Facts, schmacts.

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true. - Homer Simpson

After days of looking at this dumb chart, I’ve decided it’s BS. I can't believe it’s the first demonstration of "data" within the book. This does not bode well for subsequent chapters. How does one measure “potential”? How can you scientifically bucket someone into a happiness zone? Not that that stopped them from trying. Apparently a Clear operates daily in a strong Zone 4. Hubbard guesses that you, the unenlightened pee-on, is probably stuck at around 2.8. The zones don’t measure anything, they’re completely arbitrary. All these axes and zones add as much credibility as a couple of potted ferns. Yuck! Moving on.

The rest of this chapter was really, really hard to get through. Pleasure is good, pain is bad. Mankind suffers when it recedes from pleasure and pursues pain. Man is a self-determined organism, except when he is dependent upon the environment or other life forms for survival. Man can sometimes unknowingly limit his survival potential, something Hubbard calls the “didn’t know the gun was loaded” equation. I guess this would be the equivalent of like when early Americans over-hunted the buffalo and then died of starvation? Clears probably don’t do that though. Whatever, this is getting really frustrating and I’m still in Book One.

I am seriously questioning whether Hubbard understands the definition of the word “fact”. His blatant and repeated misuse of this pretty simple term is starting to piss me off.

Gooooaalllll!

If I haven’t mentioned this yet, I am delighted that LRH seems to be as enamored by the exclamation point as I am. I’ve always liked this about Vonnegut, and I like it just as much about L. Ron Hubbard. In Chapter 3 of Book One, we’re discussing the Goal of Man. Guess what it is? Survive! Not “survive”. Survive! Okay?!?!

This is not groundbreaking stuff. In most species, survival is the premier driving force, even on a cellular level. Man’s nature prompts him to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. So I’m generally on board at this point, and although I think that there are exceptions to every rule, Dianetics would argue otherwise. In fact, they have workable proof demonstrating that this is mankind’s single and only goal, and it explains every single thing that he does, says or thinks during his life. I don’t know if I’m 100% in agreement on this – most humans I know have some rather destructive tendencies, and regularly pursue pain or suppress their survival instincts on behalf of pleasure. But maybe you guys are just aberrated beyond the norm.

Now that man is all figured out, we turn to the finite and measurable universe – a so-called equation consisting of time, space, energy and life. These things are all manipulated by man to obey the order to Survive! at all costs (hello, adaptation). And this is what we call the Dynamic Principle of Existence. To me this sounds a lot like the Theory of Evolution. We’re basically co-opting Darwin, but adding some much needed razzle-dazzle.

Just when we’re starting to interchange survival with immortality, we come to our first graph. I’m still puzzling out this graph, but once I figure it out, we’ll move on. REMEMBER* I was strictly forbidden by the book’s editors to turn the page until I’ve achieved perfect understanding of everything I’ve read so far. I shall obey you, great ones!

Clear: The Way

I get the feeling we’re going to be talking a LOT about aberrations, so it seems prudent to take a moment to define one here. An aberration, in terms of the text, is a departure from rational thought or behavior. Aberations are the cause of all of our mental hiccups – a simple mistake, a poor choice, a delusion, an insecurity – these are all aberrations, and suffering from them is entirely optional. Enter the Clear – a person who has cleansed their mind of all such departures from reason. A Clear is without aberration, not just in theory, but in measurable fact. He is “free from all psychosomatic ills…. he pursues existence with vigor and satisfaction. Undeniably just an all-around super guy (or gal).

One key difference between a Clear and the common aberrated man is the Clear’s perceptions and senses are under the complete control of his or her will. To be free of aberrations is to be smarter and happier. But what causes aberrations? Are they an inherent trait of the human mind? The answer is a resounding No! They’re caused by “engrams”, nasty little memories or recordings of pain stemming from some unpleasantness in your souls nearly-infinite past. We don’t delve much farther into engrams here in Book One, Chapter Two. But we are highly concerned with memory, or as Hubbard prefers, “returning”. It gets a little tricky here, but this is where I THINK he’s going with this….

A Clear has a vastly superior ability for “returning” than the aberrated person. A Clear can harness the awesome power of their unaberrated minds to return to events in their past and re-live them with all five senses. This is not just a common result of hypnosis – because it is done…. perfectly? I don’t know, okay! Anywho, the power to revisit past events via all senses extends beyond just cherished childhood memories – advanced Clears can travel back to events that pre-date their current human forms into what can only be described as past lives.

As Chapter Two comes to close, we touch on a theme that I think we’re going to be revisiting with all our senses in chapters to come. I’ll just quote it, since I can’t paraphrase it better. “The sentient portion of the mind, which computes the answer to problems and which makes man man, is utterly incapable of error” as long as it is equipped for the correct data. Therefore, the Clear mind never makes an error. Never. Ever.

Well, then how does everyone’s favorite Clear, Tom Cruise, explain Knight and Day? ZING! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Train Your Brain In Minutes A Day!

