From an email I received a short while ago.
"The whole body of Dianetics and Scientology was never available in history before it's development, I'd agree with that: it's also extremely obvious, since it hadn't been written about before.
However, the subject is not the final word, nor was it the first word, in the area. Nor need it be written on stone tablets to be handed out to the people, never to be analyzed, improved, or questioned. The way in which Dianetics came into existence was not as a "bolt from the blue", nor was Hubbard a prophet from the Galactic Council, sent here on a mission to save Earth, or to pilot the technology. Those sorts of assertions would need to be backed up with ANY kind of evidence to be accepted. Dianetics was developed from Freudian "abreactive therapy", which is evident to anyone who has read "Two Short Accounts of Psychoanalysis":
What left the symptom behind was not always a single experience. On the contrary, the result was usually brought about by the convergence of several traumas, and often by the repetition of a great number of similar ones. Thus it was necessary to reproduce the whole chain of pathogenic memories in chronologic order, or rather in reversed order, the latest ones first and the earliest ones last.
I don't think Hubbard included that quote in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, but it certainly would have been much more intellectually honest if he had. Hubbard certainly made some improvements in the delivery of this, particularly with an understanding of when to retell an incident, and when to go "earlier similar". Additionally, his incorporation of the concept of "end-phenomena", and observation of improvement of emotional affect (which he termed "tone") as part of this were stellar contributions.
However, his obfuscation of the roots of Dianetics put him in the role of guru, prophet, etc., since how else could he have just came into such knowledge? I don't know if he believed his own hype, or not, but I certainly don't, and I would hope that people on this list wouldn't promote that sort of baloney. It's completely unnecessary. It's part of Hubbard's "religion angle", intended to protect his industry from taxation, as well as removing the requirement that his "ministers" meet basic requirements of the American Psychological Association for education, professional ethics, and accountability. Instead they gave all their income to him, followed his professional ethics (shore story is "Auditor's Code", reality is: they gang-bang sec-check when ordered to do so, and their real purpose is to "make money, make more money, and make others make more money"; whether they understand this, or not), and reported only to him.
Most dianetic and grades type procedures are similar, in that they start with an episode (whether it be an "engram", an "arc break", or other point in time where something happened that retains the person's attention [unresolved intention]), inspect it algorithmically until it either resolves, goes earlier similar, and continue until end-phenomena are achieved. This is the core of handling "charge".
Hubbard's approach to deeply held goals and personalities, while much expanded, also owes a great deal to Jung's "archetypes".
His contributions regarding positive gain, known as "OT", where a person enhances their abilities, rather than removing that which obstructs them, owe much to Golden Dawn esoteric lodges, of which he was no stranger.
This is not to say he didn't amplify this, and add a great deal of practical development. I am not interested in running Hubbard down. However, I find it odious when people pretend he did this without the understanding of others, or entirely on his own. I don't understand why this would be promoted as a concept people should believe. It's flatly untrue, and leads to deification of a man, rather than to a cooperative effort to understand his work in full context, and then to improve its delivery and enhance it's effectiveness.
KSW is a DISEASE OF THE MIND."
)
