History of Dianetics and Scientology begins around 1950. During the late 1940s, L. Ron Hubbard began developing a mental therapy system which he called Dianetics. Hubbard had tried to interest the medical profession in his techniques, including the Gerontological Society, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the American Journal of Psychiatry, but his work was rejected for not containing sufficient evidence of efficacy to be acceptable.
In April 1950, he published his ideas in Astounding Science Fiction where he was well-known as a science fiction writer. The article generated a lot of interest and the following month Hubbard published the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The book brought in money and Hubbard began teaching courses through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation.
The scientific and medical communities were critical of Dianetics — the American Psychological Association called on psychologists to not use the techniques and complaints were made against local Dianetics practitioners for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. Financial problems ensued, but despite the influx of financial support from some wealthy followers, the first foundations resulted in bankruptcy and the loss of the name and copyrights to Dianetics.
Around 1952, Hubbard went on to create Scientology, eventually regaining the rights to Dianetics which he incorporated into Scientology. Today, Dianetics is a part of Scientology and is used as a beginning promotion to new people.
Origins
The Church of Scientology claims that during a near-death experience it was revealed to L. Ron Hubbard that "the primary law of all existence is Survive!", after which he wrote a manuscript in 1938 called Excalibur—which he was never able to get published—but which formed the foundation for Dianetics and Scientology.
During Hubbard's service in the United States Navy, in 1945 he was admitted to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. While there, he claimed to have carried out research into endocrinology "to determine whether or not structure monitors function or function monitors structure ... using nothing but Freudian Psychoanalysis and using a park bench as a consulting room", spending a great deal of time in the hospital's library, where he would have encountered the work of Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts.
The emergence of Dianetics
In January 1949, Hubbard informed his literary agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, that he was writing a book on the "cause and cure of nervous tension", which he was going to call either The Dark Sword or Excalibur or Science of the Mind, and assured Ackerman that the book had "more selling and publicity angles than any book of which I have ever heard". In the same month, he told Writers' Markets and Methods magazine that he was working on a "book of psychology".
In April 1949, Hubbard told the Gerontological Society at Baltimore City Hospital that he was preparing a paper with the somewhat unwieldy title of Certain Discoveries and Researches Leading to the Removal of Early Traumatic Experiences Including Attempted Abortion, Birth Shock and Infant Illnesses and Accidents with an Examination of their Effects Physiological and Psychological and their Potential Influence on Longevity on the Adult Individual with an Account of the Techniques Evolved and Employed. Hubbard's letter was "politely received", but the Society apparently declined involvement. He also wrote to the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. These letters, and their responses, have not been published, though Hubbard later said that they had been negative.
In 1949, Hubbard told his friend John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine and publisher of many of Hubbard's short stories, about his work. Campbell had been one of Hubbard's early test subjects and believed that Hubbard's techniques had cured his persistent sinusitis, so he was an enthusiastic supporter. In a letter to one of Astounding's contributors, Jack Williamson, he wrote: "I know dianetics is one of, if not the greatest, discovery of all Man's written and unwritten history. It produces the sort of stability and sanity men have dreamed about for centuries."
In July 1949, Campbell wrote to another contributor, Joseph A. Winter, a physician from Michigan. Winter was intrigued by Campbell's claims about Hubbard's work, but initially skeptical; Hubbard sent him what he called "an operator's manual for your use" which convinced Winter that Dianetics had some promise. Winter later wrote:
With cooperation from some institutions, some psychiatrists, he has worked on all types of cases. Institutionalized schizophrenics, apathies, manics, depressives, perverts, stuttering, neuroses - in all, nearly 1000 cases. But just a brief sampling of each type; he doesn't have proper statistics in the usual sense. But he has one statistic. He has cured every patient he worked with. He has cured ulcers, arthritis, asthma.
In October 1949, Winter, Hubbard, and Campbell met at Hubbard's home in Bay Head, New Jersey, to continue work. Winter attempted to interest some medical colleagues and psychiatrists in Dianetics, with little success, and suggested to Hubbard that he publish an article to stimulate interest in his work. Perhaps mindful of the rejection of his earlier efforts, Hubbard told Winter that "the articles you suggest would be more acceptable coming from another pen than mine." Accordingly, in late 1949, Winter wrote a paper "giving a brief resumé of the principles and methodology of dianetic therapy" which he submitted informally to an editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, the editor told Winter that "the paper as written did not contain sufficient evidence of efficacy to be acceptable and was, moreover, better suited to one of the journals which dealt with psychotherapy." He revised the paper, added case histories provided by Hubbard, and submitted it to the American Journal of Psychiatry, which rejected it on the same grounds.
