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The American Mercury
August 1951
Boiled Engrams An Elegy to Dianetics
By Willard Beecher and Calder Willingham
In May of last year, from the modest little town of
Elizabeth, New Jersey, came a voice that promised
complete salvation for mankind on this earth. That
in itself is nothing new, but this particular voice was
a powerful roar, worth at least a footnote in any
account of our troubled age. It was the voice of a
man by the name of L. Ron Hubbard. Until this
moment, Hubbard had been known as a writer of
science fiction fantasies. But now, after fifteen
years of intense study, he had created Dianetics, a
new science of the mind.
The person has not been born who can accuse L.
Ron Hubbard of false modesty. The opening
sentence of his book, which was a best-seller for
many weeks, has been quoted before, but it can be
quoted again. Let the reader laugh and shake his
head, or chill to the implications that can be drawn
from the success of a work that begins in such a
manner as this: "The creation of Dianetics is a
milestone for man comparable to his discovery of
fire, and superior to his invention of the wheel and
the arch." Why is fire more important than
Dianetics, you are tempted to ask, but of course
Hubbard doesn't actually say that fire is better, it's
just comparable.
Specifically, what did Hubbard promise? It can be
summed up readily. His new science of the mind,
Dianetics, was a sure cure for everyone's mental
ills. And not only was it a sure thing: the treatment
was also delightfully simple. It didn't take a lot of
money, or prolonged training. Any two people
willing to study the master's book for a few days
and work together in the prescribed manner could
be saved.
If one followed the Dianetics code carefully, one
would end up a Clear. Once a Clear, there would
be no more complexes, anxieties, or fears. Anxiety
being virtually universal today, it was to be
expected that such a proposition would have
universal appeal.
The interesting thing is the raiment with which
Hubbard has clothed his proposition, and this
raiment we will soon consider, after noting once
again that the proposition is absolute. There are no
qualifications. No buts and ifs. None whatever. Let
us hypothesize a hopeless schizophrene, drifting
moodily off the Jersey coast in a sun-kissed orange
crate. -- No matter! Dianetics can take care of this
character, and get him back on dry land. "Dianetics
is an exact science," proclaims the voice, "and its
application is on the order of, but simpler than,
engineering. . . . The Clear, the goal of Dianetic
Therapy, can be created from psychotic, neurotic,
deranged, criminal or normal people if they have
organically sound nervous systems." Mary Baker
Eddy at her best never spoke of such complete
salvation this side of the grave, and other saviors,
by comparison, are vending buggy whips in a
motor age.
The news of Dianetics was first brought to the
world through the pages of Astounding Science
Fiction, a pulp magazine devoted to fantastic
stories based on (more or less) scientific
knowledge. The editor of this magazine was
completely convinced of the cosmic import of
Dianetics, yet he felt constrained to announce, in an
introductory editorial, that Dianetics is "not a hoax,
joke, or anything but a direct, clear statement of a
totally new thesis." But perhaps some readers
would have wondered, even despite this, were it
not for Hubbard's total self-assurance.
However, let us pause. When Jesus was alive,
people often asked each other, "What good can
come out of Nazareth?" Time has proved that
Nazareth and Bethlehem have done very well by
the human race, so why couldn't Elizabeth, New
Jersey, and a pulp magazine be the humble origin
of another great teacher? How could Hubbard be
so sure, it might be asked, unless he has absolute
proof of the validity of his claims? After all, fifteen
years of work have gone into the discovery of this
new science of the mind. Tests have been made on
several hundred people, psychotics included, and
the new science has been sanctioned by a member
of the medical profession, a Dr. Joseph A.
Winters.
In any case, science fiction readers (the original
nucleus of the present-day Dianetics cult) were
convinced immediately, and the stampede to
Elizabeth was in full gallop even before the book
itself came out. The eager faithful rushed out to
place orders for the book weeks ahead of
publication date, and then when it did appear they
spread the word around with passion and fervor.
"Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Health" became a best-seller overnight. What
happened then is now history.
Like a prairie fire fanned by a high wind, the new
science of the mind leapt west as far as P.O. Box
5261, Honolulu, as revealed in the "Dianetics
Auditor's Bulletin" of July-August, 1950.
Dianetics became the rage in Hollywood; the
masterwork can still be found on the
leather-covered upholstery of fish-tail Cadillac
convertibles.
