The E-meter (also electropsychometer and Hubbard Electrometer) is an electronic device used by the Church of Scientology during a counseling practice known as auditing. It consists of a low-voltage circuit, a pair of handheld electrodes, and an analog meter that displays changes in the electrical resistance of the subject's skin. Scientology teaches that needle movements on the meter's dial reflect changes in the subject's mental state, including helping identify which topics contain emotional or spiritual distress, and when a procedure is completed.
Outside Scientology, the device is regarded as a type of skin galvanometer that measures variations in skin resistance. It is not considered a scientific instrument, and its use and interpretation are not supported by evidence in psychology or medicine. The E-meter became the subject of legal and regulatory actions in the United States, most notably a 1963 Food and Drug Administration raid and subsequent court case that restricted its use to religious counseling and required specific labeling indicating it is not useful for the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease.
History
Mathison
Volney Mathison built an Electrodermal activity meter based on a Wheatstone bridge, a vacuum tube amplifier, and a large moving-coil meter that projected an image of the needle on the wall. He patented his device in 1954 as an electropsychometer or E-meter, and it came to be known as the "Mathison Electropsychometer". In Mathison's words, the E-meter "has a needle that swings back and forth across a scale when a patient holds on to two electrical contacts". Mathison recorded in his book, Electropsychometry, that the idea of the E-Meter came to him in 1950 while listening to a lecture by L. Ron Hubbard:
and
Hubbard told of that encounter in a 1952 recorded lecture:
Mathison began working with L. Ron Hubbard in 1951 and that year filed application for his first E-meter patent, U.S. Patent 2,684,670. After the partnership broke up in 1954, Mathison continued improving his E-meters with additional patents (, ), marketing them through his own company and publications, retaining many of the concepts and terms from his time with Hubbard.
Hubbard
The E-meter was adopted for use in Dianetics and Scientology when Mathison collaborated with Hubbard in 1951. Some sources say the E-meter was "developed by Volney Mathison following Hubbard's designs", or that Hubbard invented it. Hubbard falsely claimed to be the inventor of the E-meter, a claim which is in keeping with the Scientology stance that Hubbard is the "source", or "the only originator of all Dianetics and Scientology material".
The E-meter was not part of the early days of Dianetics and Scientology. Auditing was composed of conversation and not led by a mechanical device. Hubbard introduced an E-meter prototype during the 1952 Philadelphia Doctorate Course but did not introduce his transistorized version until several years later. The E-meter became "the principal material artifact" of Dianetics and Scientology from the 1960s onward.
In the book, L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?, Bent Corydon wrote:
Though it seemed for a while that Scientology's more advanced techniques would serve without an E-meter, a few months later in May 1955, Hubbard wrote:
The Scientology meter was smaller, based on transistors rather than vacuum tubes, and powered by a low-voltage rechargeable battery rather than line voltage.
From then on, the E-meter was a required tool for Scientology ministers. The "Hubbard Mark II" E-meter was christened in 1960 and the Hubbard Mark III shortly after. On December 6, 1966, Hubbard won a patent on the Mark V version under the name "Hubbard Electropsychometer". Corydon wrote that the Hubbard E-meter was actually developed by Scientologists Don Breeding and Joe Wallis, though the patent () does not list other developers.
The Scientology E-meter has been redesigned and re-patented several times since its first introduction to Dianetics (e.g.: , , ).
Technical description
Most prominent on the face of the e-meter is a display with a needle pointer. There are several dials and knobs, and modern e-meters have several LCD displays. All models have knobs for turning the device on, testing it, setting the sensitivity, and boosting the device. The primary control for the auditor is the tone arm (a rotating lever) which is held throughout auditing and operated by one hand while the auditor writes with their other hand. As the needle on the display moves off the right or left of the dial, the tone arm is used to bring the needle back on the dial. During an auditing session, the auditor writes down questions he has asked the preclear, the preclear's answers, and activity of the e-meter such as needle movements and tone arm settings
Electronics
One of the E-meter's primary components is a Wheatstone bridge, an electrical circuit configuration invented in 1833 Author discusses Christie's and Wheatstone's contributions, and why the bridge carries Wheatstone's name. that enables the detection of small differences between two electrical resistances. In the E-meter, one resistance is the subject's body and the other is a rheostat controlled by the operator. A small voltage from the battery is applied to electrodes held in the subject's hands. As the electrical properties of the subject's body change during the counseling session, the resulting changes in the small electric current are displayed in needle movements on a large analog panel meter. The dial face is without numbers because the absolute resistance in ohms is relatively unimportant, while the operator watches primarily for characteristic needle motions. The voltage applied to the electrodes is less than 1.5 V, and the electric current through the subject's body is less than a half a milliampere.