According to the Church of Scientology, Hubbard issued his early research in the form of a manuscript entitled Dianetics: The Original Thesis in 1948; Hubbard gives the year as 1949.Hubbard, "Dianetics: its background". HCO Bulletin of May 22, 1969Hubbard, "Auditor attitude and the bank", lecture of October 10, 1969 It received a wider public release in 1951 and is now published as the book The Dynamics of Life. The original text is not available for comparison with the 1951 publication, but it may have comprised the "operator's manual" written by Hubbard for Winter, which is the first independently attested codification of Dianetics.
Dianetics in print
At the end of 1949, Hubbard and Campbell agreed to announce Dianetics in the upcoming May issue of Astounding, to be followed by a full-length book. Campbell arranged for Hermitage House, a small New York City medical and psychiatric textbook publisher, to publish the book. Hubbard also published an article in The Explorers Journal called "Terra Incognita: The Mind". Dianetics was not quite finished at this stage; engrams were called comanomes, a neologism proposed by Winter that was later abandoned.
In April 1950, Hubbard, Campbell, Winter and several others established a Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey to coordinate work related to the forthcoming publication. Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health at that time, allegedly completing the 180,000-word book in six weeks."L.R.H. Biography", Sea Org Flag Information Letter 67, October 31, 1977
Hubbard first published his ideology of mental health techniques in the third week of April 1950 in Astounding, followed by publishing as a book in May 1950. It quickly sold out its first run of 8,000 copies. Only two months after the book's publication, Newsweek reported that over 55,000 copies had been sold and enthusiasts had established 500 Dianetics clubs across the United States."Books Industry: Best Seller", Newsweek, No. 36, August 1950 In July, Time magazine reported that it was climbing the U.S. bestseller lists. Campbell reported in the August 1950 Astounding that the magazine was receiving up to a thousand letters a week about Dianetics. Sales reached 150,000 copies by the end of the year.
Campbell's endorsement had proven invaluable; Astounding Science Fiction had over 150,000 readers, many of whom were familiar with Hubbard's science fiction and had a strong interest in new scientific discoveries. Among the wider population, Dianetics gained popularity as a cheaper, simpler and apparently more effective means of self-improvement than conventional psychotherapies. Hubbard's optimistic view that Dianetics could alleviate the Cold War climate of tension and fear also struck a chord. One of his supporters, Frederick L. Schuman, wrote in a letter to The New York Times that "History has become a race between Dianetics and catastrophe".
The success of Dianetics brought in a flood of money. Hubbard offered teaching courses for Dianetic "auditors" through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, costing $500 per person for four to six weeks of instruction and thirty-six hours of Dianetic therapy. Hubbard recruited his friend and fellow science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt to act as the Foundation's treasurer, and five other Foundations were soon established in Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu."Dianetics: Science or Hoax?", Look, December 5, 1950 The Foundation's Los Angeles property alone was valued at $4.5 million.
Opposition to Dianetics
The scientific and medical communities were far less enthusiastic about Dianetics, viewing it with bemusement, concern, or outright derision. Nobel Prize–winning physicist I.I. Rabi, reviewing Dianetics for Scientific American, declared that "this volume probably contains more promises and less evidence per page than has any publication since the invention of printing." He noted that the publication of Dianetics had coincided with that of Worlds in Collision, a notorious work of pseudoscience by Immanuel Velikovsky, with which Dianetics shared the top of the best-seller lists. This, Rabi said, illustrated "the most frightening proof of the confusion of the contemporary mind and its tendency to fall prey to pseudo-scientific concepts."Isaac Isidor Rabi, Review of Dianetics, Scientific American, January 1951
The Nation pointed out the lack of documentation in Dianetics: "No case histories are offered to substantiate his claims, nor is there documentation of any kind to indicate that any previous thinker, medical or otherwise, ever made a significant contribution to the subject of human behavior." The Individual Psychology Bulletin also criticized Hubbard for "not offer any other evidence than a vague reference to hundreds of cured patients, without furnishing case histories or other specific data. The book is crammed with bragging and swaggering, pseudoscientific bombast, platitudes and vulgarities, and a great deal of sheer nonsense."Leonhard Deutsch, Individual Psychology Bulletin, 9:1 (1951) p.38-9 British health minister Kenneth Robinson, among others, expressed concern at the possible dangers of unskilled amateurs practicing therapy on patients, and skepticism about Hubbard's claims that Dianetics could be effective in dealing with illnesses.
In September 1950, the American Psychological Association issued a resolution calling on psychologists not to use Hubbard's methods for treatment purposes unless and until they had been shown effective through scientific testing. Complaints were made against local Dianetics practitioners for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. This eventually prompted Dianetics advocates to disclaim any medicinal benefits in order to avoid regulation.