Dianetics 75: What the Nobel physicist got out of Scientology's bible

[Karen#1]

TONY ORTEGA
Excerpt:

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As we continue to count down to the 75th anniversary of Dianetics tomorrow, we’ve heard from a couple of very helpful readers who sent us various reviews which were written soon after the May 9, 1950 appearance of L. Ron Hubbard’s magnum opus.

And while it is interesting to look through those takes on the hot-selling volume of Hubbard’s “modern science of mental health,” for us there is one review that towers above the rest.

We just wish more people had paid attention to it at the time.

The brief review appeared in the January 1951 issue of Scientific American, and it was written by Isidor Isaac Rabi, who had won the Nobel prize for physics in 1944.

That’s right, Scientific American had an actual Nobel prize winner review Ron’s fanciful “handbook of dianetic therapy” and render an opinion. Can you imagine?

Rabi is a fascinating figure. Born in 1898, he met J. Robert Oppenheimer in Europe in 1929 while they were doing post-docs there. In 1942, when Oppenheimer was given the task of building the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert, he asked Rabi to be his assistant director of the project.

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Dianetics 75: What the Nobel physicist got out of Scientology's bible

As we continue to count down to the 75th anniversary of Dianetics tomorrow, we’ve heard from a couple of very helpful readers who sent us various reviews which were written soon after the May 9, 1950 appearance of L.

tonyortega.substack.com

 

[Type4_PTS]

This guy's first sentence was spot on!

"This volume probably contains more promises and less evidence per page than has any publication since the invention of printing." - Isidor Isaac Rabi

 

[I M Dex]

For me, this is one of the most interesting and informative articles Tony Ortega has provided. Kudos!

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

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For me, this is one of the most interesting and informative articles Tony Ortega has provided. Kudos!

Yup, it's always a surprisingly refreshing & joyful experience to read what an actual SCIENTIST thinks of "Dr" Hubbard's modern "SCIENCE".

On today's Underground Bunker that posted that savage review of Hubbard's Hoax ("Dianetics") there is another perhaps equally revelatory look at Scientology's "Money For Magical Miracles" scam. Clearwater's favorable city council vote to allow the cult to build yet another monstrosity in the middle or their downtown district that is already a commercial deadzone by means of over 200 cult-owned/controlled commercial buildings.

This is just what Clearwater needs. A major event hall to further promote/expand the maniacal misfit Miscavige's marketing malfeasance.

artist's concept of how "L. RON HUBBARD HALL" will look. ​

That building should solve all of Clearwater's and Scientology's problems!

Another mega-performance venue to stage epic celebrations of miracles that never happened. Diseases that were never cured. Clears that have bad memories and still wear prescription eyeglasses---and Operating Thetans that attested to "total cause over life" but never once were able to demonstrate "cause over exteriorization". Let us not forget all the "prospering parishioners" who attested to all of Hubbard's money-technology courses and financially curative auditing rundowns, yet then were forced to apply the "wog tech" called bankruptcy.

I think it is hilarious that Scientology's duped donors are still having "huge wins" on funding new buildings for the cult because it gives them the feeling that they are a "humanitarian saving mankind". All that whilst telling themselves that they are freeing all beings from the "MEST TRAP". LOL


..

 

[Howard Dickman]

Dianetics is Dr. Breuer and Dr. Freud's Abreaction, though explained so that most anyone could use it. Abreaction was used extensively by the U.S. Armored Forces during WWII with remarkable results.

Just because someone holds a PHD in one subject doesn't mean that they would be conversant with a totally different field.

I had a highly trained Army counselor, one step below a psychologist, review my comparison between Abreaction and Dianetics. She commented that they use Abreaction today, although along with other therapy.

Just because Scientology uses Ron's screwed up Admin Tech and Ethics procedures, one should not throw the baby (Dianetics) out with the bath water.

If you are interested in the truth behind what I have posted, here is my article - https://scientolipedia.org/info/Dianetics,_Abreaction_Therapy_for_the_common_man

 

[I M Dex]

Dianetics is Dr. Breuer and Dr. Freud's Abreaction, though explained so that most anyone could use it. Abreaction was used extensively by the U.S. Armored Forces during WWII with remarkable results.

Just because someone holds a PHD in one subject doesn't mean that they would be conversant with a totally different field.

I had a highly trained Army counselor, one step below a psychologist, review my comparison between Abreaction and Dianetics. She commented that they use Abreaction today, although along with other therapy.