In the conservative East, Dianetics Auditors set up
their shingles (still up, at the last report) on Park
Avenue. Hubbard dashed madly from coast to
coast giving demonstrations, very much like the
General who heard the bugle blow, and mounted
his horse and rode wildly in all directions. In fact,
Hubbard has been so busy that he has had no time
to become a clear himself.
Exactly what was it that aroused such enthusiasm in
sophisticated America? Why did people listen?
What happened? No one could hope to do justice
to the scope of such questions without writing a
historical analysis of our times, but a description of
this new "science of the mind" can be given, and a
few criticisms can be made of it. A year has
passed, and the time is ripe for a summing up.
"The mind," says L. Ron Hubbard, "is an inherently
perfect calculator," and it is only when the "exterior
world gets 'interior' and causes 'aberrations' that
we get into the human difficulties so familiar to all of
us." In short psychological troubles are not our
responsibility at all; neurosis is a cinder in the eye
of the mind.
Hubbard compares the human mind to a new
invention known as the Electric Brain or Electronic
Calculator. This machine can make the most
abstruse calculations without error, granted there
are no "soldered-in cross circuits" or "held down
numbers." The machine can make errors only if the
mechanism itself breaks down.
What other psychological practitioners might call
"the conscious mind" or "awareness," Hubbard
calls "the Analytical Mind." Every perception
observed in a lifetime is to be found in "the memory
banks" of the mind. Hubbard insists that "there is
no inaccuracy in these banks." These
memory-banks have a recording of every scrap of
our past experience. The recordings are a kind of
superior motion picture film, with sound, color,
sight or visualization, and tactile and olfactory
sensibilities. Thus far, there is no place for an
aberration to exist. God is in his heaven and all is
right with the human mind.
But the serpent, according to Hubbard, is
contained, or rather, coiled up, in the word
"unconsciousness." All aberrations of the mind are
the result of things that get "soldered into" the mind
when it is "not conscious." The source of these
soldered-in contacts is pain. Now, pain is a vulgar
four-letter word in Dianetics, rather than a
biological plus to aid survival. The perfect
calculator never misses a trick, sees all and
remembers all -- until a little smidgin of pain comes
along, and then, like an overload of electric current
on a flat iron, the Analytical Mind blows a fuse and
kicks out of circuit. Thus a human being can be
compared to a badly wired rooming house where
the lights are always going out.
Now, what happens when the lights go out?
Nature has provided for that emergency, says
Hubbard. The Reactive Mind takes over at such
moments. The Reactive Mind behaves much like a
device that will answer the telephone when no one
is at home. It is a tape-recorder plugged into the
circuit. Any nonsense babbled into the phone is
faithfully given back when the owner returns. The
first whiff of pain, the circuit of the Reactive Mind
"solders in" on the Analytical Mind and henceforth
louses up the broadcast, and this is what all our
troubles come from.
The reader must bear with us if we mix metaphors
or invent a few of our own. That is the way of
Dianetics. It is a very metaphorical science, and
unless your imagination has a two-way stretch, you
cannot possibly understand it. And don't let
common sense get in your way, either. One of the
things that you must accept is that the recordings in
the Reactive bank go back as far as twenty-four
hours after conception. But some disciples recall
memories twenty-four hours before conception!
(This has all kinds of dramatic possibilities, not the
least of which would be a memoir entitled, "My
Struggle to Fertilize Myself.")
Pain-memories, the root of all evil in Dianetics, are
called engrams. This is what us neurotics are
broadcasting. Now let's look into this. According
to Hubbard, virtually every pregnant woman has
hoped for, or attempted, an abortion at some time
or another. This causes the poor, defenseless
foetus to writhe in shame and agony. His
humiliation is at the apex if, after birth, he is called
"Junior" after the father, and every nasty crack his
mother made about the old man during pregnancy
is recorded by Junior's Reactive Mind. The poor
foetus thinks his mother is talking about him,
instead of Pop, and as a result of this natural
misunderstanding is "pained" into unconsciousness
and kicks off out of circuit. It is quite a shock to
the poor little fellow, and therefore, is it surprising
that, when he grows up, he doesn't have sense
enough to pound sand in a rat-hole? That is, unless
he has been exposed to Dianetic therapy.
How can anyone hope to become a Clear, and be
released of all such soldered-in currents, especially
pre-natal humiliations, if they get soldered in when
we're unconscious with pain? This is where the
Dianetics un-soldering iron comes into the picture.
