiming
|

Fi its devotees in all walks of
life, including, it must be said,
Many with a generally Progressive
outlook, and the question naturally
arses: What is Dianetics? Is it,
88 some. claim, “‘the poor man’s
Psychiatry?” Is it, in fact, a new
Science of the mind or is it merely
tokum presented in pseudo-scien-
tific language and designed to con-
fuse the mind. ‘

Dianetics was founded by L.
Ronald iHubbard, a 39 year-old
American author of “science” fic-
tion for pulp magazines who pick-
&d up much of his current know-
ledge during the Second World

Var while a patient at Oak Knoll
Naval hospital in Oakland, Cali-
fornia (where he wangled access
‘© the medical library). It is all
Set forth in Hubbard’s 452 page
book, Dianetics — @he Modern
Science of Mental Health.

Dianetics is a fraud, Hubbard’s

Claims to science dissolve under
the Spotlight of true scientific ex-
amination, Indeed) the'first para-
Staph ‘of his synopsis is ill-for-
mulated to withstand critical an-
alysis,

a “The creation of dianetics,” writes
its Creator, “is a milestone of Man
Somparable to his discovery of fire
and superior to his inventions of

s Wheel and arch.”

Taking a look at the assorted

S of mankind, Hubbard claims

Modestly to have all the answers.

ie *ssence, he’makes the follow-
& contentions:

it (2) Any two persons with reas-
able ‘intelligence can, after a
oie Study of the book, cure each
h &r of whatever happens to ail
et (2) Dianetics can cure any-

_ / "ng from arthritis to a migraine
baonene. For Hubbard. has de-
€d that.a wide range of illnesses

©’ Psychosomatic —° mental in
Srigin,

iu

j
: Pa One denies the existence of §
hag “somatic ills, but Hubbard
Dr Opened up a catch-all ap-
ach to the question. He even
ay Cancer and diabetes will
ti be cured by dianetics, Hav-
fw Sone that far, he takes the
Plunge and says such matters
tigg UeAtion, sociology, and poli-
dihass by nature problems that
What, CS can solve. In short,
A it is, where it is, di-

rn tes is the answer.

tas is a vast vulgarization of
Shin SY, all decked out with
Rup, new terms that are either
trom ardian‘in origin or salvaged
then. me Scrap heap of scientific
@nd refurbished with Hub-
Nn definitions, ;
ave blithely divides the
& Mind into three parts, the
the “analytical” and:
Somatic,”

“reactive” mind is the
& place of psychosomatic

Worg is brings us to the key
~«. “the new Hubbard lexicon
a =) &rams,”

ose x

“We'll soon work out our ‘engrams’

Having borrowed the word “en- _

gram” from a now-defunct school
of psychology called the Psycho-
Lemarqueian, Hubbard has given
it his own popular definition:

“Engrams are a complete re-
cording, down to the last accurate
detail, of every perception present
in a moment of partial or full
‘unconsciousness.’ They are just
as accurate as any other recording

in the body, but they have their -

own force. They are like phono-
graph records or motion pictures,
if these contained all perceptions
of sight, sound, smell, taste, or-
ganic sensation, “ete.”

The so-called “reactive” mind is
the storage place for engrams.
Hubbard calls this mind an “en-
gram bank.” It is in this mind
that the engrams live, and you
can take it from Hubbard they
are something to reckon with,
“The engram,” he says, ‘is the
sole and single source of aberra-
tions and phychosomatic illness.”

To hear Hubbord tell it, a per-
son goes about his daily tasks
with the analytical mind in full
control—until, bang! along comes

pain or some distressing incident,
mind is

and’ the “analytical”
knocked unconscious. The in-
coming. sensations by-pass the

“analytical” mind and find their
way into the “reactive” mind,
where they are stored away 4S
engrams. ‘

This wouldn’t be so bad except
that the “reactive” mind is some-
what of a moron and cannot make
sensé out of these sensations. So
it lies there muttering idiocies to
itself. Time passes, and the per-
son is restored to consciousness
and resumes business as usual
until something comes along to
“key in” the engrams. The re-
sult of all this, says, Hubbard, is

Ss

aberration and psychosomatic ill-
ness. *

The alarming part is that one
supposedly stores engrams willy-
nilly. Hubbard would have us
believe engrams are being stored
long before birth. For example,
Mama sneezes and Baby is knock-
ed unconscious. Mama has hys-
terics and Baby gets an engram.
This state of affairs continues
and Baby is born with a flock of
engrams guaranteed to drive him
to the snake pits unless cured by
dianetics.

The most simple of simple ther-
apy is offered for all this con-

fusion. Since the trouble lies in
the “reactive” mind, in the en-
grams stored away in an engram
“bank,” it follows, Hubbard says,
that the cure is to “empty out”
this engram bank. To do this,
one must go back on the “time
track”—back to the time of con-
ception. After a period of travel-
back and forth on the “time
track,” one is cured, or more pre-
cisely, “clear.”

“Clear,” is another Hubbardism.

“Dianetically,” writes Hubbard,
“the optimum individual is called
the ‘clear.’ A clear can be tested
for any and all psychosis, neuro-
ses, compulsions and repressions.
(all abberations) and cam be ex-
amined for any autogenic (self-
generated) diseases referred to as
psychosomatic ills.”

A “pre-clear” is a person who
is undergoing dianetic therapy but
has not yet discharged all en-
grams from his “bank.”

