31/10/08

I READ A BOOK: DIANETICS


By Raffaella Di Marzio


I thank very much Martini for this translation


Read the Italian version: “Ho letto un libro: Dianetics

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Preamble


This essay proposes a few considerations sprung out of the reading of the book "Dianetics: the Power of Thought upon the Body", by L. Ron Hubbard.

The approach to Hubbard's text is both descriptive and interpretative, i.e. Hubbard's thesis are not simply examined and summarised, but a critical evaluation/interpretation is given. In this context, "criticism" is intended as a careful and reasoned analysis of facts, opinions and doctrine, in order to attain a personal opinion of their meaning and reliability, as well as providing the findings of my research.


Introduction


Dianetics means "through" ("dia" in Greek) the soul ("nous" in Greek). Following the success of this book, L. Ron Hubbard (an author of popular fiction) turned his interest to the "mental health" world, and invented a new "technology of the human mind" able to free the man from the so called "aberrations". (1)

According to the reconstruction given by Hubbard in his chapter "Dianetics: past and future", this book would be the result of his own observations of primitive races, as well as his studies of prominent men of letters, philosophy and science. His own "researches" would complete the whole. According to Hubbard, his "researches" started in 1935, and helped him to discover the basic axioms of Dianetics, subsequently tested in "the laboratory that is the world".

After WW2 the new "science" would have been applied to "a long series of patients randomly chosen". Finally, in 1950 and after having verified the effectiveness of Dianetics on "each and every kind of mental illness", the book was published. At that point, "all the tests performed led to the conclusion that Dianetics is a science of the mind, and it really unveils the laws of thought, unknown so far." (2)

The original title of the book (published on May 9th, 1950) was "Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health". Today, it is published as "Dianetics: the Power of Thought upon the Body". The change involved a few foreign translations, among which the Italian one. In Italy the subtitle was changed in the late 1980's, a rather stormy time for Hubbard's organisation, especially in our country.

On October 3rd, 1988, in fact, the investigating magistrate of the Court in Milan ordered the indictment of a number of followers of the organisation. The long proceedings, that saw the sentencing of the offenders, ended on Oct. 5th, 2000 with the decision that "a criminal association among the current defendants is groundless". The defendants committed crimes individually but, according to the judges, they did not technically associated to do so. (3)

Having necessarily to choose one among the many aspects of Hubbard's theory expressed in Dianetics, I'm going to take into consideration here only what follows: the idea of mental health and illness worked out by the author; the technique used to attain the recovery; the implications of Hubbard's theory and technique when applied to social groups (particularly to the family) and to the general society. A paragraph is devoted to the critical analysis of the "Important Notice" and the hubbardian theory about the so called "misunderstood words", while the controversy surrounding the transformation of Hubbard's technique into a religion is touched only briefly.

Moreover, considering that the Church of Scientology still claims in its publications (4) that Dianetics was a breakthrough on the path of the Man towards the awareness of himself, the reading and commenting of the text also imply the evaluation of the possible consequences of the application of Hubbard's ideas within the community of his believers, and among the ones who attend courses at the Dianetics centres.

This essay took into account the contributions, suggestions and experiences (both positive and negative) of people variously interested in the subject, or involved in the organisation founded by Ron Hubbard. It must be specified that the opinions expressed here only refer to the theories introduced in Dianetics, and this essay does not intend to give merit judgements about the book's author, nor about the people adhering to the organisation he founded, as well as the effectiveness of the technique designed by Hubbard.


CONSIDERATIONS ON A BEST SELLER




1. THE “IMPORTANT NOTICE"


I saw Dianetics in a number of bookstores and news-stands before deciding to read it. I must confess that when I was faced with the "Important Notice" (5) I was rather puzzled, and at first I couldn't decide if going on with my reading. The notice to be "very careful not to go beyond a misunderstood word", followed by the peremptory statement that "the only reason why a person drops his/her study, gets confused or can't understand is that he/her has gone beyond a word not fully understood", (6) on one hand "frightened" me, and perplexed me about the kind of book I was going to read on the other.