Hubbard found that if you employ "Dianetic
Reverie," you can get into the Reactive Mind
easily. Two people must work together, one acting
as "Auditor" to the other. The subject lies down.
The Auditor does not speak to him at all; his
remarks and questions are directed to a File Clerk,
who is in charge of the filing system in the Reactive
Mind. All engrams are recorded on a time track,
and the file clerk runs back and forth along this
track lickity-split, picking off any engram
demanded of him by the Auditor.
The Auditor commands the file clerk to bring up an
engram associated with a painful experience in the
subject's past. Then the subject is ordered to
re-experience the situation with sound effects. This
is done over and over again, until all the pain has
"boiled off." At that happy moment, the file clerk
grabs the hot, smoking engram off the griddle, and
re-files it in the Analytical Mind. Then, mirabile
dictu, it will never cause trouble again!
Very neat. The only catch is that each and every
engram must be dug up one at a time and "boiled
off" or smoked on the griddle for a while before the
subject can become that flawless type known as
Clear. The most important engram to be reached is
the very first one, which is called Basic-Basic.
Once Basic-Basic is re-filed, then all subsequent
engrams are more easily unlocked and re-filed.
First you go down the time track to Basic-Basic,
then you turn around and come back to the
present, and then back down the track, and so on.
How do people behave in Dianetic Reverie?
Hubbard insists that Dianetic Reverie is not a
hypnotic trance, but the same thing as being awake
with one's eyes closed. The individual is supposed
to be fully aware of what he's doing, and if he
chooses he can come out of it whenever he wishes.
Actually, Dianetic Reverie may or may not be a
degree of hypnosis, depending on what we mean
by that word, but it is surely allied with a very
strong will-to-believe on the part of the patient.
The individual is urged to read the book repeatedly
before his first session; if he is sufficiently
impressed by Hubbard's jargon, even one reading
is enough to make visions of sugar plums dance
through his head. To the convinced soul, it is
perfectly natural that the first Dianetic session
would be as exciting as the night before Christmas
in an Orphan's Home. Every pore is open to
suggestion. This is an established capacity of the
human mind, and in such a state, the patient,
suffused with the glow of the assurances he has
gotten out of the book, harkens to the probing of
the Auditor, and lo, he "discovers" just those
phenomena that he is expected to find. It has been
happening in Africa for many years with gourds
and masks.
Hubbard's book assures us that no one can "erase
his engrams" until he has gone back to Basic-Basic
-- that first experience of pain after conception. All
subsequent aberrations are, in effect, chain-linked
to this. Since Basic-Basic is pre-natal, the
individual must manage to foment within himself
sensations and experiences from this period of
development. Suggested "terrifying experiences"
are: (1) the times when Mother cheated on Father
with the ice man, (2) attempted abortions via a
knitting needle, and (3) the dreadful rumbling of gas
in Mother's intestines. According to Hubbard, no
matter how horrifying the ice man is, and no matter
how fearful and eldritch the thunderous rumbles of
gas, the sheer ultimate in pain and insult stems from
Ma's unsuccessful attempts to abort Junior with a
knitting needle. The reader may not believe it, but
practically every person who undergoes Dianetic
therapy recaptures at some time or other the
memory of an attempted abortion with a knitting
needle.
Now before bidding the reader and Dianetics
farewell, let us peer briefly at a Dianetics Session in
action. Naturally, the behavior of an individual
during reverie can only vary with the degree of
suggestibility, if we are correct in assuming that a
three-month old foetus can't distinguish between Pa
and the delivery boy. But some patients re-live
their harrowing foetal experiences without much
melodrama. Others, however, let us say the more
uncritical and suggestible individuals, dramatize
their painful experiences with a passion that would
put Bernhardt to shame. If you could roll together
the agony of suspense in the "Perils of Pauline,"
the tragedy of "Oedipus Rex," the fury of Madame
Defarge at the guillotine, and the horror of chains
clanking in a damp, dark cellar, still you would be
far removed from such a scene.
As the patient approaches the traumatic engram,
convulsive seizures begin to pick at his muscles like
invisible birds on a scrap heap. These unrelated
twitchings somehow merge together into spasms
that cause the legs and arms to toss at random,
hither and yon. Soon the whole body is caught in a
violent contraction. It becomes a writhing foetus,
with knees and chin together, rolling from side to
side in desperation, in order to escape the invisible
stabs of the knitting needle. The poor beset thing
whimpers like a puppy, and sudden bursts of
energy erupt into violent movements, as the body
lunges here and there and the deadly knitting
needle strikes its mark again and again. Then finally
the whimpering turns into wild sobbing, and now at
last . . . there is Hope.
