1903
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Was Hubbard's "Be three feet back of your head" - originally, the first step to additional actions - meant to induce a sense of vertigo, in the direction of making the person more mentally malleable and suggestible?
This is the complete quote from John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, who were editors of some of Aleister Crowley's writings, reffering to a 1911 series of "processes" published in Crowley's ten volume 'Equinox':
"It ('Batra', etc.) deals with the magical practice of expanding consciousness to the stars and the planets. The word 'Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia' is made up of the Greek words for Frog Mind Ox World Battle, and is a play on the title of the Homeric mock epic, the 'Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia' or 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice'. The idea behind the use of this barbarous name, 'Batra', etc. - that is, in pronunciation or vibration - is that it is supposed to create a sense of vertigo in which the mind is freed from its ordinary bounds. Consciousness - so the theory goes - is exalted to infinity by this method."
Warning: The "sense of vertigo" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vertigo can also make the person vulnerable to manipulation, and more easily influenced and controllable.
Was Hubbard inducing a sense of "vertigo" with the "Be three feet back of your head" command?
The purpose of "Be three feet back of your head" would, then, not so much to place persons three feet back of their heads, but to have them agree that such a thing could be done. This places the person outside the confines of ordinary reality and is a signal to the operator that the person is open to suggestion.
Excerpt from the 1911 'Batra' (which inspired Hubbard's "Route One").
(Notice that it contains actions which resemble what later were Scientology processes, such as spanning attention and mock ups, and even cautions about overrun.)
0. Let the Practicus [student] study the textbooks of astronomy, travel if need be to a place where the sun and stars are visible, and observe the heavens with the best telescopes to which he may have access.
1. Now, since the figures will leave no distinct impression with any precision upon his mind, let him begin practice A.
...A. Let the praticus be seated before a small table, and let an unknown number of small objects be thrown by the chela [teacher or trainer] from time to time upon the table, and by that chela hastily gathered up.
...Let the practicus declare at a glance, and the chela confirm by his count, the number of such objects...
...The quickness of the chela in gathering up is expected to increase with time... Care must be taken to detect the first symptom of fatigue, and to stop, if possible, even before it threatens. The practiced psychologist learns to recognize even minute hesitations that mark the forcing of attention.
2. Alternating with the above, let the practicus begin the practice B.
...B. It is assumed that he has thoroughly conquered the elementary difficulties of Dharana [concentration], and is able to prevent mental pictures from altering shape, size, and color against his will.
....Seated in the open air, let him endeavor to form a complete mental picture of himself and his immediate surroundings. It is important the he should be in the center of such a picture, and be able to look freely in all directions. The finished picture should be a complete consciousness of the whole, fixed, clear, and definite.
...Let him gradually add to the picture by including objects more and more distant, until he has an image of the whole field of vision.
...He will probably find that it is very difficult to increase the apparent size of the picture as he proceeds, and it should be his most earnest endeavor to do so. He should seek in particular to appreciate distances...
3. These practices A and B accomplished, and his studies in astronomy, let him attempt practice C.
...C. Let the practicus form a mental picture of the Earth, in particular by striving to realize the size in comparison with himself, and let him not be content until by assiduity he has well succeeded. Let him add the moon, keeping well in mind the relative sizes of, and distances between, the planet and its satellite.
...He will probably find the final trick of the mind to be a constant disappearance of the image, and the appearance upon a small scale. This trick he must outwit by constancy of endeavor.
...He will then add in turn Venus, Mars, Mercury, and the Sun. It is permissible at this stage to change the point of view to the center of the sun, and to do so may add stability...
...And thus, gathering one star after another, let his contemplation become vast as the heaven, in space and time, ever aspiring to the perception of the body of Nuit, yea the Body of Nuit [Infinity].
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A little more background known to Hubbard.
In 1937 a book titled, 'The Middle Pillar' by Israel Regardie (a student of Crowley for a time) was published.
Wrote Regardie:
[Psycho-therapeutic] Analysis is the logical precursor of spiritual attainment and Magical experiment... Not until the mind and the emotional system have been cleansed and unified by the cathartic process... can the full spiritual benefits of magical work be reflected into the mind of man.
...We should remember the parables of the archaic philosophical religions whose fundamental tenet was that within man was a spirit, a dynamic center of consciousness which, because of its contact and association with matter, had been plunged into a profound sleep, a kind of somnambulism...
By endeavoring to extend the horizon of consciousness, to enlarge the field of awareness so as to embrace what previously was unconscious, is obviously a logical method. To become aware of all our actions, our thoughts and emotions and unsuspected motives, to regard them in their true light as actually they are and not as we would like them to be or as we would wish an onlooker to perceive them. It requires, to take this step, an extraordinary degree of honesty and courage... The more of this suppressed and forgotten material stored in this at one time unknown or dormant side of our nature that can be raised to the clear light of day, by exactly so much do we awake from the inert stupor into which we have in the past been plunged
Regardie would likely have never imagined that ideas such as these would have been merged with malevolent mind control.
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1922