Just because Scientology uses Ron's screwed up Admin Tech and Ethics procedures, one should not throw the baby (Dianetics) out with the bath water.

If you are interested in the truth behind what I have posted, here is my article - Dianetics, Abreaction Therapy for the common man

No, it isn't purely that, and neither does that make it valid. It is Hubbard's codified spin that draws from those sources, but isn't very representative of them. And these other forms of therapy are not conducted anywhere near with the same generic pro forma approach. Nor do those therapies falsely claim to produce a super human "state of clear", so the connection is rather tenuous, and hardly the same thing. Not that the original form of Dianetics is totally useless, but overall Rabi's assessment is largely accurate.

 

[Type4_PTS]

Just because Scientology uses Ron's screwed up Admin Tech and Ethics procedures, one should not throw the baby (Dianetics) out with the bath water.

I'm looking into getting certified as a Clinical EFT practitioner, a therapy that is backed up by 200 peer-reviewed studies, and is helping people even with severe CPTSD (Complex PTSD) and countless other issues. It is now being accepted within the mainstream medical and psychological fields, with some hospitals (the Cleveland Clinic and some VA Hospitals). There are other therapies as well. Years ago, the University of South Florida was researching a therapy called Accelerated Resolution Therapy. They resolved some people's PTSD in as little as an hour.

If we throw out the baby (Dianetics) with the bathwater, what are we going to lose? What can Dianetics accomplish that cannot be accomplished just as well as other therapies?

 

[I M Dex]

If somebody wants to practice Dianetics, and can find or be found by people who want it, then it will happen regardless of how the rest of us feel about it, so there's no reason to even argue about "throwing out the baby", its not as if we can decide to eliminate it anyway. So there's no point in arguing against how the rest of us feel about it. If you want to do that, we're not stopping you. But we're free to share our observations that it isn't anything like it is promoted to be by Hubbard, Scientologists, and the book(s). Its a matter of public record that one of Hubbard's greatest public embarrassments was the time in the early 1950's when he presented a "clear" onstage who clearly didn't have the supposed capabilities of the supposed "state of clear", as well as there being countless examples of "the tech" failing; for that matter, I've made a pretty good living, many times by actually helping people to accomplish the permanent relief from something that was never actually "handled" through their Dianetics (and other Scientology) sessions. And a liability of such a system that insists "the tech is 100% workable" is that often, when it dosn't work, people in that matrix are made to feel that there's something uniquely and unsolvably wrong with them, that they are "so messed up that I'm unfixable", which I think is pretty much a private anxiety that all or most "clears" secretly harbor.

 

[Howard Dickman]

"Logic 6. Absolutes are unobtainable."

There is no such thing as a Clear.

 

[Type4_PTS]

If somebody wants to practice Dianetics, and can find or be found by people who want it, then it will happen regardless of how the rest of us feel about it, so there's no reason to even argue about "throwing out the baby", its not as if we can decide to eliminate it anyway. So there's no point in arguing against how the rest of us feel about it. If you want to do that, we're not stopping you. But we're free to share our observations that it isn't anything like it is promoted to be by Hubbard, Scientologists, and the book(s). Its a matter of public record that one of Hubbard's greatest public embarrassments was the time in the early 1950's when he presented a "clear" onstage who clearly didn't have the supposed capabilities of the supposed "state of clear", as well as there being countless examples of "the tech" failing; for that matter, I've made a pretty good living, many times by actually helping people to accomplish the permanent relief from something that was never actually "handled" through their Dianetics (and other Scientology) sessions. And a liability of such a system that insists "the tech is 100% workable" is that often, when it dosn't work, people in that matrix are made to feel that there's something uniquely and unsolvably wrong with them, that they are "so messed up that I'm unfixable", which I think is pretty much a private anxiety that all or most "clears" secretly harbor.

I agree that if someone truly wishes to practice it, then it will happen. I've heard this caution from a number of people, though, about "throwing out the baby". And I'm genuinely curious, what (if anything) can be accomplished with Dianetics that cannot be accomplished with other therapies?

If the "baby" could be thrown out, what would we lose?

 

[XenuHimself]

"Logic 6. Absolutes are unobtainable."

Absolutely?

 

[I M Dex]

Absolutely?

It is rather humorous to reference Hubbard's "Logic" (LOL!) as something that makes, contradicts or confirms a point. Last I checked, this this isn't the Church of Scientology.