A world without insanity, without criminals and without war -- this is the goal of Dianetics.
For thousands of years man has struggled forward with his conquest of the material universe but he has known almost nothing about his most important weapon, his most valuable possession, the human mind. Despite this obstacle of ignorance he has made progress, but because of this obstacle he has accumulated unto himself not only the penalties of madness and disease but more important, the threat of destruction for all his works -- modern war.
Dianetics is the science of thought. The word is from the Greek "dianoua" (through mind). The scope of Dianetics includes all valid data pertaining to thought. Far simpler than Man supposed, the workings of the human mind and knowledge itself became, in Dianetics, a body of knowledge with which any reasonably intelligent individual can work.
No civilization can progress to the stability of continuous survival without certain and sure command of knowledge such as that contained in Dianetics. For Dianetics, skillfully used, can do exactly what it claims. It can, in the realm of the Individual, prevent or alleviate insanity, neurosis, compulsions and obsessions and it can bring about physical well being, removing the basic cause of some seventy percent of Man’s illnesses. It can, in the field of the family, bring about better accord and harmony. It can, in the field of nations or smaller groups such as those of industry, improve management to a point where these pitifully inadequate ideologies for which men fight and die with such frightening earnestness, can be laid aside in favor of a workable technology.
Perhaps our present generation is too benighted for a new science. It would be very sad if it were true, for atom bombs are quite destructive to people and to town and might well obliterate whole cultures. Perhaps the vendors of crack- pot ideologies and destructive therapies are too rich and too powerful and too selfish to permit a ray of hope upon our generation’s stage. Perhaps it will be tomorrow -- if tomorrow is let come -- before Dianetics is used and widely applied.
Dianetics was asked to vindicate itself in 1950. It did, as you will see in the publisher’s introduction. This was very tolerant of Dianetics for no existing "ology" pertaining to the human mind has ever been validated or has been called upon to validate itself. The entrenched therapies, flatly do not work. Their results are much the same as those which would have been achieved had no work been done. What sort of a society is this in which we live where pretence is accepted as validity against all opposing facts?
Dianetics works. None who have spent any time around the Foundation can doubt that. It even works in relatively unskilled hands. Daily, it does its miracles. And this is not very strange, for Dianetics is root knowledge of human activity.
But Dianetics is not a psychotherapy and it is not psychosomatic medicine. Those who want and need these things find Dianetics swiftly efficacious in these fields and so think of it as a psychotherapy. Those whose "field" it invades would love to have it outlawed before their boxes of beautiful "Snake Root Oil" have been discredited.
Preventive Dianetics means more for humanity in the long run than Dianetic processing. Group Dianetics means more for these war- torn societies than any number of arthritis cures. Dianetics is the basic science of human thought. It embraces human activity and arranges a body of hitherto uncoordinated knowledge. Dianetics has a basic goal, a good goal, a goal which should not be discounted or thrown aside because some quack will lose his income or because some revolutionary will lose his crack- pot cause. The goal of Dianetics is a sane world -- a world without insanity, without criminals and without war. If our generations live to write history, let them sadly give a page to those who, in this chaotic and dark age, sought, through personal profit and through hate, to bring a truly humanitarian science down. The goal of Dianetics is sanity. It would be stopped only by the insane.
From Funk and Wagnall’s New Standard Dictionary, Supplement No. 5: di. a. net’ics noun: A system for the analysis, control and development of human thought evolved from a set of coordinated axioms which also provide techniques for the treatment of a wide range of mental disorders and organic diseases: term and doctrines introduced by L. Ron Hubbard, American engineer. (Gr. dianoetikos - dia, through plus noos, mind) -- di. a net’. ic adj. Dianetics is the science of survival. Although it is much simpler than the physical sciences of physics and chemistry, it compares with them in the preciseness of its results. The source of psychosomatic illness and human aberration has been discovered, and in Dianetics skills exist, for the first time, with which to resolve them. An understanding of human behavior is made possible by Dianetics. The precision of science is brought by Dianetics into the broad fields of the humanities. It is actually a family of sciences, and enlarges the humanities beyond previous understanding. The present volume deals with human evaluation and with dianetic processing. With it the behavior of human beings can be estimated and predicted with exactness. Although Dianetics is a broad subject and should never be limited to the field of mental healing, any true science which embraced man’s activities could not but touch upon and resolve neurosis, criminality, insanity and psychosomatic illness.