A clear, says Hubbard, has a

complete recall of everything that :

has ever happened to him, plus
everything he has ever learned
and, in addition, is one third more
efficient than before dianetics.

e

In #n attempt to give an evolu-
tionary validity to his self-creat-
ed “science,” Hubbard says:

“The cells (of the body) evolved
into an organism and in the evolu-
tion created what was once a
necessary condition of mind. Man
has grown up to a point where
he creates now the means of
overcoming that evolutionary
blunder. Examination of the
clear proves he no longer needs
it. He is now. in a position where
he can take an artificial evolu-
tionary step on his own. The
bridge has been built across the
canyon.”

Hubbard, having constructed
this dianetic bridge out of the
assorted gleanings from a U.S.
Navy medical library, envisions it
even as a path to peace. In a
section of the book entitled “Di-
anetics and War,” he says:

“The social organism which we
call states and nations behave and
react in every respect as though
they were individual organisms.
The culture has its analytical
mind, the combined sentience of
its citizens in general and artists,
scientists and statemen in par-
ticular. The social standard mem-
ory bank is the data accumulated
along the generations. And the
social organism has as well its
reactive mind as represented by
the prejudices and irrationalities
of the entire group.

“This reactive mind is served by
an engram bank wherein lie past
painful experiences which dictate
reactive action on certain sub-
jects wherever those subjects are
restimulated in the society.”

This weird formulation of the
course of history is further evolvy-
ed as follows:

“The quarrel of society with
society, nation with nation, has
many causes, all of them more or
less irrational.- There have been
many times when one society was
forced to crush another less sen-
tient than itself. But with each’
new class, new engrams were
born both in the international
scene and within the societies
themselves.”

Hubbord’s concept of man’s
problems and their solution is
materialist in only one basic sense,
and that’s related to Hubbard’s
bank account. He’s seized on a
long-recognized truth — that it
makes people feel better to talk
about their troubles—and built it
into a good thing.

While cheaper. by far than psy-
choanalysis, Hubbard’s alleged
bargain basement panacea is by
no-means easy on the pocketbook.
His book, which costs $5 in Can-
ada, is a sort of minimum entry
fee in the big dianetics sweep-
stakes. Beyond that, without
saying so explicity, Hubbard of-
fers to cut each convert in on a
share of his take.

For a mere $500 the Hubbard
Foundation will train a person in
one month to become a professional
“auditor,” the dianetical equival-
ent of a psychoanalyst. There is
also a bargain $200 course of 15
lectures’ that permits ‘the recipi-
ent to operate only within the
confines of his own family, pre-
sumably. ‘

The-impact of this handy home
psychoanalysis should be of seri-
ous. concern. to the progressive
movement. Hubbard’s utopian
scheme, masquerading as it does
under the name of science and
aimed at capitalizing on the mis-
eries and fears of a troubled peo-
ple, presents a real danger. He
reduces-a human being to a kind
of recording machine, a passive
receptacle of the blows inflicted
upon him.

‘He says, in effect, people play
no role in solving their problems,

outside of getting themselves
“cleared.” Since he blames the
ils of man upon “engrams”

rather than upon the society in
which some men live, he ignores
the ‘possibility that man might
change that society.

Dianetics essentially turfs an
individual inward, not outward,
and so can neutralize and divert
people from the only kind of
struggle that can assure them
peace and security.

It’s no secret that a person is.
helped by “talking out” a prob-
lem, but history offers abundant
proof that no people ever won
peace or security while lying flat
on their back—talking.

United front in Indonesia

THE HAGUE -

Ld, democratic parties in Indo-
-nesia have formed a united
front behind the unity program
proposed by the Indonesian Com-
munist party (PKI). The pro-

gram calls for cancellation of the

Round Table ‘Conference agree-
ment with the Nethérlands under
which many vestiges of Indo-
nesia’s colonial status are main-
tained, and for an active peace
policy. ,
Among the 15 parties
ing the unity program
second largest group in the In-
donesian parliament, the Nation-
alist party (PNI). It has been
asked by President Achmar Soe-
karno to form a new government
to replace the cabinet of Moham-
med Natsir, which resigned
March 20 following defeat by a
coalition of the Nationalist party
and left wing parties in parlia-
ment. :
Development of unity around a

.

endors-
is the

*

progressive program is made pos-
sibie by the leading role of the
Indonesian Communist party in
Indonesian politics. Despite the
fact that the Communist party
has no parliamentary strength,
its mass support from the work-
ers and plantation laborers has
made it clear in Djakarto that
there can be no stable govern-
ment without Communist sup-
port.

The
being

wide unity which is now
achieved {behind the pro-
gram of the Communist party
clears the way for a democratic
solution of the Indonesian cab-
inet crisis.

Only major parties which have
withheld support from the unity
program are the two extreme
right-wing groups, the Masjumi
(Muslim) party of Natsir, and
the Indonesian Socialist party
backbone of the former govern-
ment.

The program is based on the

broad program adopted by the
democratic parties and peoples
organizations on July 14, 1948. Its
main points are:

@ Complete independence for
Indonesia through cancelling the
RC Tagreement.

@ Repeal of the anti-strike
legislation introduced by the Nat-

‘RCT agreement.

@ Adoption of a peace policy,,
with no agreements with foreign
powers against the interests of
the Indonesian people, and sup-
port for the liberation struggle
of the colonial people.

@ Land Reform—“Land to the
Tiller,” nationalization of foreign-
owned estates and cancellation of

‘Small farmers’ debts. .

@ Nationalization of vital en-
terprises jand large enterprises
owned by foreign capital.

@ No treaty with foreign mon-
opolists for exploitation of the
Indonesian economy.

@ Support for small and middle
enterprises owned by Indonesians.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 4, 1951 — PAGE 5

ee RS Oe