In Chapter 1, or “The Scope Of Dianetics”, author L. Ron Hubbard asserts outright that Dianetics has succeeded where all others have failed: in conclusively mastering the “science” of all activities of the human mind. Even our finest neurosurgeon’s knowledge of the brain’s behavior is little or no more advanced than that of the common shaman or witch doctor (in fact, Hubbard makes a bold comparison between the two). In his defense, when this book was being written (early 1950’s), it’s true that some of the more experimental psychological treatments for maladies of the brain now seem positively barbaric. But in this day in age, you’d be hard pressed to find a medical institution still promoting the frontal lobotomies.

In the process of defining the “science of mind”, we learn that the scope of Dianetics is broad indeed. Not only has Hubbard isolated the cause of all neurological and psychological illnesses and mental derangements, but he’s capable of curing them.

You heard it here, folks. There is one, single cause of all psychological abnormalities. Dianetics can prove this conclusively, and will teach you, the common reader, how to conquer it.

This includes not just the scary stuff like schizophrenia or autism, but also the little things that impact our day to day lives, such as anxiety, common phobias, or irrational thoughts. A particularly odd example is defective vision. That’s right! Strict adherence to the therapies described in Dianetics will cure you of your need for glasses. For lo and behold, poor eyesight is not a physical malady at all, but in fact, a mental defect.

We’ve now determined that the methods learned within Dianetics will cure us of all our mental (and some physical) ailments, but how exactly does he plan to back up all of these bold claims? Stay tuned to find out! But you can bet that it will be 100% demonstrable, with zero exceptions, and equivalent in importance to all known laws of physics and nature. Exciting stuff! I’ll just flush my Ritalin now to save time. Adios, ADHD!

Well, this guys seems okay.

This book is dedicated to Will Durant. And for some reason, this name rings a bell.

By harnessing the awesome power of Google, I was able to confirm that Dianetics is actually dedicated to esteemed philosopher and Pulitzer Prize winner Will Durant, whose writings take a very moderate approach to reconciling science and religion. This is a guy who hails Plato and Nietzsche as some of his biggest philosophical influences. So I wonder what would make a science fiction dynamo like L. Ron Hubbard decide to dedicate his entire pseudo-scientific religious platform to a writer/philosopher clearly entrenched more traditional schools of thought?

It looks like Hubbard sees in Durant a kindred spirit.. In an entirely separate diatribe, and in reference to Durant's many critics, Hubbard writes "Selfish scholars seldom forgive anyone who seeks to break down the walls of mystery and let the people in". Shame on you, selfish scholars!

Preface much?

Time to roll up the old sleeves and dive in. Now, if this was a traditional novel, I'd probably breeze right past the precursory Author's Note and maybe even the preface, but in the immortal words of Aerosmith circa 'Armageddon', I don't want to miss a thing.

On the literal first page, we have some quotables, and already I'm rolling my eyes. Of course, the attention grabber is John Travolta. It's downhill from there. I sort of recognize the name Lee Purcell, but I had to IMDB it (credits include such timeless classics as 'Bonanza' and 'Jake & the Fat Man'). But to make the book appealing to Main Street USA and Hollywood Blvd alike, we've got some plugs from your typical proletariat as well. Unfortunately, the books editors get a little overzealous with the sales-y buzzwords. Every plug is from a "Leading", "Top", "Champion", or "Expert" professional. In my mind, gratuitous adjectives like these only stand to undermine the credibility of the quoted, but maybe that's just a pet peeve. I'll forgive it.

Next, I suffer through a number of instructional pages which direct me on how to get the most out of this book. (Two of which are pictured here).

One is a strict lesson in study habits - if I see a word that I do not understand, I am to stop reading until I have the word defined for me. Lucky for me, the book promises to assist me with both a glossary and a series of footnotes.

My immediate issue with this is that the same page that takes the time to define "terra incognita" for me (thanks, I know enough basic latin to puzzle out "Unknown Land"), it breezes right over shit like "engram" which is a word THAT THEY JUST MADE UP. Later, they define the term "bedlam" (duh) but not their use of "re-active mind" which is also an apparently important concept that they just toss out there. So I'm already flipping to the glossary, already annoyed.

Now I come to the part that has me absolutely incredulous. Here's me, paraphrasing:

"Just FYI, we're not going to bore anyone with the data, equations, calculations or proofs that substantiate any of the outrageous claims we're about to make. There's not enough room in the book. But, we shit you not, we had tons of fucking scientists and beakers and chalkboards and all that, so should just go ahead and trust that everything we say is an inarguable law of nature. Besides, most scientists are jerks, anyway."

Now that I've paraphrased, here are two of my favorite quotes so far:

"You should have seen the first equations and postulates of Dianetics!"

"Almost all the basic philosophy and certainly all the derivations of the master subject of Dianetics [are] excluded here, partly because this volume had to stay under half a million words".

But also partly because it's all fiction? Just a guess.