Application of the human evaluation chart contained in this volume permits the student to estimate with some exactness the behavior and reactions he can expect from the human beings around him and what can happen to him as a result of association with various persons. Additionally, the use of human evaluation permits the individual to handle and better live with other human beings.
Man has known many portions of Dianetics in the past thousands of years, but not until now has this data been organised into a body of precision knowledge. Dianetics, as a master science, embraces psychology, psychometry, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and any other field of mental healing or evaluation but goes on, more importantly, to predict human behavior precisely and to delineate the causes of that behavior, to enhance the field of politics and to enlarge all other activities of man. Despite this scope, Dianetics is simple enough to be easily understood by the intelligent layman, and after a study of this volume many of its lesser techniques can be employed by the layman to better and increase the life potential of individuals with whom he associates.
The first law of Dianetics is the dynamic principle of existence: THE DYNAMIC PRINCIPLE OF EXISTENCE IS SURVIVE! OR SUCCUMB! No activity of living organisms has been found to exist without this principle. It is not meant here that survival should be in terms of barest necessity, since one of the best guarantees of survival is abundance.
In Dianetics, survival is understood to be the basic single thrust of life through time and space, energy and matter. Survival is subdivided into eight dynamics. Man does not survive for self alone, nor yet for sex, nor yet for groups, nor yet only for the species of man. Man apparently survives, as do other living organisms, along eight separate channels. These channels are called the dynamics, and these eight represent the eight fundamental urges or drives which motivate conduct.
Dynamic one is the urge of the individual to survive as himself.
Dynamic two is the urge of the individual to survive through his progeny. The second dynamic has two main subdivisions, the sexual act and the creation of children and their rearing.
Dynamic three is the urge of the individual to survive as a member of a group, whether civil, political, racial, or just a number of individuals who compose a group.
Dynamic four is the urge of the individual to reach the highest survival in terms of mankind and is the urge of mankind to survive as man.
Dynamic five is the urge to survive as a life organism and embraces all living organisms.
Dynamic six is the urge to survive as part of the physical universe and includes the survival of the physical universe.
Dynamic seven is the urge toward survival in a spiritual sense.
Dynamic eight is the urge toward survival as a part of or ward of a Supreme Being. The number eight, laid on its side, gives us the symbol -oo- for infinity.
With these various drives, all the behavior and activities of individuals or groups can be integrated, evaluated and understood. With all of these dynamics in full play in the individual, a high level of sanity and optimum conduct is obtainable.
Dianetic processing attempts to give the individual the highest possible potential of survival and the happiest possible life. Severely tested and evaluated, dianetic processing has been found to deliver, in the hands of a competent dianetic practitioner, a considerably heightened productivity and happiness to the individual, as will be shown below.
Without using hypnotism, drugs, surgery, shock or other artificial means, Dianetics unblocks the flow of these dynamics and considerably enhances the ability of the individual to act in life and enjoy it. The source of mental disturbance and psychosomatic illness and irrational conduct is one of the basic discoveries of Dianetics. This source remained unknown and unsuspected for thousands of years, although relentlessly sought by the thinkers and philosophers of all ages.
That this source is the valid source has been rigorously tested and has been proven beyond doubt by the best authorities. The source of aberration lies in a hitherto unknown sub- mind which, with its recordings, underlies what man understands to be his "conscious" and. The concept of the "unconscious" is re- evaluated in Dianetics by the discovery that the "unconscious" mind is the only mind which is always conscious. This submind is called the reactive mind.
A holdover from an earlier step in evolution, the reactive mind is able to command the conscious mind without the individual suspecting he is being so ordered about. Hidden and mysterious impulses, obsessions, delusions and other unwanted ideas are able to manifest themselves against the conscious mind of the individual without his suspecting what is happening. These compulsions and obsessions and irrationalities greatly reduce an individual’s survival potential as well as his energy and physical health. The reactive mind takes any and all of the data which it contains from moments of physical pain or painful emotion which have been experienced by the individual in the course of life. When an individual is unconscious, which is to say when he is drugged or knocked out by shock, injury or illness, the reactive mind is wide open to receive recordings.
