Dianetics: from the concept of getting rid of the "burden of the past" to a destructive psychocult

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Teaching about healing from painful memories is not as harmless as it looks at first.

What is dianetics and how did it come about

Dianetics is a doctrine created by the American science fiction writer Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. Its declared goal was to help people get rid of mental problems and make them happier and healthier. The main obstacle on this path, according to Dianetics, is the negative experience of the past.

The history of the emergence of Dianetics is quite specific and is based on the biography of the founder of this discipline. The biography of Lafayette Hubbard was compiled by his followers, and the reliability of this work is questionable. However, it sheds light on how the beliefs of the founder of Dianetics were formed. Apparently, he lived a busy life: Hubbard traveled a lot, published in cheap collections of science fiction and westerns, and even participated in World War II.

According to the official biography, Hubbard was born in 1911 in Nebraska into the family of a US Navy officer. At the age of 12, Lafayette met Captain Joseph Thompson. He corresponded with Sigmund Freud and began to teach the boy depth psychology. Therefore, Hubbard was greatly influenced by the concept of psychoanalysis, especially Freud's doctrine of painful memories repressed into the unconscious.

Another important stage in the formation of Hubbard's views is attributed to 1927-1929, when he traveled alone in Southeast Asia. It is believed that there the young man studied how local magical practices affect the mind.

In 1930, Hubbard entered the George Washington University for a major in nuclear physics. But his real interests remained psychology and esotericism. Hubbard never received a higher education, leaving the university after two years of study. In 1933, he participated in an expedition to Puerto Rico, where he became acquainted with spiritualism and voodoo practitioners.

All this time, Hubbard formed the beliefs that later formed the basis of Dianetics. In the late 1940s, he systematized his conclusions and began to apply them in practice: he opened an office in Los Angeles, published the first manuscripts. His main work, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was published in 1950. This work, according to the author, was written in three weeks, became a bestseller and brought Hubbard wide popularity.

Hubbard compared the human brain to a computer, the first of which were just beginning to emerge. The creator of Dianetics argued that people are able to remember everything, adequately respond to any problems and solve them, lead a decent life if their "computer" is working properly. For this, he proposed combining the "two responses of civilization" to human suffering: religion and psychotherapy.

Hubbard formed the name of his discipline from two Greek words: διά ("dia") - "through" and νοῦς ("nus") - "mind." The latter (it means "thought", "mind") was one of the main concepts of ancient philosophy and was considered the ability to distinguish truth from lies associated with intuition.

The theory was a great success: Hubbard traveled around the United States with lectures, Dianetics clubs began to appear throughout the country, and the number of his followers was measured in tens of thousands. The author of the concept wrote several more books on the topic and, in the wake of the popularity of Dianetics, founded his own religion. She received the name Scientology.

What is Dianetics based on

The principle of "Survive!"

According to Hubbard, Chief of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mind, L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology: news in Russia and the world the principle of human existence - "Survive!" However, this is not only a desire to ensure a minimum standard of living, but also a craving for self-development and success.

In total, according to Dianetics, the "Survive!" there are four stimuli, or dynamics:

1. Striving for personal success.
2. Desire to give birth and raise children.
3. The need to be part of a group.
4. The need to be part of all of humanity.

Each of them is a source of pleasure, often leading to negative consequences. According to Hubbard, all of humanity's problems - resentment, aggression, even war - arise from people's selfish pursuit of dynamics.

Analytical and Reactive Mind

Hubbard created his own model of the mind, in which he divided it into two components: analytical and reactive.

Analytical, according to Dianetic teachings, is responsible for rational thinking and contains only experience useful to a person. The reactive part of the mind includes only negative memories - for example, about childhood traumas and even mother's worries before childbirth. These sensations, according to Dianetics, our brain does not forget. Moreover, they have negative consequences: they reduce a person's intelligence, deprive positive emotions, cause fears, pain and illness.

The importance of psychosomatics

Most diseases, both physical and mental, are explained by Dianetics advocates in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mind, L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology: news in Russia and the world for psychosomatic reasons - engrams. They are understood as negative images of the past that are stored in the human mind.

The term "engram" originated in biology and meant a specific impression received in the embryonic state and fixed by the brain. However, the scientific community subsequently abandoned it.

According to Hubbard's teachings, engrams are negative emotions, irrational fears and painful memories that are stored in the reactive mind and interfere with the normal functioning of the psyche and the whole organism.

Thus, the followers of Dianetics believe that engrams cause cardiovascular disease, inflammation of the joints, asthma, allergies, colds, cancer and diabetes.

Rethinking and Cleansing Techniques

Hubbard argued Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mind, L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology: news in Russia and the world that, having lived through the traumatic experience of the past many times, one can become immune to it. Consequently, all the negative effects of engrams will also cease: a person can be cured of almost all diseases and even become immortal.

