Just thought it was time to "lighten up" as Flatlander suggested and post this again. Its full of fun, goofy facts. Tra la, tra la.
The Claims of Dianetics Mini-FAQ
William C. Barwell
2-6-2000

This version is much the same as the version as recently posted
except for cleaning up typos and a minor reformatting.

I will probably add a few more additions in coming weeks, check
for remaining typos, add a bit and will give page numbers
for the paperback version of Dianetics for easier referal.

This version was created using the 1992 hardback edition,
which is different from paperback.

This is for people who would like to see what Hubbard claimed
Dianetics could achieve, What grand promises he held out for
Dianetic Clears, without having to wade through Hubbard's dreary tome,
which is excruciating to read. I am having a hard time keeping
myself plowing through it for further 'nuggets'.

I have had one request for permission to web this.

Feel free if you think it fits your site.

I will probably repost it from time to time if it seems
appropriate, for benefit of lurkers and newbies to ARS.


 ******** The Claims of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics Mini-FAQ *********
 William C. Barwell October 6, 1997


L. Ron Hubbard's book Dianetics makes quite a few unwarranted claims
as to just what Dianetics can accomplish. This FAQ is to examine
just what Dianetics claims for those who do not want to bother to
obtain and read this miserable book to find exactly out what Hubbard
claimed Dianetics could do for us.

Dianetics was published in 1950, simultaneously as a book and in
the Science Fiction magazine, Astounding Science Fiction, in May,
1950.

I will be examining a 1992 hardback edition.

Hubbard's main claims can be found in the chapters, 'The Scope of
Dianetics' (book one, chapter one), 'The Clear' (book one, chapter
one), 'Psychosomatic Ilnesses' (book two, chapter five) and 'Release
or Clear', (book three, chapter two).

I am not examining all of the claims of Dianetics, but more
specifically what claims a Dianetics "clear" can achieve.

************************************************************************
What is a Clear?

"A Clear (noun) is an individual who has a result of Dianetic
 therapy, has neither active nor potential psychosomatic illnesses
 or abberations."

(Page 213)
*****
"The Clear is an unaberrated person."

..

"The Clear has no engrams which can be stimulated to throw
 out the correctness of computation by entering hidden or false
 data into it. No aberration."

(page 144)
******
"The engram is the single and sole source of aberration and
 psychosomatic illnesses."

(Page 91)
********
"The purpose of therapy and its sole target is the removal of
 the content of the reactive engram bank. In a release, the majority
 of emotional stress is deleted from this bank. In a Clear, the entire
 content is removed."

(Page 218)
*********
Yes, your 'engram bank' contains the engrams that cause abberations
and illnesses. The goal of Dianetics is to audit out your engrams,
empty the engram bank for good, and become clear.

"Clear is the goal Dianetics therapy, a goal which some patience and
 a little study will bring about".

(Page 541)
 ***** Your life as a Clear ******
So you extend "some practice and a little study" and you are finally
declared a Clear by a beaming Dianetics auditor. How does he know?

"But a Clear is a Clear and when you see it you will know it with no
 further mistake."

"How can you tell a Clear? How does man measure the optimum
 to man? Can he adjust to his enviroment smoothly? And far more
 important, can he adjust the enviroment to him?

 Sixty days and six months after a Clear has been effected,
 the auditor should make a search for any neglected material. He
 should question the Clear carefully as to the events of the past
 interval. In such a way he can learn of any worries, concerns, or
 illnesses which may have taken place and attempt to trace these
 to engrams. if he cannot then find engrams, the Clear is definitely
 and without question, cleared. And he will stay that way."

(Page 303)
Whew! Finally, we are sure we are Clear!

We did it! Checked out and by golly, there is no mistake.

No more engrams.

Now for the miracles! What is behind door number three, Ron!?

 ***** Your new IQ *******
Yes, you always wanted to be smart! That's why you bought the book,
right? Let's see what Ron said about Clears and IQs.

"Is it any wonder, that when these demons (engram caused aberrations)
 are deleted, IQ soars, as it can be observed to do in a Clear?

 Add the demon circuits to the shut down aspect of restimulation
 and the truth can be seen in the observation that people run on about
 one-twentieth of their mental power."

(page 117)
"A Clear, for instance, has complete recall of everything which
 ever happened to him, or anything he ever studied. He does mental
 computations, such as those in chess, for example, which a normal
 would do in half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds."

(Page 214)
"He can do a swift study of anything within his intellectual
 capacity, which is inherent and the study would be the equivalent
 to him of a year or two when he was 'normal'. His vigor, persistance,
 and tenacity to life are very much higher than anyone has thought
 possible."

(Page 214)
"IQ, unless it falls down into the feebleminded level, is no great
 factor. and even then the IQ of any patient goes up like a skyrocket
 with clearing and rises all the while during the work."

(Page 242)
 ****** A Perfect memory ******
"A Clear, for instance, has complete recall of everything that ever
 happened to him, or anything he ever studied."

(Page 214)
 ****** Enhanced Rationality *******
"Release of such engrams means a restoration of rationality to
 individual far above the current norm and a stability and
 well-being greater than man thought man possessed. These engrams
 have been confirmed by taking data from a child, from the mother,
 and the father, and all data checked. So we are dealing here with
 scientific facts which, no matter how startling, are nonetheless
 true."

 ****** Live longer than 'normals' ******
"What the lifespan of a Clear is cannot be answered now;

 ask in a hundred years."

(Page 384)
"The deletion of engrams from the reactive bank uniformly brought
 about a condition where they could recieve benefit from the
 hormones, but where such artifical administration was not necessary,
 save in cases of extreme age. What this means to gerontology (the
 study of longevity in life) cannot at this time be estimated,
 but it can be predicted with confidence that the deletion of
 engrams from the reactive bank has a marked effect on the extension of
 life. A hundred years from now, this data will be available, but
 no Clears have lived that long as yet."