Previously it was not known that an individual who was unconscious could and did record those things which were said and done around him. For instance, during an operation while the patient lies on the table under ether, his reactive mind records everything that is said and done around him and records additionally the physical pain and the drugged feeling of the anaesthesia. All these perceptions combine together to create what is known in Dianetics as an engram. An individual, then, has an engram for every moment during his entire lifetime when he has been Knocked out or severely injured. Everything which occurs in these moments lies dormant in the reactive mind.
Further, every moment of great emotional shock, where loss occasions near unconsciousness, is fully recorded in the reactive mind. These shocks of loss are known as Secondaries. For instance, the death of a loved one brings about a state of near unconsciousness, and everything which is said or done around a person in such a state is recorded and becomes compulsive as part of the reactive mind. The reactive mind is composed solely of these experiences.
Later on, when an individual is tired or only slightly ill, similar circumstances or voices in his surrounding may restimulate one of the engrams or secondaries and so cause him to react according to its commands upon him. This is called, dianetically, a lock and is a conscious- level irrational reaction. In the reactive mind there exists, thus, an interior world of force which acts upon the individual. This is aberration, and it is caused by what has been done to not done by the individual, during moments when he was unconscious. The eradication of the content of the reactive mind is made possible by dianetic processing. One would agree that if the entire physical pain and painful emotion of a lifetime were eradicated from his life he would be saner and happier. Dianetic processing does just this. Dianetic processing is very simple in its elements.
Several new things have been learned in Dianetics about the human mind. One is the time track. Every moment of consciousness, from an individual’s earliest instant of life to present time, constitutes what may be called a track of time. During these consecutive moments in time, everything the individual has heard, seen, felt or smelled is recorded faithfully. These recordings may not be available instantly to every human being, but in dianetic processing they become available.
This time track, then, is a record not only of the life span of the individual but also of everything which has happened within that span. When something is forgotten it does not disappear from this time track but is only denied to the individual by an occlusion occasioned by some physical or emotional pain. This pain makes it difficult for the individual to reach the data without re- experiencing the pain, and so the data becomes lost to him until he is processed. Processing is done by recovering data on the time track. Wide awake, without hypnotism, drugs or other artificial means any individual can be sent down the time track to earlier moments.
The preciseness with which he will go to these moments is astonishing. Many people are held in these moments by some past physical pain to such a degree that they are actually not in present time. When an individual is somewhere on the time track other than in present time he can be said to be out of present time. He will be experiencing some of the pain and will be reacting to the commands of the moment. If you were to ask one of your friends how old he is and request that he give you the first figure that flashed into his mind you would be astonished how often that figure would not be his proper age but an earlier age. If you pursued the quest you would find, by enlarging his memory, that he had been injured or had experienced some painful event at the age which he gave you in lieu of his own. This individual would be out of present time.
It is a primary purpose of dianetic processing to bring the individual wholly into present time. Processing is simply done. The auditor (as the processor is called) directs the attention of "I" back along the time track. The preclear (the person who is undergoing processing) is wide awake, knows everything which is taking place, is in full control of himself and is able to bring himself to the present whenever he likes. In a fully returned state, wherein the auditor has directed that "I" go back to a certain moment in the preclear’s life, the preclear can be seen to approximate, involuntarily, the state he was in at some earlier period of his life. There exist, however, many severly occluded cases which cannot easily reach moments on the time track and there exist people who are stuck on the time track so thoroughly that they cannot reach earlier or later moments easily.
Lighter methods of dianetic processing have been devised to free those individuals in such a way that their recall becomes much more adequate. Psychosomatic illness, as it is called in the field of medicine, is named in Dianetics a chronic somatic, since it is not an illness and cannot be diagnosed as such but is only some former pain which is in restimulation. For instance, the individual who has what a physician may have diagnosed as arthritis of the elbow is really suffering from the restimulation of an actual pain or series of pains he has received at some much earlier time in that very elbow.
In other words, a child which breaks its elbow at the age of three may at the age of thirty experience a rheumatic pain in that elbow. The test of all dianetic processing is whether or not it works. In the case of the chronic somatic, which accounts for some seventy percent of man’s illnesses, the pain and discomfort of the "psychosomatic illness" vanishes when dianetic processing reaches and eradicates the recording of the original injury or illness. No pharmaceutical, mental, surgical or other medical treatment has been able to resolve or even vaguely control psychosomatic illness -- a thing which dianetic processing does easily as routine.