The cover reads that Dianetics is an international best seller with 13,500,000 copies sold. It is stated not only by the Church of Scientology, but also by internationally known scholars such as Gordon Melton. (7) A best seller, then, printed over and over since 1950, as if its contents were valid forever, timelessly. Nevertheless I couldn't accept the axiom enunciated in the "Important Notice", also in virtue of my knowledge of concepts such as comprehensibility and communication processes. In fact, I carried out a research on the "Comprehensibility of the communication in school texts", (8) and I've been involved for some years in a research project addressed to the school recovery of students with serious learning problems. Let me disagree then with what the "Important Notice" says about the so called "misunderstood word", as in my opinion it is an over-simplified and reductive way to address and face a much more complex problematic.

Reading and learning

The act of reading requires two fundamental operations: identification and comprehension. However, these two alone are not enough, as to really understand a text three abilities are needed: linguistic, reasoning and critical ability. (9) Reading is comprehending, but comprehending doesn't just mean the understanding of the single words we are reading, ad Hubbard's note states. Comprehending means to understand and then react to the written text: it is a personal commitment, and as such it is itself essentially formative.

If I was to follow the instructions of the "Important Notice" while reading Dianetics, every time I disagreed or got annoyed or disappointed at Hubbard's claims I should have stopped and gone back to find the "misunderstood word". The spontaneous question is: if the reader of Dianetics disagrees, is unease, or gets tired while reading (and I must confess some parts of the book are really tedious) is it always his/her "fault"?

If the answer were yes, we could then think that Hubbard was looking unfavourably on the exercise of one's critical sense. However, if the critical sense is what differentiates the man and the robot, then another spontaneous question raises: what kind of "new science of the mind" did Hubbard discover? And to what kind of man is it addressed?

Moreover, in my opinion Hubbard's perspective that the reader must carefully understand each single word of the text is reductive: it is not unusual that a person doesn't understand a text, not because he/she didn't understand a word and went beyond it, but because the text itself is incomprehensible even to the most careful and intelligent reader.

Hubbard's reductive idea is even more apparent when we refer to the studies on written and oral communication carried on by the Institute of Psychology of the University of Hamburg between 1970 and 1974. (10) According to these studies, confirmed also by field researches, a text must be simple, tidy, short and stimulating to be comprehensible. Texts don't always follow this pattern and, in my opinion, a number of Dianetics pages have none of the above features.

According to this point of view, learning, retention and understanding of a text is helped by the comprehensibility of its contents (Bloom, 1989); therefore I think I can reassure those Dianetics readers who, like me, had difficulties in understanding or accepting some parts of the book: the "fault" is not always theirs, sometimes the book itself is "incomprehensible".

Moreover, when one drops his/her studies it isn't always because a "misunderstood word was left behind", as Hubbard's note states. Actually, it is a complex phenomenon that involves a great number of children, young people and adults; the psychology of learning has been studying and researching its causes for many years. If this serious problem was to be solved just helping students to read a text and to look up the misunderstood words, the problem wouldn't exist at all, as teachers, instructors, educators all over the world teach this obvious rule to their pupils, even if they do not always apply it: "when you don't understand a word, look it up in your dictionary".




2. A SON OF HIS TIMES


Hubbard is a son of his times: the fifties were the years of the cold war and the McCarthyism, of the hatred against the communism and the persecution of whoever was suspected to cooperate with the "red" enemy. In those years, the very civil America was carrying on a real witch-hunt, and dragged into court known and unsuspected people, charged to pass sensitive information to the enemy. The blocks war helped to dehumanise the opponents, and to condemn whoever shared, even partly, their views.

Dianetics is founded on Hubbard's axiom that the world is basically divided into two big blocks: the "Clears" (11) and the "Aberrated", (12) and the purpose of his "science" is to clear all the aberrated individuals. For their own sake, of course. Let now examine these two human blocks.