In the Scientology E-meter, the large control known as the "tone arm" adjusts the meter meter bias, while a smaller control adjusts the gain. The operator manipulates the tone arm to keep the needle near the center of the dial so its motion is easily observed.
According to Scientology doctrine, the resistance corresponds to the "mental mass and energy" of the subject's mind, which are claimed to change when the subject thinks of particular mental images (engrams). One account tells about Hubbard using the E-meter to determine whether or not fruits can experience pain, as in his 1968 assertion that tomatoes "scream when sliced".
Use in Scientology
E-meters are used by Scientology practitioners known as "auditors". Scientology materials refer to the subject as the "preclear". The auditor gives the preclear a series of commands or questions while the preclear holds a pair of cylindrical electrodes ("cans") connected to the meter, and the auditor notes both the verbal response and the activity of the meter. Auditor training includes familiarization with a number of characteristic needle movements, each with a specific significance. Religion scholar Dorthe Refslund Christensen describes the e-meter as "a technical device that could help the auditor locate engrams and areas of change when auditing a preclear".
Scientology concepts associated with the E-meter and its use are regarded by the scientific and medical communities as pseudoscience, as the E-meter has never been subjected to clinical trials as a therapeutic tool.
Scientologists claim that in the hands of a trained operator, the meter can indicate whether a person has been relieved from the spiritual impediment of past experiences.Yearbook of the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights, In accordance with a 1974 federal court order, the Church of Scientology asserts that the E-meter is intended for use only in church-sanctioned auditing sessions; it is not a curative or medical device. The E-meters used by the Church were previously manufactured by Scientologists at their Gold Base facility, but were being manufactured in Hong Kong and Taiwan as of 1998.
According to Hubbard, the E-meter is used by the operator for three vital functions: To determine what process to run and what to run it on. To observe how well the process is running. To know when the process should be stopped. The Church claims that the E-meter can be used to assess the emotional charge of single words, whole sentences, and questions, as well as indicating the general state of the subject when the operator is not speaking. Few users of the E-meter claim that it does anything to the subject. To most, it does no more than suggest to the operator a change of mental, emotional, or autonomic nervous system activity.
New religious movement scholar Douglas Cowan writes that Scientologists cannot progress along the Bridge to Total Freedom without an E-meter, and that Hubbard even told Scientologists to buy two E-meters, in the event that one of them fails to operate. According to anthropologist Roy Rappaport, the E-meter is a ritual object, an object that "stand[s] indexically for something intangible".
Scientology beliefs and theories
Within the Church of Scientology, the early psychoanalysts are credited with first use of the E-meter.
Hubbard credited Mathison with recreating the E-meter and bringing him the first model for use in Dianetics. Hubbard set out his theory of how the E-meter works in his book Understanding the E-Meter:
Hubbard claimed that this "mental mass" has the same physical characteristics, including weight, as mass as commonly understood by lay persons:
This text in Understanding the E-Meter is accompanied by three drawings. The first shows a man standing on a weighing scale, which reflects a weight of "150" (the units are not given). The next shows the man on the same scale, weighed down under a burden of "Mental Image Pictures", and the scale indicates a weight of "180". The last picture shows the man standing upright on the scale, now unburdened by "Mental Image Pictures" and with a smile on his face, while the scale again indicates a weight of "148".
Bob Thomas, senior executive of the church in the early 1970s, gave a prosaic description.
Legal issues
United States
The medical establishment had been watching Hubbard's enterprises since 1951, when the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners filed a case against the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey for practicing medicine without a license. In 1958, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seized and destroyed 21,000 Dianazene tablets from Hubbard's Distribution Center Inc., charging that they were falsely labeled as a treatment for radiation sickness.
On January 4, 1963, acting on a complaint by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), US marshals raided the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C., and seized E-meters and Scientology literature. The FDA alleged that the Church was making false medical claims about the device and that the E-meters were misbranded under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Church sued to get the property back, and years of litigation ensued.
At trial in 1967, a jury found that the Church misrepresented the E-meter, and the judge ordered the confiscated materials destroyed. However, in 1969 the US Court of Appeals for D.C. reversed the verdict and ordered a new trial, holding that courts could not evaluate Scientology's religious claims about the E-meter as "false labeling", and that only secular claims could be considered.