That Dianetics must be vastly successful in eradicating these chronic somatics is attested by the hysterical violence expressed against it by some members of past healing arts. Dianetics relegates psychosomatic surgery into nearly the same category as bloodletting. Occasionally, chronic somatics surrender in a matter of an hour or two. However, for the most part, highly competent auditing and many hours of work are necessary to resolve things which have been classified as arthritis, sinusitis, rheumatism, conjunctivitis, or any of the thousands of names assigned to these chronic somatics. The auditor in no case diagnoses the chronic somatic as an illness and does not need to make such diagnosis to resolve the chronic somatic. Beyond the resolution of psychosomatic illness and human aberration, Dianetics, even more importantly, encompasses human behavior.
Various specific states of being are occasioned by the amount of pain or painful emotion stored in the reactive mind, as are certain set mechanical reactions in the behavior of individuals. Groups as well can be found to react in this way. These mechanical reactions to life and the environment are represented by the tone scale, a full copy of which is included in this volume. By finding one or two manifestations of an individual one can go on to predict the remainder of his characteristic reactions toward his associates and his environment. One can discover what will interest him, what will depress him, how ethical he is, and what he will do in various situations.
The reader should not confuse Dianetics with the arts of mental healing or with schools of thought on the subject of thought. Dianetics is truly a science. It is new and it is young, but it fulfils the true requirements for a science in that it is "an organized body of knowledge that has been accumulated on a subject." According to some of the best known critics in America, Dianetics is considered to be the foremost advance of man, certainly during this century. Its conclusions are derived from the discovery of natural laws concerning thought, organisms, and the physical universe, and it is a bold strike toward further knowledge and the enhancement of man. Its limitations at this time are not even vaguely known. What it can do for the individual and the world cannot be estimated. According to Walter Winchell, the creation of Dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and the arch. Any project or any set of discoveries as vast as Dianetics cannot but challenge the citadels of conservatism, but these are easily challenged.
In the book, Albert Einstein (page 120), L. Infeld states, "In 1921, when I went to study in Berlin, I saw with amazement the disgraceful spectacle which attended Einstein’s fame." Editorials attacked Einstein, and mathematics professors in one of Berlin’s greatest halls told a large audience that Einstein’s theory was "the greatest hoax in the history of science." From Albert Einstein we have the direct bequeathment of atomic fission. From Dianetics and the brilliant mind of its discoverer and originator, L. Ron Hubbard, we may have the sanity and salvation of our future race. The advent of Dianetics into a lethargic society last May, 1950, created a stir which spread around the world.
There were those who believed Dianetics implicitly and to whose searching minds it seemed the final answer both for their personal problems and for the problems of the entire world. To those who did not share this hearty acceptance of its revolutionary tenets it was a fad, a cult, or even a blasphemy. Loudly this faction clamored for "validation," demanding that Dianetics prove its startling claims. It did not matter to them that never, before Dianetics, had any claims concerning "cures" or remissions of mental illnesses been validated, or that no formal attempt by any psychotherapy had ever been made toward this end. They sought, for one reason or another, to make Dianetics either prove its claims of what to them were fantastic cures of psychoses, or to withdraw once and for all into the obscurity of admitted defeat. Dianetics accepted the challenge.
The ardent enthusiasts and practitioners of the new science provided a fertile field for obtaining the demanded "validation." Prospective students, flocking to the Foundation and its branches from all walks of life and all levels of mental and physical health, were required to take psychometry before attending classes. Those who appeared at the Foundation for clinical processing were likewise given psychometry both before processing began and after processing was completed. The psychometry given one and all was the standard testing of established schools of psychology under the direction of fully qualified psychologists. Dianetics had not yet developed its own batteries of tests; but even had this been accomplished at that time, it would not have been acceptable to those who sought to discredit the budding science. They would have shouted that anyone could pass a test of his own making. Thus, in one more way, did Dianetics meet its critics on their own
The Minnesota Multiphasic Test is well known among psychometrists, college and industrial personnel. It has specific advantages and disadvantages, as have all modes of mental testing, but it is popular because of its simplicity and ease of scoring, and because of the relative ease of picturing the mental state of the testee which it affords. Therefore, in picking a "scientific" standard psychometric test, the Foundations chose as one of its tests the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Among professional people the Wechsler- Bellevue Intelligence Scale stands in high esteem, since it reveals more about the pattern of an individual’s mental functioning than do similar tests. Originally, it was designed because its author felt that other tests existing at the time were more fitting for children. Early in the war the War Department requested that this test be used for channelling recruits into the services, and the particular Wechsler- Bellevue which was used became known as Form B. Its special characteristics include the Point Scale as contrasted to others using an I. Q. scale; each item is credited with a certain number of points, and the total points determine the score.