The Clear

Clears are all those rational individuals who always act according to sure, definite data, and are no more influenced by their engrams. (13) The Clear is "the goal of Dianetics therapy", (14) an individual totally devoid of psychosis, neurosis, compulsions, repression and psychosomatic illness, whose intelligence is much higher than the average and who leads a fully satisfactory life. "Clears don't catch the cold", because "usually the common cold is suggested by an engram, and is then reinforced by another engram containing actual mucus". (15) The Clear is unlikely to have accidents because "engrams predispose individuals to accidents". (16)

Clear women do not feel sick because "as far as we know sickness is fully engramatic, as clear women never suffered from it during their pregnancy". (17) Delivery itself is "a mere trifle" for a clear woman, because, as for sickness, "what complicates the delivery are mother's engrams". (18)

Hubbard supposes that tumour and diabetes also "are caused by engrams, this is especially true for cancer". However, soon after he states that "no tests have been performed so far on patients suffering from cancer and diabetes": it wouldn't be certain then, and unlike other illnesses his claim is just "a theory", and not a "statement about a cure for cancer". (19)

A few questions

While I was reading the enthusiastic description of Hubbard's "clear" and perfect individual, I was wandering: where are these people? If these individuals exist, why media do not report on them? Why the most specialised and accredited scientific journals do not debate their cases? Why employers do not compete to hire such people who never fall ill, are much more intelligent and exceptionally rational and balanced?

I was even more puzzled as I know some "Clears" myself. These kind and nice people become ill like I do, have standard intellectual abilities, had accidents even after having attained the "state of Clear" and suffer from outbursts and emotional imbalances like everybody else. Is it that I met the only "unsuccessful" Clears in the world? Were I simply unlucky?

The Aberrated

In comparing Hubbard's description of "Clears" and "Aberrated", I felt like I was falling from riches to rags, so to say. Who is the Aberrated, according to Dianetics "science"? He/she's an individual whose thought and behaviour deviate from rationality. "Aberration is opposed to sanity, that is its precise opposite". (20) The Aberrated is not responsible for his/her actions, as "the control the Aberrated has on his actions is close to nothing". (21) Aberrated spouses are unable to live a happy marriage, unless they free themselves of their aberrations. For this reason, Hubbard hopes that the law, in the future, "will allow only non aberrated people to get married and have children". (22) Dianetics also tells us that "the number of engrams found in a Zulu is impressive", (23) and Zulus could escape this condition only if they were taught English and removed from the environment they're living in.

The Aberrated always suffers from psychosomatic illnesses: one of these illnesses is the sexual perversion (expressed in different forms, among which male and female homosexuality), that makes the individual dangerous for the society, even if he/she is not guilty of his/her condition. The solution is always the same: to free the "pervert" from his/her engrams through the Dianetics "science". "[…] the society that continues to tolerate perversion, with all the sad and sordid effects it takes along, does not deserve to survive". (24)

A few more questions

I was getting more and more puzzled as I went on reading these claims. Maybe they had their own "logic" in the 1950's, but nowadays they raise perplexities even in the more puritan reader, leaving alone the "perverts" themselves. But a couple more questions came to my mind, and I think they go deeper into the matter: if all the people who never underwent Dianetics auditing (25) - both because they don't know its existence or because they do not share Hubbard's view - are "aberrated", does it mean that they are all "mentally ill"? If so, wouldn't the ones who share Hubbard's view being induced to "disregard" whoever hasn't been "cleared", family and friends included?




3. CHILDREN, FAMILY AND “INFECTION”

The prenatal engram

According to Hubbard, children who survived an attempted abortion are going to be aberrated individuals, their lives replete with illness and anguish. He states that most mentally weak children are this way because they suffered the violence of an attempted abortion. For this reason, a doctor who suggests ad abortion "should be immediately deprived of his position and titles, no matter what his 'reasons' are". (26)

The prenatal engram is a scientific fact, according to Hubbard. But what does he mean for "science"? In his words, "Dianetics, since it is the study of the functions and the science of the mind, doesn't need structural hypothesis". (27) As it is a technique that "works", then it automatically becomes a "science". As the existence of prenatal engrams would have been tested and verified, they are a scientific reality.

Not only the foetus records, but also the "foetus cells do", and this recording starts very early, when the preclear was a spermatozoon. (28) The only way to stop this ordeal is "to clear" the children soon after they are eight years old. (29) One more element that would help to create engrams in the child are sexual acts performed during the pregnancy. They would cause the child uneasiness and pain, so they should be absolutely avoided. (30) Bearing the same name of parents, grandparents and friends would also cause problems. The individual's case would be much more difficult for the auditor to deal with. (31)

Suggestions for parents

Hubbard elaborated an odd theory often recurring throughout his book, a theory referred to everybody, children included. According to Hubbard, talking to someone while he/she is unconscious, half asleep or stunned means creating engrams to him/her. For this reason, his book repeats over and over again the request to not speak to people in this particular condition.

