Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky: Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Read Online Free PDF Page A

train immediately. About three hours later, after a complicated
journey, I arrived at the “Mission.” It was over a launderette in Moseley Village,
at that time the dowdy home of the Birmingham hippy community.
    The receptionist sat behind an old desk at the head of the
steep stairs. It was just after six in the evening, and the rest of the Mission
staff had gone home to take a break before returning for the evening session.
The receptionist was in her early twenties, and had abandoned a career in
teaching to become a full-time Scientologist. She was cheerful and
self-assured, and she looked me straight in the eye. She exuded confidence that
Scientology was the stuff of miracles. I mentioned my interest in Buddhism, so
she gave me a Scientology magazine called “ Advance! ,” which claimed that
Scientology was its modern successor. I was passionately interested, but she
would not trust me to take a copy of Hubbard’s Dianetics: The Modern Science
of Mental Health , and pay the next day.
    Perhaps to her surprise, I did return the next day and
bought the book. I spent the Christmas season locked away with my misery and
“Dianetics.” The 400 pages took 10 days to read. The book was turgid and
difficult, but I was not interested in Hubbard’s style, I was interested in
Dianetic therapy.
    Hubbard claimed to have found the source of all human unhappiness.
Dianetics would eradicate depression, and the seventy percent of all ailments
which Hubbard claimed are mentally generated, or “psychosomatic.” According to
Hubbard’s book, each of us has a stimulus-response mind which records all
trauma. This “Reactive Mind” is hidden from the conscious or “Analytical Mind.”
When elements of an environment resemble those of an earlier traumatic
incident, the Reactive Mind cuts in and enforces irrational behavior upon the
individual. The Reactive Mind is idiotic, and tries to resolve present
situations by regurgitating a jumble of responses from its recording of the
traumatic incident. Failing to see the cause of this irrational behavior, the
Analytical
    Mind justifies it, in exactly the way a hypnotized subject
justifies his enactment of implanted suggestions.
    According to Hubbard, the deepest personal traumas were
moments of unconsciousness or pain, which he called “engrams.” By relieving
engrams an individual could erase the Reactive Mind and become well-balanced,
happy and completely rational. The earliest engram would have occurred before
birth, and would be the “basic” of all subsequent engrams. Those who had
relieved this original engram, and consequently erased their Reactive Mind,
Hubbard called “Clears.” People receiving Dianetics were “Preclears.” I began
to absorb this elaborate and complex new language.
    More recent incidents would have to be relieved before the
Preclear would be capable of reliving his birth and his experiences in the
womb. I was wary of Hubbard’s constant assertion that most parents try to abort
their children, but glossed over it, thinking his initial research must have
been done on rather strange people.
    What severe “engrams” had I received? Because so much
emphasis was put on birth and the prenatal period, I asked my mother about her
pregnancy. Her answers horrified me. After an emergency operation to treat a
twisted ovary, the doctor had told her she was pregnant. The doctor said he had
held the evidence (me) in his hand. A very nasty “prenatal engram” indeed;
perhaps explaining my backache, my slight near-sightedness, or my current
intense depression.
    I was a romantic teenager, deeply upset by the end of a love
affair. I wanted help and I thought that L. Ron Hubbard could provide that
help. A year before, a Zen teacher had warned me to join only groups where all
the members had something I wanted. The people I met at the Scientology
“Mission” all seemed unusually cheerful. They were confident and positive about
life. Qualities I sorely needed. I had met