The Wechsler- Bellevue is divided into eleven sub- tests, and it affords separate scoring of eleven types of behavior. Sub- tests are grouped into two series, one yielding a "Verbal I. Q." and the other a "Performance I. Q." This feature alone makes the Wechsler (pronounced "wex- ler") of outstanding value in the measuring of rises in mental performance and activity. In the field of testing itself a favorite method of "validating" a mental test is simply by correlation with other tests.
Dianetics has undertaken to give a broad picture of the improvement afforded in human behavior by using more than one test. Thus, it is impossible to level a finger of criticism at a specific test in order to belittle the unprecedented improvement which is brought about in an individual by dianetic processing. It must be remembered however that testing takes up a lot of valuable time. Except for this reason hundreds of tests might have been given these 88 testees, to satisfy each and every one of the critics of Dianetics.
Those who are not satisfied with the results obtained from the tests which were chosen are cordially invited to set up a testing programme of their own; to send for a Hubbard Dianetic Auditor to audit the chosen preclears, and to draw their own conclusions from the results which accrue. The results of the "befores" were quite within keeping of the general average results any psychometrist would expect from a cross- section of the population. But the results of the "afters" were completely bewildering to those dyed- in- the wool doubters who hesitate to believe evidence seen with their own eyes.
The signatures of the examining psychometrists Gordon Southon, Peggy Southon and Dalmyra Ibanez, Ph. D., Ed D., are affixed to each bank of tests, and witnessed. These psychometrists are registered professional personnel whose honesty and standing in the field of psychology is above question. In past comparative testing, it has been quite within the keeping of those conducting mental research to choose about five persons for examination, retaining an equal number as a "control" group. Dianetics has built this particular validation programme around 88 persons. Never before has such an astounding number participated in tests to show improvement in mental health, specifically in the testing of increase in mental ability and reduction of psychoses and psychosomatic illnesses. A vast backlog of psychometry has since been accumulated, many times outnumbering this original 88. Dianetics is now in a position to do the challenging, and the following charts are submitted as proof of the efficacious results of processing. Dianetics was challenged to prove the claim of increased I. Q. and that dianetic processing has as two of its by- products the relief of psychoses and psychosomatic illnesses. Had the challengers any idea that this proof could be presented they might not have been so blatant in their demands, and had they any inkling that the results would be so completely in Dianetics’ favor they might have withheld them completely.
However, Dianetics has met the challenge.
The arbitrary measure of human intelligence popularly known as the individual’s "I. Q." is not a measure of how well a person remembers. Neither is it a measure of how much he has learned over a period of a lifetime. I. Q. ratings are a measure of an individual’s capacity for learning something new; they are scales based upon how old in years a person has become compared to how "old" he is mentally. One might be 30 years of age and yet have an equivalent mental capacity of an average 15- year- old school boy. On the other hand, a particularly adept pupil of grade school, perhaps 8 years of age, might have a mental capacity equivalent to someone ten years his senior.
It has become a cliche that an individual’s I. Q. rating does not change throughout his lifetime. Indeed, until Dianetics, a gain in I. Q. scoring from one test to another was greeted with astonishment and an immediate assertion that a mistake had been made by the psychometrist scoring the tests.
When Dianetics made the statement that a person’s Intelligence Quotient (I. Q.) increased remarkably following a few hours of dianetic processing, the clamor for "proof" began. The Foundation has this proof, in abundance. As shown on the bar graph one group of 88 persons was given standard I. Q. tests, and their scores plotted along the horizontal bar, regardless of whether these particular scores were 50 I. Q. or 150 I. Q. One month passed, a month in which the preclears received about 60 hours of dianetic processing. Then they were given a second I. Q. test. The score on the second test was then plotted on the vertical bar at the point which represents the points of gain or loss.