The suggestion given to the parents of a sick child is very interesting and curious: "love your child and do your best when he feels well. […] When he is sick or injured, you'd better do what that boatswain was saying: 'Damn! Patch him up and be silent!' ". (32) Based on a scientific "theory" known only to himself and validated by unknown evidence, Hubbard suggests us to be near our children while they are sick, but without let them ear our voice. Doing otherwise would mean becoming guilty of their future aberrations and/or psychosomatic illnesses.

I think this suggestion of Hubbard's is noteworthy, as it overturns the most basic common-sense urging whoever is assisting a sick child to let him/her feel a caring presence, especially with words of comfort, hope or compassion.

The "infection"

Parents are one of the causes of their children's aberrations not only when they speak during the child's illness, but also because "aberrated parents will certainly infect their children with their own engrams". (33) Parents are among the potential enemies of Dianetics therapy, mothers especially. During the therapy the auditor has to deal with mothers, who "… scream, objecting that their son, now grown up, is starting the therapy. Their fear what he could get to know…". (34) According to Hubbard, these mothers' problem is that they want to avoid their children to recall past incidents (prenatal included) involving infidelity or attempted abortions, incidents that the mother doesn't want to remind or confess. For this reason, "mommy would prefer to condemn her children to illness, insanity or just unhappiness, rather than letting them go on their path as preclears…"(35)

I don't want to even imagine what this belief, so clearly expressed in Hubbard's best-seller, would arouse in young individuals who adhere completely to it, nor I want to think about the individuals' reactions in the case their mothers should show puzzlement about the "therapy" they just began…

The solution

What is then the solution to all this? To have at least one Clear per family. When the son has attained the state of Clear, he will get over all his potential grudge against his parents: "if a parent wishes the love and co-operation of his child, […] all that he has to do is to let him undergo the therapy […]". Data supplied by parents, relatives and friends are "[…] totally worthless", (36) as they come from the mind of aberrated people. Parents, in fact, "throw dust [in the son's] eyes", as they want the potential Clear to forget everything they did to him. (37)



4. THE THERAPY

Survival and dynamics

The therapy designed by Hubbard is based on his idea of man, and on what is seen as the fundamental push that rules the human existence: survival. The man is motivated only by survival, that is at the basis of every kind of activity. While successes raise the survival potentiality, failures lower it.

According to the basic axioms of Dianetics, the "dynamic principle" of survival is divided into four dynamics. The first one concerns the individual's survival, the second one involves the survival through procreation, the third one is the survival of the group and the forth is the survival of mankind. (38)

Dynamics and intelligence are inhibited by engrams, that supply the mind with false data. The analytic mind is the part of the mind that perceives and stores the data needed to solve problems, while the reactive mind stores and preserves pain and painful emotions. Physical repercussions are due to the somatic mind, that is managed by one mind or the other, according to the situation. (39)

Hubbard's man "… knows his goal before being two years old…"; thanks to Dianetics, people are able to recall that time, and can use and pursue that basic goal. (40)

An infallible technique

According to Hubbard, the man cured with Dianetics enjoys the advantages of a "science of the mind" so precise and tested as physics and chemistry. Dianetics doesn't envisage any exceptions or "special cases"; the laws that rule its functioning never change.

According to its inventor, Dianetics: 1) is based on axioms comparable to the laws of physics; 2) contains a therapeutic technique that deals and cures for certain every and each mental or psychosomatic illness; 3) has discovered the sole source of mental imbalance; 4) fixes the fundamental features and potentialities of the human memory; 5) it helps to clarify shady points of other sciences; etc. .(41) Even the emotional scale (called "tone scale" (42)) lived by the patient during the therapy always follows the same emotional order and is completely predictable. (43) In Hubbard's therapy all the cases are "treated" in the same way, a part from the pathology or normality of the person who turns to the auditor. (44)

The auditor must pay attention not to what the patient did, but to what the patient suffered from others. The cause of his/her sufferings, in fact, doesn't lie in his/her actions, that are not to be judged or condemned as they are just a display of his/her discomfort. The real cause of the patient's misfortune lies in the actions of others, who somehow "damaged" him/her. (45)

The man-machine

What strikes the most in Dianetics therapy and its formulation of the man is the sensation to be faced with a machine ruled by physical laws. After all, this machine follows the same laws, and is open to the same criticism that can be addressed to different theories about the man, such as Freud's or Pavlov's, in their turn criticised by Hubbard himself. Hubbard's image of man isn't suffering from the same ailments of Freud's and Pavlov's man? The first was slave of the sexual urge, and the second was conditioned by a stimulus/response mechanism.