(Page 126)
 ******* No more accidents! ********
"Treatment for accidental injury, surgery for various things such as
 malformation inherent in the body on a genetic basis, and orthopedics,
 which can properly be classed under both, remain properly outside of
 the field of Dianetics, although it can be remarked in passing that
 almost all accidents are to be traced to dramatization of engrams and
 that Clears rarely have accidents."

(Page 120-1)


 ******* No More Psychosmatic Illnesses ********
"About 70% of the physicians current roster of diesaess fall into the
 category of psychosomatic illnesses."

(Page 119)
"How this can come about can be shown by an analogic explanation
 such as a schematic diagram, but we are not so much interested in
 structure at this statge of the science of the mind -
 because by knowing function alone we can cure aberrations and
 psychosomatic illnesses everytime, predict new ills and aberrations
 and generally work "miracles" as such actions were once called before
 man knew anything about the mind."

(page 125)
 ********* Clears do not get colds *************
"Clears do not get colds."

(page 121)
 ********** No Migraine Headeaches ************


"Migraine headaches are psychosomatic, and with the others, are
 uniformly cured by Dianetic therapy. (And the word *cured* is
 used in the fullest sense.)"

(Page 121)
 ********** Numerous ills cured **********
"Arthritis, dermititis, allergies, asthma, some coronary
 difficulties, eye trouble, bursitis, ulcers, sinusitis, ect.,
 form a small section of the psychosomatic catalgue. Bizarre
 aches and pains in various parts of the body are generally
 psychosomatic."

 ********* Hubbard's classes of psychosomatic ills ***********
 (All curable by Dianetics)
 There are 5 classes of psychosomatic ills:

 (1) Those ills resulting from mentally caused derangment in
 physical fluid flow, which class subdivides into:

 (1a) ...Inhibition of fluid flow
 (1B) ...magnication of flow
 (2) Those illnesses resulting from mental derangement of physical
 growth, which class subdivides into:

 (2A) ...Inhibition of growth
 (2B) ...magnification of growth
 (3) Those ills resulting from a predisposition to disease
 resulting from a chronic psychsomatic pain in that area
 (4) Those ills resulting from the perpetuation of a disease on
 account of chronic pain in the area;

 (5) Those ills caused by he verbal command content of engrams.

(Page 129)
"In Class 1A fall such ordinary things as constipation and arthritis."

(Page 129)
"..the scientific fact is that when the engram is picked up, that
 arthritis vanishes and does not return and this is x-ray plate
 evidence."

(page 130)
"Class 1B of psychosomatic ills, magnification of fluid flow, contains
 such things as high blood pressure, diarrhea, sinusitis, priapism,..

 or any other physical condition resulting from a superabundance of
 a fluid."

"Class 2A can cause such things as a withered arm, a foreshortened
 nose, undeveloped genital organs, or any other underdevelopment of a
 gland having to do with size, (which cross classes this with 1A,
 hairlessness ... and in short, reduction in size of any part of
 the body."

"Class 2B causes such things as oversized hands, a lengthened nose,
 oversized ears, enlarged organs and other common physical
 malformations. (Cancer might possibly come under this heading as
 overhealing.)"

"Class 3 would include tuberculosis (some cases), liver trouble,
 kidney trouble, rashes, common colds ect..."

"Class 4 Tuberculosis would be included here. Conjunctivitis, all
 running sores, and any condition which refuses to heal, ect."

"Class 5 includes an enormously wide catalog of conditions, any one
 of which may cross index to other classes, or which arises solely
 out of engrams which dictate the presence or necessity of an illness.

 "You always have colds", "I have cold feet", ect, announce a
 psychosomatic illness and the mechanisms of the body can furnish one.

(Page 130-1)
"Any disease whatsoever may be precipitated by engrams."

(Page 131)
 ********* Engrams make childhood diseases deadly **********
"Measles, for instance may just be measels, or can be measels in
 company with an engramic restimulation, in which it may be nearly
 or entirely fatal."

(Page 131)
"A check of many subjects on this matter of childhood illness being
 predisposed by, percipitated by, and perpetuated by engrams causes
 one to wonder how violent he diseases themselves really are; they have
 never been observed in a cleared child...

(Page 131-2)
 ********** Clears don't get ill **********
"But it remains that a Clear is not easily made ill. In an aberree
 illness closely pursues mental depression (depression of the dynamic
 level). The aberration of the mind and body by engrams leads, then,
 not only to psychosomatic ills, but to actual pathology, which
 hitherto has been considered more or less independent of the mental
 state."

(Page 132)
"It is a scientific fact that no psychosomatic ill exists without an
 aberration. And it is true that no aberration exists without a
 potential or actual psychosomatic ill."

(Page 135)
 ******** Perversion **********
"The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief,
 includes any and all forms of deviation in in dynamic two such as
 homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism ect., and all down the
 catalogue of Ellis and Kraft-Ebbing) is actually quite ill physically.

(Page 135)
"Hence the pervert containing hundreds and hundreds of vicious
 engrams has little choice between being dead or being a pervert.

 But with an effective science to handle this problem, a society
 that would continue to endure perversion and all its sad and sordid
 effects doesn't deserve to survive."

(Page 136)
*************************************************************************
This is the list of the main claims for what a Clear can accomplish
with Dianetics auditing. Of course, none of it is true. Nobody
gets Dianetics Clear and then develops a perfect memory, corrected
vision, grows hair on a bald head, corrects that large nose, or
never again gets a cold. Although Hubbard continually claims to
have proven all of this, he never bothered to really show anything
like evidence this was so.

Caveat emptor.

W.C. Barwell


(END)

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