Let’s call the vertical bar on the extreme right of the graph by the name John Smith. John appeared at the Foundation for training in Dianetic Auditing, and before being permitted to attend classes, was given a group of tests, among which was an "I. Q." test. He was found to have, according to the standards set forth by the originators of the test, an I. Q. of 125. He went to class, learned dianetic theory, learned to audit effectively, and during the course received 65 hours of dianetic processing from classmates. On Certification Day, he was given a second block of tests containing a standard follow- up of the I. Q. test he had taken a month before. His rating on the second test was 151. Thus, John Smith gained 26 points in I. Q in a period of one month, and these 26 points are plotted on the graph as a vertical bar.
Among the tests in the block taken by John Smith was the California Test of Personality. Various aspects of his social and individual personality were determined by use of this test. One of his most marked improvements was in his occupational relations (he had lost job after job because he couldn’t get along with his boss and fellow workers). His second greatest personality change was in his feeling of personal worth; prior to his processing he had considered himself as incapable of handling a foreman’s position, or of leading a group. The after- processing test showed that he had acquired a much deeper feeling of personal worth, and that he would rate highly with his fellow workers.
The Summary of Average Percentile Scores as shown on the Personality Bar Graph is a display of the results showing increases in the twelve categories listed. Seventy- six individuals were given before- and- after- psychometry which included the California Test of Personality, and their average is displayed in graphic form. To obtain the "average" score of all 76 persons, it is necessary to total their scores and divide the result by 76. The average scores of the 76 individuals on the first test are shown by the height of the shaded bars. The average scores of the 76 persons after they had received dianetic processing of about 60 hours each is shown by the height of the solid bars. In each case, there is an evident increase.
Two graphs display the results obtained with use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test. As in the preceding graph, these show the averaged scores of a number of individuals, divided into two displays: 21 cases, all male, and 7 cases, all female.
The graphs are marked off in arbitrary scale form, beginning with 40 and ending with 100, and the averaged results of the first tests taken by the individual concerned are located where the dotted line crosses each sub- title line. The averaged results of the second tests taken after the persons had received about 60 hours of dianetic processing are located where the solid black line crosses each sub- title line.
The first sub- title, "Manic Tendencies," means that a person is to a measurable degree influenced by compulsions which cause him to feel, for example, that he has to conquer the world, as Napoleon or Alexander set out to do. The averages of both the before- and the after- processing tests came out practically at the same point on the scale, about 59. Although this indicates that as a group there was no decrease in maladjustment, a few individuals within the group may have adjusted remarkably in this category.
The second sub- title, "Schizoid Tendencies," means roughly that a person might be suffering from what Dianetics defines as a valence shift or the assumption of a second or third personality which is not inherently the individual’s own. The average for the group in the pre- test was about 76 toward maladjustment. The after- processing test shows that the group as an average decreased in maladjustment or, in other words, adjusted toward gaining and recognizing their own personality.
Under the sub- title "Obsessive- Compulsive Tendencies" might be placed those who "just have to wash their hands" after every tiny chore, or those who, before they turn a written page they have just completed, are compelled to dot every "i" or else be completely unable to continue writing. Persons in this category are compelled to carry out some routine, idiotic or otherwise, regardless of what might be more important at the moment.
The remainder of the sub- titles refer to various conditions evident in individuals, such as the feeling that "everybody’s against me" and the tendency for a man to feel somewhat feminine, as well as the extreme anti- socialness of hermits and pyromaniacs. Psychosomatic symptoms are evidences of bodily discomfort or disease which have no physical origin, while the Undue Bodily concern category represents the degree of obsession regarding sickness, referred to by the medical profession as "hypochondria."
Although there are hundreds of individual cases to choose from, the test results of the individual displayed in the graph entitled Typical Test Results of One Individual are average, hence typical. Case No. 446 from the California files shows that according to the results obtained from the California Test of Personality this person became very much better adjusted than he had been before processing. His social adjustment, or the manner in which he gets along with groups, became more acceptable. The third bar in the first section of the graph merely shows the average of the previous two factors and is entitled Total Adjustment.