In my opinion, Hubbard's craze to say the last and definitive word about the functioning of the "human mind" is the same that hit the ones he himself is criticising, ironically for the same reason. It seems to be the same old idea, i.e. the will to standardise mental illnesses and recovery techniques, an idea that led to apply destructive and invasive therapies to "crazy people", in the hope to bring them back to "normality", and make them "sane" in the same, identical way.

Hubbard is part of that crowd of thinkers who insisted to write the words "The End" in a book that could never be closed: the book of the human mind, or the psyche. The more advanced tendencies within psychology and psychotherapy acknowledge this need, and are addressed to a more flexible and global approach to the man. This tendency allows to overcome the trend that would like to restrict at any cost the concept of good and bad mankind, within categories prearranged by some thinker or theorist who is too busy to admire his/her own "perfection" to realise that "diversity" and human limits can hide "richness" as well.



5. THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY AND RELIGION

From the individual to society

The interests of Dianetics don't concern only the single individual. The last pages of the book written by the former pulp fiction (and later science-fiction) writer L. Ron Hubbard also describe the civil society longed for by its author, beyond the circle of his auditors and his training centres. The reader is then able to figure out the civil society according to the founder of Scientology (46).

Hubbard starts from the consideration - that can be easily shared and comes from common-sense - that jurisprudence problems are inextricably connected with the problems of human behaviour, and any legal or judicial system, to work, must be founded upon clear assumptions of what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. As the author thinks that the "Clear" is 'right and good', while the "Aberrated" is 'wrong and bad', the logical consequence is that "the ideal society will be a society of non aberrated individuals", (47) and "maybe in a distant future, civil rights before the law will be granted only to non aberrated people". (48)

The ones who adhere to Hubbard's ideas believe that "aberrated" individuals can be turned into "Clear" ones, thanks to his technology. Clears are sane, and are the only people really and fully responsible of their acts, as they do not surrender to their engrams. According to Hubbard, "the social bodies that we call states and nations totally act and react like they were individual bodies". (49) Therefore, cultures themselves would have their own analytic mind (50) and reactive mind; (51) the last storing the engrams: "criminals, traitors and bigots are an example of inner engrams, and suppress the survival potential of society… ". (52)

All the problems of mankind would come from the irrationality of the past generations, that are not to be judged, as well as the preclear is not to be judged for what he/she did before the therapy. The transposition from the individual and Dianetics therapy to society and civil laws takes place also when Hubbard states that the crimes committed before becoming "clear" should be cancelled by the individual's records, as it happened to his/her ailments, that were cancelled by the therapy: "as the cause has disappeared, the punishment is useless". In Dianetics logic, then, crimes committed before being "cleared" derive solely by an "aberrated" condition, i.e. the person was insane therefore not responsible of his/her actions. (53)

The social body behaves like the individual body, even because it follows the same "tone scale". We have therefore "free" societies "tone 4", and "tone 0" societies; societies go up and down the tone scale. When a society goes down to tone 1 we have war, as war is nothing else than a form of insanity that hits a certain society rather than a single individual.

Hubbard's claims about nuclear war, very close to the collective fears of the 1950's, surely gripped the reader, not only for the recall of the devastating effects of the just ended WW2, but also for the cold war winds blowing in those times. Claims like: "maybe no future generations will be left to see who's the winner", (54) together with the offer of Dianetics as a science able to prevent war, surely had some appeal - and maybe still have - at least on the ones who believe that Hubbard's idea is a good one, and that his technology works.