The Auditor, meanwhile, sits beside the patient
with a detached air. The exhibition doesn't faze him
in the least. His job is to see that the subject runs
through this drama over and over again, until
boredom becomes a greater pain than the original
one. At this point, the subject usually laughs
hilariously. Then the Auditor can assume that the
engram will cause no more trouble; it has been
removed.
Some subjects go into their acts with such fervor
that even the most blase Auditor cannot take it at
one sitting. At such times, the Auditor decides to
bring the subject up for air. At a simple command
from the Auditor, the erstwhile tragedian puts aside
the act, just as a child parks the gum under the top
of the dinner table. He sits up, and at this point it is
customary for him and the Auditor to smoke a
cigarette together. As they grind out the butts, each
goes back to work. The transition from sobriety to
high-pitched emotion makes one feel he can't even
trust his own banker. These sessions are usually
two hours long. By that time, even the engrams are
bored, and the file clerk has fallen arches from
running along the time track.
Is there any reason to believe that this ritual will do
any good? The answer is yes, and no. People in
deep psychological distress suffer most from a
feeling of terror at being cut off from life; human
relationships appear to them impossible and
frightening. The close relationship between the two
people who "audit" each other can become a
bridge from the isolated person to the outside
world. The person gets encouragement from
another, no matter what kind, and thus achieves a
feeling of connectedness with other people, and
consequently succeeds where he has previously
failed. At the root of all neurosis, and all neurotic
symptoms, is social isolation (Alcoholics
Anonymous operates unknowingly but nevertheless
effectively on this premise.)
Whether Dianetics, on the other hand, can do
serious damage, is doubtful but not proven.
Recently, The New York Daily News reported a
murder-suicide of a Dianetics "professor" and his
wife. She was a divorced woman. After the
marriage, be began to pine for the child of her first
marriage, and she attempted suicide several times,
Her new husband took her to psychiatrists, but
they didn't help her. So he studied Dianetics, and
became her auditor. It seemed that she was
improving, but one day she bought a gun and killed
him and herself. All that can really be said about
this is that neither psychiatry nor Dianetics helped
these unfortunate people, and that in this case,
Dianetics did not measure up to the promises of its
frenetic founder.
As for Hubbard himself, his wife has sued him for
divorce, and it may be that there is a grain or two
of truth in her charges. She has accused him of
bigamy, cruelty, and "systematic torture," and also
of being a "paranoid schizophrenic."
One further point can be considered: the question
of psychosomatic illness. Hubbard says flatly that
"Dianetics will help the reader to eliminate any
psychosomatic illness." No psychiatrist is
encouraged or flattered if a patient gives up a
psychosomatic symptom after the first visit. These
manifestations are only the organs of the body
revealing the distress of the soul. If the patient
happens to feel that the psychiatrist is a capable
fellow upon whom he can safely lean, he relaxes
and decides to allow the psychiatrist to carry his
responsibilities for him. He then rewards his
therapist by swiftly recovering from the symptom.
But when he finds later on that he will have to carry
his own burden and finally resolve his own conflict,
he retaliates against the "cruel" therapist by reviving
the old symptom and perhaps two or three others.
Psychotherapy is a wild bird that has not been
caged by any technique to date, not even by
Dianetics. Thus far, there is no reason to believe
that Dianetics has approached Hubbard's wild
assertions, or that it ever will. As one thoughtful
critic says, "All that is good about it is not new, and
all that is new about it is not good." This has been
said before, but it is still a mouthful, especially
when applied to Dianetics. Dianetics is actually a
sort of hasty pudding made up of ideas taken
bald-faced from Freudian psychology,
Cybernetics, engineering in general, and flavored
liberally with a Chutney sauce of pseudo-scientific
verbiage, analogy, metaphor, and the cliches of
science fiction fantasy itself. It looks as if those
epochal inventions, the wheel and the arch, are in
no danger.
----------------------------------------------------
Willard Beecher is a prominent New York
psychologist and a former pupil of the late
Alfred Adler. Calder Willingham's third novel,
"Reach to the Stars," will be published by
Vanguard in the fall. His collection of short
stories, "The Gates of Hell," is reviewed in this
issue of the MERCURY.
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