As shown by the Mental Health Analysis test, he adjusted his liabilities toward usefulness, and increased his assets. His total adjustment is shown on the third bar column.
In the third test, the Johnson Temperament Analysis Profile, there are nine categories of test results, graded on a scale of Excellent, Satisfactory, Fair and Poor. The greatest improvement shown on this test was in the energy he evidenced in the tackling of a problem, and in his congeniality among people. His relaxation and buoyancy categories already satisfactory when he took the first test, increased to a rating of Excellent. When this man first came to the Foundation, he was not particularly liked by his classmates and others who came in contact with him. He was often morose, sullen, uncommunicative and, as one classmate put it, "downright unfriendly." A noticeable change in his social awareness came about within the first week of his processing, and by the time he had finished his training he had reached an overall adjustment to an extent that he was congenial to everyone, and was well liked in return.
Physicians interested in Dianetics generally desire that several months of observation follow the release of a "psychosomatic illness" during the course of dianetic processing, before the results are pronounced permanent. Accordingly, the Foundation has not released information on any but remarkable recoveries (which seem to make themselves known automatically) until after this waiting period has elapsed. The cases which are mentioned in the second paragraph which follows are all, except the last case, more than six months completed.
Dianetic processing does not set out to cure any physical ailment, but it happens in the course of bringing a preclear up the tone scale that all the chronic somatics of engrams from which the preclear has been suffering will disappear -- often with startling suddenness. Since these chronic somatics account for at least seventy percent of man’s "illnesses," many many people who have considered themselves ill for years have "gotten well" during dianetic processing.
Among the chronic somatic conditions from which our present available records show complete recovery are some which have been diagnosed by physicians as follows: bursitis, osteoarthritis, migraine headaches, thyroid complications, chronic headaches, chronic backaches, chronic indigestion, constant fatigue, chronic colitis, and near- sightedness. Almost every chronic condition commonly known has been relieved or alleviated during the course of dianetic processing. These are only some of the cases on which we have careful records. One gentleman had suffered from a chronic somatic which had been diagnosed by no less than 10 physicians as "psoriasis" or "psoriatic arthritis". None of them had offered him any hope of cure. For three years he was periodically disfigured by lesions which covered nine tenths of his skin area. During dianetic processing the lesions healed so rapidly that fellow employees inquired as to the reason for his sudden change in appearance. Time will tell whether this recovery is permanent, but there seems to be no valid reason for thinking that it is not.
Alcoholism is considered by some to be a physical condition and by others a mental one. Dianetics is not prepared to arbitrate the mind- body ratio of alcoholism, but the Foundation can report that alcoholism responds just as favorably to dianetic processing as any other aberration.
Aberrations which are apparently physical are easier to measure, and improvement in them is easier to judge than in mental aberrations. However, the main goal of dianetic processing is not the alleviation of chronic somatics, but the erasure of irrational components in the thoughts of the preclear. The apparently physical results are a by- product of this.
The Foundation presents this report as a brief survey of some of the work done by the Foundation during its first year of operation. Obviously, research in such a broad field as Dianetics requires time and careful, thorough planning. Studies which measure clinical improvement in individuals and groups are usually extended not over months, but over years. Even though a preclear himself can give a glowing subjective report, and though change in his abilities and behavior is easily seen by friends and family, it is difficult to measure improvement adequately. Tests which measure all the various improvements in a preclear do not as yet exist, and those which we have used in order to meet the challenge to Dianetics are actually admittedly inadequate even within their own fields.
We in the Foundation urge scientists in all fields, particularly those working in biology and the social sciences, to test dianetic theory and technique in their own laboratories and under their own controlled conditions. Dianeticists are eager to co- operate with any worker who would like to test or explore Dianetics. Dianetic theory and technique can be applied in many areas. We wish to thank those scientists and institutions who have already participated in dianetic research and have applied it in their own fields. They have been of great assistance to the Foundation and to the science of Dianetics.
We who are working with Dianetics have seen so much of what it can do, and have become so enthusiastic about its effects and possibilities, that it is difficult to moderate our statements about it or our expressions of eagerness to see it develop further. We hope that more and more people, from all fields, will join us in our exploration and our work. -- Editorial Staff
Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, 1951