A technology becomes a religion

Even if Hubbard's ideas were bright and his techniques workable, the very fact to see them as the sole good ideas, the sole effective techniques, and the only solution to mankind problems put (Dianetics) Hubbard's view in a totalitarian and absolute perspective that invalidates also its good aspects.

In my opinion, the fact that Hubbard's techniques were further improved after Dianetics (55) can not "correct" its basic settings, that are not only a method but the very roots from which subsequent complex procedures, techniques and instructions etc. were born and developed. These procedures and techniques make particularly difficult the knowledge of this technological philosophy, then turned into a religion by its very inventor.

On the other hand, when we consider the dogmatic level of Hubbard's claims about mental health and the negative reviews given by scientific organisations, (56) the shift to religion was terribly timely. And this is precisely what happened in 1952, two years after the publication of Dianetics, when Hubbard founded the "Hubbard Association of Scientologists". The appearing of the word "Scientology" shows the change of Hubbard's view after the publication of his best-seller: Hubbard elaborated the idea of "thetan", an entity similar to the soul or the spirit, thanks to which he could transform his "scientific" theory into theology. (57)

The transformation of Hubbard's organisation was seen in different ways: someone thinks that it was a way to solve tactical problems and get tax benefits, someone else that it was inevitable as Hubbard introduced some new elements, like a Gnostic-like cosmogony and reincarnation, that could not be presented as part of a science or therapy.

However, a question is still unresolved: why, after having been struggling so long to have his creature recognised as a science of mental health, Hubbard introduced those religious elements that radically modified his perspective, at the cost of causing discontent and open dissent in his supporters? (58)



CONCLUSIONS

Even if Dianetics belongs to the non religious period of Hubbard's thought, I think it could be defined as the "Gospel of the Clear man, according to Hubbard". It is the work of an author who was greatly imaginative and clever, an author who, at one point in his career, elaborated a theory about the man and sanity, as well as a healing technique intended as a panacea.

In the ending part of his book, Hubbard makes a further step that places his thought in a different context: not only a simple technique, but a philosophy of the man capable to eliminate not only the individual sufferings, but also the social ones, the different forms of injustice and the very reasons of war. This further step takes place by simply applying to mankind and civil society the axioms enunciated for the single individual.

I think that Hubbard's philosophic/technologic theory, for the very fact that it never was a theory but immediately became usual procedure, must be evaluated and weighted, as it isn't meant to be just a remedy for the individual sufferings, but is intended to solve social, political and moral problems. Its sphere of activity isn't limited to a single organisation, but extends to all spheres of society.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not at all convinced that the only way to achieve a "sane" and "free" civil society is to put Hubbard's technology into practice. A civil society must be basically open, tolerant and respectful of diversity, and must welcome all the good existing in any culture, religion or human condition, even if suffering: I don't think that a sole valid technology and a sole acceptable human model can exist.

Hubbard concludes his book with these words: "For God's sake! Start to work and build a better bridge!" Personally, I don't think that Hubbard's is the only one "bridge" possible, nor the best, the safer, the more effective.

I prefer roads to "bridges", open roads without set courses. Because I'd wish to meet and walk together with whom is walking a "path" different from the one I choose.


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Note of the translator: Hubbard's quotes come from the Italian official translation of the book Dianetics, and were translated again into English. Original quotes are welcome

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NOTES


(1) "Un allontanamento dal pensiero o comportamento razionale. L'aberrazione è in opposizione alla sanità mentale, che sarebbe il suo contrario". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p. 557).

(2) L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.526.

(3) The decision of Oct. 5th 2000 applied two previous Superior Court decisions that recognised the religious nature of Scientology. A reconstruction of the juridical vicissitudes of the Church of Scientology [in Italy] can be found at http://www.cesnur.org/testi/se_scientology.htm. The critical site managed by Martini devotes one of its sections to a number of legal proceedings involving Scientology, both in Italy and abroad: http://xenu.com-it.net/trib.htm .

(4) New Era Publications International ApS, Che cos'è Scientology, 1993, p. 142-146.

(5) L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: la forza del pensiero sul corpo, p. VIII-IX.

(6) op. cit., p. VIII.

(7) J. Gordon Melton, La Chiesa di Scientology, Editrice ElleDiCi, Torino, 1998, p.18.