The state of a person who got rid of all these "blocks", Hubbard called purity, "clear" - from the English clear. The means of achieving this Dianetic "cure" is considered to be auditing - communication between the therapist ("auditor") and patient ("preclear"). The first tries to help the second pass through the negative past several times. In the process, the preclear can supposedly remember everything that happened to him, right up to the moment of his own conception.

Why Dianetics is Pseudoscience

Despite great success and a huge following, the scientific community received Hubbard's ideas without enthusiasm.

The Medical and Psychological Association of America ignored Hubbard's work. The second organization called Freeman L. Psychologists Act Against Dianetics. The New York Times is wary of Dianetics. Because of this, Hubbard became contemptuous of doctors and psychologists. The latter especially hit, and even an antipsychological movement emerged among Hubbard's supporters.

The famous German researcher Erich Fromm also criticized Dianetics: he reproached Hubbard for oversimplifying the understanding of the human brain and making a "magic pill" out of his theory, supposedly saving one from all misfortunes.

In fact, Hubbard's only "proof" was his patient histories. Dianetic methods were allegedly helped by "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mind," L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology: news in Russia and the world to get rid of shyness, blues, migraines and other problems in just a few sessions. And during auditing, people supposedly could remember the words of their parents, said after conception.

Dianetics has no other evidence, for example, scientific experiments, despite the fact that the author of the concept in his writings constantly speaks of loyalty to the scientific approach and sprinkles with complex terms.

Professors of New York University, having studied Dianetic practice, came to the conclusion that its methods do not in any way affect the mental abilities, mental and physical health of a person. The memories of which Hubbard and his followers spoke may well have been suggested or false.

In 1994, Lafayette Hubbard even received the Nobel Prize for the Nobel Prize. "Shnobelevka" is passed off as questionable and pseudoscientific research. - Approx. author's award - precisely for his first book on dianetics.

Dianetics, both foreign and domestic scientists put on a par with astrology, palmistry, extrasensory perception, parapsychology, bioenergetics, numerology, socionics, physiognomy and other pseudoscientific areas.

Why dianetics is dangerous and why this medical practice is prohibited in Russia

Critics say that under the banner of psychological help, Dianetics sells air, and the main purpose of its existence is to make money by any means. In this regard, Hubbard's concept is close to pyramid schemes and sects.

So, one of the Dianetic centers in Naberezhnye Chelny was the Court closed the Dianetics Center in Naberezhnye Chelny. Interfax was closed by law enforcement officers due to the fact that its employees had a social and psychological impact on patients. Simply put, they were brainwashed. Another similar organization was caught in Barnaul. Scientologists are banned in Altai. Kommersant is in charge of religious activities instead of public ones.

It is worth recalling here again that Hubbard founded the Church of Scientology, which is based on the Dianetic understanding of the human mind and the idea of transmigration of souls.

Scientologists' views unite the ideas of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and psychoanalysis. At the center of the cult is the immortal consciousness of man - the thetan. Thetans allegedly created the Universe and maintain its existence, and Scientologists are trying to awaken them in themselves and those around them in order to reveal their abilities to the maximum.

Within a few decades, the Hubbard Church became a real empire. Its followers recruit neophytes both on the street, dumbfounded with statements that “your brain works only at 1 / 10,000 of its capabilities,” and on the Internet, launching commercials on YouTube. Through Dianetic "therapy," those who choose to "get rid of engrams" gradually become converted Scientologists.

A number of researchers call Scientology a destructive psychocult, that is, a sect that harms society and individuals. Such organizations can not only pull money from adherents - participation in sects can lead to serious consequences for physical and mental health. In extreme cases, it comes down to murder and suicide.

The most famous, but far from the only case of death that occurred due to the fault of Scientologists was the death of Frantz D. Distrust in Clearwater. The New York Times by Lisa McPherson in 1995. She died because she refused to receive medical care, and church members did not allow doctors to visit her.

Even Erich Fromm, in response to Hubbard's first book, warned that it was a dangerous harbinger of the transformation of pseudoscientific disciplines into simple and popular instructions. And this, in turn, is fertile ground for the creation of totalitarian sects.

Therefore, for almost 25 years in Russia there has been a ban on the use and promotion of Hubbard's methods of Dianetics and Scientology in healthcare. Also, out of a large number of Scientology works, seven are included in the Russian list of extremist materials.

Hubbard's theory should not be taken more seriously than a kind of science fiction, and his arguments are at best suitable for fiction. Basically, people fall for the bait of Dianetics and Scientologists only because they are ready to believe in any incredible concepts that are hidden behind a beautiful facade of complex terms and loud names.

But Dianetics should not be considered a harmless pseudoscientific theory. It is also a tool with which uninformed people are lured into the Scientology sect.