(8) Università Pontificia Salesiana, La comprensibilità della comunicazione nei libri di testo scolastici, Esercitazione di Licenza di Amitrani Alberto e Raffaella Di Marzio, Relatore: Prof. Pellerey, Roma, 1981.

(9) Cfr. Grasselli B., Per una metodologia della lettura, Brescia, La Scuola, 1975.

(10) Cfr. La comprensibilità della comunicazione nei libri di testo scolastici, p.16-17.

(11) "Una persona non aberrata. Egli è razionale in quanto trova le migliori soluzioni possibili sui dati che possiede e sul suo punto di vista". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.560).

(12) "Neologismo (parola coniata di recente) di Dianetics per indicare un individuo aberrato". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.557).

(13) "Una registrazione completa, sino all'ultimo dettaglio, di qualsiasi percezione presente in un momento di incoscienza parziale o totale". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.562).

(14) L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: la forza del pensiero sul corpo, p 13.

(15) op. cit., p.121.

(16) op. cit., p.122.

(17) op. cit., p. 206. The issue is resumed also at. p. 344, where the author mentions a possible prehistoric origin of pregnancy sickness.

(18) op. cit., chapter 10.

(19) op. cit., p 122.

(20) op. cit., p. 557.

(21) op. cit., p. 508.

(22) op. cit., p. 405.

(23) op. cit., p.179.

(24) op. cit., p.137.

(25) "L'applicazione dei procedimenti e delle procedure Dianetics su una persona da parte di un auditor addestrato. Audire significa ascoltare e fare dei calcoli". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.558).

(26) op. cit., p.175.

(27) op. cit., chapter 7.

(28) op. cit., chapter 7.

(29) op. cit., chapter 7.

(30) op. cit., vol. I, chapter 9.

(31) op. cit., vol. III, chapter 9, par. "Il caso del junior".

(32) op. cit., p. 463.

(33) op. cit., p. 178.

(34) op. cit., p. 258.

(35) Ibid.

(36) op. cit., p. 515.

(37) op. cit., vol. III, chapter 9, par. "Dati richiesti ai parenti".

(38) op. cit., vol. I, Riassunto p. 53-56.

(39) Ibid.

(40) op. cit., Note No. 13 p. 312-313.

(41) op. cit., vol. I, chapter 1.

(42) "Una scala che contiene la spirale decrescente della vita da piena vitalità e coscienza a semi-vitalità e semi-coscienza a morte". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.569).

(43) op. cit., vol. III, chapter 9, par. "La scala del tono e la riduzione degli engram".

(44) op. cit., vol. III, chapter 9, par. "Iniziare un caso".

(45) op. cit., p. 529.

(46) op. cit., vol. III, chapter 10, par. "Dianetics giuridica" p. 527-531 and "Dianetics e la guerra" p.531-535.

(47) op. cit., p. 528.

(48) op. cit., p. 529.

(49) op. cit., p. 531.

(50) "La mente che calcola, l' Io e la sua coscienza". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.565).

(51) "La mente a livello cellulare che non è 'inconscia', bensì è sempre conscia; la mente nascosta, pertanto sconosciuta". Definition given in Dianetics glossary (L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics. La forza del pensiero sul corpo, New Era Publications Italia, Milano, 1987, p.565).

(52) op. cit., p. 531.

(53) op. cit., Note No. 3 p. 529.

(54) op. cit., p. 534.

(55) I am referring to the elaboration of the second method to make the individual run incidents with the Dianetics technique. The first method is the one described in "Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health" (then renamed "the Power of Thought upon the Body" in Italy). The second method is to be traced back to late 1970's, and it is named "New Era Dianetics", NED for short. Moreover, there is a further version of Dianetics on Upper Levels (OT levels), called "New Era Dianetics for OT's", or NOTs for short. "NOT's" techniques are confidential and available only to the ones who have achieved a high level on the Scientology path towards "Total Freedom". I know NOTs exist, but I don't know their content.

(56) According to Gordon Melton the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), "refused to take Dianetics seriously" when Hubbard presented them with the results of his research.

(57) Gordon Melton, "La Chiesa di Scientology", ElleDiCi, Torino, 1998, p.20-21.

(58) op. cit., p. 19-20.

The contents of this article are unprofessional translations of those included in the italian website www.dimarzio.it.


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